Page 39 of The MacGregor's Lady
Likemysanity.Hannah pretended to measure out a dose of Enid’s most recent pet remedy but counted out only one-third of the prescribed number of drops. “We get cold snaps like this in Boston, too, Aunt, and the Holland bulbs were just making a start. They won’t be daunted by a dusting or two of snow.”
“I do hope we don’t get a late spring. Ball gowns and mud are not a pretty combination. You can put that right in my tea, dear.”
Hannah upended the spoon into Enid’s tea, stirring a few times for good measure. “I really wish you’d try to put these medicines aside, Aunt. You need some fresh air and activity.”
“Activity?” Enid downed her doctored tea like a stevedore with his ale. “Activity is not at all fashionable, not unless it involves shopping.”
Hannah went to the window, but a layer of ice had formed on the outside of the pane, making the view into the back gardens distorted. An inch of wet snow covered the struggling daffodils and tulips. Even to shop, Aunt was not likely to brave such weather.
“Her Majesty endorses walking, and she and the Prince take their children out of doors regularly.”
Enid settled back against her pillows. “Since when does an American look to British royalty for guidance on child-rearing?”
“She’s the mother of seven, and she hasn’t lost a child yet.” Seven, so far, and an eighth likely on the way.
Enid sniffed and drew the covers up. “She also chooses to spend her holidays in the wilds of Scotland, and if that isn’t peculiar, I don’t know what is. Our host is her neighbor, you know, or his lands march with hers at Balmoral. That’s how the English say it: the lands march.”
Hannah turned and braced her hips against the windowsill. Her backside ached, but from inactivity rather than overuse. “When were you going to tell me that I’m being introduced to Society by a Canadian earl?”
“There is no such thing. Would you mind closing the draperies, Hannah? The light is most cruel.”
The light was honest, revealing what Hannah had suspected: Aunt colored her hair, and having been unable to see to this subterfuge for the past month at least, her dark locks were showing gray at the roots.
Hannah closed the drapes. “Lord Balfour was raised by his mother’s people in the Canadian wilderness. When his grandmother died, he was taken to the trading post, and there put into the care of an Anglican priest who set about notifying the earl’s father of his existence. It was the same priest who’d married the earl’s parents and said the blessing over his mother’s grave, otherwise the earl would likely never have been sent to Scotland.”
“Balfour was the best your parents could do, Hannah. We will contrive, somehow, to find you a suitable match despite the earl’s unfortunate history. You mustn’t speak of it, mustn’t let on that you know he was raised as a savage. He was probably taught how to scalp people. I shall have nightmares if we don’t change the subject immediately.”
Because the danger of being scalped right here in fashionable Mayfair was so very great. “Shall we play cards, Aunt? Or the earl has taught me backgammon. I could show you how it’s played.”
Enid let out a great sigh and closed her eyes. “Leave me. My head will soon be pounding if I cannot find rest. Thank God for modern medicine.”
Thank God, indeed. Hannah left the room on swift, silent feet, and was closing the door in similar fashion when the earl spoke from immediately behind her.
“Let me guess: she’s at death’s door, though she ate a hearty enough spread with her tea, and we must put straw in the street because the noise is intolerable.”
Balfour was attired in, of all things, a kilt. A beautiful swath of rich, patterned wool that swung about his knees, hugged his hips, and would have flirted with gross immodesty in a high wind, but for the pouch resting against his thighs. “I beg your pardon?”
Were she more honest, she’d beg to sketch him in that kilt.
“Laying down straw is the old-fashioned signal that there’s illness in a house, and it does dampen the street noise. You and I are escaping, Miss Hannah.” His dark eyes held mischief, not merely teasing.
“I wasn’t aware we were imprisoned.” Mendacity was becoming a habit.
“Come along.” He took her by the hand and started off down the corridor, leaving Hannah no choice but to follow. “We are not imprisoned, but I’ve had some ideas, and I want to try them out.”
Hannah made no reply, for it seemed to her that a man in a kilt could move more swiftly, with more purpose to his gait than the same man in morning attire. Then too, his knees were disturbingly in evidence, as was the occasional flash of strong, male thigh.
“You’ll need a cloak of some sort,” the earl observed as he hauled Hannah toward the back of the house. He paused before the service door and plucked Hannah’s old brown velvet cloak from a hook. “This will do.”
Before she could protest—perhaps a kilt robbed a man of social niceties in addition to exposing his knees—Balfour had her cloak settled around her shoulders and was fastening the frogs. The brush of his warm fingers beneath Hannah’s chin was almost as unsettling as the sight of his bare… limbs.
“We’ve not far to go.” He shrugged into a wool coat and snagged two pairs of ice skates from the last hook in the hallway.
“We’re going skating?”
He ushered her through the door and wrapped her arm over his. “Observant, you Americans.” He gave her hand a condescending little pat and swept onward through the back gardens. “Sometimes, in the middle of winter, when it was as cold as the ninth circle of hell, we’d scare up a hunting party just to have an excuse to move around. It didn’t matter if we found any game or not, we just… even the Prince Consort is known to play shinny hockey. You’re familiar with the malaise of remaining cooped up for too long.”
Intimately. “I am, but surely the ice won’t be solid…” The idea of landing smack on her backside onice… Hannah stopped walking and unlooped her arm from Balfour’s. “This is not well-advised, sir.”
