“You know you are.” Ilsa kept her gaze cool and steady. “I am not a child. I do not need to be managed. You do not have the right to know everything about me. You promised not to pry, not to nag, and not to undermine me.”
“I never—!”
“The drawing room was painted while I was away, without my permission.”
Jean shot to her feet. “Instead you would shame me before all my friends who come to call, painting the sky on the ceiling like some sort of sybarite! Your father would be cruelly disappointed in you, lass.”
Ilsa was fighting back tears, half fury, half guilt. Jean had always been able to do this to her. “Perhaps our arrangement is no longer satisfactory. Perhaps you would be happier with Papa.”
The color fled Jean’s face. “You’ve grown so headstrong. I can’t imagine what your mother would think but ’tis glad I am she’s not here to see it.” Chin high, she marched from the room.
Ilsa sat, vibrating with tension. Abruptly she jumped up from the table and rushed out of the house, barely waiting for Robert.
She was still shaking when they reached Calton Hill, Robert trotting to keep up with her. Headstrong! Sybarite! As if she were a wicked child. As if she weren’t entitled to some privacy and independence. As if a painted ceiling was decadent and sinful. She was a grown woman, and her aunt had promised to respect her wishes. She paused, breathing hard, and Robert snuffled gently at the edge of her sleeve. “How could she?” she burst out to the empty field.
Robert gave her a sympathetic look before heading off to crop the tall grass.
“Have I not been clear to her?” she demanded. “Can she just not help herself?”
Robert shook his head with a jangle of his halter, and Ilsa sank down into the grass beside him. “I know,” she said quietly, squinting up at the peak of the hill, the sun rising behind it. “She still sees me as a child in need of discipline. Not as a grown woman, capable of choosing her own friends, deciding where she goes, managing her own money, painting her own drawing room . . .”
And taking her own lover.
Jean would be horrified if she knew Ilsa had kissed Drew, played pranks, ridden astride, and spent the night in bed with Drew. Proper ladies, she would say, treat their reputations as if they were made of cut glass: delicate, valuable, and impossible to repair if damaged. That was certainly how Jean tried to live, never one toe out of line.
Ilsa didn’t aim to thumb her nose at propriety—indeed, she didn’t think she did, much. Skipping church for golf wasn’t well done, perhaps, but it happened only once. Jean’s notions of propriety, though, were twenty years old; she thought everything Ilsa enjoyed was a ghastly affront to decency, from walking alone on the hill to not finding another husband the moment her mourning for Malcolm was over.
“She’s old-fashioned.” She plucked at the grass. “And strong-willed. I knew it, and still I let her live with me. ’Tis my own fault, aye?”
Robert gave a low whinny and nibbled at her hair. She swatted him away with a reluctant smile.
And now everyone knew Drew would be a duke. Everyone would be watching him, and with whom he interacted. If they were seen in company before he left for England, people would whisper that he’d thrown her over—that he might bed a woman like her, but never marry her. Malcolm’s friends had never accepted her, a tradesman’s daughter, even before the nightmare of the trial. This would only stir up those whispers again.
She’d known she wasn’t going to be a duchess, but she’d thought her affair with Drew might last until he left. Now she would have to give up his company entirely, for his sake and hers.
She was still sitting there, unready to return home, when something made her look up. Drew stood some fifty yards away, watching her. He looked so familiar and dear, so much not like a duke, that a lump sprang into her throat. For a long moment they simply gazed at each other, and Ilsa was suddenly gripped by the strangling fear that he would turn and walk away—that this was farewell, that the distance between them wasn’t mere rocks and heather but something far less passable.
Then he started toward her, and her lungs worked again. “Good morning,” she murmured when he reached her.
“Good morning.” He held out a hand and helped her to her feet. Robert trotted over eagerly, and Drew fed him a piece of carrot without looking away from Ilsa.
She wet her lips. “I expect you saw the papers.”
“Aye.” He sighed. “It wasn’t meant to be a state secret, but I didn’t wish for it to be the talk of the town.”
“I told no one,” she said quickly.
He nodded. “Thank you. My family didn’t, and my mates think it’ll turn out to be a lie in the end, so they didn’t trouble themselves to tell.”
“Mr. MacGill knew,” she said quietly.
A frown touched his brow. “Would he announce it?”
She lifted one hand. “In my experience he delights in being seen in the orbit of important and powerful people.”
“Ah. Well, it cannot be undone, so it hardly matters who did it.” He seemed to shrug it off. “I’m glad to find you out here.”
Her heart fluttered. “Oh?”
“I hoped we might have a chance to talk.”
Ilsa took a deep breath. “Of course. I shall go first.” He looked startled but gave a nod. “I want to assure you that I expect nothing from you,” she said. “I have known for some time that you have . . . obligations that will require you to leave Edinburgh and settle in England. I know it is your duty to find a wife who can stand by your side and support you in your future role.” She paused, not looking at him. “Someone who will know intimately, and be accepted by, the society you are to join, who will be able to guide your sisters in their new lives as sisters of a duke, and help them make respectable, proper marriages. Marriage is the currency of the aristocracy. It is no secret that your own marriage will be of signal importance, and while some women might have schemed to take advantage of our—our attraction, please believe I have not.”
There. She was pleased with how reasonable that sounded. Only one betraying little quaver on the words our attraction—as if they shared nothing but a passing flirtation.
It was so much more than that to her. But she knew what had to be done, and she’d done it.
“I see,” he said gravely. “Attraction.”
Ilsa flushed at the way he growled the word. “Did I misspeak?”
“No,” he said after a moment. “’Tis merely a mild word for it, in my opinion.”
She tried to ignore the rush of pleasure that gave her. “No matter how strong, there are many factors that overrule it.”
“Indeed.” He folded his arms and gazed across the rocky slope toward town. “Did you enjoy yourself last night at the tavern with me?”
Ilsa blinked. “Yes.”
He nodded. “Were you glad to see me this morning?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sorry you spent the night in my bed at Stormont?”
“No!” She blushed at the quick glance he shot her way.
“Are you frightened of what people will say if you are seen with me?”
She stiffened. She didn’t look forward to the whispers, but she wasn’t frightened. “Of course not.”
“Are you firmly resolved never to marry again?”
“I—” She bit her lip, suddenly unsure. Resolved? “No . . .”
He gave a firm nod. “So, if I have the right of it, you enjoy my company—in bed and out of it—aren’t put off by salacious gossip, and haven’t renounced all thought of marriage.”
“You’re not going to marry me!”
“Well,” he said sadly, “not if you’ll never have me.”
Without thinking she poked his shoulder because he was threatening to make her laugh again when she had resolved to be very detached and assure him she was a worldly, modern widow able to have an affair without losing her head, not someone scheming to be a duchess. Quick as a blink he caught her hand.
> “Ilsa.” He brought her hand to his lips, then pressed her knuckles against his cheek. “Stop thinking of Carlyle. His Grace might live another thirty years, and I’ll remain just as I am now—a simple Scot wanting a wife to love and cherish, and perhaps a child or two for my mother to dote upon.”
“People will expect things of you,” she began.
He watched her, running his thumb over the back of her hand in absentminded affection. It made her want to lean against him and let him drape that arm around her. “People,” he said with mild disdain. “I’ve no duty to obey the wishes of a fickle mob of people. Surely you’re not so cowed by them?”
She stood in silent indecision. Yes, she did like being with him—beyond any other person she could think of. Yes, she had seduced him because she wanted him—rather madly, and the feeling had not abated after a single night in his bed. Yes, she thought she could fall in love with him—might even already be in love with him.
And no, she hadn’t set her mind against marriage. She had no interest in Mr. Grant or any of the other gentlemen Papa kept prodding her toward, but she couldn’t say the same about Drew. She kept telling herself they weren’t meant to be together, but every minute they spent together made her wish they were.
Her heart thumped loudly in her ears. If he wanted to court her, could she turn him away? No, she didn’t think she could.
So what was stopping her? The gossips had done their worst a year ago, and she had survived. It was hard to tell herself she and Drew had no future when he was standing in front of her, because anything seemed possible when he was near her.
Perhaps there wasn’t anything to lose by risking it.
“Well,” she asked, her heart racing, “what precisely are you asking?”
His lips curled in a slow, devastating smile. “Nothing more than to spend time with you.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere. The Assembly Rooms. One of Edinburgh’s fine coffeehouses.” His brows arched suggestively. “Perhaps an oyster cellar now and then.”
She smiled. “It won’t be like at Stormont Palace.”
“Sadly no,” he agreed, looking wicked now. “I vow it would frighten Duncan fair out of his skin if you slipped into his lodgings like a ghost.” She bit back a laugh. He sobered. “My mother hopes that you will be able to keep our engagement for dinner this evening. I also hope you will come.”
That made her breath catch. This was sounding very much like courtship. “Yes, of course I will . . .”
“Excellent.” He glanced around, then lowered his voice. “If there weren’t some people impinging on our hill, I would kiss you. In the interest of propriety . . .” He offered his arm. “May I escort you home, my dear one?”
With a warm flush of happiness welling within her, she accepted his offer and his arm.
Dinner was wonderful. Bella and Winnie had won over their mother about Cyrus the kitten, even when he tried to climb the tablecloth during the dessert course. Agnes was in excellent spirits and whispered that Drew had told their mother about their visit to the oyster cellar, and Louisa had only cast her eyes heavenward and sighed. Mrs. St. James welcomed Ilsa warmly, and made a point of conversing with her at length, something Ilsa could never have imagined a month ago.
It was so amazing, she couldn’t help but mention it to Agnes after Drew had escorted them home. Her friend gave her a gleaming look. “You know why, don’t you? She sees how Drew looks at you.”
Ilsa’s mind jumped to that last night at Stormont Palace; someone had seen something. She could only stare, mouth agape.
Agnes nodded. “Mama’s no fool. She didn’t dislike you before, but now she most certainly wants to like you.”
“Oh—” Ilsa flushed with anxious happiness. “I do hope she can—”
“Would you accept him?” Agnes prodded.
“Hush! There’s been no question asked to accept.”
Her friend laughed. “But if he were to ask, would you consider it?” She clasped Ilsa’s hand. “Selfishly, I hope so. You must know Winnie, Bella, and I would adore having you as our sister.”
Ilsa had no memory of her mother. She had never had a sister, and Malcolm had been the only surviving child of his parents, as well. She had not thought of the fact that marriage to Drew—and it still felt dangerous even to think those words, as if they tempted Fate to spite her again—would give her a new family, with beloved sisters and a caring mother, a family who teased and laughed and annoyed and loved each other. Again she could only stare at Agnes, dazed.
It ran round and round inside her head as Maeve brushed her hair before bed that night. It was too good to be real, she told herself, but as she lay in her bed and closed her eyes, she dreamt of Drew tangled in the sheets beside her, looking at her with heat in his eyes and a wicked smile on his gorgeous mouth.
In the morning she came down early to breakfast, the image lingering in her mind and somehow becoming more possible with every passing hour. She drank her tea and gazed out the window, daydreaming of what might be, if it were real.
It lasted until just before the clock struck nine, when Winnie hammered on the door of her house and burst into the room, hat askew and cloak barely tied.
“Winnie,” cried Agnes, leaping out of her seat. “What’s wrong?”
“The shop,” gasped Winnie, gulping for breath. “The shop has been robbed!”
Chapter Seventeen
Lord Adam St. James, youngest son of the third Duke of Carlyle, had been a charmer. Drew dimly remembered his grandfather as an old man, sitting by the hearth with a mug in one hand and a blue silk cap on his head, telling some amusing story of his years spent perambulating Europe, skipping out of the way of wars and blockades before settling down. Despite the terrible falling-out with his elder brother that resulted in his banishment from Carlyle Castle, Lord Adam had had a handsome income from his mother’s dowry funds, enabling him to live like a gentleman all his days. Upon his death, though, the income ceased, and Drew’s father, George, had used his inheritance to purchase a silk shop, confident that it would keep his family in style.
For several years it did. Not luxurious style, but affluent enough for Drew to attend school with the sons of gentlemen and wealthy merchants. Louisa taught the girls music and embroidery. The St. Jameses had not been wealthy but they had been genteel.
When George died, the summer Drew was seventeen and eager to enter university, that illusion was blown away. George, it turned out, had had a gentleman’s head for business, which was to say, no head at all. He had let accounts go unpaid. He was in debt to his suppliers. The ledgers were a disaster. There was a mortgage no one had known about that must be paid.
Louisa had had to rouse herself from grief and begin to manage the shop. Drew had learned how to negotiate payments and argue with lawyers. The girls, still children, had all been put to work, sweeping threads and lint, stitching samples for the display cases. When all that had still not been enough to pay their bills, Drew had taken the king’s shilling and joined the army, desperate for any income to support his family.
The shop, though, had pulled through. Thanks to Louisa’s fierce efforts, it had come back to modest prosperity, providing a steady income, and thus a decent home and enough to eat.
This morning the once-neat little shop was a mess. Drew surveyed the damage in grim silence. All the drawers had been opened—a few forced, breaking the latches—and their contents scattered across the floor. The iron money box had been safe with Mr. Battie, who kept the accounts, but the stock had been pillaged. One bolt of red silk had been sliced into ribbons and strewn around the salon like a bloody sacrifice, an act of wanton destruction that made Louisa turn pale and collapse into a chair. Other bolts had been thrown on the floor and trod upon, and dozens of rolls of expensive silk were missing. It was hard to know for certain how many until the inventory could be tallied, but the cabinet where the finest bolts were usually stored under lock and key was nearly empty.
“Who co
uld do this?” murmured Louisa into the stark silence, her hand at her lips.
A fool, thought Drew. Robberies had been plaguing Edinburgh for several months now. The other victims had been the usual sort of places robbed—a jeweler, a goldsmith, a bank. There was already a reward on offer for the capture of the thieves, and Drew, to his bitter regret, had not paid much attention to the crime wave. What could his family’s small shop have to tempt a thief, when there were far more affluent shops all around?
“And what if we had been here?” Louisa went on, her voice rising. “What might those villains have done to me, or to your sisters?” She waved one hand at the slashed scarlet silk.
“All the robberies have been at night when no one is in the shops.” Drew sighed, rubbing his brow. “’Tis a pity Mr. Battie didn’t hear anything.”
The bookkeeper lived in the rooms upstairs. He had discovered the damage when his charwoman arrived early in the morning and let out a wail. Mr. Battie had sent a boy running to tell them and then gone to the sheriff-clerk as soon as Drew and his mother arrived.
“’Tis a great relief he did not,” countered his mother. “He might have come downstairs and been murdered!”
Drew doubted the man was that foolish, or the thieves that deadly. A bolt of silk could not fight back. He stepped over to the door to examine the lock. For all the tumult inside, the outside of the shop looked as it always did. The front door had been closed and the back door leading into the alley was still barred from the inside. Only a few scratches on the lock plate indicated any trespass.
“They got in easily.” He looked at his mother. “Is this lock sound?”
She flushed angrily. “Sound and stout enough these past five years, Andrew! It was repaired only a few months ago!”
He held up his hands. “Aye, aye!”
A sheriff-officer arrived then with Mr. Battie, but there was little they could tell him. He assured them a report would be filed and their losses recorded, but beyond that he could only offer his sympathy. He left with a suggestion that they call upon the procurator-fiscal and offer another reward.
A Scot to the Heart Page 19
