Nine
Hannah Cooper was breathing hard simply as a result of kissing him… or maybe as a result of being kissed by him.
Asher stole another whiff of the sweet lavender scent of her hair and tried to locate enough sense to make his feet move. Hannah threw her whole self into her kisses. She devoured him with her mouth, took him captive with her questing hands, and used her body to obliterate his reason.
And such a body… She did not indulge in the idiot fashion of cinching her waist to sixteen inches to enhance the appearance of her bust. She didn’t need to. Her curves were natural and generous, and she used them to strategic advantage when she undertook her kissing.
Great God in heaven…
“Love, we ought not to linger here.” The endearment slipped out, a common form of address between common strangers here in England, but not the speech of a belted earl to a female guest under his protection.
She rubbed her nose against the wool of his jacket. “I did not mean to kiss you, but if you expect me to apologize, you’re going to have a long wait, Asher MacGregor.”
She also, apparently, did not intend to turn loose of her prisoner.
His lips wandered to her temple, all without him planning it, stirring memories and heartache. “And if I apologized to you, Hannah?”
“I should have to be offended. My kissing needs work, I’ll grant you, but in Boston, the gentlemen don’t take liberties that often. My opportunities to practice have been limited.”
He gave up trying to follow her logic. That would require ratiocination, of which he was not capable with her plastered so warmly against him.
“I’ll not apologize then.”
“Thank you.”
He had to turn loose of her. By now every stable hand in the entire block had probably seen the Earl of Balfour taking liberties with his guest, and had seen that guest returning the favor. The chambermaids were likely gawking from the middens, and the nannies in their nursery aeries were dragging their fascinated young charges away from the windows.
And yet… how long had it been since a woman had remained in his embrace like this? The convenient liaisons he’d allowed himself in the past few years had not been intended to foster tenderness or cuddling. A welling of bodily loneliness obliterated the last of Asher’s arousal and made him long for the moors outside Steeth.
“You can let me go, Balfour.”
“Of course.” He shifted his hold to pick up the discarded skates and lace his arm with Hannah’s, pausing only to tuck his sporran around front, where it could prevent gross immodesties from befalling him.
“Am I presentable?”
His Boston, ferocious kisser of presuming earls, sounded shy, while her expression was so resolute it made him want to…
“Ye look damnably composed, Boston. I suppose you’ve made a squirrel’s nest of my hair?” This was intended to force her to look at him. She obligingly eyed him up and down and then went up her on toes.
“You look a fright. The squirrels in Canada must be the size of moose,” she said, smoothing her hand over his hair and her thumb over his bedamned eyebrows, while treating Asher to a maddening hint of lavender.
“It’s more a matter of the squirrels in London being the size of American heiresses.”
She dropped back to her heels and took his arm, when he’d been half hoping she’d stomp off in a female taking—for reasons not clear to any man Asher knew, only a female could get into a taking.
“You look presentable now, and I think you’re safe from squirrels for the remainder of my stay here in England. Come along, Balfour. The temperature’s dropping, and you promised me a tot of grog.”
They started back in the direction of the house, arm in arm, though Asher was not sure whose arm was steadying whom.
“Balfour!”
Asher stopped. Beside him, Hannah shook loose of his arm and pivoted to face the stables. An instant of concern for her went through him, lest she lose her balance.
A large kilted fellow was striding from the direction of the stables. “By God, man, it’s supposed to be spring this far south, and I’m about to freeze my ba—boots off. Perhaps you’ll introduce me to the lady?”
Ian MacGregor stood in the middle of the alley in all his dark-haired, green-eyed glory, grinning like a handsome idiot—grinning like a younger brother who had seen far too much in the past few minutes, and who would remain silent about far too little of it.
***
The men in Scotland must all be the size of trees. Based on the dimensions of Balfour’s siblings and their wives, the women weren’t much smaller.
First Ian MacGregor had come laughing and shouting out of the stables, the man nearly as tall as his brother, and while he’d treated Balfour to a back-pounding male embrace, he’d bowed properly over Hannah’s hand and subjected her to a smile that would have parted any sighted female from her sanity.
Then the others had arrived in two enormous coaches commandeered at the new King’s Cross train station. Gilgallon MacGregor and his wife, Genie; Connor MacGregor and Julia; Matthew Daniels and Mary Fran MacGregor Daniels; and Mary Fran’s daughter, a delightful sprite by the name of Fiona. Julia, Genie, and Matthew were of English extraction, but their hearts had clearly been claimed by their Scottish spouses.
“You can relax,” Genie said as the men departed for “a wee dram” in the library, and the ladies repaired to the family parlor. “Asher’s brothers are here at his invitation, and they’ll behave, more or less.”
Genie was an English beauty, tall, slim, blond, and reserved, while the brown-haired Julia was shorter, rounder, and a few years Genie’s senior. Mary Fran, by contrast, was a red-haired Valkyrie whose voice carried a lilting burr not unlike Asher’s.
“You’ll scare the girl,” Mary Fran said, showing a toothy grin. “The menfolk will all be on their good behavior, at least once Ian has Augusta’s assurances the baby is settled in.” With a confidence Hannah envied, Mary Fran gave orders to the household staff to produce “decent sustenance and some toddies.”
“Ian and Augusta seem like devoted parents,” Hannah observed, though the word that first came to mind was besotted. As Augusta MacGregor had emerged from the coach, she’d handed her baby off to Ian, and the baby had remained in his father’s arms until the infant had been pried loose by the mother for transport to the nursery.
“They are ridiculous,” Julia said, flopping onto the settee. “I hope Connor is every bit as bad.”
She exchanged a look with Mary Fran, and then with Genie, and abruptly, Hannah became aware that all three of these women were likely in expectation of blessed events. Mary Fran’s blessed event looked to be making an appearance sooner rather than later.
Gracious heavens.
“The men will behave,” Genie said again, taking a seat beside Julia, “but we are not about to be so polite. Tell us, Miss Cooper, how you’re faring in London and what we can do to help you make an enviable match.”
The lady’s blue eyes shone with sincerity, and the expressions of her companions pilloried Hannah with a similarly earnest complement of good will. They deserved honesty, and for all their smiles were kind, Hannah had the sense Balfour’s womenfolk would have honesty from her, will she, nil she.
Hannah perched on the edge of her seat, back straight. “I am not set on making an enviable match. I’d like to make no match at all. What I want is to return to Boston as soon as may be, to eventually take up residence with my grandmother. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
Another set of glances passed around and across the room, more speculative but no less kind, maybe even concerned.
Mary Fran reached down to pet a black-and-white cat that had apparently made the journey south from Scotland. “You’re not looking to snatch a title from under the noses of the English debutantes, then?”
“I want to acquit myself adequately through the social Season, then return home on the fastest ship I can find.”
To her own ears, Hannah sounded neither wistful nor resolute. She sounded as if she were reciting a prayer by rote—or a history lesson.
“That’s a shame,” Julia said as the cat stropped itself against Genie’s skirts. “The Highlands in summer are glorious, the society to be had in Edinburgh wonderful, and a shopping trip to Paris not to be missed.”
“I loathe shopping.” The words were out, clipped, emphatic, and irretrievable.
“Ye loathe shoppin’?” Like her brother, Mary Fran’s burr became more in evidence as her sentiments came to the fore. “Now what manner of shops has Asher been taking you to, that you’d say such a thing?”
What followed was nothing less than a conference of generals intent on raiding the best shops from one end of the Strand to the other. The ladies planned forays down in Knightsbridge, sweet shops targeted on the fringes of Mayfair, and a milliner’s singled out up in Bloomsbury—because they’d be shopping for books in that general direction anyway.
Midway through the planning, large trays appeared with hot drink, sandwiches, and bowls of something that looked like curdled pudding.
“A toast,” Mary Fran said, holding up a mug. “Miss Cooper, you’ll join us.”
The drink was steaming and smelled of clove, lemon, and cinnamon… also of spirits and black tea.
“To successful shopping,” Mary Fran said, smiling broadly. “For the necessities and for the fripperies.”
Hannah put her drink to her lips, finding the brew restorative indeed. “That’s very… pleasant.”
“You call Balfour’s best whiskey pleasant?” Genie asked.
“Lord Balfour has taken me to some grog shops, and my head for spirits is improving the longer I visit.” The ladies found this amusing, as evidenced by their smiles and the way they peered at their drinks, at the cat, and anywhere but at Hannah.
Hannah finished her drink, not wanting to be rude. The ladies did not finish theirs, which struck her as odd—it was a very fine toddy, and the clove flavor put her in mind of Balfour’s kiss earlier in the day.
While the others chatted about finding Hannah a decent mount—decent being British for safe and sane—Hannah’s thoughts drifted back to that kiss.
She’d wanted to remain in Balfour’s arms forever, feeling safe and cherished and anything but sane.
She’d wanted to ask him if her kisses passed muster.
She’d wanted to tell him that his certainly had.
But mostly, she’d wanted to hold him and be held by him, and to never ever leave his arms.
***
“Do I mistake the matter, or did you invite us to travel the length of the realm—your siblings, our spouses, our children, and Fiona’s dratted cat—to join you here in London?”
Ian’s voice held patience and a touch of amusement. Asher gave him credit for waiting until Con and Gil had gone to “check on the baggage” before posing it.
“I don’t recall summoning the cat,” Asher replied. “Another dram?”
Ian didn’t immediately answer. He studied his brother with green eyes grown perspicacious with age.
Or marriage, or fatherhood. Perhaps from having been declared the earl for a year or two.
“You are staring at that door as closely as Con and Gill did,” Ian said, ambling over to the sideboard and refreshing his drink. “They have the excuse of having been cooped up in the damn train for most of the past two days, breathing soot, listening to Fiona beg for stories, and wishing neither the cat nor the baby enjoyed such relentlessly healthy digestion. Why are you pacing like a caged beast?”
Asher came to a halt before the fireplace, which sported the typical stinking, desultory blaze fed by coal. “I have two female guests, foreigners, one of whom doesn’t often leave the house, and the other is determined to be difficult about finding a husband. You’d be pacing too.”
Which explanation earned him another quiet perusal from his younger brother before Ian passed his drink to Asher. “Let’s nip off to the nursery, shall we? Augusta is tarrying there, I’ve no doubt of it, and you need a proper introduction to our mutual heir.”
Asher would rather be put in a cage in the Menagerie than visit the nursery. “This would be the little fellow with the healthy digestion? We exchanged greetings in the general melee accompanying his arrival. You go hide in the nursery with your wife and son, and I’ll ensure the womenfolk aren’t devouring Miss Cooper’s limited store of genteel manners one dainty, carnivorous bite at a time.”
He set the drink down untasted and made for the door, hoping Ian would fall in behind without further interrogation.
“He’s just a wee baby, Asher. He’ll likely have a deal of siblings to get into trouble with, and I’ve a suspicion his cousins are already on the way. Mary Fran certainly hasn’t wasted any time adding to her collection.”
Ian spoke quietly, his burr evident: a wee babbie, siblin’s…
Asher paused with his hand on the door, his back to his brother, while something—censure, curiosity, pity—wafted thickly on the coal-scented air. “All of which reassures me that should I fail to find a bride this year, the succession will continue to be in good hands.”
Ian spun him by the arm. “For God’s perishing sake, mon, will you let it go? You came back when you could, and there’s an end to it. We managed, you managed, and now we move on. You’re not the first man to wander too far from home for too long, and you willna be the last.”
“Home is a relative concept, and for some of us, a vague one. You’d best go see to your son.”
He was pulling rank, as an older brother, as the ostensible head of the family, as the host. Ian scrubbed a hand over eyes that conveyed fatigue, exasperation, and… affection.
Affection was better than pity—marginally.
“See to my son, I shall. You go rescue the Yankee rebel, though she seems a steady enough sort of female. It shouldn’t be too difficult to get her fired off, with the combined might of all the MacGregor womenfolk to see the thing done.” Ian’s gaze became speculative. “Squiring her about will keep you nicely occupied should the debutantes take notice of you.”
“The debutantes will be too busy admiring my brothers and envying their wives.”
Ian smirked and stepped back enough that Asher could open the door and flee—and leave.
***
“You can’t hide in here,” Balfour said, shoving away from the old wooden counter and stuffing a thick pair of glasses into a vest pocket. “I’m hiding here, and you should be upstairs with the rest of them, yodeling their ballads and stomping through their flings.”
Himself was in a cranky mood, despite the half smile on his lips. His vaguely belligerent stance, the way his hair stuck out on one side as if he’d run his hand through it repeatedly—not to mention the absence of a proper coat—all suggested Balfour was Not Receiving, not that Hannah’s bedclothes were appropriate to a social call either.
“I’m peckish. You wouldn’t deny a guest a snack, would you?” She brushed past him without more than glancing at his exposed knees and went to the tea drawers, measuring out a pot’s worth of an Assam blend.
“I would not deny you food. Make enough for two, if you please.” He set down a document of some sort and went to the bread box. “Will you join me in a scone?”
Hannah was inclined to refuse his offhand invitation, except… she’d missed him. In the days since his family had invaded the house, she’d had no peace, no quiet, and no time spent in Balfour’s exclusive company. She’d been dragged from one commercial emporium to another by the laughing, energetic MacGregor ladies; she’d been held captive in the nursery, reading stories to Fiona and trying not to notice how dear and adorable the baby was; she’d sat through endless noisy family meals where argument and teasing shared equal space on the menu with good food and fine drink…
While nobody called her Boston.
Nobody noticed what an ordeal it was to manage Aunt Enid.
Nobody kissed her.
“Half a scone will do for me. What are you reading, sir?”
“It’s a treatise written several years ago, ‘On the Mode of Communication of Cholera.’ Butter or jam?”
“Both, please.” She took the kettle off the hob and set the tea to steeping. “Is this your idea of recreational reading?”
He fetched the cream from the window box and arranged a tray with scones in a basket next to a little tub of butter and a jar of raspberry jam—all very orderly. “This city is ripe for another epidemic, and nobody really knows what causes them.”
“Another epidemic?”
“There was a bad outbreak here of Asian cholera less than twenty years ago. Nearly everybody who contracted the disease died from it. Doctor Snow does not think the thing is conveyed by foul miasmas.”
Cholera was not a cheering topic, but it apparently interested the earl. “What do you think?”
“I think, between the open sewers, the overcrowding, and the poor health of much of the populace, nobody in their right mind would call this place home if they could help it.”
His tone held despair and old misery. He stared at the full tray and ran his hand back through his hair. The light in the kitchen was dim, but Hannah suspected he’d lost weight since they’d come to London.
“Put me on a ship for Boston, Balfour. You can return to your wintry Highlands and brood about foul miasmas to your heart’s content.”
The half smile was back, and it was a relief to see it. “You never give up, do you, Hannah Cooper?”
She perched on a stool and pulled up her nightgown far enough to stick out her right foot. “I do not give up, but sometimes I accede to the dictates of common sense.” She wiggled her toes for good measure.
The half smile on his face blossomed into the genuine article, even reaching his dark eyes. “Maiden’s Blush becomes you. Does the lift make your foot ache?”
Hannah dropped her hem and hoped the shadows were sufficient to conceal her flaming cheeks. “Not my foot, but my hip, so to speak.”
“Your bum. I am—I was—a doctor. I’ve dealt with far less genteel concepts than a lady’s derriere.”
He was still smiling, at her maiden’s blush, no doubt. Hannah checked the tea, and even if it had been nigh transparent, she would have declared it strong enough. “Shall we?” She gestured with her chin toward a small round table by the old-fashioned open hearth.
On the floor above them, some lively, stomping Highland dance came to an end. Augusta, or whoever was at the keyboard, switched to a dreamy triple meter.
“How that infant endures such a racket I do not know,” Hannah said. “He seems to take it all in stride—for a fellow who’s not quite walking.”
A shadow flitted across Balfour’s face as he took the chair beside Hannah’s. “Babies adjust to their surroundings easily enough, as long as their loved ones are close at hand and minding them.”
This was not an entirely medical opinion. “You don’t hold with children being tucked away in the nursery until they can spout Latin verbs and recite Bible passages by the score?”
He crossed his feet at the ankles, which caused the drape of his kilt to shift over his thighs. “I don’t hold with children being expected to labor like adults from their earliest years. I don’t hold with children being turned over to the care of paid strangers, such that their parents are then strangers to them. I don’t hold with letting children starve not ten blocks from some of the wealthiest, most wasteful—”
Hannah patted his hand where it rested near his untouched tea. “I am not the only one who has decided opinions in this kitchen. I think your brother Ian shares your views of child-rearing. He cuddles that baby at every opportunity.”
Balfour blew out a breath. “You want children, Hannah. I’ve watched you with Fiona. She adores you already and is trying to mimic your accent when she’s having tea with her cat.”
And when had his lordship caught his niece entertaining in the nursery?
“We can’t always have what we want. Balfour, are you going to leave me even a smidgen of jam?”
On the next floor up, in the music room, three male voices rose in close harmony, the words indistinguishable, the tone tender and lyrical.
“What I want, Hannah Cooper, is to dance with you. May I have that honor?”
He was in an odd, off mood, with each unlikely topic of conversation bearing a peculiar agitation. Cholera, babies, and now a kitchen waltz.
“Here, in this kitchen, you want to dance?”
“A test of the magic Maiden’s Blush slippers.” He rose and bowed, extending one hand while holding the other behind his back, as if he were in some glittering ballroom, not a deserted, cavernous kitchen.
She had missed him. Hannah put her bare hand in his and let him draw her into waltz position. “Your brothers sing very well.”
“We made a solid quartet, though Connor probably can’t pull off the impressive counter-tenor he sported as a lad.”
Balfour drew Hannah closer while she tried to attune herself to the phrasing of the music. She wore no corset, he was in barely decent attire—no sporran this time—and still, he didn’t move off with her. He enfolded her against his body, swaying slightly with the music.
The last time they’d been this close, they’d both been fully clothed and dressed for the out-of-doors. The difference was… astounding. Asher MacGregor gave off heat, and without a brisk wind, the scent of him was a concentrated pleasure for Hannah’s nose.
Cloves and ginger, maybe a hint of cinnamon, but also… sadness, a soul weariness that made Hannah lean into him for his comfort as well as her own.
“We’ll start slowly,” he murmured right near her ear. He tucked their joined hands close, so Hannah’s knuckles rested over his heart. Her head rested against his shoulder, their posture becoming so sumptuously intimate, Hannah closed her eyes the better to savor it.
When he shifted his feet, Hannah followed him easily. Behind closed eyes, she entrusted him with her entire balance while she floated, safe and warm in his arms. How long they swayed in the shadows she did not know, but when the melody died away above them and the piano fell silent, she made no move to step back.
“Hannah.” He gathered her closer, his cheek resting against her temple. “Boston. This isna wise. You should go, lass.”
Soon enough, she would go. She would leave, cross an ocean, and not come back. Now, she kissed him, raised her face without opening her eyes, used her fingers on his jaw to orient herself, and pressed her lips to his.
He growled and wrapped both arms around her, turning the kiss from a delicate exploration to a passionate onslaught in an instant. Wanting tore through Hannah, for him, for home, for what she could not have. Wanting and relief to have her hands on him again.
“Balfour—”
“Asher, damn it. Ye kiss a man witless, the least ye can do is use his damned name.”
She planted her nose against his open collar and inhaled him. “Asher. I’ve missed you, missed—”
He hoisted her up onto the counter. “Say my name again.”
She was off her feet, nearly at eye level with him. Her fingers went to the buttons of his shirt, her hands hungry for the feel of his skin. “Asher MacGregor. You left me to worry, for days. I lost sleep, fretting that my kisses were lacking, that you had been humoring the clumsy efforts of a Colonial bumpkin. You sit at the head of the table as if you’re an ocean away and barely say a word…”
She was pulling his shirttails from his waistband when he caught her hands in his. “Does this feel like a man who’s humoring ye? Like a man who’s an ocean away?”
Through the soft wool of his kilt, he used her fingers to shape the length of his arousal.
That he could behave so indifferently toward her before others was troubling. That she might not have any more such private interludes with him was unbearable.
“I want you, Asher MacGregor. Now. I want to touch you.”
She heard him swallow. While her hand traced his flesh through his clothes, he stepped closer. “I don’t mind that ye beggar my reason, Boston—not nearly as much as I should—but I canna allow ye to beggar my honor.”
This was some befuddling male allusion to his duty as her host, or his lordly obligations, or some blighted obstacle Hannah would not tolerate. “I am not a virgin. I am ruined, do you understand me? I have no virginity to protect, and I want you.”
While he went still in that considering, unfathomable way of his, Hannah found the pins holding the kilt closed and withdrew them. The wool slithered to the floor, leaving the earl covered by the long tails of his shirt and the open plackets of his vest.
“I suppose ye want me naked as a newborn?” He didn’t growl the question so much as purr it. Hannah’s insides turned over, then over again.
She nodded. He shrugged out of his clothing with a twitch of broad shoulders, leaving him wearing only firelight, shadows… and a smile.
“Look your fill, Hannah Cooper, because your expression tells me whoever the blessed fool was you bestowed your favors on, he didna pleasure you properly.”
Hannah could not take her eyes off the abundant masculine pulchritude before her. In the course of her travels around London, she had seen the famous statues at the British Museum. They were puny specimens compared to the Earl of Balfour. Puny, cold, and unimpressive, and they were not standing in this kitchen, naked, aroused, and smiling—at her.