Chapter 6
Dearest Mercy.
Alden stopped and glared at the paper sitting on the small desk in the bedroom he had claimed for his own.Dearestsounded dreadfully intimate. Far too intimate for people who’d just met.
And had kissed twice.
“None of that, now,” he told himself, shifting in the chair nonetheless. The memory of those kisses would remain uppermost in his mind for a very long time.
Mercy, it has come to my attention...
“Now I sound like a supervisor about to fire her.” Alden leaned back in the chair and tapped the pen on his chin as he thought. He’d come up with the idea to write Mercy a note because his therapist had once told him that if he couldn’t say something in person, writing it was the nextbest thing. “There has to be a happy medium.Dear Mercy?Ugh.Hi, Mercy!Oh, lord no. Hmm.”
Outside the window, a tree limb tapped on the glass. He glanced at the window, making a mental note to have the willow trimmed. The moon was just starting to come up, its silvery orb barely visible, and Alden, with a mind to airing out a room that evidently hadn’t been used since Lady Sybilla’s husband died some years before, went to the window to let in a little fresh air.
He struggled with the sash for a few minutes, finally managing to get it raised, the cool air swirling in around him, bringing with it the scent of the ocean, and grass, and the indefinable smell of dirt.
“That’s better. Ah, what about a simpleGreetings, Mercy. Yes. I like that.” He returned to his chair, bending over the sheet of notepaper he’d discovered in the small desk that inhabited a corner of the room.
Greetings, Mercy. I hope this note finds you well. I felt obligated to write to explain the circumstances behind the kiss today. The second one, not the first. I think we both know the first was a pure accident, with no intentions behind it other than the simple acknowledgment of assistance received.
He paused, tapping pen to chin again. Was he sounding too businesslike again? He didn’t want to give her the impression that he was a bloodless man who wasn’t affected to the tips of his toes by the kisses they’d shared. And yet, when he read over the letter, that’s exactly the impression he had.
“Pompous ass,” he said to himself, and wadded up the sheet, tossing it into a nearby wicker trash bin.
Greetings, Mercy. That second kiss—I wanted toapologize for it at the same time I wish we could do it again and again....
“Oh, hell no,” he said, crumpling the paper and tossing it with its brother. “Right. You’re making this harder than it needs to be. Just write the damned words.”
His hand wavered over the paper while phrases danced around in his head, leaving him as muddled as he was when faced with a woman in person. His frustration ramped into high gear, filling him with anger at his own inability to function, as well as desperation to express himself.
“Just do it!” he snarled at himself, his hand still held impotently over the paper. He wanted to swear at his failure, but couldn’t get the words through the tangled emotions, and in the end, driven by a mad need to get something down, dashed off a few words, and leaped up from the desk, the force of his movement sending the chair toppling over backward.
The window sash dropped suddenly, the glass in the lower three panes breaking and tinkling to the carpet.
Alden snarled something rude to the house, and ran out of the room, pausing at the door next to his. He cast a furtive glance around the hall, then slipped the note under the door before returning to his room to clean up the glass.
Your eyes hold more shades of color than I’ve ever seen. Your smile could brighten the blackest of places. You bring joy where there was none.
He swept the glass into the trash, absently wondering what on earth he had done, but feeling nonetheless that it was the right thing to do. He was truly grateful to Mercy for trying to help him, even if at times she lefthim feeling more foot-in-mouth than ever before. Not many people other than his brothers and therapist had ever spent time trying to urge him over the awkwardness that seemed to be bred into his bones, but with Mercy, he felt a genuine interest in his well-being.
“Yes,” he said aloud, drawing the curtains over the broken window. “It was only right that I should let her know how much I appreciate what she’s done. Politeness doesn’t cost anything.”
The light next to his bed popped and went out.
He wondered, while he took a shower in the small bathroom attached to his bedroom, if Mercy had enough blankets. He’d checked out the room situation earlier in the day, acquiescing to Lady Sybilla’s suggestion that he take over the lord’s suite, which left three other bedrooms on that particular wing.
“My former room is available should you marry,” she had told him with an air of grandiose benevolence. She was retiring for the night into her suite of rooms on the ground floor, which had formerly been a parlor, lady’s sitting room, smoking room, and bathroom, all of which had been renovated to suit Lady Sybilla’s current needs. Peeking into the rooms earlier in the day, Alden had noticed all the creature comforts, everything from a flat-screen television to a kitchenette complete with minute refrigerator, range, and microwave.
“I don’t foresee needing the lady’s suite any time in the future,” Alden had told Lady Sybilla, and yet, that statement had been negated less than an hour later when, upon his showing Mercy the rooms, she cooed when entering the room nearest his.
“Oooh, periwinkle,” she said, looking around theroom with delight. It was decorated in various shades of lavender and periwinkle, very feminine and cloying, Alden thought, but admitted it hadn’t been created to suit his tastes.
“I’ll have this one if you don’t mind,” she said.
“Ugh. The purple room,” Fenice said, pausing by the open doorway. She gestured farther down the hall. “My least favorite of all the colors. I’m in the red room on the other side of the bathroom, which we share. Just be sure to lock the doors when you want privacy, OK? Patrick is sleeping over the stable, he says in order to guard our equipment, but really, I think it’s so he can slip out and meet up with the ladies.”
“What ladies?” Mercy asked, looking confused.
