She forced her feet onward again and tried not to feel as though a tiny flame had just been snuffed out inside her breast. There was no reason at all to have dreamt of anything beyond that one thrilling dance—and kiss. It had nothing to do with the Scottish captain turning out to be a future English duke.
“Don’t tell anyone,” Agnes was saying in the same hushed voice. “It doesn’t seem real to me, it doesn’t! And I don’t want to move to England, and no, it’s not because of anyone in Edinburgh.”
For once Ilsa didn’t tease her friend about the handsome solicitor who always seemed to be in their favorite coffeehouse, ever ready to fetch them a plate of warm currant buns.
“I would miss you terribly,” she told Agnes, linking their arms. “You’re very welcome to stay with me. Perhaps that’s the answer! Surely your brother would be far too busy in his new duties to notice either your presence or your absence.”
“Precisely. I’m sure I don’t need to go with him, and what’s more, I won’t.”
Ilsa squeezed her hand fondly, but in her heart she knew Agnes might not remain so sure. If her mother and sisters went with her brother, it would be very hard for Agnes to stay behind, even if Ilsa threw open her door and invited her to stay permanently in the yellow bedroom across the landing from her own.
She sighed at the thought. In just the last few days she had become very happily accustomed to Agnes’s company at home. She had someone to talk to besides Aunt Jean—someone who shared her interests and humor. Agnes came with her to lectures and the bookseller’s and the coffeehouse; if Mrs. St. James didn’t disapprove, she would even come along to the oyster cellars.
Ilsa was making other friends, but none were like Agnes. If she left for England, it would make Edinburgh a quieter, lonelier place.
And suddenly her opinion of the captain felt a bit colder, that he would take away her dearest friend.
Chapter Six
That night he danced with Ilsa Ramsay again.
She wore red, her bodice cut low over her perfectly plump breasts. Her coal-dark hair streamed around her shoulders as he lifted and spun her around in his arms, letting her down slowly, so she slid along his body. Her eyes shone with promise, as potent as the sheen on her rosy lips, parted invitingly.
There was no one else in the room. It was only the two of them, moving about each other more and more slowly and deliberately, every touch lingering, every glance heated. Then there was no music, just the thud of his heart and the husky invitation of her whispers as she tugged at his clothing, pressing against him as he undid the laces on that scarlet gown and tasted her skin . . .
Until a pistol went off behind him.
Drew startled awake, rearing straight up into the low ceiling and cracking his head. Cursing, he erupted out of bed and had his sword in hand before he realized the gunfire was actually Felix Duncan banging on the door.
“St. James,” came his low, urgent voice. “Get up, man! You have a caller.”
Pulse racing, head aching, it took a moment for the words to sink in. “What?” he croaked, wincing as he pressed one palm to the lump already forming on his skull.
“Your mother is here,” said Duncan, his lips right at the keyhole from the sounds of things. “Come out and face the enemy.”
He let out a shaky breath. Quietly he resheathed his sword. “Aye, aye,” he called to his friend. So much for the intensely erotic dream he’d been having of a dark-eyed siren about to take him by the hand and lead him to . . .
“Idiot,” he said under his breath. He was a sinner just for thinking of her that way. In penance, he dunked his whole head into the basin of cold water.
He didn’t know what to make of Ilsa Ramsay; that was the only explanation for his fascination. In his mother’s drawing room she was as reserved and polite as Miss Kirkpatrick, the duchess’s very proper companion. She pretended not to remember the searing kiss they’d shared under the oyster cellar stairs and made a point of mentioning her abrupt dismissal from MacGill’s office in his favor.
Did she despise him? Blame him? Think about that kiss every hour, like he did?
He ought not to think of her at all. Not only was she bewitching and inscrutable, he needed to focus his thoughts on his future duties to Carlyle—and a future duchess. Getting twisted up by a Scottish temptress would not help him with either.
Hastily dressed, he went out to the tiny sitting room. True to Duncan’s word, there sat Louisa St. James, straight and proper on the battered sofa. At his entrance Duncan gave a hasty bow and practically ran from the room.
Drew didn’t blame him. He also did not feel up to facing his mother at the moment.
“Good morning,” he said with forced cheer. “What brings you here at this hour?” A second thought struck him. “And what about the shop?”
“I’ve told Mr. Battie to open it in one hour,” she said, naming her bookkeeper. “I needed to speak to you.”
Since he’d been at her house just last night, with ample opportunity to speak, he knew it wouldn’t be anything pleasant she had to say. She’d waited to catch him alone and off guard.
“This house in England,” she said directly.
He ran his hands over his head. “Aye. I never meant to force you or the girls to go, but I cannot avoid it.” She frowned, and he hurried on. “Carlyle is a huge estate, Mother. Thousands of acres across counties. There is a vast deal I must learn, and no time to lose.” He hesitated. “The duke is in poor health. The solicitor warned me he might not last the year. He advised me not to delay my education, and there’s no way I can do that from Edinburgh.”
“But your sisters,” she said gently. “They have lives here.”
“Aye, as I had a life at Fort George. Lives change.”
“You’ve resigned your commission?” she gasped.
He peered at her, puzzled. “I will—of course I will. Why would I remain a lowly captain when I’ll have a dukedom to manage?”
“Of course.” She pressed one hand to her forehead. “I didn’t think that far ahead.” She sighed. “When your letter arrived, I hoped it meant a legacy—more fool me! A thousand pounds, Andrew. That was all I hoped for—two thousand, in my wildest dreams. That, I thought, would be very welcome. We could take a better house in the New Town, perhaps expand the shop. With two hundred pounds each, the girls might make good marriages.”
He said nothing. According to Edwards, the Duke of Carlyle had an income in excess of fifty thousand pounds per annum, and that with some effort and modernization it could reach seventy. Carlyle’s expenses were considerable as well, but Drew would wager the duchess spent a thousand pounds on her wardrobe alone every year.
“I did not expect this,” went on his mother in growing distress. “This—this upheaval! I never imagined it would overturn everything in our lives, pull us out of Scotland, make us English.”
English was the worst part of the inheritance, Drew knew. One of Louisa’s cousins had died at Culloden, and in the bloody aftermath her father had been imprisoned and barely survived. George, Drew’s father, had used to say that it was a miracle she had married a man with a single drop of English blood.