Page 90 of Death at a Highland Wedding
“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 onlymyproblem,” 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. Hedidactually 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 stillfeellike 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.
THIRTY
The short walk to the house might be the longest—and most treacherous—I’ve faced on this trip. Forget bear traps. I need to figure out how to slip in and act as if nothing’s wrong while avoiding Gray, because once I see him, any composure I’ve found will shatter.
I ease in through the rear door just as Isla is coming down the stairs.
“Excellent timing,” she says. “I hope you are ready for your second breakfast of the day, because I am famished and require company.” She slows, seeing my expression. “Mallory? What is wrong?”
