Page 2 of To Wed an Heiress
If he tried to avoid them, he would head straight for the loch, which wouldn’t be bad from a landing point of view, but he wouldn’t be able to retrieve his Cayley replica if he landed in the water. He aimed for the glen, just as he’d planned, and it would’ve been almost successful if the blasted carriage hadn’t been between him and his landing site.
Mercy began to pray. That’s what people did in the midst of a crisis, wasn’t it?
She wasn’t Roman Catholic like Ruthie. Nor did she have a rosary, but she no doubt sounded as panicked to the Almighty.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have embarked on such a foolish errand, God. But it was born out of compassion. Does that excuse me?
Probably not. Doing the right thing for the wrong reason was almost as bad as doing the wrong thing for the right reason. Either way, she didn’t doubt that God preferred two positives to a positive paired with a negative.
It truly had been an errand of compassion for her aunt and grandmother. They’d lived in North Carolina during the Civil War. Granted, she and her family had experienced war as well, but not as personally since they lived in New York. Their home hadn’t been razed. Their crops hadn’t been burned. They hadn’t been nearly starved for the past year.
When her father’s messenger returned from North Carolina with news that her grandmother and aunt were no longer there, Mercy thought her mother’s heart would break. The valise, filled with greenbacks, hadn’t been a lifeline after all. The messenger had reached North Carolina after her grandmother and aunt had left. They’d gone to Scotland where her grandmother had been born.
Mercy had decided to bring the money to Scotland, to ensure that her mother’s family was provided for just as her mother had intended. In all honesty, she would have found any reason to escape, but she never thought to be sitting in a carriage waiting for a man-made dragon to land on her.
He was almost atop them now, his descent muted beneath the sound of the screaming horses and Ruthie praying in her ear.
Suddenly, the roof of the carriage sounded as if it was being torn off. This time she did close her eyes, pulling her arm free of Ruthie’s grip to embrace the other woman. The maid had been with her since Mercy was seventeen, nearly eleven years now. If she must die in a strange land, then at least Ruthie was with her.
Scant comfort for both their families.
She hoped her mother would forgive her and that her father would understand.
The carriage lurched to the side as Ruthie prayed in her ear. She didn’t understand half of what the maid was saying because it seemed to be in Latin, but Ruthie never missed Mass. Perhaps God would look upon both of them favorably because of that. Mercy went to church every Sunday as well, but Presbyterians didn’t seem nearly as fervent.
With her left hand she reached up and grabbed the strap over the window, her right arm still around Ruthie. A horrible groaning noise was the last thing she heard before the carriage overturned.
Chapter Two
Something was wet on her face. Mercy tried to move her head, but it seemed like it weighed twenty times more than it had just a few minutes earlier. She pushed something off her head, finally realizing that it was the seat cushion.
The carriage had overturned. They were on their side and everything that had been on the floor was now tossed willy-nilly, including the hamper that had been prepared for them this morning. A large chunk of pungent-smelling cheese was only inches from her nose. She suspected that one of the bottles of wine had broken open and that’s what she felt on her face.
Ruthie was crumpled on the other side of the carriage. One of her arms was outstretched and her head was pillowed on it, almost as if she were asleep. But she was entirely too pale and when Mercy called her name she didn’t respond.
Mercy managed to inch to the other woman’s side.
The roof of the carriage abruptly opened, almost as if it had been peeled back by a gigantic hand. No, not a giant. Only a man.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I don’t believe so, no.”
“You’re an American,” he said.
She squinted at him. “Was it you flying the dragon?”
“The what?”
“Dragon. Monster. Whatever it was.”
“It’s an airship.”
“Whatever it was, you’re insane.”
He didn’t respond to her comment. Instead, he frowned. “You’re bleeding.”
She raised her hand and placed it on her cheek. When her fingers came away, they were bloodied. Not wine after all.
