Page 32 of The MacGregor's Lady
Another silence descended, this one thoughtful.
“We needed his help,” Gil said, his tone more bewildered than angry. “For years, we needed his help, and he let us think he was dead.”
“The family has his help now,” Ian said. “His shipping venture is thriving, and I get the sense that’s not his only commercial success. Every MacGregor on two continents can apply to Asher for assistance now.”
“I wouldn’t mind seeing Town in spring,” Julia volunteered. “Winter takes so long to give up its grip this far north. Then too, some shopping might be in order…”
She let the suggestion hang, but Ian felt the other women catching the notion like hounds grabbing the scent of the fox.
“I’ll no be squirin’ ye around the damned shops,” Connor muttered.
Julia patted his hand and kissed his cheek. “I do so love to show you off in your kilt, Husband.”
Connor’s mouth, usually so grim and unsmiling, turned up in an indulgent grin.
And that settled it. Without shouting, without breaking furniture, without negotiating, they were all going south—and without forcing Ian to reveal confidences he’d promised Asher never to divulge.
***
Whenever Balfour came upon Hannah, her emotions went in two directions: first, she resented his intrusion, and italwaysfelt like an intrusion. She’d look up to find him lounging in a doorway, his expression impassive, arms crossed while he studied her in handsome and inscrutable silence.
She never knew how long he’d been lurking, poaching on her privacy while he quietly regarded her.
After she wrestled that resentment under control, she’d then have to tuck Grandmother’s letter away—she read it very frequently—which created a second resentment, like an echo. The letter was her only link with home, her only link with what mattered most to her in life, though that was not Balfour’s fault.
And pulling against those resentments, like some great beast of burden, came the memories of feeling safe and warm in Balfour’s embrace, of accepting a single flower from him as he teased her in the park, of his resolutely downward gaze as they discussed caged lions.
“You are hell-bent on ruining your eyes, Miss Hannah.” Balfour ambled into the parlor and turned up the lamp. “Are you ready to go in to dinner?”
He didn’t ask about Aunt Enid, which was considerate of him. “I am.”
She folded the letter, rose, and crossed to the rack of cue sticks on the opposite wall. When Balfour extended a hand down to her, she took it, noting as she always did the slight rasp of his calluses against her fingers and palm.
Progress down the stairs was slow.
“Your hip is paining you. It hurts worse on the days when we walk in the park, doesn’t it?”
Her hip was killing her. “Or perhaps on the days when it snows, or the days when I get out of bed.” Or the days when she contemplated what would happen when she arrived back in Boston without a husband.
He tucked her hand over his arm. “Would you rather take a tray in your room?” Dark eyes regarded her not with impatience, which would have been welcome, but with honest concern.
“I am being difficult. I do apologize.”
“Your grandmother has written only the once. You miss her, and you worry for her.”
This was Balfour’s attempt at consideration, cataloging the aches and pains about which Hannah could do nothing, and yet, his honesty was a comfort too.
“Grandmama can only print—her eyesight is very poor—and she doesn’t want to spend postage on an exchange of gossip.”
Balfour paused with her while a footman opened the dining-room door. “Is that an exact quote from her letter?”
“Close enough.”
“Elders seem to share a number of characteristics, regardless of culture. I can recall being told in the longhouse that talk would not see the firewood gathered.”
The comment was an extraordinary observation in any context, also the most personal disclosure he’d offered her.
“The longhouse?” She expected his expression to shutter as it so often did, or a humorous light to come into his dark eyes while he deftly turned the subject back onto her. Instead he ushered her through to the dining room, a warm, candlelit space fragrant with the scent of beef roasted to a turn.
