A Scot to the Heart (Desperately Seeking Duke #2) - Caroline Linden Page 0,23

and alive with wonder as he stared at her. It had been the act of a moment’s impulse when she kissed him.

Oh, if only she’d known.

“It was at Mr. MacGill’s offices,” she said, instead of any of that. “When he turned me out in order to see you.”

His face froze in chagrin. “Ah. I was rather hoping you didn’t recognize me from that unfortunate encounter. I never expected him to do it. I told MacGill he was wrong and he should never do it again.”

“Hmm,” she said thoughtfully.

“I am sorry for it,” the captain added.

That was more than David MacGill had ever said to her. She gave him a gracious smile. “That is very kind of you, Captain. Of course I do not blame you for the actions of another.”

The corner of his mouth rose. “Thank you.”

All right. She smoothed her skirts. It was no trouble to turn the full force of her disdain and indignation upon the attorney.

She was much more inclined to like the captain anyway.

Agnes clattered back down the stairs, ready to go. She bade her brother farewell, and Ilsa followed her to the street without another glance at the intriguing captain.

“Who is the duchess?” she asked as they walked.

Agnes looked around, almost furtively. “The Duchess of Carlyle. The duke is our distant cousin—so distant he’s never spoken to any of us. Our grandfather was a duke’s younger brother, not that it stopped the family from banishing him like a leper and ignoring us all our lives. But Drew is, somehow, shockingly, the next heir to the dukedom, it seems.”

Ilsa stopped dead and stared at her, dumbfounded. A duke! An English duke. But of course—that made sense of his visit to Mr. MacGill’s office, looking as expensively trussed up as one of King George’s many sons. And she’d caught the name Carlyle, too, when Mr. Leish rushed in to evict her.

But it did not fit with the exuberant Scot who’d whirled her around an oyster cellar and kissed her so hungrily. She wondered which was the true man, and then told herself it didn’t matter. He planned to remove to England; a duke was far too grand for the likes of her anyway. Andrew St. James was fated to be nothing more than a passing acquaintance.

She forced her feet onward again and tried not to feel as though a tiny flame had just been snuffed out inside her breast. There was no reason at all to have dreamt of anything beyond that one thrilling dance—and kiss. It had nothing to do with the Scottish captain turning out to be a future English duke.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Agnes was saying in the same hushed voice. “It doesn’t seem real to me, it doesn’t! And I don’t want to move to England, and no, it’s not because of anyone in Edinburgh.”

For once Ilsa didn’t tease her friend about the handsome solicitor who always seemed to be in their favorite coffeehouse, ever ready to fetch them a plate of warm currant buns.

“I would miss you terribly,” she told Agnes, linking their arms. “You’re very welcome to stay with me. Perhaps that’s the answer! Surely your brother would be far too busy in his new duties to notice either your presence or your absence.”

“Precisely. I’m sure I don’t need to go with him, and what’s more, I won’t.”

Ilsa squeezed her hand fondly, but in her heart she knew Agnes might not remain so sure. If her mother and sisters went with her brother, it would be very hard for Agnes to stay behind, even if Ilsa threw open her door and invited her to stay permanently in the yellow bedroom across the landing from her own.

She sighed at the thought. In just the last few days she had become very happily accustomed to Agnes’s company at home. She had someone to talk to besides Aunt Jean—someone who shared her interests and humor. Agnes came with her to lectures and the bookseller’s and the coffeehouse; if Mrs. St. James didn’t disapprove, she would even come along to the oyster cellars.

Ilsa was making other friends, but none were like Agnes. If she left for England, it would make Edinburgh a quieter, lonelier place.

And suddenly her opinion of the captain felt a bit colder, that he would take away her dearest friend.

Chapter Six

That night he danced with Ilsa Ramsay again.

She wore red, her bodice cut low over her perfectly plump breasts. Her coal-dark hair streamed around her shoulders as he lifted and spun her around