“Elders seem to share a number of characteristics, regardless of culture. I can recall being told in the longhouse that talk would not see the firewood gathered.”
The comment was an extraordinary observation in any context, also the most personal disclosure he’d offered her.
“The longhouse?” She expected his expression to shutter as it so often did, or a humorous light to come into his dark eyes while he deftly turned the subject back onto her. Instead he ushered her through to the dining room, a warm, candlelit space fragrant with the scent of beef roasted to a turn.
“I have boyhood recollections, the same as any other man, though mine are of the Canadian wilderness. It’s beautiful there, but… absolutely uncompromising. Maybe a little like you.”
An attempt to tease, but as with so many of Balfour’s sallies, a compliment lurked at the edge of the observation. “How old were you when you left?”
“Eleven summers.” He paused by Hannah’s chair, set to the right of his. “Eleven years old.”
He seated her without saying more, but then he surprised her. “Your turn to say the blessing, Miss Hannah.”
Her turn? He’d said a perfunctory word or two over the food at every evening meal, and she’d seen him close his eyes for a moment before tucking into his food on other occasions. Unlike many men of Hannah’s acquaintance, he wasn’t heedless of his spirituality.
Neither was she. Hannah spread her napkin on her lap and cast around for inspiration. None arrived, the habit in Boston being for Step-papa to blather on until the soup was cold. Hannah bowed her head and thought of bread and butter consumed under a lean-to.
“For what we are about to receive, for safe havens, and for loved ones even when we can’t be with them, we are grateful. Amen.”
He quietly echoed her amen, and the ordeal of yet another meal in the Earl of Balfour’s handsome, charming, and all too perceptive company began.
Seven
Asher had the knack of putting his guest off merely by drawing breath, which was fortunate.
He was coming to like looking at Hannah Lynn Cooper too much, to enjoy watching the way lamplight played with the red-and-gold highlights in her hair. He liked to feel her hand slipping into his, liked to think she appreciated that he would not let her fall.
He liked to ponder the quality of her silences as she ambled through the park with him, liked to provoke her into smiling despite herself.
“Might I have the butter, Miss Hannah?”
She put the little silver dish by his elbow. “You always start your meal with buttered bread.”
He hadn’t realized that about himself. “A man can do without some thin soup, while bread and butter will sustain life. Wine, Miss Hannah?”
“Please.”
“You’re learning to drink it, I gather.”
“I’m learning that water in London is not like water at home. I can see why tea is the mandatory beverage here.”
Ale was probably consumed in greater quantity than tea. He didn’t point that out because she was about to make another blunt pronouncement. “And why is tea mandatory?”
“Because the water in London is undrinkable in its plain state.”
True enough. “You must not say as much in public.”
She sat back and remained silent while the soup course was removed. Asher waved the footmen off, as he usually did. The meal was sitting on the table in plain sight in chafing dishes, and he and his guest were more than capable of feeding themselves.
“I will not embarrass you, sir.” Her admission was grudging, offered more in hope than confidence, though her manners were impeccable.
“You will not cause embarrassment purposely, and yet I suspect you will not take, though it won’t be entirely your doing, and I doubt it will matter to you. I like this about you, Hannah Cooper, even as I wish you might accept the smoother path of compromise and accommodation. I’m hoping I don’t embarrass you either.”
Because compromise and accommodation also weren’t in his nature.
She stopped mid-reach toward her wine. “Does this have to do with that comment about the longhouse?”
Upon consideration, he found that yes, it did. “I am not the ideal escort for a young lady seeking to make a fine impression on Polite Society. I suspect my uncle offered my services as a way to punish me more than a way to see you effectively introduced.”
“I’m a punishment?”
“Don’t sound so pleased.”
She smiled, a gorgeous, mischievous grin that suggested if she’d wanted to, if she’d had the least inclination, she’d do well enough among the London bachelors. “Tell me about the longhouse and why you are such a sorry excuse for an escort.”
“I wouldn’t go quite that far. I am an earl, I’ll have you know.” Though this was the first instance he could recall having a use for the title.
“Where I come from, your title is not considered an attribute you’ve earned, and you view it in the very same light. Now, tell me about the longhouse.”
Much to his surprise, over the rest of the meal, he told her. He told her about interminable bitter winters spent in snug proximity to people who’d known him since birth. He talked about the beauty of the wilderness, the scope of the knowledge a fellow needed to survive there, and the curiosity and dread he’d felt entering the trading post as a boy of eight.
What surprised him was how easily the happy memories came, how easily and how plentifully. He did not speak about the coughing, about the remorselessness of disease under such circumstances—especially not about that—about the starvation in early spring.
Not even Ian had asked him for this recitation; nor would Asher have welcomed his brother’s inquiries.
Hannah Cooper listened, asking questions when he occasionally fell silent.
What tribe were his mother’s people from?
How long had he lived with his grandparents after her death?
How long had he lived at the trading post after his grandmother’s death?
What was it like crossing the Atlantic at the age of eleven?
How did a boy of eight reconcile a life in the wilds with life among his father’s people?
“Not well, not easily. The minister who took me in was kind, but at the trading post, they wore too many clothes in summer, they used too many utensils to consume their food, they tried to go about in winter as if it weren’t murderously cold, when what was wanted were long, long stories told by the fire. My mother’s tribe included people who could recite our entire history from memory, an undertaking that goes on for nine days, and yet it wasn’t until I got to Scotland that I heard some decent tales told in English.”
“From?”
“My father’s father. My father died immediately after learning of my existence and sending for me.”
She patted his hand. Not a surreptitious little gesture, but a firm squeeze of his hand followed by a soft, warm pass of her fingers over his knuckles.
Gestures of comfort had been rare and few in his life, at least his life among his father’s people. They were a ridiculous bunch, making war on one another without ceasing, though they shared the same God, lived side by side, and aped one another’s fashions. And yet, Scots, English, Welsh, Irish, and even Americans had a pecking order as well-defined as chickens confined in the same malodorous coop.
He brought Hannah’s hand to his lips in a traditional gesture he approved of but had seldom used. “It’s late, and I’ve talked enough. Shall I see you to your rooms?”
“Please. I also want to check on Aunt Enid. She barely stirred when I asked if she was coming down for tea.”
Asher appropriated a candle, the sconces having been turned down for the night, and led Miss Hannah through the darkened house. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he thought she leaned on his arm more heavily and took longer to navigate the steps.
“You might try a tot of laudanum,” he suggested as they approached her door. “Just because your aunt has made a crutch of her patent
remedies doesn’t mean you would fall into the same trap.”
Even soothed with a glass or two of wine, Miss Cooper ought to have fired off a tart retort, ought to have pinned his ears back for his presumption—she’d made a point of refusing laudanum more than once. They couldn’t very well part on the cozy, almost friendly terms on which they’d passed the meal, could they?
“I’ve already fallen into the patent-remedy trap, or nearly so. I believe my stepfather was ready to snap it closed on me.”
He stopped outside her door. By the light of a sconce at the end of the hall, she looked tired and wan, but not defeated. Never defeated. “Did this come about because of your hip?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Because of my stupidity. When I was twenty, I had one of those nasty falls, and the physician prescribed bed rest. My stepfather suggested some elixir for the pain because, when I took it, I was far more biddable. Grandmother figured out what he was up to—as I was only twenty, he could still try to marry me off—and had a stern talk with my physicians, my mother, and my maid. I’ve avoided even strong spirits ever since—at least until I became acquainted with the local version of grog.”
No wonder she was loyal to the old woman, and no wonder she viewed a London Season as a mere inconvenience. She knew what it was to fight for her freedom, and she was fighting still.
And yet she had offered him a respite from some adult version of homesickness.
He set the candle down, leaned in, and pressed his lips to her cheek. He lingered only long enough to catch her lavender-and-clover scent before he stepped back. “It will be an honor to escort you about Mayfair this spring, Miss Hannah Cooper, and I was wrong when I predicted that you would not take. You will be, as they say, all the rage.”
He bowed and withdrew before he could say anything more foolish than that—before he could do anything more foolish—and left her standing outside her bedroom, illuminated by the light of a single candle.
***
The Earl of Balfour kissed gently, sweetly, at complete variance with his hard, dark eyes, his blade of a nose, and his odd, growling accent. Hannah took the memory of the earl’s good-night kiss with her into her bed and woke with it the next morning.
She’d liked his kiss. Not one scintilla of disrespect had marred the gesture, nothing presuming. He smelled good, like Christmas and sweet spices, and he’d kept his hands to himself, touching her only with his lips.
That such a large man could be delicate was breathtaking.
Also deceptive.
“Turn loose of my shoe, sir, or I shall scream.” Hannah used the same tone she regularly applied to her younger brothers, though it apparently had no effect on full-grown earls.
“It’s just a dancing slipper.” He gave the shoe in her hand a hard tug, though not hard enough to wrest it from her grasp. “You have at least twelve pairs. Go ahead and scream. Perhaps it will motivate your aunt to leave her bed for a change.”
No, it wouldn’t—and how lowering was that?
“I will not allow you to visit your fool scheme on my hapless apparel, my lord.”
This gave him pause in the tug-of-war going on between them. “You almost never call me ‘my lord.’” As he made this observation, he seemed to grow larger. He used the shoe to step closer to Hannah, so close she could see his eyes were not in fact black, they were a dark, gold-flecked brown.
And bore no hint of compromise.
A startled gasp came from the doorway as a maid bearing a tea tray came to an abrupt halt, eyes wide.
“Leave us,” the earl barked. The maid set the tray on the low table before the settee, dipped a curtsy, and departed.
The dancing slipper was of that pale shade of pink referred to as Maiden’s Blush. Hannah could not envision an occasion when she’d be caught dead in such a color, but her newly acquired collection included Spring Dew (green), Moondust (ivory), Spanish Pewter (gray), and assorted other impracticalities.
The earl leaned closer, nose to nose with Hannah. “I would verra much like a cup of tea.” He turned up Scottish when intent on a goal.
“Unless you’re going to drink it out of this dancing slipper, then you’d best let me have my shoe back.”
He turned loose of the slipper, but for a long moment did not step back.
A visual contest of wills ensued, two people locked in mutual, unblinking glowers, even as Hannah knew she was being ridiculous. She forgot she could not back down, and instead took note of the contrasts in the earl’s morning attire. His shirt was snow white, his cravat dark blue silk, his morning coat a darker blue, and his shirt studs and sleeve buttons gold. His waistcoat was of yet another shade of blue embroidered in a paisley pattern with gold threads.
With his dark complexion, the ensemble was quietly elegant and… lovely.
And again, his scent—nutmeg, clove, cinnamon—stronger than it had been the previous evening. With something like amazement, Hannah watched her own hand reach up and free a fold of his cravat from the lapel of his coat. She eased one finger between soft layers of fabric, tugged silk from linen and wool, then smoothed her palm over the center of his chest.
He moved back slowly, as if he’d spotted a predator across a clearing in the woods and was avoiding the snap of even a single twig.
“Shall you pour, Miss Hannah?”
He sounded damnably composed, while for Hannah, something wild and fluttery paced the confines of her belly. “Of course.”
Balfour waited for her to take a seat, then waited for her to gesture him into the place beside her on the settee, though of all the men he was—lord, Highlander, frontiersman—the earl was the least in evidence.
“You steal my shoes then stand on ceremony, sir?”
“You call me ‘my lord’ only when you’re trying to distract me?”
She did not reach for the teapot. Bad enough when he was being obstinate; now he must turn up teasing.
“Your eyes change color with your mood, Balfour. Did you know that?”
“I suspect it’s true of most people, and I apologize for troubling you over your dancing slipper.”
To distract herself, Hannah began the ritual of the tea service. “My shoes are now safe from your larceny?”
His gaze was on her hands as she added cream and sugar to his Darjeeling then stirred for him, removed the spoon, and passed him his cup and saucer.
“Your hands are cold, Hannah Lynn Cooper. This room is cold, in fact.”
He hadn’t answered her question. “Do not think of closing that door, sir.”
He was already on his feet, closing the door and then poking up the fire to a roaring blaze. “Fat lot of good propriety will do you when you’re expiring of lung fever under my roof. And no, your shoes are not safe from me. You were supposed to be visiting with your aunt as you do every morning first thing, and I intended to relieve you of only the one pair.”
He stood with the brass-and-iron poker in his hand, though a claymore would have been appropriate to his posture, too.
“I doubt my slippers would fit you, sir, and Maiden’s Blush is hardly your color.”
He set the poker back in its stand and began a perambulation of Hannah’s room, turning quickly enough that Hannah suspected he might have been hiding a smile. He did not blend with these fussy, overstuffed surrounds, and yet she liked the look of him sniffing at the sage sachets hanging from her curtains and fingering the brushes on her vanity.
“We really ought not to be alone in here together.” And Hannah really did not practice hypocrisy very convincingly, for this was the man in whose arms she’d spent a lovely, cozy night.
“Then agree to give me one of your dancing slippers—a right one.”
Hannah took a sip of tea, then realized she’d drunk from the only cup she’d poured—his. He’d watched her do it, too, the wretch. His smile said as much.
“You’ll ruin my slipper. Waste not; want not.”
“Such a Yankee. Are you going to tell me Maiden’s Blush is y
our favorite color?”
She had to get him out of her room, and not because propriety required it. “I’m telling you every scheme, exercise, and magic potion has been unavailing where my disability is concerned.”
“So you’ve let somebody put a lift on your heel before?”
Because he was watching her, even as he brought a bowl of potpourri to his nose, he likely saw her hesitate as much as heard it.
“You have not allowed this previously.” He set the dish down and stirred the contents with his third finger before rejoining her on the settee. “Why not?”
Arguing was not evicting him from her room. “Nobody thought of it.”
He sat forward, straining the seams on his coat, making the settee creak softly. “You do not have pain in your foot, your knee, or your leg, as far as I can tell. If the difficulty is in your back and hip, then it’s possible your right leg is simply shorter than the left. Your fall might not have had much to do with it, other than rendering you weaker for a time as a result of inactivity, which exposed the underlying condition.”
While he spoke, he poured a second cup of tea, added cream and sugar, then passed it to Hannah.
She took it, being sure their fingers did not brush again. “You should not be discussing my person in such terms.” Not in England, in any case.
“Shall I send for a physician to discuss your own limbs with you? Another physician? An old fellow who smells of mildew and lemon drops, who’ll no doubt want to examine your person?”
“Thank you, no. Aunt Enid would get wind of it, and the letters would be flying, and thank you, no.” She took a sip of tea, finding it both soothing and bracing, and cradled the cup in her hands rather than set it on its saucer.
“So you’ll let me try, Hannah? If it doesn’t work, then there’s no harm done, except to ensure you’ll never encase your dainty feet in Maiden’s Blush.”
Hannah, not Miss Cooper, or even Miss Hannah. Maiden’s Blush, indeed. “I could not be so blessed.”
And the idea of him seeing her shoes—she ordered them by color—was vaguely disquieting, but that he might have seen her collection of stockings went beyond intolerable. “If this scheme works, Balfour, then you’ll expect me to dance.”
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