The MacGregor's Lady

by Burrowes, Grace

  Hannah wished dear Step-papa might see the scowl her words provoked from the earl. “Not sporting at all, but you’re here. Why not make the best of it?”

  “What best is there to make of it?” she said, dipping her bun in her drink. “I cannot marry here, else I’ll have to spend the rest of my days an ocean away from everybody and everything I hold dear.”

  “England isn’t such a bad place.” He studied his drink, as if he were repeating a litany that had never been convincing. “England is pretty, in truth, and there’s a lot of variety on one island. I thought I’d go mad missing Canada, but I knew by my first winter in Great Britain there were compensations for leaving Canada. By the second winter, I was mostly complaining about going home to reassure myself I had a home.”

  Canada? What was a Scottish peer doing wandering around Canada, and what had compelled him to return home?

  “You’re saying I could learn to like it here.” She could certainly learn to like rum buns dipped in grog, and Scottish earls who commiserated with American heiresses. “Eventually, perhaps I could, but I cannot leave my grandmother to fight all the battles with Step-papa. If he had his way, he’d leave her in the servants’ parlor, swilling tea and knitting.”

  “You’re protective of this grandmother, which speaks well of you.” He broke another bun in half, this time giving her the larger share. “Is she growing vague?”

  “Hardly.” Hannah nibbled the bun, finding the earl’s approval as sweet as the icing. To air her situation like this was a relief of some sort—one she hoped she would not regret. “Gran is old, and she has no one else. She was my father’s mother, and she’s all I have left of him.”

  “That doesn’t rule out finding a husband who would settle with you in Boston.” Balfour spoke gently, as if Hannah might not have reasoned her way to this solution on her own.

  “Oh, of course. Some knight twice my age is going to give up all his comforts and honors to brave New England winters and never see his cronies again?”

  “It is possible. Many people have found worthy spouses in unlikely locations.” His pronouncement had the ring of a tired admonition, not a declaration of unflagging optimism.

  “Eat your bun,” Hannah said, passing him his uneaten sweet. “Anything is possible, sir. You could find the bride of your dreams in an unlikely location as well.”

  He said nothing, but gobbled up the rest of his rum bun in about two bites, then rose and held out his hand.

  Hannah regarded the large palm, the elegant fingers, the perfectly rounded clean fingernails, the slight callus on the fourth finger from years of holding snaffle reins. Perhaps not strictly gentlemanly hands, but they suited Balfour.

  She gave him her hand, and he drew her to her feet.

  Still holding her hand, he looked down at her, his expression serious. This close, Hannah caught his contribution to the ambient scents, a clean, bracing male fragrance that put her in mind of spices and sea breezes.

  “I will make a promise with you, Hannah Lynn Cooper. I will make a good-faith effort to find a bride, if you will make a good-faith effort to find a husband.”

  She considered his hand, wrapped around hers. His skin was darker than hers, as if he had Mediterranean blood.

  “I can make that promise.” If good faith was merely the absence of bad faith. “I am not optimistic that I will be successful finding a spouse.”

  He brought her fingers to his lips, and brushed her a kiss that was mostly air plus a touch of warmth and gallantry. When he had given her back her hand, he plucked his coat from the hook, then shuffled the wraps so he could settle her cape around her shoulders first. He shrugged into his coat but didn’t button it.

  “The rum has warmed me up,” he said, winging an arm. “If I am not mistaken, we’re due for a thaw, and we’ll have nothing but sunshine and mud for the rest of this week, followed of course, by the inevitable blizzard.”

  He sounded like a Yankee farmer, daring the weather to try to trick him with its inconveniences.

  Hannah needed his arm, between the wet cobblestones, her limp, and the rum. He was utterly solid, his pace was sedate, and given the way his coat had hung over hers, his scent was wafting into her nose. Cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, a little ginger, and a dash of sea travel.

  His scent reminded her of the rum buns, but in the privacy of her thoughts, Hannah admitted the earl’s fragrance was the more attractive.

  ***

  Asher had caught the lady, though only barely. That was the good news, but the bad news…

  Damn and blast if the old man hadn’t given Asher an impossible task. Bad enough Asher was to go bride hunting, bad enough he had to drag this red-haired American rebel-spinster-heiress around with him, bad enough she would limp onto the dance floor if she could even dance, worse yet he liked the infernal woman, but now he’d nearly dropped her on a patch of ice, and her locomotion was further jeopardized.

  “She was bobbing along beside me, enjoying the air, and then she hit a patch of wet ice, and down she went,” Asher told the aunt. Miss Hannah had nearly taken him with her, too, so frantically had she struggled to maintain her balance.

  The aunt shrugged as she took a sip of her wine. “She falls occasionally. When she was younger, my brother ordered that all of Hannah’s clothes be in plain dark colors so the mud wouldn’t show. Fortunately, she has gained some poise.”

  “She doesn’t wear dark colors exclusively now, I hope? Here the darker colors are mostly for married women, widows, older companions, and so forth.” And the darkest colors were for mourning, to which Miss Hannah might well consider herself entitled.

  “You will have to take this up with her.” Miss Cooper gestured with her glass of claret, spilling a drop on the pristine tablecloth. “Do you know what a pleasure it is to have Continental wines of an evening? Back home, they are a rare and expensive treat.”

  “I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.” If chronic mild inebriation could be called enjoying oneself. “Assuming your niece recovers adequately, by the end of next week I’d like to depart for London, where the selection of all manner of delicacies will be superior.”

  “We are in your hands, my lord. My brother told me to show you every respect, so I must trust your judgment in all matters.”

  She batted her lashes, and Asher felt a lick of dyspepsia to think the woman might be flirting with him.

  “Madam, if you will excuse me, rather than chase you to the parlor for your tea, I’ll leave you the table so you might linger over your wine and cheese.”

  He bowed and left the dining parlor at a swift walk, knowing he was being rude. Let her have her Continental wines, and he’d have his guilty conscience. It was a companion of long standing, not quite an old friend, but the next best thing—a familiar enemy.

  Asher found Miss Hannah in her sitting room, her foot propped under a blanket while she reclined on a chaise near the fire. He knocked on the slightly open door, then let himself in, leaving the door ajar as a nod to propriety.

  “Good evening, Miss Cooper. How can you read with the lamps turned so low?” And why would she be reading, when she might have turned to any one of her aunt’s various patent remedies instead?

  “When I started to read it was quite light,” she said, putting down a bound version of David Copperfield.

  “You have bellpulls in America.” He fingered the strip of tasseled brocade dangling above her. “Why not have a maid turn up the lamps, refresh your tea, and generally cosset you?”

  “Cosset?” She gave him a thin-lipped look, as if this was one of those words that meant something altogether less savory on this side of the Atlantic. Woe unto the London swains who merited that look from her.

  “So you neither swan nor permit cosseting,” he concluded, moving around the room to turn up the lamps. “Are you comfortable enough? The physician said you could have some laudanum.”

  Her expression grew, if anything, more severe.

  “This is growing to be a long
list, Hannah Cooper.” He sat on the raised hearth at her side. “No cosseting, no swanning, no laudanum. One wonders what you do for recreation.” Though given her aunt’s proclivities, he could understand that last prohibition.

  “I love to read.” She traced a finger over the gilt lettering of the book’s title, gently, as if poor Trot’s peregrinations through life’s vicissitudes comforted her.

  “You’re going to love to shop, too,” Asher said. “Your aunt abdicated decision-making authority in this sphere to me at dinner, so be warned.”

  She closed the book with a snap, a peacock feather marking her place. “I most assuredly do not love to shop, not for clothing, if that’s what you’re implying.”

  He rose and shifted the fireplace screen, then pokered some air into the coals and layered wood and coal on the blaze.

  “We don’t burn as much coal in Boston,” his guest observed. “It has a distinctive aroma.”

  Coal smoke purely stank, and in Asher’s experience, aggravated the lungs. The longhouse had been full of smoke too, though, and that had resulted in all manner of consumptive ailments.

  “I prefer wood smoke myself.” And starry nights, too. Since returning to Scotland this time, he’d even lain awake, missing the howling of the wolves.

  Asher repositioned the screen and resumed his perch on the hearth. “England has more coal than trees, or it soon will, so needs must. Let’s make a list of things you’re going to fight me on, shall we?”

  “A list?” She caressed the o in Copperfield, drawing attention to pale hands, the backs of which sported a deal of fetching, unfashionable freckles.

  “Clothing being foremost. Shoes, gloves, hats being assumed additions. Did anyone bring you a tray?”

  “I had some cheese toast—a wonderful cheddar with caraway in the bread.”

  She had hearty appetites, apparently, and her tastes were not too refined—this was more evidence of impending social disaster, but Asher liked her for it.

  “I prefer rye bread to the standard brown bread, myself. But back to our list. Under present circumstances, I blush to inquire, but do you dance?”

  A look crossed her features, so fleeting he would have missed it, except he was studying the exact arch and swoop of her dark eyebrows.

  “I do not.”

  But she wanted to. That’s what that look was about, longing. Miss Hannah Lynn Cooper wasn’t entirely resigned to her unswanning, I-love-to-read spinsterhood. She longed to dance.

  “Let’s have a look at your foot.” Asher shifted to sit near her legs on the chaise. He was presuming, flirting with naughtiness, even, but he needed to offer her a good distraction for the ensuing topic.

  “That is not necessary.” She drew back against the chaise as if a malodorous cat had appropriated a place at her feet. “The physician said it should heal nicely in a few days.”

  “He said we’re to keep you off your feet for a few days, at least.” Asher drew back the blanket, revealing a slender, elegant foot. “He said it’s fortunate I carried you back to the house, or your injury might have been even worse for trying to put weight on it all that distance.”

  As if Asher would ever again allow any woman to risk harm to her person when he was in a position to prevent it.

  And how Hannah Cooper had suffered to be in his arms, remaining stiff and silent until pain alone had inspired her to hold onto him. Asher still hadn’t sorted out his feelings regarding those few blocks, the last woman he’d carried in the same manner being Monique. By the time he’d reached the house, Miss Cooper’s arms had been around his neck, and her face turned to his shoulder.

  While his remorse had weighed more than she had.

  “This is a minor bruise,” he said, drawing his finger over the faint purpling around the base of her tibia. “You do not strike me as a lady to dramatize her injuries.”

  She wouldn’t admit her injuries, if she could help it.

  “Do the gentlemen here often use a lady’s indispositions to fondle her person?” Her tone was wonderfully dry, her accent amplifying the effect. He sensed she was not offended by his presumption, so much as she was uncertain.

  “When the gentleman is thoroughly schooled as a physician, he might use his knowledge the better to care for his injured guest.” God help the woman if her definition of fondling was so pedestrian. “You kept the ice on it?”

  “No, I danced a few jigs,” she said, running a finger over the edge of the peacock feather protruding from the book. “I should not have imbibed the rum, so if you’re blaming yourself, you can stop. You never said you were a doctor.”

  His admission had been more careful than that—and he wasn’t a doctor, not any longer. “What had a tot of rum to do with this?” He traced the bruise, a distortion of an otherwise perfect, graceful foot.

  “My gait is unsteady enough, and I knew well the condition of the walks. Rum wasn’t going to help me stay on my feet.”

  Her second toe was longer than her first, as Monique’s had been, but Miss Cooper had higher arches. Asher stuffed that thought away, unfairly annoyed with his guest for inspiring it. “So you blame yourself for a little slip, deny yourself adequate lights to read by, and forgo a decent dinner? Will that be punishment enough?”

  He closed his hand around her foot, for it was cold and wanted comforting—her foot, that is.

  “You are blaming yourself, aren’t you, Balfour? This is a duty visit, or do I mistake the matter?”

  He slipped a second hand under her ankle and held her foot with both hands. The bones were all where they should be, the tendons in their assigned locations. Nothing about her foot was distorted or misshapen, save for the unfortunate bruise.

  All in all, an elegant, functional foot.

  “I was your escort, my job by definition to shield you from harm, and I suspect the problem is not with your foot at all, but with your os coxae or lumbar vertebrae—your hips or lower spine.”

  She frowned at her foot as it lay in his grasp, but did not draw it back. “Possibly both, but consider this: had I landed on my backside or my hip, the damage would likely have been much worse. In answer to your earlier question, I do not dance. I do not dare.”

  Miss Cooper hated making that admission. Asher kept hold of her chilly foot. “For fear you’ll fall?”

  “Yes, and lest you think the humiliation alone deters me, there is also the risk of further injury. I fell while skating as a child, and the bones didn’t knit correctly, hence the limp. The physicians assure me I am as sturdy as the next young lady, but I dread having two misshapen limbs.”

  She hadn’t any misshapen limbs that he could see. He shifted his grip on her foot. “You are too cold.”

  He hadn’t meant the comment to refer to anything other than her foot, but she drew in a swift breath, as if he might have intentionally offended with the deeper meaning. Whatever else was true, Boston society had not been entirely kind to Miss Cooper—or to Asher, at first.

  “You’ve built up the fire,” she said. “Thank you.”

  He set her foot back down on its pillow, her gratitude as chilly as her injured appendage. He reached past her, which had the bothersome result of her flinching away from him, and took a folded afghan from behind her head.

  He stood to drape the blanket over one side of the hearth screen. “Shall I send your aunt to you?”

  “Why would you do that?”

  She was rattled. Direct she might be, but Hannah Cooper wouldn’t offer such a graceless retort unless she were unnerved. “To play cards with you? To talk? To read to you?”

  “Recall, please, that I just spent weeks in close quarters with my aunt.”

  Tonight, she had an answer for everything, did Boston. A prickly, off-putting, almost rude answer. Had Asher never felt out of place himself, never struggled with homesickness or a weariness of spirit as wide as an entire ocean, never longed for one place on earth where he could feel safe and included, he might have obliged the woman with the solitude she though
t she wanted.

  But the terrain Miss Hannah Cooper traversed was all too familiar to him, so Asher took the warmed afghan from the hearth screen, tucked it gently around the lady’s foot, then picked up her book from its place at her side, passed her the peacock feather, and began to read from the top of the page.

  ***

  Everything about the blasted man was beautiful.

  Blasted. Less than a week in Scotland, and Hannah was appropriating the local vocabulary, and with just provocation.

  Balfour’s features were beautiful, far more dramatically so than the typical blond, bland exponent of English aristocracy. His brows were definite, dark, and a trifle swooped at the edges, but they also had a mink-soft look to them, as if a lady might enjoy tracing her finger along their arch. Repeatedly. Both at the same time, and the pads of her thumbs, too.

  Hannah was fascinated with his nose, as well, by the nobility of it, the way it finished off a face that belonged on some Highland leader of old.

  His hands had been gentle and warm on her foot. His touch had held no presumption, only comfort and strength. And what strength he had, lifting her against his chest as if she weighed nothing. He’d gotten them back to the house at a far more brisk pace than he’d set with Hannah gawking and tottering at his side. She’d been reluctant to lift her nose from his collar, so lovely was the spicy scent of him up close.

  His voice was every bit as enticing and dark as the rest of him, and Hannah was tempted to close her eyes and let that voice seduce her to sleep. It could, his words were that powerful, that beautiful in the ear.

  The only saving mercy from Hannah’s perspective was that if she worked at it diligently, she might resent the man in possession of all these lovely attributes. He gave orders, and worse, he apparently took orders that included herding her through the ordeal of a social Season. She gained some consolation from the idea that he was herding himself right along with her, though of course he would be snatched up in the first week.

  And Aunt wasn’t going to interfere, which was a relief. Worse than Hannah’s limp would be the immediate perception that her only relation was dependent on tinctures and medicinal tots from day to day.