by Karen Ranney
Had the thunder awakened Mercy? Was she, even now, like him, watching nature’s display of might and feeling grateful that she was not out in it?
Or was she in her fiancé’s arms?
He shouldn’t have kissed her, but it had been an unmistakable temptation. He wasn’t a saint, after all. Nor did he aspire to be. His hermit-like existence of late, however, put the lie to that thought. He truly needed to return to Edinburgh for a time, just to prove that he wasn’t avoiding people. Or women, for that matter.
His friends would have more than a few plans for him, he was certain, if he let them know he was coming. They would schedule dinner parties where he was the guest of honor, tout him as being the reclusive Earl of Morton. He hated using the title. Every time someone mentioned it or called him Your Lordship he felt like he had usurped Robert’s position and wanted to apologize to his brother’s shade. Yet his friends liked it. Reflected glory, they called it.
Most of them were physicians now while he had taken an entirely different track in life. Yet he still gave in to his curiosity about how things worked. He’d improved the Mordan pencil by adding a spring inside the mechanism. When he pushed down on the top of it, the lead was advanced. He’d developed a new type of window latch that opened the window from the top. He’d created braces for his shoes that cut into the surface of Ben Uaine when he had a yen to climb a steep face. The greatest of all of his inventions, however, was his airship, a physical representation of his desire to master flight. To at least understand, as no one had been able to yet, what components were necessary for a man to emulate a bird.
Things were a great deal easier to understand than people. He could figure something out if he took it apart. For the life of him, he couldn’t fathom Mercy Rutherford.
Yes, it would be a good idea to return to Edinburgh, just for a while. Long enough to dispel any thoughts of a certain American woman.
She was like a burr in his mind, something that had stuck there that he couldn’t easily budge. He liked the way she smiled, the slow dawning of humor traveling from her lips to her eyes. She had a habit of spreading her fingers on her knees and then closing them again. And her voice was soft, soothing, although her accent was different from those voices he heard every day. He even liked her name: Mercy.
Irene was right, Mercy was kind. It was there in the way she talked to Connor and Irene and cared for Ruthie. The way she talked about her guard was another indication. Or how tender she’d been when stitching his wound.
Yet she’d been damn cruel in hiding the fact she was going to be married.
No, he most definitely needed to rid himself of any thoughts of Mercy Rutherford.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Mercy heard the thunder as she waited for the household to fall asleep. A little before midnight she slipped down the servants’ stairs and into the kitchen, made bright by the flashes of lightning. She hesitated at the outer door. The rain was coming down so hard she couldn’t see to the walled garden. She’d only worn a light summer shawl over her dress and it would be drenched within minutes.
The question was: How desperate was she to escape her situation?
Desperate enough to brave a Highland storm.
She clutched the valise to her chest with both arms, doubting that it would become waterlogged because of the oilskin lining the interior.
The darkness was absolute, the black clouds obscuring the sky. She had followed the drover’s trail once to Duddingston Castle and again on her return. She could find her way. She had to.
She made it to the walled garden, then found the secret door and headed for the trail. What she’d seen in the morning light was harder to find in the midst of a rolling storm. More than once she stopped and tried to get her bearings, but couldn’t stay in one place for long because her feet started sinking into the ground. She hadn’t thought to borrow Mrs. West’s boots again and the ground was like a marsh.
Wind howled through the pines, sounding like the screaming banshees Ruthie talked about so often. Thunder roared directly above her, almost as if the fist of God was about to pummel her into the ground like a giant hammer.
Clamping her lips together, she battled the wind with each step. The sideways rain turned into shards poking her skin like needles. She kept her eyes lowered, determined to make it to Duddingston Castle.
Her hair escaped the bun and lashed across her face, the wet mass of it stinging her cheeks.
She was bent nearly horizontal, her head butting the wind. Twice she almost fell and twice righted herself without losing her grip on the valise. The distance felt much longer than what she’d walked only this morning, but she kept moving, one foot in front of another.
She had to reach the castle and Lennox. He was the only one who could help her.
The eerie whistling began to fade as the wind changed directions, no longer fighting her approach to the castle, but pushing her there. She had no choice but to stumble down the track to the bridge. As she crossed the causeway, the water came up to her ankles. She kept one arm around the valise as she gripped the handrail with her other hand, trying not to be swept into the loch.
She had never been so cold. It felt as if ice was coating her hands, bare as they were to the elements. If she was shivering, she was too frozen to know it.
No one had ever warned her about a Highland storm. If they had she wasn’t sure she would have believed that it could feel like the depth of winter in New York. Or that she was certain she would be drowned in the deluge.
She was finally past the bridge and into the ruined tower. The wind keened around the castle like a beast who’d been stripped of its prey, but at least she’d found some type of shelter.
Would Lennox turn her away?
She had to convince him. Somehow, she had to.
It was so dark that she couldn’t see her way. She stretched out her free hand until she felt the door, and then followed the rope to the iron ring. Her fingers wouldn’t work the first time and curve around the ring to pull it. After blowing on her fingers to try to warm them she tried again, finally managing to hold on to it. If it rang she couldn’t hear because of the booming thunder and the sound of the rain.
She was going to scandalize Irene, but hopefully the other woman would understand once she heard her story.
No one was coming to the door. Mercy wasn’t sure how long she stood there, but it felt like hours instead of the few minutes it had probably been. At least she wasn’t out in the rain or being thrown about by the wind. Pressing her back against the door, she slid down to sit on the stone floor. Hopefully, Duddingston Castle didn’t have mice or rats. With any luck they—or other creatures—weren’t sharing this dark space.
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.”
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.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to look so disreputable.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Mercy. You’ve come through a storm.”
He startled her again by placing both of her feet in the bowl.
“Irene isn’t going to be pleased if you’re using one of her cooking bowls,” she said.
He grinned up at her. “I wouldn’t have the courage. We keep this bowl around for nights such as this.”
“Do you often go traipsing through the glen in the middle of a storm?”
“I do not,” he said. “I have too much sense.”
Before she could offer a rebuttal to his comment, he added, “Nor have I been as desperate as you, Mercy.”
She sat back in the chair, watching him wash her feet. They were beginning to prickle, a
lmost like feeling was coming back to them. When she said as much, he only nodded.
His hands were very gentle. No one had ever washed her feet, at least since she was a baby. She wondered if his touch was due to his training as a physician or whether it was just something natural to him.
She hadn’t told him the whole truth. She really didn’t want to leave Scotland. She didn’t want to leave him. There was no other alternative, however.
“We need to get you dry,” he said.
She looked down at her dress.
He stood and went to the cupboard, grabbing a length of toweling before returning and removing her feet from the bowl. He dried them one by one, still gentle.
“Has Gregory threatened you?”
She shook her head. “No, but my grandmother is set on arranging my wedding at any moment.” At his look of surprise, she asked, “Can that even happen in Scotland?”
“We have some odd marriage laws here in Scotland, but I don’t know if they apply to Americans.”
“Well, she’ll make sure there’s a way. She informed me that, in order not to shame the family, I need to marry Gregory. I’m not going to marry him, but even Gregory doesn’t accept that. I’ve told him a dozen times that I’ve no intention of marrying him and he only laughs.”
He came and sat beside her.
“What can I do?”
She almost kissed him again, right then and there. She was so grateful for his offer that she thought she might weep.
“I was going to ask for your help.” She nudged the valise with her bare foot, then bent to open it, revealing the cache of money. “But I was more than willing to pay you.”
If she hadn’t been watching him so closely, she would’ve missed the look that flashed over his face. Had she insulted him?
“I wanted to get to Inverness,” she said. “In order to book passage back to America.”
“On your own?”
She shook her head. “That was the second part of what I was going to ask you. I was hoping that Irene could get word to her sister and that Ruthie could leave the house and meet me here.”