Page 117 of To Wed an Heiress
“You can’t?”
He shook his head. “You don’t belong there anymore. You belong at Duddingston with me.”
Words left her. All she could do was look at him. Lennox, blessed Lennox, her Scot, her earl, her love.
“I love you,” she said, uncaring that everyone heard. She wanted to shout it from the top of Ben Uaine. “I thought my heart would break leaving you.”
“Will you marry me, Mercy? Marry me. Live with me at Duddingston. Share my life.”
“I’ll disown her,” her father said.
Lennox glanced at him. “Thank you. That would be a grand favor.”
“What the hell do you mean by that?”
“I don’t want your money. I love Mercy for Mercy, not your damn money.”
“Would you like me to throw him out, sir?” Gregory asked her father.
Lennox shook his head and smiled down at Mercy. “If you’ll wait a minute, Mercy, someone wants a skelping.”
He dropped her hands and started to walk toward Gregory, who took a few cautionary steps back.
“Don’t be a fool, Gregory,” her father said. “And you, you need to leave.”
Lennox nodded. “I shall, sir, in a moment.”
Hostility permeated the air. Everyone hated everyone. Her grandmother hated Gregory and her father and her. Her father, Uncle Douglas, and Gregory hated Lennox. Elizabeth resented Gregory, and Flora no doubt sided with her grandfather.
Ruthie, Connor, and Irene seemed exempt from the swirling emotions.
Mercy didn’t care about old grudges or sizzling resentments. All she cared about was the way Lennox was looking at her.
He loved her.
Returning to stand in front of her once more he asked again, “Will you marry me?”
“Yes. Yes. Yes,” she said. Now the tears came, the same ones she’d held back for so long.
“Why are you crying?” he asked.
She shook her head, shrugged, then laughed through her tears.
“I don’t know, Lennox. I don’t know.”
“I refuse to allow the marriage,” her father said.
She glanced at him. “Oh, Father, you can’t. Don’t you see? I would live in sin with Lennox if he asked me.”
She thought her grandmother gasped, but she wasn’t sure. What did scandal matter when she was suddenly blissfully happy?
Irene, Ruthie, and Connor came to stand behind Mercy. She was so glad to see all of them.
“We have a way of marrying in Scotland, Mercy. It will garner me a fine, but it’s as official as if a bishop was marrying us.”
“Do something, Macrory,” her father said, addressing Douglas.
“What the hell do you want me to do, man?”
