A Scot to the Heart (Desperately Seeking Duke #2) - Caroline Linden Page 0,47
go up in a balloon?” she asked, to divert the conversation.
“I’m not sure,” he said with a soft huff of laughter. “It seems a risky business, that. I’d want to know it wouldn’t crash, or catch fire and then crash like that French fellow trying to cross the Channel.” He shook his head. “No flight is thrilling enough to warrant a fiery plunge to earth.”
“No,” Ilsa agreed. “Although that plunge . . . Before the impact it would be thrilling.”
“When I have savored every other pleasure in life and want nothing more than that thrill, with no regard for the abrupt ending, I will attempt it,” he replied dryly, making her laugh.
“What adventures did you dream of?” she asked on impulse. “Now that you have discovered my wild, lunatic wishes.”
He was silent for a moment. “I used to yearn for the sea. I would imagine spending a life on the waves, traveling around the world with only the stars as guide and reference. Sometimes we would go out on Moray Firth and see a pod of dolphins leaping and spinning as merrily as a pack of wolfhound puppies and I would envy their freedom.”
“How splendid that must have been,” she said fervently.
“They were remarkable. And I used to wonder what sights they had seen, able to navigate the oceans with only the boundless heavens above them.” His mouth quirked. “Beaches. Beaches are what they saw. Hurricanes and ships and beaches. They were bound to the water and could never see the amazing things on land.”
“You are a realist,” she said, and this time he laughed.
“And thus a cruel disappointment to you, I can tell.”
Ilsa smiled bittersweetly. He most certainly was not, not to her. “My father never cared for ships,” she said aloud. “He preferred to travel by coach, the finer the better. I’ve never been to sea.”
“Well, neither have I. Marched from one end of Scotland to the arse end of England and back, but never sent aboard ship.” He sounded wistful about that.
Ilsa turned toward him, resting her back against the stone. “You won’t have to march anywhere anymore.”
“And very thankful I am for it.” He winked, his mouth still soft and amused.
“You’ll have this house,” she added. “An even finer benefit.”
“After the army, any house with a sturdy roof, a sound chimney, and a warm bed is unspeakable luxury. Any ordinary farmhouse would suffice.”
And instead he would have this exquisite gem of a house, finely furnished and beautifully situated, as well as a castle in England. He would never have to settle for anything ordinary again once he became duke, and she told him so.
For a long moment he didn’t answer. “I still find it hard to believe,” he finally said, very quietly. “’Tis good fortune that most people only dream of—you said that to me, aye? But I never dreamt of it. My dreams were far more ordinary and humble. A safe and comfortable home for my mother. Happy marriages for my sisters. Not to lose any limbs to some colonel’s idiocy in the army. And someday, perhaps, a wife and family of my own to cherish.”
Her heart was throbbing at his reply. “That last is not so ordinary,” she whispered. “Certainly rarer than you might think.”
He shifted, his shoulder brushing hers. “Well, I did admit it was only a dream.”
“But now quite within your reach. Having realized the maddest dream of many—to be discovered as the long-lost heir to a great title and fortune—I assure you a wife will be far easier to come by.” Ladies would line up to apply for the position, even before they saw that roguish twinkle in his eye and heard the low rumble of his voice humming with laughter.
He exhaled slowly. “So they tell me. But I feel . . . for myself . . . that I would wish a wife who didn’t accept me because of that great title and fortune.”
Oh, her heart. “You must favor contrary women, then.”
“Aye,” he breathed. His thumb brushed a loose wisp of hair back from her face. “I do.”
Ilsa made herself laugh. “Just as I fancy leaping from this tower! Madness.”
He stepped up behind her, his hands steadying at her waist as she leaned over the rampart again. “For dreaming of soaring above the earth—nay, who would think that mad? Like you, I feel certain someday someone will work out how to do it, and then who will look mad?”
Her laughter faded. Jean or Papa or Malcolm would have scolded her