Page 70 of To Wed an Heiress
As if he’d read her thoughts, she heard an owl, so close that he must be above her in the anteroom.
She was so cold that she couldn’t feel her feet. Even her nose felt like ice. What a terrible thing, to expire on Lennox’s doorstep. She reached up and pulled on the ring once more. The journey here had exhausted her. Or perhaps emotions had drained her. Ever since leaving Lennox earlier she’d felt fear, despair, anger, then fear again.
A friend of her father’s, a man given to pontificating whenever he came to their home, had once stated that most people were the architects of their own problems. She wasn’t supposed to have overheard his conversation with her father. She was only presented to guests and then whisked upstairs to her own quarters. Nonetheless, she’d thought about what he had said often, especially in the past few weeks.
She had to agree with him. If she’d told her parents how she felt—about her life and Gregory—there was a possibility that she would never have left New York. They might have ignored her feelings. Or they might have agreed with her that changes should be made. They may have understood, as well, why she wasn’t comfortable with the idea of marrying Gregory.
Yet if she’d never come to Scotland, she would never have met Lennox.
He was the only man she knew who fascinated her and yet with whom she felt so comfortable. He didn’t seem to care that her father was James Rutherford or that she was reputed to be one of the wealthiest young women on the eastern seaboard, thanks to her grandfather’s inheritance.
She doubted Lennox would care.
When the door opened, she fell backward, staring up at Lennox. He was carrying a small lantern that held a candle. He was barely dressed. His trousers weren’t completely fastened and his shirt was open. His bare foot was only inches from her nose. His feet were very striking, long and almost aristocratic looking. The Earl of Morton’s feet.
“Mercy? What are you doing here?”
She didn’t have a chance to answer before he placed the lantern on the ground, bent, and picked her up in his arms as if she weighed no more than a feather. She had her father’s height and wasn’t tiny and delicate, but he seemed to bear the burden of her quite well.
“Hold this,” he said.
This turned out to be the lantern and she grabbed it with one frozen hand.
For a moment, just a moment, she lay her head against his chest and closed her eyes. She was safe. That thought kept repeating itself in her mind as he kicked the door closed and strode through the Clan Hall with her.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
She hoped he didn’t ask her what for, because she had a litany of things for which to apologize. For needing his help. For calling at such a late hour. For scandalizing Irene. For being so cold and wet.
“What are you doing here, Mercy?”
She loved the sound of his voice, low and soft with the sound of Scotland in each word. She wanted him to continue talking just so she could listen.
He took her to the kitchen. She’d been here more than any other room at Duddingston Castle. Should she tell him that she’d only rarely been in their kitchen at home? As a child she had found her way there and had been promptly scolded for disturbing the work of the servants. As an adult her presence there shocked the staff. They all stood at her entrance, their hands nervously folded in front of them, the looks on their faces making her realize that they were afraid. Of her, because of her, because of what she might say to her father. Not once had she ever sat at the kitchen table and imbibed whiskey. She’d never sat in front of the fire and warmed herself.
She liked the Mercy of Scotland a great deal more than the woman who lived in New York. This woman was less constrained and more free.
He didn’t say anything further, merely pulled out a chair with his foot and sat her there. She reached up and placed her hand against his cheek. He flinched at the touch and she apologized again.
He startled her by shaking his head, and then pressing her hand against his face and holding it there.
“I didn’t expect you to be so cold,” he said.
“I’m freezing. And I’m wet. I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying that.”
He turned and began to lay a fire in the massive kitchen fireplace.
“Irene is going to be scandalized,” she said.
“Irene doesn’t sleep here.” He glanced over his shoulder at her. “There’s no one here but me, Mercy.”
Oh, dear. She’d just made her terrible situation even worse.
Chapter Thirty-Three
She slowly pushed the words past her ice-cold lips. “I have to go back.”
