To Wed an Heiress

by Karen Ranney

  “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

  Lennox’s arm was burning like blazes, but the discomfort wasn’t enough to distract from his thoughts.

  He had lost his aircraft and nearly his life. But for Mercy, he might have drowned.

  He’d never met anyone like Mercy. Most women he knew—which was, he would admit, a small number—would have stood on the shore when he crashed, probably screaming. Mercy had, without any thought to her own safety, helped pull him free of the rope. Not once had she made a comment about her appearance. She hadn’t whined about her dress, the fact that she was barefoot, or soaked to the skin.

  Even though she hadn’t wanted to stitch his arm, she’d done it without complaint. He’d known how difficult it had been for her. Her face had turned white and she’d trembled the entire time.

  People were easier to figure out when he could put them in categories. He didn’t know where to put Mercy.

  He liked her. In addition, there was something intriguing about Mercy and he always had the urge to solve a mystery. She’d come all the way from America for some reason. He didn’t know what it was any more than how long she was going to remain in Scotland.

  She was unlike any heiress he’d met and he’d had the occasion to be paraded in front of a few of them in Edinburgh. As the brother of an earl, even an impecunious one, he’d been sought after as a guest. After a while the women he’d met had all seemed the same. Their appearance might differ, but not their character. Mercy didn’t preen. Nor was she coy. He couldn’t imagine her flirting. She was too direct for that. Nor did she talk about her wardrobe, her hats, or what she owned. They hadn’t discussed the weather and she hadn’t batted her eyelashes at him once.

  After stripping off his clothes and putting them in front of the cold fireplace—less to dry them than to avoid a lecture from Irene—he finished toweling himself off before dressing again. He slid his hands into the leather grips of his brushes, making short work of his hair.

  When had he become so concerned about his appearance that he stopped in front of the mirror to judge himself?

  He turned away from his reflection, left his room, and with uncharacteristic enthusiasm, went to rejoin the woman who’d saved his life.

  “Miss Mercy! Miss Mercy! What is wrong with her?”

  “Nothing. She’s asleep.”

  Mercy surfaced from a delightful dream to find Ruthie standing in front of her clutching the petticoats she’d removed on the shore of the loch. She was accompanied by Connor, but that wasn’t the worst of it. Lennox was also standing there, humor lighting his eyes.

  How on earth had she forgotten about her unmentionables?

  She closed her eyes and wished herself back asleep again. She would never survive the embarrassment of this moment.

  “I found your slippers, too, Miss Mercy. And I brought your blue dress, the one with the flowers embroidered on the cuffs.”

  She forced herself to open her eyes and look at Ruthie. “Thank you, Ruthie, but I didn’t expect you to come. You really shouldn’t have bothered.”

  “Who else would you expect, Miss Mercy? I’ve only broken my arm. I’ve never been as bored as I have this past week. What I can’t manage I’ll ask for help with, but otherwise I’m not going to let anyone else do for you when I can.”

  Had Ruthie always been so stubborn? Perhaps it was being in Scotland that brought out that trait in her.

  “If you’ll come with me,” Lennox said, “I’ll show you where you can change.”

  She half expected him to lead her into the tower, but he turned right outside the kitchen and down a corridor she hadn’t seen before. They came to a wide set of stairs leading to a second floor.

  Mercy glanced backward to find Ruthie behind her, still gripping the offending petticoats. Connor was beside her, carrying a valise. The two of them were smiling at each other. If they weren’t careful, both of them would take a tumble down the stairs.

  The corridor on the second floor was wide, carpeted with a beige runner heavily embroidered with a red-and-green flowered pattern. The walls looked to be made of the same stone as the floor throughout the castle.

  “It’s the oldest part of Duddingston,” Lennox said. “Once, the family used to be large and these were all bedrooms. Now Irene is hard-pr
essed to keep them dusted.”

  He opened one of the doors in the middle of the corridor and stepped back.

  She preceded him into the room, stopping and looking around her. It would be possible to believe that she had stepped back into time itself. Perhaps even to when the castle was first constructed and still smelled of newly quarried stone and fresh mortar.

  The spread and the hangings on the four-poster bed were emerald, the color of a forest on a bright summer day. The predominantly green tapestry hanging on the far wall was of a serpentine road leading to a knoll where a blonde woman was petting a small white unicorn. The only windows in the room were high up and without curtains, letting in the early afternoon light. An armoire and a small desk and chair completed the room’s furnishings. On the opposite wall from the bed was a fireplace, the mantel surround of black marble.

  There wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere. Everything was perfect and pristine as if a guest had been expected at any moment.

  Connor put down her valise on the chair in front of the desk, smiled at Ruthie, and left the room.

  “If you need anything,” Lennox said, “there’s a bell pull beside the fireplace.”

  “Thank you,” she said as he moved to close the door.

  He only smiled in response, leaving her to fervently wish that he’d instantly forget about her petticoats.

  Within a matter of minutes, Mercy was stripped of her damp garments.

  “I didn’t think to pack a shift and another corset,” Ruthie said.

  “At least my petticoats aren’t wet,” she said. “Besides, it doesn’t matter at this point. My hair is damp. They’ll know that something happened.”

  “Did you really save his life, Miss Mercy? That’s what Connor said. I wouldn’t have been as brave.”

  “I didn’t think,” Mercy said. “I just knew he needed help.” For a moment she relived the terror she’d felt as she watched Lennox’s airship slide beneath the waters of the loch. “Besides,” she added, “I think you’re very brave, Ruthie. You didn’t say a word when I told you that I wanted to come to Scotland. I couldn’t have made the journey without you.”

  Ruthie’s cheeks blossomed with color.

  “I think we made each other brave, Miss Mercy.”

  There was enough truth in that statement that Mercy only smiled.

  She wished she could dispense with her corset and damp shift, but there was nothing she could do about those. Ruthie helped her don the dry dress. Outwardly, she looked presentable, as long as her damp garments didn’t soak through the fabric.

  She hadn’t brought a reticule, so that meant she didn’t have a comb available. Nor had Ruthie brought one, an oversight for which she apologized profusely.

  “Never mind,” Mercy said. “I didn’t think this through. I forgot about my hair. I doubt I’ll be able to enter Macrory House without someone asking questions. Flora, if no one else.”

  “You can tell them that you tumbled into the loch, although I think you should tell everyone what really happened, Miss Mercy. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “I doubt the Macrorys would feel the same, Ruthie. I can just imagine my grandmother’s comments.”

  She hadn’t said anything to Ruthie about Ailsa, but the other woman still gave her a sympathetic look.

  “Is she a tyrant to the staff?” she asked.

  “Your grandmother has her ways. That’s what Mrs. West says. The housekeeper has to rotate the maids assigned to her room. No one seems to fit.”

  That’s exactly how she felt. As if she hadn’t fit. Her mother’s family wouldn’t approve of her actions regardless of the explanation. Nor would they be happy that she was once again arriving in the Caitheart carriage.

  She was just going to have to handle one problem at a time.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  When they came down the stairs, Ruthie saw Connor and murmured some excuse for needing to speak to him, such a flimsy pretense that Mercy could have easily refused. Instead, she watched as Ruthie and Connor walked down the corridor together, each smiling at the other.

  One day soon Ruthie’s heart would break. Would these moments be worth that pain? Mercy couldn’t answer that question. She’d never looked at a man the way Ruthie looked at Connor, as if he held all her happiness in his smile.

  Irene was the only one in the kitchen when Mercy entered. Evidently, she’d been told about the accident because the older woman came to her, grabbed both of Mercy’s upper arms, and did a silent scrutiny from the top of her head down to her feet.

  At least Irene hadn’t seen her petticoats.

  “Are you sure you’re all right, then?” Irene asked. “Nothing broken?”

  Mercy shook her head.

  “Nothing cut?”

  Mercy shook her head again.

  “Fool man,” Irene said. “Thank you for saving him.”

  “I didn’t, really. He saved himself.”

  “That’s not what I heard. His Lordship told me what happened. He gives credit where credit is due.”

  Mercy could feel her cheeks warm.

  “Fool man. He had no business going up in that fool contraption, but will he listen to me? No.”

  Mercy couldn’t help but wonder if Irene pinned Lennox’s ears back when she objected to what he was doing. He, in turn, probably took the occasion to slip free of her criticism whenever he could. Some people would have simply dismissed Irene or insisted that she mitigate her comments. The fact that Lennox didn’t do either added another level of complexity to what she knew about him.

  Where was he now? She kept herself from asking because she didn’t want to betray her interest. Irene might tell Jean and by nightfall the story could be wafting through Macrory House. She didn’t need any tales to reach her grandmother.

  No one had to know that Lennox fascinated her or that she appreciated his looks. She even liked the way he walked, in a loose-limbed gait as if he’d mastered the ground beneath him.

  She’d never met a man as confident. Not even Gregory, who’d come home a hero.

  “Lennox is very kind,” she said.

  “You’re the kind one, Miss Mercy.”

  She really didn’t deserve all that praise. She’d done only what anyone would do confronted with the same circumstances. When she said as much to Irene, the older woman clucked her tongue and shook her head.

  “‘Modesty is the beauty of women.’ One of my mother’s quotes.”

  Mercy hadn’t the slightest idea what she should say to that. Luckily the kettle began to make an odd warbling sound.

  Ruthie entered the kitchen, alone this time. She stopped at the door and tilted her head. “What’s that sound?”

  “That would be the newest invention,” Irene said with a smile. “Lennox has put a whistle on the top of the kettle and when it’s ready it lets me know.”

  “It sounds like a cricket,” Ruthie said. “When a cricket whistles on the hob, it’s a bad sign.”

  Everything was a bad sign to Ruthie.

  “I think it sounds like a bird,” Irene countered. “I will admit it took a few days for me to get used to the sound. At first I thought I needed to check the chimney for another nest. The birds do like to make their home there.”

  Irene moved the kettle to the back of the stove. “I’ll be making you some tea and when the carriage is ready Lennox will let us know.”

  Mercy reluctantly sat at the table, wishing she’d left before the offer of tea. Scottish tea was unlike anything she’d ever tasted. It was so strong that most people added milk and sugar to it, making it much too sweet for her. The alternative was to drink it straight. In the few times she’d done so, she couldn’t rid herself of the metallic taste in her mouth for hours.

  One of her earliest memories was traveling to North Carolina with her parents. Her mother had impressed upon her that it was always necessary to adapt to their destination. Therefore, when she was given grits, she never said a word in protest. Or when she was expected to eat
something called hush puppies or breaded fish, she only thanked the cook, never commenting that the foods were heavy and nearly tasteless to her.

  So in Scotland, she would drink what the Scots drank and keep silent. To do otherwise would be rude and disrespectful.

  Still, she much preferred coffee. Or maybe another taste of whiskey. What would her family think to learn that?

  Lennox came into the kitchen, greeting them with a quick smile.

  “Did you find everything you needed at the market?” he asked Irene.

  “Aye, I did, and most of it dear enough.”

  Irene looked as if she’d like to say more but Mercy and Ruthie’s presence kept her silent.

  For the first time since Mercy had arrived at Duddingston Castle, she felt uncomfortable, especially since it was easy to assume that the castle and its owner had fallen on hard times.

  “When did you invent the tea kettle?” she asked, hoping to dispel the awkward silence.

  “I didn’t invent it,” Lennox said. “I just improved upon it. About a year or so ago.”

  “It’s very clever.”

  They looked at each other across the room. Now it was Mercy who felt constrained by the presence of other people. Yet if they had been alone in the kitchen, she wasn’t quite sure what she would say next. Perhaps thanks for their conversation and how easy it had been to talk to him. Or thanks for not caring that she was related to the Macrorys. A final thanks for the experience of drinking whiskey and, despite the accident, feeling lighthearted for the past few hours.

  “I’ll walk you to the door,” he said. A reminder that she needed to leave.

  She nodded and said goodbye to Irene, turned, and followed Lennox down the corridor to the door she had opened a week ago, Ruthie behind her.

  This time, she studied details of the Clan Hall that she hadn’t seen earlier. Here, too, there was a tapestry mounted on the wall, this scene of a battle taking place on a hill. She wanted to ask him to stop and allow her some time to study the needlework. Instead, she tucked the wish into the back of her mind, along with the desire to inspect those interesting bronze bowls and artifacts on a series of shelves.