Page 1 of The MacGregor's Lady
One
Asher MacGregor, ninth Earl of Balfour, had crossed the Atlantic five times in his thirty-some years on earth, each passage worse than the last, each leaving him a little more symbolically at sea.
And yet, he’d learned a few things in his wanderings. Though theHarrowhad made port yesterday afternoon, her captain would wait until morning to come into Edinburgh’s harbor, so he might get a day’s work from his crew before they went ashore to drink and whore away their pay.
Giving Asher one more night to avoid his fate.
Asher also knew that after a winter Atlantic crossing, Miss Hannah Cooper and her aunt, Miss Enid Cooper, would be weary travelers. They had no notion the aging Baron Fenimore was using them to punish his nephew for being… what?
Being alive, very likely.
Asher climbed from the traveling coach at the docks, the heavy vehicle being the only one in his Edinburgh mews suited to dealing with muddy, slushy streets and heavy loads of baggage.
“Stay with the horses,” Asher admonished the coachy and both footmen. The docks were safe enough by daylight—for docks, and particularly for a man with some height, muscle, and frontier fighting skills. Asher knew which quay would be unloading theHarrow’s cargoes and debarking its passengers, but the whole situation brought back memories.
Memories of being eleven years old, on just such a cold, blustery morning, on just these docks, and only servants to fetch him to the family he’d never met.
Memories of landing back on Canadian shores as a twenty-year-old, hoping for some sense of homecoming, of welcome, only to realize he wouldn’tevenbe met by servants.
And two more returns to Scotland, both solitary, one at age twenty-two, and the most recent—the hardest one—less than six months past, both with a disappointing sense of bowing to an empty fate.
A lonely fate.
Dockside, a tender shipped oars and lowered a gangplank as the passengers and a small crowd on the wharf cheered. Families were reunited, travelers tried to adjust to walking on land, and one old gent creaked to his knees and kissed terra firma on the weathered and chilly wooden cheek of the wharf.
A total of six women debarked. Two were clearly of the lower orders, the younger showing sufficient symptoms of scoliosis to ensure a crabbed old age. They bustled away in the direction of a waiting mule cart, a sturdy yeoman at the reins.
Two were just as clearly wellborn, or at least well off, though the younger of this pair suffered acute strabismus. They climbed into a black-lacquered coach-and-four, two liveried footmen behind.
Leaving…
His guests. Plain but not too plain in their attire, the older one taking a bench while the younger one stood by like a protective hound, scanning the wharf for either danger or welcome. The young lady suffered neither a hunched back nor a squint, though she was afflicted with red hair.
Nearly the same shade of red hair as Asher’s sister, Mary Frances.
The older woman patted the bench; the younger shook her head. Her bonnet ribbons weren’t tied in a fetching, off-center bow, a sign she either wasn’t seeking the approval of fashionable Society or wasn’t native to Great Britain.
The younger Miss Cooper looked chilly, wary, and alone, and though she was a burden Asher had done nothing to merit, neither did she deserve to stand watch in the bitter shore breeze, courting an inflammation of the lungs.
“Ladies, I hesitate to be so bold, but if you’re Miss Hannah Cooper and Miss Enid Cooper, I’m Balfour, your escort.”
“Mr. Balfour.” Miss Hannah bobbed a stiff curtsy, one hand braced on the back of the bench. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“Lord Balfour.” Miss Cooper held out a hand. “Forgive my niece her form of address. We discussed it endlessly on the crossing, but we are weary and forgetful.”
“And likely chilled,” Asher said, bowing over the older woman’s gloved fingers. “The rest of your bags will be sent on to the town house. If I might take you to the coach?”
The aunt kept her hand in his and rose with his assistance. The young lady merely watched while Asher tucked the aunt’s hand over his arm and gave a few instructions to the stevedores. He did not linger over civilities, knowing Miss Hannah’s impassivity could mask fatigue, bewilderment, homesickness, and other emotions common to the weary traveler in a strange land.
“This way, ladies.”
At first he thought Miss Hannah was having difficulty walking on land. After days at sea, it could be like that. The ceaseless, nauseating movement became normal, and then concentration was needed to adjust to stillness.
“How was your crossing?”
“Truly, truly unpleasant, my lord,” the elder Miss Cooper said. “I dread the return trip already.” She chattered on about the food, the crowding, the rough crew, the cold, the endless stench of the sea, and all manner of discomfort, and occasionally, she’d stumble a little, lean on Asher for a moment, then resume both her walking and her complaining.
When she at one point turned her face up to his with the apparent intent of batting her eyes—Uncle Fenimore must truly have taken Asher into dislike—Asher noted that the aunt’s pupils were a trifle enlarged.
