The MacGregor's Lady Read Online Free PDF Page A

hands, my lord. My brother told me to show you every respect, so I must trust your judgment in all matters.”
    She batted her lashes, and Asher felt a lick of dyspepsia to think the woman might be flirting with him.
    “Madam, if you will excuse me, rather than chase you to the parlor for your tea, I’ll leave you the table so you might linger over your wine and cheese.”
    He bowed and left the dining parlor at a swift walk, knowing he was being rude. Let her have her Continental wines, and he’d have his guilty conscience. It was a companion of long standing, not quite an old friend, but the next best thing—a familiar enemy.
    Asher found Miss Hannah in her sitting room, her foot propped under a blanket while she reclined on a chaise near the fire. He knocked on the slightly open door, then let himself in, leaving the door ajar as a nod to propriety.
    “Good evening, Miss Cooper. How can you read with the lamps turned so low?” And why would she be reading, when she might have turned to any one of her aunt’s various patent remedies instead?
    “When I started to read it was quite light,” she said, putting down a bound version of David Copperfield .
    “You have bellpulls in America.” He fingered the strip of tasseled brocade dangling above her. “Why not have a maid turn up the lamps, refresh your tea, and generally cosset you?”
    “Cosset?” She gave him a thin-lipped look, as if this was one of those words that meant something altogether less savory on this side of the Atlantic. Woe unto the London swains who merited that look from her.
    “So you neither swan nor permit cosseting,” he concluded, moving around the room to turn up the lamps. “Are you comfortable enough? The physician said you could have some laudanum.”
    Her expression grew, if anything, more severe.
    “This is growing to be a long list, Hannah Cooper.” He sat on the raised hearth at her side. “No cosseting, no swanning, no laudanum. One wonders what you do for recreation.” Though given her aunt’s proclivities, he could understand that last prohibition.
    “I love to read.” She traced a finger over the gilt lettering of the book’s title, gently, as if poor Trot’s peregrinations through life’s vicissitudes comforted her.
    “You’re going to love to shop, too,” Asher said. “Your aunt abdicated decision-making authority in this sphere to me at dinner, so be warned.”
    She closed the book with a snap, a peacock feather marking her place. “I most assuredly do not love to shop, not for clothing, if that’s what you’re implying.”
    He rose and shifted the fireplace screen, then pokered some air into the coals and layered wood and coal on the blaze.
    “We don’t burn as much coal in Boston,” his guest observed. “It has a distinctive aroma.”
    Coal smoke purely stank, and in Asher’s experience, aggravated the lungs. The longhouse had been full of smoke too, though, and that had resulted in all manner of consumptive ailments.
    “I prefer wood smoke myself.” And starry nights, too. Since returning to Scotland this time, he’d even lain awake, missing the howling of the wolves.
    Asher repositioned the screen and resumed his perch on the hearth. “England has more coal than trees, or it soon will, so needs must. Let’s make a list of things you’re going to fight me on, shall we?”
    “A list?” She caressed the o in Copperfield, drawing attention to pale hands, the backs of which sported a deal of fetching, unfashionable freckles.
    “Clothing being foremost. Shoes, gloves, hats being assumed additions. Did anyone bring you a tray?”
    “I had some cheese toast—a wonderful cheddar with caraway in the bread.”
    She had hearty appetites, apparently, and her tastes were not too refined—this was more evidence of impending social disaster, but Asher liked her for it.
    “I prefer rye bread to the standard brown bread, myself. But back to our list. Under present circumstances, I blush to inquire, but