The MacGregor's Lady by Grace Burrowes Page A

took a preventive tot of her nerve tonic and a great deal of patience on the part of both men and beasts. The coachman took the lead, letting both wheelers come behind him, with Aunt Enid bringing up the rear on the second leader.
    “Isn’t it a shame the roads are so miserably inadequate to the challenge of keeping travelers from the ditch?” Enid’s voice trailed away in the bitter breeze as the horses trudged off in the direction of the last coaching inn.
    “‘Isn’t It A Shame’ is her second-favorite game,” Hannah said. “Right after ‘If Only.’”
    “If only I hadn’t forced you out of Edinburgh so early in the season?” Balfour asked. He sounded genuinely displeased with himself.
    “She’s happy, Lord Balfour. Not a solid week on British soil and already I’m compromised.”
    “Compro—” His dark eyebrows nearly met, so thunderous was his scowl. “They should be back in less than two hours. You’re not compromised.”
    “If Aunt loses track of her discretion in some remedy-induced fog, I am compromised, and so are you.”
    His gaze went to the horses making slow progress toward the horizon. “Then you’d best make sure she understands that I am a gentleman and you are a lady. We behave as such under all circumstances.”
    “If you say so.” The landscape was bleak, the prospect of relying on Aunt’s discretion bleaker. “Is it too much to hope we could build a fire while we’re behaving so prettily?”
    “Not a bad idea,” Balfour conceded. “I don’t like the look of that sky.”
    He did more than build a fire. He used the lap robes and horse blankets to fashion a sort of lean-to over cut saplings—aspen poles, he’d called them, with an oilskin for their roof anchored by a thatch of Scots pine—while he set Hannah to collecting rocks from the wagon ruts to line a fire pit. He put the fire at the edge of their lean-to, and made them a floor layered with an oilskin, followed by more wool lap robes and horse blankets.
    “By now, you’re probably longing for the necessary,” he said, kneeling in the snow to survey the little fire.
    “Blunt speech, my lord.”
    “I do believe that’s the first time you’ve my-lorded me.”
    “The topic seemed to call for it. What next?” She was hungry and thirsty both, but despite the lowering sky, their isolation, and the occasional flurry, not the least bit afraid.
    “Here.” He passed a sizable pocket flask to her. “I understand you don’t object to the occasional tot to ward off a chill.”
    She tipped the flask to her mouth, his body heat having made the metal unexpectedly warm against her lips. “My thanks.”
    “Next, we wait, though I advise you to first heed nature’s call, otherwise you’re going to get all cozy in the blankets there, and have to get up and face the cold.”
    “You think we can stay cozy?”
    “I know we can,” he said, taking a nip of the flask before slipping it into the folds of his greatcoat.
    “Aren’t you worried about your horse?”
    “He won’t go far, and he’ll come when I call him. For privacy, I suggest you avail yourself of those bushes, and I’ll take the opposite side. These are spindle bushes, so don’t touch. The berries are poisonous.”
    Hannah considered making some sort of protest, but none came to mind on the topic before her—even poisonous bushes could provide privacy—so she slogged through the snow in the indicated direction.
    “Do we have to worry about wolves?” she asked as she made her way around the stand of bushes. They were tall enough, but devoid of leaves. She could see Balfour’s shape moving through them thirty feet away. He turned his back to her, and she had to admit it was… comforting, to know he was there, to know he could sort the poisonous flora from its useful or innocuous kin.
    “No wolves, not since my grandfather’s time. Wild dogs might roam on the heath, but they’ll be closer to town in this weather. You all right?”
    “Dandy,” she