by Christi Caldwell, Eva Devon, Elizabeth Essex, Anthea Lawson
“If what would be possible, Aunt?”
“The book,” she clarified vaguely. “There is a small rumor about the town that his old publisher intends to make a new version of the old book, to clean it up for present tastes. And I wonder if the same could be done with the pages in the trunk. It could be done, I suppose.” She closed her eyes, as if she could picture it clearly, this new book. And the she opened them to look at Elspeth, as if seeing her anew. “Perhaps you could do it, Elspeth.”
“Me? Finish the story?”
“Yes, but make it a different sort of book. A less picaresque book.”
Everything within her was afraid and aghast and exhilarated all at the same time. “I don’t know if I ought—”
“Oh, life is too short for doing only what one ought, my dear girl. Those pages are your father’s legacy to you—they are your fortune in foolscap just waiting to be redeemed.” Aunt Augusta sat back and took a long sip of tea. “Or not. However you choose.”
Elspeth thought about the fragile pages that had sifted and rustled through her fingers, as if they were whispering for her attention. As if they had an answer to a question she had not yet asked. As if they might be the antidote to the years and years of cap-wearing spinsterhood that stretched in front of her like an endlessly muddy lane.
The idea began as the flicker of a flame in the back of her mind, warming slowly, coming gradually toward the light. Gathering heat. And purpose.
“I suppose I could at least try.”
Aunt Augusta’s smile was like a cat in cream. “My darling girl, I have every confidence that you will succeed.”
Chapter 7
It had taken a Herculean effort, as well as a great deal of ready money, to make Hamish Cathcart the “company” of Prufrock & Company. But now that it was at last done and the ink dry, Hamish could turn his mind to the next phase of his plan.
“What we need, Prufrock, are steady, sure things that are guaranteed to sell, and which we can publish in regular intervals—in small but profitable batches to keep the costs down—like the Otis book. No more of your slim volumes of poetry printed in only three presentation copies.”
Prufrock objected. “But we’re living in a great age for poetry, my lad.”
“That’s all well and good for art, dear sir, but poetry is not profitable. We have to think larger if we’re to survive.” And Hamish meant to do more than survive—he meant to thrive. He meant to increase his fortune as expeditiously as possible, so come Whitsunday, he could tell his father just what he could do with his talk of fillies and heirs and unsteadiness.
But first he had to revise the Otis book. And while he had written his fair share of exceedingly bad poetry, he had never taken his hand to prose.
Hamish’s attention was diverted from his problem by the sudden jangle of the bell over the door announcing the arrival of a wide-eyed female clutching a tight-wrapped parcel to her chest.
At a glance, she was exactly the sort of country mouse of a female—all modest, well-made but out-of-fashion togs—who could be expected to offer them a slim volume of poetry to be printed in exactly three copies—one for herself, another for her grandmother, and the third for her cat. She’d be eaten up by Edinburgh’s rats if she didn’t mind herself.
But before he could shoo the female from the premises, she turned wide, lethally innocent eyes upon Prufrock, who seemed to have little natural defense against predators of such a seemingly harmless but deadly sort. “Mr. Prufrock?”
“Indeed, I am he.” Prufrock rose as swiftly as his creaking knees would allow, bowing his rosy, polished head in her direction. “How might I be of service?”
“Good afternoon, sir.” The lass made a graceful wee dip of a curtsey. “I believe you to have been the publisher of—”
“If I may?” Hamish broke in before Prufrock could commit them to another money-sinking endeavor. “I take it you’ve a slim volume of sentimental but uplifting poems you should like to see published?” He waited until she turned those dangerous, clear blue eyes upon him before he let her down gently. “Alas, Prufrock & Company are no longer in the market for poetry.”
The mousie blinked at him, as if he made no sense at all. “But I haven’t, sir. Got poetry, that is.” She gestured with the parcel held across her chest. “I’ve a novel.”
Hamish was not about to be diverted, even by the promise of a novel. Even by a novel offered with a fetchingly shy, fey smile. “A novel in three volumes, with a morally uplifting theme, and a worthy orphan for a protagonist?” The sort of tale meant to frighten young misses to keep quietly to their country mouse holes. “I’m afraid we’re still not interested. Good day.”
“Nay.” The wee mousie bit down on her soft lower lip. “Although I’m not exactly sure what a pro-tagonist is, sir, but—”
Ye gods. Hamish held up his hand to stop her from saying another word. The sooner he got her out of there, the sooner he could return to the business at hand.
“As I was saying—” He stepped toward the door so he could hold it for her—
But she whisked herself away, deeper into the space, to hold her ground. “It is a romantic novel. A very romantic novel.” She spoke quickly, in a rush to get the words out before he might stop her. “A new, very romantic novel by a man”—her voice grew firmer and more animated, lending her surety—“you have published some years ago. Mr. John Otis.”
The mention of such a name—the very name that had been on the tip of Hamish’s tongue for days—brought even arthritic Prufrock around his desk. “New? By John Otis? Why, he’s been dead these twenty years.”
“The same John Otis who was the author of A Memoir of a Game Girl?” Hamish asked. The manuscript he was counting upon to make their fortune?
“Aye.” The wee mousie tipped her chin toward her parcel. “The same. It’s a new manuscript, written some years ago, but only just come to light.”
Prufrock leaned on the large, two-sided desk for support. “Well, I’ll be.”
They’d be rich is what they’d be, if the lass’ claim were true.
“A romantic story, you said?” Hamish asked. “How romantic?” John Otis’ work had been, at best, characterized as amatory, but never romantic.
“Highly romantic,” was her interesting answer.
Hamish pushed politeness aside to come straight to the point. “Erotic?”
The lass’ boldness went up in a flush of color so hot, Hamish was afraid her tatty straw hat might catch fire. “Somewhat less than…that.” She swallowed and tried to stand tall—well, as tall as a willowy sort of lass who looked as if a stiff wind might blow her down could. “I can only assume that with this particular manuscript, Mr. Otis sought to avoid the scandal and trouble that the last book occasioned. One can’t sell a banned book, can one?”
It was so insightful an understatement, Hamish took a closer look at the wee mousie. Under a country bonnet so old Edinburgh society would judge fit only for shading a plow horse, were bright, clear blue eyes in a pointed, oval face. An intelligent face. A pretty face.
If one liked that curious country mouse sort. Which he didn’t. Because he had a business to run, a fortune to make, and a wedding to avoid.
But she brought a potential fortune in business. “Do come in.” He swept her a more credible bow. “I take it you have this manuscript with you?”
“I have the first half of the volume,” the lass confirmed. “I was leery of…letting the whole of it out of my hands without a firm contract. I thought to…gauge the level of interest before I did so.”
“Very prudent,” Prufrock assured her.
“Give it here,” was Hamish’s more mercenary demand. “And we’ll see if there is anything worth giving a contract for. Have a seat.” Hamish was already cutting open the wrapping before he thought to kick a chair in her direction.
She did not sit—her glance flitted from the chair to the door, and then back at him, as if gauging how long she could bear to stay. Clearly, he made he
r nervous. “How long will you need to contemplate the pages?”
“No time a’tall.” The pages looked well prepared, written in a clean, clear hand. “If it really is by John Otis, as you say.”
“It is,” she assured him, all quiet, mousie confidence.
A confidence he was not quite ready to share. “And how did you come by this remarkable find?”
“And you are?” She looked away from him, toward his partner. “I had thought I would be dealing with Mr. Prufrock, as the prior publisher of John Otis’ book.”
Prufrock made the belated introductions. “Mr. Cathcart is my business partner. The newest partner of Prufrock & Company.”
“Michty me!” The lass drew back as if she’d been scalded. “The earl’s son? I beg your pardon, sir.”
Hamish took notice of her careful re-appraisal of him, and reckoned she was just like everyone else—wondering if, because he was in trade, he was the illegitimate one.
He let her wonder. “And you are?”
“Miss Elspeth Otis,” she finally supplied. “I’m John Otis’ daughter.”
Hamish sat before he could fall.
Because, it seemed there was at least one illegitimate person in the room after all.
Chapter 8
Elspeth arrived back at the house on St. Andrew Square in good time for afternoon tea. Aunt Augusta awaited her in the sunny, comfortable salon at the back of the house, overlooking a blooming walled garden.
“There you are, my dear. Come in, come in and take some refreshment after your adventure.” She held out a welcoming hand to gather Elspeth to her side. “How did you find Mr. Prufrock? Did you conclude your business satisfactorily?”
“I found Mr. Prufrock amiable and quiet—it was his partner, a Mr. Cathcart, who conducted the greater share of the business.”
“Ah.” Aunt Augusta’s pleased smile widened ever so slightly. “And how did you find Mr. Cathcart?”
“Less amiable.” Her first impression of Mr. Cathcart had not been entirely favorable—handsome was as handsome does, but Mr. Cathcart seemed to be just the sort of man her Aunts Murray had warned her about—far too sure of himself. “Though it was dim, and I did not get a good look at him. But it is Mr. Cathcart who is reading the manuscript pages now.”
“Ah.” A slow smile spread upwards to the corners of Aunt Augusta’s eyes. “This I am pleased to hear. Mr. Cathcart has a reputation as an acute reader as well as an astute gentleman. I should think it will not be long before he has an answer—”
She was interrupted by the rap of the doorknocker below, which brought one of her pleased, cat-in-cream smiles curving across her cheeks. “Just as I was saying—it won’t be long at all. Your Mr. Cathcart is a pleasingly decisive young man.”
“How can you know it is he at the door?” No name had been announced. “And he’s certainly not my Mr. Cathcart.”
“All in good time.” Aunt Augusta favored her with a kindly, critical eye. “You do look marvelous in that rich blue. Sit here”—she gestured to a watered silk-upholstered chair—“with your back to the window. It will put you in just the right light.”
“The right light for what?”
But her aunt did not answer because the butler, Reeves, was at the door, announcing Mr. Cathcart, who came into the room like a gust of fresh spring air, all bracing bonhomie. “My dear Lady Ivers.” He bowed low over Aunt Augusta’s hand. “How good of you to see me.”
In the brighter light of the salon, Elspeth could see more clearly what she had only guessed at in the dimmer confines of Fowl’s Close—Mr. Cathcart was a tall, extraordinarily well-formed, exceptionally handsome fellow. Even if he did smile a bit too easily.
He turned the force of that smile upon her, and Elspeth felt her insides slip sideways. And upside down. Something about him made her as nervous as a guinea fowl in a fox’s den. “And Miss Otis. A pleasure to see you again.”
His smile and his very presence felt more like a challenge than a proper greeting.
“Ah.” Aunt Augusta said for the third time, investing that single word with a wealth of meaning—little of which Elspeth could readily understand. “You’ve already met my niece, I understand, but a short while ago. And here you are. How fascinating. I was just asking my niece how she found you.”
“By coming up the High Street and down Fowl’s Close, I should think,” was his answer.
“I found him forward,” was hers. For he had not been invited, and Elspeth had certainly not given him her aunt’s direction—indeed, she had never once even mentioned her aunt’s name.
But things at her Aunt Augusta’s house in the city seemed to be a great deal less formal or fussy than they had been under the stricter eyes of the sisters Murray. Here, things were a great deal less comme il faut than they were come-as-you-are.
Here, Aunt Augusta laughed at her pert reply. “Perfect, for Mr. Cathcart is, indeed, not backward in the least.”
Nay, he was not. He was already inviting himself to take the chair opposite without waiting to be asked or for Aunt Augusta to take her own seat. And he was already leaning forward, looking at Elspeth with a sort of minute attention that made her decidedly uncomfortable. “Tell me, Miss Otis, how long did it take you to prepare the manuscript? I noticed the copy you gave me was in your hand and not your father’s script.”
Wariness slid like spilled porridge into the pit of her stomach. They had decided to keep it a secret, she and Aunt Augusta, that it was Elspeth who had reshaped John Otis’ work. “Yes, well, it took several weeks to…transcribe the story from the crumbling foolscap he had written it upon.” The Aunts would castigate her for her sloppy grammar. “Upon which he wrote.”
Mr. Cathcart appeared to care nothing for her grammar. “Only several weeks? Well done. Very timely work. And did you find it difficult, replacing all the naughty—or shall we be frank and call them erotic?—bits before you brought it to me?”
Elspeth felt her cheeks heat. What an astonishingly direct fellow he was—he said the word so matter-of-factly. But as Aunt Augusta said nothing in protest, Elspeth struggled to achieve the same level of sanguinity. “Well, no. I mean, I only copied what was already written—”
“Come, you needn’t work your earnest bamboozle on me, Miss Otis.” He smiled and leaned his head closer to chat amiably, as if they were alone, and she were already in his confidence. “I’ve seen John Otis’ original writing—we have the manuscript for A Memoir of a Game Girl at Prufrock’s, you know. I can tell the difference.”
“No, indeed, I am not bamming you, Mr. Cathcart—” Elspeth flicked a glance at Aunt Augusta, looking for some direction, but that lady seemed to have been struck dumb for the first time in their acquaintance, so Elspeth racked her brain for some suitable explanation that would not be an outright lie, but would also not give away the whole of the game.
But it was as if he could see right through her fumbles—he chuckled and raised his eyebrows in tease. “You certainly are. While I do understand your hesitation to reveal yourself to the world until you are assured of how the novel will be taken, I think you had best come to terms with being a highly sought after author.”
“But I am not—”
“Then who is? As Prufrock said, John Otis has been dead and gone these twenty years, and the story you brought me is most assuredly not entirely from his pen. And I should know. I’ve been taking a long look at Fanny’s story with the idea of shaping Otis’ words into something more commercially palatable—a form they do not naturally take, as I’m sure you’re aware. The manuscript you offered me was more than palatable. It was genius.”
Genius.
Something warm and pleasing and not entirely manageable began to curl up in her chest, like a barn cat in a sunbeam. Pride—that was what the Aunts would name it, and take her to task. “You’re just trying to flatter me—”
“I am trying to flatter you, and rightly so. The book you’ve given me—the half of the book, and I shall want the other half stra
ightaway—is damn fine, Miss Otis. Damn fine. I want to put it into production immediately. It matters not in the least to me that you, and not John Otis, really wrote it. In fact, it’s better.”
“Really? Better how?” She blinked at him, not understanding how such a thing could be possible. “John Otis is already famous—even if he is also rather infamous—and so will garner more attention if his name is upon the work.”
“Indeed.” He clapped his hands together in pleasure. “How clever of you to understand that, Miss Otis.”
“But you do mean to publish it under his name?”
“I do.” He extended his hand to shake in firm agreement. “I do intend to publish your book. And any more you might see fit to ‘find’.”
It hit her then—like a butt from a lamb, soft but insistent—the enormity of just what he was saying. He liked her book. He wanted more.
“Really?”
This time he laughed. “Really and truly. I will stake my last groat that not only will this book make your fortune as well as mine, but the next one will double it.”
“Truly? A fortune? And the next one?”
“I have plans for you, Miss Elspeth Otis. May I call you Elspeth? And you must call me Hamish”—he went on without waiting for her reply—“for I feel we’re bound to become the very closest of friends.”
Chapter 9
The truth was, Hamish wanted to be more than friends.
How much more, he wasn’t quite sure.
What was sure was that Miss Elspeth Otis was the rare sort of young woman he actually liked—intelligent and ambitious for something other than a husband. A lass who didn’t mind using her mind. And what a mind. Illegitimate she might be, the fruit of the devil’s own loins—for stories of John Otis’ roisterous ways lived large in Edinburgh’s collective memory—but by God, she could write like an angel.
In fact, Hamish liked her all the more for being illegitimate—she wasn’t likely to be the kind of lass who would question an earl’s son’s involvement in business, or turn up her nose at his own family’s decidedly irregular lineage. She was the perfect partner for him in all ways—clever as the day was long, disguising herself as a country mouse, when she was clearly no such thing—when her writing clearly told him she was blessedly experienced.
