The MacGregor's Lady (28 page)

Hannah clung to him, moved with him, and when her body shook with the fulfillment of Asher’s vows, she fell and fell and fell with him too.

***

He’d loved her right to sleep.

Hannah’s passion was a wonderful, generous, unstinting thing, a measure of intimacy Asher lay thinking about as he held his prospective bride and matched his breathing to hers.

She’d been matter of fact about the aftermath—“That’s the scent of your seed, isn’t it? The scent of copulation?” and “This is not all neat and tidy. I like that it isn’t tidy.”—which was very different from Monique’s shyness and self-consciousness.

Monique had laughed her way through life’s difficult moments. Only now, holding a lady for whom humor played a different role, could Asher see that Monique’s approach was that of a very young woman, one who’d not strayed from the smile she’d learned to wield early in life, a means of coping she could not put aside in favor of more mature strengths.

Strengths like courage, resilience, honesty, or trust. “
I
like
that
it
isn’t tidy
.”

A universe of joyful marital potential lay in that confession.

Had Hannah been awake, Asher might have said to her, “I was married before. It was sweet and precious, and when it ended, I thought I’d died. I
wished
I’d died, and I knew I would never love with my whole heart again.” He might have added, very softly, “I was wrong.”

Instead, he caressed Hannah’s hair and kissed her temple, and—because with her sprawled on his chest, the temptation was too great—stroked his hand over the curve of her backside.

Somewhere in the affray, her nightgown had gone missing. This was convenient, because before he left the bed, Asher intended that Hannah’s wits go missing again too—even though he’d finally located his own wits for the first time since leaving Scottish shores years ago.

***

“By what feat of feminine cerebration did you conclude you were unchaste?”

The question was asked with lazy amusement, the same lazy amusement with which the end of Hannah’s braid was brushed across her lips. She rolled to her back to find Asher propped on his elbow beside her.

The birds were singing outside her window, while a faint gray light crept around the edges of her curtains.

She and Asher hadn’t much time, though she found it impossible to dismiss him from her bed.

“I was not a virgin. I lacked the requisite…” She batted sleep away from her brain, batted his braid-wielding hand from her face. “There’s a name for it, for the little scrap of flesh a girl is to guard with her life, and I parted with mine some time ago.”

He kissed her nose. “The name for it is invisible, in most cases. A woman as active as you are is unlikely to be sporting much in the way of a maidenhead so late in her life. Hymen, if you want the medical term.”

“Are you calling me old?”

He kissed her ear and spoke right next to it, which tickled. “I am calling you adult, also mendacious. Untruthful, but not quite a liar. Tell me, Hannah.”

He wrestled her over him, a position in which they’d made love sometime in the night. The memory was luscious and painful. Hannah curled down onto Asher’s chest and wished she could hold back the dawn.

“Hymen. I’d forgotten the word. Your medical knowledge has its uses.”

His hand on her back paused then resumed the slow stroking across her skin, which would have provoked her to purring were she capable of it.

“You were a virgin, dear heart. I would stake my life on this. Were you misleading me in an effort to hasten your ruin?”

He wasn’t going to let this go, but because he was going to let
her
go—in a few minutes in one sense, in a few weeks in another—she tried to find the right words.

“When I jilted Widmore, he did not deal well with it.”

“Most fellows would take umbrage at being made a laughingstock at the altar. I certainly would.”

Hannah glanced at the window, listened to the caroling of the birds, and kissed her lover’s nose. “He went to my stepfather and stated quite baldly that he’d had carnal knowledge of me. If I refused to marry him, in public with full honors, he threatened to bruit it about that I’d enticed him into anticipating the vows.”

Asher’s languid caresses slid lower. “His name is Adventus Widmore. He resides at 28 East Breitling Place, Boston. He flunked out of Yale and was given work in your stepfather’s offices two years ago as a favor to some business crony. Widmore stands about six feet, is blond, blue-eyed, and has a nick in his left earlobe from where his younger sister aimed a rock at him as a lad. Shall I kill him for you, precious heart?”

“Such endearments. You shame the dawn with your efforts to cheer me.”

“Perhaps you’d prefer to see him gelded? Or—my medical training again—I could have him relieved of one testicle but not the other. It’s messy, there’s a lot of blood involved, and it’s quite painful, but a man can still—”

Hannah kissed him on the mouth. “You wax enthusiastic on a surgical topic, and I have yet to break my fast. I was never intimate with Widmore, though not for lack of trying on his part. I learned not to be where he could catch me alone. And I think he realized that smearing my reputation would not inure to his advantage.”

At some point in Asher’s surgical recitation, Hannah had become aware that in addition to the sun, something else, something equally lovely, was rising right there in the bed.

“So were you lying to me, Hannah? Trying to goad me past propriety?”

His thumb feathered over her nipples. Not a goad, an inspiration. Hannah flexed her hips, caressing his cock with her sex.

“My stepfather had a midwife examine me, but he gave the woman instructions first.”

“I am not going to like this midwife much either, am I?”

He’d probably want to disfigure the poor woman, which was unfair, though endearing. “I like that, the way you tease my nipples. Is there a medical term for the nipple?”

He gasped as she sheathed him in one smooth, sweet slide of her body over his. “For God’s sake, Hannah, hold still.”

Good advice. She was a trifle sore, which was a new sensation, not exactly uncomfortable, and wonderfully intimate. “Am I hurting you?” She snuggled closer. “I’m a bit tender myself.”

“I am very tender.”

He wasn’t joking, though she didn’t think he was referring to his cock—she knew that term—but she couldn’t be sure. “Shall I—?” What was the word for untangling their bodies without consummating their joining? “There’s an entire vocabulary you’re going to have to teach me.”

“There is, but you’re a quick study. The word for nipple is papilla, though the shortened form—pap—can refer to the breast generally.”

He’d regained his balance, the wretch, while she… “Can we simply lie here like this, joined but unmoving?”

“There’s no law against it, and no word for it either that I know of. Tell me about the midwife.”

The birdsong changed, became polyphony instead of an avian plain chant. Whereas one bird had been fluting along, greeting the sun with a silvery solo, now others joined in while Hannah remained joined to the man in her bed.

“She described for me the nature of the examination, and explained that she’d also been instructed to ensure my wedding night proceeded without discomfort.”

Asher’s expression grew more fierce. “She was to destroy the evidence of your virginity, if any she found.”

Hannah brought his hands to her breasts. “I suppose so.”

Male thumbs feathered over her nipples. “And you weren’t to know that’s what she was about.”

“Not at the time. She was honest though, and told me the lack of a maidenhead was likely to be presented to me when I turned up fractious at a later date. That is an interesting… I feel that caress in places you aren’t touching me.”

He nudged up with his cock. “Here.”

Hannah managed a nod, closed her eyes, and let her head fall to his shoulder. “I like it when you do that.”

“Why did you let that woman carry out her instructions? And no, you are not to move, Hannah. You’ll need a soaking bath as it is. A long, hot, soaking bath to start your day.”

Focusing on the question took effort, for pleasure was building in Hannah’s body, even as outside her window the sun was rising. “The midwife assured me she found no evidence of unchaste behavior, and she would swear… swear… if you move any more slowly, Asher MacGregor, I shall bite you.”

He stopped moving entirely. “She would swear to your chastity?”

“She said as much and explained exactly what you said. Nobody could tell, in any case, but I might be more comfortable on my wedding night if I complied with the scheme she’d been put to.”

He started moving again, slow, easy lunges into her body that went wonderfully deep. “While you concluded you’d be conveniently ruined if the need arose. Are ye comfortable, my heart?”

She met his thrust, counterpointed his rhythm. “Not comfortable, exactly. Are you comfortable?”

While the sun crept over the horizon and the birds sang in welcome, Asher levered up, wrapped Hannah close, and laughed.

***

“It’s no use.” Enid’s tone was bitter enough that Augusta exchanged a look with Genie and Julia. “Word has gone out. Nobody will be calling. Hannah has received no bouquets, no cards, nothing. We might as well decamp for Poland. She has quite ruined herself, and all over a little swoon. You will excuse me if I need a tot of my medicinals.”

Enid pushed her chair back with an unladylike scrape, and left the breakfast parlor amid a series of equally indecorous sniffs into her handkerchief.

“Hannah was smart to linger at her bath,” Julia observed, reaching for the teapot.

“None for me,” Genie said. “Lately, I use the necessary enough as it is in the mornings.”

Mary Fran held out her cup. “That passes. I wish that woman would leave for Poland, though Matthew says it’s a beautiful country. I don’t suppose the Poles deserve the imposition, either.”

Augusta shook her head at the proffer of more tea. “I have learned a few things from my Scottish husband.”

Genie’s smile was impish. “We’re all learning things from our Scottish husbands, and our nurseries will soon bear the proof.”

“Not those sorts of things. Well, those things too. I am learning from Ian that anger need not be a corrosive, bitter thing. Anger can be an inspiration.”

“Revenge,” Mary Fran said, smiling hugely. “We could take in Enid’s crinolines until she can neither breathe nor stand up with her Mr. Trucklebed.”

“Trundle,” Augusta said. “We could lace her patent remedies with a laxative. We could see her compromised, though she’d hardly object to it. She is upset that Hannah is ruined because it reflects poorly on her, not because Hannah will suffer for it.”

“Hannah might be married for it,” Julia pointed out. “I’m not sure, given that Asher is the prospective groom, suffering is the appropriate term.”

Augusta drew her fingernail along an embroidered seam of the tablecloth. The figure was a depiction of pretty bluish flowers—lilacs and columbines amid greenery against a soft gold background. “Neither one of them wants to be married, and if they do marry, it shouldn’t be like this.”

Like this—a reference to the things Enid had noted. An absence of bouquets, a lack of calling cards, much less cards with a particular corner bent, indicating the visitor waited,
in
person
, for a few minutes with the ladies of the household.

Polite Society was nothing if not articulate in its silences.

Genie buttered a slice of toast but didn’t eat it. “Con said he, Gil, and Ian asked Asher what he was going to do about Hannah’s situation. Asher didn’t answer them directly.”

“Perhaps he’ll give them an answer on their morning ride,” Julia observed.

A knock on the door interrupted the conversation.

“Enter,” Mary Fran called out.

Two footmen strode in, each obscured by an enormous bouquet. All four ladies sat up.

“Sweet basil is for good wishes,” Julia remarked, breaking off a leaf from the nearer bouquet and bringing it to her nose. “Water lily is for purity of heart. Nobody puts water lilies in bouquets. I forget what arborvitae is for.”

“Unchanging friendship,” Genie said. “The roses are from Spathfoy, white for purity. But this other bouquet, it isn’t gaudy, exactly…”

They regarded the larger arrangement, a pretty assortment of both blooms and greens.

“Jasmine is for grace and elegance,” Mary Fran murmured. “I know that one only because Matthew has sent it to me, the daft man.”

Augusta rose and plucked a single sturdy evergreen stem from the very center of the bouquet. “Juniper is for protection. Who in the world?” She rummaged around among the blossoms, looking for a card. An elegant little note sat near a creamy magnolia blossom. “Magnolia for dignity.”

“There’s a carriage pulling up. Crested,” Julia reported. “I can’t quite… God in heaven. We’re to have a caller after all.”

They went to the window en masse. A liveried footman sprang from the back of an enormous town coach and strode briskly toward the town house door.

“That crest is familiar,” Augusta said. “Somebody make sure Hannah is properly turned out before she comes down. These flowers need to go into the front hallway, and have the footmen fill the card bowl with last week’s cards. Alert the kitchen we’ll need the best service, and send word to the mews when the men come in that Mary Fran will skelp their bums if they set so much as
one
muddy boot on the back steps while we’re entertaining. And do not breathe a word of our caller to Miss Enid. The woman needs her rest.”

The ladies scurried off in several directions, so that within the five minutes necessary to assure the footman they were at home and happy to receive guests, word had gone upstairs, downstairs, and everywhere in between.

While the kitchen worked furiously to assemble a tea tray fit for royalty and Hannah’s maid put the finishing touches on her coiffure, the Moreland ducal coach disgorged no less than a viscountess, two countesses, two marchionesses, and… one dignified, smiling duchess on the arm of her graciously congenial—if leonine—duke.