Page 61 of To Wed an Heiress
Ruthie nodded.
“Who is Gregory?” Lennox asked, concerned that Mercy’s face had lost all of its color.
She looked up at him. “The man who thinks he’s my fiancé.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Mercy said her farewells in seconds. She didn’t want to recall the look of incredulity on Lennox’s face as she left the courtyard. They’d been kissing only minutes earlier and suddenly a fiancé appeared.
No, just Gregory, who refused to accept her decision.
She and Ruthie began following the trail back across the glen. Ruthie asked only one question and it revealed the heart of her concern.
“Why do you think Mr. Hamilton came to Scotland, Miss Mercy?”
Although she’d communicated with her parents, she hadn’t written to Gregory. Evidently, her parents had sought his help in retrieving her.
“He’s come to get me,” she said. “As if I’m a parcel that’s been sent to the wrong destination.”
The two of them shared a glance.
Gregory had no qualms ordering Ruthie about or even being critical of her. More than once she’d heard him being cutting in his remarks to the maid—behavior that was unnecessary.
It was as if Gregory put everyone around him on a ladder and ranked them depending on their status in life. Those people who weren’t his equal he felt comfortable in ridiculing while those like Mercy’s parents he treated like gods.
Ruthie never allowed her gaze to alight on anything but the floor when she was in Gregory’s company. When he gave her a command—which he did often—Ruthie only nodded and carried it out swiftly. It hadn’t been difficult to determine that her maid disliked Gregory, even though Ruthie had never said as much.
Mercy’s thoughts should have been on her coming reunion with Gregory, but as they followed the drover’s path, she was thinking less of him and more about Lennox. And their kiss. He’d kissed her. Lennox had kissed her.
Her heart had been in her throat. Fire had raced through her at Lennox’s touch. She’d wound her arms around his neck, not conscious of anything but him.
She’d never felt that way before. When Gregory had kissed her—or tried to—she hadn’t liked the experience. His lips had been too wet and he’d pressed too hard. But kissing Lennox had been a gateway to another world, one in which pleasure speared through her.
She hadn’t retreated or rebuffed Lennox. Nor had she slapped him. She certainly hadn’t lectured him on his effrontery. Instead, she wanted him to kiss her again. Time had meant nothing in his arms. Until Ruthie had spoken, she hadn’t even realized that the two women had entered the courtyard.
Now they made it through the door in the garden wall and only then did Mercy think about the coming confrontation.
At least Flora and Uncle Douglas weren’t here. But her grandmother was and so was Aunt Elizabeth. McNaughton probably hadn’t waited to inform them of Gregory’s arrival. Perhaps all of them were comparing notes about what she’d done wrong now.
“Did he seem angry?”
“He seemed the same as he always is, Miss Mercy.”
A polite answer that revealed nothing of Gregory’s mood.
“Thank you for coming and getting me, Ruthie.”
“Only Mrs. West knows where you were.”
“I don’t think it matters now,” Mercy said.
Ruthie said nothing about finding her in Lennox’s arms. Nor did Mercy offer any excuses. If this had been New York and something similar had happened, she might have been embarrassed. Or she could possibly have begged Ruthie to keep silent. Now? She didn’t care if everyone knew.
At the kitchen door, Mercy turned and faced her maid. “Well, it’s time, I guess.”
“Your cheeks are flushed, Miss Mercy.”
No doubt Gregory would comment on it. He rarely gave her a compliment unless her parents were in attendance. When they were alone he lost no time in critiquing her appearance. Too bad he hadn’t seen her in the turban bandage she’d worn. He missed the opportunity to tell her how hideous she looked.
