The MacGregor's Lady

by Burrowes, Grace

“Thank you.” She accepted a glass of some reddish drink from Malcolm. “I don’t know how these ladies dance, their frames are that delicate.”

  The waistlines in evidence were so tiny as to strike Hannah as… deformed, as discordant as the cheerful greetings offered by one young lady after another, completely contradicting the calculation in their eyes.

  “They haven’t your presence, Miss Hannah. You must pity them.”

  They hadn’t her fortune was what he meant, but a little dissembling in the name of manners had to be permitted.

  “Tell me about Paris. I’ve wondered if it’s as beautiful as one hears.”

  He obliged her with small talk while they strolled the gallery that ran along one side of the ballroom and opened onto a large brick terrace. The breeze from the out-of-doors was heavenly, a siren call to obscure shadows and fresh air.

  “Would you like to sit for a moment, Miss Hannah? Dancing slippers have been known to pinch as the night progresses.”

  Malcolm offered the same friendly smile, making Hannah realize she’d become overly sensitive. He wasn’t alluding to her limp, and he could not possibly know about the lift on her right heel.

  “Might we take some air, Mr. Macallan?” The question was half-sincere, manners being even more strict here than in the stuffiest reaches of Boston’s version of Polite Society.

  “Of course. The terrace will be nearly as crowded as the dance floor.”

  Another not-quite-truth, because save for two couples conversing at the balustrade, the terrace was blessedly peaceful and quiet. Hannah settled herself on a bench and took the opportunity to taste the libation in her glass.

  Gracious heavens, the drink was more honey than anything else. She set the glass aside, vowing to follow the example of the MacGregor ladies and tuck a wee flask into her pocket on the next outing.

  Malcolm came down beside her on a whiff of gardenia. The scent was soothing, if a trifle odd on a man. “What would you like to know, Hannah Cooper?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “About my cousins, or third cousins, whatever. In Scotland, anybody with a drop of consanguinity qualifies as family, particularly with the Highland clans.”

  Rather like Boston. “Why is that?”

  He let out a sigh, and with it, a bit of his genial persona slipped away into the shadows. “Because there are so damned few of us left. It’s the fault of the sheep, you see.”

  “Sheep here devour Highlanders?”

  This was contrary to the tales Hannah’s idiot half brothers told regarding sheep and rural populations, though she knew better than to offer that comment.

  “Sheep are profitable. They’ve been bred to thrive even where winters are harsh and fodder hard to come by. For generations, the landlords have been smitten with the idea that more sheep and fewer crofters means better income. The land can’t support both the tenants and the flocks. Ergo, the tenants have been burned out.”

  Malcolm’s tone had lost all bantering and taken on an edge of lament—not anger, but sorrow.

  “Surely in these modern times, such a barbarity—”

  He shook his head. “In these modern times, there are hardly any crofters to burn out and chase down to the docks of Aberdeen and Edinburgh, there to take ship for the New World—any new world—before they starve trying to live on seaweed and mackerel. And what the Clearances didn’t accomplish, the famines did.”

  “I thought the famine was in Ireland.” And she’d thought the terrace would be a pleasant respite, not a place to tell tales of ghosts and feudal destruction.

  Malcolm glanced over at her, as if trying to gauge how much honesty she might endure without a fit of the vapors. “There is good land in Scotland, but not enough of it. The potato is a humble crop, needing neither rich land nor much tending. It’s the only crop suitable for difficult conditions that produces enough yield per acre to support the most impoverished. Then too, it’s a simple crop to plant and harvest—children wielding a shovel can see it done. We grew enough potatoes up north to feel the blight keenly.”

  We. In this he was like the MacGregors. We referred to the family, the clan, the nation.

  When was the last time Hannah had used the word in any of those senses?

  Malcolm squeezed her gloved hand. “I’ve lectured you to silence. You must retaliate by interrogating me. Did you know Ian used to be the earl?”

  A cheerier topic by far, though Hannah had been apprised of this bit of MacGregor history by Augusta herself.

  “While Asher was thought dead,” she replied. “I haven’t quite figured out what Asher was doing larking around in the north woods in the first place, and one can’t exactly quiz him on it, can one?” Though one wanted to. Badly.

  “One can quiz me. Asher went back to Canada to keep an eye on Mary Fran’s English husband, or so we were told. I suspect he went to ensure his maternal antecedents were faring adequately, given that most of them were incapable of writing, and word of his relations was scarce indeed. Then too, he was a physician, and perhaps wanted to hone his practice in foreign climes.”

  Hannah was going to pry. She was going to ring a peal over Malcolm’s head if he so much as intimated Asher’s mother was deserving of anything less than complete respect, but first she was going to pry. “His maternal relations?”

  “His mother was of native extraction.” The words were offered with studied neutrality, which was fortunate for Malcolm. “I gather you didn’t know, though it’s not exactly a secret. Asher’s father was off seeking his fortune in trade as a younger son will do, and took a wife in the wilderness, which I understand was not unusual for the times.”

  Hannah knew enough of the trapping culture herself to understand that many of the men deriving their livelihoods from such trade had two families—one in the interior, and one at the trading post, with the twain never intended or likely to meet.

  In the New World, Asher’s father had had one family, and only one.

  “And then he became heir to the earldom?”

  Malcolm sat forward, his evening coat pulling across shoulders that sported a complement of muscle. He was an attractive, fit man, and why he wasn’t twirling some other lady down the room at that moment was a small puzzle.

  “Asher’s father married his native wife, and was careful to do so in a manner that would leave no doubt about the legitimacy of their progeny.”

  Puzzle pieces started to line up, to form edges to Hannah’s image of the present earl. “The marriage took place before Asher’s father was in line for the title, and then an older sibling or uncle or cousin died, and the union took on a different and far less convenient significance.”

  “We can’t know that. He returned to Scotland, and she did not. He observed every formality in solemnizing their vows. That is what we know. Lady Mary Fran’s first husband parted from her because his regiment posted to Canada, and yet nobody accuses him of deserting his wife.”

  Malcolm’s words defended Asher’s father, and yet his tone cast doubt on the man’s intentions. But then, in this society thirty years ago, what would have been the requirement of honor for a man in line for an earldom and married to a woman whom most would regard as a savage?

  If he cared for the woman, would he have tried to make her over into a countess?

  If she cared for him, would she have tried to deny him his earldom? Despite Malcolm’s invitation to answer Hannah’s questions, she posed the next query reluctantly. “How did it come about that Asher was declared dead?”

  Malcolm sat back, as if getting comfortable because this question had been anticipated. “Simply the passage of time, I suppose. I’m told entire settlements disappear on the frontier routinely, and the North American wilderness makes the New Forest look like Green Park.”

  A tame analogy, at best. “Why are you telling me this, Malcolm? Many would say this history does not flatter the MacGregor family.”

  Most would. Not Hannah.

  “I want you to hear the truth, Hanna
h Cooper. The fair maids of London Society have no interest in seeing an attachment form between you and the present earl. Their version of the story will flatter no one and nothing, except their own chances to marry Asher MacGregor. I hope this is not news to you.”

  “It is not, not entirely.”

  “You can see how, presented in the wrong light, doubt might be cast on Asher’s claim to the title, on the family’s fitness to belong among the peerage. If there’s one thing lower than a dirty Scot, it’s a dirty mongrel Scot.”

  Or a dirty Irishman, or a dirty Chinaman, or a dirty Red Indian… Here at the throbbing epicenter of civilization, the list of humans populating the bottom of Polite Society’s scale of worthiness was long, diverse, and included members of Hannah’s own antecedents, if not Hannah herself.

  “You assured me Asher is legitimate.”

  Hannah realized she’d used the earl’s given name only when Malcolm’s gaze narrowed. His scrutiny was fleeting, but hinted for the first time that he, too, could be formidable when crossed.

  “The documents were examined by the College of Arms, Miss Cooper. There is no higher authority excepting Almighty God. Victoria herself has taken a hand in the matter. Your host is legitimate and legitimately an earl.”

  An earl who felt it necessary to attend church each Sunday, when his titled neighbors all over Mayfair couldn’t be troubled to stir from their beds. An earl who had called upon each and every duke and marquess to be found within two weeks of returning to London. An earl who… had offered to marry a tarnished American heiress, when he clearly had alternatives better situated to improving his address.

  Hannah pushed that realization aside and rose, the twinge in her hip negligible compared to what she might have expected even weeks ago. “I appreciate the family background, Mr. Macallan, but this is a social occasion, and we’ve had our breath of air.”

  He was on his feet in an instant, his understanding smile in place, his arm winged at her with friendly courtesy. “I want you to like my cousins as much as I do. I also want you to like me—I hope I haven’t offended?”

  “Not in the least. Family stories are always fascinating, often more interesting than novels. I do like your cousins.”

  “And the earl?”

  Behind his approachability and good manners, Malcolm Macallan was watching her closely. Her answer mattered to him, and for that, Hannah liked him a little more.

  “I respect him, and I like him.”

  This honest if inconvenient reply was apparently the right answer, because Malcolm’s smile became a tad roguish. “I’m glad. Now, if I wheedle very prettily, will you give me your supper waltz? You made quite the fetching picture gliding around the dance floor with my lucky cousin. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the waltz had been invented in America, you dance it so beautifully.”

  She gave him her supper waltz, though his importuning left her puzzled. Malcolm Macallan had dissembled a bit regarding her wealth, he’d not quite told the truth regarding how deserted the terrace would be, and now he was engaged in outright mendacity, for Hannah had stumbled twice during her waltz with Asher, and both times, her partner had smoothed her through it without a single comment.

  And yet, for all his dissembling, misrepresenting, and lying, Hannah had to like Malcolm Macallan because he’d also armed her with the information she needed to protect Asher’s interests among the ladies vying for his hand.

  ***

  Because a fresh breeze stirred from the west and not from the direction of the Thames, and because a storm had come through the previous evening, watching Hannah pen her biweekly epistles to Boston wasn’t a torment to Asher’s olfactory senses, only to his heart.

  He sat in the shade of a lilac bush coming into its glory thirty feet downwind from the scribe in the gazebo. Alas for him, this put him in full view of any relatives intent on disturbing his reverie.

  “Gentlemen usually reserve their doting smiles for when the ladies can see them.”

  Asher gave up watching Hannah to greet one of the three English sisters-in-law his brothers had acquired for him. “Augusta, good morning. I smile at Miss Cooper all the time.”

  “In the ballrooms, you grimace.” Augusta pulled her lips back in an expression that might have graced the features of a berserker charging into battle.

  “That bad?”

  Her eyes were sympathetic, while the pat she gave his hand was brisk. “When one thinks one might look but shouldn’t touch, it’s trying.”

  Hannah bent over her paper, her pen moving in a steady rhythm across the page, just as her hands had moved—“We’ve touched.”

  The murmured words were not carried away on an obliging zephyr. If anything, the sympathy in Augusta’s violet-blue eyes deepened. “You don’t mean you’ve handed her in and out of carriages.”

  From an Englishwoman, this was an offer to accept confidences, but Asher wasn’t about to step into that snare. “I’ve done plenty of that. Tell me how my other sisters-in-law go on.”

  “You could ask them. You could even ask your brothers.”

  Reproof underlay her reply, or perhaps… pity. Augusta was a pretty woman, tall, dark-haired, and dignified with a smile that belied all her primness and English starch—when she aimed that smile at Ian or their infant son.

  “I prefer to ask a woman. My guess is, the womenfolk are sparing their fellows all the less delicate aspects of carrying a child, and my brothers, being new husbands, don’t know how to ask what needs asking. Ian stands around pouring the whiskey and looking sympathetic, but he isn’t going to stir… the pot.”

  She subjected him to reciprocal scrutiny, long enough that he knew what she was about; then she patted his hand again. “It’s early days for Genie and Julia, and Mary Fran has carried a child before. They seem to be bearing up well. They’re loosening their stays and napping when the mood strikes them.”

  Asher’s gaze drifted back to Hannah, who was folding her first missive. She would write a second to one of her brothers, a third to her old governess.

  “Tell Genie, Mary Fran, and Julia to consume red meat daily and to drink milk too, if they can. Pregnancy can be hard on a lady’s teeth, among other things, and organ meats are of greatest benefit.”

  He hadn’t learned that from the medical college. He’d learned it from Monique, who had learned from her mother.

  “Anything else?”

  Hannah paused between letters, leaning back in her chair and closing her eyes, probably the better to enjoy the rare fragrant day in Mayfair.

  “Augusta, I am not fooled. You are the scout. If I provide you detailed medical information, then Mary Fran will be the next emissary, because she’s my baby sister, and I cannot deny her what knowledge I have. My money’s on Julia next, because she’s a widow, and they develop a certain formidability. When they’ve both interrogated me to their satisfaction, dear Genie will likely come swanning into the estate office asking all manner of indelicate questions, though she’ll manage to ask them delicately.”

  He fell silent because he was trying to scold his sister-in-law into submission, and it was not working. Her smile, a beaming, toothy, mischievous version of the tenderness she aimed at Ian was turning his scold into a… pout.

  “Don’t forget your brothers, Balfour. Ian will send them straight to you, claiming his involvement in the baby’s arrival was limited to events surrounding conception.”

  Ian, who held his son every chance he got, confided in the boy about all manner of things, and fretted over the child’s every smile and burp.

  Asher would have stomped into the house, except that would have meant leaving Hannah alone with her letters. He tried for a smile. “Go away. I will provide the names of competent accoucheurs to any sister-in-law who asks, and I will provide whiskey to brothers showing signs of excessive anxiety. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to seek the company of a woman who is not given to ambushing a helpless man in his very own garden.” Though she wasn’t above sneak attac
ks in his kitchen.

  Augusta didn’t pat his hand this time; she kissed his cheek, a soft, fragrant buss that mercifully heralded her departure back into the house.

  Asher spent another moment drinking in the sight of Hannah Cooper at her leisure, eyes closed, her face turned up to the sun slanting into the gazebo from the east. She ought to be worried about getting freckles.

  He ought to be worried about finding a woman who didn’t regard his marriage proposals as misguided courtesy even as she straightened the folds of his kilt.

  Knowing Augusta was probably watching from a convenient window, a sister-in-law stationed at each elbow—and knowing some considerate gardener had planted a thriving trellis of pink roses on the side of the gazebo facing the house—Asher crossed the grass, leaned down, pressed a kiss to Hannah’s cheek, and laid a sprig of lilacs by her correspondence.

  “I’ve been keeping you out too late if you must steal a nap here in the garden.”

  She opened her eyes slowly and smiled at him—for which he might have been grateful had her gaze not been so sad. He appropriated the seat beside her without asking, and cocked his head to study her epistle.

  “You never write to your mother, and she has yet to write to you.”

  Whatever tenderness had lingered in Hannah’s gaze guttered and died. “I have little to say that can’t be conveyed by my brothers. I am well. I am meeting eligibles. I am coming home in a few weeks.”

  He might catch her napping in the sun, but he’d never catch her wavering from her self-appointed itinerary. “You could marry Malcolm. He’d be happy for a chance to start over in a new world.”

  Asher tossed out that bait only because Malcolm’s appreciation for the company of women was rumored to stop at the bedroom door, though it was rumor only.

  Hannah wiped a spot of ink from her third finger with a linen handkerchief, probably ruining the fabric in the process. “What exactly does Malcolm do?”

  Because Asher had spent years traveling in the former Colonies, he understood the inquiry for the blunt question it was.

  “He is a gentleman at leisure, his welfare sustained by our semi-mutual relation, the Baron Fenimore. Do you like Malcolm?”