In the Heart of the Highlander (27 page)

Chapter

38

S
omething warm and firm was on his hand, a pleasant diversion from the fire in his shoulder and the lead weight on his head. Alec needed to wake up to do something, but he couldn’t quite remember what.

He shifted restlessly in his bed. He’d tried to wake up once before today, and had been much too late, to his shame. Mary had needed him, and he’d put her life in jeopardy. He would do better in the future. Take care of her.

If she would let him. She was an independent woman. Bossy. A bit like his mother, minus the tantrums.

But he wouldn’t compare her to his mother. No woman liked to be compared to a man’s mother. Alec knew enough about women to keep his compliments suitably vague in that regard. But he’d loved his mother for all her faults, and it grieved him that his parents’ marriage had not been a happy one.

Was it possible to have a happy marriage? Not in his experience. But Mary was a different sort of girl—so sensible, not that he would tell her that, either, when he made his case for marriage.

That was it! He was going to propose to her.

“Alec, please wake up before I have to go.”

What nonsense was this? Alec tried to lift his eyelids. They were weighted down with bricks but he managed to raise them nonetheless.

She sat at his bedside, wearing a rusty black dress fit for a funeral. Good Lord, he wasn’t dead, was he? If he was, he’d much prefer to see Mary in the nude, her delicious curvy body dusted with freckles. How nice it would be to spend Eternity with her, dancing on clouds to angels’ harps. He’d teach her to waltz properly—

But that would mean she’d have to be dead, too, and that was a dreadful concept.

He couldn’t help but blurt it out. “Are you dead? Please say no.”

“No. Of course I’m not dead, Alec, and neither are you. I’m afraid there’s something wrong with your car, though. We had to leave it on the road.”

“I’ll buy another. One for you, too.” He’d hire a chauffeur for hers, though. He’d been a little afraid of the gleam in her eye as she sat behind the wheel.

“Thank you, but a car would be a nuisance in London.”

Had she said she was going there? He couldn’t think.

“Is your aunt all right?”

“I suppose so. I’ve not had a marconigram to tell me otherwise.”

“Then you’re not going back to London,” Alec said. He hoped he sounded firmer than he felt.

She took her lovely soft hand away. “But my aunt needs me.”

“You just said she didn’t. You can’t go.
I
need you.” Where had he put the damn ring? Not in his pajama pockets—he wasn’t wearing any pajamas.

“I’ll arrange for servants to be sent up from the agency. A round-the-clock nurse, if necessary.”

“I don’t want a nurse! I want you.”

She lowered her eyes. “It’s really not proper that I stay here any longer. And there’s no need—Bauer is dead and we are safe.”

Alec wasn’t feeling safe at all. His heart thudded. “You can’t go. I have another job for you.”

A job?
Had Bauer blown his brains out as well as his shoulder? Alec was making a hash of this proposal business.

“I’m sure I can handle it from London. And when you visit, I should be more than happy to—entertain you when you come.”

“The devil you will!” Alec tried to sit up. An unfortunate choice. “Mary, there will be no
‘
entertaining,’ as you put it. You are staying right here.”

“I have a business to run, Alec! Just because I hold you in some affection doesn’t mean I can throw all my hard work away.”

Alec fancied himself a modern man. He didn’t want some decorative wife in a gilded cage—he’d had one of those, in a gilded tower, anyway—and he hit upon the perfect way to convince her to marry him. “I wouldn’t expect you to give up your job entirely. I know your aunt depends on you. You can go down to London a few days every month. Longer if you have to. Don’t you think the Evensong Agency will have even more cachet if one of its proprietors is a baroness?”

Mary’s perfect rosy mouth dropped open.

“I’m asking you to marry me. Granted, I’m not going about it the right, romantic way, but honestly, if I have to get down on one knee, I’ll nae get up. And I doona want to wait until I feel better.”

“You—you’ve had a head injury today,” Mary said faintly.

“Do you think my brains are so scrambled I doona know I love you? Nae, I know my mind, and I thank Bauer for making it crystal clear that I canna live my life without you. Say yes. I have my mother’s emerald ring here somewhere. Ah! Under the pillow, I think. Grab it and put it on.”

“I—I could be your mistress. You don’t have to marry me.”

Alec’s head was pounding. What woman didn’t want an emerald ring that would match her eyes? “Are you daft? Why wouldn’t I want to marry you?”

“My father was a grocer.”

“So?”

“So? Is that all you can say? You’re a baron! We may live in the twentieth century, but it would be a scandal if you married me.”

Alec laughed. “Scandal! Remember who you are talking to, my love. I’ve lived the past year under a black cloud. ’Twould be you who’d suffer, and doona tell me you’re afraid of a bit of scandal. I can get Rycroft to tell our story in his paper—how brave you were through everything. How could any man resist marrying you, grocer’s daughter or no?”

Mary blanched. “You mustn’t mention the rake. I cannot get it out of my head.”

“Och, you wee poor thing. Come here, my love.” Alec forgot and tried to lift both arms to her. Another unfortunate choice.

She came anyway, and set her head on his good shoulder. “Are you sure you love me? You only met the real me on Thursday.”

“I am sure. I confess I’d like to hear you accept—right now—but you have had a trying few days. If you want to wait . . .”

“I wasn’t brave,” Mary interrupted. “I’m not brave now. I don’t know how to be a baroness.”

“If you can pretend to be an old woman, you can pretend to be a baroness.”

“You make it sound so easy,” Mary said, nestling into the crook of his arm. He could tell she was coming around to appreciate his idea—she hadn’t said no, even if she hadn’t said yes.

“This time—and maybe only this time—I am right, and you are wrong.”

“You’re making fun of me.”

“I would never do such a thing. I am in awe of you, Mary, and that’s the truth. I wish I’d met you years ago, but we canna go back and change the past. We’ve only the future, and I want to spend it with you.”

There, he was getting better at this proposing thing as the minutes ticked by.

“You really wouldn’t mind me working?” Her words tickled the hairs on his chest. They could lie like this for the rest of their lives, tickling and talking. Touching. Kissing. Loving.

“Not at all. But when the children come, we can revisit the issue. But I expect with all your business connections we’ll have the most fearsome nannies available. They’ll be perfectly capable of caring for them, although if our children are anything like me and my brothers, they’ll have their work cut out for them.”

“Children.” She said the word like she had said
drive
earlier today—had she never considered the possibility?

“Maybe just
a
child,” Alec amended. He didn’t want to frighten her. “I’ll be happy with whatever comes along.”

“Children!” Mary sat up, her eyes bright. “I didn’t much care for my nephews, but your children might be altogether different.”

“I should hope so. Really, Mary, do say yes. I’d find the ring myself but I’m not a contortionist.”

She slid her hand under the pillow and pulled out the rather dazzling betrothal ring, her eyes widening.

I am right and you are wrong
. Or was it you are wrong and I am right? They could take turns saying that to each other until they were both gray. Thanks to Mary’s wig, he had an idea how lovely she would be as she grew older.

She held it in her palm but didn’t put it on. “It’s beautiful.”

“My mother was the last to wear it. May I put it on your finger?”

Mary looked at him, her eyes brighter with tears. “You may.”

Alec smoothed the ring over her knuckle. It was a little loose, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed by a jeweler. He vowed there would be nothing between them that couldn’t be fixed, one way or another. “There. You belong to me. For better or worse.”

“We belong to
each other
,” Mary corrected.

She was right. As usual.