They had reached the Ramsay house. Agnes paused on the steps, biting her lip. “I don’t think he meant to be. It was . . . it was my mistake.”
“Agnes.” He touched her shoulder. “Can you tell me? I wish I knew more of your lives here—I hope to remedy that—but know always that I care for you and will protect you to the best of my ability. I’ve imagined a host of horrible things and all the ways I could beat him to a cinder if he did them.”
She flushed. “It’s not your problem, so there’s no need for you to do anything, let alone beat him.”
“I won’t invite him to Stormont,” he began, but she shook her head, a hint of stubborn St. James pride in her face.
“Don’t do that on my account. By all means, invite your friend.” She glanced archly at him. “Since you were kind enough to invite my friend. Has she accepted?”
Drew gave up badgering her about Duncan. He would interrogate his friend about it later. Odd, how any mention of Ilsa Ramsay always seemed to divert him from whatever he was doing. “Er . . .” He grinned ruefully. “I’ve not actually invited her yet.”
“Come on, then.” She opened the door and led him up the stairs to the drawing room. Drew almost held his breath, hoping this wouldn’t be a monstrous mistake.
It was instead a great surprise. Agnes opened the drawing room door to reveal Ilsa Ramsay on a ladder, wearing an ugly smock with a paintbrush in her hand. The ceiling of the room had been painted a pale sky blue at the edges, fading to white directly overhead. A plump older woman stood beside her, arms full of what looked like draperies, her face taut with frustration.
“But you cannot do such a thing, dear,” she was protesting in a shrill tone that instinctively made Drew’s spine stiffen. “It’s not done!”
“It is if I do it,” was her response, spoken lightly but still ringing with finality.
“Oh my,” said Agnes innocently, gazing upward. “It looks like the sky.”
Ilsa Ramsay turned around, a blinding smile on her face. “Exactly my intent! Thank you!” She caught sight of Drew and the smile vanished like a snuffed candle, but he still reeled from it. Alive with pleasure, bright with excitement, her face was . . . mesmerizing.
That must be it. He was entranced—bewitched.
He shouldn’t like it so much.
“Captain.” She put her brush back into the pot of paint balanced atop the ladder and climbed down. “I did not expect visitors.”
That was obvious. There were cloths flung over the furnishings and of course the ladder in the center of the room.
“I do beg your pardon, Mrs. Ramsay.”
“I brought him in,” said Agnes, removing her hat. “You must blame me if you get paint on your coat,” she told him before turning back to her friend. “He can stay only a moment.”
“Of course,” murmured Ilsa, as if that warning had been meant for her and not for him. “Aunt Jean, this is Captain St. James, who is Agnes’s brother as you must have guessed. Captain, may I present my aunt, Miss Fletcher.”
The draperies hit the floor with a flump. Eyes still flashing at Ilsa, Jean Fletcher bobbed a perfect curtsy. “I’m delighted to make your acquaintance, Captain.”
“The pleasure is mine, Miss Fletcher,” he said with a courtly bow.
“Are we painting the walls, as well?” Agnes was gazing upward again. The walls were a plain, ordinary green.
The older woman stiffened. “No, indeed not.”
“Yes,” said Ilsa. “Here will be the horizon.” She went to the closest wall, took a pencil from her smock pocket, and struck a line on the wall at chest height. The older woman gasped as if it had been a dagger to her chest. “And it will continue up to meet the sky above.”
“Ilsa!” The older woman was an angry shade of crimson. “People do not paint their drawing rooms to look like the outdoors!”
Drew grinned. For a moment Ilsa’s gaze connected with his, and he could swear she nearly smiled back. “I do,” she replied.
“Let us go sit in the—the dining room.” Miss Fletcher appeared to make a great effort not to look at the ceiling, the mark on the wall, the discarded draperies, or her niece. “At least it is tidy and proper in there.”
“I beg you not to trouble yourself, ma’am,” said Drew. “I’ve no wish to intrude. Agnes, perhaps another time—”
“Drew came to ask if you would care to accompany us to Stormont Palace, Ilsa,” said Agnes. “We’re to spend a week there, exploring the maze and hunting for ghosts.”
“Ghosts!” Ilsa’s brows went up in delight. Miss Fletcher made another pained noise.
“I make no promises about ghosts,” Drew said, but couldn’t resist adding, “on either side of the question.”
“As long as you can’t swear there are none, we have hope.” Ilsa removed her smock but seemed to have forgotten about the cloth around her head. It showed off her neck and shoulders, and a glorious expanse of bosom; she wasn’t wearing one of those kerchiefs women usually shrouded their shoulders and bosoms with. It took an effort to keep his eyes on her face.
“Then you’ll join us?” he asked. “My plan is to depart in three days’ time.”
“Perfect.” She bestowed that dazzling smile upon him and Drew nearly wobbled on his feet. “I should be finished painting by then.”
This was too much for Miss Fletcher. She excused herself and stalked from the room, pausing at the door to call back sternly, “Do not throw out the draperies!”
Agnes grinned as the door closed. “You’re going to throw them out?” She walked over to the pile of drapery fabric and picked up one.
Ilsa shrugged. “She keeps hanging them back up. The only way to stop her is to dispose of them.”
Drew glanced around. With the windows uncovered, the room was filled with light. He tried to picture it with hills and grass painted to the line she’d marked, with a bright blue sky rising above it.
“Calton Hill,” he murmured.
Her head came up in surprise. “Yes, that’s right.”
Drew gestured at the wall behind her. “Will you paint the Edinburgh view there?”
She came to stand beside him and studied the wall. Right now it held a large painting in an ornate frame. “An excellent thought. I hope my artistic skills are sufficient.”
“Paint it as it is on a winter day with fog, and no one will be able to tell. Great gray clouds with a steeple here and there.”
She laughed. “Not precisely the view I wish to capture.”
“Hmm. Something more like this, then?” He nodded at the painting. It depicted five somber ladies all in black, except for the white caps on their heads and the wide, old-fashioned collars around their necks. “Family?” Drew asked doubtfully.
“No.” Ilsa grimaced. “My father bought it. My aunt thinks it adds solemnity and dignity to the room.”
He couldn’t help it; a snort of laughter escaped him. She did the same, and in a moment both were shaking with it.
“The solemnity of a gallows,” he said, lips trembling.
“Ladies that severe must send their victims to be drawn and quartered,” she returned.
“Hanging is too tame for them?”
“Can’t you just see them with the scythe and dagger?” Ilsa lowered her voice dramatically. “Pronouncing sentence and carrying it out on the spot?”
“And finishing in time for tea. Ah—I spy a decanter of sherry there, as well. Thirsty work, drawing and quartering.”
Ilsa laughed again, sending his heart leaping. Buoyed, he turned and swept out one hand at the opposite wall. “Paint Arthur’s Seat there, beside the hearth. Our father used to take us there—” He broke off at the sight of Agnes. Lord, for a moment he’d entirely forgotten his sister was in the room, listening and watching with sharp interest.
Ilsa turned. “A splendid idea.” She glanced at him, followed his gaze, and cleared her throat. “Shall we take those to the charity school, Agnes? Perhaps they can use the fabric.”
“You really mean to get rid of the drapes?” Agnes came closer, her eyes skipping between the two of them. “Altogether?”
Ilsa flushed but gave a firm nod. “I do. Perhaps I’ll replace them with something lighter.”
“All right. And you’ll come to Stormont Palace?”
Drew looked away, studying a sconce on the wall with fierce interest. Agnes had noticed something, damn it.
Ilsa wet her lips. “I don’t want to intrude on your family. Perhaps I should not . . .”
“Oh, he plans to invite other people.” Agnes shot a challenging look at Drew. “Isn’t that right? Mr. Duncan, you said, and some handsome, witty gentlemen, as well.”
“Right,” he said, glaring at that sconce. “Monteith, perhaps. And Kincaid. It would only be a week’s sojourn.”
“Please think of me, Ilsa,” said Agnes. “Don’t leave me alone with them for a whole week.”
Ilsa smiled reluctantly. “I shall consider it.”
“Good.” Agnes went and pulled the bell. “Shall we have tea? I’m famished.”
“Yes, of course,” murmured Ilsa.
“It was your idea,” Drew told her under his breath. “Do say you’ll come.”
She glanced at him, her eyes wary.
His mouth quirked. “But you must promise not to give me away if I pretend to be a ghost, to give my sisters something to occupy their time.”
At this her smile slowly returned, impish and conspiratorial. “That is something I would not miss seeing!”
“Excellent,” he whispered, with a wink. He bowed, and as he did so, added in a bare breath, “Thank you. It looked to be a tedious journey until your suggestion.”
“I hope you still think so, whilst wandering the corridors clanking an old chain,” she whispered back.
He grinned and took his leave. His sister gave him a searching look, but he simply grinned at her and left, too full of . . . something to let it worry him.
Agnes closed the door behind the captain and folded her arms. “The trip was your idea?”
“Hmm?” Ilsa realized she was still smiling at the door the captain had disappeared through, and turned her back to it. The cloth she’d wound around her hair brushed her shoulder, and with dismay she jerked it off. That whole time she’d been standing there with an old piece of linen on her head, looking a fright. Why did she constantly find new ways to embarrass herself around him?
“Drew didn’t mention it until this morning,” said Agnes. “When did you suggest it to him?”
Ilsa looked at her. “When he met us out walking.” Then she retaliated for the nosy questions. “When you stormed off in disgust because Mr. Duncan was with him.”
Agnes flushed scarlet. “I did not! That was not—! I—my mother needed me, and my sisters!”
“Not that you cared about that before Mr. Duncan arrived.” Ilsa tilted her head. “And you were very abrupt with him at the Assembly Rooms the other evening . . .”
Her friend’s chin set mulishly. “So you continued walking with Drew and Mr. Duncan for some time, for him to tell you about this house and you to make suggestions about visiting it.”
“Oh no,” said Ilsa. “Mr. Duncan left almost as soon as you did. Fair ran away, now that I think about it. He makes such a fine figure in his kilt. A man with good legs—”
“Ilsa!” Agnes’s eyes flashed. “Are you flirting with my brother?”
She paused. She was certainly trying not to. “No.”
“Why did he invite you?”
Now it was her turn to go pink. “I’ve no idea. You must ask him. He’s your brother.”
Agnes bit her lip. “You haven’t forgotten that he’s going to live in England and become a duke, have you?”
Not for one bloody minute. “I have not.” She forced a smile. “Three days’ time! What shall I pack?”
Agnes came to take her hands. “I know you’ve been determined to go your own way and find your own pleasures these last few months. And you deserve it, you really do. I just—I just worry—”
“What?” Ilsa drew a determined breath and met her friend’s gaze. “You worry I will callously trifle with your brother? I shan’t. Even though you were right, I do like him. You never told me he was so delightfully irreverent, nor so considerate of you and your sisters.”
Agnes raised one brow skeptically. As if she knew how tissue-thin that excuse was.
Ilsa threw up one hand. “The captain told me he was going to visit a house, and I suggested a house party for your sake because of your distress over his future inheritance. My dear,” she said gently as Agnes jerked free and retreated a step. “That is not his fault, or his choice. You know these things—titles—are very strictly decided, not bestowed at anyone’s whim. Your brother is to be commended for recognizing what it will allow him to do for his family, not just for himself, and stepping manfully into the responsibilities of the position.”
Agnes sighed. “If only it weren’t a dukedom! Something simpler, a baronetcy or something would be perfectly fine. Or better yet, just a fortune, unencumbered.”
“Fortunes are always encumbered,” said Ilsa wryly.
At this reference to her late husband, Agnes went pale. “I didn’t mean—”
Ilsa shook her head. “I know. Just as my suggestion meant nothing beyond what it was.”
“So,” said the other woman on a sigh. “Shall you go with us? You must, you know, as it was all your idea and now Winnie and Bella are eager to hunt ghosts.”
An image of the captain draped in ragged sheets and rattling a chain to amuse his sisters crossed her mind, and she bit back a smile. “If you wish me to come, I shall.”
For Agnes, she told herself, and her sisters. And she would do her very best not to flirt with their impossibly appealing brother.
Chapter Nine
Drew racked his brain for which gentlemen of his acquaintance he could expose to his sisters and finally realized he only knew three.
Duncan, of course; that die had been cast, although Drew planned to keep a close eye on any interaction between him and Agnes. He was still plotting how to ask about it without Duncan giving him some mocking nonsense, as was his friend’s habit in most serious conversations.
For the others, he decided on Adam Monteith, who was a capital fellow and could hold his tongue—and his liquor—far better than Will Ross; and Alexander Kincaid, who had known his family for years.
There might, Drew acknowledged privately, be another benefit to their company. They were the three best golfers he knew, and Edwards had said there was a course bordering the grounds of Stormont Palace. If the company became a bit trying, they could make an escape to the links.
When he broached the idea, none of them laughed. “Perth?” repeated Monteith in surprise. “How have you got a house in Perth, St. James?”
Drew mounded the sand to form a tee for his ball. They were playing with Duncan’s equipment, as he and his father were fiendishly fond of the game. It was the wrong season for golf, with the summer grass grown tall, but that only made it more sporting. There were a number of wagers riding on the match today. “It’s not my house,” he said, squinting against the sun. The hole was over the rise, out of sight. He set his club against the ball, drew back, and swung hard.
“Not yet,” drawled Duncan. “And if you’ve sent that ball into the marsh, you owe me a shilling.”
Drew bared his teeth. The shilling was for a wager made earlier in the game, not for the cost of the lost ball. “’Tis not in the marsh.”
“Whose house is it you intend to visit?” asked Kincaid, setting up his own ball. Drew watched critically. Kincaid was shorter than he, but stronger. His arms bulged as he drew back and swung his club. Monteith whistled in appreciation as the ball soared out of sight.
“Whose house?” repeated Kincaid.
Duncan was grinning like a cat in cream, curse him. Drew took a breath. “The Duke of Carlyle’s.”
Monteith laughed. “A duke’s house! And w
hy are you free to invade with a large party?”
“Because he’s my cousin.” Drew lowered his voice even though they were alone. “And I’m his heir.”
Kincaid’s brows went up. Monteith’s mouth fell open. “You?” he said incredulously. “You?”
“Impossible to believe, isn’t it?” put in Duncan with a devilish smile.
Kincaid threw up one hand. “His heir? Explain that—you, an ordinary captain, who must needs borrow funds for beer now and then.”
Drew waved one hand, preferring to walk as he told the tale. It still gave him a vague sense of discomfort, detailing his grand and glorious expectations, as Ilsa Ramsay termed them—as if it couldn’t really be true. The feeling grew stronger, not milder, the more people he told.
By the time they had all located their golf balls—none in the marsh—his friends were shaking their heads in amazement.
“If I’d known you were cousin to a duke,” said Monteith, lining up his next shot, “I’d have asked interest on that five pounds you borrowed last year.”
“If I’d known last year I was heir to a duke,” returned Drew, “I would have asked someone of finer manners than you for it.”
“What’s your mission regarding this house?”
Drew threw Kincaid a grateful glance for the serious question. “It’s not been visited in many years. The duke’s solicitor wishes me to see for myself what state it’s in, and make it ready.”
“So he can come himself?”
Drew hesitated. “The duke is growing old. I doubt he’ll come.”
There was a beat of silence as the three of them exchanged glances. “Then ready for what?” asked Duncan, for once not laughing.
Drew thwacked some tall grass with his club. “The solicitor expects to sell it.”
All three looked at him. Everyone knew about the slow but accelerating dispossession of the small farmers in favor of tenants and migratory workers across Scotland. If the Duke of Carlyle put his estate up for sale, the same would likely happen to the people working his lands.
“You’re going to sell it?”
“St. James can’t,” said Duncan, the lawyer among them. “Only the duke can.”
A Scot to the Heart Page 10
