Page 4 of The MacGregor's Lady
“We should tell your aunt we’re leaving the premises.”
This was perhaps another rule, or his idea of what manners required. “She’s resting.” Aunt was sleeping off her latest headache remedy.
His earlship peered down at her—he was even taller up close—but Hannah did not return his gaze lest she see contempt—or worse, pity—in his eyes.
“We’ll leave a note, then. Fetch your cape and bonnet while I write the note.”
How easily he gave orders. Too easily, but Hannah wanted to be out of this quiet, cozy house of stout gray granite, and into the sunshine and fresh air. She met him in the vestibule, her half boots snugly laced, her gloves clutched in her hand.
“Perhaps you’ll want to wear your bonnet,” he said as a footman swung a greatcoat over his shoulders. Hannah counted multiple capes, which made wide shoulders even more impressive. Though how such a robust fellow tolerated being fussed was what Gran would call a fair puzzlement.
The bonnet had spontaneously migrated from whatever dark closet it deserved to rot in to the sideboard in the house’s entryway. “Why would I want to be seen in such an ugly thing?”
“I don’t know. Why would you?”
Propriety alone required a bonnet for most occasions, but she wouldn’t concede that, not when the only bonnet she’d packed was a milliner’s abomination. And yet, when they gained the street, she wished she had worn her ugly bonnet.
They’d had a dusting of snow the night before, though the sun had come out and the eaves were dripping. Just as in Boston, the new snow and the sunshine created a winter brightness more piercing than the summer sun.
“A gentleman would not comment on this,” her escort said as he tucked her hand over his arm, “but I notice you limp.”
That arm was not a mere courtesy, as it might have been from Hannah’s beaus in Boston, but rather, a masculine bulwark against losses of balance of the physical kind.
“A blind man could tell I limp from the cadence of my steps. You needn’t apologize.” The only people in Boston solicitous of Hannah’s limp were fellows equally solicitous of her unmarried state and private fortune, but the earl could not know that.
Silence stretched, while they meandered along walks shoveled clean of snow. Hannah knew she limped, but she forgot she knew most of the time. She forgot the ache in her hip that went with it, and forgot all the times her stepfather had told her to stand up straight lest her shoulders become as crooked as her leg.
“Does it pain you?” This handsome, wealthy man was to be Hannah’s escort for the next several months, for reasons she could not fathom. His tone was pleasant, his arm a sturdy support, and his question unexpectedly genuine.
Her reply was unexpectedly honest as a result. “It rarely hurts. Not unless I overdo.”
“We will have to see you do not overdo, then. Shall we sit? The sun is lovely, and the less time I spend cooped up behind stone walls, the happier I am.”
With that startling little revelation, he directed her to a bench in a widening in the walkway. Somebody had dusted the thing free of snow early enough that it was dry, or perhaps the February sun was that strong here in Edinburgh.
He seated her, then took a seat beside her—without asking permission. “Why are you in Great Britain, Miss Hannah Cooper?”
She’d wanted to resent Balfour, whose job it was to deliver her to London, like a federal marshal might deliver a felon for trial. And yet, she shared with the earl an appreciation for the out-of-doors, for plain speaking, and for a sunny bench. Hannah shouldn’t derive a sense of kinship with Balfour on such meager footing, and yet, she did.
“I am to find a husband,” she said, reciting the litany that had been shouted at her. “I am an American heiress and only a little long in the tooth, and it shouldn’t be too hard to find a willing baronet’s son or an aging knight.”
“I see.”
“What do you see?”
“You are a mendacious American heiress.” The amusement was back, and maybe a hint of approval.
“And you are an overly observant English gentleman.”
Another silence, while Hannah studied her bare hands and tried not to smile. Her escort wore soft kidskin gloves likely made to fit his big hands. Those gloves would feel heavenly next to the skin. Supple, warm, soft… she’d bet his were even lined with silk.
“I am not your enemy, Boston, and I am not English.” His tone was gentle, but not apologetic.
“You are the instrument of my enemy, though. You are to squire me about the ballrooms and so forth, and quietly let it be known I come with a fat dowry.”
He eyed her sidewise while Hannah pretended not to notice that the brilliant winter sun turned his dark hair nearly auburn.
“You honestly don’t want to find yourself some minor title and swan about on his arm for the next several decades? Have a few babies to show off to your friends and relations while casually flashing a vulgar diamond or two at them as well?”
