Chapter Seventeen
“Michty me!” She blushed to the roots of her hair, a lovely shade of apricot. Like jam. Sweet and tart all at the same time.
Hamish knew he oughtn’t let himself smile, but he was inordinately happy to have so easily found her. Happy to be watching her blush. Happy he had the power to make her blush.
“Elspeth? What’s he saying?” the querulous old ladies in the tiny house queried.
“We’re negotiating the price, mistress.” Hamish raised his voice to carry into the cottage so the ladies didn’t have to cup their hands around their ears. “She’s a hard bargainer, your niece. Powerful hard. She’s making this difficult for me.”
The object of his negotiations kept her voice low so the old ladies might not hear. “Difficult? Nothing of the kind. You’ve only to take yourself right back to Edinburgh, where you belong. I’ll send—”
He cut off her contingencies. “Oh, I don’t intend to leave. At least not without you.”
She stilled, one hand coming slowly to her throat, as if perhaps something he was saying was finally getting through to her. But then she shook it off. “I’m needed here.”
“You’re needed in Edinburgh, too. Or John Otis is, but since you are, for my purposes, him, it will have to be you.” He cast a glance at the two old crows perched at the wall. “Do they know?”
“About the books? Heaven forbid.”
“Elspeth? Elspeth, what is he saying?”
She turned to Aunt Molly. “He’s saying he’ll do the thatch for a sovereign and a bowl of soup.”
“Are you trying to swick me?” Hamish had to laugh at her audacity. “That’s ridiculously low.”
“Of course it is, Hamish. Of course. I’m trying to give you the perfect reason to refuse, since you can’t possibly be anxious to thatch a roof.”
“Actually, I am. Anxious to stay. Anxious to convince you. Anxious to find out all I can about you to use to my advantage.” He was not surprised to find that he would do just about anything to remain near her, even manual labor. “I’m not going to give up that easily.”
“You’re mad—right off your big numpty head.” She gaped at him. “Look at yourself. You’re the son of an earl, even if you think you’ve rigged yourself in a lesser man’s togs. You can’t possibly be prepared to climb upon that wretchedly steep roof!”
“Don’t fash yourself on my behalf, lass.” He allowed himself the pleasure of playing his part. “I’m not so daft as to promise something I can’t deliver.” He would enlist the outdoor staff from Cathcart Lodge, his father’s hunting box, just up the road, if need be. Whatever it took to remain. “I’ll start with that trellis.”
She shook her head, clearly flabbergasted at his ass-like stubbornness, and waved him out of the cottage. “Have it your way. But mind you don’t ruin your coat.”
Three hours later, Hamish was sweaty, dirty, exasperated, and bloody from the thorns that had ripped his clothes and pierced his flesh with impunity. And very nearly regretting the impulse that had landed him in the briars. It had been an easy thing to think he would remain at Dove Cottage, as the charmingly ramshackle place was called, at all costs, until that cost became his blood.
Still, he had only to lay eyes upon her to know she was worth every difficulty and discomfort. She finally reappeared from the interior of the cottage looking harried and worn, as if those two old carrion crow aunts of hers had spent the intervening hours pecking away at her.
But she was bearing the promised bowl of steaming soup. And he was famished.
Who knew hard manual labor could be so invigorating? “Good evening, Miss Otis.” He lifted his battered hat, though his sleeve was caught up in the rosebush’s thorns. “I would offer you my arm, but this rosebush has insisted upon my escort until at least midnight.”
He was rewarded by one of her quiet, small smiles, and he realized that she was tired—she had been working at least as hard as he. And she did it all day, every day, not just as a means to an end. This was her life here—one of constant servitude. Of constantly seeing to the needs of others before herself.
No wonder she had turned to writing with such imaginative romance. No wonder she had been so enthusiastic about the work in Edinburgh. It was as if she had been a butterfly let out of her chrysalis for a few days before she was shut back in, and made to be a caterpillar all over again.
Or perhaps her imagination worked as well here in the country as it did in Edinburgh. “Perhaps the rose is an enchanted fairy princess, who clings to keep you till midnight to break the awful spell and set her free.” Her voice sounded wistful.
“And is that how you see yourself, the orphaned fairy princess forced to work for her crust of bread from her cruel aunts, laboring, fetching and carrying all the day through?”
“Goodness, nay.” She shook her head and gave him a guarded smile, dismissing such an unflattering characterization. “Not a’tall. They are not cruel in the least—they are everything kind and forbearing, and have brought me up, and given me a home.”
“And you take care of them in return.” He would not argue with her version of events. “But what is to happen to you when they are gone—are you to live here all alone?”
The guarded warmth ebbed from her eyes. “I had not thought on it.”
“Perhaps you should. I suppose you could write here as well as anywhere. Edinburgh isn’t that far away. And if you were free to travel—” He stopped at the near-horrified look upon her face.
“I’ll not be making plans over anyone’s graves, Mr. Cathcart.”
“No. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—” He was making a hash of it. “I only meant I feel certain that your aunt, Lady Ivers, would welcome you to come back to her in Edinburgh at any time, for any length of stay. In fact, she charged me with telling you her door is always open to you.”
“That is very good of her, I’m sure. But I’m needed—”
“It is good of her,” he confirmed. “And I must confess her wishes align with mine. I called at her house in St. Andrew Square, just as I said I would, Elspeth, for we had much to discuss. And not just about the books.” He drank some of his soup so he wouldn’t be tempted to reassure himself by stroking her pale cheek. “But you were gone.”
“I had to come home. My aunt needed me. She still does, obviously.”
“Yes, I see that. We all want something from you, don’t we? But what matters more is what you really want.”
She would not answer. “What is it you really want here, Hamish?”
“You,” he said simply. “For you to come to Edinburgh and be happy and write me six more books just as scintillating and romantic—for that is the word we shall use in place of erotic, is it not— enough to pass the censure of the courts as the first.”
More of that lovely apricot flush crept up the side of her cheeks, as if she really were blushing at the word. “Are you trying on purpose to discommode me?”
“I am trying to entice and amuse you,” he said instead, giving her one of his better, most hopeful smiles. “Is it working?”
“Perhaps.” She pursed her lips, then crushed them between her teeth to keep the corners of her shy smile from turning up. “A little, perhaps.”
“Enough to encourage you to do something for yourself? To leave your hidebound, little world?”
She shook her head more emphatically. “My world is neither hidebound nor small, Hamish. It is the same as everyone else’s. Only not as…extensive or exciting. But it is mine.”
She was right—she had not chosen her circumstances, but she did have to live with them. “Then perhaps I can be most helpful by expanding that world a little bit. Or at least make it more exciting.”
She sighed and looked back at the listing cottage. “How are you going to do that?”
“By picking up where we left off. Do you know the last time you were kissed, Elspeth?”
She ducked her head. “At exactly fourteen minutes after eleven o’clock on Tuesday evening last.”
“An eternity, ” he assured her. “You were wearing blue.”
“You were wearing a smile.”
His need struck him like a heavy wave. He battered it back behind a dam of determination and restraint—damn flimsy materials on the best of days, but entirely permeable under the onslaught of this clever, sweet lass who looked like an angel, and left him in a hell of wanting.
“Just one kiss,” he coaxed. “Just one.”
“Elspeth? Where have you—” The older of the two crows appeared at the door. Her mouth pinched down to a beak of disapproval. “Come way from there, Elspeth. You’re needed inside.”
“Yes, Aunt Molly.” She spared a last look over her shoulder. “Goodnight, sir.”
“Goodnight, Miss Otis.” He gifted her with a reassuring smile.
He would be her dear sir. He would win her yet.