“I’m not going to hurt you, Elspeth.” His low voice became soothing, reassuring. “Or throw myself upon you. I only want to hold your hand.”

Nothing untoward. Nothing like the things the Aunts had warned her against. Nothing that was frightening in the least.

Elspeth was not sure if she was relieved or disappointed.

She allowed him to carefully take her hand between his, and hold it for some little while, while he moved his thumb lightly back and forth across her palm. The simple, shocking, warm contact of her flesh against his brought a smile to his face.

“You’re so lovely.” He leaned in as he spoke, making vague murmuring sounds of ease as he gently brushed his lips against the curve of her jaw under her ear. “Clever, sweet Elspeth.”

Oh, she felt that simple touch all the way to her fingertips and the tips of her toes. And beyond—her skin fairly radiated with the wave of sensation emanating from the spot where his lips pressed, taut and firm, full of easy, gentle promise.

He lowered his chin to meet her gaze—his own gray-blue eyes were dark and everything kind and patient, crinkled at the corners, as if he laughed easily and often. “And you do the same.”

She did as he bade, trying her best not to be awkward or strange. To just kiss his cheek lightly, gently.

But it felt vastly different from when he had kissed her. Her own senses were heightened, like the first day of spring—she could smell the clean soap on his flesh. She could feel the warmth of his skin against her lips. She could hear the ever so slightly strained rasp of his breath against the sensitive slide of her own neck.

And just as she was about to withdraw, he turned his head, just so.

Just so their mouths fit against each other, and their lips meshed as if by design. As if they had always been meant to do so.

Her eyes fluttered closed, overwhelmed by the newness of it all, and something that had to be joy broke loose from her heart. And just like that, she knew why the Aunts had warned and warned her.

Because that simple touch, that merest brush of a lover’s lips against her own felt so good, so right, and so necessary, a reckless, breathlessness pleasure rose within her, swamping every last bit of her good sense.

Chapter 11

“Footsteps, sweet Elspeth.” Hamish—for it would be foolish to stand on formality and call a man she had just kissed Mr. Cathcart—stood and moved away from her just as Aunt Augusta sailed through the door.

“And that, my dear children,” her aunt decreed, “is enough work for one afternoon.”

Elspeth schooled both her fluster and her disappointment behind obedience, just as she always had. But Hamish Cathcart wasn’t even trying to hide his smile—he had such warm pleasure in his eyes, that she stopped trying so very hard to hide her elation.

Kissing, she decided, had been vastly underrated, and grossly underappreciated at Dove Cottage. Luckily for her, she was not there anymore. She was in Edinburgh, in a new life with a new aunt.

Who shooed Hamish out. “I regret it is time for you to take your leave, Mr. Cathcart. I am pledged for an intimate ball at the home of the Countess of Inverness—a most satisfactory, charming ball that will not be one of those sad, mad crushes that are all the rage in London—and I mean to have my niece with me.”

“Oh.” Elspeth’s sunny mood dimmed—she hated to bring the thorn of practicality in the side of such a rosy prospect. “But—”

“No buts, my darling Elspeth. Say good afternoon to Mr. Cathcart.”

Hamish took his cue, bowing to her curtsey in the most gentlemanly manner. “Lady Ivers. My dear Miss Otis.” She fancied that his smile was broader still when he kissed her hand. “Until we meet again.” And with one barely perceptible wink he was gone, out the front door and down the steps without looking back.

Elspeth knew this because she ran to the window of the drawing room to watch.

“We’ll see him again shortly, my love,” Aunt Augusta advised. “And it won’t do to let him see you pine. In fact, I think we must give your Mr. Cathcart reason to pine. My dresser will have picked out something suitably divine for you to wear to your first ball. She’ll have it pressed and aired and be waiting to dress your hair—very simply, for it is divine and needs only a pinch of powder—while we have a bite to eat. Pray pull for the footman, Elspeth, and then come and sit with me in my dressing room to sup and be transformed.”

“But—” Elspeth fought against the instinct—or rather the twenty-odd years of being taught not to call attention to herself—to stay at home, and muted her protest before it reached her lips. Because she had always stayed at home when others had gone to the few local assemblies the neighborhood had afforded. She had always sat quietly on visits, never putting herself forward. She had always hidden her disappointments behind duty. And just this once, she wanted to put herself forward.

To wear silk and be transformed.

She wanted to go to a ball. Even if she couldn’t dance a step.

Aunt Augusta took the excuses from her. “Don’t think you can stand against me, my darling lass, for I always get my way. It might take twenty-odd years to get, but here you are at last, and I mean to make up for lost time.” She laid a warm hand upon Elspeth’s cold fingers. “You need not worry, my dear, that I mean to make you over into someone else—you are perfectly lovely just as you are. But you will be something more than lovely once we can pry off all the fusty layers of middle-aged morality Molly and Isla have buried you under. Somewhere beneath the weight of all those scruples and self-doubt is your mother’s beauty just waiting to shine.”

“But I don’t know how to act—I’ve never been to a ball like—”

“There is nothing to it, my darling,” Aunt Augusta assured her. “You have only to be yourself.”

Elspeth’s relief was as profound as her worry—she had never been allowed, much less encouraged, to be herself. She hardly knew where to begin.

But it seemed she was to begin at a ball at the Countess of Inverness’ stately mansion on the Canongate High Street. If Elspeth had found the gracious elegance of her aunt’s townhouse a wonder, the gilded, candlelit opulence of Inverness House was a sight beyond compare. She had never imagined such a profusion of candelabra, glinting gold against the stuccoed, painted walls, nor such a press of richly dressed people.

Elspeth bobbed along in her aunt’s wake, feeling like a gawky gosling paddling after a swan. Aunt Augusta was a vision in palest French lilac and white powder, and even though Elspeth knew she herself had never looked so lovely in all her life, she had nothing of her aunt’s ease and grace.

Still, she could learn. She could follow her aunt’s elegant example, and nod and smile and bow her head graciously. She could pretend that this was how she had always lived, in luxury and light, and always would.

“There you are, dear Letty.” Aunt Augusta kissed their hostess on the cheek. “Let me introduce my dear niece and protégée, Miss Elspeth Otis. Elspeth, I give you the Countess of Inverness, my dear friend Letty.”

“Welcome, my dear.” The Countess was all gracious delight. “A pleasure to have you with us, Miss Otis.”

Elspeth sank into a deeply reverential curtsey. “My lady.”

“Such graceful manners, Augusta. We must have her dancing. The gentlemen will be all agog to have a chance with her.”

“We shall be selective, Letty. Only the best will do for my girl.”

“The Marquess of Cairn is here, just up from London.”

“Ah.” Those mischievous dimples appeared deep in her aunt’s cheeks. “Perfection.”

***

 And that, clearly, was Hamish’s cue. Elspeth Otis was his discovery, his diamond in the rough, and under no circumstance could he would stand to lose her to his charming brother Rory’s even more charming crony, Alasdair Strathcairn, Marquess of Cairn. Because in the hours between leaving Lady Ivers’ house and arriving at the ball, Hamish had been unable to think of anything or anyone but Elspeth.

“My ladies.” He swept in and took the hands the ladies instinctively and automatically proffered when he bowed before them. “Countess Inverness, Lady Ivers. And Miss Otis.” He bowed particularly reverentially before the object of his increasingly devoted attention, who looked like a breath of sweet summer sky in a blue silk gown the deep color of the ocean. “What a pleasant surprise.”

Lady Ivers didn’t look in the least bit surprised. “Mr. Cathcart. Your timing is impeccable, as always.”

Hamish took the backhanded compliment in the spirit it was intended—as a challenge. Time was of the essence. “My dear Miss Otis, might I beg the honor of this dance?”

The darling lass looked halfway between horrified and delighted. “Of course you may beg, much good it will do either of us. You see, I’m afraid I cannot—”

“Of course you can.” Lady Ivers looked from Elspeth to Hamish in shrewd assessment, before she decided to voice her full consent. “Mr. Cathcart is harmless enough, Elspeth. I see no reason why you should not dance with him, provided he behaves himself. And I shall watch quite closely to make sure that he does.”

Hamish bowed deeply to acknowledge the warning. “As you wish, my lady.” He offered Elspeth his hand. Which she did not take. In fact, she looked at his proffered palm the way a wee mousie might eye a rat.

So he set himself to charm her. “Tis only a country dance, my dear Miss Otis, not the end of the world.”

“Not yet, anyway.” But she let him lead her toward the dance floor. Toward, but not to.

 “Forgive me if I notice some hesitation on your part, Miss Otis. If the trouble is not with me—and what trouble could there be with a fellow of my charming sort—then it must be you. You do know how to dance, do you not, Miss Otis? Surely there are dances even in whatever wee benighted village you come from?”