Page 64 of The MacGregor's Lady
Hannah blotted out the image Connor must be carrying in his mind, of her and the earl, plastered against each other, mouths fused, hands busily—“I have wondered that very thing myself.” It was the best she could do. Connor must have known that, because his smile was both sympathetic and curious, and all the way through the wood, across the fields and down the lanes, he didn’t ask her even one more question.
***
“We’re going to have to talk, Hannah Cooper.” Asher settled himself beside her on the log she’d chosen for her picnic perch. God help him, he even liked saying her name, though Hannah MacGregor had yet still more appeal.
Her smile was guilelessly friendly as she scooted over a few inches. “What shall we talk about?”
Malcolm had spent the last two hours recruiting half the single women of Polite Society to join their party. They might talk about that. Or not.
“We were nearly compromised today,” he said, unwilling to dither. “Had it been Malcolm and his lovelies who came upon us, we’d be arguing over a wedding date while the rest of the assemblage started choosing names for our firstborn.”
Hannah paused with a slice of apple partway to her mouth, then set the fruit back on her plate. “Over a kiss?”
“Overthatkiss.”
A beat of quiet went by—not silence, because their group was now well over a dozen, all talking and laughing and enjoying lives that were not complicated by one pretty, stubborn, damnably kissable Yankee.
“Then you should not kiss me ever again, my lord.”
He snorted. “Mylord, my blooming aspidistra more like. You should not have kissed me back.” For she had. He wasn’t mistaken about that, and would go to his grave not mistaken about that.
She picked up the bite of apple again and stared at it. “I should not have. That was badly done of me. I do apologize.”
He did not want her apologizing to him, not for kissing him, anyway. He plucked the slice of apple from her hand and bit off the end. “Apology rejected. I’ve made inquiries, you know.”
When she turned her head to regard him, he held the remaining bite of apple up to her lips. She took the food from his hand delicately, her gaze on him the entire time. The moment was distractingly erotic, though gratifying.
Across the patch of ground appropriated for their picnic, Spathfoy looked up from flirting with his countess and speared Asher with a glance that was the titled English equivalent of… sticking one’s tongue out across the schoolyard.
“Chew, Hannah. The food goes down more easily if you chew it up into little bits before you try to swallow it.”
She munched, and all the while, Asher felt her gathering arguments and female logic to bludgeon him with. A contest of wills with her was welcome, though, because a woman couldn’t ignore a man and fight him at the same time.
“I like your kisses too much, Balfour.”
A woman could, however, drive him mad while she resisted his overtures. “Your flattery will surely cleave all reason from my grasp, Miss Hannah.”
“You’re supposed to say my kisses would do that.”
Asher had said exactly that, as loudly as actions could proclaim any eternal verity.
Hannah picked up another fat red slice of apple and glowered at it. “This conversation has become quite personal. Shall we discuss the weather?”
“The breeze is blowing our words in the direction of the horses, which is fortunate, because our conversation is going to get more personal still. I wouldn’t mind a bite of that apple. Another bite.”
The glower became a glare, at him, which was much better. She bit off the end of the apple quarter and held the rest out to him. He took his bite from the same end, leaving her a portion at which to direct her ire.
“You want people to talk, Balfour? You want us compromised? Then why did you turn loose of me so precipitously? I would still be there in that wood, likely in want of all my clothingandmy reason, had you not—”
He guided her hand, the one holding the bite of apple, to her mouth. “I would not have let that happen. I want us married, not publicly humiliated. Actually, I want us naked in a large, fluffy bed, all the pleasures still to prove,andmy ring on your dainty finger.”
The image had popped into his mind as he spoke, a hallucination of happiness that grew more appealing the longer his imagination stared at it.
“You can have that,” she said, “all but the part about your ring, at least not permanently. I’ve been thinking, you see, and an engagement might suffice. A long, public engagement with all the trimmings, and we’ll even hire the church and then—”
Thehelltheywould.“I need a countess, Hannah. You need a husband to supplant your stepfather’s authority. My logic is unassailable, and you know it.”
“Ineedto turn twenty-six without benefit of matrimony.”
