Page 59 of Daring in a Blue Dress
Mercy
“Well, hell,” he said, contemplating going to her room to set things right. But the thought of facing an angry Mercy had him hesitating, and eventually, he sat down at the desk.
Mercy, goddess of all things bright and beautiful,
You fill my every waking thought, and many of my sleeping thoughts. I know you didn’t shoot me. And even if it happened without you being aware, it wouldn’t matter to me. I’d relish the pain simply because it was you who had done the shooting.
I am yours, my adorable one.
Nodding with satisfaction at his adroit handling of a difficult situation, he slipped the note under her door, and ran upstairs to the attic space to make sure the doors were all closed. He then made a quick survey of the house to see if any new damage had occurred, told the house it was doing well coping with the fact that he was going to update it, and returned to his room to check the window seat.
A note was waiting for him, not under his door, butstabbed into the wood of the door itself with a wickedly sharp letter opener that he had found in the attic and left on his desk.
Mr. Emanuel Alden Ainslie,
This is a cease and desist notice. Cease referencing the shooting incident THAT I WAS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR, and desist in sending me notes I no longer want or desire. I will not be coming by your room later tonight for romping between the sheets, and on top of them, and possibly on the rug by the fireplace assuming you found some firewood, and a rug to go in front of it.
Good day, sirrah.
Ms. M. Starling (single woman with no handsome English boyfriend)
“Hell,” Alden said aloud, and setting the letter opener back in his room, he did a quick check of the window seat to make sure the way was still blocked to anyone hoping to climb into his room, and with the letter in hand went to find Mercy.
The library was empty, but when he entered the kitchen, he found Lisa at the sink, washing a mug.
“Good evening, Alden,” she drawled in that slow, honey-sweet voice she liked to exaggerate whenever he was around. “My, don’t you lookcharming, and sodeliciousI could just eat you up.”
Alden fought his usual reaction to run away, and instead forced a polite smile to his lips. “Good evening,Lisa. Thank you. My mother bought me this shirt for my last birthday. Have you seen Mercy?”
“Why, yes, Ihave. She went with Fenice and that yummy brother of hers into town to have supper at the local pub.” Her eyes glittered, but Alden wasn’t sure if it was due to emotions or the overhead lights. “Why, did you need something?”
“No, no, I just thought we could... that is, Mercy wanted to check out a couple of rooms, and I thought now would be a good time to inspect them—”
“A tour!” Lisa clapped her hands together. “I hope you will give me a full tour this time, not two rooms like you did that first day I arrived here. I can’t tell you how long I’ve been waiting for the grand tour of the hall. And how thrilling that it’ll be by the master of Bestwood himself.”
“No, I—”
“Let’s see, I’msupposedto be doing some work for Lady Sybilla tonight, but I’m sure I can get it done early.” She blinked eyes with impossibly long eyelashes, and slid her arm into his, tugging him a step toward the door. “Why don’t we go ahead with the tour now, and later, we can have dinner together?”
“Oh. Er...” He thought wildly of an excuse, but his mind, fascinated as it was with Mercy, was not offering up any help with Lisa. “Erm... Lady Sybilla... won’t she want you?”
Lisa’s eyebrows waggled. “She might, but that doesn’t mean she’ll get me, sugar. Now, let’s have that tour, and thenafter, I’ll take you to a marvelous Italian restaurant that is run by one of Adams’s nephews. Did you know she has eight nephews? She might look likea dried-up old piece of carpet, but evidently she has sisters and brothers coming out of herears....”
He was trapped in hell, but these last few weeks with Mercy had taught him that he could survive such encounters. He didn’t resist as Lisa pulled him down the narrow hallway out to the entrance hall proper; he figured he’d get the tour she wanted over with as quickly as possible, and then would go to the pub in search of Mercy.
“This is the great hall, as you probably know,” he said, dredging up facts he’d learned about the house from the sale prospectus. “The oldest part of the house was built in 1518, and the hall dates back to then. The floor is marble, although it needs a good deal of work. The paneling is not original, however—I’m told it was refinished during the Georgian period, when there was a call for wooden panels. The staircase was added in the early nineteenth century, although we don’t know the maker. And upstairs, we have the gallery.”
“It’s all so very authentic,” Lisa said, her hand firmly on Alden’s arm as they made their way up the stairs to the long open gallery that ran the width of that section of the house. “It just makes me feel like I’m standin’ right in aPride or Prejudicemovie, that’s what it does!”
“It’s quite a bit older than Jane Austen’sPride and Prejudice,” Alden said, and felt an overwhelming relief when Lisa released his arm to go over to one of the long windows that ran down one side of the gallery.
“And this view! Why, I could drink this in forever. The drive up here in a carriage must have beenglorious.”
“The road would have been in much better repair,” he said, glancing out of the window, and feeling a senseof pride in the stretch of trees that lined the now rutted and potholed drive. “But that’s an easy fix.”
“These bars remind me of New Orleans,” she commented, opening one of the big windows to touch the wrought iron fretwork that had been added sometime in the early twentieth century. It consisted of intricate spikes and curlicues, and ran the length of all the windows in the gallery, and was badly cemented to the stone of the building, a fact Alden knew well, since one of the pieces had nearly crushed his head when it came loose and tumbled down right in front of him. “They’re so ornate.”
“Be careful, those are loose,” he warned. “Whoever put them on the house didn’t use the proper mortar, and it’s crumbling to dust.”
