“You see it, don’t you?” Lady Ivers pressed. “How their fortunes might be reversed with an infusion of cash which would allow then to print the new version of Fanny’s story? How the right man might reshape that novel into something more palatable and acceptable to the general public, not to mention the censors?”
He did see. He also saw the flaw in such a seemingly simple plan—finding the right man to tame the more erotic episodes of the story into something merely racy, and pep up the mundane bits to something livelier. He had no idea if he could be that man. But still, the idea had merit. And potential. But he would also need to speak with Able Prufrock personally, and look at the books, and see if it really would take as much blunt as Lady Ivers estimated.
It was as if she could read his mind. “My information is impeccable, but Prufrock may be willing to negotiate. But if you think you can do it, I stand ready and willing to provide any additional capital—for a commensurate share of future profits, of course, as well as the increased sales income from the book—that might be needed. But I need a man like you to be Prufrock’s partner, to see that things are done right, as they should be. That the book is revised well enough to make the fortune it ought.”
A man like him.
And there it was—that fire in his belly that spread to his brain. That hunger for a new endeavor that had all the potential he might have hoped for. And he hadn’t even had to climb all the way up to the top of Arthur’s Seat—opportunity had come knocking at his own door.
But this was the first time opportunity had ever worn lavender silk.
Chapter 5
For a lass who had never been farther from home than the next village, each turn in the road, each fresh vista, was a revelation to Elspeth. The early summer sunshine made even the mud sparkle as the slow moving dray afforded her a spectacular view of the Pennine Hills, which pointed like a huge earthen arrow across the Midlothian countryside toward the capital.
Four hours of travel, during which the dray mon spoke all of three words to her—“There it be”—brought them to the edge of the metropolis. To the north, the city seemed to rise up out of the earth like a stone dragon’s spine beneath the high outcrop of Arthur’s Seat, and what had to be the lush green parkland of the Holyrood Palace rolling away to the east.
Within the city, the streets were close and narrow and rattling with the deafening noise of a hundred horses’ and oxen’s hooves clattering along the slick, uneven cobbles. Elspeth could barely think for all the sound—she had never heard anything like it.
But mercifully for her ears, the dray mon finally made his slow, laborious way into a quieter neighborhood—an oasis of calm, lined with new trees in their first bud hemming a neat, green garden square where he drew his team to a halt in front of the prettiest wedding cake of a stone townhouse Elspeth had ever seen.
After having spent a good portion of the long ride imagining what a person of wicked disposition and dubious morals might look like, Elspeth was entirely unprepared for the elegant, refined woman in exquisite lavender silk who rushed out of the house to personally greet her on the steps of her equally elegant, refined townhouse.
“Oh, my darling niece!” The moment Elspeth stepped to the pavement, she found herself enveloped in a plushly scented embrace. “Oh, I would have known you anywhere! If you aren’t the very image of your darling mother. Such a lass! Her smile could light up half of Edinburgh, and I collect that yours will light up the other half.”
Elspeth was beyond astonished. And beyond pleased. In all of her four and twenty years, no one had ever said such a thing about her mother. Nor about her own smile.
But years of guarding herself against potential wickedness made Elspeth retreat from the effusive, warm embrace so she might make her aunt a properly restrained curtsey in greeting. “Lady Ivers. Thank you so very much for your kind invitation.”
“You are very welcome. I own myself delighted that you were finally able to accept after all these years.” Lady Ivers’ infectious laugh spilled across the street. “I suppose the sisters Murray finally judged you to be past the age of danger?”
Elspeth felt her cheeks heat in the face of such insight. “No, milady. I came on my own. Without their say so.”
“Gracious!” Lady Ivers clasped her hands in astonished delight. “Just so. But how was your journey? Not too fatiguing, I hope, for I am already making plans for you, my darling—to take you about as soon as may be, to show you the sights, and show the sights you!”
Lady Ivers escorted Elspeth into the entry room full of dramatic, polished black and white marble, but she had no time to gape, for as soon as she was divested of hat and cloak by a very refined attendant maid, the lady swept her up the curved stairs to a drawing room furnished in such a perfectly stunning shade of water blue, that Elspeth felt her breath catch in her throat.
The house was like something out of a dream—she had never even seen such glossy, tissue-thin silks at the drapers in the village. No one in their fusty hamlet could even have a call for such a sumptuous fabric, let alone the coin to purchase such lengths as were cascading from the tall, clear-paned windows.
Who knew iniquity would look so fine?
“My poor lamb, you look exhausted.” Lady Augusta put a hand to Elspeth’s face. “We must have some refreshment for you.”
“Thank you my lady. You are all kindness.”
“Nonsense. I haven’t a kind bone in my body,” the lady claimed while her angelic smile countered her argument. “I trust the Murray sisters will have thoroughly warned you against me.”
Elspeth must have looked conscious, for Lady Ivers immediately stopped with one hand to the bell pull. “Well, it is some comfort to know they have not changed a spit.”
Elspeth’s guilt made her take extra pains to make her explanation in as careful and refined a manner as her new aunt, but still, give her the truth. “I did not think it a profitable exercise, my lady, to ask for permission when none would be granted. They had kept all knowledge of your existence from me, so I made up my mind that I must come, while I had the chance with the dray mon.”
“Oh, you wonderfully intrepid lass. How brave you are—how like your mother.” Lady Ivers let out a happy sigh. “And what do you think of the city upon first impression?”
“The city is everything interesting and exciting, my lady, I thank you. Though I confess I also find it rather loud and very dirty.”
“Yes, I imagine you might after an overly quiet life in the country.”
Elspeth’s life had been more than quiet—it had been small. Dove Cottage was all she had known, but in the easy elegance of Lady Ivers’ garden of a home, she began to feel the prickles and thorns that might have grown on her character along with the roses that rambled up the walls of the auld cottage.
“But Auld Reeky, as we natives call Edinburgh, isn’t so bad, once you get to know her,” Lady Ivers assured Elspeth, while holding out a cup and saucer. “Sugar?”
“No, I thank you, my lady.” Elspeth had never acquired a taste for sweet growing up in a house with such strict economies that sugar was considered a luxury.
“You must call me Aunt.” Lady Augusta smiled and handed her the cup. “It would mean so much to me.”
“Thank you, Aunt Augusta.” Elspeth took a reviving sip of the strong, hot tea, grateful that this aunt did not seem to have to reuse her tea leaves until they could no longer color the water. “That’s full delicious.”