Page 6 of The MacGregor's Lady
“It passes.” He patted her hand, his fingers stroking over her knuckles. His hand was warm, and she wished he’d do it again.
That little unexpected caress and thoughts of her grandmother had Hannah speaking aloud sentiments that could not interest the earl. “Gran is very old, and she hasn’t had an easy life. I do not appreciate being made to perform in this husband-hunting farce. She isn’t going to live forever.”
“Is she in good health?”
“She is.”
“She’ll probably live another few months then. Ah, our libation arrives.”
A serving maid unloaded two mugs and a plate of buns from a tray. The scents were heavenly. Rum, butter, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg…
“A toast.” The earl tapped his mug against hers. “To safe journeys and worthy destinations.” His comment about her grandmother had sounded offhand, a little callous, but his toast took the sting from it.
“Safe journeys,” Hannah echoed. “Worthy destinations.”
“Go slowly,” he cautioned, taking a sip of his drink.
Rum was a sailor’s drink, but Hannah was lulled into a false sense of pleasurable anticipation by the lovely bouquet of spicy, buttery scents filling her nose an instant before the spirits hit her tongue.
Those spirits bloomed, they blessed, and they burned all the way down.
She took a slightly larger sip and set the mug on the table.
“You don’t approve of a lady taking spirits?” her companion asked.
Was heteasingher? “I shouldn’t, but I approve of the medicinal tot to ward off the chill at least. New England winters are serious weather, and this is a lovely concoction.”
“I’ll make sure you have the recipe to take home with you. Try a bun.”
He talked of his first experience of rum, on his initial crossing. The sailors had gotten him drunk with it and dared him to climb to the crow’s nest. He’d made it, then fallen asleep, which meant he had to be roped down before the captain got wind of the day’s mischief.
“You might have died, trying to get down.”
“I might, but I didn’t, and it makes an adequate tale to share over a toddy, but Miss Hannah?”
“Earl?” She was not going to my-lord him, and a troop of redcoats would likely appear posthaste if she referred to him as Mr. Earl.
“My job this spring is to see to it you snare a husband, will you, nil you.” He took another sip of his drink then set the mug down beside hers.
“And if I don’t want a husband?”
“My uncle Fenimore has set me this task as a sort of penance for spending nearly seven years away from my post in Scotland, or perhaps because he owes your stepfather and hates any sort of indebtedness. And yet, I owe my uncle only so much duty. I’d need a damned good reason to go to all the bother of trotting around the social Season merely for the sake of wasting your papa’s money—pardon my language.”
“My money,” she corrected him, and his language was nothing compared to what Step-papa could unloose. “I’m an heiress, recall. My real father left me quite well off, and if I can manage to stay unwed another two years, the funds all become mine.”
She should not have told a stranger such a thing, but this stranger had understood why she needed to see her letter to Gran mailed herself, and this stranger was likely the only earl in captivity who loathed fashionable ballrooms as much as Hannah did.
“You can’t trust yourself to find a man who’ll take good care of both you and your money?”
His question was reasonable, and yet, Hannah hadn’t heard it before.
“I notice you haven’t any Mrs. Earl.”
“Point for the lady,” he said, lips quirking. “I’m to hunt one up this spring, but alas, I’ve no more heart for the quest than you do.”
“So what’s your damned good reason for braving the ballrooms?” She took another sip of the lovely concoction, though the company was a bit lovely too. “Why squire me about and appear to look over the possibilities when you’re not going to make any offers?”
“Perhaps I’ll be proven wrong. Perhaps some enterprising little filly will snare me and lead me off to be put in double harness.”
