Chapter 12

CHAPTER TWELVE

Mercy remained quiet for much of the journey back to Winterbourne Park. She had given Colin’s mother, sister, and uncle each a hug when they had departed, but all the while her stomach had been in knots, only growing more tangled the longer she remained in Colin’s company. She watched through the window as the carriage climbed the hills out of Bath and made its way along the snowy road toward Millcombe.

The carriage wasn’t overly large by any means, so she could easily smell Colin’s cologne and hear his breathing. They bumped along, shaking with the movement of the conveyance, Mercy’s eyes glued to the passing frosted countryside.

For some odd reason, she felt on the verge of tears. Her body reacted to her husband, though her mind constantly reminded her it wasn’t wise. He did not love her. Their marriage was a transaction. When he’d called her my love , he had only been trying to wedge them beneath Miss Dearden’s nerves. When he had held her hand last night, he’d only been trying to warm her chilled skin. When he told her he didn’t want to start a family, it was with the express intention of not being intimate.

He did not love her.

But she wanted him to, and that was the painful component. Mercy might have fooled herself into believing she could enter this marriage with the willpower to find contentment in the arrangement, but now that she was fully embroiled in it, she realized how impossible that was.

Colin did not love her; he liked her friendship.

He had not come to her father’s defense when his mother had said hurtful things about him in the shop—things Mercy had heard over and over throughout her life, and was now painfully overhearing from her new family. She had waited, paying no mind to what Honora was chattering on about, and hoped Colin would say something in favor of Papa’s character. He had praised her father’s sermons, but that was all. It hardly felt like enough.

Even the people who disliked Papa could admit he delivered a sermon well.

Mercy could manage a life married to a man who wasn’t attracted to her, who only wanted friendship, but she needed time to heal from the pain of disappointment and adjust to this new future.

They edged into Millcombe, passing the vicarage and the church, their wheels bumping along the cobbled lane.

“Did you enjoy your time in Bath?” Colin asked, breaking the silence like a pickaxe to a block of ice.

Mercy breathed in before settling a pleasant expression on her face and turning away from the window. “It is a lovely town. The River Avon is always a favorite of mine.”

“It is beautiful,” he agreed, but the way he watched her now was laced with doubt. He could see through her. “You ought to have purchased the bonnet. It would have been just the thing to wear to your father’s Christmas service.”

“I do not need a new bonnet, Colin. I have one that is perfectly acceptable.”

He watched her with a look of confusion she wanted to wipe from his handsome face. He did not understand her. That was perfectly clear.

“Besides, if I desired a Christmas bonnet, I could trim one myself. It would certainly smell better than silk flowers.”

“That it would,” he muttered.

“My sisters and I used to make kissing boughs each year—heaven knows why, as my father never would have allowed us to use them in earnest—and we would use the remaining greenery to trim bonnets for the Christmas service.”

His hazel eyes did not move from her face. “What other Christmas traditions do you have, Mercy?”

“Most of them are wrapped in the church. The choir practices, knitting circle, the goose dinner. My mother makes the most delicious shortbread. Of course, we would also play snapdragon or bullet pudding, as well, but my mother hated the waste of the flour.”

Their carriage turned onto Winterbourne’s lane and pulled to a stop in front of the door.

“I will play either of those games with you, if you’d like,” Colin said, opening the door and turning to help her out.

“Were they part of your Christmas traditions as well?”

“We didn’t have many traditions.” He walked at her side up to the house. “We’d cut a Yule log and burn it until Epiphany, eat a large goose dinner on Christmas, but that was the extent of it. ”

“Your mother didn’t decorate?”

“No. Should she have?”

Mercy paused on the front step, looking at the large house dusted with snow and surrounded by a clean white world. “I would think Winterbourne was made to be dressed up for Christmas.”

The front door opened to Flint, standing there with widened eyes and a harassed expression.

“What is it?” Colin asked at once, a gravity to his tone.

“Lady Edith arrived last night, sir. I told her you had gone to Bath to see your mother, but she insisted on remaining until you returned.”

“She traveled here? But the woman is ill,” he said, exasperated.

“Indeed, sir.”

“Where is she now?” Colin asked, his words clipped.

“Resting in the library. She found the parlor to be too drafty and the morning room dusty.”

“The morning room dusty?” he repeated. “The library is the worst of the lot.”

Mercy cleared her throat. “I had been working on rectifying that before we left for Bath. The library should be in mostly good order now, though the books are not yet finished.”

Colin stared at her. “Promise me you will not clean the house while my Great-aunt Edith is here.”

The words stung, but she nodded.

“Inform Lady Edith we will be with her directly,” Colin said, then looked at his clothing. “We must change first.”

“Of course, sir.” Flint took their coats and wraps, then hesitated. “Lady Edith insisted on the guest room she always uses. ”

Colin blinked. “Did you inform the lady that Mrs. Birchall now resides in that room?”

“I made a valiant attempt, sir.” Flint’s cheeks went pink.

Which meant the lady had certainly required Mercy’s bedchamber anyway.

“She is particular about where she sleeps,” Flint said.

Colin groaned. “I remember. She is particular about many things. Where did you move Mercy’s belongings?”

“Your room, sir. The floor in the adjoining room has yet to be completed, if you’ll recall.”

“Very good. Thank you, Flint. We will sort it out between us.” Colin started toward the stairs, but Mercy remained behind, entirely lost in the conversation that had just flown by her.

She stared after her husband, wondering exactly why she had been booted from her bed and how neither of the men seemed to find this troubling. Though she supposed Lady Edith was permitted to do that sort of thing. She was dying, after all, wasn’t she? It had been weeks since Colin first told Mercy about Lady Edith’s solicitor meeting, but she recalled he had mentioned something about her poor health.

Colin was halfway up the curved staircase before he turned back to find her waiting at the bottom. “Are you not going to change?”

“It is not yet dinner.”

“Lady Edith has come,” he said, as though the gravity of those words ought to mean something.

“I thought that would make you happy,” she challenged, slowly mounting the steps toward him. “She’s brought your inheritance, has she not? What other reason would she have for being here? ”

He gripped the railing, his teeth clenching. “It is more than that, Mercy.”

“She has come to judge your wife, as well?” she guessed. He had seemed overly concerned with the state of her gown and the behavior she might potentially exhibit. Both of those things raked at her. She wondered briefly if it would have been better to remain the town spinster and accept condolences for the next few months—or years, depending on how long her sisters chose to parade their husbands and babies about town—than to live in a house with a man who was not attracted to her and cared more for how she appeared than how she felt.

“Yes,” he said. “She has.”

Mercy stopped a few stairs below him.

Colin’s steps came down hard, concern flashing in his eyes as he lowered himself to stand on the same level as her, towering over her. “The fortune she promised is conditional upon my marrying before Twelfth Night.”

“Yes, I know.”

“That is not all.” His hazel eyes tracked her face. “It was also mentioned that my wife must be a kind woman who is charitable and…” He hesitated. “And makes me laugh.”

Mercy’s throat went dry. She felt far too near Colin now with the truth of their situation hanging over them. She took a step up to be nearer the same level as his eyes. “Now I must prove to your great-aunt I am all of those things?”

He tried to smile. “It would help immensely if you could provide a riddle.”

She felt lost, floating in a pond without a paddle to bring her back to shore. “How am I meant to prove these things to a woman I do not know? Be kind and charitable and make her laugh? Colin, I am no court jester. ”

He closed his eyes and ran a hand over his face, all attempts at levity gone. “By being you, Mercy. I chose you because you naturally have all these qualifications. Please, by all that is holy, do not give Lady Edith any reason to doubt you—to doubt us .”

A cool chill raked over her arms, carrying with it a wave of shivers. Quiet foreboding nestled in her chest. “Why should she not be given any reason to doubt us , Colin?”

He held her eyes sturdily, as though he was determined to see this through, regardless of the outcome. “Because Lady Edith must believe we are in love or she will revoke her fortune.”

A fortune Colin had already begun spending in earnest. The new roof and bedroom floors and staircase only a few of the things he had already started work on. To say nothing for the servants he had hired and the large food order he had permitted Mrs. Johns to put in. His creditors would be his doom if Lady Edith’s money was not provided, and Mercy was the variable who could alter the tide of their situation.

She squared her shoulders and held his gaze. Regardless of the hurt limning her mood, she would not abandon Colin to the fear of failure. “I will do what I can to help.” Mercy turned to start up the stairs.

“Wait,” Colin breathed. “Mercy—please do not misunderstand. I did not set out to deceive you or my aunt.”

“I did not imagine that to be the case,” she said simply. He could not have believed Lady Edith would arrive so soon to ensure herself that he had followed her rules exactly. If anything, she imagined Colin believed his aunt would never ascertain that he had obeyed her every wish. The way he had immediately begun to spend the money after their wedding, he must have thoroughly imagined he had done what he needed to.

Which meant she could play her role and secure the fortune on their behalf.

“Please understand I had no intention of hurting you,” he said.

“You haven’t.”

He looked at her with such intent in his greenish-brown eyes, it was clear he could see through her.

Mercy’s cheeks flushed. “We cannot change the past, Colin. Let us work together to provide for our future.” That was where they were at now. She had been embroiled in the situation, and her future was every bit dependent on proving their affection to Lady Edith as Colin’s was.

He was still watching her with concern.

Mercy fixed a smile on her face, shoved down the hurt and surprise that lurked in the tips of her limbs, and squared her shoulders. “Come, Colin. Our acquaintance is far too long-standing for us to be worried now. Surely we can prove to one old woman that we care for one another.”

“Not just care, Mercy,” he said, stepping up until he was level with her again, trapping her gaze. “Love. We must prove we are in love.”

Her throat grew dry, her heart pounding. “That cannot be too difficult.”

“Not for me, certainly.”

“Grand,” she said brightly, not allowing herself to think too deeply on the way he was looking at her now or what he had said. “We can prove our love.”