Page 55 of To Wed an Heiress
“Forgive my attire,” he said.
She almost wanted to apologize for staring, but kept silent.
“Why were you confined to the house? Was it because you’d come to my aid?”
She smiled. “I think my family’s afraid that I’ll shame them in some way.”
“Will you?”
“I’ve never shamed anyone before. I’ve been the epitome of perfection. Yet I’ve broken all sorts of rules by coming to Scotland with only Ruthie as my companion.”
“Why did you?”
As she was framing her answer, he said, “Forgive me, it’s none of my concern. I was simply curious.”
She stopped what she was going to say and looked at him. “No one’s ever been curious about me.”
“Why not?”
She thought about it. “Probably because I’ve never been very interesting. Everything about me has been known. I’m James Gramercy Rutherford’s only daughter. That says it all.”
“On the contrary,” he said. “That doesn’t even begin to describe you.”
The strangest feeling of warmth was traveling through her body.
“You didn’t have that idiot McNaughton remove your stitches, did you?”
She shook her head.
“Good. Come, we’ll get it done now.” He turned and walked back to the door, glancing over his shoulder to see if she was following.
This time as they walked through the Clan Hall she stopped more than once to look at the objects on the wall. Lennox didn’t seem in a hurry, so she asked him questions about what she saw.
She knew more about American history than she did that of Scotland, but she recognized the names of some of the battles he listed. Evidently, the Caitheart clan had participated in almost every confrontation occurring in Scotland for the past four hundred years. Either their weapons or their banners remained as a testament to the clan’s courage.
“You never talk about being an earl,” she said, stopping in front of a large framed painting of the Caitheart clan badge.
“It was always Robert’s title. Not mine.”
“You must have loved him very much,” she said. “I envy you.”
“I thought you said you had a brother.”
She nodded. Jimmy was a subject that was rarely mentioned, even at home. Her parents didn’t discuss him in front of her. It was as if Jimmy existed on the third floor but nowhere else, not even in their conversation.
“Jimmy isn’t like most people,” she said, violating a long-held unwritten rule. No one spoke about Jimmy outside the family. “He will never be older than a child. He doesn’t really recognize people other than my mother and father.”
“He doesn’t know you’re his sister?”
She shook her head. “I used to visit him every day, but every day I had to introduce myself all over again. The nurse finally asked me not to come so often, because it upset him.”
“That must be exceedingly difficult for your parents,” he said.
Her mother visited Jimmy every morning and every afternoon, always returning from the third floor with a look of resolution.
Her father treated Jimmy as he did everything, like a task that must be performed. Every night he went up to the third floor by way of the elevator he’d had installed. Every night he returned the same way, pushing Jimmy’s chair before him. The father and the son spent an hour in the large study before her father retraced his steps, talking to Jimmy about his day or plans he’d begun for another merger before returning his son to his modified living quarters.
Mercy went out of her way to avoid the two of them at those times, only because it hurt too much to hear her father’s conversation, knowing that her brother wouldn’t be able to respond or even understand. Her father wouldn’t have welcomed her pity. Jimmy’s condition—the result of a difficult birth—had never gotten better. Mentally, he would never be more than a child. The only change over the years was that her brother grew larger, the chair was replaced with a bigger one, and the nurse now had a male attendant to help her wash and move Jimmy.
