Twenty-one
Hannah did not blame Asher for letting her sleep until the last possible moment. She did not blame him for being very much the earl as they left the inn in the predawn chill. She did not blame him for expecting her to take some sustenance with their tea tray.
She drew the line at allowing him to join her in the boat that would row her out to the ship anchored in the middle of the harbor.
“I have this planned,” she said. “It’s to be like a Viking burial. You watch my ship drift out to sea, and you’ll know I’ve gone. I’ll watch the land disappear…”
And die, inside, where a woman loves, she’d die. She didn’t tell him that part. Didn’t have to.
“Get in the boat, Hannah.”
Glowering at him was purely in the interests of bravado. He’d used the same tone of voice in which he’d offered other commands: “Spread your knees, Hannah. Kiss me, Hannah. Hannah, don’t cry.”
That last one had been honored more in the breach, so to speak. Hannah let him hand her into the boat, and moved over on the little bench amidships so he could sit beside her. Four stout, unsmiling fellows took the oars, and they shoved away from the pier.
“The captain has some things for you, documents and whatnot. He’ll give them to you when you reach Boston. Your aunt sends her best wishes, and I had her wedding gift to you stowed on board with your effects. I will explain the situation to Enid when her husband brings her north later this summer.”
He went on speaking, the burr ruthlessly suppressed so Hannah had to listen hard for it. She did not attend his words, specifically, but she listened for the music in his speech. The Highlander who crooned in Gaelic and told her he loved her.
“You’re to eat, regularly, and not just hardtack. The provisions on this crossing are suitable for the royal barge, Hannah, and I expect you to enjoy them.”
Enjoy? She turned her head to peer at him and saw he was in no better shape than she. His eyes were shadowed beneath and within, and for him, he looked pale. Hannah took his hand and brought it to her lips.
“I will contrive, Balfour. You needn’t fret. I will eat. I will take air on the deck. I will bathe and dress and comb my hair. I will not plague your captain by falling into hysterics. I will be like those mountains of yours, dignified and serene.”
Lies, but they seemed to ease some of the tension about his mouth. “See that you are. And I shall do likewise.”
At least they agreed on what they wouldn’t be doing.
The ship was before them all too soon, and again, the dear, dratted man would not make his good-byes, but must climb onto the deck immediately after Hannah’s own ascent, leading Hannah up onto the poop deck where the captain was cursing in Gaelic.
She recognized the curses and had practiced them for later use.
Asher commenced exhorting the captain, who was to control the very weather lest any harm come to Hannah. She let the sound wash over her, the sound of a man in love, doing what he could to keep her safe. The little maid stood some distance away, neat, round-eyed, and wise enough to wait until Asher was done blathering.
And then, all too soon, Asher turned to Hannah, took her by the elbow, and led her to the railing.
“I love you. I will always love you. Tend to your family in Boston, Hannah, but know that my heart goes with you.”
“Not fair.” She swayed into his embrace, and it had nothing to do with the rise and fall of the waves. “You weren’t supposed to say it in English.”
“I love you. I will always love you. I’m letting you go because I love you, but this is not the end.”
He had to say that too, of course, like telling a patient they’d feel only a little burn at the touch of the knife.
“I love you, too.” And thank a perverse God, Hannah was beyond tears. “I will always love you.”
There was nothing more to say. Nothing more to feel. She went up on her toes and kissed his cheek, which was for once cold from the sea breeze. And because the hardest words always fell to the woman, she said them. “Good-bye, Asher.”
He held her impossibly tight, as if he’d hold her forever if he could just wrap her close enough in his arms, and then he stepped back. “Farewell.”
Rather than watch him disappear over the rail, Hannah turned her back to stare at the sea and the ships bobbing and lifting on the water. She had no thoughts. She was one tired, bitter ache, where a woman in love had stood and was still trying to stand.
“Yer ladyship?”
The maid looked resolute, as if she’d borne one of Asher’s lectures too. The girl’s name was… Ceely, and in her green eyes, Hannah saw some Scottish determination. Probably even MacGregor determination, given the number of second and third cousins in Asher’s employ.
“It’s Miss Cooper, Ceely. Shall we go below?”
“My very thoughts, milady.” The girl marched across the deck, but Hannah didn’t make it that far. She stopped at the opposite rail and caught sight of the little boat with its four oarsmen, moving closer and closer to shore. Asher was on the bench in the middle, facing Hannah’s ship, bare-headed and immobile.
She blew him a kiss. He returned the gesture, and then she couldn’t see him anymore for all the damned tears in her eyes.
***
Ian was waiting when Asher walked up to the inn, sitting outside on a wicker chair facing the harbor, no baby in evidence, no tea and scones, not even a flask.
“You do realize that’s your wife you just put on that ship?”
Asher slid into the seat next to him, so he might torment himself with the sight of Hannah’s ship leaving port. “A consummated engagement is a handfast marriage under Scottish law. Of course I realize it. Hannah probably won’t until she reads the letter I gave the captain.”
“You might have gone with her.”
“We’ve had that discussion. I have no authority over her family, but I can at least give her the protection afforded the Countess of Balfour.”
But what if she forgot to read the letter he’d given the captain, didn’t collect the money, the ring, the deed to Asher’s Boston house? Captain Mills would get them to her… eventually.
Ian scraped his chair back. “Do the Americans recognize handfast marriages? Hannah’s not a Scottish citizen. One does wonder.”
“You’re the bloody lawyer.”
“There’s still time to catch the ship, Asher. The anchor hasn’t been drawn up, the sails aren’t lowered. The tide hasn’t yet turned.”
The tide would turn in less than thirty minutes, and Mills was not one to miss the tide. “Fetch me a drink, why don’t you, Ian? Con promised.”
Ian rose. “He promised we would not let you start drinking until you were under your own roof. Enjoy the sunrise.”
So this wake was to be a solitary one, though Asher’s grief was sincere indeed. Sooner or later, when he’d shown the colors long enough as Earl of Balfour and laird of clan MacGregor, he’d travel to Boston and attempt to argue his wife into returning to Scotland. She’d refuse, and because their situation was no kind of marriage for raising children, she’d eventually demand that he return to Scotland.
“It is beautiful here.”
An old voice, a very old voice. Asher resigned himself to exchanging civilities and then finding more solitude from which to watch his dreams sail away.
The elderly woman perched three seats over, sitting so straight her back did not touch the chair. She stared out across the harbor like an eagle scanning its territory.
“Good morning, madam, and yes, this is a lovely city.”
His unlikely companion was very small, with snow-white hair in a tidy coronet, and clothing in the height of fashion. Her palette ran to magenta, blue, and green, like a peacock. She ought to have a lady’s maid fussing about at least, and several shawls. She took out a silver flask. “Today is a beautiful day, a wonderful day.”
She offered him the flask. It wouldn’t be sociable to refuse. Out on the ship, activity on deck increased and men scrambled aloft.
“My thanks.” He passed the flask back, the drink both appreciated and of excellent quality.
“You are welcome.” She took a businesslike draught and tucked it away.
“Are you recently arrived to Scotland?” Though what did he care if one old woman was enjoying her travels? What did he care about anything?
“I arrived last night, and today I am to rejoin my granddaughter. She has been very foolish, very stubborn, but she is good-hearted. I have come to talk sense into her.”
Would to God that—In an instant, the entire universe shifted. Hope erupted like a geyser while Asher took the chair beside the old woman. “Your granddaughter is Hannah Cooper. You came.”
When she turned her head, it was exactly like a raptor deigning to peer at a scurrying mouse. “Of course I came. You are her Asher? One doesn’t ignore letters such as yours. Such detail, even to choosing my inn for me. You must take me to my Hannah immediately. She must not return to Boston when her fool of a stepfather wants to lock her away in one of those awful places. They have pleasant names, but what goes on there is enough to drive any woman to lunacy. Fetch her to me, this moment, please. I am old, and I do not hurry well.”
Her accent held French and maybe… Mohawk?
Asher shot to his feet. “I can’t take you to Hannah just yet, but by God, I can fetch Hannah to you.” He paused three paces from the door to the inn. “What of her mother and her brothers? Are they coming?”
One nod. “As you suggested. Hannah’s mother announced that she was going to visit her sister in Baltimore, scooped up the boys, and her imbecile of a husband was relieved to see them off on a visit. They will arrive here next week.”
Before she finished speaking, Asher had the door to the inn open, while out on the water, the first sail on Hannah’s ship had dropped and was flapping madly in a crisp morning breeze.
***
“’Tis a gift from yer auntie.” Ceely pushed the package into Hannah hands. Without thought, Hannah’s fingers closed around the parcel. Up on deck, she heard the anchor chain wrapping, wrapping around the capstan as the anchor was drawn up, the sound like a tightening noose around Hannah’s heart.
In minutes the ship would turn for the sea, and Hannah’s terrible choice would be fait accompli.
What have I done?
“Open yer package, mum.” Hannah was scaring her maid. Behind stolid Scottish sense, Ceely’s voice bore a hint of alarm.
Pretty red ribbon came away easily, revealing a maple wood box with a carved figure of some sprig of foliage on the top. Hannah opened the box, and found in its velvet-lined contents an array of small bottles.
She picked up a bottle at random. “Dr. Melvin Giles’s Root Juice and Tincture of Everlasting Health.” Dr. Giles shared the box with various remedies and elixirs, most of which, Hannah knew well, would put her to sleep.
It was a solution, of sorts, to the problem of how to endure, how to become like the mountains—though there would be no dignity to it. Hannah took out one small bottle, opened the top, and sniffed. The cloying, seductive aroma of the poppy wafted forth, sickening, but tempting…
“There’s a note, mum.” Ceely did not approve of this gift—this wedding gift that was in truth a parting gift. Censure was manifest in the extra-prim set of her mouth and the narrowing of green eyes.
Hannah picked up the note: “Hannah, if you return to Boston without marrying your earl, you’ll need these far more than I ever did. Love, Enid Draper.”
No tender sentiments from the new bride, no fond doting from a devoted step-auntie, only oblivion in a bottle. In twenty bottles. Hannah stared at the bottles lined up so neatly in the pretty box. They looked like dead fish, those bottles, salted and packed away for systematic consumption.
This was her future, in one box. This was how the rest of her life would go, one year beside another, salted with regret and packed way with missing Asher MacGregor.
Hannah slammed the lid of the box down. “It isn’t ever going to hurt less, is it?”
Ceely took the box without being asked. “Milady?”
“It’s going to hurt more and more, because leaving him is wrong. I should have trusted him to share my troubles and help me set matters to rights. I should not have abandoned him. I should not—good God, I should not—have left him behind.”
“So what will ye do about it?”
The anchor was up, the chain no longer rattling into place. Shouting from above signaled the loosing of the sails, and the ship was riding higher in the waves. “Take me to the captain. We cannot leave port.”
But Captain Mills, stout Scottish veteran of the seas, was not about to delay his departure, miss the tide, and violate direct orders from the ship’s owner.
***
The inn’s common was empty save for Ian, sitting at the bar, back to the door.
“She’s here!”
Ian’s head came up. “Who’s here? Hannah? I knew she’d come to her senses. You get down on your knees, man, and you promise to goddamn worship her, do you hear me? Augusta said a man on his knees is irresistible, and if Augusta—”
“Not Hannah, ye bletherin’ fool. Her grandmother. Her gran came to talk sense into her, but my Hannah’s on the goddamn boat, and—” And he was desperate to get to her, but one man would never catch a clipper bent on leaving the harbor.
The right words came to him, from nowhere, from everywhere, from every Scottish laird ever to call for his people.
Asher planted his feet and bellowed, “To the MacGregor!”
Ian took up the cry, doors banged upstairs, and in moments, Con, Gil, and Daniels came thundering down the stairs in various states of undress. Spathfoy brought up the rear in full riding attire.
“I need to catch Hannah’s ship. Ye”—he speared Daniels with a look—“fetch the auld lady from outside, look after her. Tell her I’ll bring Hannah to her if I have to swim the bluidy ocean to do it.”
The little ketch was tied up in the same place on the dock. Spathfoy stopped long enough to yank off his boots, while Con, Gil, and Ian each took an oar.
“You man the tiller,” Ian barked. “And start yelling for your captain to drop anchor.”
The anchor was up, the sails filled, and while his kinsman strained mightily at the oars, Asher started yelling as if his very heart depended on it.
Because it did.
***
“Now, madam, I have a ship to sail, and Lord Balfour will take it quite amiss if I neglect m’ duties for a case of female vapors. Sea travel can be quite pleasant. You must not fret.”
Mills, a man of mature years, ruddy complexion, and solid build, exchanged a look with Ceely that said quite clearly: “Drag the daft woman below if you have to, but get her the hell off my deck.”
Ceely took a step forward. “Listen to her ladyship, ye auld fool. She’s the MacGregor’s lady, and if she says to turn the ship around, ye mun listen.”
“I am the MacGregor’s lady,” Hannah said, the notion infusing her with renewed determination. “You can catch the tide tomorrow or this evening. There will always be another tide.” But there would never be another man like Asher MacGregor, not for her. “Drop anchor, Captain, or you’ll find yourself relieved of your command.”
He rolled his eyes, and Hannah knew the urge to strangle him. “Now you’re a pirate, too? And you?” Rheumy blue eyes flicked over Ceely. “A couple of wee Corsairs?” He turned from them, cupped his hands to his mouth, and shouted up to the rigging, “Make sail!”
Hannah planted her fists on her hips and yelled more loudly, “By order of the MacGregor’s lady, drop anchor!”
The ship was riding the waves, dipping and rising, even turning slightly on the strength of nothing more than the harbor current and morning breeze.
“Captain?” The mate jogged up to his superior’s side. “A word with ye, sir?”
“I’m not dropping the damned anchor!” Mills spun away, muttering about daft, bleating women while Hannah directed Ceely to find her knife so she could cut her skirts free and swim to shore.
***
“Up you go.”
“Make fast and come after me,” Asher said, leaping onto the rope ladder. “I may need ye to help me kidnap the countess.”
The scene on the deck was one to confuse a besotted man on a good day, and this was not a good day. Hannah stood nose to nose with old Mills, the sailors agog from their various posts, while the maid, Cousin Ceely, repelled boarders with a ferocious scowl.
“And furthermore, the MacGregor will not appreciate you arguing with me, Captain! I need a boat and somebody to row it, or I’ll row it myself, but let me off this ship this instant!”
What? “Hannah.”
She froze as if she’d taken an arrow in the back, then did an about-face and stood her ground, back to Mills. Her boots were beside her on the freshly scrubbed deck, and the sea breeze was making inroads on her tidy bun. The front of her skirt was slashed all to hell, and she wore no gloves.
She could not have looked more beautiful to him.
“Asher MacGregor, please tell this man he cannot take me to Boston. Tell him you will not allow it.” She had never sounded more crisp, imperious, or Bostonian.
The temptation to run to her, to snatch her into his arms was overwhelming, but the stakes were far too high for rash behavior. “Why would I not allow it? It’s all ye’ve wanted since ye set foot on Scottish soil, Hannah. It’s your duty, your heart’s desire. If I love ye, and I do, verra much, why would I come between ye and your heart’s desire?”
“Because—” Her hands fisted at her sides. She closed her eyes and turned her face up to the heavens. “Because you are my heart’s desire. To be your lady is my heart’s desire. The rest…” She looked around at the wide sea beyond the harbor, at the shore, and then at him. “The rest will have to sort itself out. I will need your help, but I need you more. The alternative doesn’t bear… I can see no alternative.”
Behind him, his brothers were clambering over the rail, their boots thumping onto the deck.
“Then come to me, Hannah, and be my lady.” He held out his arms, and in her stocking feet, she pelted across the wet deck, as nimble as a goat. Gilgallon swore cheerfully in several languages, and Con and Spathfoy started arguing about who had won the bet.
Hannah held him tight, her arms lashed around his middle. “Don’t let me go, Asher.”
“You won’t fall, Hannah.” Though he didn’t turn her loose.
“No, don’t let me go to Boston. My family has had years to put Step-papa in his place. I can only offer them my home—our home—and hope they’ll accept the invitation. I cannot let their lack of sense become my own.”
She would have babbled on, would have explained all her reasons and counterarguments and contingency plans to him, but he kissed her, all the argument he needed to make.
The sailors whistled and stomped, Mills barked orders nobody heeded, and Hannah kissed Asher.
And kissed him.
When her enthusiasm for remaining in Scotland was threatening Asher’s ability to walk, he broke the kiss. “Madam, we have an audience.”
Hannah mashed her nose against his throat. “Good, they can be our witnesses, and your brothers too. The captain can marry us, can’t he?”
Ian said something in Gaelic that Asher hoped Hannah couldn’t understand.
“The ship’s captain cannot marry us, Hannah.” He put his lips to her ear. “Under Scottish law, we married the day you had me naked in the hills behind Balfour House. You might want to have a more formal ceremony once your grandmother is done speaking sense to you.”
“I liked the informal ceremony.” Then her head came up. “My grandmother? I’m not waiting weeks, while we beg and plead and bully a stubborn old woman to get on a ship for Scotland, Asher. She can be impossible. She doesn’t believe in half measures. I tried to reason with her by correspondence, and she wouldn’t even acknowledge my arguments.”
Another kiss was necessary to stop this tirade. Why didn’t anybody tell schoolboys there was no need to argue with ladies when a more effective tactic lay so close to hand? “Will you wait until we can get you to shore?”
“To shore?”
“I asked your grandmother to come to Scotland, Hannah. I begged, I pleaded, I nigh wept on the pages and told my man in Boston to offer my firstborn and my last groat to get the old woman onto one of our ships. I also offered emphatically to host your mother and your brothers for an indefinite stay, and they’ve accepted.”
Well, in part they had. He could explain the subterfuges necessary to accept his invitation, but Hannah would hardly quibble.
And if she did, he’d kiss her again.
Spathfoy clamped a hand on Asher’s shoulder. “So do we stand around in the middle of the harbor all morning, or take turns kissing the bride?”
“Neither. Hannah, into the boat. I’ll send a tender out to fetch your things before Mills catches the evening tide.”
Now, now that Spathfoy was proposing inappropriate liberties, Hannah stepped away, though she kept her hand in Asher’s. “There’s something I’d like to do first, Asher. It won’t take long.”
She said something quietly to Ceely, while Asher withstood his brothers’ grins and taunts—in English, lest anybody fail to comprehend that the ship’s owner had been one whisker away from ruining the rest of his life.
“You lot get in the damned boat and prepare to man the oars.”
Spathfoy bowed, Gil saluted, Ian blew him a kiss, and Con performed the elaborate, wrist-twirling, old-fashioned court bow. Asher understood this display for a version of “I love you even when you’re being an ass,” known only to him and his brothers.
Ceely appeared from below decks with a wooden box in her hands. “Poison, from her ladyship’s auntie. I’m off to pack up that which I spent last night unpacking. Ye’ll excuse me.”
Hannah accepted the box, which had been tied closed with a red ribbon.
“Enid’s gift?”
“Her final lecture. Will you throw it over the side for me?”
The box was gone, heaved many yards from the ship, to disappear into the water with barely a splash. “Now may I take you to greet your grandmother?”
“We’re really, truly married, Asher?”
“Yes. Under Scottish law, we’re really and truly married. I’m going to suggest we get married under English law as well, and Spathfoy’s estate in Northumbria will serve nicely for a quiet family wedding.”
Lest she get to planning the ceremony right there on the boat, he kissed her again then sent her down the ladder into the waiting rowboat.
As it turned out, the family wedding in Northumbria was attended by Hannah’s grandmother, mother, and half brothers, and several hundred other close family members, all eager to welcome the MacGregor’s lady to her rightful place at the laird’s side.
And while the earl and his countess did have many children, the first of them, a great, strappin’ lad, had the good grace not to arrive until ten entire months after the family wedding.
Read on for excerpts from Grace Burrowes’s Scottish Victorian series, and fall in love with the whole MacGregor clan!
The Bridegroom Wore Plaid
Once Upon a Tartan
Mary Fran and Matthew
Now available from Sourcebooks Casablanca
The Bridegroom Wore Plaid
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single, reasonably good-looking earl not in possession of a fortune must be in want of a wealthy wife.”
Ian MacGregor repeated Aunt Eulalie’s reasoning under his breath. The words had the ring of old-fashioned common sense, and yet they somehow made a mockery of such an earl as well.
Possibly of the wife too. As Ian surveyed the duo of tittering, simpering, blond females debarking from the train on the arm of their scowling escort, he sent up a silent prayer that his countess would be neither reluctant nor managing, but other than that, he could not afford—in the most literal sense—to be particular.
His wife could be homely, or she could be fair. She could be a recent graduate from the schoolroom, or a lady past the first blush of youth. She could be shy or boisterous, gorgeous or plain. It mattered not which, provided she was unequivocally, absolutely, and most assuredly rich.
And if Ian MacGregor’s bride was to be well and truly rich, she was also going to be—God help him and all those who depended on him—English.
For the good of his family, his clan, and the lands they held, he’d consider marrying a well-dowered Englishwoman. If that meant his own preferences in a wife—pragmatism, loyalty, kindness, and a sense of humor—went begging, well, such was the laird’s lot.
In the privacy of his personal regrets, Ian admitted a lusty nature in a wife and a fondness for a tall, black-haired, green-eyed Scotsman as a husband wouldn’t have gone amiss either. As he waited for his brothers Gilgallon and Connor to maneuver through the throng in the Ballater station yard, Ian tucked that regret away in the vast mental storeroom reserved for such dolorous thoughts.
“I’ll take the tall blond,” Gil muttered with the air of a man choosing which lame horse to ride into battle.
“I’m for the little blond, then,” Connor growled, sounding equally resigned.
Ian understood the strategy. His brothers would offer escort to Miss Eugenia Daniels and her younger sister, Hester Daniels, while Ian was to show himself to be the perfect gentleman. His task thus became to offer his arms to the two chaperones who stood quietly off to the side. One was dressed in subdued if fashionable mauve, the other in wrinkled gray with two shawls, one of beige with a black fringe, the other of gray.
Ian moved away from his brothers, pasting a fatuous smile on his face.
“My lord, my ladies, fáilte! Welcome to Aberdeenshire!”
An older man detached himself from the blond females. The fellow sported thick muttonchop whiskers, a prosperous paunch, and the latest fashion in daytime attire. “Willard Daniels, Baron of Altsax and Gribbony.”
The baron bowed slightly, acknowledging Ian’s superior if somewhat tentative rank.
“Balfour, at your service.” Ian shook hands with as much hearty bonhomie as he could muster. “Welcome to you and your family, Baron. If you’ll introduce me to your womenfolk and your son, I’ll make my brothers known to them, and we can be on our way.”
The civilities were observed, while Ian tacitly appraised his prospective countess. The taller blond—Eugenia Daniels—was his marital quarry, and she blushed and stammered her greetings with empty-headed good manners. She did not appear reluctant, which meant he could well end up married to her, provided he could dredge up sufficient charm to woo her.
And he could. Not ten years after the worst famine known to the British Isles, a strong back and a store of charm were about all that was left to him, so by God, he would use both ruthlessly to his family’s advantage.
Connor and Gil comported themselves with similarly counterfeit cheer, though on Con the exercise was not as convincing. Con was happy to go all day without speaking, much less smiling, though Ian knew he, too, understood the desperate nature of their charade.
Daniels made a vague gesture in the direction of the chaperones. “My sister-in-law, Mrs. Julia Redmond. My niece, Augusta Merrick.” He turned away as he said the last, his gaze on the men unloading a mountain of trunks from the train.
Thank God Ian had thought to bring the wagon in addition to the coach. The English did set store by their finery. The baron’s son, Colonel Matthew Daniels, late of Her Majesty’s cavalry, excused himself from the introductions to oversee the transfer of baggage to the wagon.
“Ladies.” Ian winged an arm at each of the older women. “I’ll have you on your way in no time.”
“This is so kind of you,” the shorter woman said, taking his arm. Mrs. Redmond was a pretty thing, petite, with perfect skin, big brown eyes, and rich chestnut curls peeking out from under the brim of a lavender silk cottage bonnet. Ian placed her somewhere just a shade south of thirty. A lovely age on a woman. Con would call it a dally-able age.
Only as Ian offered his other arm to the second woman did he realize she was holding a closed hatbox in one hand and a reticule in the other.
Mrs. Redmond held out a gloved hand for the hatbox. “Oh, Gus, do give me Ulysses.”
The hatbox emitted a disgruntled yowl.
Ian felt an abrupt yearning for a not-so-wee dram, for now he’d sunk to hosting not just the wealthy English, but their dyspeptic felines as well.
“I will carry my own pet,” the taller lady said—Miss Merrick. A man who was a host for hire had to be good with names. She hunched a little more tightly over her hatbox, as if she feared her cat might be torn from her clutches by force.
“Perhaps you’d allow me to carry your bag, so I might escort you to the coach?” Ian cocked his arm at her again, a slight gesture he’d meant to be gracious.
The lady twisted her head on her neck, not straightening entirely, and peered up at him out of a pair of violet-gentian eyes. That color was completely at variance with her bent posture, her pinched mouth, the unrelieved black of her hair, the wilted gray silk of her old-fashioned coal scuttle bonnet, and even with the expression of impatience in the eyes themselves.
The Almighty had tossed even this cranky besom a bone, but these beautiful eyes in the context of this woman were as much burden as benefit. They insulted the rest of her somehow, mocked her and threw her numerous shortcomings into higher relief.
The two shawls—worn in public, no less—half slipping off her shoulders.
The hem of her gown two inches farther away from the planks of the platform than was fashionable.
The cat yowling its discontent in the hatbox.
The finger poking surreptitiously from the tip of her right glove.
Gazing at those startling eyes, Ian realized that despite her bearing and her attire, Miss Merrick was probably younger than he was, at least chronologically.
“Come, Gussie,” Mrs. Redmond said, reaching around Ian for the reticule. “We’ll hold up the coach, which will make Willard difficult, and I am most anxious to see Lord Balfour’s home.”
“And I am anxious to show it off to you.” Ian offered an encouraging smile, noting out of the corner of his eye that Gil and Con were bundling their charges into the waiting coach. The sky was full of bright, puffy little clouds scudding against an azure canvas, but this was Scotland in high summer, and the weather was bound to change at any minute out of sheer contrariness.
Miss Merrick put her gloved hand on his sleeve—the glove with the frayed finger—and lifted her chin toward the coach.
A true lady then, one who could issue commands without a word. Ian began the stately progress toward the coach necessitated by the lady’s dignified gait, all the while sympathizing with the cat, whose displeasure with his circumstances was made known to the entire surrounds.
Fortunately, Mrs. Redmond was of a sunnier nature.
“It was so good of you to fetch us from the train yourself, my lord,” Mrs. Redmond said. “Eulalie told us you offer the best hospitality in the shire.”
“Aunt Eulalie can be given to overstatement, but I hope not in this case. You are our guests, and Highland custom would allow us to treat you as nothing less than family.”
“Are we in the Highlands?” Miss Merrick asked. “It’s quite chilly.”
Ian resisted glancing at the hills all around them.
“There is no strict legal boundary defining the Highlands, Miss Merrick. I was born and brought up in the mountains to the west, though, so my manners are those of a Highlander. And by custom, Ballater is indeed considered Highland territory. We can get at least a dusting of snow any month of the year.”
Those incongruous, beautiful eyes flicked over him, up, up, and down—to his shoulders, no lower. He tried to label what he saw in her gaze: contempt, possibly, a little curiosity, some veiled boldness.
Shrewdness, he decided with an inward sigh, though he kept his smile in place. She had the sort of noticing, analyzing shrewdness common to the poor relation managing on family charity—Ian recognized it from long acquaintance.
“How did you come to live in Aberdeenshire?” Mrs. Redmond asked as they approached the coach.
An innocent question bringing to mind images of starvation and despair.
“It’s the seat of our earldom. I came of age, and it was time I saw something of the world.” Besides failed potato fields, overgrazed glens, and shabby funerals. He handed the ladies in, which meant for a moment he held the hatbox. His respect for the cat grew, since from the weight of the hatbox, the beast would barely have room to turn around in its pretty little cage.
Ian knew exactly how that felt.
Once Upon a Tartan
When Tiberius Lamartine Flynn heard the tree singing, his first thought was that he’d parted company with his reason. Then two dusty little boots dangled above his horse’s abruptly nervous eyes, and the matter became a great deal simpler.
“Out of the tree, child, lest you spook some unsuspecting traveler’s mount.”
A pair of slim white calves flashed among the branches, the movement provoking the damned horse to dancing and propping.
“What’s his name?”
The question was almost unintelligible, so thick was the burr.
“His name is Flying Rowan,” Tye said, stroking a hand down the horse’s crest. “And he’d better settle himself down this instant if he knows what’s good for him. His efforts in this regard would be greatly facilitated if you’d vacate that damned tree.”
“You shouldn’t swear at her. She’s a wonderful tree.”
The horse settled, having had as much frolic as Tye was inclined to permit.
“In the first place, trees do not have gender, in the second, your heathen accent makes your discourse nigh incomprehensible, and in the third, please get the hell out of the tree.”
“Introduce yourself. I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”
A heathen child with manners. What else did he expect from the wilds of Aberdeenshire?
“Tiberius Lamartine Flynn, Earl of Spathfoy, at your service. Had we any mutual acquaintances, I’d have them attend to the civilities.”
Silence from the tree, while Tye felt the idiot horse tensing for another display of nonsense.
“You’re wrong—we have a mutual acquaintance. This is a treaty oak. She’s everybody’s friend. I’m Fee.”
Except in his Englishness, Tye first thought the little scamp had said, “I’m fey,” which seemed appropriate.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Fee. Now show yourself like a gentleman, or I’ll think it’s your intent to drop onto hapless travelers and rob them blind.”
“Do you think I could?”
Dear God, the child sounded fascinated.
“Down. Now.” That tone of voice had worked on Tye’s younger brother until Gordie had been almost twelve. The same tone had ever been a source of amusement to his younger sisters. The branches moved, and Rowan tensed again, haunches bunching as if he’d bolt.
A lithe little shape plummeted at least eight feet to the ground and landed with a loud “Ouch!” provoking Rowan to rear in earnest.
***
From the ground, the horse looked enormous, and the man astride like a giant. Fee caught an impression of darkness—dark horse, dark riding clothes, and a dark scowl as the man tried to control his horse.
“That is quite enough out of you.” The man’s voice was so stern, Fee suspected the horse understood the words, for two large iron-shod hooves came to a standstill not a foot from her head.
“Child, you will get up slowly and move away from the horse. I cannot guarantee your safety otherwise.”
Still stern—maybe this fellow was always stern, in which case he was to be pitied. Fee sat up and tried to creep back on her hands, backside, and feet, but pain shot through her left ankle and up her calf before she’d shifted half her weight.
“I hurt myself.”
The horse backed a good ten feet away, though Fee couldn’t see how the rider had asked it to do so.
“Where are you hurt?”
“My foot. I think I landed on it wrong. It’s because I’m wearing shoes.”
“Shoes do not cause injury.” He swung off the horse and shook a gloved finger at the animal. “You stand, or you’ll be stewed up for the poor of the parish.”
“Are you always so mean, mister?”
He loomed above her, hands on his hips, and Fee’s Aunt Hester would have said he looked like The Wrath of God. His nose was a Wrath-of-God sort of nose, nothing sweet or humble about it, and his eyes were Wrath-of-God eyes, all dark and glaring.
He was as tall as the Wrath of God, too, maybe even taller than Fee’s uncles, who, if not exactly the Wrath of God, could sometimes be the Wrath of Deeside and greater Aberdeenshire.
As could her aunt Hester, which was a sobering thought.
“You think I’m mean, young lady?”
“Yes.”
“Then I must answer in the affirmative.”
She frowned up at him. From his accent, he was at least a bloody Lowlander, or possibly a damned Sassenach, but even making those very significant allowances, he still talked funny.
“What is a firmative?”
“Yes, I am mean. Can you walk?”
He extended a hand down to her, a very large hand in a black riding glove. Fee had seen some pictures in a book once, of a lot of cupids without nappies bouncing around with harps, and a hand very like that one, sticking out of the clouds, except the hand in the picture was not swathed in black leather.
“Child, I do not have all day to impersonate the Good Samaritan.”
“The Good Samaritan was nice. He went to heaven.”
“While it is my sorry fate to be ruralizing in Scotland.” He hauled Fee to her feet by virtue of lifting her up under the arms. He did this without effort, as if he hoisted five stone of little girl from the roadside for regular amusement.
“Do you ever smile?”
“When in the presence of silent, well-behaved, properly scrubbed children, I sometimes consider the notion. Can you put weight on that foot?”
“It hurts. I think it hurts because my shoe is getting too tight.”
He muttered something under his breath, which might have had some bad words mixed in with more of his pernickety accent, then lifted Fee to his hip. “I am forced by the requirements of good breeding and honor to endure your company in the saddle for however long it takes to return you to the dubious care of your wardens, and may God pity them that responsibility.”
“I get to ride your horse?”
“We get to ride my horse. If you were a boy, I’d leave you here to the mercy of passing strangers or allow you to crawl home.”
He might have been teasing. The accent made it difficult to tell—as did the scowl. “You thought I was boy?”
“Don’t sound so pleased. I thought you were a nuisance, and I still do. Can you balance?”
He deposited her next to the treaty oak, which meant she could stand on one foot and lean on the tree. “I want to take my shoes off.” He wrinkled that big nose of his, looking like he smelled something rank. “My feet are clean. Aunt Hester makes me take a bath every night whether I need one or not.”
This Abomination Against the Natural Order—another one of Aunt Hester’s terms—did not appear to impress the man. Fee wondered if anything impressed him—and what a poverty that would be, as Aunt would say, to go through the whole day without once being impressed.
He hunkered before her, and he was even tall when he knelt. “Put your hand on my shoulder.”
Fee complied, finding his shoulder every bit as sturdy as the oak. He unlaced her boot, but when he tried to ease it off her foot, she had to squeal with the pain of it.
“Wrenched it properly, then. Here.” He pulled off his gloves and passed them to her. “Bite down on one of those, hard enough to cut right through the leather, and scream if you have to. I have every confidence you can ruin my hearing if you make half an effort.”
She took the gloves, which were warm and supple. “Are you an uncle?”
“As it happens, this dolorous fate has befallen me.”
“Is that a firmative?”
“It is. Why?”
“Because you’re trying to distract me, which is something my uncles do a lot. I won’t scream.”
He regarded her for a moment, looking almost as if he might say something not quite so fussy, then bent to glare at her boot. “Suit yourself, as it appears you are in the habit of doing.”
She braced herself; she even put one of the riding gloves between her teeth, because as badly as her ankle hurt, she expected taking off her boot would cause the kind of pain that made her ears roar and her vision dim around the edges.
She neither screamed nor bit through the glove—which tasted like reins and horse—because before she could even draw in a proper breath, her boot was gently eased off her foot.
“I suppose you want the other one off too?”
“Is my ankle all bruised and horrible?”
“Your ankle is slightly swollen. It will likely be bruised before the day is out, but perhaps not horribly if we can get ice on it.”
“Are you a priest?”
“For pity’s sake, child. First an uncle, then a priest? What can you be thinking?” He sat her in the grass and started unlacing her second boot.
“You talk like Vicar on Sunday, though on Saturday night, he sounds like everybody else when he’s having his pint. If my ankle is awful, Aunt Hester will cry and feed me shortbread with my tea. She might even play cards with me. My uncles taught me how to cheat, but explained I must never cheat unless I’m playing with them.”
“Honor among thieves being the invention of the Scots, this does not surprise me.” He tied the laces of both boots into a knot and slung them around Fee’s neck.
“I’m a Scot.”
His lips quirked. Maybe this was what it looked like when the Wrath of God was afraid he might smile.
“My condolences. Except for your unfortunate red hair, execrable accent, and the layer of dirt about your person, I would never have suspected.”