Mary Fran and Matthew

Maybe being born with red hair, slanting green eyes, a mouth that personified sin incarnate, and a body to match made a woman sad—for Mary Frances MacGregor was a sad woman.

Matthew drew this conclusion by watching her at meals, watching the way she presided over the table with smiles aplenty and little real joy. He drew further evidence of her sadness from the way her brothers treated her, verbally tiptoeing around her the way Matthew had learned to tiptoe around his wife when she was tired, fretful, or in anticipation of her courses.

And Mary Frances worried about her brothers. The anxiety was there in her eyes, in the way she watched them eat and kept their drinks topped up. To Matthew, it was obvious the MacGregor clan was not happy about having to trade their title for English coin, but the Scots as a race could not often afford the luxury of sentiment.

Because she was sad, and because he genuinely enjoyed dancing, when the middle brother, Gilgallon MacGregor, challenged Aunt Julia to a waltz—those were his words, he challenged her to a waltz after dinner—and Julia had laughingly accepted, Matthew joined the party adjourning to the ballroom.

“Who will play for us if I’m to show Gilgallon what a dance floor is for?” Julia asked the assemblage.

Before Genie could offer, and thus ensure she wouldn’t be dancing with Balfour, Matthew strode over to the big, square piano. “I will provide the music for the first set, on the condition that Lady Mary Frances turns the pages for me.”

Genie shot him a disgruntled look, but stood up with the youngest brother, Connor MacGregor, while Balfour led a blushing Hester onto the floor.

“What shall we play for them?” Matthew asked. “Three couples doesn’t quite make a set.”

“I believe my idiot brother demanded a waltz,” Lady Mary Frances muttered as she sorted through a number of music books stacked on the piano’s closed lid. “Take your pick.”

She shoved a volume of Chopin at him, which wasn’t quite ballroom material.

“I take it you don’t approve of dancing?” Matthew flipped through until he found the Waltz in C-sharp Minor and opened the cover shielding the keys.

“Dancing’s well enough,” the lady said. Her tone was anything but approving.

“Maestro, we’re growing moss over here!” Julia called, but she was smiling up at her partner in the manner of a younger, more carefree woman, and for that alone, Matthew would dust off his pianistic skills.

He launched into the little waltz, a lilting, sentimental confection full of wistful die-away ascending scales and a turning, sighing secondary melody.

“You play well, Mr. Daniels.”

Lady Mary Frances nearly whispered this compliment, and Matthew could feel her gaze on his hands. “That’s Matthew, if you please. I’ve always enjoyed music, but there wasn’t much call for it in the military.”

Out on the dance floor, by the soft evening light coming through the tall windows, three couples turned down the room in graceful synchrony. Beside Matthew, Lady Mary Frances was humming softly and swaying minutely to the triple meter. He finished off the exposition with another one of those tinkling ascending scales, which allowed him to lean far enough to the right that his shoulder pressed against the lady’s.

“Page, my lady.”

She flipped the page, and Matthew began the contrasting section, a more stately interlude requiring little concentration, which was fortunate. Lady Mary Frances had applied a different scent for the evening. That fresh, cedary base note was still present, but the overtones were more complicated. Complicated enough that Matthew could envision sniffing her neck to better parse her perfume.

“What scent are you wearing, my lady? It’s particularly appealing.”

“Just something I put together on an idle day.”

Matthew glanced over at her to find she was watching the dancers, her expression wistful. “You haven’t had an idle day since you put your hair up, and likely not many before then.”

“A rainy day, then. We have plenty of those. Your sisters are accomplished dancers.”

“As are your brothers.” For big men, they moved with a lithe grace made more apparent for their kilts. “You should take a turn, my lady.”

“No, I should not. I’ve things to see to, Mr. Daniels, but it is nice to watch my brothers enjoying themselves on the dance floor.”

“Page.”

She turned the page for him, and Matthew had to focus on the recapitulation of the first, delicate, sighing melody. The final ascending scale trickled nearly to the top of the keyboard, which meant Matthew was leaning into Lady Mary Frances at the conclusion of the piece.

And she was allowing it.

“Oh, well done, my boy, well done.” Altsax clapped in loud, slow movements. “I’d forgotten your fondness for music. Perhaps you’d oblige us with another waltz, that I might have the pleasure of dancing with Lady Mary Frances?”

“When did he slither into the room?” Lady Mary Frances muttered, resignation in her tone.

Matthew rose from the piano bench. “I’m afraid that won’t serve, your lordship. My compensation for providing music for the ladies is a waltz with my page turner. Perhaps Hester will oblige at the keyboard?”

Gilgallon turned a dazzling smile on Matthew’s younger sister. “And I’ll turn the pages for her.”

“My lady, may I have this dance?” Matthew extended his hand to Lady Mary Frances, who smiled up at him in a display of teeth and thinly banked forbearance.

“The honor would be mine, Mr. Daniels.”

He led her to the dance floor, arranged himself and his partner into waltz position, and felt a sigh of recognition as Hester turned her attention to Chopin’s Nocturne in E Minor. The piece was often overlooked, full of passion and sentiment, and it suited the woman in Matthew’s arms.

“I hate this piece.” Lady Mary Frances moved off with him, speaking through clenched teeth.

“You dance to it well enough.” This fulsome compliment—certainly among the most lame Matthew had ever offered a lady—had her scowling in addition to clenching her teeth.

“It’s too—”

“Don’t think of the music then. Tell me what it was like growing up in the Highlands.”

She tilted her head as Matthew drew her through the first turn. “It was cold and hungry, like this music. Never enough to eat, never enough peat to burn, and always there was longing…”

Her expression confirmed that she hadn’t meant to say that, which pleased Matthew inordinately. That he could dance Mary Frances MacGregor out of a little of her self-containment was a victory of sorts. “What else?”

“What else, what?”

“What else was it like, growing up in these mountains?”

He pulled her a trifle closer on the second turn, close enough that he could hear her whisper. “It was lonely, like this blasted tune.”

“Your brothers weren’t good company?”

“They are my older brothers, Mr. Daniels. They were no company at all.”

She danced beautifully, effortlessly, a part of the music she professed to hate.

“And yet here I am, my lady, an older brother along on this curious venture for the express purpose of providing my sisters and their chaperones company.”

She huffed out a sigh. “I appreciate that you’re preserving me from your father’s attentions, Mr. Daniels, but I assure you such gallantry is not necessary.”

“Matthew, and perhaps I’m not being gallant, perhaps I’m being selfish.”

He turned her under his arm, surprised to find he’d spoken the truth. A man leaving the military in disgrace was not expected to show his face at London’s fashionable gatherings, and had he done so, few ladies would have stood up with him.

“What was it like growing up in the South?”

Her question was a welcome distraction. “I didn’t. I went to boarding school in Northumbria. I was cold and hungry for most of it.”

Her gaze sharpened. “Why the North?”

Another turn, another opportunity to pull her a bit closer and enjoy the way her height matched with his own.