Mary Fran and Matthew Read Online Free PDF Page B

the horse shifting beneath her.
    “Tell me more about military life, Matthew Daniels. I might have some useful suggestions for its improvement.”
    They let their horses amble down the hillside while Matthew told one tale after another of pranks and skirmishes, though gradually, his tone became more serious.
    “You did not want to leave,” Mary Fran guessed. “You hated it, and you loved it.”
    He stroked a gloved hand down his horse’s crest. “I think most career military have mixed feelings, but no, I didn’t love it. I felt useful, though, and it grates upon me daily that I must idle about, my father’s much-vaunted heir, when I could be of real service in a part of the world that’s quickly heading for war.”
    Useful. She knew what a cold comfort that was. Useful became an acceptable way to go on only when the alternative was to be useless.
    “Could you go back?”
    Mary Fran might have missed the expression on his face, but she liked watching the way emotion would flicker through his blue eyes. The happy emotions—humor, joy, pleasure in the scenery—were fleeting, while the other emotions faded more gradually.
    “I cannot go back. Not ever, and I do not want to.”
    Despair—profound despair—but also resignation crossed his features.
    “I wish we’d brought a picnic.” The observation was as close as she could come to admitting she did not want to go back either—to the housework, the squabbling maids, her swearing brothers, and sometimes even to her own confounding, exhausting, endlessly dear daughter.
    “A picnic sounds like a lovely idea for another day, my lady. Tell me, how do you think your brother is faring with his courting of my sister?”
    The change in topic was welcome, and it was a relief to think that if Ian married Eugenia, then Matthew Daniels might become a relation of some sort to Mary Fran—and to Fiona.
    “Ian must be studying the terrain before advancing his troops,” Mary Fran replied. “I can’t say as I’d be very impressed with his efforts thus far, though you English do delight in your mincing about. He can hardly pounce on the lady and carry her off to his castle.”
    “Mincing about. I take it mincing about would not meet with your approval were a man to court you?”
    They were back to his version of flirting. It made the prospect of her duties at Balfour a little more bearable and suggested that Matthew had had enough of shadows and regrets for one morning. “Mincing about would not impress me one bit. Shall I race you back to the stables?”
    He didn’t let her win, but Mary Fran’s mount was carrying considerably less weight, and Mary Fran knew the terrain. They called it a draw, and as Matthew escorted her up to the house, Mary Fran let herself wonder: If mincing about as a courting strategy would not impress her, then what would?
    ***
    “Pretend you don’t see me.”
    The Balfour estate was home to many children. Matthew had observed them weeding the vegetable plots, herding sheep, spreading chicken manure on the pastures, mucking stalls, and otherwise taking on the tasks appropriate to youth. This was the first child he’d seen in Balfour House itself, and he knew in an instant the girl dismounting nimbly from the banister was the dear and dread Fiona.
    “Are you asking me to lie, child?”
    She studied him with the trademark MacGregor green eyes, twirling the end of a coppery braid between her fingers. “Not lie, pretend . This is the ladies’ wing, so I will pretend I didn’t see you here either.”
    “I’m fetching my aunt, my sisters, and my cousin, to escort them to dinner. My name is Matthew Daniels.”
    “Fiona Ursula MacGregor Flynn.” She gave a sprightly curtsy that looked more like a Highland dance maneuver. “I know who you are. You are Miss Augusta’s cousin, Miss Daniels’s brother, and Miss Hester’s brother too. The baron is your father, and Miss Julia is your auntie by marriage, which is why she’s so young.”
    “I’m