Page 90 of The MacGregor's Lady
“In any case, I hated her for years, for letting him go. And for dying.” The hate wasn’t in his heart now though. As Asher rummaged through his emotions, the sleeping baby tucked close, he couldn’t even find the anger or many traces of bewilderment.
“They did the best they could. You’ll find that realization a great comfort at some point. Recall your uncle Asher told it to you first.”
And Asher was doing the best he could, too, but that was no comfort—no comfort at all.
Eighteen
Hundreds of miles north of London, the light was different. This was the first thing Hannah noticed as she stepped down from the train. Then too, she had a sense of the train reaching dry land, of endless motion coming to a halt, and the body needing to make an adjustment.
“It’s chilly here, for being almost summer.”
Asher would not drape his coat around her shoulders in broad daylight, nor did he look chilly in the kilted attire he’d donned for the day. “By local standards, we’re in for a sweltering day.”
They waited on the platform as the rest of the family debarked, porters dispatched baggage, and the welfare of the baby, the cat, and various expecting women was inventoried.
They’d be dividing up into coaches at any moment, so Hannah slipped her arm through Asher’s and led him a few steps away. “I’ve a question for you.”
He patted her hand, not as a lover might, but as a patient host would. “Ask.”
“How did you know?”
One swift glance, a perusal that felt to Hannah as if Asher could assess her very memories. “Your trunk was sitting in the mews, labeled for Boston and headed for the docks. It was not laden with mementos and fripperies, so I concluded you intended to follow it to its destination.”
Of course. A simple deduction for a man as observant as Asher MacGregor. Fiona’s cat started to yowl, an aria of feline discontent that could last indefinitely.
“Where will we be staying?”
Asher turned at an angle that would allow his family to remain in his line of sight. “You will stay with me, Ian, Augusta, and wee John. Mary Fran and Matthew have their own place, as do Con and Julia. I expect Genie and Gil will stay with Con. When they come north, Spathfoy and Hester have the choice of staying at his place or with his mother, though Lady Quinworth positively dotes on my brothers.”
When and how these arrangements had been worked out, Hannah did not know. She was simply grateful to Augusta for providing the chaperonage that permitted continued proximity to Asher. “You’ve never called the baby by name before.”
This earned her a twitch of his lips, maybe impatience, maybe humor. “We’re drinking companions now. He vows I’m his favorite uncle.”
Hannah drew back to study Asher, because the observation wasn’t simply self-mocking. Somehow, on this trip, the baby had become not merely an infant, occasionally noisy, often malodorous, but dear enough on general principles. He’d become “wee John,” another obligation, another person for the reluctant MacGregor patriarch to love.
Hannah’s only warning that the morning was to become livelier was a hint of lilac on the brisk morning air, and then a substantial lady dressed in the height of lavender fashion came swooping along the platform.
“Why, Balfour, you certainly do make a commotion when you arrive to town.”
The lady leaned close, as if a kiss to her cheek from any passing earl was only her due. She was a handsome woman of a certain age, red-haired, with a vaguely familiar smile, and the air of a fit and fashionable Amazon.
“If it isn’t me favorite marchioness.” Connor, for once smiling himself, greeted the woman with an audible smack to both of her cheeks. Two liveried footmen took a nervous step closer, though the lady motioned them back with a wave of her gloved hand.
“And Gilgallon.” She accepted a kiss from him. “If my own son can’t be bothered to come north yet, I will content myself with what charming company I can find. You must all join me for breakfast. I insist.”
“What about me?” Fiona had barged her way between the kilted knees of her uncles, the protesting cat in its hat-box cage still making a racket as she set the thing at her feet. “Am I invited for breakfast too?”
The marchioness dropped to her knees and opened her arms, the gesture at complete variance with her elegant attire, liveried footmen, and the lacy parasol she’d allowed to fall to the ground. “Fee! My darling little Fiona! How much you’ve grown, and how I have missed you.”
The child bundled in for a long tight hug, while Hannah watched and tried not to label the emotions this succession of affectionate greetings had engendered.
Except that envy figured prominently among them, too prominently to ignore.
When the marchioness rose, she had Fiona by the hand. “I feel a kidnapping coming on. These things tend to strike whenever my darling Fiona comes to town.” Over the child’s head, the lady aimed a look at Mary Fran, who with Matthew had remained on the perimeter of the family circle. “You won’t object to a short period of captivity for your daughter, will you, Lady Mary Frances?”
Though this marchioness strolling about the platform in the rays of morning sunshine was clearly a self-possessed woman of both title and means, the smile she beamed at Mary Fran carried a hint of vulnerability, too.
A hint of pleading.
