Page 34 of The MacGregor's Lady
“I wouldn’t go quite that far. I am an earl, I’ll have you know.” Though this was the first instance he could recall having a use for the title.
“Where I come from, your title is not considered an attribute you’ve earned, and you view it in the very same light. Now,tellmeaboutthelonghouse.”
Much to his surprise, over the rest of the meal, he told her. He told her about interminable bitter winters spent in snug proximity to people who’d known him since birth. He talked about the beauty of the wilderness, the scope of the knowledge a fellow needed to survive there, and the curiosity and dread he’d felt entering the trading post as a boy of eight.
What surprised him was how easily the happy memories came, how easily and how plentifully. He did not speak about the coughing, about the remorselessness of disease under such circumstances—especially not about that—about the starvation in early spring.
Not even Ian had asked him for this recitation; nor would Asher have welcomed his brother’s inquiries.
Hannah Cooper listened, asking questions when he occasionally fell silent.
What tribe were his mother’s people from?
How long had he lived with his grandparents after her death?
How long had he lived at the trading post after his grandmother’s death?
What was it like crossing the Atlantic at the age of eleven?
How did a boy of eight reconcile a life in the wilds with life among his father’s people?
“Not well, not easily. The minister who took me in was kind, but at the trading post, they wore too many clothes in summer, they used too many utensils to consume their food, they tried to go about in winter as if it weren’t murderously cold, when what was wanted were long, long stories told by the fire. My mother’s tribe included people who could recite our entire history from memory, an undertaking that goes on forninedays, and yet it wasn’t until I got to Scotland that I heard some decent tales told in English.”
“From?”
“My father’s father. My father died immediately after learning of my existence and sending for me.”
She patted his hand. Not a surreptitious little gesture, but a firm squeeze of his hand followed by a soft, warm pass of her fingers over his knuckles.
Gestures of comfort had been rare and few in his life, at least his life among his father’s people. They were a ridiculous bunch, making war on one another without ceasing, though they shared the same God, lived side by side, and aped one another’s fashions. And yet, Scots, English, Welsh, Irish, and even Americans had a pecking order as well-defined as chickens confined in the same malodorous coop.
He brought Hannah’s hand to his lips in a traditional gesture he approved of but had seldom used. “It’s late, and I’ve talked enough. Shall I see you to your rooms?”
“Please. I also want to check on Aunt Enid. She barely stirred when I asked if she was coming down for tea.”
Asher appropriated a candle, the sconces having been turned down for the night, and led Miss Hannah through the darkened house. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he thought she leaned on his arm more heavily and took longer to navigate the steps.
“You might try a tot of laudanum,” he suggested as they approached her door. “Just because your aunt has made a crutch of her patent remedies doesn’t mean you would fall into the same trap.”
Even soothed with a glass or two of wine, Miss Cooper ought to have fired off a tart retort, ought to have pinned his ears back for his presumption—she’d made a point of refusing laudanum more than once. They couldn’t very well part on the cozy, almost friendly terms on which they’d passed the meal, could they?
“I’ve already fallen into the patent-remedy trap, or nearly so. I believe my stepfather was ready to snap it closed on me.”
He stopped outside her door. By the light of a sconce at the end of the hall, she looked tired and wan, but not defeated. Never defeated. “Did this come about because of your hip?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Because of my stupidity. When I was twenty, I had one of those nasty falls, and the physician prescribed bed rest. My stepfather suggested some elixir for the pain because, when I took it, I was far more biddable. Grandmother figured out what he was up to—as I was only twenty, he could still try to marry me off—and had a stern talk with my physicians, my mother, and my maid. I’ve avoided even strong spirits ever since—at least until I became acquainted with the local version of grog.”
No wonder she was loyal to the old woman, and no wonder she viewed a London Season as a mere inconvenience. She knew what it was to fight for her freedom, and she was fighting still.
And yet she had offered him a respite from some adult version of homesickness.
He set the candle down, leaned in, and pressed his lips to her cheek. He lingered only long enough to catch her lavender-and-clover scent before he stepped back. “It will be an honor to escort you about Mayfair this spring, Miss Hannah Cooper, and I was wrong when I predicted that you would not take. You will be, as they say, all the rage.”
He bowed and withdrew before he could say anything more foolish than that—before he coulddoanything more foolish—and left her standing outside her bedroom, illuminated by the light of a single candle.
***
The Earl of Balfour kissed gently, sweetly, at complete variance with his hard, dark eyes, his blade of a nose, and his odd, growling accent. Hannah took the memory of the earl’s good-night kiss with her into her bed and woke with it the next morning.
