Page 65 of The MacGregor's Lady
When she bit into the remaining apple quarter, her teeth snapped the fruit in half, and she chewed the thing into bits in short order. Asher waited until she swallowed to make his next point, because he was a gentleman.
A somewhat randy, besotted gentleman.
“Say you reach the age of twenty-six, and your fortune passes into your hands, more or less, and you leave your stepfather’s house.”
“From your lips to the Almighty’s ears…” she murmured.
“Do you think he’ll allow you to visit your mother?”
Hannah’s hands stopped smoothing the fabric of her habit over her lap. “He can’t prevent me from seeing my own family.”
“He’s already prevented you from corresponding with her. Why is that, Hannah?”
“Because he’s a fiend.”
Progress.
“And because he’s a fiend, do you think he won’t move legally to have himself appointed as your guardian? Your grandmother’s guardian? The woman has to be ancient, and you, my dear, are a mere girl.”
“I’m legally—”
“You’re legally female, and he has the requisite biological adornments to qualify as male, though one hesitates to refer to such a creature as a grown man. He’ll bribe your servants to spy on you, perhaps foist your aunt onto your charity as his spy, keep rumor circulating about your neglect of your grandmother, your eccentricity, your propensity for hysteria.”
Hannah set her plate aside, most of her meal untouched. “Why are you being so mean?”
“I am trying, without much success, to be as compassionate as I know how to be, Hannah. You need a husband who can make your stepfather look like the grasping, dishonorable, devious cipher he is and keep you safe from him, not only until your twenty-sixth birthday, but for all your days.”
Hannah looped her arms around her knees and hunched forward, assuming the self-protective posture of a child. “She won’t leave him. Mama, that is. When she was widowed, she was terrified, lost, unable to think what to do, for all we were quite comfortable financially. I was too young, and Grandmother was too old, but Grandmother managed anyway, untilheslithered into our lives, offering condolences, taking care of this errand and that detail… And now she’s his wife, the mother of his sons, and she will not leave him while the boys are still at home.”
Maybe this was the real reason Hannah had to return to Boston. A single grandmother in reasonable health was a somewhat portable commodity, but a mother and several half brothers all under the unassailably legal authority of a stepfather…
“I’m sorry, Hannah.”
Her smile was a parody of the joy Asher often saw on her face. “You aren’t the one who should apologize. A system that means a woman gives up her legal existence as a separate person the day she marries is sorry—and another reason not to marry.”
She had a point, but he kept trying anyway. “Reform is coming, at least in Great Britain. Some women even claim ladies should have the vote.”
“Some women claim the departed Duke of Wellington is appearing to them in their dreams and telling them to run off with their lovers.”
They fell silent. Hannah picked up her plate and went through the motions of eating, while Asher wished the damned Iron Duke would appear in Hannah’s dreams and command her to accept the title Countess of Balfour.
She’d probably argue with Wellington himself—and win—so Asher instead turned his thoughts to the additional inquiries that would go to Boston on the very next clipper.
Thirteen
“I thought you Scots were big on lightning raids by the full moon, not wooing your ladies in sun-dappled glades.” Tiberius Flynn, Earl of Spathfoy, passed his countess his flask as he spoke. From the next blanket over—an earl in expectation of an English marquessate did not perch on a log like some feckless duck—Connor MacGregor answered.
“We believe in reconnaissance, your royal prig-ship. Fewer casualties that way. Darlin’ wife, save me some of that cake.”
Julia passed him a bite of chocolate confection on a fork. Connor trapped her hand in his and took what she offered while Spathfoy studied the passing clouds rather than gratify yon Highland swain by watching his fatuous display.
“If you could leave off flirting with your wife for a moment, we have a serious situation to discuss.”
“Tiberius?” Hester, the petite blond Countess of Spathfoy, batted blue eyes at her husband.
“My love?”
“Keep your voice down if this serious situation involves Miss Hannah Cooper and my brother-in-law disporting in the bushes like Adam and Eve before the Fall. Our party has expanded to include a number of guests who are not family. Then too, the baby just went down for his nap.”
