Page 127 of To Wed an Heiress
Lennox frowned at her and gently urged her away from the edge of Ben Uaine. He hadn’t been in favor of her coming to see him off. He would much rather have her waiting in the glen. Or on the road. Or even on the tower. She would have had a much better vantage point from there.
“I’d like to fly with you,” she said.
“What?”
“You’ve made the cabin large enough for two people. Why shouldn’t one of them be me?”
“Because it’s dangerous.”
She raised one eyebrow and stared at him. “Is it any less dangerous for you?”
They’d been married only a month. A month that had totally changed Lennox’s life. He had taken Mercy to Edinburgh and shown her his favorite sights. It had been illuminating to see the city as she did.
She’d already consulted with experts to repair the roof over the chapel. She’d hired four men to expand the kitchen garden, asking Irene about the types and number of plants she needed and wanted. She’d hired two girls from Macrory House, Lily and another girl that Ruthie had recommended to help Irene with the upkeep of the castle.
All this in a month. He couldn’t imagine what she’d accomplish in a year.
She had taken over Robert’s library, pouring through books on Duddingston to ensure that she knew everything there was to know about her new home. He’d never considered that she would come to love the castle as much—or even more—than Robert had.
Douglas hadn’t yet agreed to sell Macrory House to Rutherford, but according to Mrs. West he was giving it serious thought, especially if he and his sister could continue to live there for the rest of their lives. Elizabeth had returned to North Carolina and was planning to marry her long-lost love while Flora had agreed to become Mrs. Gregory Hamilton, living in New York and, no doubt, becoming a fixture in society.
It was like the families changed places. That was fine, as long as he and Mercy continued to live at Duddingston. He would welcome the Rutherfords because they were Mercy’s family, but he would be happy with only his wife as company. Part of that was his hermit-like nature reasserting itself. The rest of it was the fact that he was deeply in love.
He had never realized that the emotion could so effortlessly change his life. Nor had it ever occurred to him how miserable he’d been in the past five years. Mercy taught him that and it looked like she was in the midst of teaching him another lesson. He couldn’t help but wonder if she knew it or if it was accidental.
He wasn’t going to risk her life. Flying off Ben Uaine wasn’t suicidal, exactly, but it was dangerous. In the past, he’d had the challenge of flight to goad him to such behavior. Now he had so many other things to restrain him and that knowledge was startling.
He didn’t want to injure himself. He didn’t want to die. He had too much to live for.
“I really do want to fly with you, Lennox.”
The idea was so preposterous that he wouldn’t even entertain it.
“No,” he said with so much force that she looked surprised.
Connor backed up. He was probably going to disappear in the next moment. Connor had become less conciliatory since he and Ruthie had married two weeks earlier. Now it was as if he knew better than to get between a husband and wife.
“Why not?”
“Because I love you,” he said. “I won’t take a chance with your life.”
“Yet you’ll take a chance with your own.”
“You’re going to be like that, aren’t you?”
“Be like what?” She folded her arms in front of her.
“Protective. Determined. You’re going to worry about me, aren’t you?”
She nodded. “Constantly. Endlessly. You’re my cause, Lennox. You’re my abiding interest.”
“What if I feel the same about you?”
“That would only be fair,” she said.
She had a point. A very good point.
He had already learned as much as he could about acceleration by launching his airship from Ben Uaine. He had given some thought, lately, to stretching wires between the mountain and the tower. It would still be a descent, but a controlled one and certainly less dangerous. He could test the aerodynamic qualities of a design that way and it didn’t even have to be a manned flight.
