Page 19 of Walk on the Wildsyde

“Nae,” he said, his tone serious. “I would never do that. I’ll nae pretend I dinnae have a drop too many on a special occasion. Like the day we met when my head was splitting in two. The night before, I’d been drinking the health of a friend’s baby son. But I dinnae make a habit of it. I have too much work to do to be bevied at all hours of the day and night.”

Clara studied him as she poured hot water onto the tea leaves. He was uncertain she was convinced but she said nothing more. Hamilton watched her with pleasure as she moved around the kitchen, admiring the sway of her lush hips and the thick knot of hair at the back of her neck. It was a very dark brown, and she had used a good many pins to secure it. He wondered how far down her back it would fall if he took those pins out and found himself momentarily distracted by imagining the feel of the silken locks tangled about his fingers.

“I did not see you in church,” she said, with more curiosity than censure, jolting him out of his pleasant daydream and back to reality, which was all to the good.

“I didnae think it would be a good idea,” he replied. “I usually go. You can’t miss a service in Wick without the entire town believing ye are worshiping the devil, but yer da seemed likely to point at me and proclaim I was the devil, so I figured I’d give it a miss for once. I was nae up to mischief, though, I swear it,” he added, giving her the benefit of a smile he knew had a pleasing effect on the ladies.

“What were you doing?” she asked, concentrating on laying out cups and saucers.

Hamilton shrugged. “Making plans, and I did nae pick up a tool nor write anything down so ye cannae accuse me of working on the sabbath,” he added, a touch defensively.

“Do you think I would?” she asked in surprise.

Hamilton regarded her thoughtfully. “I dinnae ken ye well enough, but… but nae, I dinnae think so.”

“I do try to be a good Christian,” she said, frowning as she fetched the milk jug and set it on the table. “But my ideas of what that means always seem to be a little out of step with others. Especially my father,” she said with a smile.

“He’s hard on ye,” Hamilton said, feeling a stab of concern as he wondered what her life was like.

“Oh, not really,” she replied, sighing. “I help around the house and write up his sermons for him so they’re legible, and I do the household accounts and such, but then so do many women. It’s not like he works me to the bone,” she said with a wry smile. “It’s just a little…”

“Dull?”

“Yes, it is rather,” she admitted ruefully.

“Aye, and perhaps I am in nae position to judge, but he is nae a man who finds much joy in life, I reckon.”

Clara slanted a glance at him, apparently struck by the observation. “He does not,” she said, a considering note to her voice. “Do you find joy in life?”

Hamilton grinned at her, which he thought was answer enough, and then delighted in the slow spread of pink that tinged her cheeks like a sunrise.

“I dinnae believe that God put us on this earth to suffer,” he said, finding himself speaking earnestly now. “I know I’m blessed and life is much kinder to me than to many folk around here who have it far, far harder, but when I’m feeling low, I make myself remember there’s always a little good to be found in every day, some reason to smile or to be pleased to be alive. Perhaps it’s just the birds singing, or the sight of the sun sparkling on the sea, or a pretty girl smiling at ye, but ye must hold on tight to those moments and keep them with ye, aye?”

She smiled at him approvingly in reply to his words, and Hamilton felt the heat of it, like standing before a fire on a cold night. It warmed him, sliding under his skin and settling there, and he thought it was a smile he would remember and hold on to for a good long time.

He held his tongue as Clara occupied herself with the tea, finding he enjoyed watching her. She was poised and lovely, her pretty hands both deft and elegant as she prepared the brew, adding milk and sugar as he requested.

“You have a sweet tooth,” she reproved him after adding the three lumps he asked for.

“It’s my one failing,” he said, adopting a sheepish expression.

“Only one?” she repeated, her eyes flashing with amusement.

“Aye, other than that, I’m a paragon.” Her lips twitched, and he decided there and then that he would not leave until he had made her laugh properly.

“So ye have made friends with Miss Fleming?”

“Yes, she was kind enough to call on me. I believe she has taken me under her wing,” she added with amusement. “But I fear she will be sadly disappointed.”

“Why?” Hamilton asked in surprise.

“Because she is lovely and terribly fashionable and… and I’m not,” she said with a short laugh. Not at all the kind of laugh Hamilton had been hoping for, either. “She offered to give me some of her dresses, which was so terribly kind of her and there’s a part of me which would love to accept, but I cannot.”

“Ye dinnae want to feel beholden to her?” Hamilton guessed.

“Does that sound terribly ungrateful?” Clara asked him anxiously. “She’s been so very kind, but I really don’t know her very well yet. Perhaps if we had been bosom bows for years, but…”

“I think ye are wise. Yer friendship is too new, fragile, aye?”