His tease had at least a little of desired effect—she crushed her lips between her teeth in an effort not to smile. “Well, I do know how to dance, Mr. Cathcart. Assemblies are held in the public rooms of the village inn, and while it might not be exactly benighted, I will acknowledge that it is a trifle dark. And they are held a very grand sum of four times a year—”

“Four times? So many as that?” His pleasure was all in her arch sweetness. “I begin to see your trouble. Not exactly a whirlwind social calendar.”

“No,” she agreed. “And I must admit”—she lowered her voice, as if imparting the greatest of confidences— “we often have to invite the whole of the hedgerows, including the badgers, in order to have enough couples for a proper set. So I ought to be well used to dancing with your sort.” She took a deep breath, and peeped up at him from the corner of her eye. “But the real truth of the matter, Mr. Cathcart, is that while I have danced imaginary dances with real badgers, and real dances with imaginary people, I have never danced a real dance with a real, live handsome gentleman or your sort, or any other.”

He could not help but smile at such sweetly charming flattery. “I think you’ll find gentlemen differ from blacksmiths and farmers only in the cut of their clothes and not in their appreciation of the dance. Or of their partners.”

A lovely flush swept across her cheeks. “You are very kind to misunderstand me, Mr. Cathcart. But let me be more plainspoken.” She stood on tiptoe to impart the whispered confidence. “I have never danced.”

 “What do you mean?” Hamish was beyond astonished—it was one thing not to have been kissed, but never to dance as well? “Not once?”

She put a finger to her lips, as if imploring him to keep the fact a secret. “Not ever.”

Something strange and fine and indignant stirred to life within his chest—a sort of inchoate rage that anyone might ever have slighted this creature by not asking her to dance. “Why the hell not?”

Chapter 12

At that oath, other couples forming the set turned to look at the pair of them, poised so precariously on the edge of the dance floor. Hamish damned his outburst, and quickly led Elspeth away before the fiddlers scraped up their bows.

He steered her in the opposite direction of her eagle-eyed aunt. “There is a garden at the back. I’m sure you’ll find it refreshing.”

“Yes. Thank you. Aunt Augusta said the ball would not be a mad crush, but …”

Indeed, there were people everywhere in the cavernous old mansion—ladies coming and going from the withdrawing room, gentlemen filling the card room with smoke, couples tucking themselves away into every nook and niche intent upon more than private conversation.

It was all clearly a bit much for Elspeth, whose eyes were growing as big as tea saucers from staring at all the carryings-on with a sort of curious wonder he was coming to recognize as particular to her character. “I think I just saw a young lady cut the buttons from a man’s coat,” she reported.

He wouldn’t in the least be surprised. “Welcome to Edinburgh.”

Elspeth followed him out the door to the lamp-lit back garden with palpable relief. “Oh, thank you. This is so much better.” The garden was sheltered from the worst of the changeable Scottish weather by a high brick wall crowded with vines and Scotch roses just budding into flower. “It smells heavenly.”

“And much less like the rest of this reeking auld city?” Hamish led her farther along the fine stone path, holding to his side of the walkway, and keeping his hands well to himself. Not thinking about the pale swath of flesh above the wide scooped neckline of her gown.

In short—very gentlemanly. Because she was, indeed, a wee, fey, innocent country mousie, and not the arch, knowing creature he had wished her to be.

Nor, it seemed, she wished to be. “I am sorry to be such a wet hen. I fear my lack of social experience is rather gauche.” She sighed again, the sound laced with equal parts frustration and embarrassment. “I don’t suppose you’d care to add lessons in dancing to your lessons in kissing?”

Ye gods, yes.

Hamish had to close his eyes against the anticipatory rush of pleasure her words set loose inside him—experienced she might not be, but spirited, she certainly was. “My dear Elspeth, I will give you lessons in anything you like.”

And to prove it to her, and because he was an unsteady, rash, ramshackle third son who most often did as he liked, he kissed her.

He kissed her with all the impatience that had brewed in his gut since the moment his lips had touched her cheek that afternoon. He kissed her with all the pent-up joy and passion and hope and attraction roiling within him. He kissed her because he was a lad and she was a lass, and she was sweet and willing and eager for exactly what he wanted—more.

More of the sweet taste of her. More of the smooth touch of her skin. More of the heavenly bliss that obliterated every other thought.

At his impetuous touch, she froze, her arms held wide and her eyes open even wider. But she tasted sweet, and she felt alive, and she did not push him away.

So he gentled his approach, murmuring easy words of pleasure. “Elspeth. So soft. So sweet.” Enticing without overwhelming. Inviting her to kiss him back. Asking her gently, carefully, giving her time to accustom herself.

And slowly, surely, breath by longer breath, she began to soften, thawing by degrees until her lids fluttered shut, and she melted against his chest. “Oh, aye.”

She tasted like apples and clean fresh water. She tasted like ease and simplicity and everything perfect and right. She tasted like a summer evening’s soft breeze and a night full of dancing stars. And she was holding on to him—her hands fisted in the lapels of his coat—just as tenaciously as he was holding on to her, that he didn’t care about innocence or experience. He only cared about deepening the kiss. About tracing the lush curve of her back, and wrapping his arm around her waist to pull her flush into his chest. About cupping the back of her head to angle her jaw just enough to deepen the kiss and sweep his tongue into her mouth to slake his thirst for the tart taste of her.

“I knew it,” he breathed as he moved to kiss the sensitive tendon at the sweet slide of her neck. “I knew the lass who had written those words and thought those thoughts would kiss like a dream. I knew under that guarded, innocent exterior would beat the wild, daring heart of a poet. I knew.”

He brought his mouth back to her soft lips, already missing her, already hungry for another taste of her lips, another drink of her shyly questing tongue. Wanting to discover just what it was that made him hold her like he never meant to let her go.

And not even that particularly dangerous thought could keep him from sliding his fingers into her artfully arranged hair, disrupting pins that pattered like raindrops onto the path as he let the smooth strands slide through his hands. “Elspeth.” Her name was like a gift he gave himself, an incantation that transported him to places unknown. Places of lush wonder and graceful, careless ease—a garden of “Elspeth”.

“Hamish?” Her answering whisper was filled with wonder and a little bewilderment, as if she had not yet decided if this were really happening. If they really were kissing like experienced lovers trysting in the dark of the garden.

They were.

He drew her hard against his chest, wishing she were wearing less, cursing that he was wearing more. He wanted to peel off his cravat and waistcoat, and tear off his linen shirt so he could feel the febrile heat of her body flush against his skin, and taste more than just the flesh of her lips.

He skated his mouth down the long slide of her swanlike neck to the hollow of her collarbone, and she tipped her head away, tacitly granting him access. His hands followed where his lips led, rounding over her shoulders, pushing aside the whispering silk of her sleeves, brushing aside the fall of lace that edged her bodice.

The lovely curve of her breasts filled his palm, and he wanted more, wanted to feel the weight of her in his hands. Wanted to see and taste the pink tips hidden beneath soft chemise and tight-laced stays.

He put his mouth to her sweet, satin-smooth skin just above the upper edge of her chemise, and she gasped with the same wonder and delight and joy that he felt to be with her, and alone. His own body responded to hers in the most primitive, savagely pleasurable way, and it was everything he could do to keep himself from backing her against the ivy-covered wall. To keep himself from taking down the rest of her bodice, and hiking up her skirts to give them both a greater taste of paradise.

But he could not.

Because she was not only sweet Elspeth Otis, the adored niece of Lady Augusta Ivers, and deserved better, but he was Mr. Hamish Cathcart, of a long and mostly-noble lineage and a moral code of his own. One he meant to keep.

Chapter 13

“Darling Elspeth, we have to stop.” Hamish’s lips pressed against her forehead in gentle warning. “Before I give in to the unholy urge to take you against the bloody wall.”

His words only half-penetrated the fog of pleasure permeating Elspeth’s brain. But when he disentangled himself from her arms, and set her as far away as the low privet hedge bordering the path would allow, Elspeth began to understand—she could hear his breath sawing in and out of his chest.

Her own breath was just as unruly—she was as winded as if she had run all the way round the orchard. Twice. But his kisses were well worth the trip—her lips still throbbed and her cheeks still tingled with the sensation of his rougher skin against hers.