Page 1 of To Wed an Heiress
Chapter One
“It’s a monster!” Ruthie screamed. “One of those Scottish monsters, Miss Mercy, just like the stories we heard.”
“It’s nothing of the sort, Ruthie,” Mercy Rutherford said, trying to calm herself and, by extension, her maid.
Ruthie, however, was having none of it. She grabbed Mercy’s right arm with both hands and was practically atop her, straining to see out the window on the left side of the carriage.
It might not be a monster, but it was one of the oddest things she’d ever seen. A boat with wheels and a tail hanging from a massive sail. The most surprising and alarming thing was that the contraption was aloft like a giant misshapen bird and was now headed straight for them.
“I knew it, Miss Mercy. I knew it. Didn’t I tell you when I saw those three magpies that something terrible would happen?”
Ruthie saw omens in everything.
“If it isn’t a monster, Miss Mercy, then what is it?”
Mercy didn’t know. She’d never seen anything like it.
“Is it a dragon?”
That was as good a name as any.
“It’s going to hit us, Miss Mercy.”
It certainly appeared that way. Ruthie wasn’t the only one becoming agitated. The horses were screaming and the coachman Mercy had hired in Inverness was shouting, trying to control them.
She wanted to close her eyes and pretend to be asleep. In a moment she would awaken because the maid was at her bedside with the morning tray, complete with coffee, toast, and a rosebud from their greenhouse in a vase.
Her day would be like a thousand other days. “The jeweler is here with some new designs for you to see, Miss Mercy.” Or: “There’s a final fitting for your ball gown, Miss Mercy.” Or: “The cook has prepared some sweets for you. Shall I fetch them?”
Inconsequential details marking her life, one crafted to be without a care. One from which she’d escaped weeks ago.
Was she going to die because she wanted her freedom?
The carriage stopped, then lurched forward as the horses panicked. She truly couldn’t blame them, especially after she looked out the window again. The dragon was getting closer. At another time she might’ve marveled that something that looked nothing like a balloon was somehow managing to stay up in the air. Not right now, however, when it was a very real danger.
If the horses continued to be uncontrollable they could end up off the road entirely and over one of those cliffs they’d passed earlier. Below them was a lake, or what the Scots called a loch. She didn’t think Ruthie could swim and she didn’t know about Mr. McAdams.
If screaming would do any good, she would join her voice to the horses and now Ruthie. It wouldn’t do for everyone to lose their minds. Someone had to remain calm.
The dragon was lower and closer now, directed by a man seated in the boat-like part of the craft.
“Turn,” she said. Of course he couldn’t hear her, but perhaps God could. “Make him turn.”
The man was still headed directly toward them.
Would anyone be able to convey the information that she’d perished to her parents? She’d written them a letter explaining this forbidden journey, but if she failed to return home would they be able to find out what had happened to her?
How odd that she’d never thought to die in Scotland.
Lennox Caitheart swore as he pulled one of the ropes controlling the tail of his airship. There wasn’t supposed to be a carriage in the road. There was never a carriage on this road.
The road was the unofficial boundary between his land and the Macrorys’, and he was careful never to venture on the other side of it.
Ben Uaine didn’t count. The mountain belonged to Scotland, not the Macrorys, although they’d claimed dominion over everything they saw.
No, the carriage shouldn’t have been there and now he was heading directly for it. The wind gusts had been exactly what he planned. He’d kept the air sock and pennant in place for weeks now, measuring the difference in the wind between the morning, afternoon, and evening.
One simple errant carriage might be the difference between his first true success and utter disaster.
