Free The MacGregor's Lady by Grace Burrowes

MacGregor, ergo, Asher to my friends.”
    “Are we friends, then?” She hoped they were, because as her mind stirred from its mental blankets, a snippet of memory assailed her. At some point in the odd and cozy night, Balfour had kissed her hair, right above her ear. Not a flirtatious or even naughty kiss, but rather an “I’m here, don’t worry” kiss.
    He likely hadn’t even been awake, which was a profound mercy.
    Hannah scooted some more, so she could rest back on her elbows and see her companion. She wished she had not.
    His dark hair was disheveled, and it was longish hair, brushing his shoulders. Its disarray made her want to… to sift her fingers through it until it was in some kind of order. And his chin and cheeks were dark with the hint of a beard, though the darkness suited him. And his eyes…
    “You do not have polite eyes, Mr. Asher.”
    “Just Asher will do, and what I have are tired eyes. Sleeping on the ground, even with the pleasure of present company, was not entirely restful. Shall we tend to business now, or procrastinate another five minutes in hopes of an early spring?”
    “Where are my cloaks?” Her voice was crisp, and her movements were crisp as she fastened the frogs, and her manner was brisk, but inside, where even Asher’s dark eyes couldn’t see, Hannah was mourning the loss of her little cocoon of blankets and the rare sense of well-being she’d experienced there.
    And she’d been right: stranded on the snowy plain—moor, they called it here—curled up under the blankets with the Earl of Balfour, she had been safe. Perhaps insultingly safe.
    She slogged through the snow to her side of the bushes, sacrificed yet another handkerchief, and didn’t even take note of the cold air on her delicate parts. When she rejoined Balfour, he was carrying an armload of dead wood.
    “I never did ask how you got the fire going in the first place. Do all English gentlemen travel with a flint and steel?”
    “This one does—this Scottish gentleman,” he said. “And with some medical supplies, and a hatchet, as well as spare leather, two knives, wool blankets, a compass… what?”
    “In England ?” She took the wood from his grasp, though he made her wrestle for it. “The beating heart of civilization, and you equip yourself as if you were striking out like President Jefferson’s explorers?”
    “We’re still very much in Scotland. Which way is north, Hannah Cooper?”
    She surveyed the vast stretches of white all around them, fairly certain she knew in which direction they had come, though the road meandered, so that told her little. She spotted stray clumps of trees—Balfour would know the species and all of its potential uses—some of them fairly sizable, but the landscape was bleak, and the sky even bleaker.
    Hannah couldn’t reckon their direction by the morning sun, hiding as it was above a cottony batting of clouds.
    She couldn’t reckon by anything.
    “I don’t know which way is north.” Though she knew in which direction warmth lay.
    “And there are landmarks here,” he said. “In some places, the moors and dales sport no vegetation higher than your knee, and they go on and on for miles. People die on the moors, people born and raised in the North, people who know better.”
    He fell silent, as if he’d known somebody who’d died for lack of a compass. Maybe several somebodies, in the middle of a winter storm.
    “Feed a little at a time to the coals,” he said, gesturing to the wood with a bare hand. “Too much, and you’ll smother the flame.”
    “I understand how to coax a fire from coals.” The words might have been full of innuendo, with any other man, in any other situation.
    “Then I’m going to scout the surrounds and retrieve a few more things from the coach, maybe scare up Dusty.”
    “Who is Dusty?”
    “Destrier. My horse. He’ll be hiding on the lee side of some thick patch of fir trees, if he didn’t find himself a cozy shed and some hay