Page 71 of To Wed an Heiress
He pulled out another chair and sat beside her.
Lennox reached over and placed his hand on her knee. She shouldn’t have been able to feel the warmth of his palm through her sodden skirt, shift, and petticoat, but she did. Or maybe she just wanted to.
“Mercy,” he said, his voice kind. “I’m not sending you back out in that storm. I’m not even sure you could cross the causeway by now.”
“I have to try,” she said. “I’ve made things even worse and I didn’t think they could get more terrible.”
“What’s wrong?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Mercy, tell me.”
She glanced over at him. “Have you ever known someone that everyone else admires, but there’s something about them that puts you on edge?”
When he didn’t speak, she continued. “You can’t figure out what it is, but the fact that no one else seems to notice makes you think that there’s something wrong with you. It’s not that person at all. It’s you. That’s how Gregory has always made me feel. He’s so charming and polite. He’s handsome and personable and he says all the right things at all the right times. People like him. They seem to gravitate toward him.”
“But there’s still something about him that you don’t like?”
She nodded. “I found out what it was today,” she said. “He’s cruel. He’s determined. He’s relentless. No one will stand in his way. And I’m the one person who’s an obstacle. I don’t want to marry him and if I don’t marry him, he doesn’t have access to my fortune or to my father’s when he dies.”
“Why did you agree to marry him if you don’t like him?”
She stared at the fire just now catching. “I’m always in the worst condition when I’m here. Either I’m wounded or I’m wet from swimming in the loch or now when I’m near drowned from your weather.”
“Except for the latter, the earlier conditions were because of me.”
He didn’t say anything further, which meant that he was waiting for an answer.
“Because it was easier,” she said. “Because my life was already planned for me, down to the minute, it seemed. It was simpler than saying no.” She took a deep breath and gave him another measure of the truth. “It was only after I left New York that I realized I’d been wrong all along. I’d had choices. I just hadn’t made good ones. Staying silent, accepting what people planned for me wasn’t the right choice. Ever since I’ve been determined to make better choices.”
“And Gregory isn’t a good choice?”
“He scares me.” She stared down at her hands, wondering why she felt so ashamed to make that confession.
Lennox didn’t say anything, which gave her a few moments to marshal her thoughts.
She looked around the chair and realized that she’d left the valise outside.
“My valise,” she said, standing. “I need to get it.”
Lennox gently pushed her back into the chair.
“Where is it?”
“Beside the door.”
“I’ll get it,” he said. “You stay there and get warm.”
The fire was blazing now, but she still couldn’t feel the heat. She had never been as cold as she felt right at the moment, both on the outside and the inside as well. She’d made everything so much worse.
Lennox returned, dropping the sodden valise to the floor. It landed with a thump beside her.
He went to the cupboard, withdrew a large bowl, and used the pump beside the sink to fill it with water.
Only then did he return to her side, putting the bowl down on the floor. He retrieved a teakettle that she hadn’t noticed hanging to the side of the fire and poured some boiling water into the bowl.
Still not speaking, he knelt in front of her and removed her ruined shoes. Only then did she realize that her feet were coated with mud.
