The MacGregor's Lady (39 page)

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.