Page 105 of The MacGregor's Lady
Con swore softly and nudged Asher’s drink closer, not close enough that the baby could knock it over. “I had a son, and like Ian, I named him for Grandda. I named my boy John.”
Ian sighed, not with exasperation. That sigh struck Asher as a sigh of relief, one long overdue.
Gil kept his gaze on the child, his expression unreadable but for the sorrow in his eyes. “Tell us about our nephew, Asher. I wish I could have known him.”
The next words were hard, so hard. “He didn’t live long, not quite a year, but he was a merry lad.”
Spathfoy, to whom Asher was not related, posed the awful question: “Smallpox?”
Asher nodded.
Con swore again and dipped his head, pressing his fingers to his eyes. Gil was blinking rapidly, though Ian found his voice. “Brother, I am sorry for your loss. Your grief is ours.”
“No,” Asher said, and these words were not so hard to say at all, “it isn’t. I haven’t let it be. The rest of what I’ve kept from you is that the boy’s mother lasted only a week after she knew our son was gone. I am a physician, schooled by the best, trained for my craft, and for the two people I loved most in the world, there was nothing I could do.”
Exceptlovethem.He knew that now, like he knew his brothers loved him, and Hannah loved him. The knowledge was all that would get him through the next twenty-four hours and the next twenty-four years.
Spathfoy scowled mightily. “There should be a marker. He lived, he had a name, you loved him, his mother loved him. For the few months of his life, he was in line for an earldom.” That would matter to a marquess’s heir. The scowl was directed at Asher. “You loved his mother. There should be a marker. My brother died in the godforsaken Canadian wilderness, but we had a marker made long before we could get him home.”
Ian turned a thoughtful expression on Spathfoy. “We forget that you are only half-English, Spathfoy, though it’s usually the louder half.”
Spathfoy glared at Ian. “The more articulate half.”
“Spathfoy is right,” Con said. “The wee lad was one of us, his mother too.”
That Connor and Spathfoy would agree on anything was extraordinary.
“There will be a marker,” Asher said. “A proper memorial in the family plot… and a service.” The last felt as important as the marker.
“I’ll bring me pipes,” Con said. “The ladies will put on a spread, and we’ll tell the stories.”
The decision was right. It felt right, and as Asher mentally tested around the edges of his various pains and regrets, he found his disclosure had not, in fact, made anything hurt worse. They’d drink and they’d dance, and if they drank enough, maybe even cry—and they’d do it together.
But as for putting Hannah on that ship bound for Boston at dawn tomorrow, that was something Asher had to do alone.
Twenty-one
Hannah did not blame Asher for letting her sleep until the last possible moment. She did not blame him for being very much the earl as they left the inn in the predawn chill. She did not blame him for expecting her to take some sustenance with their tea tray.
She drew the line at allowing him to join her in the boat that would row her out to the ship anchored in the middle of the harbor.
“I have this planned,” she said. “It’s to be like a Viking burial. You watch my ship drift out to sea, and you’ll know I’ve gone. I’ll watch the land disappear…”
And die, inside, where a woman loves, she’d die. She didn’t tell him that part. Didn’t have to.
“Get in the boat, Hannah.”
Glowering at him was purely in the interests of bravado. He’d used the same tone of voice in which he’d offered other commands: “Spread your knees, Hannah. Kiss me, Hannah. Hannah, don’t cry.”
That last one had been honored more in the breach, so to speak. Hannah let him hand her into the boat, and moved over on the little bench amidships so he could sit beside her. Four stout, unsmiling fellows took the oars, and they shoved away from the pier.
“The captain has some things for you, documents and whatnot. He’ll give them to you when you reach Boston. Your aunt sends her best wishes, and I had her wedding gift to you stowed on board with your effects. I will explain the situation to Enid when her husband brings her north later this summer.”
He went on speaking, the burr ruthlessly suppressed so Hannah had to listen hard for it. She did not attend his words, specifically, but she listened for the music in his speech. The Highlander who crooned in Gaelic and told her he loved her.
“You’re to eat, regularly, and not just hardtack. The provisions on this crossing are suitable for the royal barge, Hannah, and I expect you to enjoy them.”
Enjoy?She turned her head to peer at him and saw he was in no better shape than she. His eyes were shadowed beneath and within, and for him, he looked pale. Hannah took his hand and brought it to her lips.
