Chapter Ten
“Really?” Elspeth had never been anything, much less something as exciting as a rage. “Do you really think the book will do that well?”
“Not just the book. But you, Miss Elspeth Otis.”
Elspeth had never been so full of excitement and misgivings all at the same time, wanting to believe him—to believe in the possibilities—but having so little experience in doing so.
“Come, my darlings.” Aunt Augusta clapped her hands. “We must celebrate such an auspicious new beginning. Tell me you like champagne, Hamish.”
“Certainly, my lady,” Mr. Cathcart demurred with an easy smile. “If you will forgive me being out of evening clothes to drink it.”
“I will readily forgive you. We are not so high in the instep as to put off a celebration on such paltry grounds. Elspeth, ring for Reeves, if you’d be so kind, and tell him we’ll have a bottle of champagne from my dear friend Monsieur Clicquot.”
“Of course.” The bell was duly rung, and the bottle duly brought.
Elspeth had, in the month since her arrival, tasted wine with her suppers, but she had never tasted anything like the ticklish confection that budded on the tip of her tongue and made delight bubble into her veins. “Michty me, that’s marvelous!”
“A toast to your collaboration.” Aunt Augusta raised her glass. “To your success.”
“To success,” said Mr. Cathcart.
“Oh, yes, success,” Elspeth agreed. It was all so remarkable—this life she seemed to be leading, which she could not even have imagined a month earlier in her attic bedroom in Twelve Mile Burn. She was an author—she had best think like one. “How long is this other book that you want me to…”—she searched for the appropriate word for ‘taking the naughty bits out.’
“Rewrite? Yes, the length will be a challenge—the Memoir of a Game Girl is nearly three-hundred pages long, and excessively amatory, as I’m sure you’ll recall.”
Elspeth did not, in fact, recall, as the sisters Murray had never allowed her to read any novel, much less an excessively amatory one penned by that Wastrel. She would have to hope that Aunt Augusta had a copy that she could read when Mr. Cathcart was not there, smiling down at her with that happy, encouraging, thoroughly expectant grin.
“I don’t mind telling you how pleased I am that I convinced you to take on the job, as it were,” he said. “I didn’t have the faintest idea how to go about it myself.”
Elspeth was giddy enough to give him the truth. “Well, I suppose I’ll just go about it the same as I did the first time—one careful, prudent snip at a time, like the overgrown honeysuckle vine in the garden, pruning away the deadwood to cultivate new growth.”
He laughed. “And there is both the perfect metaphor, and an example of the rustic charm you put into that manuscript. It’s brilliant.”
Brilliant. The word went to her head as effortlessly as the champagne. “Well,” she confessed. “I just thought of the book I’d like to read, and wrote that instead.”
“Full of romance and yearning?” he laughed to show what he thought of romance and yearning. “But you’re too clever to believe all that.”
Her giddiness was momentarily tempered by a disorienting feeling of apprehension—Elspeth was not sure if she had been damned with faint praise, or simply disparaged. But she did not want to be thought a fool. “I suppose.”
“Well, whatever it is,” he went on, “it makes good reading. And hopefully good money.”
“Thank you, Mr. Cathcart. Yes,” Elspeth replied now that she understood romantic yearnings were acceptable only in the pursuit of commerce. “I hope so, too.”
“Now, I thought we’d agreed not to be so formal—you must call me Hamish, as your aunt does.”
“Thank you. And you must call me Elspeth.”
“I should be honored, Elspeth.” He clasped her hand as if she were a man, pumping it as exuberantly as if she were a sportsman whose horse had won a race. “I meant what I said. I should very much like to be your friend.”
Until that moment, Elspeth had thought she would like nothing more than to have the friendship of such a clever and handsome man. But the moment her hand was enveloped in his, she felt differently—warmed from the inside despite the chill his cynical words had given her.
Or perhaps the warmth was all his, and the cynicism hers? Perhaps she had listened for too long to her Aunts Murray’s warnings against the laxity lying in wait in her blood, and her dangerous susceptibility to worthless pleasures?
But why should she not have at least some pleasure? Why should she not enjoy the exuberant attraction of a clever, handsome man?
“Did you really mean it when you said you should like any other manuscripts I might have?”
His face lit like a Guy Fawkes Night bonfire, full of burning interest. “Have you any more?”
“Well, not like my father’s books, and not at the present time written down, but I’ve stories.” All the stories she had made up to occupy her hours over the years. All the characters she had created to keep her company through the solitary country hours. All the wonderfully wild imaginings that had formed her vision of the world. “Although most of them are not at all excessively amatory”—thanks to the champagne, the words winged off her tongue without the least hesitation or embarrassment—“but just as full of rustic charm.”
“And romantic yearning?” His voice was as teasing as his smile.
Which suddenly gave her pause. Gracious, was Mr. Cathcart actually flirting with her?
Elspeth had so little experience with the practice, she wasn’t sure—the only person to ever speak to her at all warmly had been the son of the vicar of Twelve Mile Burn’s kirk, St. Kentigerna the Recluse, and the Aunts Murray had somehow seen to it that the lad was shipped off to school somewhere, never to return to their village.
“Perhaps less of that, as well.” Elspeth gathered her giddy courage. “I mostly make up stories about the animals.”
Mr. Cathcart’s look might best be described as dumbfounded—as if he could not conceive of how such a story might be in any way interesting. Or publishable.
“I treat them like people, you see—the rabbits and voles, and hedgehogs and badgers. They are the protagonists.” She used his own word to show him she had been listening. “I used to draw them, too, when I had time. But paper was dear and watercolors terrible expensive.”
“Do you meant like that darling little sketch you made of the housekeeper’s cat?” Aunt Augusta interposed. “The one with the two mischievous mice on the shelf above?”
“Aye. Not that there are mice in your kitchen larder, I’m sure,” she hastened to assure Aunt Augusta, “but the cat was looking so complacent, I just thought—”
“You just imagined,” Aunt Augusta finished for her. “Oh, you are your parents’ child—both of them—equal parts talent and whimsy. Well, I shall purchase you papers and paints first thing on the morrow, so you will have them to give you pleasure if nothing else, but also so you can show Hamish what you are talking about.”
It was all so easy with Aunt Augusta—there was never an impediment that could not be overcome. “Thank you, dear aunt. I don’t know how I shall ever repay you.”
Aunt Augutsa raised her glass. “By being happy, dear Elspeth. By simply being happy.”
“Here, here.” Hamish Cathcart raised his glass as well. “And I look forward to whatever story of whatever sort you should like to write.”
“Thank you.” Elspeth drained her own glass. She felt as light as air and twice as happy. If she had had the paper and colors Aunt Augusta promised to hand, she would have sat right down to indulge her imagination right there on the spot so she might show her aunt more of the creatures peopling her daydreams. And show Hamish Cathcart, too.
But Aunt Augusta was taking charge of the conversation, “Now tell me, Hamish, what are your plans for our dear Elspeth? Don’t think I’m going to let you work her to death like an apprentice. She has already sacrificed far too much time in the service of your precious manuscripts when she could have been out and about in society.”
“But the book is precious to me, too, Aunt Augusta.” Elspeth wanted that made clear. “I should very much like to earn an independence from my legacy from my father.”
Her aunt agreed. “And of course, you will earn a very handsome independence—I shall make sure that you do. Indeed, Hamish will supply us with his contracts, and I shall have my man of business go over them with you, so you will know your interests are being protected.”
“Thank you, Aunt Augusta.” Elspeth reached for her glass—which had miraculously been refilled with champagne—and raised it to her aunt. “I should like that. I’ve had a small taste of Mr. Cathcart’s bargaining in Fowl’s Close, and I should very much like to even up the score a bit.”
Both Aunt Augusta and Hamish Cathcart laughed, and Mr. Cathcart answered. “You had me fooled in Fowl’s Close, for I should never have taken you for a pirate, Miss Elspeth Otis.”
“There are no pirate ships amongst the hedgerows in Twelve Mile Burn, Mr. Cathcart.”
“Hamish,” he corrected. “But I should have known your were a pirate from the way you batted your lashes at poor Abel Prufrock as if they were scatterguns.”
Now he was accusing her of flirting! “I never. But you’d know a thing or two of piracy, wouldn’t you, Hamish Cathcart, snapping your fingers”—she mimicked his action, and lowered her voice to approximate his baritone—“‘Give it here. I’ll see if there is anything worth giving two scatterguns for.’”
He laughed. “And now I am sure that we will get along absolutely famously.”
“I was sure you would.” Aunt Augusta smiled at them both. “For you each have what the other lacks.”
“I lack Miss Otis’s brilliance.”
Elspeth could not help but smile. “And I lack your printing press.”
“A partnership made in heaven,” Aunt Augusta opined.
“Indeed. And I thank you as well, Lady Ivers,” Hamish Cathcart inclined his head to his host. “For being the impetus for this entire endeavor—I have not forgotten that it was you who put Prufrock in my sights. I have never had such a good prospect given to me so easily, and at such little cost.”
“Oh, you’ll pay your debt to me yet, Hamish,” the lady said into her champagne glass, so that Elsepth only heard the happy murmur. “You may feel free to stop by any time to converse with Elspeth on business matters. I am sure you will need to work on producing her book right away, while she works on her father’s.”
“I will do so, with your permission. In fact, I should like to call tomorrow—at your earliest convenience, Miss Otis—to bring those contracts you requested, and to start to work on the second manuscript.”
“No time like the present?”
“And needs must while the devil drives,” he answered Aunt Augusta with a laugh. “I confess I like to work with the heat of a project in me. I hope you won’t mind.”
“Not at all.” Elspeth was happy of any reason to see him again. She should like nothing better than to spend the next day—and the next—with him if he would keep smiling at her like that.
Aunt Augusta rose to signal the end of the small celebration. “As much as I should like to linger, I will plead your pardon and retire. Elspeth, darling, do be a dear and see Hamish out.”
All by herself? But Aunt Augusta was not nearly the stickler for the proprieties that the Aunts Murray had been—she simply breezed out of the room, leaving Elspeth quite alone with Hamish Cathcart with nothing but her own good sense to guard against impropriety.
And her own good sense was a great deal muzzied by champagne.
As perhaps was his—the moment Aunt Augusta was gone from the dining room Hamish Cathcart reached for Elspeth’s hand. “I’m already looking forward to tomorrow.” He squeezed her fingers as if he could impress his sincerity and exuberance upon her. “I can’t wait to get started.”
He rose with his fingers still entwined with hers, and so she rose, too.
And of a sudden he was so close and so tall and so near she had to tip her head back to look up into this laughing brown eyes, crinkled up at the corners with what she was coming to recognize as exuberant glee.
“Isn’t it marvelous? I have a feeling about this—don’t you?” He asked before he seemed to answer his own question. “Don’t you feel it, too?”
And then his hands were on her shoulders and around her back, drawing her close, holding her tight against his chest as his mouth covered hers.
She was being kissed—he was kissing her.
She could hardly think and barely breathe—his lips covered hers as if he was not yet close enough and needed to be closer still. He slanted his head—or was it hers?—to make them fit together just so.
Just so he could fan one hand along her jaw and cradle her head with the other. Just so she could slide her arms around his waist and hold him tight as his tongue found hers and began a dance so dizzying she thought she might fall down.
But she didn’t—she was buoyed up by his words. “You taste like champagne,” he whispered against her ear. “All bubbles and stars.”
She felt as if bubbles and stars were flowing in her veins. She felt everything—the firm smoothness of his lips, the rough scratch of his whiskers beneath the surface of his skin, the heady tang of claret upon his tongue. “You taste like more, please.”
She had no idea why she said it, but it was true—she wanted more of him. More of his warmth, more of his strength, more of his surety.
And much more of his lips pressed to hers.
It was as if four and twenty years of waiting and wanting and longing were at last distilled down to this moment of pleasure. She didn’t want it to end.
But Hamish was taking her firmly by the shoulders to stand her away—to put distance between them. But still he smiled. “I shouldn’t have done that,” he admitted. “But damned if I’m not glad I did.”
“So am I.”
He laughed and pressed one more kiss to her lips, and stepped away. And bowed.
And left her alone, floating upon air.