Page 26 of The MacGregor's Lady
Miss Cooper flinched at his reference to her clumsiness, and Asher had to stifle an apology. He hadn’t meant to be scathing, but the woman was as uncomfortable being beholden to another as… Asher was himself.
“How long will we tarry here in Steeth?” she asked.
“Anxious to take London by storm?”
“Anxious, yes.”
She was looking about her with the same honest curiosity she’d shown upon landing in Edinburgh, though Asher suspected she’d allowed another small truth to slip past her full, unsmiling lips.
“Are you truly fretting over what most young ladies consider the dream of a lifetime?” He subtly checked their pace, which the lady had increased to something between headlong and unseemly. Another fall on the ice would not do, but neither was he in a hurry to return her to her aunt’s dubious company.
“A London Season with all the trimmings is the dream of a lifetime? Consider, Lord Balfour, much of the Season transpires in ballrooms, and I do not dance.”
He’d asked her to call him Asher, but now, when they’d narrowly escaped a forced betrothal, she exhibited a fine command of proper address. “There are always musicales.”
“I do not perform reliably or sing worth the name.”
His brother Gil was the family charmer, while Con was a font of common sense. Ian, however, was the family lawyer, and from him, Asher had learned to hear the difference between “Idonotperform reliably” and “Icannotperform reliably.”
MissCooper, Miss Cooper.For a lady who limped, she was adept at kicking snow over open flames. “What about Venetian breakfasts?”
“Where the primary fare is gossip, in which I do not indulge.”
“I believe we’ve had this discussion, but we must add swanning to the list, and I forget what else.” He was being nasty, and it was unlike him. “My apologies, Miss Cooper. I am not enjoying the delay any more than you are.”
“You enjoyed repairing the wagon.”
He saw no spite in her expression. Perhaps a little female curiosity, such as he’d seen when she caught him sweating off his stint at the forge, or maybe longing, because physical brawn was denied to genteel ladies.
“I enjoy being able to fix what’s amiss.” This was something about the practice of medicine—when it went well—that he missed. “I like being able to address my situation myself, though I know this is a lamentable tendency in a man headed for an earldom rife with servants and toadies.”
“I don’t hear you lamenting.”
“Like you, I have a list of behaviors in which I do not indulge. Shall we return you to the inn?”
She glanced again toward the smithy. The place was nothing special, a typical village blacksmith’s shop, where by the nature of the work, men congregated and passed the time of day while horses were shod or tools were repaired. The forge kept the interior blisteringly hot even on bitter days.
She’d seen him with his shirt off. It hit him low in the gut that she’d seen not just his ungentlemanly muscles, but also his un-English complexion. His un-Scottish complexion, in fact. She was an intelligent woman; she’d realize he wasn’t suffering from excessive sun on his entire body in March.
“The inn is comfortable, as you promised us,” she said, “but you haven’t answered my question, Lord Balfour. How long will we tarry? My aunt’s company in close quarters is not easy to bear, though she means well and tries hard.”
“Playing If-Only and Isn’t-It-a-Shame until you’ve lost your reason?” Aunt Enid and Uncle Fen would have much in common.
“She tries to be helpful, my lord.”
Would he be so charitable toward his uncle? “We’ll leave at first light, and the journey from here is easier, because we’re close to the coast where the water moderates the worst of the weather. We’ll hop the train in Berwick and be in Town in no time.”
She put her hand back on his arm, but lightly, just for show, which along with Miss Cooper’s my-lording, depressed Asher’s mood yet further.
***
“You might as well see the sights while we’re waiting for our wardrobes to be made ready.” Enid paused while winding soft ivory yarn into a ball. “That cat’s stare is the most unnerving thing. I don’t believe I’ve seen an animal with two different colored eyes like that.”
“Several of them live in Lord Balfour’s stables,” Hannah said as the white cat near the hearth took a bath. The animal boasted one blue eye and one green eye, and both were beautiful, though the whole was disconcerting. “Several in the mews, I mean. Balfour says there’s a mama cat who has one or so per litter.”
Not Asher, for Hannah was determined to avoid familiarities with the man—further familiarities, rather.
“Well, why isn’t this one in the mews, then? And how can you have an objection to seeing the Tower, the Menagerie, the churches, and cathedrals? This is your heritage too, you know. Your family isn’t all Colonial savages and backwoodsmen.”
