A Scot to the Heart (Desperately Seeking Duke #2) - Caroline Linden Page 0,114
my dear. I know you have thoughts on this matter, and I trust you to do right with it.”
She couldn’t think of that now. “Are you going to harm yourself, Papa?”
He flinched. “No. No! Never think that. If I meant to do that, I never would have seen you today.” Mr. Lorde shifted and coughed, but Papa shot an irked look at him. “Quiet, Lorde. I’ll tell her if I want to. I’m taking passage on a ship bound for America. They call it the New World, and I shall be a new man there, no longer William Fletcher but . . . someone else. Someone better, God willing.”
There were no tears left in her. Ilsa gazed vacantly at the papers he put in front of her, dimly heard his assurances that Lorde had everything worked out and would help her, and only roused when Papa rose.
This was farewell, she realized. Forever. She flung herself into his arms and thought her heart would burst at the thought of never embracing him again, never hearing his welcoming cry, never seeing his irrepressible wink and nod again.
“How will you dance at my wedding?” she said against his chest. “How will you spoil my children?”
His hands were gentle on her hair. “There, love,” he said tenderly. “I’ll kiss you now for your wedding.” He pressed his lips to her forehead, then raised his gaze to Drew. “Take care of her, lad.”
Ilsa ignored that. She gripped her father’s jacket and shook him. “When do you sail? Let me come say good-bye.”
“No, child—”
“If you want my cooperation with this lunatic scheme, you’ll grant me this,” she said fiercely.
His mouth twitched, in that half-irritated, half-amused way he had. “All right,” he agreed, and kissed her once more. “Tomorrow night on the tide. The Carolina, bound for New York from Port Glasgow.”
“And you have funds?”
Finally he smiled. “Aye. Lorde has divested all my shares with Mr. Cunninghame, which you so despised. I’ve enough for a new start.”
Lorde showed them out a back way, in case anyone had remarked their entrance. “He can’t have planned this in the last few days,” Ilsa said to the solicitor. “How long has he been readying this plot?”
“Several weeks, ma’am.” His eyes were sympathetic. “Not to this extent, but he told me to sell the Cunninghame shares months ago and to retain the funds here in Glasgow instead of forwarding them. I believe he was even then guarding against the possibility of something like this.”
She nodded and they left.
“Where do you want to go?” asked Drew in the street.
Dazed and overwhelmed, Ilsa looked up at him, squinting against the sunlight. He’d let his beard grow and his hair was definitely curling now under his bonnet. Booted feet braced apart, arms folded over the plaid that crossed his chest, he looked more Highland outlaw than English duke.
“Can we walk?” she asked wistfully. “I miss our long walks on Calton Hill—I wish Robert were here—”
She missed her old life, the one where she painted her ceiling and danced all night and flirted with a handsome soldier and kissed him and fell in love with him. How charmed and easy it looked now.
He understood; without a word Drew offered his arm and they turned north to the garden grounds.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The next day they rode eighteen miles down the River Clyde to Port Glasgow. Drew saw Ilsa’s eyes scanning the streets of the town—looking for her father, he thought. She’d been quiet since they’d parted from him yesterday, and he wanted to give her space to accept her father’s actions.
They took a room in a clean little inn near the church. The town was a heaving mass of activity: wagons ferrying cargo to and from Glasgow, sailors and merchants on the docks and in the coffeehouses, children and servants darting through the narrow streets. The harbors bristled with ships’ masts, the wide expanse of the Clyde sparkling behind them.
It was a simple matter to discover the Carolina. She was a large ship rocking at anchor near the mouth of the harbor. The shipping agent pointed out where passengers were to board the launch to the boat, leaving them nothing to do but wait.
For hours there was no sign of him. The sun was setting, and sailors had begun ferrying people out to the Carolina. Drew was beginning to wonder if Fletcher had lied to Ilsa about his plans, unwilling to face another emotional confrontation, when a figure strode around the corner of the customhouse with a