Fourteen
“We cannot—” Hannah pulled against Asher’s grip as she struggled audibly to breathe. “We cannot be private.” She sagged against a wall of the corridor, her complexion translucent by the light of the sconces.
Asher had seen many women faint, some of them even honestly, but the sight had never engendered such an upwelling of rage, protectiveness, and exasperation.
“You’d rather swoon on the dance floor as so many fashionable ladies do?” He scooped her up against his chest, which made her ball gown and petticoats billow all the hell over the place.
“I’m not—”
Except she was. As he carried her away from the ballroom, she went pliant and silent against him, not entirely lost to consciousness—not her—but subdued to an alarming extent. Asher pushed open the door to the Alcincoates’ library and found the room mercifully unoccupied.
A fireplace at least five feet high and five feet deep sported no blaze whatsoever, suggesting continued privacy, as did the meager light cast from two sconces burning low along the inside wall.
“You, madam, know better than to lace your stays this snugly. Avoiding food compounds your folly, and several glasses of Alcincoate’s punch was similarly ill-advised.” As he laid her on the velvet sofa, he went on lecturing her, mostly to give her something to focus on.
“We should not be in here.”
The very feebleness of Hannah’s protest made him furious.
“You should not be in that damned corset.” Had he been wearing boots, a knife would have been immediately at hand. He had to rummage in the desk drawer for a penknife, though the one he found was blessedly sharp.
He hauled her to a sitting position. “Hold still, Hannah Cooper, lest I turn you over my knee. You don’t need a husband, you need a warden.”
He undid a few hooks down the back of her gown, then ripped the damned thing apart, haste his only goal. When he’d tucked her dress aside, he sliced through the lacings of her stays in one careful pass of the knife. They parted on a rush of Hannah’s indrawn breath.
“Thank you.” She lay back, nearly panting, her chest rising and falling in its newfound liberty. “It’s the ball gowns, I think.”
“Don’t think, just breathe.” He sat at her hip and smoothed her hair back from her forehead, then laid the back of his hand against her brow. She was cool rather than warm, and when he tugged her glove off to take her pulse, her fingers were cool as well.
Without bothering to consult his watch, he could tell her heartbeat was rapid and her pulse thready.
“I’m taking you home, Hannah. You’ve laced yourself into a swoon, and considering you aren’t even pretending to look for a husband, all this waltzing and smiling is serving no purpose anyway.”
She stopped him from escalating into a tirade by pushing his hair off his forehead with one cool hand. “You’re to look for a bride. You promised.”
Her reminder was gentle, rueful even. Her fingers slipped around to trace the rim of his ear, and all thought, all sense, and certainly any tirades went flying from Asher’s mind. The incongruity of her words—he was to be finding a bride—with her touch, which was intimate, dear, and arousing—brought his thoughts to a grand pause.
“Hannah…” He removed her hand from his person, and instead brought her knuckles to his lips. “We can argue about that later. I’m going to call for the carriage and have Augusta and Ian make your excuses.”
“You can’t.” She was trying to sit up, so Asher did not dare attempt to touch her, not with her bodice gaping open and the imprint of her stays visible on parts of her Asher could not stop staring at. Thank God for her chemise, for it was the only thing between Asher and a complete loss of sanity.
He made himself leave the sofa and located a carafe on a gate-legged table against the wall. For himself, he poured a tot of whatever spirits were in the decanter; for Hannah he poured a glass of water.
Of course, there were some who believed London’s water supply was responsible for various deadly epidemics. Asher set the water glass down and poured out another tot of spirits.
“It’s whiskey,” he said, returning to the couch and passing Hannah the glass. “Sip it slowly. When was the last time you ate?”
She barely wet her lips at the rim of the glass. “I eat. It’s the oddest thing. The dresses I’ve brought with me, like my riding habit, are looser on me, but the dresses I ordered here require me to lace up very tightly. I didn’t request that they be made that way.”
She looked at him inquiringly.
“For God’s sake, I wouldn’t meddle with your wardrobe.” Except he had, with her dancing slipper, in any case. Hannah’s rejoinder was lost when the door was swept open, bringing light, noise, and a knot of people into the room.
“My goodness—!” Lady Alcincoate’s gloved hand went to the vast, jiggling expanse above her décolletage. “My lord, whatever—”
Malcolm crowded in at Lady Alcincoate’s side, and thank God and all his winged angels, Augusta flanked their hostess on the other side. Augusta’s height meant the two women behind her had to crane their necks to peer into the darkened library.
“Miss Cooper fainted,” Asher said, and because this pronouncement met with nothing but silence, he added, “I was concerned for her.”
Hannah was for once exhibiting some cooperation and remaining tucked out of sight on the sofa, but the silence lengthened. Augusta pushed past the gaping Lady Alcincoate and grabbed an afghan from the back of a reading chair. “Late nights will catch up with us. I suppose you’ll be wanting the carriage.”
Augusta had the blanket tucked over Hannah in moments, hiding the damage to her dress. Lady Alcincoate advanced into the room, her acolytes coming with her, and all three women wearing looks of gleeful expectation.
“If the young lady was feeling light-headed, my lord, surely escorting her off the dance floor, finding her a seat and a glass of punch would have sufficed.”
We must not be private. “She was not light-headed,” Asher said, feeling the beginnings of temper. “She was cool to the touch, short of breath, vertiginous, and unless I miss my guess, suffering diminution of the faculties of hearing and sight.”
“Diminution—?” Four syllables didn’t stop the lady for long. She planted her hands on her cinched-in waist, making her look like a large, indignant insect. “If there was a diminution of senses going on, as opposed to a diminution of sense, my lord, then one calls a physician. One does not escort a young lady to a darkened library and allow her to be found reclining with—unless I miss my guess—a glass of strong spirits at hand.”
The triumph in her voice was that of a hostess presiding at the birth of a scandal. One of the other ladies spoke up; her tone was sweetly snide. “Perhaps we ought to fetch a physician, now?”
“Oh, for pity’s sake.” Augusta rose from the sofa to her full height. “Lord Balfour is a physician, having gained his credentials at St. Andrews years ago. He was in practice in Canada and is certainly capable of dealing with one young lady’s case of the vapors. Further delay while some local fellow is roused from his slumbers is hardly in order. If Lord Balfour, who is charged with Miss Cooper’s well-being, says she needs to be taken home now, surely a gracious hostess would be calling for her guest’s carriage?”
Asher had never been more grateful for an English sister-in-law. The look of disdain Augusta cast down the length of her nose at the other three women was worthy of Mrs. Siddons, and Malcolm did not miss his cue.
“I’ll have the carriage brought around. If you’ll excuse me?”
He bowed crisply at the ladies and disappeared, leaving Asher in a dimly lit library with five women, at least three of whom would have loved to report that Hannah’s bodice was drooping, her dress undone, and her laces damaged beyond repair.
“Perhaps you might be good enough to find the baroness’s husband,” Asher suggested, making pointed use of Augusta’s title. “And as a physician, I’m asking you ladies to give Miss Cooper privacy with my sister-in-law and me.”
The invocation of the title, or perhaps the promise in Asher’s eyes of social murder, had the women withdrawing in a subdued silence. When the door had clicked shut, Augusta let out a breath.
“A near thing, you two.” She took the glass Hannah proffered and drained the contents. “We’ll need to get Hannah out to the carriage before Lady Alcincoate can send servants spying with offers of hartshorn and burned feathers. You would not be the first young lady compromised by her stays. Can you walk?”
“I’ll carry her.” Asher shrugged out of his jacket and passed it to Augusta, who assisted Hannah into it. That Hannah made no protest did not bode well. “Augusta, when we get home, will you see to sending regrets to the social obligations remaining for the next two weeks?”
“There is no need for that,” Hannah said, “and it will only make people think the worst.”
Asher planted his hands on his hips and glowered down at the recumbent, though rapidly rallying, Miss Cooper. “What could be worse than losing consciousness before all of Polite Society? Striking a head as hard as yours, even on a convenient andiron—”
Augusta put a hand on his arm. “Hannah might be right, Balfour. If she withdraws from Society, all will remark the possible explanations for tonight’s bout of the vapors.”
Augusta stared at him, as if she could will some insight to penetrate his brain.
“Good God.” He dropped to the sofa. “They will think you are carrying and sailed to England to snag a wealthy husband before your indiscretion was obvious.”
Worse, that was exactly what they were already thinking, assuming they’d discarded the notion Asher was ravishing his own guest in other people’s libraries. He wanted to howl and destroy things and take Hannah far from a society that was not polite in the least…
Though all he could do for now was take her home.
“Augusta, get us out of here, please.” He lifted Hannah against his chest, and at least that much felt good and right, for all she was too light by half. They waited while Augusta got the mass of Hannah’s skirts modestly arranged and the excess folded up in the bend of Hannah’s body, then waited again until Augusta assured them the corridor was empty.
Augusta went ahead of them, Ian met the party in the mews, and before Asher could even mentally fashion another scold for his patient, he found himself ensconced with Hannah in the smaller of the family’s town coaches.
Ian and Augusta went back to the ballroom to collect Malcolm and Enid—and to scotch gossip—while Hannah squirmed against Asher’s side.
“I am perfectly capable of sitting unassisted, Lord Balfour.”
He looped an arm over her shoulders, the brisk show of resistance in her voice reassuring him almost as much as the feel of her next to him did. “And you could have walked to the coach unassisted too, but you didn’t. One has to wonder why.”
She sighed a mighty put-upon sigh, turned her face into his shoulder, and remained silent for the entire journey home.
***
A tape measure proved that Hannah had not been losing her wits. The waists on the dresses most recently made in England were five inches smaller than the waists on the dresses Hannah had brought with her from Boston, and Aunt Enid’s quiet direction to the modiste was to blame.
“I wanted to see you successfully settled. A lady must show herself to her best advantage if she’s to gain the notice of a worthy gentleman. Stop pacing, you shall make me dizzy.” Enid managed to sound put out rather than contrite, which had an entire shouting match boiling up from Hannah’s now full stomach.
Hannah came to a halt with her back to the fire in Enid’s sitting room. “You made me dizzy. You made me think I was putting on weight, made me think I was losing my wits. You made me an object of gossip and speculation. How do you think your brother will react when he learns of this?”
Enid unclipped her earrings and slipped off rings, one, two, three… seven in all. “It isn’t as if you wanted to marry the man, Hannah. You’ve chosen an inconvenient time to turn up sensitive to the requirements of decorum.”
A maid would put the rings, the earbobs, the necklaces, and the brooches into their jewelry box, would make order out of Aunt Enid’s chaos, and see to it at some point when Enid would not be disturbed by the activity.
“Polite Society found me in dishabille, swilling spirits, in a darkened library, alone with a man to whom I am not related, an eligible, titled, wealthy man whom they would like nothing more than to accuse of wrongdoing. This situation came about because of your meddling.”
Enid looked up from unfastening a ruby-red brooch from her bodice. “You are concerned for our host? He’s a man, Hannah. Because he is wealthy and titled, no one will attach any shame to him whatsoever. They will say you enticed him into a shadowed corner to work your wiles on him. This blasted brooch is stuck.”
The urge to scream like a mountain lion welled from Hannah’s soul. “I haven’t any accursed wiles, for God’s sake.”
Enid assayed her appearance in the mirror, touching the tips of her fourth and fifth fingers to her part. “You needn’t state the obvious, Hannah. I will require at least a posset to get to sleep after all this excitement. In fact, you’d best fetch me my Dr. Giles.”
Rather than screech that Dr. Giles wasn’t going to solve anything, Hannah took a moment to study her aunt. The hour was late, Enid was tired, and the cosmetics she used enhanced rather than hid her advancing years.
Her mouth had a pinched look, not quite bitter, but thoroughly disillusioned. Her eyes were flat, seeing disappointment far more easily than hope. Her hands were no longer young and soft…
“We’re going back to Edinburgh,” Hannah said, some of the tension leaving her shoulders. “Balfour is declining invitations, and we’re to take a repairing lease among a fresh crop of bachelors.”
Enid stopped fussing her hair to scowl at Hannah. “That will not do. You cannot be seen to turn tail and run after tonight’s debacle. You must be seen out and about.”
And Enid must continue her flirtation with the redoubtable Mr. Trundle.
Hannah crossed the room, intent only on leaving. “I will accept Balfour’s guidance in this, Aunt, and so will you.”
“You must help me with this brooch, Hannah. I swear I shall tear it off if you don’t.”
The center of the brooch was a cluster of red gemstones, the intent to remind all and sundry of the biblical worth of a good woman, no doubt. “It’s paste,” Hannah said, hand on the doorknob. “Do with it what you must, but direct your maid to start packing in the morning. We’re going back to Scotland.”
***
Asher found his quarry easily enough, accosting her as she left Enid’s chambers and moved down the hallway toward her own.
The medical part of his mind noted that her complexion was back to its normal perfection, and her eyes had their customary alert snap. “You’ve eaten?”
“I had a very satisfying late supper, thank you, complete with cake.”
The consonants were bitten off, the vowels compressed with… not anger. Anger was the decoy, the distraction drawing notice from… her bewilderment.
Or her homesickness, possibly both.
“If you have some time, Hannah, I would beg a word with you.”
She arched a brow—likely at the word “beg”—then took him by the wrist and led him to her sitting room. Another private situation, but this time with Hannah being the one to determine their direction and destination.
And yet he was a little pleased when she closed the door behind them, sat herself down on the sofa, and crossed her arms. “You may have that word now, my lord.”
She’d closed the door, which meant he hadn’t had to see to it himself. “How are you?”
Some of the fight went out of her. She uncrossed her arms and picked up a blue satin pillow from a corner of the sofa. “I am so wroth with Enid I could howl. She had the modiste take in my waistlines, and the result… suffice it to say, I will not be wearing my most fashionable attire anytime soon.”
Asher ambled across the room and poked up the fire. “She means well. She wants you to make a good impression.”
“The better to marry me off to some fellow with a moldering estate in the Lakes, while the hapless Mr. Trundle stumbles about in Aunt’s gun sights like some penned hart at a Continental battue.”
The Lakes were beautiful. Now was not the time to make that point. Asher appropriated a seat beside the woman whose suffering he would alleviate by any means possible. “We have a greater problem than Enid’s just desserts.”
Hannah hugged the pillow to her chest. “How much worse can it be? I was found nearly undressed in your exclusive company by two of the biggest gossips in captivity, and all because Malcolm insisted on looking up some word or other at that very moment.”
“Quaquaversal. It means from all sides, or all about one.”
She closed her eyes and hugged the pillow more tightly. “I know my Latin, Asher MacGregor.”
That she was forgetting to my-lord him was a sign of her upset. What had been repugnant to her rebel sensibilities had become a means for her to keep distance from him, and now…
He tugged on the pillow. She didn’t give it up, but met his gaze for the first time since they’d closed the door. “We need to discuss tonight’s little drama, Hannah.”
Ian had certainly discussed it with Asher, at length and in volume, supported by Gil and Connor. At least Spathfoy hadn’t been in the room.
“I swear, Asher MacGregor, if you’re going to blame me—”
“I blame myself.” He tugged on the pillow, and this time, she let it go. “I should have done exactly as Lady Alcincoate said. Planted you in a chair in full view of the ballroom, let you catch your breath, and borrowed somebody’s painted fan to revive your flagging energies.”
“I fainted, Asher. I was not in need of reviving. I could not breathe.”
On that feeble remonstration, she hunched forward and fell silent, not a silence Asher could read. In the interest of not saying the wrong thing—purely in that interest—he used one hand to knead the muscles between her neck and shoulder blade. “I cannot abide that you are so upset.”
That hadn’t been on his list of things to say—and he did have a list. A well-reasoned, thoroughly rehearsed, intelligently worded list of negotiating points.
She relaxed some under his hand. “You won’t easily be able to find a bride after this, though I don’t think you’ve been looking very hard.”
“How do you think I could possibly—? Come here.” He pulled her back against him, wrapped both arms around her, and rested his cheek against her temple. She hadn’t resisted, not in the least.
“My siblings had a very pointed discussion with me.” It had come out, “M’ siblin’s had a verra pointed discussion w’me.” Asher heard the burr stealing into his inflection and made another mental grab for those well-articulated reasons.
“Siblings will do this,” Hannah said, nuzzling his throat. “Grandmothers know of almost no other kind of discussion.”
Her grandmother was the last person Asher wanted on Hannah’s mind at present. “I am a physician, Hannah, which is why tonight’s situation will not immediately erupt in scandal.”
She pulled back to regard him warily. “You’re saying it will eventually erupt in scandal?”
His list had gone completely out of his mind, leaving him drowning in Hannah’s gaze. She expected the truth from him. She deserved the truth, though he hadn’t wanted to force her decision on the matter.
He gently pushed her head back to his chest. “When you remain unwed and are not found to be with child, there are those who will speculate that being a physician, I was in a position to relieve you of your burden.”
Cut the wee bairn from her verra bodie, was how Ian had put it—shouted it. The most delicate inference in the world couldn’t hide the brutality of the idea, and yet, Ian’s tirade had been inspired by whispers that had already started around the ballroom.
Hannah drew up into a knot of tension in his arms. He waited, holding her loosely, expecting her to cry, to screech, to cry and screech. Instead, her voice was quiet.
“That is the most vile, vulgar, mean, unfair… how could they accuse you of such behavior when you’ve been nothing but decent, kind, gracious, patient, generous…” She exhaled and went pliant against him for a long, quiet moment. “I cannot abide this. I give up, Asher. I surrender. I’m leaving the battlefield to those who find it entertaining to assassinate character and choke the very breath out of women while they do. I don’t know how to fight this, this… army of small-minded venality, and my scheming aunt, and my dratted stepfather. You win. I can’t do this alone anymore.”
You win.
For more than a minute, he said nothing. He stroked his hand over her back, trying to sort out feelings that ought not to be engendered by a woman’s acceptance of a marriage proposal.
Sadness was there, for her, because in part her capitulation was caused by her surprising—and gratifying—indignation on his behalf. He hadn’t foreseen that, hadn’t put it on his list.
He also felt some peace. They were to marry, and that felt right. A rebel countess from the wilds of Boston suited him, a treasure no one else had noticed, a woman who had backed, bullied, and blustered her way into his heart without even meaning to.
And he felt… desire. The lust was leavened with relief, to have the chase over and won—her word—and the certainty of mutual pleasure assured. He savored that feeling even as his awareness of Hannah’s body next to his became more acute.
She wore only nightclothes, no stays, no corsetry or bustle. Nothing but cotton, Hannah, and the scent of sweet lavender. When he gathered her closer, she tucked herself against him with every indication of complicity.
“You are falling asleep, my dear. You are worn out.”
She muttered something that was not a protest, so Asher scooped her up and rose, crossing the room with her in his arms. Without her evening finery, she was a smaller package, also more…
Simply more.
“I hate it here.”
“Love, I know that. You’ll like Scotland, though.” Love it, he hoped.
He laid her on her bed, drew the covers up over her, then turned to tend to her fire lest he linger overlong on the sight of her. Her braid was a thick, burnished rope against the pillow, her eyes lambent by firelight. He wanted nothing—nothing—so much as he wanted to get into the bed and simply hold her.
And to hell with the riot starting up in his trousers.
“Asher?”
He made sure the logs and coal were pushed to the back of the andirons and the screen was snug up to the bricks. “Go to sleep, Hannah. We’ll talk in the morning.”
“Kiss me.”
The last of his sadness on her behalf vanished.
She was prepared to immediately enjoy the fruits of her surrender, a notion he wholeheartedly endorsed. This much, he could undertake happily, and so could she. They could bring each other joy and pleasure in abundance, and with marriage looming, they could do so without reservation.
And yet, he hesitated. “You are tired, Hannah, and it’s late, and we still have much to discuss.”
From drowsing in his arms, she was now quite awake and wrestling off her dressing gown. “I miss your kisses. If I’m to be pilloried for being a wanton, and you accused of worse behavior than that, I will at least have a kiss.”
He did not trust himself to stop at a kiss, and like an angelic chorus bursting into song, his male brain produced the thought: Nor did they have to stop at a kiss. An engaged couple was permitted all the liberties of their married counterpart, provided they were discreet.
He could be discreet, his cock cheerfully assured him, as discreet as hell.