Scandal's Daughters

Chapter 23

Elspeth was tired and footsore by the time she made St. Andrew Square, for she had walked a long way past the next village before she had found a farmer’s dray heading for Edinburgh’s Grass Market. But her spirits were revived when Aunt Augusta opened the door herself.

“My darling girl!” She enveloped her in a tight, heartfelt embrace. “Oh, it is so lovely to have you back. We have so much to do. I am so very, very excited and pleased—” She took another look at Elspeth’s face. “But what is wrong? Where is Mr. Cathcart?”

“Gone to the devil for all I know—he did not deign to come. I left him with his betrothed.” Elspeth curbed her bitterness and firmed her resolve. “As for me, I’ve come to Edinburgh to be a wastrel, just like my father. Blood will out, the Aunts said, so here I am.”

Instead of gasping in shock as she might have expected, Lady Augusta broke into a smile so wide and bright, Elspeth might have put out her chilled hands to the warmth. “Bless them for being so stupidly missish.” Aunt Augusta clasped her hand to lead her upward to the drawing room. “Their loss is my gain. And your father was a wastrel only because he wasted his gifts—squandered on women of no character and wine of little distinction in the terrible grief of the loss of your mother. And you, my darling brave girl, will never do that.”

“I thank you for your enthusiastic and unwavering confidence, Aunt Augusta, but the unhappy truth of the matter is that I find myself in an awful pickle.”

“And by awful pickle,” that kind lady asked gently, “do you mean falling in love with Mr. Cathcart?”

It was a long moment before Elspeth trusted herself to speak clearly. “I suppose I do. More or less.” It was all so complicated and sad. She had thought she loved him, most fervently. But now she was angry as well as sad. “But before I can allow myself to love Mr. Hamish Cathcart, the man needs to be taught a lesson.”

“Oh, yes.” Lady Augusta clasped her hands together, as if in prayer. “How entirely delightful. I offer you my full and wickedly experienced assistance on the instant, for we must act quickly, at once!” She drew Elspeth to her in a fierce embrace. “Oh, I knew I should grow to love you, now more than ever before.” She clapped her hands together, immediately calling for the butler. “Reeves, call all the staff immediately. As my dearest Admiral Ivers would have said, pipe all hands to battle stations!”

Battle stations turned out to be a great deal more comfortable that Elspeth might have thought—she was bathed and coiffed and fed and dressed in a gown of cerulean blue silk that shimmered and whispered encouragement when she walked.

“Perfection,” Aunt Augusta decreed as her dresser put the finishing touches on Elspeth’s ensemble. “Pure, absolute perfection. Nothing more—her head bare and honest. Yes,”—she stood back to peruse Elspeth once more—“You’ll do perfectly.”

“Do for what, Aunt Augusta?”

“The occasion,” she answered, as if that explained anything. “Battle armor, as it were, though I should think it safe so say you have already won the war.”

“What war?”

Aunt Augusta favored her with that mischievous smile that carved dimples deep into her cheeks. “All in good time, my darling. And it is time”—she picked up her own silk skirts and proceeded to the door—“for us to go.”

“To where, pray, madam?

“To church.” She swept down the steps and into the waiting carriage.

“But it is a Thursday morning,” Elspeth objected. “Is there some holy day that I did not know existed?”

“There is indeed,” Aunt Augusta said with mischievous tartness. “Now get yourself into the carriage, and say not another word.”

They had not far to go, only around the corner onto George Street, headed for the high-clocked steeple of St. Andrew’s kirk.

He was waiting beneath the tall columned portico, her Mr. Hamish Cathcart, looking as tall and mischievous and Scots as ever she might have imagined.

Aunt Augusta took her elbow and urged her on.

Hamish just smiled.

He was dressed in the old style, in the distinct blue, red and green plaid of the Clan Cathcart tartan, with a sword hung at his side. He was breathtaking and impressive. And confusing.

And what was more confusing was the way Hamish offered her his hand, and wordlessly led her into the kirk, past the astonishing sight of the Aunts Murray, smiling wistfully and dabbing at their damp eyes with familiar worn lace-edged handkerchiefs.

Past the Countess of Inverness smiling contentedly. Past Aunt Augusta, who slipped into the pew with the countess, looking entirely too pleased with herself.

“Just as you are,” Aunt Augusta whispered, as Hamish swept Elspeth past on the way to the altar, where a rosy-cheeked rector peered down his glasses at her.

“We’re all assembled then?” the white-robed cleric asked. “Are we ready to begin?”

“Elspeth?” Hamish finally spoke. “Are we ready?”

“Nay.”

“Elspeth—”

“What of your Miss Lorimer and her brewery?” she demanded.

“A misunderstanding. A great, unnecessary misunderstanding that has delayed my making you my wife.”

“Nay. Not until you propose to me. Properly. On one knee before everyone and God, the way you ought to have done at the start.”

“I couldn’t have done so at the start, as I hardly knew you.”

“You know what I mean.” She held her ground. “I want a proper declaration of love from you, Hamish Cathcart. And I want it now, or we go no further.”

If anything, Hamish’s smile grew wider, spilling across his face with reckless abandon. “Then you shall have it. My darling Miss Otis,” he began, going down on the cold, slate floor on one bare knee. “I beg you to make me the happiest of men, by doing me the honor of accepting my unworthy proposal for your hand.”

It was a pretty enough start. But not enough. “Why?”

“Because without you, my life and my world would be a poorer place.”

Elspeth was about to object—this was no time for the man to talk of money—but she saw the mischievous twinkle in his eye, and knew he was teasing her. Which was a good sign, she thought. A person couldn’t tease someone who wasn’t their equal.

“Because I love you with all my heart and all my mind and all my soul, and I do not want to face another dawn of waking up without you.”

“That’s better.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Nay, it’s an aye.”

The rector cleared his throat and began, “Dearly beloved brethren, we are here gathered together in the sight of God, and in the face of His congregation to knit and join these parties together in the honorable estate of matrimony—”