Page 37 of The MacGregor's Lady
He was beside her in an instant. “Sit.” He did not scoop her up against his chest as he had so easily in Edinburgh, but his arm was around her waist, conducting her to the bed, the nearest piece of furniture that would hold both of their weights. “Head down, breathe slowly.”
His hand on her nape had her bending forward. “Don’t move.”
She didn’t. Even in the short stays she refused to lace too tightly, it was easier to breathe like this. “God in heaven, what is that for?”
He held a short, wicked-looking knife. The handle was bone with some scrimshaw design etched on it, and the blade positively gleamed.
“I’m going to cut you out of your goddamned stays.”
Hannah bounced away from him, which was difficult given how high the bed was. “That will not be necessary.”
The knife disappeared, up his sleeve, into his boot, into some sort of sheath affixed somewhere on his person—Hannah knew not which.
“Tell me about Widmore, Hannah.”
She’d started out the day as Miss Hannah, Miss Hannah Lynn Cooper who’d enjoyed the most innocent good-night kiss last night. This morning she was Hannah, her name spoken in a low, harsh rasp, and she was about to be laid bare by a knife-wielding Red Indian Scottish Earl Physician.
Despite all inclination to the contrary, she talked. “Widmore was the last threat, the one I’m fairly certain step-papa manufactured to inspire me to acquiesce to this trip.”
Balfour reached out with the same hand that had gripped her slipper so tightly, the same hand he’d used to fix her tea and brandish that knife, and brushed his thumb over her cheek. Hannah didn’t realize what he was about until he tasted the pad of his thumb then produced a handkerchief.
The wild and fluttery sensation in her stomach leapt higher at the sight of him tasting her tears.
She took the little cotton square from his hand lest he wipe her face for her.
“Go on, lass.”
As if she hadn’t already explained, as if Balfour knew in his bones there was more to the tale.
“He was not honorable.”
A calculating coldness came into Balfour’s eyes, one that gratified Hannah even as it took her aback. “I have many connections on the American seaboard, Hannah Cooper. I can make sure this Widmore never has an opportunity to be dishonorable with a young lady again.”
The image of the knife flashed in Hannah’s mind, and just then, she was glad this earl was, among other things, also part savage. She adored him for it, in fact, and wished she were part savage too.
“His sins will catch up with him.”
If anything, this tired pronouncement made the chill in the earl’s eyes deepen. “I’d rather you allowmeto catch up with him, Hannah Cooper, me and my knife and a quiet, dark alley. If the knife won’t do, there are herbs that can make a man wish he were dead and leave him—”
Hannah put a finger to his lips and barely, barely resisted the urge to run that finger over his eyebrows.
“That won’t be necessary. When I return to Boston, having failed so spectacularly in London, Widmore will have reason to gloat, and that will be his revenge upon me. He’ll trouble me no more.”
Balfour grabbed Hannah’s hand and kept it in his grasp, and abruptly, Hannah’s problem was not tight stays or a soaring temper.
“You could marry me, Hannah Cooper. If I’m to do my part for the earldom—and I shall—then I must marry. As my countess, you’d suffer no more Widmores bothering you, no more dodging your stepfather’s schemes, no more fretting over the fate of your fortune, and we could easily see your grandmother comfortably settled.”
He was talking himself into this rash offer, grabbing for reasons in support of it only as he glowered at his would-be intended and kept her hand captured in his own.
And Hannah loved him for it—purely, unabashedly loved him for his protectiveness and for the simple, honest workings of his honor. Her regard echoed the way old Sir Walter’s characters became impassioned in their high-flown romances, and would give her something to dream about when she was old.
As old as the grandmother, upon whom, Hannah would never turn her back.
Hannah touched her fingers to his lips. “Asher, please don’t. My grandmother is very old, and I would not abandon her to the tender mercies of strangers. As long as she must bide in America, my stepfather could find a way to hurt me through her. He’s a vengeful man, is Step-papa.”
Very vengeful. The temptation to blurt out just how vengeful was nigh overwhelming, but that admission would provoke Asher into a renewed proposal—of marriage or murder; they were equally endearing offers.
“So bring your grandmother here, Hannah. We’ll keep her in toasted bricks and possets and teach her to cheat at whist. We’ll give her great-grandchildren to tell her stories to.”
