The Lass Who Lost a Shoe Lee, Caroline (great novels .TXT) 📖

“Being happy is the goal in life, Yer Grace,” Bonnie said with a touch of sarcasm. “Try to remember that.”

“Marrying a viscount will make me happy, I’m certain.”

“Ye dinnae even ken him,” Bonnie argued. “Ye dinnae ken if ye can love him. Love is what will make ye happy.”

Love?

Did…did Ember love Max?

Good heavens.

Vanessa was scoffing. “Love is well and good, dinnae fash, but being called lady, and going to balls like the one last week—no’ just on Oliphant Land, but all across Scotland!—and having other women look at me enviously…? That will make me happy. Oh, Ember, fetch the shoes ye made me, aye? I ken they dinnae match exactly, but they make a statement.”

Ember’s eyes lit up. “And yer Roland is close with Mr. DeVille so maybe he’ll mention them!”

“Aye!” Vanessa clapped in excitement. “I’ll be certain to bring up the topic, just for ye. We’ll have Mr. DeVille agreeing to manufacture yer shoes in nae time, and then ye can start engraving full time!”

Ember hadn’t told her sister that the man she’d kissed—the man she might be falling in love with; the man who’d kissed her back, then acted horrified by it— was one of Mr. DeVille’s employees. He was likely a clerk of some sort, but he could help her gain the manager’s ear.

Assuming he still wanted to help her after whatever had passed between them last night.

As she knelt at Vanessa’s feet to help her into the heeled slippers, she heard Machara calling for her from down the corridor. She’d have to go help her stepmother get dressed, she assumed, but then she planned on heading to Papa’s workshop for an hour or two to start engraving the heels she’d turned yesterday. Designs were already flitting through her head, and she was excited to try to capture them. Surely tea with Viscount Blah-blah-blah would take long enough she could enjoy herself for a bit.

Bonnie had stood and was finishing her dressing as well—luckily able to handle it on her own. “I just think, Vanessa, ye dinnae understand what it truly means to be happy. Say ye marry Roland. Ye’ve already said ye dinnae want to call him Blah-blah-blah in bed. But from the way ye speak, it’s his title ye’d be marrying. Ye are no’ thinking of him as a man, or even as a person.” This normally quiet sister of theirs was becoming agitated. Her fists were planted on her hips, and her cheeks were flushed. “If I marry, I’m no’ going to yell, ‘Aye, milord!’ in bed. I want to call him—I dinnae ken—Lionel, or—or—”

Vanessa gasped, spinning around to face her sister so quickly, she almost knocked Ember over. “Bonnibelle Oliphant, the heir’s name is Lyon! Is that who ye’ve been secretly dreaming about marrying?” When her sister began shaking her head, Vanessa pressed her. “Lionel is verra close to Lyon, and neither are particularly common!”

Flustered, Bonnie held her hands out in front of her, palms out. “I dinnae mean it like that. It was just a name I pulled from—”

“From yer imagination? Or from yer daydreams?”

Bonnie shook her head so wildly, her coiffure was in danger. “Nay! Nay, I just—it was just a name!”

From down the hall, Machara called again. “Ember, ye lazy girl, get in here!”

Her sisters didn’t seem to notice, but Ember sighed and accepted she’d better go help her stepmother or deal with her fury. “I’ll just be going then,” she murmured. She was ignored, as she’d expected.

“Ye expect me to believe, of all the names ye could’ve pulled out of thin air to yell in bed, Lionel was an accident?”

“Lionel is a verra common name,” Bonnie defended.

“Lyon is no’!”

And this time, Machara’s call was a screech. “Ember!”

And so Ember slipped out of the room, leaving Vanessa haranguing poor Bonnie, and went to tend to her stepmother. Hopefully, once Roland arrived for tea, the three of them would be so occupied fawning over him, Ember would have a little peace and quiet.

Chapter 7

“Here we go, dearies. This is it. Any moment now, Ember is going to figure out who Mr. DeVille really is, right?”

“Or who Max really is, I suppose.”

“Rasher beanstit f’rday!”

“Go make some tea, Grisel. Seonag needs it.”

* * *

His house was complete. He could move out of the inn and into his own home as early as today if he wanted to.

Max stared down at the hastily scrawled note from the lead builder, updating the charges. Thanks to Andrew Prince’s generosity, Max would have no issues paying for his own home, and he could spend his first night there tonight.

But did he want to move out of the inn just yet? Staying at the inn was his best opportunity for seeing Ember.

Ember the serving lass? Or Ember the lady?

Last night, when he’d realized who she really was, Max had felt as if his brain had shut down. He’d come so close to making love to her, right there in Oliphant Engraving, and it had been because he’d really felt as if he’d known her. Despite their few interactions, there was something about Ember which had just clicked with him—a sort of spark of recognitions, as if two souls had been meant to be together.

Almost like…magic.

Max frowned and reached for his checkbook. Magic? He was beginning to sound as crazy as his friends from back home, talking about weird old ladies—godmothers—who’d helped them find love—

Halfway through filling out a check for the builder, Max’s hand stilled. Godmothers? Was it possible there was some truth behind the stories? He recalled the women back home who’d always seemed to know what was going on and knew how to facilitate the best marriages. Women like Andrew Prince’s new wife, Christa, who hung out with that group of weird old ladies in the purple house on Perrault Street, as if they were in some sort of guild.

He hummed and shook himself, hurrying to complete the rest of the check, then sign the bill and shove them