Page 43 of To Wed an Heiress
“No, I don’t think you were,” she said, raising the glass to her lips. “I have lived what most people consider a privileged life. I’ve never had to worry about anything. Other than my lack of freedom, it’s been idyllic.”
“Lack of freedom?”
She nodded. “My every movement was monitored. I used to think my mother wrote everything about me in her journal. ‘Today Mercy woke at seven, partook of breakfast of toast and coffee, asked about the weather and the Donaldsons’ dinner party two days hence. Color is good. Mood seems normal. All is well.’” She glanced at him. “Until it wasn’t, of course. I had the sniffles or a headache or was out of sorts. I’ve been irritated a great deal in the past year, so I’m sure that went into her journal.”
“Why irritated?”
She didn’t want to discuss Gregory right now, not when she was feeling so content. Instead, she shrugged. “Perhaps that’s the answer to your question. I am spoiled.”
The smell of the whiskey seemed to burn a passage through her nose. The small sip caused fire to race over her tongue and down her throat. She’d never thought to be warmed from the inside out. When she said as much, Lennox only smiled.
“Why do you think whiskey was born in the Highlands?”
“You really should go and change,” she said, taking another few sips. “You don’t need to keep me company.”
He smiled again and she wished he wouldn’t. Whereas once she found him to be the most aggravating man, now she could see that he was entirely too attractive. Almost dangerously so.
He could probably charm a mouse out of its hole. She got the strangest image, then, of Lennox standing on the edge of the loch and simply commanding the fish to come to him. All the female fish would obey with a flip of their tails, sailing out of the water to land at his feet.
Did he have that power with women, too? He probably had been overwhelmed with female company during those years in Edinburgh.
A man has needs. Gregory had told her that once, when she’d refused to kiss him after they’d become engaged. She didn’t particularly like the way he kissed, but how was she supposed to tell him that?
How did Lennox kiss? Was that a question she was allowed to ask, even in the privacy of her own mind?
She took another sip of her whiskey, then held the glass up to the light streaming in from the kitchen window. There was only a tiny bit left.
“It’s quite a lovely color, isn’t it?”
“Indeed it is,” he said, taking the glass from her.
“But I haven’t finished.”
“That’s enough for your maiden voyage, Mercy.”
She was feeling delightfully warm and not the least bit tipsy, if that’s what he was implying. Still, perhaps he was right.
“I didn’t like you at first,” she said.
“And now?”
“Now I think you’re entirely too handsome for your own good.”
“That wouldn’t be the whiskey talking, would it?”
She shook her head emphatically. “I didn’t drink that much whiskey.”
“Then thank you, I think.”
“You should go and change,” she said again. “I’ll stay here and guard your kitchen. I’ll wait very patiently for you.”
He chuckled and she had the fleeting thought that she needed to tell him that it was rude to laugh at someone who hadn’t made a joke.
The fire was making her comfortably warm. Or maybe it was the whiskey. She closed her eyes to rest them just for a moment, thinking that she heard him say something but couldn’t rouse long enough to ask him to repeat himself.
Instead, she smiled, utterly at ease for the first time in a very long time. Perhaps she was tipsy, after all.
Chapter Twenty
