“Miss Otis.” He smiled and tipped his hat, casual and friendly, and confident of his welcome. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Fancy.” If he could be so composed and casual, so could she. “How did you find me?”

“Lady Ivers set my course.” He gave her that roguishly self-deprecating grin. “And once I found the village, it’s not particularly large. And your neighbors”—he nodded back down the lane where two women pretended not to be straining to hear their conversation from their own listing gates—“were very forthcoming.”

“What does he want, Elspeth?” Aunt Molly had joined Isla in the garden, from whence they peered over the wall, their noses practically twitching like march hares. “Tell him to go away!”

“Yes, Auntie.” Elspeth hardly knew where to look—at his lovely hands that had held her tight, or his eyes that crinkled at the corners with humor, or that smiling mouth that had once covered hers with bliss— “You’re to go away.”

“I heard.” He tipped his hat cordially toward the garden wall. “But I don’t think I shall. Not when I’ve come all this way to find you.” His voice got a little quieter. “You ran away.”

Elspeth felt her face flame so hot it was a wonder she didn’t go up in a puff of white smoke right in the middle of the lane, like some fairy tale witch. If only he would not look at her so—with that charming gleam at the corner of his eye, as if he were just waiting her word to lead her on a grand adventure.

The Aunts had been unfortunately right about her—she had a weakness, it seemed, for rogues.

“Aye.” It only seemed fair to give him the truth. “I suppose I did. But my aunt was ill.”

He looked over at the Aunts, bristling with hostility and rude health. “Seems quite recovered.”

“Aye.”

“So why haven’t you come back?”

She shrugged, as if she didn’t know the answer. As if it wasn’t a question she had already been asking herself, over and over once it was clear her Aunt Isla was, indeed, going to recover. The familiar mortified heat suffused her face. “I didn’t belong there, Mr. Cathcart. I was…out of my depth.”

“Out of your depth? Elspeth Otis.” His voice was as teasing as it was chiding. “I think you hadn’t even begun to plumb your own depths.”

A different sort of heat swept down her throat, and headed for those lower depths. “Wheesht!” She cast a worried glance at the Aunts, who still had ears like barn cats.

“What does he say he wants, Elspeth?”

“He’s looking for work, Aunt. Gardening and the like.” It was the only thing she could think of at a moment’s notice that might be plausible—as long as the Aunts didn’t take too close a look at Mr. Cathcart’s ink-smudged hands.

“Aye, mistress,” Hamish raised his voice and answered for himself, cheerfully tipping his hat again to the ladies of the house. “Looking for a bit of honest work.”

“Don’t have any work for vagrants.” Aunt Mollie’s tone was firm.

“You’d know best, mistress,” he answered, all charming Scots fealty. “Tho’ a mon can’t help notice ye’ve a powerful lot o’ repairs that need doin' to the place—that eave looks dicey, and ye stand in certain need o’ new thatch. I could have the whole of it patched and as snug as a sealskin within an afternoon. And take a good pruning to that runaway rosebush, as well.”

The Aunts turned as one to look at the rose that looked as if it were making a meal of the rickety arbor. Somehow, he had managed to hit upon a topic guaranteed to play to her Aunts’ pride—they had always taken great care in the upkeep of their cottage and garden, but as the years had gone on, and their vigor had been sapped, and their finances had slowly dwindled, things couldn’t be as meticulously maintained as before.

But the idea that he—this earl’s son from Edinburgh—would actually do such work was comical. “Laying it on a bit thick, aren’t you? You can’t possibly know anything about thatch.”

“Can’t I?” His smile didn’t falter.

And it made her acutely uncomfortable. Because she liked it. She wanted to curl up in its warmth like a cat in a sunbeam. “What do you really want, Mr. Cathcart?”

“Hamish,” he insisted. “I thought we were friends.”

Friends didn’t kiss as if they were going up in flames in dark gardens.

 But perhaps she was the only one who remembered that incendiary kiss—Cathcart had more practical considerations upon his mind. “And associates. I’ve typeset the first few chapters, and brought them so you could see.” He pulled his coat back enough to reveal a packet of printed sheets stuffed beneath his waistcoat. “And as your publisher, I have also come to pay you. Two hundred and fifty pounds. You left before we could settle things in a satisfactory manner.”

She had, hadn’t she? She had run home like the scared little field mouse she was, hiding herself in her country burrow. But he had followed her. How flattering. And troublesome.

Elspeth craned her neck to look over her shoulder at the ever-attentive aunts. “We can’t discuss this here.”

His smile widened, spreading that mischief around. “Well then, Miss Otis.” His voice was warm with wicked amusement. “I’ll assume you have a better, more private, place in mind.”

Chapter 15

“Michty me!” She blushed to the roots of her hair, a lovely shade of apricot. Like jam. Sweet and tart all at the same time.

Hamish knew he oughtn’t let himself smile, but he was inordinately happy to have so easily found her. Happy to be watching her blush. Happy he had the power to make her blush with his teasing.

 “Elspeth? What’s he saying?”

“We’re negotiating the price, mistress.” Hamish raised his voice to carry to the cottage so the ladies didn’t have to cup their hands around their ears. “She’s a hard bargainer, your niece. Powerful hard. She’s making this difficult for me.”

She kept her voice low so the ladies of the house might not hear. “Difficult? Nothing of the kind. You’ve only to take yourself right back to Edinburgh, where you belong. I’ll send—”

He cut off her contingencies. “Oh, I don’t intend to leave. At least not without you.”

She stilled, one hand coming slowly to her throat, as if perhaps something he was saying was finally getting through to her. But then she shook it off. “I’m needed here.”

“You’re needed in Edinburgh, too. Or John Otis is, but since you are, for my purposes, him, it will have to be you.” He cast a glance at the two old crows perched at the wall. “Do they know?”

“About the books? Heaven forbid.”

“If you’re afraid to do it, I don’t mind telling them.”

“Wheesht, Hamish.” She grabbed his arm, as if she might physically stop him. “I’ll never tell.”

“Elspeth? Elspeth, what is he saying?”

She turned to the ladies. “He’s saying he’ll do the thatch for a sovereign and a bowl of soup.”

“Are ye trying to swick me?” He had to laugh at her audacity. “That’s ridiculously low.”

“Of course it is, Hamish. Of course. I’m trying to give you the perfect reason to refuse, since you can’t possibly be anxious to thatch a roof.”

“Actually, I am. Anxious to stay. Anxious to convince you. Anxious to find out all I can about you to use to my advantage.” He was not surprised to find that he would do just about anything to remain near her, even manual labor.

“You’re mad—right off your big numpty head.” She gaped at him. “You’re the son of an earl! You can’t possibly be prepared to climb upon that wretchedly steep roof!”

“Don’t fash yourself on my behalf, lass. I’m not so daft as to promise something I can’t deliver.” He would enlist the outdoor staff from Cathcart Lodge, his father’s hunting box, just up the road, if need be. “I’ll start with that trellis.”

She shook her head, clearly flabbergasted at his ass-like stubbornness, and waved him on to the cottage. “Have it your way. But mind you don’t ruin your coat.”

***

He did not see Elspeth again until evening when she finally reappeared looking harried and worn, as if the carrion crows of the cottage had spent the intervening hours pecking away at her. But she was bearing the promised bowl of steaming soup.

And he was famished. Who knew manual labor could be so invigorating? “Good evening, Miss Otis,” He lifted his battered hat, though his sleeve was caught up in the rosebush’s thorns. “I would offer you my arm, but this rosebush has insisted upon my escort until at least midnight.”

He was rewarded by one of her quiet, small smiles, and he realized that she was tired—she had been working at least as hard as he. And she did it all day, every day, not just as a means to an end. This was her life—one of endless servitude. “Perhaps the rose is an enchanted fairy princess, who clings to keep you till midnight to break the awful spell and set her free.” Her voice sounded wistful.

“And is that how you see yourself, the orphaned fairy princess forced to work for her crust of bread from her cruel aunts, laboring, fetching and carrying all the day through?”

“Goodness, nay.” She shook her head and gave him a guarded smile, dismissing such an unflattering characterization. “Not a’tall. They are not cruel in the least—they are everything kind and forbearing, and have brought me up and given me a home.”

“And you take care of them in return.” He would not argue with her version of events. “But what is to happen to you when they are gone—are you to live here all alone?”

The guarded warmth ebbed from her eyes. “I had not thought on it.”

It was a lie, but not one he would task her with. It was enough at the moment simply to make her think. And perhaps feel. “I feel certain that your aunt, Lady Ivers, would want you to come back to her in Edinburgh. In fact, she charged me with telling you so, should I find you.”

 “So you spoke to Lady Ivers, did you?”