Scandal's Daughters

Chapter 9

The truth was, Hamish wanted to be more than friends.

How much more, he wasn’t quite sure.

What was sure was that Miss Elspeth Otis was the rare sort of young woman he actually liked—intelligent and ambitious for something other than a husband. A lass who didn’t mind using her mind. And what a mind. Illegitimate she might be, the fruit of the devil’s own loins—for stories of John Otis’ roisterous ways lived large in Edinburgh’s collective memory—but by God, she could write like an angel.

In fact, Hamish liked her all the more for being illegitimate—she wasn’t likely to be the kind of lass who would question an earl’s son’s involvement in business, or turn up her nose at his own family’s decidedly irregular lineage. She was the perfect partner for him in all ways—clever as the day was long, disguising herself as a country mouse, when she was clearly no such thing—when her writing clearly told him she was blessedly experienced.

Hamish had never understood the virtues of ignorance, the absurd insistence on innocence in females—he’d never felt its attraction. Give him an honestly experienced lass who knew her own mind, and wasn’t afraid of what people would say any day.

Aye, Elspeth Otis was perfect. In more ways than one.

The manuscript she had brought him was as perfect as she—perfectly balanced between emotion and action. Perfectly calibrated toward a high romantic sensibility. And perfectly poised to make him a fortune.

But he’d give his left nut if John Otis had actually written it. John Otis had been bawdy and inventive and told a romping good tale, but he never wrote anything so lyrical and sweepingly romantic that it nearly made a man want to abandon his footloose, unsteady ways and make an honest man of himself.

Nearly. Unsteady he might be, but not unhinged.

Still, while he was taking advantage of her fine mind, there was no reason he might not also enjoy her fine looks. Without the cover of her tatty straw hat, her blond hair shimmered in the pool of sunlight streaming through the window, and her delicate face was pink with pleasure. This afternoon, Miss Elspeth Otis was no wee gray mousie—she was a soft, sweet cygnet who had, in the time it had taken him to read enough to make his decision, turned into a poised, serene swan.

She was a clever one, his Miss Otis. Because somewhere beneath that calm surface lurked a delightfully naughty, extremely talented mind. And, oh, how he liked the clever ones.

And if he had his way—and he had learnt enough of charm to ensure that he nearly always did get his way—she’d like him just as well. And he already had her aunt, Lady Augusta Ivers’ approval—in fact, she had all but hand-picked him for the part, hadn’t she?

“Michty me. It’s all so overwhelming. It’s as if it’s too good to be true.” But pleasure was shining from Elspeth Otis’ lovely blue eyes.

“Then I must convince you I am everything sincere. Because I have a proposition for you.”

Color swept up her long, pale swan’s neck and across her cheeks like a sunrise.

“A business proposition,” he clarified. Although now that she looked so fetchingly flushed, he began to wonder what it might be like to follow that swath of heightened color beneath the modest cover of her linen fichu, all the way to the very edge of her bodice and beyond. Down beneath the confinement of her stays, where he would tug the last defense of her chemise down to reveal the sweet pink tip—

“You want Elspeth to revise the original A Memoir of a Game Girl as well.” Lady Ivers’ enthusiastic, and correct, assumption brought him out of his dangerous daydream of Miss Otis’ flushed flesh, and back to the business at hand.

“Aye.” Hamish cleared his throat. “I do. What I’ve read of the manuscript you brought me is exactly what I want for the new edition of that novel.”

“You mean you want me—” The lass’ plum soft mouth fell open in astonishment. “To do it all again, with a second book?”

Hamish was nearly as gratified at having been right about Elspeth Otis’ revision of the manuscript, as he was excited at taking one step closer to that fortune just waiting to be made. “Indeed, I do. And I will contract with you for any further manuscripts you should care to ‘find’ or write after that. In fact, I predict any book written in the same style will be a pure smashing, success.”

Elspeth gaped at him. “You’re mad.”

“If I am, it’s a fine madness. But I am perfectly in my right mind, and I know exactly what I am doing—offering you the princely sum of two hundred and fifty pounds.” Hamish named the largest sum he thought he could reasonably afford without endangering their success. And then he had added a little more. Just to be sure. Prufrock & Company’s reserves were only slightly more than three hundred, but the extra fifty pounds were his insurance against competition.

“Two hundred…” Her voice faded—from outrage or astonishment, he could not tell.

For half a moment, Hamish wondered if he would have to offer more—how, he knew not. He had used up nearly all his available blunt to buy his half of the business.

But Miss Elspeth Otis was no witless gudgeon. “Guineas?”

“Ye gods, nay! Who do you think I am—some lordling with more money than sense? I can’t afford to pay you in gold.” But he also couldn’t afford to lose her. “Pounds sterling. But there’s more to be made, I promise. I don’t aim to cheat you, Elspeth Otis—your aunt will, I hope, vouchsafe my honesty and integrity.”

“I will,” Lady Ivers averred.

“There. Be assured I aim to make us both quite, quite rich.”

“Quite, quite rich,” Elspeth repeated, as if she were testing the idea of richness like the taste of chocolate torte on her tongue—a slow smile of incredulous wonder blossomed across her face. “Then, with my aunt’s permission”—a nod sufficed to grant it—“I think the answer to your offer, Mr. Cathcart, is most certainly yes.”

Hamish had never in his life felt such profound relief and pleasure all at the same time—he felt buoyed up, as if he were swimming in delight. “You, Elspeth Otis, are a treasure.”

And to give exercise to the hot press of happiness, he picked her up as if she were made of feathers and fairy wings instead of experience and determination, and twirled them both around.

And then he kissed her.

The moment his lips touched hers, what had been an instinctively hearty, heartfelt kiss of joy and relief and excitement threatened to turn into something altogether different.

Altogether more personal. And altogether too intimate.

He instantly realized the enormity—the absolute disaster—of his mistake. Experience aside, he had kissed her without any warning or permission, in broad daylight only a few hours after he had met her. And in front of her aunt.

“Ye gods.” He was almost as astonished as poor Elspeth—he only stood dazed and confused, while she stood still with shock, her hands flown up to cover her mouth and cheeks.

Both of them looked at Lady Ivers, who mercifully said nothing, but waited with one raised brow for him to correct his mistake. Which he did immediately. “You must forgive me my thoughtless exuberance, Miss Otis. Lady Ivers, my apologies. I meant nothing disrespectful toward your niece. I was only—”

“Caught up in the moment?” the lady suggested. “Yes, I can see. Gracious, but I hadn’t counted on you being such a susceptible numpty, Hamish Cathcart, but I suppose you’re only human after all.”

Her patiently exasperated tone seemed to be just the thing—a sort of silly, slightly embarrassed amusement descended upon them like a light summer sun shower, lightening the moment.

Hamish could feel his face stretch into a rather stupid grin, and even poor Elspeth’s lips began to curve into a shy smile. He tucked his chin and gave her his most charmingly susceptible smile. “Forgive me?”

Her embarrassment was overtaken by the charm of the moment. “I suppose I must,” she said on a breathless little smile.

“You must,” he insisted, taking her hand, “for I’ve already written to several booksellers in London, as well as Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds. We’re going to print as many copies as we can afford, and then stand ready to print more. We’ll have the two books out one after the other, each feeding the demand for the other.” The thought was another buoy to his spirits. “Much as it pains me to predict it, I expect you’ll be buried under invitations and bombarded with posies. Prepare yourself, my dear Elspeth, to be all the rage.”