Page 27 of The MacGregor's Lady
“I’m aware of my heritage.” Which included a backwoodsman or two, but the only savage Hannah knew was her step-papa. “Why don’t you accompany Lord Balfour, and I’ll remain here?”
The London town house sported a small library, which boasted more medical treatises and novels than the northern collection had. Hannah looked forward to becoming well acquainted with its offerings, and to neglecting her embroidery shamelessly.
“For you to remain home will not do, Hannah. The Season starts in only a few weeks, and you won’t have time for sightseeing. Besides, your restlessness is irksome. You will go, and I will stay home, for I feel a megrim coming on and must away to my bed.”
Aunt was becoming a sot. Even now, a tisane that was more brandy than tea sat at her elbow. “This is your second megrim this week.”
“It’s the weight of expectation regarding your Season, and all the shopping yet to do.” Aunt put the back of her hand to her forehead, as if feeling for a fever, and Hannah knew she’d just been trounced.
Though Aunt had a point. Being confined in Balfour’s London town house for the past three days was taking a toll. Even if it meant putting up with his company, Hannah would feel better for getting out of the house and away from her aunt.
“Miss Enid isn’t coming with us?” Balfour asked when Hannah met him at the foot of the stairs.
“A megrim stalks her.”
He picked up the cat that had followed Hannah from the parlor, and the beast began purring and rubbing its cheek against Balfour’s chest. “Have you considered taking all of her patent remedies and nostrums in hand? Somebody should. It’s easy to misjudge when you’re using so many at once, and half of them are more poison than medication.”
This was a physician trying to masquerade as the polite host, for which Hannah had to respect him.
“She is to be taking me in hand,” Hannah said as Balfour gently scratched the cat under the chin, “though you have a point. My grandmother warned me on the same issue before we set sail.”
“The grandmother to whom you’ve written so regularly?”
Had he no older relatives in whom to confide his troubles, to whom he might turn for consolation and counsel? Hannah stifled an urge to pluck the cat from his arms, the beast was making such a racket.
“She’s my only paternal relation. What sights are we to see today, that I might write her of those as well?”
He put the cat down, carefully, not the casual tossing aside a saucy cat might merit from time to time.
“We’ll start with whatever you please, Hannah Cooper, and I’ll be in your debt, because you’ve given me an excuse to get out of this house.”
He settled her cloak around her shoulders and began to talk of the various churches and monuments they might visit. The weather was moderating—Balfour said that was in part because they had come almost due south from Scotland—and a weak sun was trying to melt the last of the city’s snow.
He handed Hannah up into a phaeton, the height giving her a fine view of their surroundings, the brisk air chilling her cheeks between stops. A tiger rode up behind and held the horses while Balfour escorted Hannah from one amazingly ancient house of worship to another.
He spoke of the coronations held, the kings buried, the foul and wondrous deeds done at each location, until Hannah could almost believe his duties were not an imposition, but rather, his opportunity to boast about England’s capital city. He fell silent when they saw the lions in the menagerie, inspiring Hannah to suggest they repair to a tea shop rather than visit the rest of the caged animals.
“One feels sorry,” she said when Balfour had placed their order. “One feels sorry for the lions, that is. Were they less magnificent, they’d be free to chase the gazelles all the livelong day. But they are wonderful, and so we must cage them up and make them pathetic.”
He paused in the arrangement of their outerwear on a hook. “They’re merely beasts. Rather odoriferous beasts, in their current confines.”
“They are not merely beasts.”
He settled beside her, much as he’d done in the grog shop in Edinburgh, while Hannah tried to find words to reach him. They were not merely beasts, any more than he was just any old earl. “They are lions, made for swift and merciless pursuit of prey, hot, lazy afternoons sleeping off full bellies, and magnificent lives as lions where God intended lions to thrive. We make them something else entirely when we bring them here, pretending because they don’t die that we’ve provided adequately for them.”
The quality of his frown changed, his mink-brown brows rising in thought, putting Hannah in mind of otters and how joyously they played in the wild.
“Are you a lion, then, Miss Cooper, captured and brought to civilization from your natural surrounds, here to be caged and kept alive for the enjoyment of your captors?”
She studied him for a long moment then studied him further as their tray arrived. Washea lion? He’d grown noticeably quieter since they’d arrived in the malodorous environs of London.
“You weren’t like this that night outside Steeth. You’ve misplaced your manners, Lord Balfour.”
He pushed the cream and sugar at her, letting her fix her cup first then tending to his own. “My manners aren’t what’s gone missing,” he said, stirring his tea.
Hannah sipped in silence, knowing it was a good, strong cup of tea, served piping hot, with rich cream and generously sugared. And yet it tasted off. Balfour’s ill humor was that powerful.
His silence spread like gloom over the table, and Hannah spoke to combat it more than to be polite.
