The MacGregor's Lady by Grace Burrowes Page B

with the old man, but for taking advantage of Asher MacGregor’s bad fortune.
    “I am the only family you have left who doesn’t curse your very name,” Malcolm said. “Babies are being born up at Balfour, you know. Ian, Connor, Gilgallon, and Mary Fran are all happily married and having fat, healthy Scottish babies, given wonderfully Scottish names, swaddled in clan plaids and sent to sleep with the old songs. My cousins don’t invite you up there, don’t mention you might like to bide with them while the Queen is larking about Deeside with her royal consort.”
    “That is none of your affair. How much, Malcolm?”
    Bless the old boy’s fixity of purpose. “I want more than a season of finery in which to advance your schemes. I want security in my old age, something you’ve enjoyed for an obscenely long time.”
    Fenimore couldn’t help how old he’d become, but he definitely deserved to be twitted for living off his deceased wife’s wealth in such a miserly fashion.
    Malcolm compared the overstuffed elegance of the Fenimore study with his garret in Paris, a cramped, noisome space alternately freezing and sweltering by seasons, a place holding few meaningful memories and too many bottles of wine when a man needed decent whiskey in his veins.
    The baron batted a gnarled hand in the direction of the bellpull. “Ring for Draper. He’s not yet departed for points south.”
    Malcolm obliged. Yes, it was a petty command, and yes, the baron could easily have reached the bellpull in a few steps, but Draper’s presence would signify an intent to be bound by any terms struck.
    Then too, as Malcolm studied Fenimore’s increasingly frail form he had to allow that maybe the baron wasn’t unwilling to get up and ring for his man of business, perhaps he was unable .
    ***
    The trip to the Royal Menagerie shifted something in Asher’s regard for Miss Hannah. The first time he’d seen the Menagerie, he’d been an adolescent. He’d pleaded a sudden, pressing need for the jakes, and as soon as he’d had some privacy, he’d given in to tears. He’d never quite known why, and it hardly mattered now. Taking Miss Cooper to see the lions hadn’t been the least bit gracious on his part; it had been… a test.
    Rude, presuming, and not at all kind.
    Maybe she’d sensed that, and maybe she’d wanted to cry a little too, for the lions, which was to say, she’d passed the test. He didn’t know whether to be pleased or disappointed, for himself, for her… none of it made much sense.
    In any case, the tenor of his sightseeing trips with Miss Hannah moderated, and the weather followed suit, shifting from bitter to brisk, however temporarily.
    She liked the parks most of all, and was content to stroll the walks on his arm, saying nothing for long stretches as she bobbed along beside him. She also liked to browse the shops, though not for herself. She was forever sending little gifts—ribbons, trinkets, scented gloves, sketches—home to her grandmother, and she’d occasionally ask him questions about this birdsong or that flower.
    “Do all Englishmen know their flora and fauna as well as you do?”
    “I can’t answer for them one way or another. I haven’t a drop of English blood in my veins.”
    She referred to him as English to tease him, or to ensure he paid attention.
    Paying attention to Hannah Cooper was becoming all too easy, even when she merely occupied the place beside him on a quiet bench. Hyde Park was never entirely deserted, but in late morning, the nannies had taken their charges back to the nurseries, the shop girls weren’t yet taking their nooning, and the fashionable crowd was still abed.
    “Is that why you don’t sound English?”
    “I sound English compared to you.” When he was sober and could ape the accents he’d heard at university, he sounded much more English than she. Ian, next in line of Asher’s siblings, had found that university accent uproarious until he’d acquired one of his