Hannah Howell (4 page)

“And when Thomas heard that he jilted ye.”

“That he did. Not only have I lost my dowry, but my brothers and my mother would have become his responsibility as well.” She watched Ballard MacGregor closely, for she knew it would be those dependents who would be the biggest impediment to their union.

“Ye have no kin to help ye?”

“Only one,” Clover replied slowly as she fixed her
gaze upon a familiar carriage that was coincidentally just now drawing to a halt before the house. “But she will not help. In fact, this is she now. Hello, Alice,” she said as her elder sister approached and Ballard stood to greet her.

For the thousandth time Clover wondered how someone as lovely as her sister could be so mean and small. As always, the voluptuous, blond Alice was adorned in the height of fashion, but Clover noticed that her sister’s much admired rosebud mouth was beginning to look pinched. Alice’s inner self was starting to alter her angelic features.

“Why are you sitting on the stoop like some servant?” Alice demanded.

“I
was
having a pleasant conversation in the afternoon sun with Mr. MacGregor. What are you doing here?”

“I was at Mrs. Langdon’s hat shop and saw Thomas strolling through town with Sarah Marsten. Is your engagement to him at an end?”

“Yes. Did you come to commiserate with me?”

Alice ignored that. “I have been expecting it. Well, let me get by.”

“Why?” Clover did not move out of the way, determined to find out the reason for her callous sister’s visit before allowing her to take one more step.

“Since you obviously will not be moving in with Thomas Dillingsworth, you have no need for all that furniture.”

“No? It could provide ample firewood for whatever hovel we may find.” Clover dearly wanted to slap her sister’s sulky face but held back, not wishing to make an even bigger scene in front of Ballard.

“Do not be so absurd. However, before you do
anything too foolish, I wish to rescue a few pieces. I am particularly interested in that little marble table in Mama’s bedchamber. It would look lovely in my sitting room.” When Alice tried to ascend the steps, Clover blocked her way. “Would you move?” Alice snapped.

“Take one step closer to that door and you certainly will get that little table—rammed right down your traitorous throat.” Clover clenched her hands into tight fists as she continued to fight the nearly overwhelming urge to inflict bodily harm on her sister. “Get out of here, Alice.”

“How dare you speak to me like that! I have every right to be here and to take anything I like after our father’s miserable failure.”

“I would burn every stick of furniture in that house before I would let you get your hands on it.”

“Alice! Why have you come here?”

When she heard her mother’s voice, Clover silently cursed. She allowed Alice to push past her, then turned to watch her sister greet their mother. There was no doubt in her mind that Alice was about to deliver yet another blow to their mother, and Clover dearly wished she could stop it.

“Really, Mama, you should have heard how Clover spoke to me,” Alice complained. “I have come to take some of the furniture off your hands. Now that you will not be going to live with Thomas, you will have no need of so many fine pieces. Clover simply refuses to understand that I have as much right to what little Papa left as anyone else in the family. After all, I am your daughter.”

“No.” A pale Agnes choked out the word. “No, you are no daughter of mine.” She shut the door in her
eldest child’s face, and the sound of the bolt being shot home echoed with stark clarity in the sudden silence.

“I see,” Alice murmured as she turned to face Clover. “So none of you sees fit to understand my position.”

“We understand that you want nothing to do with us,” Clover answered. “We are simply paying that back in kind.”

Alice started down the steps, carefully holding her skirts so they would not brush against Clover. “I suppose I am to get no thanks at all for what I did for Papa.”

“You? What did you ever do for Papa?”

“If it was not for me, for my position in what meager society exists in this town, Papa would not have been buried in consecrated ground. I had a word with the preacher.”

“Do not wear out your lily-white hand patting yourself on the back, sister dear. You had absolutely nothing to do with that.”

“Nonsense. No one believed it was an accident. Why should the preacher go along with a lie unless he was prompted to it by me and my husband John’s influence?”

“Because I told him that if he did not do it I would see that everyone in Langleyville learned about his frequent trysts with Mrs. Patterson on Harbor Road.”

Alice gaped at Clover in utter horror. “You blackmailed a man of the cloth?”

“I did.”

“Well, I am very glad that I shall have no further association with someone who would act so dastardly.”

“Not nearly as
dastardly
as kin who turn their back on their own in their time of need.”

“I cannot afford such charity. I have a position to uphold in this pathetic town.”

“Fine. Go uphold it somewhere else, please. You have hurt Mama for the last time.” Clover sighed as she watched Alice hurry into her carriage and ride away. She turned to Ballard and said in a quiet voice, “I am very sorry you had to witness that, Mr. MacGregor.”

“It was verra informative,” he murmured.

“Perhaps. I apologize again, for I could see that you were uncomfortable.”

“Ah, weel, it wasnae the squabble between ye and your sister that caused that. Seeing her ride up reminded me of a time back in Edinburgh.”

“If Alice reminded you of something, it was probably not good.”

Ballard briefly smiled at her tartness. “Nay, it wasnae. She reminded me of all the ladies I used to watch in Edinburgh. I used to stand for hours on the busiest streets in the city just to watch the people, specifically the wealthy people, and the ladies never failed to hold my attention.”

“They can be quite colorful when all decked out in their finery,” Clover agreed.

“Aye, that they can be. My family was tossed off our land in the Highlands so that the laird could raise sheep. ‘Twas a common practice at that time. So we went to Edinburgh. In that city poverty was not simply a matter of lack of ready coin.”

“What do you mean?”

“In the city poverty was a grinding way of life. Surrounded by filth and violence, we had to fight for
every crumb of bread, for every one of the too-few jobs. Even as a wee lad I kenned that only a few were able to escape such a life and gain a better one.”

“You
did,” she whispered, touched by the plight of that small boy.

“Aye, I was one of the fortunate ones. As a lad in the city, I began to watch those rich folk, envying their fine clothes and cleanliness. The women always looked so far above the squalor all around them, so beautifully untouched and so temptingly close. I had some verra wild, childish fancies about their origins and true natures.”

“They did not live up to those fancies, did they?”

“Nay. Once, a carriage stopped near me. I was struck dumb, as if caught by a spell, when a lady stepped out, her silk skirts rustling and the air filled with her perfume. I reached out to her but barely brushed the soft silk of her gown before her escort noticed me. That man struck me so hard that I fell into the street, dazed. I suffered a great many kicks and blows as I scrambled out of the way of the vehicles, horses, and people. It was a rough lesson, but I am a fast learner. There are lines ye dinnae cross. Aye, even in this new land. Unlike in England, across the big pond in America ye can move up with the right amount of coin in your pocket. But until ye have it, ye had best not even try.”

His tale made Clover uneasy, for she was of the class that had treated him so poorly. She wondered if he was preparing to tell her a match between them was impossible.

“And now that you have the coin, you mean to try?” she asked.

“I do, and ye will help me. Now, just how many of ye is Alice turning her back on?”

“Myself, my twin brothers Clayton and Damien—who are seven, almost eight—and my mother Agnes.”

“I see. Sit back down here, lassie, and let me hear your plans. I have answered your questions and heard your explanations,” he continued as they got comfortable on the steps. “I think I can see what your plan is, but it might be best if ye put it to me in your own words.”

Clover took a deep breath to restore her calm, but it was only partly successful. “I thought that if you are very eager for a wife, you will be willing to take one even if she has no dowry and brings three dependents with her. I can offer you all that you sought in Sarah Marsten except for her unquestionable beauty.”

“Ye are nae ugly, wee Clover,” he drawled, and smiled when she blushed.

“Thank you kindly, Mr. MacGregor, but I know full well I am not Sarah Marsten’s equal. I do, however, have the same level of learning that she does, perhaps even a bit more. I have had the same kind of upbringing.” She frowned slightly. “It may be easier for me to defend my qualifications if you tell me exactly what you are seeking in a wife.”

Ballard leaned a little closer, watching her intently as he answered, “I dinnae want a wife who sees me as no more than a means to a roof over her pretty head and food on the table.”

“I understand. I know it sounds as if that is all I seek, but although those needs have prompted me to act in this rash manner, ‘tis not the whole of it. I believe in marriage, Mr. MacGregor. I would not take
such vows lightly. I intend to be as good a wife as I can and make as good a marriage as possible.”

“And bairns—babies,” he murmured, his gaze settling on her mouth.

“Yes.” She swallowed hard. “Babies are a part of marriage, if God wills it so.”

He traced the shape of her mouth with his finger and spoke in a soft but firm voice. “I want a woman in my bed, in my kitchen, and at my side in the fields if need be.” Ballard watched how her quickening breath made her breasts move. “I dinnae want to be worrying that she will be squawking or sulking because I cannae buy her a new silk dress. I want bairns.”

“I am willing to do all of that, Mr. MacGregor.” Clover began to find his nearness unsettling, but was unable to pull away.

“Just how engaged were ye to this Thomas fellow?”

“What do you mean? Thomas and I were to be married. That is what
engaged
means.”

“Ye said that Thomas stepped out with ye for a year and that ye were engaged to the mon for three months. Ye willnae be presenting me with another dependent in but a few months, will ye?” When she tried to leap to her feet in red-faced outrage, he swiftly grabbed her by the arms and held her still. “Steady on, lass. A lot of engaged couples anticipate their wedding night.”

Clover gave up struggling against his firm hold and glared at him. “Thomas was a gentleman. He and I behaved with the utmost decorum. We were always chaperoned. My father was adament about it. ‘Tis most unkind of you to suggest that—”

“Not unkind at all,” he interrupted. “‘Tisnae often
that a mon gets himself engaged to a lass but doesnae wed her. Many folk consider a betrothal as good as a wedding. Now, if that lad had ye and left ye with a babe growing, I wouldnae be too inclined to slap my name on it. Nay, but I would help ye get the scoundrel to the altar to wed ye as he should.” Even as he said the words, he was not sure he meant them, and wondered why.

“Well, Thomas has
not
left me with child.” She wriggled in his hold, but it was clear that he was not going to release her. When he began to lower his mouth toward hers, she gasped. “We are out in public, Mr. MacGregor.”

“Aye, so? Let these folks see how a Kentuckian does his courting.”

Ballard gently pressed his mouth to hers. He teased her lips with his and found her taste very sweet. She clutched at his coat with her dainty hands and trembled slightly as he enfolded her in his arms. Her reaction was encouraging, but he sensed that something was missing. It was a moment before he realized what it was—skill. Clover Sherwood had the warmest, sweetest mouth he had ever had the privilege of tasting, but she had no idea how to use it. He halfway opened one eye and found her staring at him.

“I think that ye and young Thomas were verra weel-behaved indeed,” he murmured. “Ye are supposed to close those bonnie blue eyes when ye kiss a mon, wee Clover.”

“Oh. We should not be doing this,” Clover whispered, but she closed her eyes and made no effort to escape his hold. She was finding his kiss delightful and exhilarating. “Someone might see us.”

“A mon ought to be able to kiss the woman who proposes to him.”

Before Clover could think of a response to that impertinence, Ballard was kissing her again. The soft heat of his mouth against hers clouded her mind and fired her blood. When he gently pushed his tongue against her lips, however, she came out of her passion-induced stupor enough to push weakly against his broad chest and open her eyes.

“What are you doing?” she asked in a voice so husky she barely recognized it as her own.

“I am trying to kiss ye, lassie. Doesnae old Thomas have any blood in his veins?”

“Of course he does. He is alive, is he not?”

“I reckon. Now, hush and part those bonnie lips.”

She knew she ought to refuse, to push him away, but she dutifully parted her lips. A small voice in her head pointed out that if he liked kissing her, then he might well accept her proposal. She also decided that it would not hurt to know whether she liked kissing him. So far she had found it almost alarmingly delightful.

When he gently slipped his tongue between her parted lips and stroked the inside of her mouth, Clover decided that she might well like it far more than was good for her. She became so caught up in the rush of feeling his kiss invoked, it took her a moment to realize that he had ended the kiss. It took her a few more moments to sense that he was staring at her. She felt such a surge of embarrassment that she did not want to look at him.

Ballard studied her upturned face. There was a light flush decorating her ivory cheeks, and he savored the feel of her breasts moving against his
chest in a quickened rhythm. Her lips glistened with the moisture of his kiss and were still faintly parted, tempting him. She had a very sweet mouth, and Ballard was convinced that he was the first man to taste that sweetness. That knowledge gave him a feeling he found difficult to describe except to say that it was good.