“Elspeth,” Aunt Molly chided. “What has come over you? It isn’t like you to miss something as important as divine services.”

“I am sorry.” There was really nothing else Elspeth could say.

But she would not regret her morning. She would not allow any remonstration to dim her memory of her last few hours with him. What a lovely going away present those last golden hours had been.

“I’ll just get the breakfast eggs started on the boil.” She unloosed the strap of the creel from around her neck and headed for the kitchen.

Aunt Molly stepped into the doorway, blocking her way. “Where did you get that creel?” She turned toward the garden, almost as if she could see through the worn bricks and boards to the dusty collection of auld fishing gear in the shed. “It’s been years since we’ve had any new fishing equipment here.”

“No.” Elspeth swallowed the dry apprehension in her mouth, but gave them the honest truth. “I borrowed it from Mr. Cathcart.”

“Who?” Isla cupped her hand to her ear and then looked to Molly, as if for translation.

“Mr. Cathcart,” Elspeth repeated, even as she could feel the telltale heat creep up her neck.

“Mr. Cathcart? From up at Cathcart Lodge?” Isla was still confused. “I didn’t know there was anyone in residence. However did you meet him?”

But Aunt Molly had not been born yesterday, nor even the day after. “Elspeth Otis.” She looked at Elspeth over the top of her spectacles. “Your neck is going all pink.” She had always been able to detect even the flimsiest fib when Elspeth had been a child.

“I met Mr. Cathcart in Edinburgh,” she admitted.

“Edinburgh?” Aunt Molly still did not comprehend. “But how did you get his creel?”

Elspeth gave up all prevarication. “Because he has come here, to Dove Cottage. Mr. Hamish Cathcart is the man who has been repairing our roof and pretending to be a gardener.”

“Pretending?”

“Yes, Aunt. Because he’s not really a gardener or a thatcher.” Because Elspeth was tired of pretending, too. “He’s a publisher of books. And he’s publishing my book, or rather my father’s book.” She corrected her presumption, but the subtle difference was lost upon the Aunts who stared at her as if she had finally run irretrievably mad.

It was Aunt Molly who finally spoke. “Nay.”

It was such a simple, little word, but it hit Elspeth with the force of twenty years of denial. Twenty years of holding back. Twenty years of being called, “Elspeth!” in that disparaging tone, of not being legitimate, of never being thought good enough.

“Aye. It’s my legacy from my father, my fortune, those books. And I refuse to listen to you disparage him. I won’t hear another word against him.”

“Nay,” Aunt Molly said again, as if she could deny Elspeth any such legacy. “There is nothing you need from such a man. Have we not given you everything you need? Have we not given you a home and made you feel welcome?”

“Nay.” It was Elspeth’s turn to deny the charge. “You have. But—”

“It’s that devil’s cub, Augusta Ivers, who’s turned your head, and turned you against us.”

“Nay. Aunt Augusta was everything kind and encouraging—”

“Encouraging you to consort with strange men!”

Elspeth prayed for patience. “Not consorting, Aunt. Contracting—working with him the same as any author.” If one kissed every author one contracted, and thatched their roof and fished for their breakfast in the morning sunshine.

“Have you lain with him?”

The blunt question felt more like an accusation. “Nay! How could you ask such a thing?”

Her voice was hot and tight and scratchy with the pain—the pain of knowing she was breaking their frail old hearts as well as her own.

“You’ve changed since you went away, Elspeth. We hardly know you anymore.”

She hardly knew herself anymore. Perhaps she never had.

But it was past time.

Something within Elspeth changed in that moment—something that refused to be cowed, refused to regret. “Perhaps I have.” She firmed her voice. “Perhaps I’m not afraid of changing. Perhaps I want to be transformed.”

She had wanted it, with all her soul.

“That huzzy encouraged you, no doubt.” Isla finally said her piece.

Hurt and anger banked for twenty years gave her a stronger voice. “Speak of me how you will—how you always have, as if I’m not good enough. But you leave Lady Augusta Ivers out of it. She has been nothing but kind and generous and thoughtful—”

“And I suppose we haven’t?” Aunt Molly’s voice was becoming shrill.

Elspeth tried to stay calm and modulate her own voice, even as she felt the heat of tears searing her eyes. “That’s not what I said.”

“You’ve said quite enough, Elspeth Otis.” Aunt Molly’s tone was emphatic and dismissive. “Quite enough.”

“Blood will out, I’ve always said,” Isla added.

“Aye,” Molly sniffed. “And I’m afraid to say it’s true.”

There was nothing more Elspeth could say. Nothing more that she wouldn’t regret.

Blood would out, they said. Well, perhaps it was time to make it so.

Chapter 19

Elspeth ran.

Her feet seemed to know what to do better than her heart—this time she ran toward him.

She headed back the way she had just come, racing through the orchard, instinctively heading for the lodge, and Hamish.

And there he was coming through the gnarled apple trees. “I was just coming to say my goodbyes—”

She threw herself at him, looping her arms around his neck in the most forward manner. But she couldn’t seem to help herself. She needed the support of his arms immediately coming round her back to hold her close. She wanted the comfort of his surprised murmur. “What’s all this?”

“I’ve done it.” She mustered her wits, and pulled herself out of his arms. “I’ve gone over the hedge.”

“Which hedge?”

“My aunts’ hedge. I’ve told them all. I’ve told them that I wrote the book, and that you are publishing it, and that I’m going to go to Edinburgh with you and that I love you.”

The words came as no less of a shock to Elspeth than to Hamish. She had not said such a thing to her Aunts, but now that she had made the declaration, she knew it for the truth, and did not wish it unsaid.

“Elspeth.” He met her admission with a kiss that soothed every agitation, and was a balm to every concern. “My God, Elspeth.”

Everything else melted away but the persuasive pressure of his lips against hers, his arms holding her tight, his body pressed close and warm.

He turned his head, angling to get closer, to deepen the kiss. His hands cradled her face holding her as his tongue swept across the lips and into her mouth.

His kiss was everything he was—strong and confident and hedonistic and raw—and it made her want to be those things. To be as equal in this as in all other things.

She opened to him, to the sensations that fluttered back and forth from her lips to her chest and back. And then deeper into her belly, beating their wings in a frantic pace. She hugged herself closer to him, as if this would stop the frantic sensation. As if the hugs were an end and not a means to greater agitation. And greater pleasure.

His weight pressed her down into the soft fragrant grass. He was on her, around her, pulling him into his earth and heat and shelter. She held tight to his shirt front, anchoring herself to him. His chest pressed her hands between them, and she loosened her grip, only to find them flat against the solid shape of his torso. They began to roam of their own accord, up across his collar and along the breadth of his shoulders, out along the sculpted curve of his upper arms, down across the taut flat of his belly.

He made a sound that was equal parts frustration and encouragement, and he ducked his head to kiss and worry at the side of her neck, nosing and nipping until she turned her head to give him greater access.

She let her hands fist up his shirttails so she could slide her hands beneath the rough linen and set her palms flat against the heat of his skin.

He let out a fervent sound of near pain, and almost sprang back from her, kneeling above her to rip off the waistcoat and shirt and fling them away unseen. He closed his eyes when she put her hands back to his skin, and hissed a breath in through his teeth—a pleased rather than painful sound. She did it again, stroking across his smooth flesh, and he swore roughly under his breath, and collapsed down onto her, pinning her hands flat to his nipples with his weight.

He lay upon her for only a moment before he levered himself away and went at the laces of her sturdy quilted jumps as if he were untying a Christmas present all wrapped up to foil him. But no sooner were the laces done away with—flung to join his waistcoat on some lower branch—than he had loosed the drawstring of her shirt, and was pushing it away with the straps of her stays and chemise to bare her shoulders. Beneath the confines of the remaining layers, her breasts began to feel full and aching. One hand rounded to her back, and she arched toward him to give him access, her nipples contracting and rasping with painful pleasure against the starched muslin of her stays.

His mouth returned to hers, the rough, taut texture of his lips rubbing against hers, the whisky-laced tang of his tongue tangling with hers as he kissed and kissed and kissed her. She was kissing him back, returning his heated, open-mouthed kisses with all the fervor she had kept hidden under the tight lashing across her soul, while he ripped away the laces.

This was the mad pleasure she had tried to write about. This was the intoxicating rush of sensation that she had given expression in words put finally into glorious deed.

And then the stays were loosened, and falling away with her chemise, pulled down to reveal the tight furls of her breasts, aching and sensitive in the cool morning air. His hands closed over them carefully, caressing, worshiping. He dragged his thumbs across the peaks, and feeling and sound blossomed out of her—a gasp that matched the exquisite and unexpected bliss—and she pushed herself up into his hands, letting her head fall back, closing her eyes so she could only feel. Only feel him. And the pleasure that grew like a rose out of the thorns of her life.