Chapter Fifteen
“Darling Elspeth,” Hamish’s lips pressed against her forehead, and then dotted down the line of her nose to her mouth. Which she opened to give him—
“Well, well. What have we here? Found a bit of muslin you’d like to share, Cathcart?”
The words, uttered by a different deep male voice, only half-penetrated the fog of pleasure permeating Elspeth’s brain.
But Hamish immediately thrust her from his arms, pushing her behind him as he simultaneously stepped in front of her, blocking the man’s view. “Bànach.” There was a definite chill in Hamish’s voice. “Make yourself scarce.”
“And miss all the fun? Nay.” Elspeth could hear the man’s snide smile.
But Hamish could see it as well. “Bànach.”
The cold threat in Hamish’s voice was enough to move the man off, but not before Elspeth heard him mutter. “Like father, like daughter, eh? Sorry I didn’t get to that one first.”
Elspeth had never been so mortified in all her life—and the Aunts Murray had regularly mortified her in the name of keeping her from being “too proud.”
“I’m sorry for that,” Hamish said as he stooped to gather hairpins. “I suppose it’s just as well.”
“Just as well?” How could any part of public humiliation be just as well?
Elspeth moved as far away as the low privet hedge bordering the path would allow, taking some small comfort that Hamish seemed just as exercised as she—she could hear his breath sawing in and out of his chest.
Her own breath was just as unruly—she was as winded as if she had run all the way round the orchard. Twice. Before the interruption she would have thought his kisses well worth the trip—her lips still throbbed and her cheeks still tingled with the sensation of his rougher skin against hers.
“Devil take it. Someone else is—” Hamish stepped abruptly away, scattering hairpins on the ground in his haste.
“My dear?” Aunt Augusta’s careful voice floated up the path. “Is that you?”
Elspeth’s hands flew to her hair, trying to twist and jab pins back into some semblance of order, but it was too late.
“I was just given an alarming report.” Aunt Augusta took in the two of them at a glance. “No need to ask you two darling children if it were true.”
“We were just—”
“Talking,” Hamish finished.
“Of the book,” Elspeth clarified.
“Books,” Hamish corrected. “Miss Otis and I were discussing some of the difficulties she has been having with the revision.”
“Indeed?” Aunt Augusta’s tone was as dry as it was amused. “From what I saw, there didn’t look to be any difficulties at all.”
“Michty me.” Elspeth couldn’t possibly maintain her composure. Not with her aunt’s clear-eyed gaze taking in each detail of her mussed hair and clothing. Elspeth tugged her gown back into place upon her shoulder. “Please forgive me. I don’t know what came over me.”
“Mr. Cathcart, one can only suppose, came over you,” was Aunt Augusta’s wry response. “And your own natural human nature. You’ve proved yourself to be a faster learner than I would have given you credit for, dear child.” Her aunt mercifully turned her keen gaze upon Hamish. “And you, Hamish Cathcart. Letting no grass grow, I see. Well, my dears, what a pretty pickle you seem to have gotten yourselves into.”
“Your ladyship.” For the first time in their—albeit short—acquaintance, Hamish Cathcart’s face was flushed with riddy color. “My apologies.”
“I am not the one to whom you should apologize. You young men today—always in such a rush.” Aunt Augusta shook her head as she took the hairpins from his hand. “My niece has been acquainted with you but a few weeks, Cathcart. To attempt seduction at her first ball, before she’s even had a chance to dance.” She gave the two of them such an exasperated sigh, Elspeth began to feel ashamed of her own concealment.
If the Aunts could see her, they would be horrified. Even without their censure, she was heartily ashamed of herself. “It wasn’t entirely Mr. Cathcart’s fault, Aunt Augusta.” Her first true beau, and she had abandoned all the principles she had been brought up with. One moonlit ball, and she had thrown herself at the first man to offer her any attention.
“Nay.” Hamish quickly contradicted her. “Your aunt is right. But Elspeth, you must know I meant no disrespect. Quite the opposite. My feelings quite carried me away.”
“Yes. They seem to do that to you, don’t they?” Aunt Augusta would not make it easy for him. “Well, let them carry you off for the remainder of the evening, so we’ll have no more public displays of over-affection. I must speak to my niece.”
Hamish bowed to the inevitable. “As you wish, my lady.” He bowed to her aunt, and then turned to take Elspeth’s suddenly chilly hand—she was suddenly anxious not to be parted from him.
But he seemed just as anxious for their next meeting as she. “Elspeth, if I may, I’ll call on you tomorrow, so we might discuss our further plans.”
“I—” She did not know what to say, or where to look.
But he either didn’t hear her distress, or ignored it. “Then it is set.” He bowed once more. “Good evening.” He strode off through the crowd, leaving Elspeth to repair the damage to her coiffure.
“I am afraid, dear Elspeth, that you may not be able to make the appointment with Mr. Cathcart.”
Elspeth heard the censure in her aunt’s voice. “I am so very sorry, Aunt Augusta. Truly. But I thought you liked Mr. Cathcart—I thought you were perhaps even encouraging—”
“Indeed I do like him. And indeed I was encouraging. But it is all for naught.” Aunt Augusta drew near enough to take Elspeth’s hand, and she saw then what she had not before—the strain making fine tense lines across her aunt’s face.
“Whatever is it?”
“Reeves, my butler, has just come with a message. It arrived express, not an hour ago. Your Aunt Molly Murray has written. Your Aunt Isla is ill, gravely so, and has asked for you.”
A pain that felt like the rending of her heart stopped Elspeth’s breath. Here she had been learning to flirt and kiss and dance, and all the while her dear aunt lay dying.
Elspeth had never felt more selfish or more bereft in her life. All thought but one fled. “I must go to her. I must go home to Dove Cottage.”
Hamish presented himself in St. Andrew Square the next afternoon at precisely two o’clock—the earliest time he reckoned Lady Ivers would conscience a morning call—to make his most handsome apologies. He was immediately shown into the lady’s private parlor.
“Come in, Hamish, come in. There is much to be done. We’ve made a hash of it, you and I.” This Lady Ivers said with some accusation.
A cold drop of consciousness dripped down the back of his neck—his kissing had never been labeled a hash. “How so, my lady?”
“She’s gone.” Lady Ivers threw up her hands. “Packed up and whisked herself away, called back to their bolt-hole in the hedgerows by the illness of one of the sisters Murray, her decrepit, selfish aunts in the hinterlands of Midlothian. Though it might as well be Mongolia, for all that.”
Hamish controlled his smile at her wry tone. “Most of Midlothian is but a morning’s carriage ride away, my lady. Entirely approachable.”
“Good! Then I trust you shall be taking that carriage ride and making that approach as soon as possible? We must get her back or all my schemes for her happiness are come to naught. Poor child—she’s as sharp and clever as a cleaver, but rather naïve. She still has no idea that I sent her the manuscript of a purpose, to bring her here. And even, once I saw the rapport between the two of you, to send her your way.”
Hamish had surmised as much but hadn’t wanted to jump to any assumptions. “I am honored.”
“And so you should be. You’re a clever lad, Hamish—you have a way of seeing beyond what needs to be done. You can imagine what might be.”
“I am deeply honored, my lady.”
“Yes, yes. But find her,” Lady Ivers ordered. “Go to her, and press your offer, without”—she raised her voice in emphasis—“getting things as all mangled up in amour as you managed to do last night. There is time enough for all the kissing in the world after you have secured her.” She faced him squarely. “Get her back here for me, Cathcart. Find her and win her, please. My happiness depends upon it.”
“As does mine, my lady. As does mine.”