Scandal's Daughters

Chapter 8

Elspeth arrived back at 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.

“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?”

“I found Mr. Prufrock amiable and quiet—it was his partner, a Mr. Cathcart, who conducted the greater share of the business.”

“Ah.” Aunt Augusta’s pleased smile widened ever so slightly. “And how did you find Mr. Cathcart?”

“Less amiable.” Her first impression of Mr. Cathcart had not been entirely favorable—handsome was as handsome does, but Mr. Cathcart seemed to be just the sort of man her Aunts Murray had warned her about—far too sure of himself. “Though it was dim, and I did not get a good look at him. But it is Mr. Cathcart who is reading the manuscript pages now.”

“Ah.” A slow smile spread upwards to the corners of Aunt Augusta’s eyes. “This I am pleased to hear. Mr. Cathcart has a reputation as an acute reader as well as an astute gentleman. I should think it will not be long before he has an answer—”

She was interrupted by the rap of the doorknocker below, which brought one of her pleased, cat-in-cream smiles curving 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. “You do look marvelous in that rich blue. 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?”

But her aunt did not answer because the butler, Reeves, was at the door, announcing Mr. Cathcart, who 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 only guessed at 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.

He turned the force of that smile upon her, and Elspeth felt her insides slip sideways. And upside down. Something about him made her as nervous as a guinea fowl in a fox’s den. “And Miss Otis. A pleasure to see you again.”

His smile and his very presence felt more like a challenge than a proper greeting.

“Ah.” Aunt Augusta said for the third time, investing that single word with a wealth of meaning—little of which Elspeth could readily understand. “You’ve already met my niece, I understand, but a short while ago. And here you are. How fascinating. I was just asking my niece how she found you.”

“By coming up the High Street and down Fowl’s Close, I should think,” was his answer.

“I found him forward,” was hers. 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 at her pert reply. “Perfect, for Mr. Cathcart is, indeed, not backward in the least.”

Nay, he was not. He was already inviting himself to take the chair opposite without waiting to be asked or for Aunt Augusta to take her own seat. And he was already leaning forward, looking at Elspeth with a sort of minute attention that made her decidedly uncomfortable. “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 slid like spilled porridge into the pit of her stomach. They had decided to keep it a secret, she and Aunt Augusta, that it was Elspeth who had reshaped John Otis’ work. “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.”

Mr. Cathcart appeared to care nothing for her grammar. “Only several weeks? Well done. Very timely work. And did you find it difficult, 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. But as Aunt Augusta said nothing in protest, Elspeth struggled to achieve the same level of sanguinity. “Well, no. I mean, I only copied what was already written—”

“Come, you needn’t work your earnest bamboozle on 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’ original writing—we have the 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 seemed to have been struck dumb for the first time in their acquaintance, so Elspeth 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.

But it was as if he could see right through her fumbles—he chuckled and raised his eyebrows in tease. “You certainly are. While I do understand your hesitation to reveal yourself to the world until you are assured of how the novel will be taken, I think you had best come to terms with being a highly sought after author.”

“But I am not—”

“Then who is? As Prufrock said, John Otis has been dead and gone these twenty years, and 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 Fanny’s story with the idea of shaping Otis’ 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 warm and pleasing and not entirely manageable began to curl up in her chest, like a barn cat in a sunbeam. Pride—that was what the Aunts would name it, and take her to task. “You’re just trying to flatter me—”

“I am trying to 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.”

“But 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?”

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.”