Page 41 of The Last Debutante
She stared up at him beneath the V of her brows. “You want me to play the pianoforte?”
“Aye.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “You do play, aye?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then we will allow you to dine at our table if you will agree to play the pianoforte.”
“That’s all?” she asked, her frown of confusion deepening.
“That’s all.”
“Only that,” she said skeptically.
The lass hadn’t heard a word he’d said about not arguing. He sighed and resorted to cajoling her. “Miss Babcock,” he said as he casually pushed a loose strand of her hair from her collar, his finger following the line of her shoulder down her arm, “we’ve no’ heard it played since my sister died two winters past. We haven’t anyone who has learned the art and we miss it.”
Her gaze followed his hand as it slid down her arm to her wrist, his fingers tangling with hers. She gave a slight shiver and Jamie knew that he could persuade her to allow him to explore more of her. “My condolences,” she murmured.
He ignored that—he still found it difficult to speak of Laurna’s death. And at the moment, he was far more interested in the small bones he could feel as he wrapped his fingers around her wrist, his thumb stroking the soft underside.
“How did she die, if I may ask?”
“In childbirth,” he said simply. “The child as well.” His fingers curled around hers, and with his thumb, he traced a line along her palm. So smooth, so soft. So feminine. With his health returned to him, Jamie was remembering with some urgency how much he missed the feel of a woman beside him. He wouldn’t mind feeling this woman’s body against his in the least, her grandmother notwithstanding.
“My family once employed a maid named Louise. She was my companion as far back as I can recall,” she said, her gaze still on his hand. “She married Tom Higgins, and when she carried her first child, she was so full of light, so happy and eager to have the baby. She’d picked out a name, and my father made her a cradle. But she didn’t survive the birth.” She slowly lifted her gaze to his, looked him directly in the eye. “I still miss her, too. I think it the cruelest irony that the source of so much happiness and life can also be the source of so much pain and death.”
He was surprised by her empathy, and surprised even more that it moved him. He remembered his sister every day, remembered the happy glow of her pregnancy and how eagerly she had looked forward to the birth of her child.
“What music would your family like to hear?” Miss Babcock asked as she gently squeezed his fingers.
But Jamie could not escape her gaze. He was caught like a fish by a hook, unable to swim away in the fast currents. “Whatever you like.” He had to escape this moment before he did something ridiculous. He leaned forward, his mouth close to her temple, his nose filled with the scent of her. He heard the soft, quick intake of her breath. He felt dangerously close to kissing her, to reclaiming the lips he remembered so fondly from his dream.
“I know a piece that celebrates spring,” she murmured. “I recall the melody, but not the words. I would wager it has something to do with young love.” She smiled sheepishly, lightly laced her fingers with his. “I had a music tutor who was quite fond of the notion of young love.” She turned her head to look him directly in the eye. “I think every song he taught me celebrated it in some way. Will that suit?”
Jamie felt himself on shifting ground. “Aye.” He brushed his lips against her temple. She stilled; he could feel the fluttering of her pulse beneath his lips. It roused a beast in him, one that would demand to be sated if he lingered. He untangled his hand from hers and walked over to open the door of his study. “We dine at eight.”
“Thank you,” she said, and began to move toward him. Her hand, the one he’d held, gripped the side of her gown. She glanced up when she reached him. “And I don’t think your only redeeming quality is your name.” She went out, leaving the scent of roses in her wake, the two dogs trotting after her.
Jamie glared at them as they went past, then shut the door and leaned back against it.
What the bloody hell had just happened to him? He felt as green as a boy with his first infatuation. He didn’t care for the feeling it gave him—at sixes and sevens, topsy-turvy, lacking control. All for an English debutante! It went against everything a mighty Campbell laird was.
He limped back to his desk and sat, staring at the paper before him.
Mary, Queen of Scots.
Thirteen
BETHIA LOOKED STUNNED. “You’ve been invited tosupper?”
“Yes, Bethia,” Daria said. “I will dine on haggis yet again, only formally this evening, instead of in this room by myself, as if I were a leper.” She paused. “It is formal, is it not?”
“We donna have fancy suppers, as if we are a lot of kings and queens,” Bethia snapped, clearly annoyed by this latest bit of news.
“Then I won’t wear my ermine cape,” Daria retorted. “What do you think, the silk?” she asked, holding up a cream-colored silk gown encrusted with tiny seed pearls. “Or is it too rich?”
