The MacGregor's Lady

by Burrowes, Grace

  “You need a husband, and if it can’t be me, then choose some dim-witted, pretty, biddable boy, Hannah. Malcolm would suit admirably—he’s kindhearted without being ambitious. Take over the remittance, and he’ll never trouble you again.”

  Hannah regarded him more closely, because this approach—tossing other Eligibles at her—was a new tactic. “I could not bind him to a contract to that effect. I’ve asked my lawyers about a husband of convenience, and they say no such agreement would be enforceable. It thwarts the sacred purposes of marriage, or some such rot.”

  As they turned a corner of the ballroom, Balfour drew her a bit closer, and Hannah allowed it. Dancing with Asher had become her guilty pleasure, a few minutes of the evening when she could be in his arms, inhale his scent, revel in his strength and nearness, and torment herself thoroughly.

  Though that last turn… Hannah felt a wave of dizziness pass over her.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m overpowered by your wit and charm, my lord. Don’t worry, the effect is fleeting.”

  The look he gave her shamed her. It held wry humor, concern, and a hint of sympathy. “I’ve been thinking I should take you back North.”

  She tried to draw back, the better to regard him. “Kidnap me?”

  “No, take you and the entire family entourage to Edinburgh, which is quite fashionable, especially in the warmer months. A Scottish husband might be up to your mettle.”

  She could not fathom that he’d marry her off to somebody else, and yet, he honestly believed marriage was in her best interests.

  “You’re Scottish, and I’m not marrying you.” Saying it aloud hurt, again. Hannah stumbled a little with the pain of it.

  “For God’s sake, what’s amiss?”

  “If you mention female bodily functions, my lord, I will not answer for the—” She tried to draw in a full breath, but her stays prevented it.

  “Come with me.” He deftly turned her off the dance floor and led her through the milling crowd around the ballroom’s edge. Hannah followed blindly, the music sounding as if it were coming from a great distance, the edges of her vision darkening.

  “I cannot understand why a woman with as much sense as you possess, as much single-minded determination to attend to her own—”

  Asher’s words made little sense, but his voice and the grasp of his gloved hand on her wrist kept Hannah moving along behind him, even as she struggled to breathe.

  Even as the thought tripped through her mind: So this is what it’s like to faint.

  Fourteen

  “We cannot—” Hannah pulled against Asher’s grip as she struggled audibly to breathe. “We cannot be private.” She sagged against a wall of the corridor, her complexion translucent by the light of the sconces.

  Asher had seen many women faint, some of them even honestly, but the sight had never engendered such an upwelling of rage, protectiveness, and exasperation.

  “You’d rather swoon on the dance floor as so many fashionable ladies do?” He scooped her up against his chest, which made her ball gown and petticoats billow all the hell over the place.

  “I’m not—”

  Except she was. As he carried her away from the ballroom, she went pliant and silent against him, not entirely lost to consciousness—not her—but subdued to an alarming extent. Asher pushed open the door to the Alcincoates’ library and found the room mercifully unoccupied.

  A fireplace at least five feet high and five feet deep sported no blaze whatsoever, suggesting continued privacy, as did the meager light cast from two sconces burning low along the inside wall.

  “You, madam, know better than to lace your stays this snugly. Avoiding food compounds your folly, and several glasses of Alcincoate’s punch was similarly ill-advised.” As he laid her on the velvet sofa, he went on lecturing her, mostly to give her something to focus on.

  “We should not be in here.”

  The very feebleness of Hannah’s protest made him furious.

  “You should not be in that damned corset.” Had he been wearing boots, a knife would have been immediately at hand. He had to rummage in the desk drawer for a penknife, though the one he found was blessedly sharp.

  He hauled her to a sitting position. “Hold still, Hannah Cooper, lest I turn you over my knee. You don’t need a husband, you need a warden.”

  He undid a few hooks down the back of her gown, then ripped the damned thing apart, haste his only goal. When he’d tucked her dress aside, he sliced through the lacings of her stays in one careful pass of the knife. They parted on a rush of Hannah’s indrawn breath.

  “Thank you.” She lay back, nearly panting, her chest rising and falling in its newfound liberty. “It’s the ball gowns, I think.”

  “Don’t think, just breathe.” He sat at her hip and smoothed her hair back from her forehead, then laid the back of his hand against her brow. She was cool rather than warm, and when he tugged her glove off to take her pulse, her fingers were cool as well.

  Without bothering to consult his watch, he could tell her heartbeat was rapid and her pulse thready.

  “I’m taking you home, Hannah. You’ve laced yourself into a swoon, and considering you aren’t even pretending to look for a husband, all this waltzing and smiling is serving no purpose anyway.”

  She stopped him from escalating into a tirade by pushing his hair off his forehead with one cool hand. “You’re to look for a bride. You promised.”

  Her reminder was gentle, rueful even. Her fingers slipped around to trace the rim of his ear, and all thought, all sense, and certainly any tirades went flying from Asher’s mind. The incongruity of her words—he was to be finding a bride—with her touch, which was intimate, dear, and arousing—brought his thoughts to a grand pause.

  “Hannah…” He removed her hand from his person, and instead brought her knuckles to his lips. “We can argue about that later. I’m going to call for the carriage and have Augusta and Ian make your excuses.”

  “You can’t.” She was trying to sit up, so Asher did not dare attempt to touch her, not with her bodice gaping open and the imprint of her stays visible on parts of her Asher could not stop staring at. Thank God for her chemise, for it was the only thing between Asher and a complete loss of sanity.

  He made himself leave the sofa and located a carafe on a gate-legged table against the wall. For himself, he poured a tot of whatever spirits were in the decanter; for Hannah he poured a glass of water.

  Of course, there were some who believed London’s water supply was responsible for various deadly epidemics. Asher set the water glass down and poured out another tot of spirits.

  “It’s whiskey,” he said, returning to the couch and passing Hannah the glass. “Sip it slowly. When was the last time you ate?”

  She barely wet her lips at the rim of the glass. “I eat. It’s the oddest thing. The dresses I’ve brought with me, like my riding habit, are looser on me, but the dresses I ordered here require me to lace up very tightly. I didn’t request that they be made that way.”

  She looked at him inquiringly.

  “For God’s sake, I wouldn’t meddle with your wardrobe.” Except he had, with her dancing slipper, in any case. Hannah’s rejoinder was lost when the door was swept open, bringing light, noise, and a knot of people into the room.

  “My goodness—!” Lady Alcincoate’s gloved hand went to the vast, jiggling expanse above her décolletage. “My lord, whatever—”

  Malcolm crowded in at Lady Alcincoate’s side, and thank God and all his winged angels, Augusta flanked their hostess on the other side. Augusta’s height meant the two women behind her had to crane their necks to peer into the darkened library.

  “Miss Cooper fainted,” Asher said, and because this pronouncement met with nothing but silence, he added, “I was concerned for her.”

  Hannah was for once exhibiting some cooperation and remaining tucked out of sight on the sofa, but the silence lengthened. Augusta pushed past the gaping Lady Alcinco
ate and grabbed an afghan from the back of a reading chair. “Late nights will catch up with us. I suppose you’ll be wanting the carriage.”

  Augusta had the blanket tucked over Hannah in moments, hiding the damage to her dress. Lady Alcincoate advanced into the room, her acolytes coming with her, and all three women wearing looks of gleeful expectation.

  “If the young lady was feeling light-headed, my lord, surely escorting her off the dance floor, finding her a seat and a glass of punch would have sufficed.”

  We must not be private. “She was not light-headed,” Asher said, feeling the beginnings of temper. “She was cool to the touch, short of breath, vertiginous, and unless I miss my guess, suffering diminution of the faculties of hearing and sight.”

  “Diminution—?” Four syllables didn’t stop the lady for long. She planted her hands on her cinched-in waist, making her look like a large, indignant insect. “If there was a diminution of senses going on, as opposed to a diminution of sense, my lord, then one calls a physician. One does not escort a young lady to a darkened library and allow her to be found reclining with—unless I miss my guess—a glass of strong spirits at hand.”

  The triumph in her voice was that of a hostess presiding at the birth of a scandal. One of the other ladies spoke up; her tone was sweetly snide. “Perhaps we ought to fetch a physician, now?”

  “Oh, for pity’s sake.” Augusta rose from the sofa to her full height. “Lord Balfour is a physician, having gained his credentials at St. Andrews years ago. He was in practice in Canada and is certainly capable of dealing with one young lady’s case of the vapors. Further delay while some local fellow is roused from his slumbers is hardly in order. If Lord Balfour, who is charged with Miss Cooper’s well-being, says she needs to be taken home now, surely a gracious hostess would be calling for her guest’s carriage?”

  Asher had never been more grateful for an English sister-in-law. The look of disdain Augusta cast down the length of her nose at the other three women was worthy of Mrs. Siddons, and Malcolm did not miss his cue.

  “I’ll have the carriage brought around. If you’ll excuse me?”

  He bowed crisply at the ladies and disappeared, leaving Asher in a dimly lit library with five women, at least three of whom would have loved to report that Hannah’s bodice was drooping, her dress undone, and her laces damaged beyond repair.

  “Perhaps you might be good enough to find the baroness’s husband,” Asher suggested, making pointed use of Augusta’s title. “And as a physician, I’m asking you ladies to give Miss Cooper privacy with my sister-in-law and me.”

  The invocation of the title, or perhaps the promise in Asher’s eyes of social murder, had the women withdrawing in a subdued silence. When the door had clicked shut, Augusta let out a breath.

  “A near thing, you two.” She took the glass Hannah proffered and drained the contents. “We’ll need to get Hannah out to the carriage before Lady Alcincoate can send servants spying with offers of hartshorn and burned feathers. You would not be the first young lady compromised by her stays. Can you walk?”

  “I’ll carry her.” Asher shrugged out of his jacket and passed it to Augusta, who assisted Hannah into it. That Hannah made no protest did not bode well. “Augusta, when we get home, will you see to sending regrets to the social obligations remaining for the next two weeks?”

  “There is no need for that,” Hannah said, “and it will only make people think the worst.”

  Asher planted his hands on his hips and glowered down at the recumbent, though rapidly rallying, Miss Cooper. “What could be worse than losing consciousness before all of Polite Society? Striking a head as hard as yours, even on a convenient andiron—”

  Augusta put a hand on his arm. “Hannah might be right, Balfour. If she withdraws from Society, all will remark the possible explanations for tonight’s bout of the vapors.”

  Augusta stared at him, as if she could will some insight to penetrate his brain.

  “Good God.” He dropped to the sofa. “They will think you are carrying and sailed to England to snag a wealthy husband before your indiscretion was obvious.”

  Worse, that was exactly what they were already thinking, assuming they’d discarded the notion Asher was ravishing his own guest in other people’s libraries. He wanted to howl and destroy things and take Hannah far from a society that was not polite in the least…

  Though all he could do for now was take her home.

  “Augusta, get us out of here, please.” He lifted Hannah against his chest, and at least that much felt good and right, for all she was too light by half. They waited while Augusta got the mass of Hannah’s skirts modestly arranged and the excess folded up in the bend of Hannah’s body, then waited again until Augusta assured them the corridor was empty.

  Augusta went ahead of them, Ian met the party in the mews, and before Asher could even mentally fashion another scold for his patient, he found himself ensconced with Hannah in the smaller of the family’s town coaches.

  Ian and Augusta went back to the ballroom to collect Malcolm and Enid—and to scotch gossip—while Hannah squirmed against Asher’s side.

  “I am perfectly capable of sitting unassisted, Lord Balfour.”

  He looped an arm over her shoulders, the brisk show of resistance in her voice reassuring him almost as much as the feel of her next to him did. “And you could have walked to the coach unassisted too, but you didn’t. One has to wonder why.”

  She sighed a mighty put-upon sigh, turned her face into his shoulder, and remained silent for the entire journey home.

  ***

  A tape measure proved that Hannah had not been losing her wits. The waists on the dresses most recently made in England were five inches smaller than the waists on the dresses Hannah had brought with her from Boston, and Aunt Enid’s quiet direction to the modiste was to blame.

  “I wanted to see you successfully settled. A lady must show herself to her best advantage if she’s to gain the notice of a worthy gentleman. Stop pacing, you shall make me dizzy.” Enid managed to sound put out rather than contrite, which had an entire shouting match boiling up from Hannah’s now full stomach.

  Hannah came to a halt with her back to the fire in Enid’s sitting room. “You made me dizzy. You made me think I was putting on weight, made me think I was losing my wits. You made me an object of gossip and speculation. How do you think your brother will react when he learns of this?”

  Enid unclipped her earrings and slipped off rings, one, two, three… seven in all. “It isn’t as if you wanted to marry the man, Hannah. You’ve chosen an inconvenient time to turn up sensitive to the requirements of decorum.”

  A maid would put the rings, the earbobs, the necklaces, and the brooches into their jewelry box, would make order out of Aunt Enid’s chaos, and see to it at some point when Enid would not be disturbed by the activity.

  “Polite Society found me in dishabille, swilling spirits, in a darkened library, alone with a man to whom I am not related, an eligible, titled, wealthy man whom they would like nothing more than to accuse of wrongdoing. This situation came about because of your meddling.”

  Enid looked up from unfastening a ruby-red brooch from her bodice. “You are concerned for our host? He’s a man, Hannah. Because he is wealthy and titled, no one will attach any shame to him whatsoever. They will say you enticed him into a shadowed corner to work your wiles on him. This blasted brooch is stuck.”

  The urge to scream like a mountain lion welled from Hannah’s soul. “I haven’t any accursed wiles, for God’s sake.”

  Enid assayed her appearance in the mirror, touching the tips of her fourth and fifth fingers to her part. “You needn’t state the obvious, Hannah. I will require at least a posset to get to sleep after all this excitement. In fact, you’d best fetch me my Dr. Giles.”

  Rather than screech that Dr. Giles wasn’t going to solve anything, Hannah took a moment to study her aunt. The hour was late, Enid was tired, and the cosmetics she used enhanced rath
er than hid her advancing years.

  Her mouth had a pinched look, not quite bitter, but thoroughly disillusioned. Her eyes were flat, seeing disappointment far more easily than hope. Her hands were no longer young and soft…

  “We’re going back to Edinburgh,” Hannah said, some of the tension leaving her shoulders. “Balfour is declining invitations, and we’re to take a repairing lease among a fresh crop of bachelors.”

  Enid stopped fussing her hair to scowl at Hannah. “That will not do. You cannot be seen to turn tail and run after tonight’s debacle. You must be seen out and about.”

  And Enid must continue her flirtation with the redoubtable Mr. Trundle.

  Hannah crossed the room, intent only on leaving. “I will accept Balfour’s guidance in this, Aunt, and so will you.”

  “You must help me with this brooch, Hannah. I swear I shall tear it off if you don’t.”

  The center of the brooch was a cluster of red gemstones, the intent to remind all and sundry of the biblical worth of a good woman, no doubt. “It’s paste,” Hannah said, hand on the doorknob. “Do with it what you must, but direct your maid to start packing in the morning. We’re going back to Scotland.”

  ***

  Asher found his quarry easily enough, accosting her as she left Enid’s chambers and moved down the hallway toward her own.

  The medical part of his mind noted that her complexion was back to its normal perfection, and her eyes had their customary alert snap. “You’ve eaten?”

  “I had a very satisfying late supper, thank you, complete with cake.”

  The consonants were bitten off, the vowels compressed with… not anger. Anger was the decoy, the distraction drawing notice from… her bewilderment.

  Or her homesickness, possibly both.

  “If you have some time, Hannah, I would beg a word with you.”

  She arched a brow—likely at the word “beg”—then took him by the wrist and led him to her sitting room. Another private situation, but this time with Hannah being the one to determine their direction and destination.