A Scot to the Heart by Caroline Linden

The visit to Stormont Palace seemed to pass in the blink of an eye, to Drew’s surprise, even though it had stretched from a week to almost a fortnight.

There was no doubt that it had been a smashing success. He’d got around to all the tenants and farms, seeing for himself that they were well-run. He saw the mill and the little village around it, the distillery, the extensive dairy operation. He had copious notes for his report to Mr. Edwards, to make his argument for keeping the estate.

Bringing his family had been a stroke of brilliance. His mother was impressed by the property and the calm efficiency of the Watkinses. Agnes had a sparkle in her eye and color in her face, even when she spoke to Felix Duncan. Drew still wasn’t sure it had been a good idea to invite the man, but both seemed to thrive on their acerbic exchanges. He had always trusted that Bella and Winnie would be won over fairly easily, but they took to the grand old house with ebullient delight, from the maze race to telling stories in the vast, echoing cellars.

And the very best part of the trip: Ilsa Ramsay was there. She’d ridden out with him several mornings, making him laugh every time. To his regret, the first night was the only time they’d stood out on the roof together, but he’d kissed her in the maze, and twice on the ridge behind the mill during a morning ride. He felt like a boy, impatient to see her again whenever they were apart, euphoric every time he kissed her and she kissed him back, beset by vivid erotic dreams of her at night.

He had heard his mother’s caution and tried to keep it in mind, but what pulled him toward Ilsa was stronger. He didn’t know his intentions or her true feelings for him; he only knew that he liked her—very much.

With a surge of anticipation, he tapped softly at her door the night before they were to return to Edinburgh. It was late, the household having all gone to bed. He had waited until no light shone under any door, but that included Ilsa’s, and there was a chance she would be asleep—

The door opened a crack. Her eyes widened at the sight of him. “What are you doing?” she whispered.

For answer he held up a length of chain, the iron links clanking faintly.

Her eyes grew wide. “No . . .”

Drew grinned. At dinner Winnie had lamented not hearing so much as a ghostly wail. He leaned closer and whispered, “Come be naughty with me, and give my sisters the fright they so desperately crave.”

She inhaled. He felt the rush of breath across his cheek, almost like a kiss. Her hair fell over her shoulders in inky black waves, she wore a sleeveless nightdress that made him wish he’d brought a bigger lamp, and behind her, in the shadows of her room, was a bed . . .

“Where?”

“In the attics,” he murmured, still absorbed in the smell of her hair and the warmth of her skin. The chain clanked against his knee as he forgot about ghostly pranks and thought only about her—kissing her—being wild and wicked with her—

“Let me get my slippers,” she whispered, and then she turned her head and pressed her lips to his for a heart-stopping moment.

Something happened to him every time she kissed him. The closest thing like it he’d ever experienced was when lightning struck a tree near the fort as they were returning from patrol. Every man in the regiment had been knocked off his feet by the earsplitting crack, and all scrambled back up with pulses thumping, hair standing on end, feeling like they’d just won a sudden and terrific battle.

He sagged against the door as she slipped back into her room, and tried to calm his rioting senses. Do you like this woman? his mother had asked. Mam, I’m utterly fascinated with her, he silently replied.

Ilsa returned a moment later, tying the sash on her dressing gown. Drew heaved a silent sigh of mourning for her bare shoulders. “What do you intend to do?” she whispered as they crept down the corridor toward the heavy door that led to the attics.

It was so like his mother’s query that Drew gave a start, nearly dropping his lamp. He glanced at her, and almost fumbled the lamp again at the exhilaration in her face. If not for that dratted chain hitting his knee, he could easily believe this was a rendezvous, two lovers meeting in the dark of night because they couldn’t keep away from each other a moment longer.

Unsettled, he put one finger to his lips, and only when they had gained the staircase, with the door gently closed behind them—on hinges that were blessedly oiled into silence, thanks to Mrs. Watkins—did he speak.

“They want to hear a ghost,” he said quietly. “I thought I would . . . just . . .” He rattled the chain.

She folded her arms and tapped one finger to her chin. Standing two steps above him, her bosom was right at eye level, and Drew was mesmerized by the sight. Her dressing gown was fine lawn, like her nightdress, and he could swear he spied a dusky nipple—

“You’ll have to make more noise than that,” she said thoughtfully. “These old houses have thick walls and floors. Some stomping, I think, and dragging the chain on the floor.” She turned and darted up the stairs, into the stygian darkness, without so much as a backward look. Drew started out of his daze of arousal and hurried after her, holding the lamp higher.

“Oh my,” she breathed. He could barely make her out, even in her white garments. “It’s empty.” She turned to him, a wicked smile on her face. “We can make so much noise up here.”

As it turned out, the attics were not empty. No doubt thanks to Mrs. Watkins’s efficiency, trunks and crates were stacked neatly at the far end of the room. Ghostly figures turned out to be furniture draped in dust coverings. But that left a long run of open space where they could, indeed, make an unholy racket. Ilsa located a heavy padlock on a shorter length of chain, which made a satisfying thump against the wooden planks. Drew mentally mapped out the floor beneath, and paced off where he thought his sisters’ rooms were.

“Some wailing would be enormously helpful,” she whispered.

“Wailing?” He was still thinking about the way her dressing gown shifted over her breasts as she moved.

“Remember? The stairs to the roof,” she whispered. “You said it made a howl like a banshee when the door was left open.”

The roof, where he’d kissed her and she’d kissed him and things might have reached a truly spectacular level if Felix Duncan hadn’t been wandering about sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. “Right,” said Drew, his brain too fixated on that night and what might have been to make any other sensible reply.

“There’s a window here,” she went on. “Open it, and I’ll open the door when you’re ready to give Winnie her ghost, and then—”

“The wind will howl down the stairs,” he finished. It was a wild, raw night outside. The windows had been rattling since dinnertime. He set the lamp aside and managed to pry open the rusted latch and shove open the small window.

The breeze that rushed in was cold and damp and raised the hair on his arms. Ilsa leaned near it and breathed deeply. “It smells of the sea,” she whispered.

It smells of home, he thought. The briny tang of the North Sea was in the air, along with heather and peat. And there was a note of something else, something softer and warmer . . .

She leaned farther toward the window and inhaled. The soft warm scent tugged at him, and Drew realized that was her, her perfume, her skin, her hair. Unconsciously he leaned toward her, breathing deeply—

He stopped. Perhaps this had been a mistake. He’d thought it the perfect way to end the visit, this caper to make Winnie laugh and steal a few more minutes with Ilsa at the same time, and instead he’d fallen into a bottomless pool of desire. He wanted to kick the chains into the shadows and make love to Ilsa on the bare attic floor, never mind ghostly pranks.

“I’ll open the door at the bottom of the stairs,” he said to distract himself from that, but was unable to resist sneaking one more look at her as he turned away.

She stood in front of the window, her arms braced on the sides, face lifted in ecstasy to the night sky. Her hair and dressing gown billowed in the stiff breeze. She was the spirit haunting him and tormenting him, and Drew cursed at himself as he nearly fell headfirst down the dark stairs in his distraction.

“All in readiness,” he said when he rejoined her, having propped open the door with a stray bit of wood and got himself under better control.

Her face was pale and eager in the lamplight. “For Winnie’s sake, be terrifying.”

He led the way, clanking the chain and dragging his footsteps along the floor. Ilsa followed, dragging the padlock and periodically banging it on the floor. “We should moan,” she whispered at one point, and Drew had to stop and collect himself for a moment, until she let out a wail that sounded not like the passionate utterance his fevered brain had conjured, but more like a banshee foretelling death and suffering.

“That was you, aye?” he whispered over his shoulder.

“Of course! Who else?”

“I took a moment’s fright that we’d unleashed the spirits of the house in truth.”

She choked on a giggle, which made him smile, and then the two of them could barely carry out their spectral prank for laughing so hard.

Drew paused when he heard a door slam. It was impossible to hear voices over the keening breeze, but he tossed aside the chains and caught Ilsa’s hand, tugging her toward the stairs. At the last moment he blew out the lamp, and they huddled behind an armoire under Holland covers.

“Surely ’tis naught but a stray animal,” came Felix Duncan’s voice, along with the glow of a lamp. A moment later his head and shoulders appeared at the top of the stairs, and he took a sweeping look around. “I see nothing,” he reported over his shoulder.

“Go up, man, be bold,” cried another voice—Adam Monteith, who pushed past Duncan to jog up the stairs and pose there, fists on hips, feet spread. “Show yourself, foul spirits,” he boomed.

Beside him Ilsa was shaking with silent laughter. Unthinking, Drew put an arm around her, grinning, and then stilled as she pressed closer to his side.

Mam, I think I’m falling in love with her, he thought.

“Let me see!” Winnie hurried up, Bella close on her heels. They clutched each other but peered around eagerly. “Was anyone murdered up here? Is that why the ghost is in the attics?”

“No, you goose, spirits obviously need space to do their haunting,” was Bella’s retort.

To Drew’s surprise, his mother and Agnes appeared next. His sister looked skeptical, and his mother wore an expression that made him think she knew exactly what had gone on and found it amusing against her will. Looking distinctly grumpy and still half-asleep, Alex Kincaid brought up the rear, holding another lamp aloft.

“I see nothing,” said Duncan again. He yawned behind one hand. “No headless Highland chieftain, no lady who threw herself from the battlements in heartbreak. Not even the spirit of a badger who got trapped in the—Argh!”

As he spoke, Drew had silently tugged one of the Holland covers down over himself. Eyes shining with glee, Ilsa had pressed back into the shadows while Drew stepped forward, hunched over with his arms upraised. Everyone else was facing the opposite way, so when he lurched toward them and let out a long, low moan, it caused a moment of pandemonium.

Winnie and Bella gave earsplitting screams and scurried behind Monteith, who had quite lost his cocky expression. Kincaid cursed at full volume, now wide-awake. And Duncan jumped backward, almost dropping his lamp but still managing to throw out an arm to shield Agnes as she shot behind him and pressed against his back.

Only Louisa didn’t move, just stared him down with her arms folded and a knowing quirk to her brow. “Very amusing, Andrew.”

With a grimace, he cast off the sheet. “It was meant to be terrifying, Mother.”

His sisters erupted with outraged squawks. Bella flew at him and pummeled his arm. “What on earth, Drew?”

Laughing, he fended her off. “Ow! Stop, lass. You wished to see a ghost—”

“A real one,” cried Winnie with a stamp of her foot. “Not you!”

“We could make him a real one,” suggested Kincaid dryly. “For rousing us all from warm beds to shiver in the attics.”

“Tip him right out this window. He’ll make a ghostly wail as he plummets to the ground, for certain.” Monteith peered out the window before closing it.

“And you helped him, Ilsa?” asked Agnes. Interestingly, she had jerked away from Duncan and now stood on the opposite end of the group, her face pink even in the dim light of the lamps.

Her eyes downcast but biting her lip guiltily, Ilsa stepped forward and nodded.

“Oh,” cried Bella, interest warring with indignation in her voice. “Was it terribly thrilling?”

She gave another tiny nod. “We wanted you to have something to remember,” she said to Winnie.

His sister affected a pout, but Drew could see she was enjoying herself. “I suppose if there were any ghosts here, they’ve fled by now, having seen the lunatic who stands to inherit the place.”

“No doubt. With any luck they’ll follow him home and wreak vengeance on him for disturbing their peaceful home.” Monteith headed for the stairs. “My heart canna stand the excitement. I’m to bed—and plan to stay there until morning, unless you set the house afire next, St. James.”

“Aye.” Kincaid shot Drew a dark look. Drew merely smirked in reply.

“Well.” Louisa clapped her hands. “Now that we’re not needed to bring ease to a restless spirit, off to bed with the lot of you. We have a long journey tomorrow.”

Still protesting and laughing, Bella and Winnie went with her. Agnes waited for Ilsa, then walked down the stairs with her. Drew overheard her ask just whose mad idea it had been, but lost Ilsa’s reply.

It had been their idea, really, he thought. His was only the initial thought. Ilsa had embraced it, added to it, and brought relish and verve to the whole venture.

And left him more fascinated than ever.

“Showing Winnie a ghost, eh?” muttered Duncan, clattering down the stairs after him. Like the other men, he had clearly leapt from his bed and raced to the scene; his long linen shirt was on backward and his loose plaid was thrown haphazardly around him.

“What else?” Drew made sure the door was secured. After the cold breeze through the attics, it felt cozy and warm here.

Duncan raised one ginger brow. “You didn’t ask me, your bosom friend, to help.”

“Would you have?” Drew affected shock. “You’ve been out of temper since we arrived, sulking and sour-faced. I thought you couldn’t wait to return to Edinburgh. No, I never thought of you, ye feckless fool.”

His friend scoffed. Ahead of them Ilsa and Agnes were arm in arm, heads together as they walked back to their rooms. “You didn’t think of me because you were thinking of someone else.”

“Winnie,” said Drew stubbornly.

His friend laughed as he went back to his own chamber. “Keep telling yourself that, but don’t expect anyone else to believe it.”

A door closed, then another and another. He was left standing alone in the corridor, suddenly chilled. He cast a lingering glance toward Ilsa’s door. She hadn’t even said good-night.

He heaved a sigh as he let himself into his room and contemplated his lonely bed. He’d had her for half an hour, and would have to be content with that.