Chapter Eight
Elspeth hurried back to the house on St. Andrew Square in good time for afternoon tea. Aunt Augusta awaited her in the sunny, comfortable salon at the back of the house overlooking a blooming walled garden, with every appearance of ease, but Elspeth thought she could detect some anxiousness in her greeting. But perhaps that was her own anxiety coloring her perception.
“There you are, my dear. Come in, come in and take some refreshment after your adventure.” She held out a welcoming hand to gather Elspeth to her side. “How did you find Mr. Prufrock? Did you conclude your business satisfactorily?”
Elspeth took a deep breath to ease the tangle of her conscience. “I found Mr. Prufrock amiable and quiet, but it was his partner, a Mr. Cathcart, who conducted the greater share of the business.”
“Ah.” Aunt Augusta paused as if she were not sure how she liked such an event. “And how did you find Mr. Cathcart?”
“Less amiable.” Elspeth’s first impression of Mr. Cathcart had not been entirely favorable—he seemed to be just the sort of man her Aunts Murray had always warned her about—far too handsome, and far too sure of himself for Elspeth’s comfort. But again—her impression had been colored by her own anxiety. “I have a confession to make.”
“Gracious. What about?”
“I lied—I told them that the book was written by my father—without telling them that I helped.”
“Ah.” Aunt Augusta was not nearly so shocked at this sign of Elpseth’s perfidy. “Perhaps that is all for the better. Frankly, I should think it matters less who wrote it than if it is a wonderful book. And it is, Elspeth. You may be assured of that.”
“But what if he can tell the difference? Mr. Cathcart was reading the manuscript pages when I left, for I could not bear to sit and watch him do so.”
“Fret not, my love.” The smile spread upwards to the corners of Aunt Augusta’s eyes. “Mr. Cathcart has a reputation as a man with an acute eye as well as an astute man of business. I should think it will not be long before he has an answer—”
Aunt Augusta was interrupted by the sharp rap of the door knocker below. A pleased smile curved across her cheeks. “Just as I was saying—it won’t be long at all. Your Mr. Cathcart is a pleasingly decisive young man.”
“How can you know it is he at the door?” No name had been announced. “And he’s certainly not my Mr. Cathcart.”
“All in good time.” Aunt Augusta favored her with a kindly, critical eye. “Take off your old cloak and sit here”—she gestured to a watered silk-upholstered chair—“with your back to the window. It will put you in just the right light.”
“The right light for what?”
“For Mr. Cathcart’s astute eye.” Augusta hurried to take her own seat opposite as the butler, Reeves, announced their visitor.
“Mr. Hamish Cathcart, my lady.”
“Ah.” Aunt Augusta’s satisfaction at being proved right was all cat-in-cream pleasure. “Do show him in, Reeves.”
Mr. Cathcart came into the room like a gust of fresh spring air, all bracing bonhomie. “My dear Lady Ivers.” He bowed low over Aunt Augusta’s hand. “How good of you to see me.”
In the brighter light of the salon, Elspeth could see more clearly what she had nervously tried to dismiss in the dimmer confines of Fowl’s Close—Mr. Cathcart was a tall, extraordinarily well-formed, exceptionally handsome fellow. Even if he did smile a bit too easily. Especially since he was now turning the force of that smile upon her.
“And Miss Otis. A pleasure to see you again.” He approached her just as he had Aunt Augusta, and bowed over her hand. But he looked up at her just before he placed a kiss upon the curve of her wrist.
And just like that, Elspeth felt upended, as if her brain had gone topsy-turvy and upside-down.
It was exactly as the Aunts Murray had always warned—she would find her head turned, and there would be nothing she could do about it if she were not always vigilant. Elspeth had been extremely vigilant, but she was dazzled despite the warnings, and even as she scolded herself not to be.
But she was home now, with her Aunt Augusta who knew all and forgave all, and there was no need to feel as nervous as a guinea fowl in a fox’s den. She was four and twenty after all—her advanced age ought to provide her with some protection against such provocative charm.
And if not, Aunt Augusta, was vixen enough to deal with Mr. Cathcart.
“Ah.” Aunt Augusta said for the third time, investing that single word with a wealth of meaning—most importantly that she was thoroughly in control. “Hamish. You’ve already met my dear niece, Miss Otis, but a short while ago. And here you are. How fascinating. I was just asking my niece how she found you.”
He laughed. “Forward, I should think.”
“Well, you certainly aren’t backward.” The tart retort was out of Elspeth’s mouth before she could think. But she would not regret it, for he had not been invited, and Elspeth had certainly not given him her aunt’s direction. Indeed, she had never once even mentioned her aunt’s name.
But things at her Aunt Augusta’s house in the city seemed to be a great deal less formal or fussy than they had been under the stricter eyes of the sisters Murray. Here, things were a great deal less comme il faut than they were come-as-you-are.
Here, Aunt Augusta laughed and agreed with both of them. “Yes, indeed, Hamish, for you are not backward in the least. How clever you are to come straightaway.”
“You are too kind, my lady.” Mr. Cathcart took the chair opposite and was already leaning forward, focusing his gaze on Elspeth with a sort of sharp attention that made her decidedly uncomfortable. “What both you and Miss Otis will now find me is enthusiastic.”
“Just as I said—clever. How did you know my niece would be here, with me?”
He favored Aunt Augusta with what the Aunts Murray might have characterized as a roguish grin—no hint of apology. “I set an apprentice to follow your carriage, naturally.”
“So, you think it’s good?”
“You would not have sent her to me, and I should not be here were it not.”
“Excellent.” Aunt Augusta clapped her hands, and reached to take Elspeth’s cold fingers between her own. “It’s just as I told you, Elspeth—it is a wonderful book that—”
“—that could not have been written by John Otis,” Mr. Cathcart finished. “At least not in its entirety.” He turned the lethal charm of his focus upon Elspeth once more. “Tell me, Miss Otis, how long did it take you to prepare the manuscript? I noticed the copy you gave me was in your hand and not your father’s script.”
Wariness landed like cold porridge in the pit of her stomach. “Yes, well, it took several weeks to…transcribe the story from the crumbling foolscap he had written it upon.” The Aunts would castigate her for her sloppy grammar. “Upon which he wrote. And I must admit, some parts, you see, needed to be invented fresh—to fill in the…gaps.”
Mr. Cathcart appeared to care nothing for her grammar. Or her prevarication. “Excellent. Very timely work. And did you find it difficult or time-consuming, replacing all the naughty—or shall we be frank and call them erotic?—bits before you brought it to me?”
Elspeth felt her cheeks heat. What an astonishingly direct fellow he was—he said the word so matter-of-factly. Elspeth struggled to achieve the same level of sanguinity. “Well, not exactly difficult.” It had actually been easy to substitute her own decidedly less carnal imaginings for the naughtier bits.
But Mr. Cathcart was having none of her havering. “Come, I beg you would be frank with me, Miss Otis.” He smiled and leaned his head closer to chat amiably, as if they were alone, and she were already in his confidence. “I’ve seen John Otis’s original writing—we have the original manuscript for A Memoir of a Game Girl at Prufrock’s, you know. I can tell the difference.”
“No, indeed, I am not bamming you, Mr. Cathcart—” Elspeth flicked a glance at Aunt Augusta, looking for some direction, but that lady only answered with her silent, feline smile—Elspeth was on her own.
So she racked her brain for some suitable explanation that would not be an outright lie, but would also not give away the whole of the game. “Well, you see—”
But it was as if Mr. Cathcart could see right through her fumbles—he chuckled and raised his eyebrows in tease. “You certainly are attempting to bam me. While I do understand your hesitation to reveal yourself to the world until you are assured of how the novel will be taken, I am as high as the moon over Auld Reeky to find you not just a purveyor of Otis’s work, but a creative force in your own right.”
Creative force. In her own right.
The words were like rays of light penetrating the wet weather of her former life—full of warm welcome she didn’t want to refuse. But the habits of a lifetime could not be broken in the slim month she had been in the city. “Well, I am not exact—”
“Then who is?” He sat back and regarded her with suspicious smile. “As Prufrock said, John Otis has been dead and gone these twenty years. And what’s more, the story you brought me is most assuredly not entirely from his pen. And I should know. I’ve been taking a long look at the story of Fanny Bahoochie with the idea of shaping Otis’s words into something more commercially palatable—a form they do not naturally take, as I’m sure you’re aware. The manuscript you offered me was more than palatable. It was genius.”
Genius.
Something pleasing and not entirely manageable began to curl up in her chest, like a barn cat in a sunbeam. Pride—that was what her aunts, the sisters Murray, would name it, and take her to task. “You needn’t try to flatter me—”
“Why not? I should flatter you, and rightly so. The book you’ve given me—the half of the book, and I shall want the other half straightaway—is damn fine, Miss Otis. Damn fine. I want to put it into production immediately. It matters not in the least to me that you, and not John Otis, really wrote it. In fact, it’s better.”
“Really? Better how?” She blinked at him, not understanding how such a thing could be possible. “John Otis is already famous—even if he is also rather infamous—and so will garner more attention if his name is upon the work.”
“Indeed.” He clapped his hands together in pleasure. “How clever of you to understand that, Miss Otis.”
“So you do mean to publish it under his name?”
“I do.” He extended his hand to shake in firm agreement. “I do intend to publish your book. And any more you might see fit to ‘find’.”
It hit her then—like a butt from a lamb, soft but insistent—the enormity of just what he was saying. He liked her book. He wanted more.
“Really? And truly? You’re not just trying to butter up my parsnips?”
This time he laughed. “Really and truly. I will stake my last groat that not only will this book make your fortune as well as mine, but the next one will double it.”
“Truly? A fortune? And the next one?”
“I have plans for you, Miss Elspeth Otis. May I call you Elspeth? And you must call me Hamish”—he went on without waiting for her reply—“for I feel we’re bound to become the very closest of friends.”