Reformed by the Scotsman

by Katie Douglas

  Now, the fire of her fury felt threatened. She wasn’t sure whether to cling to it or let it go. Did she even have a choice?

  She considered the man who was making her feel like this. It would have been easier to ignore Edward if he had simply reiterated the Dulce et Decorum nonsense that most other men spouted at the first opportunity, and if he’d stuck with the uncritical notion that the war had been glorious, but he hadn’t. He knew the truth of the matter just as well as she did, and she hated to admit it, but his response seemed better than hers. She wanted him to think well of her, and she didn’t know why she cared.

  For a long time, she had prided herself on not caring what people thought of her. Absolutely, she was adamant that she didn’t need a man in her life to complete her. Edward was most definitely a man. She had glimpsed the hardness in his trousers while he corrected her. He had the same urges as she did. Besides, he was keeping her naked and confined to her room for the day. Even though he had been perfectly decent thus far, she was sure she wasn’t imagining some sort of attraction between them. How could he, though? He was always reprimanding her for things, and he seemed to notice all her worst aspects.

  She fell asleep whilst trying to think about it all, and awoke when Edward turned on the electric light. He had returned with a tray of food. It had gone dark outside and she gathered that he had already finished his dinner. She scrambled to sit up, then realized she was still naked when the night’s air chilled against her exposed breasts. Blushing furiously, she pulled the blanket high to cover herself, but not before Edward got an eyeful. He stared for a full two seconds before looking pointedly at the floor and frowning.

  “Salmon en croute with new potatoes and watercress,” he told the carpet.

  She reached out for the tray. “If you don’t want to be embarrassed by unexpected cleavage, you could always change your mind about giving me back my clothing. It is rather cold, after all.”

  “It’s May. Your bed has two blankets already. I shall fetch you an additional one, but that’s the limit of my concessions.”

  “Edinburgh’s cold! Why can’t I have all the spare blankets in the house?”

  “Judging by your recklessness, and the size of the average blanket, I suspect that if I give you more than three, you will knot them all together and use them as a climbing rope to make good your escape, then you will wear them like a toga so you can walk in public without being arrested again under allegations of solicitation.”

  “Oh.” She looked up at him with a cheeky grin, pretending he’d caught wind of some new escape plan of hers. “Well, I suppose you can’t blame a girl for trying.”

  Edward laughed, and it was one of the most wonderful sounds Adeline had ever heard.

  “All right, perhaps I’m being a little overcautious, but you haven’t exactly proven that you’re willing to stay in my house, and I’m starting to feel that you don’t like my guestrooms.”

  “Sorry. I have been rather tiresome, haven’t I?” She picked up her cutlery and cut a slice of the salmon wrapped in pastry.

  “I still don’t understand why you ran away yesterday. After all the time we spent in the afternoon, playing music together and singing, and I thought we were starting to see eye-to-eye about something. Then the next thing I knew, you didn’t come down to dinner, then the police were on the telephone telling me you were in the soup.”

  “I thought we were getting along rather well too. Until you told me what an awful nuisance I was. Then I realized how much you detest me, and I felt stupid for considering the possibility that—” She stopped herself abruptly.

  “Yes?” he prompted.

  “No.” She refused to be drawn on the matter.

  “Might I hazard a second half of your interrupted sentence?” he asked gently.

  She nodded, feeling like it would be better coming from him than from her.

  “You felt stupid for considering the possibility that we might be getting along.”

  “Yes.” Getting along. That was the understatement of the day.

  “I apologize for hurting your feelings. It wasn’t my intention. Perhaps I was a little blunt in my description of your behavior. At the time, you were attempting to present yourself as a much misunderstood young lady with no prior misdemeanors.” He spoke gently, and Adeline ate some more salmon and tried to stay aware that he was criticizing her actions rather than her entire existence. “I was merely attempting to ensure that you knew you haven’t exactly been an innocent party. You weren’t packed off to live with me because your parents awoke one day and decided they wanted fewer place settings at the table; they were concerned about your behavior.”

  “If they were so concerned, why didn’t they do anything themselves?” Adeline retorted.

  Edward nodded. “I agree, by sending you here they have attempted to make the problem go away without taking their due responsibility for it. However, you are here, and I am here, and I owe it to your parents to ensure your moral fiber is restored.”

  “Why? This is something that doesn’t add up about this entire situation. Why do you owe my parents anything?”

  “Felicity.”

  Adeline was so surprised that her fork fell from her hand and hit her plate with a clatter.

  “I don’t follow.” She retrieved the errant cutlery and speared a potato as she waited for him to explain.

  “You weren’t the only person whose world was shattered by the war. Fliss was my baby sister. I mean, I fully remember the day she was born. I was shipped off to boarding school a week later. Every holiday, I would return and she would be a little bigger, and she would have learned a new thing.” He frowned, and took a deep breath before he spoke again. Adeline wondered whether he’d ever spoken to anyone about Felicity since she died.

  “When our parents died in that awful shipwreck, I took it upon myself to ensure that she was still given a good upbringing. I didn’t spoil her but nor did I neglect her. When the war broke out, she trained as a nurse so she could help. I should have stopped her, but I thought they would have kept the women safe, and I was proud of her for wanting to do something for the war effort.” His voice cracked slightly. Adeline wanted to comfort him, but she wasn’t sure how. Reassurances weren’t her strong suit and instead she looked down at her plate, feeling awkward.

  “I enlisted as well, and I didn’t have any time to keep my eye on her; I was quickly promoted to second lieutenant and sent out to the front lines to lead. She met your brother, and everything was going so well. You and I both know that, if the war had ended sooner, Felicity and Arthur would be married now. Instead, she died in France. I was devastated. I felt responsible. She had such a bright future ahead of her and it was stolen from her. I couldn’t save her.”

  “So you’re trying to save me then?” Adeline deduced. “It won’t bring her back.”

  “I know. But pointing you back in the right direction might help to heal the hole in both our families.”

  “How so?” Adeline didn’t believe anything she ever did was of significance to anyone else.

  “Think about your parents. They had four children; you, Maximilian, Arthur, and Archibald.” She bristled when he said Max’s and Archie’s names aloud, but she let him continue as she finished her salmon. “When they had their children, they might have felt that their future was assured, that with four of you, even a measles epidemic wouldn’t wipe you all out. How many sons and daughters do your parents have today? There is Arthur, who they believe to now be an imbecile, and you, who—I’m sorry to say—aren’t much better. All their hopes for the future have been dashed.”

  “Arthur and I are still alive; why isn’t that enough?” Adeline demanded.

  “Your father is the third Earl of Hathersedge. He is landed gentry. Imagine how he feels at the prospect that Arthur will be the fourth earl in due course, or, if Arthur doesn’t outlive your father, that you will be the Countess of Hathersedge.”

  Adeline felt a chill as she contemplated the scandal, if
she were a countess who behaved as she did now. Arthur often spent days on end in his bedroom, only appearing for dinner and barely speaking a word to anyone. He wouldn’t be able to carry out all the duties of being an earl. As the third child, she had never needed to think about inheriting the title or lands; she had simply expected a nice allowance to ensure she didn’t have to work for the rest of her life.

  “Now do you see why it matters that you act in a manner befitting your station?” His tone was kindly, and she found herself nodding in agreement. She put her cutlery down and Edward removed the tray from her lap.

  “Edward?” She was suddenly afraid that, now dinner was concluded, he was going to leave again.

  “Yes, Adeline?”

  “Will you keep me company?” She didn’t like how plaintive her voice sounded when she said it.

  “My dear girl, I’m only going down to get rid of this plate and fetch your dessert.” He chuckled as he went out of the room.

  “I’ll miss you while you’re gone,” she said aloud to the empty room.

  * * *

  Edward was rather pleased that his wayward charge managed to remain in her bed all night without doing herself some grave injury or breaking any laws. In the morning, when he brought her breakfast tray upstairs, he found her reading a book. The expression on her face was peaceful; it was the first time he’d seen her looking so tranquil while she wasn’t asleep.

  She ate her food without complaining about the circumstances, and he read to her while she ate. Three articles from The Scotsman had caught his eye as potentially of interest to Adeline, and when he told her about them, he was proven correct.

  “Did Bobbie really find something in Egypt?” Her eyes shone, and he knew that the news about her old school friend was well-received.

  Edward had heard plenty of stories from Lord Huntingdon-Smythe about his incorrigible daughter Bobbie—real name, Roberta. By all accounts, Bobbie and Adeline had caused so much trouble that the headmistress of their girls’ school had written to Bobbie’s and Adeline’s parents while they were in sixth form, imploring their fathers to send the girls to separate finishing schools for the good of everyone they came into contact with. The worst part was, the girls hadn’t even been especially close. Edward dreaded to think how many more scrapes they might have gotten into, had they been inseparable.

  “That’s what it says. A new tomb belonging to a forgotten Egyptian king. Packed to the rafters with gold.” He showed her the grainy photograph of Bobbie Huntingdon-Smythe stood beside a shining metal sarcophagus, grinning from ear to ear. Adeline nodded in approval.

  “I wonder where they got it all from?” Adeline mused.

  “Where who got what?”

  “The Egyptians. Their gold, I mean. Egypt’s not exactly famous for its gold rushes.”

  “People have lived there for quite a while, I suppose if they ever did have plenty of gold, it might be all buried in tombs these days,” Edward suggested. “Really I’m not an expert though. I read economics at St. Andrews, not history.”

  “Bobbie didn’t go to university, never mind reading history. She got stuck with being packed off to a finishing school, same as I did. Well, good for her, going out and finding things.”

  “She’s a Huntingdon-Smythe. I wonder how her father feels about her spending her summers in the desert.” Edward knew Lord Woodruff Huntingdon-Smythe and he visited the man’s country estate for an unavoidable golfing weekend once a year. Lord Huntingdon-Smythe was one of those red-faced types who only ate roast beef and bellowed everything he ever said. It was a wonder the girl was allowed to visit London on her own, never mind Egypt.

  “She probably just goes where she likes,” Adeline suggested nonchalantly. Given the similarities between the two women, it was entirely probable that Bobbie didn’t pay attention to her father’s wishes. Edward sighed and decided it was a full-time job keeping young women safe from the dangers of the world.

  Once Adeline had finished her eggs and bacon, Edward told her his plan for the day.

  “Since you’ve managed to get through an entire night without breaking anything, I thought you should have something of yours to wear today so we might go to Jenner’s—the department store—and get you some more appropriate apparel. Tomorrow, the weather forecast says it’s going to be warm and sunny. It might be a nice day to spend at the beach?”

  “There’s a beach? Here in Scotland? Isn’t it freezing cold?”

  “It’s the shores of the Firth of Forth, and it’s actually rather nice. The tides are quite extreme all the way to Cramond, but the waves are none too violent, even in winter, and there’s some nice sandy patches. There’s Portobello, too, but that’s more of a seaside, with a promenade and such, and it’s often rather busy on any warm day.”

  When Adeline smiled, Edward knew he’d made a good suggestion.

  “It sounds like the perfect antidote after the ordeal of buying old lady clothes,” she remarked.

  “Good, we shall depart for Jenner’s at ten o’clock sharp.”

  * * *

  When Adeline first saw Jenner’s, which Edward had said was the biggest department store in Edinburgh, she wasn’t certain it was big enough to be a department store, let alone the largest in the city. Compared to Harrod’s, in Knightsbridge, or Selfridge’s, it was tiny. However, like everything in Edinburgh, Jenner’s was no bigger than it needed to be.

  Inside, there were knowledgeable assistants at the ladies wear counter and they had a nice selection of fabrics to show her. She looked through the silks, cottons, and woolen blends, then she looked again, before she settled on a thick tartan, just in case the weather turned. Next, she leafed through the different patterns in the pattern book until she found one that wasn’t frumpy, but which also wasn’t objectionable to Edward.

  “I’ll have a skirt and jacket made to that pattern, please,” she told the clerk. “Then I’d like an evening gown in this dusky pink silk. This pattern, please, but do turn up the hem so I’m not tripping over it when I walk up and down staircases. And another skirt in this black cotton, in this pattern on page thirty-one.”

  “Yes, madam. Would you like to see which shirts accompany the skirts?”

  “Please.” Adeline followed the assistant to the trays of neatly folded shirts, where she picked out a white one with a high neck and frilly cotton ruffles either side of the buttons. Looking through the others, she chose a plainer pale blue blouse.

  “Will that be all, madam?” the assistant asked. Adeline wasn’t sure, so she looked to Edward, who nodded.

  The store assistant took Adeline into a dressing room and pulled out a tape measure to check her size, then they returned to the counter, where Edward waited.

  “That will be twenty-five pounds, four shillings, and sixpence,” the assistant said. Edward raised his eyebrows, but handed over the money.

  “When will it all be delivered?” He looked at the long list of items on the handwritten receipt.

  “One week, sir,” the assistant replied. Adeline nodded and they left. As they walked down the street, Edward turned his head to speak. Adeline thrilled as his eyes met hers.

  “You behaved well in there, young lady. It’s a nice day, let’s go for a little walk. Have you seen Edinburgh’s Folly before?”

  “No, this is the first time I’ve come to Edinburgh, remember?” Adeline replied.

  “Ah, yes, of course. The National Monument of Scotland, nicknamed Edinburgh’s Folly, is near here, and I think it’s worth a visit.” He gestured away from Jenner’s. Adeline looked up the road but she couldn’t see anything of note.

  Adeline was surprised. “Why do they call it that? Aren’t people supposed to be proud of national monuments? I can’t imagine anyone calling Marble Arch such a derisive name!”

  “Let me show you,” Edward said cryptically.

  They took a short walk up Prince’s Street, then made a left turn and were suddenly walking up a moderate incline. Adeline was always amazed by how qui
ckly the scenery changed in Edinburgh, and suddenly they were in a modest park at the top of a hill, with sweeping views across the city. The most striking feature was an enormous, Greek-style set of columns standing tall on a ginormous stone foundation.

  “What is this?” Adeline asked. “Is it an ancient ruin? I didn’t think the Romans ever lived in Edinburgh.”

  “You would be correct. The National Monument of Scotland was built between 1826 and 1829, and it was unfinished, which is why it looks like a ruin.”

  “Why didn’t they complete it?” Adeline looked up at it in awe; it was very impressive, and she couldn’t imagine how anyone disliked it.

  “They were a little ambitious, and they ran out of money.”

  Adeline looked at it thoughtfully.

  “I wonder what it would have looked like if it had been completed.”

  “It was going to be a full-size recreation of the Parthenon in Athens,” Edward explained. “Although how they intended to fit the whole thing on Calton Hill I’ll never know.”

  “I’ve seen drawings of the Parthenon! To think there might have been one in Edinburgh…” She trailed off. Although she had never been to Greece or Italy, she had always been so fascinated by classical architecture, and the idea that someone had tried to recreate an ancient building was amazing.

  They sat down between two ginormous columns and Adeline rested her head on Edward’s shoulder as she stared off into the distance.

  “Do you think the real Parthenon is this enormous?” she asked. Edward looked up at the stonework.

  “I would imagine that it must be,” he told her. “Otherwise, this reconstruction would be smaller.” He reached out and held her hand. Adeline’s heart brimmed with joy as she felt the warmth of his fingers wrapped over hers.