Chapter Fourteen
Hamish had a moment of worry while she looked at his hand as if she might refuse such a blunt offer. “There is a garden at the back with some greater room to maneuv—” But perhaps that was not the best way of putting it either. “I’m sure you’ll find it refreshing.”
The frown across her forehead eased. “Yes. Thank you. Aunt Augusta said the ball would not be a mad crush, but …”
Indeed, there were people everywhere in the cavernous old mansion—ladies coming and going from the withdrawing room, gentlemen filling the card room with smoke, couples tucking themselves away into every nook and niche intent upon more than private conversation.
He steered her through the crowd, aiming for a more private way out of the house to the garden he knew lay beyond, worried that the press of bodies might be a bit much for Elspeth, whose eyes were growing as big as tea saucers from staring at all the carryings-on with a sort of curious wonder he was coming to recognize as particular to her character—she looked as if she’d like to take out her little pocket notebook and make sketches.
“Did you see that?” she gasped, pulling him aside. “I think I just saw a young lady cut the buttons from that man’s coat,” she reported.
Hamish followed her gaze to see Alasdair Strathcairn, Marquess of Cairn engaged in a rather tense-looking conversation with the youngest of the Winthrop girls. “Are you sure?”
“I think so—at least his coat doesn’t have any buttons in the back, though I could swear it did when the countess wanted to introduce us.”
The last thing Hamish wanted was his Elspeth contemplating her missed introduction to the marquess. “Ah, well—serve him right. About time someone took Alasdair Strathcairn down a peg.”
“You don’t think it’s wrong?”
“I think it’s more likely a joke on auld Alasdair. I think that’s Edinburgh for ye.” He winked to show her he was joking as well, but Hamish still whisked her out the door, beyond the reach of the dashing marquesses of the world—he wanted her to himself.
Elspeth stepped into lamp-lit back garden with palpable relief. “Oh, thank you. This is so much better.” The garden was sheltered from the worst of the changeable Scottish weather by a high brick wall crowded with vines and Scotch roses just budding into flower. “It smells heavenly.”
“And much less like the rest of this reeking auld city?” Hamish led her farther along the fine stone path, holding to his side of the walkway, and keeping his hands well to himself. Not thinking about the pale swath of flesh above the wide scooped neckline of her gown.
In short—very gentlemanly. Because she was, indeed, a wee, fey, innocent country mousie, and not the arch, knowing creature he had wished her to be.
But she was neither—she was her own wonderful, surprising self, because she slid her hand into his as if it were the most natural thing in the world. As if she wanted the simple contact of palm to palm as much as he. “Oh, Hamish, this is wonderful. I have always wanted to dance.”
And he, it seemed had always wanted to dance with her. “I am honored.” He aligned himself across from her and bowed deeply.
“And I curtsey.” She made him a swanlike reverence.
“You most certainly do—very well. And now we step forward and take hands—”
She mirrored his movement easily, and very gracefully followed him into the next.
Already they were dancing. “You are either a very quick study, Elspeth Otis, or you have been bamming me just to get me alone with you in the dark.”
“No!” Her cheeks pinked. “I used to watch—through the windows—and listen to the music. And perhaps try out a step or two in the garden, when no one was looking. The badgers like a partner now and again.”
It was an image of such aching poignancy that he could not keep himself from drawing her closer than the dance prescribed. “Elspeth.” He drew her hand to his lips. “I will be your badger this evening.”
Dimples appeared at the corners of her sweet mouth. “I’m not sure you have the requisite whiskers.”
He held her hand to his chest and hoped she could not feel the pounding of his pulse. “Should you like to find out?”
Her upturned mouth was right there, soft and open just the barest amount—ready for his kiss. But he would not take. With Elspeth he would offer.
“Will you—” Her cheeks flushed a rosier shade of pink. “Do you think you might like to…kiss me?”
“Ye gods, yes.” Hamish had to close his eyes against the anticipatory rush of pleasure her words set loose inside him—experienced she might not be, but spirited, she certainly was. “My dear Elspeth, I should like nothing more.”
And to prove it to her, and because he was an unsteady, rash, ramshackle third son who most often did as he liked, he kissed her.
He kissed her with all the impatience that had brewed in his gut since the moment he had entered the ball and laid eyes upon the sweet swath of skin revealed by the low cut of her gown—what in hell was Augusta Ivers thinking to encourage the oglers so? He kissed her with all the pent-up joy and passion and hope and attraction roiling within him. He kissed her because he was a lad and she was a lass, and she was sweet and willing and eager for exactly what he wanted—more.
More of the sweet taste of her. More of the smooth touch of her skin. More of the heavenly bliss that obliterated every other thought. She tasted sweet, she felt alive, and she did not push him away.
Instead she had latched on to the lapels of his coat as if she could not yet get close enough.
But he would oblige her—he slid his arm around the small of her back and tugged her so close he could feel the stern press of her stays against his belly. The pressure sent a jolt of want shuddering through him.
He had to work to curb the impulse to turn her around and press her into the wall, and rake his hands through her carefully arranged coiffure.
Because then there’d be hell to pay. And everything put paid to their plans.
But what was so wrong about that? They could make new plans.
Still, he gentled his approach, murmuring easy words of pleasure. “Elspeth. So soft. So sweet.” Enticing without overwhelming. Inviting her to kiss him back without doing anything more.
But it was hard, so hard to maintain control when her lids fluttered shut, and she melted against his chest. “Oh, aye.”
She tasted like apples and clean fresh water. She tasted like ease and simplicity and everything perfect and right. She tasted like a summer evening’s soft breeze and a night full of dancing stars. And she was holding on to him—her hands fisted in the lapels of his coat—just as tenaciously as he was holding on to her, that he didn’t care about innocence or experience. He only cared about deepening the kiss. About tracing the lush curve of her back, and wrapping his arm around her waist to pull her flush into his chest. About cupping the back of her head to angle her jaw just enough to deepen the kiss and sweep his tongue into her mouth to slake his thirst for the tart taste of her.
“I knew it,” he breathed as he moved to kiss the sensitive tendon at the sweet slide of her neck. “I knew the lass who had written those words and thought those thoughts would kiss like a dream. I knew under that guarded, innocent exterior would beat the wild, daring heart of a poet. I knew.”
He brought his mouth back to her soft lips, already missing her, already hungry for another taste of her lips, another drink of her shyly questing tongue. Wanting to discover just what it was that made him hold her like he never meant to let her go.
And not even that particularly dangerous thought could keep him from sliding his fingers into her artfully arranged hair, disrupting pins that pattered like raindrops onto the path as he let the smooth strands slide through his hands. “Elspeth.” Her name was like a gift he gave himself, an incantation that transported him to places unknown. Places of lush wonder and graceful, careless ease—a garden of “Elspeth.”
“Hamish. My own.” Her answering whisper was filled with that characteristic wonder, and a little bewilderment, as if she had not yet decided if this were really happening. If they really were kissing like experienced lovers trysting in the dark of the garden.
They most assuredly were.
And he wanted to do more.
He drew her hard against his chest, wishing she were wearing less, cursing that he was wearing even more. He wanted to peel off his cravat and waistcoat, and tear off his linen shirt so he could feel the febrile heat of her body flush against his skin, and taste more than just the flesh of her lips.
He skated his mouth down the long slide of her swanlike neck to the warm hollow of her collarbone, and she tipped her head away, tacitly granting him access. His hands followed where his lips led, rounding over her shoulders, pushing aside the whispering silk of her sleeves, brushing aside the fall of lace that edged her bodice.
The lovely curve of her breasts filled his palm, and he wanted more, wanted to feel the weight of her in his hands. Wanted to see and taste the pink tips hidden beneath soft chemise and tight-laced stays.
He put his mouth to her sweet, satin-smooth skin just above the upper edge of her chemise, and she gasped with the same wonder and delight and joy that he felt to be with her, and alone. His own body responded to hers in the most primitive, savagely pleasurable way, and it was everything he could do to keep himself from backing her against the ivy-covered wall. To keep himself from taking down the rest of her bodice, and hiking up her skirts to give them both a greater taste of paradise.
But he could not.
Because she was not only sweet Elspeth Otis, the adored niece of Lady Augusta Ivers, and deserved better, but he was Mr. Hamish Cathcart, of a long and mostly-noble lineage and a moral code of his own. One he meant to keep.