Page 43 of The MacGregor's Lady
“Most boys do like to sleep on the floor.” She’d gotten that bashful quality to her expression again. Her gaze was fixed on the laces of her skates as she knotted them together. “Most boys like secret languages, and they want to think they could be self-sufficient in the wilderness.”
She was telling him something, or trying to. “Give me your skates, madam. We should fix ourselves a tot of grog when we’re home, to make sure we don’t catch a chill.”
Hannah passed over her skates, which Asher looped over one shoulder. He extended his hand down to her, vaguely uneasy about what she might say next.
She put a hand in his and rose. “You love them, your siblings, and they love you. That’s why you came home. That’s why I’ll return to my grandmother. You do understand.”
The skates clanked against his chest, rather like his heart hammered against his ribs.
“I came back to Scotland because I owe a duty to a blessed title, and that is a damned sight less pleasant a prospect than your old granny’s loving embrace.”
She said nothing, but walked along beside him, the hitch in her gait making him want to break something and curse at length.
***
Dimly, through something Hannah could only characterize as homesickness, she perceived that the Earl of Balfour was in a sulk—the English would call it a taking, and she had no idea what the Scots would call it.
Her hip did not ache, but her heart did. Something about being able to stand straight, about moving so smoothly over the ice in the near-embrace of a man sturdy enough to keep her balanced, had her longing for Boston, though only in a general sense.
Not for her mother, not for her bedroom in her stepfather’s house, not even for her grandmother, but for the time before she’d fallen, when balance, grace, and the fearlessness that went with them had been hers.
She had been so innocent.
“You’re quiet, Boston. This does not bode well for the peace of the realm.”
He strode along beside her, only the tension in his voice attesting to his impatience with her gait.
“I’m thinking of home.”
He tossed her an unreadable glance and held open a gate that led to his stables—his mews.
“You’re annoyed that I think of my home?” She was not simply willing to pick a fight with him, she washappyto.
“If your grandmother loves you the way you say she does, she could not possibly want you to turn your back on the future you could have here.” He offered this observation with the banked tolerance of a man who knows he’s being logical, reasonable even.
Hannah passed into the alley beside the stables and came to a stop. “If, sir, you refer to my future including a husband and children, we do have single men in Massachusetts—scads of them. They can dance and flirt and spout off about the weather the same as all your London dandies, and they don’t all bother themselves about who is supposed to go in to dinner paired with whom, in what order, like some military parade.”
He crossed his arms and seemed to grow taller. “You’ve run circles around the Colonials, Boston. Left them dazed and panting at the altar, and they don’t deserve you. You need a man who can look after you, who has your measure and won’t try to diminish it. You need a man who can match you, who can call you on your queer starts, and go toe-to-toe with you—”
Hannah stepped right up to the presuming buffoon, almost toe-to-toe, and stuck her face in his—to the extent she could, being so much shorter. “I do not need a man to order me about, steal my money, and expect me to be grateful that he keeps his mistresses in better style than his own family. I do not want a man who—”
She should have taken it as a warning when Balfour uncrossed his arms and leaned down.
“You need a man who can kiss the starch right out of you.”
His mouth came down over hers, not roughly, but decisively. Hannah’s hands settled on his shoulders—for balance, surely just for balance—as the sheer heat of his body enveloped her.
He broke off, his mouth so close to Hannah’s she could feel his breath on her cheek. “You need a man who makes you think of his kisses rather than about getting on that westbound ship.”
And then he was back, not plundering, exactly, but purposefully investigating her mouth without her permission… And without any protest from her, either.
“You taste like rum buns,” she murmured against his mouth.
“Hush, lass. Kiss me.” The burr was more pronounced when he whispered. His voice, his accent, resonated inside Hannah and made herwantto kiss him. He sealed his mouth to hers, and his tongue moved gently over Hannah’s lips. She clutched at his wool coat, parting her lips to breathe him in while the skates went clattering off his shoulder and he shifted his sporran to his hip.
Kissme.
His mouth was a wonder, hot, sweet, gentle, implacable. He explored her with his tongue then left her bereft as he grazed his lips over her eyebrows and chin, her jaw, her eyes. Lest he meander too far afield, Hannah anchored a hand in his thick, dark hair and tried to guide his mouth back to hers.
