Chapter Twelve
Hamish applied himself to the wooing of Miss Elspeth Otis with the same single-minded enthusiasm he had heretofore reserved only for his business ventures.
He said no more of lessons or kisses, but set about inspiring the imaginative flights of fancy that would inspire so fey and remarkable a creature as his Elspeth. And his Elspeth he vowed she was, from the top of her flaxen head to the tip of her well-worn shoes.
And more well-worn they became under his direction, for every day he endeavored to show her a different sight, or experience, or view of his beloved, bustling, ancient city, from the highest battlement of the Castle to the belfry of Canongate Kirk.
He didn’t mind when she would pause, wide-eyed, to scribble some passage in a well-worn notebook, or stop to sketch a fox that crossed their path half-way up to Arthur’s Seat, or a hare in the bramble at the foot of Calton Hill. He didn’t interrupt when the vista across Dudingston Loch inspired her raptures, and the dark, echoing closes moved her to silence.
And he never, not once, even attempted to kiss her.
But he thought about it—about the pliant texture of her sweet lips—every moment of every day, though Lady Ivers most often accompanied them on their daily journeys.
He thought of kissing Elspeth when he took her hand to help her up some steep hill, or down a curving stair. He thought about kissing Elspeth while he basked in the glow of her smile, and rested in the cool shade of her intellect. He thought of kissing Elspeth in his sleep.
He thought about her until he began to think he was no longer capable of thinking about anything else. Until he thought he might go mad from the wanting of her.
Until, at long last, they chanced to find themselves alone.
Hamish had returned with her, flush-faced and relaxed from their exercise, to her aunt’s home, and while Elspeth collapsed happily into an arm chair, still in the thrall of some revel, Lady Ivers took a letter from the tray in the hall, and excused herself.
“Call for refreshments, if you would, Elspeth. I won’t be but a moment to answer this missive…”
“Hmm,” Elspeth agreed, but made no move for the bell.
The door latch clicked into place behind Lady Ivers, and there he was, alone with a beautiful young woman with her eyes closed and her head tipped back to catch a sunbeam, as if she were just waiting for his lips to finally find hers. “Elspeth.”
She turned her head at the sound of his voice, and it was as if the very air in the room became charged with the force of their attraction.
“Yes, Hamish?” Her voice was quiet in a way that felt something more than private. Something more decidedly secret. Something intimate.
“I wondered, “ he asked as he walked slowly toward her. “If perhaps, I might try again?”
“Try what again?” she asked. But she knew—her whisper was nothing but breath and hope.
“Try kissing,” he answered on an echoing whisper. “I’ve been waiting very patiently to find the right moment for another lesson in kissing.”
Her smile was all in her luminous eyes. “So have I.”
He wanted to fall upon her, to subsume himself in her scent and softness, but he knew better. He also knew how to make the exquisite anticipation last.
“Perhaps I ought to ask you, properly, first?”
“Ask what?”
“Ask if I might be so bold as to give you a kiss?”
Her only answer was a smile as warm and inviting as that sunbeam.
Hamish eased himself to one knee beside her chair, and she reached out to him.
His hands stole to her cheek, and the sensation that slid deep into his gut might well be described as his own sort of awakening—Hamish felt his heart was beating so loudly in anticipation, she must be able to hear it.
But there she was—this warm, willing, winsome young woman—smiling shyly at him, as if she shared none of his agitation.
As if he were offering her her own heart’s desire.
He brushed his lips against hers—once, twice. Softly, so softly he could feel the gentle exhalation of her sigh against his cheek. His other hand stole around her nape, pulling her closer as his thumb fanned along the line of her jaw, angling and tipping her head back so they could kiss more deeply. So he could taste the summer wind on her tongue, and smell the sprig of hedge roses she had tucked into her hair.
“Hamish.” She breathed his name against his skin, and it was as if he were instantly set alight—as if every inch of his body came to aroused, prickling awareness of just how much he wanted this woman. Just how much he was prepared to give, and give up, for her.
Her hands slid around his neck, holding him to her, binding him more surely than a tether. Deepening their contact, and their connection. He could smell the rose scent on her flesh. He could feel the warmth of her skin against his lips. He could hear the ever so slightly strained rasp of his breath mingle with hers.
But it felt vastly different from when he had kissed her—his senses felt heightened, as if she were the one teaching him. As if he were the naïve provincial being tutored in the wicked ways of the world.
And just as she was about to withdraw, he turned his head, just so.
Just so their mouths fit against each other, and their lips meshed as if by design. As if they had always been meant to do so.
After the unbridled exuberance of their first kiss, the second kiss was a marked contrast—a careful exploration that slowly gave way to something else. Something gentler. Something far more personal. Elspeth let her eyes flutter closed eyes flutter closed, overwhelmed by the newness and wonder of it all. Something that had to be joy broke loose from her heart.
Because now she knew why the Aunts had warned and warned her.
Because that simple touch, that merest brush of a lover’s lips against her own felt so good, so right, and so necessary, a reckless, breathlessness pleasure rose within her, swamping every last bit of her good sense.
But his sense appeared to be fully functioning—he pulled away, silently scooting his chair over. “Footsteps, sweet Elspeth.”
Hamish—for it would be foolish to stand on formality and call a man she had just kissed Mr. Cathcart—stood but kept careful hold of her hand, moving his thumb lightly back and forth across her palm. The simple contact sent a shiver skittering under the surface of her skin, shocking her in a way that his kisses hadn’t.
“You’re so lovely.” He leaned in as he spoke, making vague murmuring sounds of ease as he gently brushed his lips against the curve of her jaw under her ear. “Clever, sweet Elspeth.”
Oh, she felt that simple touch all the way to her fingertips and the tips of her toes. And beyond—her skin fairly radiated with the wave of sensation emanating from the spot where his lips pressed, taut and firm, full of easy, gentle promise.
He moved away from her just as Aunt Augusta sailed through the door.
“And that, my dear children,” her aunt decreed, “is more than enough work for one afternoon.”
“I hadn’t realized it had gotten so late.” Elspeth rose from her chair, and tried to school both her fluster and her disappointment behind obedience, just as she always had.
But Hamish Cathcart wasn’t even trying to hide his smile—he had such warm pleasure in his eyes, that she stopped trying so very hard to hide her elation.
Kissing, she decided, had been vastly underrated, and grossly underappreciated at Dove Cottage. Luckily for her, she was not there anymore. She was in Edinburgh, in a new life with a new aunt.
Who shooed Hamish out. “I regret it is time for you to take your leave, Hamish. I have let you have your way with Elspeth’s time, but this evening I mean to make up for all the evenings she has spent in the service of you manuscripts. I have pledged us—Elspeth and I—for an intimate ball at the home of the Countess of Inverness. A most satisfactory, charming ball that will not be one of those sad, mad crushes that are all the rage in London—and I must have my beautiful niece with me. And she must be suitably dressed.”
“Oh.” Elspeth’s sunny mood dimmed. She hated to bring the thorn of practicality in the side of such a rosy prospect, but they had accomplished nothing of what they had set out to do. “But—”
“No buts, my darling Elspeth.” Aunt Augusta raised one perfectly shaped brow to silence all protest. “Say good day to Mr. Cathcart.”
Hamish took his cue, bowing to her curtsey in the most gentlemanly manner. “Lady Ivers. My dear Miss Otis.” She fancied that his smile was broader still when he kissed her hand. “Until we meet again.” And with one barely perceptible wink he was gone, out the front door and down the steps without looking back.
Elspeth knew this because she ran to the window of the drawing room to watch.
“We’ll see him again shortly, my love,” Aunt Augusta advised. “And it won’t do to let him see you pine.” But then her expression narrowed. “Or perhaps it is time to give your Mr. Cathcart some reason to pine.” Her cat-in-cream smile was her decision. “Yes. I’ll have my dresser pick out something utterly divine for you to wear to your first ball. She’ll have it pressed and aired and be waiting to dress your hair—very simply, for it is divine and needs only a pinch of powder—while we have a bite to eat. Pray pull for the footman, Elspeth, and then come and sit with me in my dressing room to sup and be transformed.”
“But—” Elspeth fought against the instinct—or rather the twenty-odd years of being taught strictly not to call attention to herself—to protest. Because she had always stayed at home when others had gone to the few local assemblies the neighborhood had afforded. She had always sat quietly on visits, never putting herself forward. She had always hidden her disappointments behind duty.
But this was a new life, in which she could put herself forward. In which she could wear silk and be transformed. She could go to a ball.
Even if she couldn’t dance a step.
Aunt Augusta took the excuses from her. “Don’t think you can stand against me, my darling lass, for I always get my way.” She laid a warm hand upon Elspeth’s cold fingers. “You need not worry, my dear, that I mean to make you over into someone else—you are perfectly lovely just as you are. But you will be something more than lovely once we can pry off all the fusty layers of middle-aged morality Molly and Isla have buried you under. Somewhere beneath the weight of all those scruples and self-doubt is your mother’s beauty, just waiting to shine.”
“But I don’t know how to act—I’ve never been to a ball like—”
“There is nothing to it, my darling,” Aunt Augusta assured her. “You have only to be yourself.”
Elspeth’s relief was as profound as her worry—she had never been allowed, much less encouraged, to be herself. But a ball seemed an excellent place to begin.