Page 3 of The Dravenhearst Brides
With each successive step, she moved faster, hands coiling in tight fists.
Then came the haunting taunt of the physician’s voice.Prone to fits of hysteria. Avoid distressing circumstances...
Well. That was fine and dandy for him to say atop his clinical high horse, but this was Margaret’s life. Shewasdistressed. And feeling that way did not make her crazy or hysterical or any other ignominious label a man might slap across her forehead to silence and discredit her pain. First Eli, then Ma, had left her to face this mess alone. And now—
“Oof!” The exclamation tore from her lips, masking a rising sob as she collided with a powerfully built man. Margaret was sent reeling, the floor rushing up to meet her. She closed her eyes and stretched out an arm,bracing for impact. Felt the barest sweep of the man’s fingers as he reached to catch her…
But no one had been there to catch Margaret in years. She hit the ground hard, twisting her wrist when she landed. The society crowd gasped, stunned by Margaret Greenbrier’s latest faux pas.
“Oh, mercy.” The man was aghast, eyes wide at the sight of her on the floor. “Are you all right? I’m simply…” His words dried up as his gaze swept her face.
Margaret stared at him in turn. The rational part of her mind recognized him as bourbon aristocrat Merrick Dravenhearst. A man who, much like herself, had curated a persona of recluse over the last several years. But whereas Margaret’s malingering made her a social pariah, Dravenhearst’s gave him an air of rakish mystery…helped along by the indisputable fact the man was handsome as hell. As handsome as the devil himself.
Merrick Dravenhearst’s eyes were the same color as the bourbon his family was infamous for pandering. Eyes that, at first glance, were appreciative, but the longer he stared, twisted with something that looked an awful lot like horror.
Horror—at the mere sight of her!
“Beg pardon,” Margaret murmured, lowering her lids in shame, cheeks coloring. “I was in a state, not looking—”
“The fault is mine.” His voice was loud and confident, cutting through the whispers of the highfalutin crowd. The horror vanished from his eyes, replaced by something that looked quite appallingly like pity.
She preferred the horror, honestly.
“Are you all right, Miss…?” He let the question dangle and extended a hand to help her rise. The sharp line of his jaw was freshly shaved but shadowed with a hint of black. The kind of dusting that never truly went away, no matter how close the shave.
“Greenbrier.” She placed her uninjured hand in his. His long fingers dwarfed hers, swallowing them. “Margaret Greenbrier.”
“Margaret?”he repeated, his face twisting again, this time in an expression altogether unreadable. His fingers twitched within her grip, rough-hewn calluses apparent. It was wholly unexpected, such coarseness on the hands of a gentleman, but Margaret didn’t linger to investigate.
“Yes.” On her feet now, she turned away, seeking to disappear. “But I’m really no one…no one at all. I’m terribly sorry for the intrusion.”
Gripping her wounded wrist in the opposite hand, she fled.
Margaret departed the ballroom through the same archway she’d entered not ten minutes prior. Tears fell down her cheeks unchecked. She dabbed them away, careful not to smear the paint on her face. She just needed a few moments alone to compose herself before rallying to face the jackals again.
Margaret slipped into a sitting room decorated in shades of green—heavy drapes the color of sage, a chesterfield sofa in deep emerald, pistachio-papered walls, and gilt-framed abstract paintings of forested game, heavy with hunter and evergreen brushstrokes.
She moved to close the door, but a foot jammed through the gap. A very shiny, polished, masculine foot.
“You are not all right.”
For reasons most inexplicable, Merrick Dravenhearst had given chase after her panicked flight.
Margaret almost laughed becauseof courseshe wasn’t all right. But no handsome man had pursued her from a ballroom before, so she held her tongue. This was quite a novelty.
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.” She answered automatically, but the tiniest part of her, the part positively aching to be seen, drew away from the door, allowing him to crack it open. She backed up slowly and sank into a velveteen club chair the color of a dill pickle, cradling her injured arm.
He hovered in the doorway. “You hurt your wrist.”
“It’s fine,” she repeated.
“It’s not.”
“Are you a physician?”
“No.”
