Page 27 of To Wed an Heiress
“She’s female,” he said.
“Is she pretty?”
He took a bite of crusty bread and made a point of chewing slowly.
Irene wasn’t the most patient of people. By the time he was ready to answer, she had already started frowning at him.
“I suppose she is, if you like that sort of woman.”
“What sort of woman would that be?” she asked.
“Used to getting her own way in all things. Insistent. A barnacle.”
“How long were you with her?”
“What does that matter?” He reached for his bread again, frown or no frown.
“She seems to have made an impression on you in a short time.”
“It was a difficult situation. You can tell a great deal from people in difficult situations.”
“So,” she said, standing and taking her empty bowl and plate to the wash stand, “are you going to see her again?”
“Why on earth would I want to?”
“To ensure her health, perhaps. To check on her wound. McNaughton has put quite a bandage on it, I hear.”
“He shouldn’t have,” Lennox said, annoyed. “It will heal faster if it’s exposed to the air.”
“Why don’t you send a note explaining that?”
“I doubt McNaughton would listen to anything I have to say.”
“Not to McNaughton. To the Macrory girl. Or are you going to let all that fancy education go to waste?”
Irene was the only person in his life who made a point of bringing up his medical training as often as she could. He’d returned to Duddingston Castle after Robert had died, a necessity as it turned out. If Robert hadn’t died, Lennox had planned to finish his education and set up his practice in Inverness.
Things happened. Plans sometimes went awry. He couldn’t live in the past, however much Irene brought it up.
“She’ll be fine,” he said.
“They don’t like her.”
He put down his spoon and stared at her. “What do you mean, they don’t like her? They have to like her. She’s a Macrory.”
Irene shrugged, went to the stove and retrieved the kettle, pouring boiling water into the dishpan.
“Not according to what Jean said. That block of ice of a grandmother didn’t have much good to say.”
“What about Flora and Elizabeth?” he asked, as familiar with the residents of Macrory House as Irene. She related tales of their exploits, flaws, and failings nearly every day. At first he told her that he didn’t like to listen to gossip. After a while, however, and especially after she divulged how often he was a topic of conversation, he found himself waiting for Irene’s stories.
“Flora hadn’t met her yet and poor Elizabeth just wanders around the house like a ghost herself.”
He knew her tale, too. Her fiancé had been killed in the American Civil War. Of all the people in the house, he was inclined to like her the most, for all that they’d never met.
“She’ll be fine,” he said again, but the first niggling doubt entered his mind. “Are they going to send for the physician?”
“Not that I’ve heard,” Irene said. “Why should they? A physician has already examined both of them.”
