“I see.” He saw she was expecting him to lecture or rebuke or perhaps—worse than either—to laugh. How he wished Mary Fran had exercised the same determination where her late first husband had been concerned. “Then you realize you can enjoy spring in Town, enjoy leading the callow swains around by their noses, enjoy all the female fripperies of fashionable Society, and leave a trail of broken hearts when you return to the wilds of Boston.”
“Boston hasn’t any wilds, though Massachusetts does.”
Half the Irish who’d survived the famine had ended up in Boston, and more than a few stray Highlanders too, making the place wild enough. Asher chose not to share that opinion.
“Boston has you,” he said, a reluctant smile blossoming. “That should suffice to introduce a complement of savagery to the place.”
“Yes.” Her chin came up, and she presented him a dazzling, toothy smile. “It most certainly should.”
***
Aunt Enid entertained herself with a number of games, one of which Hannah had dubbed “if only.” The object of “if only” was to remind Hannah obliquely, and with the very best intentions, of course, of what lay in wait at home should Hannah fail to snabble an English husband. Aunt had started the present round as the coach had pulled out of the mews in Edinburgh to take them to the Waverly station. Snow made the going difficult, and as the morning became colder and more grim, the game wore on.
“If only you hadn’t made such a public scene with young Mr. Widmore. He was in expectation of a barony, you know.”
“He was a third son sent to America to escape some scandal with a female, and he was entirely Step-papa’s creature. He deserved what befell him.” Hannah turned her face to the window, where the bleak expanse of the North Sea lay visible in the distance.
“No man deserves to be treated that way by a woman he has offered for.”
“He’s not a man,” Hannah said. “He’s an errand boy seeking to be richly rewarded for doing Step-papa’s bidding. I think it’s going to snow again.”
“If only you weren’t so stubborn, Hannah. My brother tries merely to see to your welfare.”
“If it snows enough, we’ll be stranded at some inn. That would serve nicely, because I brought some of Lord Balfour’s books along. He has the nicest selection of novels.”
“Novels, bah. If only you were more given to the pursuits of a normal girl, Hannah. You’d be content to do embroidery and read improving pamphlets.”
Hannah let that pass, for she’d never been exactly sure how much of the Widmore debacle Aunt understood. They didn’t discuss it, and Aunt Enid brought it up only when she was running perilously low on sermon topics or wandering mentally after a surfeit of some tonic or nostrum.
“If the trains aren’t running, do you suppose his lordship will force us to travel in this wretched weather?” Enid asked.
Now that was a first, for Aunt to criticize anything remotely British, and they hadn’t even boarded their southbound train.
“I suspect, one way or another, we’ll start our journey as long as we have light,” Hannah said. In truth, the traveling coach was a great, lumbering conveyance, but it was well sprung and cozy enough. They’d brought hot bricks for the floor and hot water bottles for the ladies’ muffs, and because they would stop to change horses every twelve to fifteen miles, the interior would stay fairly comfortable.
If stuffy.
“Dear, can you reach my traveling bag?”
“You just had a dose of your tincture, Aunt, right before we left the house.”
“But I have the most awful head, Hannah. If only you understood such pain, not that I’d wish it on my worst enemy.”
“You need to be using less, Aunt, not more. How will you keep up with the social calendar I’m expected to maintain if you’re sleeping off your headache remedies until midday every day?”
“Hannah, one does sleep until midday when the Season is at its height. One dances until dawn, then sleeps until noon, and barely has time for a few morning calls before going out again in the evening. It’s marvelous!”
As if Hannah would be dancing.
Black-gloved knuckles rapped on the window beside Hannah’s face. She swung the glass down, a lovely blast of chilly air hitting her.
“We’ll be going overland for the first part of the journey,” his lordship informed her. He was mounted on a black horse that looked big enough to pull a plow, the beast’s trot churning snow up with every step. Despite the cold, the earl didn’t wear a hat. He had a woolen scarf about his neck, the pattern a bright red and dark green plaid with a thin white strip mixed in.
Beside Hannah, Enid squeaked, “But that’s—we cannot—my lord, you must understand that is not to be borne.”
“There’s a breakdown on the tracks south of the city. We’ll pick up the train in Bairk,” the earl said. “And we’ll have to move smartly if we’re to make that distance by nightfall.” He sent Hannah a look, one that warned her delays would not be tolerated and complaints were futile.
“But an entire day in this stuffy old—”
Hannah closed the window before Enid could finish her first volley of protest.
“I did not see a town named Bairk on the map,” Hannah said. “Perhaps it isn’t so very far.”
“Ber-wick, you foolish girl. Berwick-on-Tweed. It’s nearly sixty miles!” From Enid’s tone, this might as well have been halfway to the North Pole.
“If we change teams regularly, and the roads are well traveled, we could easily be there by nightfall, as the earl suggested.” Provided Hannah did not first do away with her aunt and force the coach to stop so she might dispose of the remains.
They had changed teams twice when the great, lumbering coach went swaying off to the side of the road. Something snapped loudly underneath, and the conveyance swung wildly, bumping along the snowy ground for a good twenty yards before coming to a canted halt.
“Oh, my! My goodness! Dearest, my remedies, please. The headache and the nerve tonic both.”
“Ladies!” The earl’s voice cut through Aunt’s ranting. “Is everyone of a piece in there?”
His voice came from above, from the road, and Hannah felt an undignified spike of relief to know he was about and uninjured.
“We’re fine,” she said, unlatching the window and lowering it. “A little tossed about, but well enough. What happened?”
“Snapped a wheel,” he said. “Probably hit a rock hidden by the snow, and it will take some work to repair it. You’re likely as warm as you can be in there, so sit tight until we get the team unhitched.”
Except unhitching the team took a good deal of time and cursing and rocking the vehicle about. The wheelers grew frantic when the leaders were walked off and the weight of the coach had to be balanced by only two horses. Hannah could hear Balfour’s voice as he crooned to the horses, a soothing patter that belied the rising wind and dropping temperatures.
“This is awful,” Aunt pronounced. “Just awful, Hannah. If only we hadn’t arrived in the depths of winter.”
“We’ve arrived to take advantage of the social Season, Aunt, but had Step-papa considered our welfare, he might have bought us passage to London itself and allowed us a departure when spring was advanced.”
For once, Aunt had no reproof to make.
“Ladies?” Balfour, up on his enormous horse, spoke near the window. “We’re going to have to get you out of there now. The wheelers won’t be content to hold the thing when the leaders are gone, and it will be dark sooner than is convenient.”
“Gone?” Aunt Enid seized on the word. “Where are they going? Where are we going?”
“The coach can’t go anywhere,” Balfour said. “But we’re only about five miles from the last coaching inn. I propose to send the coachy back with the leaders for another conveyance. One of you can ride the second leader, and the groom will take the wheelers.”
“You go, Aunt.”
“We have four horses, though,” Aunt Enid said. �
��Five, if you count your mount, my lord. Why not put Hannah on one of the wheelers, or take her up with you?”
“The wheelers are green,” Balfour said. “In this footing, they aren’t safe for a lady to ride bareback astride, nor is it safe to ask a horse to carry a double burden.”
Aunt’s eyebrows rose. “Astride?” And then those same brows came crashing down. “That will leave you and Hannah…” Her voice trailed off, and Hannah saw the befuddled workings of her Aunt’s mind follow the situation to its conclusion. “It will be for only an hour or two, won’t it, dear? You’ll be all right?”
So much for the selfless devotion of a doting aunt. “I’ve dressed very warmly,” Hannah said. “I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
The coachy came up astride one of the sturdy beasts who normally pulled the carriage, the groom behind him on one curvetting wheeler while the other danced nervously on the end of its reins.
“We’ll have somebody back here for you before dark,” the coachman said. “Moonrise at the latest.”
Except a lowering layer of clouds would obscure any moonrise.
“We’ll manage,” Balfour said, glancing at the sky. “Best hurry. There’s snow waiting to come down.”
“Aye.” The coachy moved the horse along. Getting Aunt Enid situated aboard the second leader took a preventive tot of her nerve tonic and a great deal of patience on the part of both men and beasts. The coachman took the lead, letting both wheelers come behind him, with Aunt Enid bringing up the rear on the second leader.
“Isn’t it a shame the roads are so miserably inadequate to the challenge of keeping travelers from the ditch?” Enid’s voice trailed away in the bitter breeze as the horses trudged off in the direction of the last coaching inn.
“‘Isn’t It A Shame’ is her second-favorite game,” Hannah said. “Right after ‘If Only.’”
“If only I hadn’t forced you out of Edinburgh so early in the season?” Balfour asked. He sounded genuinely displeased with himself.
“She’s happy, Lord Balfour. Not a solid week on British soil and already I’m compromised.”
“Compro—” His dark eyebrows nearly met, so thunderous was his scowl. “They should be back in less than two hours. You’re not compromised.”
“If Aunt loses track of her discretion in some remedy-induced fog, I am compromised, and so are you.”
His gaze went to the horses making slow progress toward the horizon. “Then you’d best make sure she understands that I am a gentleman and you are a lady. We behave as such under all circumstances.”
“If you say so.” The landscape was bleak, the prospect of relying on Aunt’s discretion bleaker. “Is it too much to hope we could build a fire while we’re behaving so prettily?”
“Not a bad idea,” Balfour conceded. “I don’t like the look of that sky.”
He did more than build a fire. He used the lap robes and horse blankets to fashion a sort of lean-to over cut saplings—aspen poles, he’d called them, with an oilskin for their roof anchored by a thatch of Scots pine—while he set Hannah to collecting rocks from the wagon ruts to line a fire pit. He put the fire at the edge of their lean-to, and made them a floor layered with an oilskin, followed by more wool lap robes and horse blankets.
“By now, you’re probably longing for the necessary,” he said, kneeling in the snow to survey the little fire.
“Blunt speech, my lord.”
“I do believe that’s the first time you’ve my-lorded me.”
“The topic seemed to call for it. What next?” She was hungry and thirsty both, but despite the lowering sky, their isolation, and the occasional flurry, not the least bit afraid.
“Here.” He passed a sizable pocket flask to her. “I understand you don’t object to the occasional tot to ward off a chill.”
She tipped the flask to her mouth, his body heat having made the metal unexpectedly warm against her lips. “My thanks.”
“Next, we wait, though I advise you to first heed nature’s call, otherwise you’re going to get all cozy in the blankets there, and have to get up and face the cold.”
“You think we can stay cozy?”
“I know we can,” he said, taking a nip of the flask before slipping it into the folds of his greatcoat.
“Aren’t you worried about your horse?”
“He won’t go far, and he’ll come when I call him. For privacy, I suggest you avail yourself of those bushes, and I’ll take the opposite side. These are spindle bushes, so don’t touch. The berries are poisonous.”
Hannah considered making some sort of protest, but none came to mind on the topic before her—even poisonous bushes could provide privacy—so she slogged through the snow in the indicated direction.
“Do we have to worry about wolves?” she asked as she made her way around the stand of bushes. They were tall enough, but devoid of leaves. She could see Balfour’s shape moving through them thirty feet away. He turned his back to her, and she had to admit it was… comforting, to know he was there, to know he could sort the poisonous flora from its useful or innocuous kin.
“No wolves, not since my grandfather’s time. Wild dogs might roam on the heath, but they’ll be closer to town in this weather. You all right?”
“Dandy,” she said, gathering her skirts up in one hand and fishing for the slit in her drawers with the other. Her gloved fingers brushed against her intimate flesh, bringing a profound and novel chill with them.
Scotland was turning out to be more of an adventure than she’d foreseen.
“You about done?”
“In a minute.”
She turned her back to the bushes as he had, tended to business much to the relief of her innards, and sacrificed a handkerchief in the interests of hygiene. She kicked snow over the handkerchief, wondering if Balfour had done the same, and if wild dogs could scent it through the snow.
“Come along.” He came around the stand of bushes, the snow not slowing him down one bit. “These flurries are soon going to thicken into something serious, unless I miss my guess.”
How and when he’d found time to set snares, Hannah did not know. A hare and a fat grouse were roasting on spits over the fire an hour later, the aroma enough to turn Hannah herself into a wild dog. He basted the meat in some spirits taken from the boot of the coach, and used a knife to slice Hannah generous servings of both hare and fowl. Bread and butter were produced from the coachy’s stash.
“I cannot recall enjoying a meal this much in ages,” she said. “It’s like a picnic, only better.”
He gave her an odd look over the last of his bread and butter. “A bit cold for a picnic.”
“And getting a bit dark.” Everything here was a bit, a trifle, a touch. Hannah sat on the blankets under the lean-to, as the flurries thickened into a bit of real snow. “Will your little structure keep us dry?”
“If you don’t poke at it, it should. And it will be warmer here than in the coach, provided the wind doesn’t shift.”
“What has that to do with anything?”
She’d had a few more medicinal tots of his whiskey, and it was to them Hannah attributed an incongruous, rosy sense of well-being.
“We don’t want the smoke joining us under here,” he said. “If we have to move the tent, or the fire, we’ll be less comfortable. More bread?”
“Couldn’t hold another bite.”
“Then we’ll save it for morning.”
“Morning?” A trickle of cold seeped past Hannah’s rosy glow. “We can’t be here much longer. It’s one thing to manage two hours in broad daylight on the plain, Mr. Lordship, but quite another to spend a night unchaperoned under the same, somewhat flimsy roof. I’ll have you—”
He reached over from his side of the lean-to and put a bare finger on her lips. His hands weren’t even cool.
“I do know,” he said. “But attempting to walk back to the inn now would be folly. The wind has drifted snow over the horses’ trail, darkness is falling, and the temperature is d
ropping. Then too, the snow has started.”
“Oh.”
Something in what he said wanted arguing with, but Hannah was unable to get her mind wrapped around it. For her to navigate five miles of slippery terrain was not well-advised, though he’d mercifully left her limitations off his list of reasons. She had no doubt were he not burdened with her, he could have marched back to the inn without breaking a sweat.
His lordship was a good man. A gentleman. A pity his ilk did not abound in Boston.
“Shall I escort you to the bushes again before we lose the light entirely?”
And he was a blunt man—a trait of which she had to approve, for he was essentially offering to escort her to the privy. Good heavens. What did one say? Hannah lifted her face to the sky, to the flakes drifting down from the heavens in a thickening swirl of small, frigid kisses to her nose, eyelashes, cheeks, and chin.
“Yes.”
Four
The lady was half-tipsy, or perhaps a quarter. Asher usually avoided tipsy women, but Hannah Cooper wasn’t silly or giddy with it. She was more like a man who’d imbibed a wee dram at the end of a taxing day: relaxed, her sense of humor closer to the surface, her dignity not quite so tiresomely evident.
The liquor was the simplest explanation for the lady eating up her dinner with her bare fingers, wiping her mouth on her scarf, and thanking him kindly for the most crude fare.
She’d drunk from his flask without comment too, and set about gathering rocks and kindling without grumbling. He’d tossed the tasks at her mostly to give her something to grouch about and to keep her moving, but she was singularly lacking in biting retorts.
She came around from her side of the bushes and took his arm as if they were bosom bows.
“It gets like this in Boston,” she said. “So cold your lungs shiver with each breath.”
“So cold,” he took up the conversation, “you don’t dare breathe through your nose, for the thing freezes together on you.”
“Yes!” She beamed at him. “That cold. Do you suppose we’ll freeze to death in our sleep?”
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