A Scot to the Heart by Caroline Linden

It took forever to get the easel in just the right position. The morning light was excellent, but the windows were narrow and admitted little of it. Opening the sashes helped, but the drapes still obscured the view, until she took them down.

And after all that effort, Ilsa Ramsay noted with chagrin, she was out of green paint.

Well. Perhaps the hills ought to be more violet than green, now that she thought about it.

Aunt Jean came into the room and stopped short. Ilsa preferred to think it was in appreciation of her painting skill, which had improved tremendously in the last few months. She daubed another burst of heather onto her painting of the distant Calton Hill, replicating the vista out the drawing room windows.

“Are the draperies in need of cleaning?” asked her aunt after a moment.

“No,” said Ilsa. “They were blocking the view.”

Jean picked up one corner of a drapery, lying in a heap on the sofa, and clucked over the loose threads where a ring had torn away. “And did they offend you, as well?”

“I didn’t tear them down, that ring was already loose.” Carefully she added tiny highlights of light blue to the heather. Yes; the hillside did look much better with some heather. Pity the real one couldn’t be so easily improved.

Jean dropped the drapery. “I suppose I’ll have to sew it back on.”

“You needn’t put yourself out. I didn’t mean to create work for you.” She tilted her head critically to survey her work. “I like the room brighter. Perhaps I’ll never rehang the draperies.”

“What? Anyone will be able to see right in!” Jean sounded appalled.

“Only if they climb a ladder propped against the front of the house, which would be notable even in Edinburgh.” Ilsa resisted the urge to roll her eyes. The building across the street was a small concert hall, with blank windows on this level.

Jean threw up her hands. “Ach! What goes through your head, child? Of course we need draperies!”

“We don’t, actually. They’ve been down for an hour and the house is still standing.”

Her aunt’s face puckered in frustration. “That’s not what I meant!”

“But isn’t it the important question? We don’t need draperies. We like them. They demonstrate how stylish we are to anyone who calls. But the panes are well-fitted and there are no draughts, and right now draperies only impede the fresh, clean breeze.” She carefully placed another tiny dot of blue on her painting. “I think it may be far more beneficial to our health not to have them.”

“There’s no arguing with you,” muttered her aunt.

Ilsa smiled in relief. “Thank you, Aunt, I am so pleased we are in agreement.”

“Hmph.” Jean folded her arms. “I never said that.”

“As long as we don’t argue about it, you are quite entitled to disagree with my every word.” She ran the brush around the bottom of the paint pot, then peered inside as if more green paint might spontaneously appear.

“You know, Ilsa, not everyone would be so tolerant of your whims,” warned her aunt, reopening a line of contention that had plagued them many times before. “No gentleman would put up with—”

“Yes!” Ilsa got to her feet and began unbuttoning her smock. “No gentlemen. That is a most excellent rule.”

Jean puffed up in offense. “Such a broad condemnation! ’Tis unfair of you.”

Ilsa laughed. “I’ve not condemned men! Only gentlemen. I adore my papa and Robert.”

Jean put one hand to her brow wearily. “Robert is not a man.”

“Nor is he a gentleman, which makes him perfect.” Ilsa hung her smock on the sconce by the fireplace.

The drawing room door opened. “Oh my, you’ve got rid of the drapes,” exclaimed Agnes St. James.

“No,” said Jean firmly, taking down the smock.

“Yes! What do you think?” asked Ilsa.

Her friend surveyed the bare windows, which appeared much larger without the heavy damask draperies surrounding them. There was a fine view, off to the left, of the distant hill over the rooftops. “It’s much brighter without them.”

“It is. I like it.”

Agnes’s approval soothed the faint rumble in Ilsa’s conscience. Agnes would say something if it were entirely disreputable not to have draperies at her windows. Ilsa didn’t see how it could be, but she’d come to distrust Jean’s opinion on anything regarding propriety. Agnes was at least a neutral judge.

“Robert is pestering the butler,” her friend told her. “He sent me to inform you.”

Ilsa grinned. “You mean, he sent you to scold me about neglecting Robert. He must be fretting for his ramble in the park, poor dear.”

“Poor,” said Jean disapprovingly under her breath.

“I would have taken him myself if Mr. MacLeod had not told me you were up,” Agnes went on. “I didn’t expect to see you so early. You came in rather late.”

She smiled in memory of last evening’s fun. “I wish you could have come with me.”

Agnes laughed. “My mother would never approve of me going to Mr. Hunter’s! I would be marched right home to a blistering scold.”

“We can’t have that,” said Ilsa in sympathy. “I hated to leave you alone, but I’d given my word to Miss White.”

Agnes waved it off. “I’m glad you went. Was it wonderful?”

Ilsa thought of the tall, handsome fellow who had embraced her so protectively. “It was marvelous.”

“Staying out until all hours isn’t dignified,” said Jean sternly. “Miss St. James has the right idea. Stay home and stay out of trouble.”

Ilsa shared a glance with her friend. Agnes would have loved to be in that oyster cellar beside Ilsa, dancing and drinking punch and enjoying herself.

But Agnes’s mother thought oyster cellars were no place for unmarried girls—even though plenty of ladies went these days. It had been her condition for allowing Agnes to come stay with Ilsa: she must follow all the rules of behavior that she was held to at home. Agnes had been so keen to come, and Ilsa so keen to have her, both had agreed.

“It is the right idea to stay out of trouble,” said Agnes demurely. “Which is why I must go if you are able to see to Robert. My mother will be expecting me in the shop.”

“Indeed, I shall be entirely proper all day, visiting my solicitor and taking tea with Papa,” Ilsa told her.

“That is excellent,” exclaimed Jean approvingly. “I knew you would be a steadying influence on her, dear Miss St. James.”

“Thank you, Miss Fletcher,” replied Agnes, choosing not to contradict this provocative statement. Well, Jean was not her aunt; Agnes did not need to argue with her over this or anything. Ilsa said nothing.

Jean eyed the crumpled draperies. “Now that these are down, they might as well be cleaned. I’ll send the maid in to get them.”

“Of course.” Ilsa had learned to accept an olive branch when one was offered.

When her aunt had gone, she tossed aside the cap from her head. She only wore it to prevent paint getting in her hair, no matter how Jean scolded her that a widowed lady ought to wear it all the time. “Shall we have a leg of lamb tonight? I consumed so many oysters last night, I can’t face anything from the sea for a week.”

Agnes made a small grimace. “Alas, I’m dining at home. Mother sent word my brother has returned, and she’ll have us all around her table again for the first time in over a year.”

“Of course,” said Ilsa after a tiny pause. “Welcome home the captain with my best regards.”

“Thank you.” Agnes rolled her eyes. “He’s hinted he brings news from our cousins in England. My mother is hopeful it’s a legacy of some sort. She’s already begun scouring listings in the New Town, certain we shall be moving to a grand new house.”

“You are not as certain, I take it,” observed Ilsa.

“Not in the slightest.” Agnes pursed her lips. “That family never cared for us. I cannot believe they’re about to start now, not in any meaningful way. And even if they did, Mother would insist Drew take all the benefit—aside from her new house, of course.”

“Why should he take all the benefit?” asked Ilsa in surprise.

Agnes shook her head. “It would be only fair. He joined the army when he was eighteen and sent his pay to Mother so we would have food and clothes.”

“Brothers do such things?” said Ilsa in mock astonishment. “Remarkable!”

Agnes laughed. “He’s a good sort. If there is a legacy—which I highly doubt!—he may have it with my blessing. After a dozen years in the army, he’s earned it.”

She smiled. “How generous you are. He must be a good sort.” One of her favorite things about the St. James family was their closeness and honest affection for each other.

“He is! At least, he can be. You’ll like him.”

An image rose in her mind, a sober, straightlaced fellow in a red coat who spoke in single syllables and avoided anything fun. He’d gone into the army when faced with penury, after all—not for him the usual escape routes of marrying a rich girl, gambling, or piracy. What’s more, he chose the English army. Not very dashing, joining the English.

Unbidden she thought again of the tall, dark-haired Scot from the oyster cellar. That one had a bit of the devil in him. Too bad she would never see him again.

“A dutiful army man who likes to write letters teasing about possible legacies.” Ilsa tapped her chin and pretended to think. “Doesn’t seem likely, but one never knows.” Agnes just laughed.

She walked with her friend down the stairs. “I do hope you’ll meet him.” Agnes put on her hat. “I doubt he’ll be in town long.”

“Perhaps,” said Ilsa vaguely. Even his name was prissy and proper. Andrew the Saint. Saint Andrew the Self-Sacrificing. He sounded dreary and dull. She wouldn’t refuse to meet him, but neither was she eager.

Agnes left for her mother’s shop in Shakespeare Square. Ilsa went into the butler’s room, where Robert stood watching Mr. MacLeod polish the silver. At her entrance, he sighed in relief. “Mrs. Ramsay! I didn’t like to disturb you, but—”

“I know.” She smiled as Robert came up to her, his big brown eyes hopeful. She bent and kissed his forehead. “Yes, my darling, just a moment.” She turned back to Mr. MacLeod. “Two for dinner tonight. Miss St. James will be dining with her family. No fish or shellfish. Lamb, if you can find a prime leg of it.”

“Very good, ma’am.” He smiled and bowed.

Ilsa left the room, Robert at her heels. Jean had disappeared. Ilsa would wager a handsome sum that by dinner, that loose curtain ring would have been repaired, the drapery sponged and pressed, and the whole thing hung back on the rail. Jean vigorously fended off any hint that they weren’t the most eminently proper house on the street.

Ilsa had meant it when she said she didn’t want to argue over that, but it seemed inevitable. Jean militantly maintained her status and respectability. At times it seemed like that was all Jean did—fuss over the china, the draperies, the exact height of a hemline, or the precise way to hold a fan. A slight slip greeting a new acquaintance would provoke a lengthy scold. A low-cut gown might make her tight-lipped for days.

Not only did Ilsa crave an escape from all that fussing and fretting, she didn’t think most of it was important. And she was so tired of toeing the many, many lines laid down by people who told her that all her desires and interests were wrong or unseemly.

She put on her jacket and hat and opened the door, waiting patiently as Robert made his way down the steps. “Well done,” she told him, and he nudged her elbow in reply. She smiled. Robert was the perfect companion. He couldn’t dance in an oyster cellar, but neither did he scold her, or tell her she was too bold, or say anything disagreeable at all. She patted him on the back and they set off, side by side, for the open fields at the foot of Calton Hill.

This was the part of Edinburgh she loved best. Away from the increasingly dingy and cramped confines of the Old Town, away from the construction dust and noise of the New Town, just a bright, windy day on the hill with no one but Robert. Here she felt at peace, free from society and propriety.

“Should we run away to the Highlands?” she wondered aloud. “I’ve heard they are beautiful and wild, and not filled with disapproving matrons.”

Robert shook his head, plodding along beside her.

“Too cold? Too far?” She sighed, running fingers over his back. “You’re probably right. Glasgow? No, too near, and too like Edinburgh.” She gave him a little pat. “I have it! We could hide ourselves on a ship to America and go on a grand adventure.”

He snorted and wandered off, showing her what he thought of that idea. Ilsa smiled fondly, watching him amble across the grass. “You can dismiss the idea that easily because you don’t have to see Mr. MacGill today,” she called after him.

She did not enjoy visiting her solicitor. He was reputed to be the best in Edinburgh, or so said her father. Her late husband, Malcolm, had also employed MacGill, keeping things like money and investments entirely out of Ilsa’s sight, let alone her control.

But then Malcolm died, and suddenly all that money was hers. Papa had wanted to handle it for her, but Ilsa was done with that, even if it meant she had to deal personally with Mr. MacGill, with his pompous manner and patronizing little smile. As if she were very fortunate indeed to have even a moment of his attention.

One day I shall withdraw all my money and buy a ship, she thought. I would like to see India or Spain or perhaps the South Seas. And wouldn’t that give Mr. MacGill the shock of his life.

She knew it would never actually happen, but it gave her great pleasure to imagine it happening.

After a long, refreshing ramble she and Robert returned home. He trotted right past her to his room at the back of the hall. It had been Malcolm’s private study when he was alive, but now it was Robert’s domain. He would settle in for a long snooze, snoring fit to rattle the windows. Ilsa went upstairs and girded herself to face the lawyer with a proper walking dress and coiffure of which even Jean would approve.

Despite arriving before the time of her appointment, she was still kept waiting. Idly annoyed, she entertained herself by counting the carriages that drove past. Mr. MacGill’s offices in St. Andrew’s Square were large, handsome, and ostentatious, with tall windows facing the square. She wondered why she paid him so much when he irritated her to no end.

She had counted twenty-eight carriages by the time the clerk showed her in. The solicitor came to take her hand and lead her to a chair. He always began with fawning smiles and pleasantries. If only he listened to her with as much solicitude.

“Now, Mrs. Ramsay, what can I do for you?” he asked at last, when she was settled in a chair and had declined his offer of tea.

“I would like to sell my shares in Mr. Cunninghame’s trading company.”

He was astonished. “Madam! What can you mean? I do not recommend that!”

“I understand,” she replied evenly. “But I would like to do it, and they are my shares. Will you see it done?”

“Are you in want of funds?” he said in reproach. “I should have anticipated as much. It is not unusual for a recently widowed female to be unaccustomed to the handling of money. If there are bills to be paid, you must send them to me—”

“Mr. MacGill, I know very well how to live within my means. I am not burning my money on new gowns or slippers.” She gave him a determined smile. “Sell the shares, please.”

She was slowly reading through the volume of information Malcolm had left behind. Now that he was dead, there was no one to stop her from examining everything in his desk. The Cunninghame trading company was very profitable, but its trade was appalling.

MacGill took a deep breath and seemed to change tack. Adopting an expression of paternal concern, he said, “It would be a very large sum. What would you do with all that money?”

She gazed out the window thoughtfully. The house across the street was under construction, and men were raising a heavy beam into position. “There are so many enterprises here in Scotland in want of investment. I like fabric. Perhaps I’ll invest in linen production.” She had also seen the reports of increasing trade with America. Scotland had enjoyed a brisk trade there before the war, and now that it was over, there seemed every opportunity for it to resume.

Mr. MacGill clicked his tongue. “I see. Of course a woman would take an interest in fabrics. But, my dear Mrs. Ramsay, investments are not made so impulsively. Let us wait a few months and see how you feel then, shall we? If in six months you still desire to sell, I shall speak to Mr. Fletcher about it.”

“It is not my father’s money. If my late husband were sitting here, would you say the same to him?” asked Ilsa, still watching out the window. If she looked directly at the solicitor, she would be tempted to throw something at him. “Would you scorn his wishes as idle fancy and impulse, not likely to endure?”

Malcolm had done many things on nothing more than idle fancy and impulse, and men like MacGill had only helped him, often when they should have stopped him. Not one of his friends or associates had tried to keep him from the duel that killed him.

Mr. MacGill went pink in the face. He was a pale man, and it was easy to make him flush. “Mrs. Ramsay. That is immaterial.”

Before Ilsa could reply, the clerk slipped in. Silently he brought a letter to Mr. MacGill, who gave the man a look that bordered on gratitude. As if he couldn’t wait to be free of her, even after making her wait half an hour for this appointment. With barely a glance at Ilsa, the lawyer unfolded the letter.

“Good heavens,” he exclaimed almost immediately. Turning his back to her, he whispered furiously to his clerk, who snapped to attention like a pointer catching a scent. Frowning, Ilsa tilted her head and caught a few words: “waiting,” “properties,” and “Carlyle.”

Almost before she could comprehend what was happening, Mr. MacGill was on his feet, offering her his hand. The clerk scurried out of the office. “My dear Mrs. Ramsay, I do apologize but an emergency has arisen—I must cut this interview short. Shall we speak again in six months?”

She rose to keep him from looking down on her. “Why? What is this? Mr. MacGill, we had an appointment! I only ask a very little of your time now and then.”

“Indeed, and you have had it.” He reached for her hand.

Ilsa stubbornly refused to move. “Are you throwing me out?”

“No, no,” he soothed her, even as he extended his other hand toward the door. “But I must turn my attention—”

“Sell the shares,” she said, her voice rising. “Sell them, Mr. MacGill, and deposit the funds into my account. I insist!”

“Madam, I will do no such thing,” he snapped, dropping her hand. “What foolishness! You will thank me for it when we speak again in six months.”

Frustration boiled inside her. Wordlessly Ilsa turned and stormed from the room without acknowledging his hasty bow. She threw open the door herself, almost striking Mr. Leish, the sanctimonious clerk.

Behind him stood a man, tall and broad, dressed finely enough to be a lord. An English lord. So that’s whom Mr. MacGill considered far more important than she, Ilsa seethed as she strode past the lot of them.

Men.MacGill brushing her aside without a moment’s hesitation, that arrogant Carlyle fellow demanding his attention with the snap of his fingers, and Leish smirking at her dismissal. Anger carried her blindly to the street, and then all the way to the foot of the Canongate, where her father’s house stood.

He was still at the table. Fashionable people dined later, but Papa clung to his preference for an early meal. She suspected he spent the more fashionable dinner hour at a tavern, with cards in his hand. “You’re early, my girl!” he said jovially when she came in. “Come in, child! Have some cake.”

“How are you, Papa?” She kissed his cheek and waved off the offer of cake in favor of pacing the dining room. “I’ve just come from Mr. MacGill’s office. He has lost my custom.”

He blinked at her as he chewed a bite of cake. “Why, now?”

“He refused to do what I asked of him. Would you tolerate that from him?”

MacGill had been Papa’s solicitor for years. Ilsa had always thought that was because MacGill was the best, but in the last year she’d come to think that Mr. MacGill only had a reputation for being the best. MacGill’s fees were exorbitant enough to make one believe he was incomparable, but his service was another matter.

Papa pushed back his plate. “Calm yourself, child. No doubt he has your best interests at heart. What did you ask him to do, that he refused?”

“I told him to sell my shares in Mr. Cunninghame’s trading company.”

Her father’s face grew stormy. “Ach, Ilsa, why?” he said irritably. “I counseled Malcolm to make that investment, and now you’ll sell it?”

She hadn’t known that. “You know what Mr. Cunninghame trades in?”

“Sugar and tobacco.”

“And you know how that is produced.”

“I know he made a ten percent profit on his last two years’ voyages!”

“I don’t care to profit from slave-grown goods.”

“You’ll care when your income wanes,” he told her.

She rolled her eyes. “As if there’s money to be made only in sugar and tobacco! I fancy linen manufacture, perhaps. Something made here. Something Scottish.”

His mouth pursed, but then eased. He winked at her. “I know just the thing—cabinetry!”

Her father was Deacon of the Wrights, head of the largest group of carpentry tradesmen in town. Nobody made a finely turned table leg or an intricately carved wardrobe like Papa. His craftsmanship was unequalled, as was his larger-than-life personality. No wright in Edinburgh could have asked for a fiercer champion on the town council, which controlled most of what went on in Edinburgh, and beyond.

And no one had a better talent for disarming her temper. Ilsa laughed. “As if I’ve not profited enough from cabinetry! But perhaps that’s a thought. I’ll sponsor some boys to be educated and apprenticed as wrights.”

He scoffed. “Where’s the profit in that?”

“If you hired them, I would get a share of the income from their work.” She beamed at him.

“Eh, when I’m dead you’ll have a share of the income from the entire shop’s work.” He glowered, but she knew he would hire any boys whose education she sponsored. Both of them knew William Fletcher couldn’t deny his only child anything.

“I don’t want to think about that far-off event.” She kissed his cheek. “But I am through with Mr. MacGill.”

He sighed. “Leave the man to his business. He knows what he’s about.”

“He dismissed me,” she replied. “After making me wait half an hour for our appointment. He was patronizing and short-tempered, and after all that, someone more important than I arrived, and Mr. MacGill all but threw me out the door.”

Papa pushed back his chair, frowning. “I’ll speak to the fellow. It’s not right to treat a woman that way. Who could possibly be more important than you?”

“Some English fellow. He looked rich.”

He patted her arm. “The scoundrel! Leave MacGill to me. He’ll not be short with you again.” He walked with her to the hall and helped her with her cloak, as he’d done since she was a child. Ilsa had given up fighting his little attentions when she was sixteen. He fussed over her because he loved her, and because he had no one else to fuss over. Her mother had died when Ilsa was four, and her father had never remarried. Jean had come to live with them and help raise her, but Papa had always been the center of her world, and she his.

“Mr. Lewis Grant asked me to give you his greetings,” Papa remarked as he tied the bow.

“Who?”

“Mr. Grant,” he repeated with a twinkle in his eye. “You remember, the handsome—and very successful—wine merchant in the Grassmarket.”

“No, I’m afraid I don’t recall him,” she lied. Her father had begun mentioning possible matches for her in the last few months. By some strange coincidence, they were all prosperous merchants and gentlemen with whom Papa did business. Ilsa was having none of them.

“I’ll be sure to introduce you to him,” he said, not fooled. “Again. Perhaps next time you’ll remember him as fondly as he remembers you, eh?”

“Good-bye, Papa.”

She left him and walked toward home, feeling at loose ends. She would prefer to go sit in the coffee shop with Agnes for an hour with a lady’s magazine and giggle at the pompous poetry in it, but Agnes was needed at the mercer’s shop with her mother, and would be with her family after that. Sorcha White was attending a lecture at the Botanical Gardens with her mother. At home, Jean would scold her about the draperies again or say she should call on Lady Ramsay, Malcolm’s acerbic grandmother who had never much liked Ilsa.

She went instead to the bookseller’s shop. She passed the selection of novels and poetry, not in the mood for something fictional, no matter how entertaining. She picked up books on fauna, and Italy, and one beautiful book which turned out to be a history of England. That she shoved right back on the shelf, and blindly pulled out another.

A History of America, Volume One, read the front page. Her fingers slowed. It was a few years old, but finely printed and bound. Her own words of that morning to Robert echoed in her mind: We could hide ourselves on a ship to America and go on a grand adventure.

Ilsa knew that she had a very comfortable life, all things considered. She had a father and an aunt who loved her dearly, even if they did not understand her. She had a comfortable home, thanks to Malcolm; he’d been one of the wealthier men in town, before he’d gone and got himself killed. She had Robert, whom she adored without reservation, and she had good friends like Agnes St. James. Many others were never so fortunate as she had been.

But at the same time . . . She’d never been free to do what she wanted. Her aunt had been a strict guardian, her father indulgent but largely absent, and her husband hadn’t really wanted a wife, but rather an ornamental doll. When Malcolm died, and she’d realized that for the first time in her life there was no one to tell her what to do, what to wear, whom to speak to, or what she could buy . . . Well, the first thing her heart had craved was a little adventure.

With a snap she closed the book and went to pay for it. It wasn’t the same as stowing away on a ship to America, but now she was free to read about doing it, at least. She would take what she could.