The MacGregor's Lady (31 page)

And now, here she was, standing on the platform between the ladies’ sleeping car and the parlor car, wearing her night robe, slippers, and a tentative smile.

Manners.
When all else failed, a fellow who’d been stupid enough to dash out and procure a marriage license still had his manners. “I beg your pardon, Hannah. I didn’t know you were out here.”

“Nor I you.”

For an instant, swaying along with the locomotive’s rhythm, they said nothing.

Bloody
goddamned
manners, MacGregor.
“Are you looking forward to reaching Edinburgh?”

“Of course. It’s said to be a lovely city, though I was in no mood to appreciate it when I first arrived.”

“It’s an old city, dating back to before the Romans.” He slipped off his coat and draped it around her shoulders. “I’ll enjoy showing it off to you.”

Assuming she didn’t take ship for Boston the very next day. The thought nearly brought him to his knees.

“This coat is marvelously warm. How long will we be staying?”

How
long
can
I
get
you
to
stay?
“At least a couple of weeks, though I’d like you to see Balfour, too, assuming you’re willing to tarry that long?”

She turned so she faced the north country rolling past under the moonlight. “I feel like I’m not going
toward
anything. I feel like I’m racketing about, like one of those round cheeses that’s rolled down a steep hill for sport.”

A fine analogy. She was leaving, and because she was leaving, she’d permitted him rare and precious liberties.

But she wasn’t gone yet. He positioned himself behind her and slipped his arms around her waist. “Do you miss your aunt?”

She relaxed against him, letting him balance for them both. “Miss her? Are you teasing me? When she declared her stomach too delicate to journey north with us, I wanted to dance one of your reels.”

“I expect Mr. Trundle did too, discreetly of course. May I kiss you, Hannah?”

If a man was to suffer the torments of the damned, then they ought to at least be the more enjoyable torments. Not the torment of watching her cuddle Ian’s dratted infant, or the torment of knowing she was leaving.

Leaving.

Leaving.

She turned in his embrace and propped herself against the railing, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her forehead on his chest. “We haven’t spoken much since leaving London.”

The hour being late, he’d discarded his cravat. Hannah’s tongue grazed his throat.

“We haven’t had any privacy.”

“I like your family, Asher. They are very dear, and they are devoted to you and to one another.”

Unlike
her
blighted family, all of whom needed Hannah to protect them, or so his informants in Boston implied. He dipped his head to gather her lavender scent. “My family likes you, too. Will you be able to sleep? We’ll reach Waverly Station quite early.”

She sighed, a weary exhalation that suggested his question was inane, which it was—though bloody polite, too. “I’ll not sleep. You’ll not sleep either. The baby sleeps, Fiona sleeps, and that infernal cat sleeps. Your brothers are no doubt playing cards and drinking until they can’t keep their eyes open, while their wives are ‘resting.’”

“You should rest too.” And he should go play cards, because if he stood out here with her much longer, he wouldn’t answer for the consequences. “The baby is learning the finer points of poker as we speak.”

This made her smile, her teeth showing white against the darkness. “Is he taking a wee nip every now and then?”

“No, but I am. Kiss me, Hannah.”

She did better than that. She nigh climbed him to fuse her mouth to his, mashing her body against him until his arousal was a throbbing presence between them. It took strength, determination, and cooperation, but within minutes, Asher had her backed against the parlor car, wedged between the wall and the railing, her leg around his hip, and his trousers unfastened.

“We shouldn’t, Hannah. There could be a child.” Bad things happened when people destined to part procreated. He was the living proof.

She curled her fingers around his shaft. “Stop being reasonable. Whether we suffer one lapse or two makes little difference.”

They were up to three lapses, with the fourth impending, when the dratted, blessed woman scooted a little, so that what ought to have been a feat of sexual gymnastics became entirely possible. Asher widened his stance, half-hiked her to a perch on the railing, and probed at her heat, desire clawing its way past reason. “Don’t let me drop you.”

“Don’t let me fall.”

They came together in a fit of insanity, as if all the power of the locomotive itself fueled their coupling. He tried to hold back, tried to exercise a little finesse—manners, be damned—but Hannah clutched at him and leveraged herself against the wall to buck into his thrusts.

“Harder, please, Asher. You have to…”

He covered her mouth with his, lest somebody hear her demands. She groaned into the kiss while he got a hand firmly under her backside.

“Better. Hold me tight, Asher.”

For an instant he let her balance on sheer strength while he found her hand and used her own fingers to apply pressure to a nipple. The sound she made, low, earthy, and voluptuous, went right to his cock.

He’d seen a meteor once, in the cold, starry depths of the Canadian wilderness. It had streaked into the night sky, growing brighter and brighter as it hurtled across the firmament.

Hannah’s pleasure was like that. Glorious, incandescent, a perfect complement to the train rocketing them north at the speed of a horse galloping for its life. He lasted only a half-dozen ferocious thrusts longer than she did, pounding Hannah into the wall before he withdrew and spilled onto their bare bellies.

She recovered first, kissing his jaw. “Put me down. I can feel you shaking.”

He didn’t want to let her go. He settled for allowing her leg to slide off his hip, while he stood, arm braced above her, panting. That he had her physically cornered was some consolation.

Her fingers winnowed through his hair, trying to put right what she and the train had utterly disordered. “I think I’ll sleep now.”

“And I’ll play cards. Stare at them, in any case.”

They both smiled. As long as conversation wasn’t expected of them, they were on safe ground.

“You should rest, Asher. I’m going to expect your devoted escort once we get to Edinburgh.”

“You’ll have it. I’ll expect you to be the scintillating American heiress who had old Moreland mustering his troops.”

The exchange petered out, and abruptly, Asher was aware of the night wind on his damp, exposed parts. He kissed her again, slowly, a sure way to bring heat back into his system. The words “I love you” began to drum at his brain, but where would that leave them?

Did a man who loved a woman try to hold her against her will with words?

Even honest words?

“Hold still.” Hannah fished in his pockets, produced a handkerchief, and dabbed at herself. She folded the thing over to use on his stomach, then arranged his softening cock in his clothes and fastened his trousers.

“You are proficient at that, Hannah Lynn Cooper.”

She tossed a look up at him, as if she’d say something, then changed her mind. When she would have ducked around him, left him on the platform without so much as a good-night kiss, he caught her hand.

“What were you about to say?” He could not read her expression, but he could feel her unhappiness with every instinct he possessed. “Tell me, Hannah, because this is as much privacy as we’re likely to find, and if you were going to say this mustn’t happen again, I agree. It must not. Ever.”

***

What
was
he
saying?

Hannah put her hand to Asher’s cheek, as if by touching him she could gain powers of divination to defy the darkness around them. Against her palm, his jaw was rough with the beginnings of a beard, and warm.

She craved that warmth.

He captured her hand in his own and gently removed it from his person. “Shall we sit, Hannah?”

He gestured to a bench fashioned on the side of the platform nearest the ladies’ car. A simple, flat surface such as a man might use to enjoy a cigar or to escape from the confines of the train’s cramped compartments.

Hannah took a seat, gathering Asher’s coat around her. He settled beside her, making no move to put an arm about her shoulders or draw her close.

So
that’s how it was to be?

“You said this must not happen again, ever. What did you mean, Asher?” Was she to go back to my-lording and Balfouring?

“I want to touch you. It’s a distraction not to.” He took her hand, though his tone was truculent. “I meant, Hannah Cooper, that after the Alcincoates’ ball, we had a discussion, and that discussion led to indiscretions such as we just enjoyed moments ago.”

Passionate lovemaking was an indiscretion. He spoke the truth—a truth—but she wanted to pitch him off the train before he could say one more word—or perhaps jump from the train herself.

“My lord—”
Wrong.
For this discussion, all wrong. “Asher, I owe you an apology.”

He brought her knuckles to his lips. “You will explain this apology.”

The nature of their misunderstanding was apparently clear to him, and yet, she wanted to be the one to acknowledge their mistake. “When we had that discussion, I should have been clearer about my position. I was not accepting your proposal of marriage.”

“I know that now. You were announcing your intention to take ship. So why are you still here, holding hands with me?”

And committing further indiscretions? Between them, that question was fair even if the answer lay beyond Hannah’s grasp.

“I learned you had procured that license. Malcolm must have guessed, and he let it slip. I could not find a way to tell you…” That she loved him, that she wanted to spend the rest of her days and nights with him, but that she was leaving him all the same.

“So you’re telling me now, after scrambling m’ wits in five minutes flat?” That he could manage any pretensions to humor was a testament to the depth of his gallantry.

“My wits were scrambled the moment you stepped onto the platform, sir. They’re scrambled still.”

His arm came around her shoulders. Her throat began to ache.

“Not scrambled enough, I’ll warrant. I’m sorry, Hannah. It’s harder when we know what we’re giving up.”

How could he be so damnably philosophical?

“So we’re not engaged? That license doesn’t create an engagement?”

His lips grazed her temple. “It’s just a piece of paper. You’re free to tend to your responsibilities, and I’m free to tend to mine. I’ll squire you about Edinburgh for a couple of weeks, maybe show you Balfour if you’re interested, and then put you on one of my fastest ships bound for Boston.”

A list of tasks to be completed, or a recipe—for heartache.

“Thank you.”

“You are not welcome, Hannah Cooper. I have business in Boston, you know. I could visit there from time to time, once I spend a few years playing earl here to everybody’s satisfaction.”

“You need heirs, Asher. Don’t torment me with what-ifs, maybes, and perhapses.”

“I’m asking you to plan, Hannah.” His voice was very gentle, his grasp of her hand loose. “Plan for that day you’re larking around the shops, picking out a book to give a friend or to read to your hundred-year-old granny, and you look up, and there I am, across the street. I might have a touch of gray at my temples, my hair will likely be shorter, and our eyes will meet. Plan for that day, and the regrets and desire that will deluge us both.”

And he might be holding the hand of a small boy who resembled him, or have on his arm a pretty, wellborn Scottish countess. She turned her face to his shoulder. “I hate you.”

She’d have no husband at her side in that bookshop, though, which was a consolation of sorts.

“Then you also hate the part of you that is responsible, loving, and loyal. I’ve tried, but I cannot hate these things in you. I can resent them, though, just as you must resent them in me.”

His ability to see the situation clearly only made her determination to leave him that much more of a burden. “I want you to rant at me and wave the license in my face and tell me I have no choice.”

“We all have choices.” More humor, however bleak.

And he was right, blast him to Halifax. Hannah did have choices.

“I choose two weeks in Edinburgh, two weeks at Balfour, and then you will find me that ship.”

“A month, then. We’ll have one more month.”

For him that seemed to settle something. For Hannah, it only raised the question of how she’d endure her life when that month was over.

And then, because he had not and would never take her choices away, she entrusted him with one of her heartaches. “The last letter from my grandmother? She asked when I was coming home. She’s never asked that before, and I haven’t heard from her since. My brothers have stopped writing.”

He remained silent for a time, the sound of the train rolling north reverberating against Hannah’s soul. “Tell her you leave in a month. Tell them all you’ll be leaving me in one month.”

He kissed her, a soft press of lips against her mouth, no insinuation or reproach to it. Just a kiss.

As he offered her an ironic little bow and withdrew to the parlor car, Hannah knew that kiss for what it was: they might kiss again, they might even lapse again if she had the strength to endure such pleasure and passion, but that had been a kiss of parting, a kiss good-bye.

***

A man wasn’t worth the name if he sought to hold a woman by a confluence of desire, misunderstanding, and guilt. For Asher to accept this conclusion required no great love, no feat of sacrifice. Common sense said a female as convinced of her conclusions as Hannah Cooper was would eventually resent any marital choice imposed on her, and resent the man who’d imposed it.