A Scot to the Heart (Desperately Seeking Duke #2) - Caroline Linden Page 0,20

caught on the windows above him. They glowed with light, unobscured by any drapes, and a woman was silhouetted at one side, a book in her hands.

Drew stopped. He backed up for a better view. Agnes came to join her, and the woman turned away. He wondered if she’d seen him.

The one thing he did not wonder about was her identity. Ilsa Ramsay was unquestionably the woman who had kissed him last night.

Chapter Five

Armed with a name, he had much better luck finding out about his mystery woman.

“Ilsa Ramsay? Aye,” said Duncan over pints in a tavern. “An eligible widow. Her father is Deacon of the Wrights, and her husband was a banker—poor bastard.”

“Why?”

“Got himself killed. He was a hotheaded sort and got into a quarrel with an Englishman and they ended up dueling over it. Shot Ramsay through the heart.” Duncan shrugged. “There was a trial and the man was acquitted.”

Drew drank in silence. A banker’s widow. “When was that?”

Duncan thought for a moment. “A year ago, more or less.” He peered over his beer. “Why?”

There was no reason not to tell Duncan that he’d been struck by her in the oyster cellar, nor that he’d seen her at MacGill’s office. Instead Drew said, “She’s friendly with my sister and invited her to stay during my visit to Edinburgh. My mother thought I would stay with the family, and there’s not an empty bed.”

Duncan shuddered. “Live with one’s family! Nay, not for all the royal jewels of England.” He paused, then asked casually, “Which sister?”

“Agnes. I think my mother doesn’t like it, but she’s allowed Agnes to go.”

A faint smile crossed his friend’s face. “Nay, I imagine not.”

“Why not?”

“You know why,” said his friend. “Probably the same reason you couldn’t take your eyes off her that night at the oyster cellar.”

Drew choked on his beer. “Oh?” he croaked. “Is that she?”

“Aye.” Duncan was smirking. “Thought certain you’d’ve found that out by now, the way you were staring . . . So this was all brotherly concern?”

“Of course. What else?” He raised one hand at the publican for more beer, to avoid that smirk.

Now his friend laughed at him. “Mrs. Ramsay’s above your touch—one of these modern Scottish lasses, she is, independent and rich enough not to need a husband. Although . . .” His blue eyes glinted with mischief. “It must be said, no other lad in Edinburgh has a dukedom to dangle in front of the woman.”

Drew replied with a good-natured curse; Duncan replied in kind, and they fell into a mutually amused silence.

A modern lass, Duncan called her. By that he meant a vivacious, spirited woman of wit and intelligence—precisely what Drew had seen the other night. No wonder Agnes liked her.

And it only intrigued him more.

Ilsa heard the door but was still startled when Agnes burst into the drawing room. “Would you like to come to tea?” asked her friend breathlessly. “With my family.”

Slowly Ilsa closed her book. She had just reached the portion about Christopher Columbus, who found the ports of the Mediterranean “too narrow for his active mind,” with which she sympathized. Not that she wouldn’t welcome a chance to explore even the Mediterranean, it being far wider than the bounds of Edinburgh. “Now?”

Agnes nodded.

She had been to tea once before, and it hadn’t gone beautifully. Ilsa was sure, in hindsight, that she’d shocked Mrs. St. James, and not in a good way. She wasn’t sure which had been the worst sin: leaving off mourning for Malcolm after six months, or missing church to go golfing. She had never been invited back, and frankly had thought she never would be.

But that restless feeling hadn’t gone away, and even Robert had deserted her on their morning ramble today. She closed her book and rose. “That sounds lovely. How kind of your mother to think of me.”

Agnes grinned. “Let’s go!”

Not until they were almost to the St. James house did Agnes reveal why she was so keen for Ilsa to come along. “My brother will be there. He told Winnie and Bella he brought gifts, and they pestered him to bring them today.”

Ilsa glanced at Agnes. So that was it; she was to be a buffer. From what Agnes had said after dinner the other night, Saint Andrew had been stern and depressing. “How likely is this brother of yours to have chosen good gifts?” she asked lightly. “One does so hate to get excited for a length of beautiful silk or a romantic new novel,