Page 29 of Death at a Highland Wedding (Rip Through Time #4)

TWENTY-NINE

Despite being up half the night, I wake at the crack of dawn and feed the wildcat kitten while Alice gets a rare lie-in. When I hear people below, I head out. On my way down, I pause outside Isla’s door, but it’s shut and no sound comes from within, which means Alice isn’t the only one enjoying a late rising.

“Mallory?” Gray’s murmured voice reaches me from the stairs, and he comes back up to frown at me. “Is everything all right?”

“I have a question,” I say.

His face relaxes into a faint smile. “Ah, nothing new then. I presume it is something only my sister can answer?”

“No, you’ll do.”

His brows shoot up. “I am honored.”

“May we speak after breakfast?”

He moves into the hall, closing the gap between us as he lowers his voice. “Privacy is required, I take it?”

I nod.

“Then, if you are not famished, you ought to accompany me to speak to Simon at the stables.”

“Is something wrong?”

He lowers his head toward mine. “It is an excuse.”

“Ah, all right then. Let us go and speak to Simon.”

As we leave the house—and I’m sure no one is outside to overhear—I tell Gray about Violet.

“Well, that answers the question of whom we spotted that night,” he says, “as well as confirming that the maid did read a partial discarded note.”

I nod. “As for the final version, when I asked for it, Violet went very quiet. She agreed to look for it but warned she might have thrown it in the fire.”

“If she did not, then she has now.”

I shake my head. “It was the last note sent by a friend. If she burned it, she did so as soon as she read it. She could have hesitated because she realized she no longer had it and worried that looked suspicious. But I think she didn’t want me reading it because it would confirm Ezra was more than a friend.”

Gravel crunches under his boots. “Then that is a tragedy.”

“Violet deserves a happily ever after.”

“She does. Hugh truly did not mean to put her through that, and I think, if I might be so cruel, that it was best if he did not foresee the consequences, or he would have changed his mind. That would have been good for Violet, but she is not my dear friend.”

“Hugh’s happiness is far more important to you. I agree. It was an awful thing for Violet, but they’re both better off for it.”

Even as I say the words, I wonder how true that is. Would Violet rather be where she is—single, rejected, and shamed—than married to a decent man who didn’t love her?

I think most women in this time would choose the decent man who would treat them well even if he never loved them. They were raised to believe that was the most they could expect.

I’d never say that to Gray. There’s no point in lifting that particular veil into the lives of Victorian women. He understands the disparity and seeks to mitigate it in his own dealings with women.

“Speaking of marriage, though,” I say, “that is actually my question. Why would Ezra and Violet be courting in secret? I can see that if one of them was married or otherwise attached, but they aren’t. They’re a damn near perfect match.”

“I would agree.”

I throw up my hands. “So what am I missing? Does her broken engagement make her an unsuitable match? He’s an orphan, right? Is that an issue? I’m lost.”

“If you wish to know why there would be an objection to the match, you have come to the wrong person. You really do need to speak to Isla. I know nothing of marital suitability.”

I sigh. “Because it’s a woman’s issue, right?”

He pauses, and I think that’s my answer, but then I realize he’s noticed how close we are to the stable—and the end of our privacy bubble.

He waves me to the side, where we might admire a flowering bush. When we’re there, he says, “Marital suitability concerns men, too, as they must understand who they can and cannot court. But it does not concern anyone who has no intention of marrying.”

I parse that out. “You don’t intend to marry?”

“You sound surprised. Are you truly?”

“I…” I shrug. “If you were a thirty-one-year-old unmarried woman, I’d have wondered, but I know it’s common here for men to be older when they marry, especially if they have careers.”

“My situation is different.”

When I don’t answer, he sighs. “I suppose if it is not obvious, that is only a mark of how different things are in your time.” He looks at me. “Between my bastardy and my skin color, I would not ask any woman to marry me.”

“Oh.” I fall silent.

He exhales again. “You want to ask more and you are being circumspect. Out with it.”

I say, carefully, “I understand those are both obstacles that might… limit your choices. But you have everything else a wife could want. Health, money, a good career, stability, and…” I swallow, my cheeks heating. “You are kind. You would make a good husband.”

“Kind?” His brows rise in mock horror. “Take that back.”

He wants me to relax, to smile and break the mood, but I struggle with it and finally say, “I really don’t think the situation is as dire as you fear, Duncan. You could marry. Easily.”

“To a woman who overlooks my deficiencies in return for stability? For a husband who is unlikely to beat her? No, shockingly, I do not want anyone to settle for me.”

“I—”

“And imagine if they did marry me? If they did not fully consider the ramifications of marrying a man whose skin marks him as ‘other’ everywhere he goes? If they did not consider that their children will most likely also look ‘other’?”

“I’m sorry,” I say softly. “That was thoughtless, and I apologize.”

He eases back and then his lips quirk in a tired smile. “No, that was not thoughtless. You want to think better of people. You know what I endure, and you would like to believe that there are women out there—a bevy of them, apparently—who would want me despite that.” His smile lifts a little more. “You flatter me, and I cannot complain about that. Perhaps you ought to marry me.”

I laugh, and it’s a little shrill and forced as my cheeks heat and I move into the shade of the bush to cover that. “A fine idea.”

“Perhaps it is,” he says, and there’s a note in his voice that’s almost serious. “It certainly would solve our difficulties.”

“I’m not marrying anyone to ‘solve difficulties,’ Duncan.” Is there a tightness in my voice? A note that should warn him off? Maybe.

“But it would, though.” He moves closer, voice lowering. “Marriage would be the perfect solution to our dilemma. We would not need to worry about nonsense like this.” He waves around us. “Coming up with excuses to speak together. Sneaking off at night for a picnic and then worrying we have been seen.”

“Right. Sure. We’ll get married so we can talk more openly while we’re on holiday… which happens so often.”

He rocks forward. “It is more than that. Marriage would resolve many problems. We would never need to worry about being seen alone, and no one would ever question your position as my assistant.”

“Because, as your wife, I’m expected to be your helpmeet?”

My sarcasm flies so high over his head that he actually smiles. “Precisely. Also, what if Hugh and Isla married? How would you continue to live with me? You could not.” He rocks back on his heels, still smiling. “Yes, marriage is an excellent idea.”

Dear God, he’s not joking. I watch him, standing there, almost smug, pleased with himself for coming up with this solution, not even considering the possibility I might object? Something roils through me, and I’m not sure whether it’s rage or hurt. Both, I think.

“So,” I say, not bothering to keep the anger from my voice, “because people think you only hired me to bed me, you’ll prove them right?”

“They expect me to bed you, not marry you.”

“Then they’ll only think you a fool for buying the cow when you could get the milk for free.”

He frowns. “Hmm?”

“You’ll be the fool who put a ring on it, and I’ll be the scheming witch who got what she wanted all along.”

“But we know the truth. Those whose opinions matter most also know the truth. It is an excellent idea, Mallory.”

“Sure. Since it doesn’t seem like Archie and Fiona can get married today, why don’t we take their place? Summon the vicar. Make this official.”

He finally seems to actually look at me and hear my tone. “You do not want to marry me.”

“Don’t pull that shit, Duncan,” I grit out.

“I do not know what ‘shit’—”

“I can see it in your face. If I say I don’t want to marry you, you’ll take it as personal rejection. It’s not about you. I already said you’re a damn fine catch. But I am not marrying a man who only wants to wed me to solve his problem.”

Does part of me watch his face as I say those words, hoping for some hint that his proposition is about more than resolving issues? Of course it does.

“But it is not only my problem,” he says. “In fact, I would suggest it is more yours than mine.”

I stifle my hurt and call it foolishness. But I can’t help pushing on. “Earlier you said it was best for Violet that she didn’t marry Hugh. Better not to marry a man who’d never love her. Who only married for duty and responsibility. Is that what you’re asking me to do now?”

His mouth opens. Then he shuts it, and he’s quiet so long that a traitorous glimmer of hope whispers in me.

“I understand that it is not ideal,” he says slowly. “But perhaps, with time, that would change.”

I don’t trust myself to speak. I don’t trust myself to even look at him. I turn on my heel and stride into the stable.

Later, when I’m sitting—hiding?—in a copse of trees, I congratulate myself for having the presence of mind to walk into the stable instead of stomping back to the house. If I’d stalked off, Gray would have followed. He did actually follow, when he recovered, but by then one of the grooms stopped him to ask a question. That gave me a chance to slip out, and by the time Gray realized it, I was long gone.

My hands itch to write a letter to my parents. That’s how I’ve been communicating with them. I put letters under the floorboard of my room, and they can read them. Don’t ask me how it works—logically, the letters should pile up until the twenty-first century. They don’t. My parents can’t write me back, but I take what I can get, and what I get is two people I can share my deepest thoughts and feelings with, in a way I haven’t since I hit my teen years. Ironic, isn’t it? Now that I might never see them again, I open myself up to them again.

Now I want to write to them. Tell them everything I’m feeling, pour out my hurt and confusion. And I can’t. I don’t even dare retire and write it out for later, in case someone finds the letters. There’s been enough of that going around.

So I take as much time in that copse as I can, cognizant of a case waiting to be investigated. I need to find my game face first… or as close to it as I can approximate.

What the hell just happened?

Well, it seems that Gray proposed to me.

No, he didn’t “propose.” He suggested marriage as a business arrangement. I keep telling myself he was teasing. Joking around. That’s the way he is, with a sense of humor so dry that most people can’t tell he’s being funny.

Except I can, and in that moment, he’d been dead serious. Which makes it so much more bizarre. How did he go from discussing a murder investigation to “we should get married”?

Because the issues of our professional relationship have been festering. Haven’t I been worrying about that myself? How it affects his reputation, when everyone thinks I’m actually his lover?

Gray has insisted it isn’t an issue, but obviously that was a lie, and he’s been looking for a solution.

I should have just rolled with it. Teased him and pretended it was clearly a joke. Instead, I’d run off like a goddamn schoolgirl whose crush admitted he “didn’t think of her that way.”

I’ve embarrassed myself, and I’m still not sure why I reacted like that. Worse, I still feel like that. Hurt. Angry.

Humiliated?

Yes, humiliated, too.

We’re supposed to be friends, and this isn’t how you treat a friend, cavalierly suggesting an arranged marriage when you know they come from a culture of love matches.

I take a deep breath and lean against a tree.

I’m hurt, and I’m disappointed, but maybe that’s on me. To Gray—a Victorian man—this was a perfectly logical solution. He felt comfortable floating it because I’m a logical person. Surely I would see that this made sense, and none of that romantic foolishness needed apply to us. We were above that.

He might be, but I’m not. And I’m just going to need to deal with that.