The MacGregor's Lady (2 page)

Her cape was stained as well, especially around the hem. Her attire was adorned with salt, mostly, which could have been brushed off had she cared to apply a deal of effort. The aunt’s clothing was in much better repair, her hems tidy, her gloves pristine and whole.

Perhaps the aunt had been waiting for landfall to take the girl in hand?

Asher wished her the joy of such an undertaking, for no amount of finery would help with the proud tilt of Miss Hannah Lynn Cooper’s nose or the determined jut of her chin. Her mouth was wide, and her lips were generous. She compressed them constantly, as if to hide this backhanded gift from the Almighty.

And to go with such a definite nose and chin, the Deity had also bestowed on the woman large, agate eyes with long, velvety lashes. The eyebrows were bold slashes in dark auburn, a dramatic contrast to pale skin and coppery hair. Such features would have been handsome on a man, but on a woman they were… discordant. Arresting and attractive but not precisely pleasing.

Not boring or insipid, either.

In any case, Miss Hannah Cooper was going to be a royal project to launch socially. He’d been hoping for a giggling little heiress he could drive about in the park a few times, the kind of harmless female who’d be overcome with mortification when she misstepped. This one…

Asher prosed on about the city’s history, but in the back of his mind, he had to wonder if Miss Hannah Cooper would have been more comfortable marching about the wilds of Canada than taking on the challenge of a London social Season. Northern winters were cold, but the lack of welcome in a London ballroom for those who were different, foreign, and strange could be by far colder.

***

Hannah had been desperate to write to Gran, but three attempts at correspondence lay crumpled in the bottom of the library waste bin, rather like Hannah’s spirits.

The first letter had degenerated into a description of their host, the Earl of Balfour. Or Asher, Mr. Lord Balfour. Or whatever. Aunt had waited until after Hannah had met the fellow to pass along a whole taxonomy of ways to refer to a titled gentleman, depending on social standing and the situation.

The Englishmen favored by Step-papa were blond, skinny, pale, blue-eyed, and possessed of narrow chests. They spoke in haughty accents and weren’t the least concerned about surrendering rights to their monarch, be it a king who had lost his reason or a queen rumored to be more comfortable with German than English.

Balfour was neither blond nor skinny nor narrow-chested. He was quite tall, and as muscular and rangy as any backwoodsman. He did not declaim his pronouncements, but rather, his speech had a growl to it, as if he were part bear.

When that observation had found its way onto the page, Hannah had started over.

The second draft had made a valiant attempt to compare Boston’s docks with those of Edinburgh, but had then doubled back to observe that Hannah had never seen such a dramatic countenance done in such a dark palette as she had beheld on Balfour. She’d put the pen down before prosing on about his nose. No Englishman ever sported such a noble feature, or at least not the Englishmen whom Step-papa forever paraded through the parlor.

The third draft had nearly admitted that she’d wanted to hate everything about this journey, and yet, in his hospitality, and in his failure to measure
down
to Hannah’s expectations, Balfour and his household hinted that instead of banishment, a sojourn in Britain might have a bit of respite about it too.

Rather than admit that in writing—even to Gran—that draft had followed its predecessors into the waste bin. What Hannah could convey was that Aunt had not fared well on the crossing. Confined and bored on the ship, Enid had been prone to frequent megrims and bellyaches and to absorbing her every waking hour with supervision of the care of her wardrobe.

Leaving Hannah no time to see to her own—not that she’d be trying to impress anybody with her wardrobe, her fashion sense, or her eligibility for the state of holy matrimony.

Her mission was, in fact, the very opposite.

Hannah eventually sanded and sealed a short note confirming their safe arrival, but how was one to post it?

Were she in Boston, she’d know such a simple thing as how to post a letter, where to fetch more tincture of opium for her aunt, what money was needful for which purchases.

“Excuse me.” The earl paused in the open doorway, then walked into the room. He had a sauntering quality to his gait, as if his hips were loose joints, his spine supple like a cat’s, and his time entirely his own. Even his walk lacked the military bearing of the Englishmen whom Hannah had met.

Which was both subtly unnerving and… attractive.

“I’m finished with your desk, sir.”
My
lord
was probably the preferred form of address—though perhaps not preferred by him. “I’ve a letter to post to my grandmother, if you’ll tell me how to accomplish such a thing?”

“You have to give me permission to sit.” He did not smile, but something in his eyes suggested he was amused.

“You’re not a child to need an adult’s permission.” Though even as a boy, those green eyes of his would have been arresting.

“I’m a gentleman, and you’re a lady, so I do need your permission.” He gestured to a chair on the other side of a desk. “May I?”

“Of course.”

“How are you faring here?”

He crossed an ankle over his knee and sat back, his big body filling the chair with long limbs and excellent tailoring.

“Your household has done a great deal to make us comfortable and welcome, for which you have my thanks.” His maids, in particular, had Hannah’s gratitude, for much of Aunt’s carping and fretting had landed on their uncomplaining shoulders.

“Is there anything you need?” His gaze no longer reflected amusement. The question was polite, but the man was studying her, and Hannah bristled at his scrutiny. She’d come here to get away from the looks, the whispers, the gossip.

“I need to post my letter. When do we depart for London?”

He picked up an old-fashioned quill pen, making his hands look curiously elegant, as if he might render art with them, or music or delicate surgeries.

“Give me your letter, Miss Hannah. I maintain business interests in Boston and correspond frequently with my offices there. As for London, we’ll give Miss Enid Cooper another week or so to recuperate, and if the weather is promising, strike out for London then.” He paused, and the humor was again lurking in his eyes. “If that suits?”

She left off studying his hands, hands that sported neither a wedding ring nor a signet ring. What exactly was he asking?

“I am appreciative of your generosity, but I was not requesting that you mail my letter for me. I was asking how one goes about mailing a letter, any letter, bound for Boston.” Hannah disliked revealing her ignorance to Balfour, but if she was to go on with him as she intended, then his role was to show her how to manage for herself rather than to make her dependent upon him for something as simple as mailing letters.

He laughed, a low, warm sound that crinkled his eyes and had him uncrossing his legs to sit forward.

“Put up your guns, Boston. I know what it is to be a stranger in a strange land. I’ll walk you to the nearest posting inn and show you how we shuffle our mail around here. If you still want to wait for the HMS Next-to-Sail, you are welcome to, but I can assure you my ships will see your correspondence delivered sooner by a margin of days if not weeks.”

“Your ships?”
Plural.
Hannah made a surreptitious inspection of the library, seeing with new eyes hundreds of books, a dozen fragrant beeswax candles in addition to gas lamps, and thick, spotless Turkey carpets.

“When one is in trade with the New World, one should be in control of the means of distribution as well as the products, though you aren’t to mention to a soul that you know I’ve mercantile interests. Shall we find that posting inn?” He rose, something that apparently did not require her permission, and came around the desk to take her hand.

“I can stand without assistance,” she said, getting to her feet. “But thank you, some fresh air would be appreciated.”

“We should tell your aunt we’re leaving the premises.”

This was perhaps another rule, or his idea of what manners required. “She’s resting.” Aunt was sleeping off her latest headache remedy.

His earlship peered down at her—he was even taller up close—but Hannah did not return his gaze lest she see contempt—or worse, pity—in his eyes.

“We’ll leave a note, then. Fetch your cape and bonnet while I write the note.”

How easily he gave orders. Too easily, but Hannah wanted to be out of this quiet, cozy house of stout gray granite, and into the sunshine and fresh air. She met him in the vestibule, her half boots snugly laced, her gloves clutched in her hand.

“Perhaps you’ll want to wear your bonnet,” he said as a footman swung a greatcoat over his shoulders. Hannah counted multiple capes, which made wide shoulders even more impressive. Though how such a robust fellow tolerated being fussed was what Gran would call a fair puzzlement.

The bonnet had spontaneously migrated from whatever dark closet it deserved to rot in to the sideboard in the house’s entryway. “Why would I want to be seen in such an ugly thing?”

“I don’t know. Why would you?”

Propriety alone required a bonnet for most occasions, but she wouldn’t concede that, not when the only bonnet she’d packed was a milliner’s abomination. And yet, when they gained the street, she wished she had worn her ugly bonnet.

They’d had a dusting of snow the night before, though the sun had come out and the eaves were dripping. Just as in Boston, the new snow and the sunshine created a winter brightness more piercing than the summer sun.

“A gentleman would not comment on this,” her escort said as he tucked her hand over his arm, “but I notice you limp.”

That arm was not a mere courtesy, as it might have been from Hannah’s beaus in Boston, but rather, a masculine bulwark against losses of balance of the physical kind.

“A blind man could tell I limp from the cadence of my steps. You needn’t apologize.” The only people in Boston solicitous of Hannah’s limp were fellows equally solicitous of her unmarried state and private fortune, but the earl could not know that.

Silence stretched, while they meandered along walks shoveled clean of snow. Hannah knew she limped, but she forgot she knew most of the time. She forgot the ache in her hip that went with it, and forgot all the times her stepfather had told her to stand up straight lest her shoulders become as crooked as her leg.

“Does it pain you?” This handsome, wealthy man was to be Hannah’s escort for the next several months, for reasons she could not fathom. His tone was pleasant, his arm a sturdy support, and his question unexpectedly genuine.

Her reply was unexpectedly honest as a result. “It rarely hurts. Not unless I overdo.”

“We will have to see you do not overdo, then. Shall we sit? The sun is lovely, and the less time I spend cooped up behind stone walls, the happier I am.”

With that startling little revelation, he directed her to a bench in a widening in the walkway. Somebody had dusted the thing free of snow early enough that it was dry, or perhaps the February sun was that strong here in Edinburgh.

He seated her, then took a seat beside her—without asking permission. “Why are you in Great Britain, Miss Hannah Cooper?”

She’d wanted to resent Balfour, whose job it was to deliver her to London, like a federal marshal might deliver a felon for trial. And yet, she shared with the earl an appreciation for the out-of-doors, for plain speaking, and for a sunny bench. Hannah shouldn’t derive a sense of kinship with Balfour on such meager footing, and yet, she did.

“I am to find a husband,” she said, reciting the litany that had been shouted at her. “I am an American heiress and only a little long in the tooth, and it shouldn’t be too hard to find a willing baronet’s son or an aging knight.”

“I see.”

“What do you see?”

“You are a mendacious American heiress.” The amusement was back, and maybe a hint of approval.

“And you are an overly observant English gentleman.”

Another silence, while Hannah studied her bare hands and tried not to smile. Her escort wore soft kidskin gloves likely made to fit his big hands. Those gloves would feel heavenly next to the skin. Supple, warm, soft… she’d bet his were even lined with silk.

“I am not your enemy, Boston, and I am not English.” His tone was gentle, but not apologetic.

“You are the instrument of my enemy, though. You are to squire me about the ballrooms and so forth, and quietly let it be known I come with a fat dowry.”

He eyed her sidewise while Hannah pretended not to notice that the brilliant winter sun turned his dark hair nearly auburn.

“You honestly don’t want to find yourself some minor title and swan about on his arm for the next several decades? Have a few babies to show off to your friends and relations while casually flashing a vulgar diamond or two at them as well?”

“I have never swanned in my life and I hope to die without the experience befalling me.”

Swan, indeed.
But the babies… Oh, damn him for mentioning the babies.

“I see.”

“What do you think you see?”

“I see why the ugly bonnet,” he said, rising. “Come, the posting inn is several blocks off, and I promised to show you how we go about our mails here. We should stop at a grog shop too, so you can see how we do our toddies and rum buns.”

That was all he said, no lecture, no lambasting her for her unnatural inclinations, her ingratitude. The lack of resistance made Hannah uncertain, like the bright sunshine, and she leaned on him a little with the disorientation of his response. Perhaps he simply didn’t care what she was about—he’d get to fritter away his spring in any case, and she really didn’t intend to be a bother to him.

Not much of one, anyway.

As they walked the streets of the neighborhood, Hannah found differences between Edinburgh and Boston in the details, like tea with scones instead of bread and butter, and gas lamps taller than those at home. And were she home, she’d be accompanied by a maid and not this great, strapping man in his beautiful, warm clothing.