A Foolish Heart (Regency Shakespeare Book 1) Page 20

  But she couldn’t feign sleep or avoid conversation forever. At the first change of horses, she sat up resignedly and was dismayed to look upon Viola and see tears in her eyes.

  “Good heavens, Vi.” She moved over to sit beside her. “What is the matter?”

  Viola met Mercy’s gaze anxiously. “I only wished to help,” she said, sniffling. “But I fear you will be very angry with me, particularly since I have already made a great muddle of everything.”

  Mercy put a hand on Viola’s back.

  “Whatever do you mean, Vi?”

  Viola’s throat bobbed, and her gaze hovered between meeting Mercy’s and avoiding it.

  “I gave Mr. Kennett your letter.”

  Mercy frowned. “My letter? What letter?”

  “Your letter,” Viola said, as if that would clear things up immediately. “The one you wrote to him a year ago.”

  Mercy stared. How did Viola even know of its existence? She shook her head. “That cannot be. I burned it.”

  Viola held her gaze, a stricken look in her eyes, and shook her head very slowly. “It didn’t burn. I saw it in the grate and...I read it. And I kept it.”

  Mercy froze, remembering holding the edge of the letter to the candle in her room and then tossing it into the grate. She hadn’t even wanted to watch it burn—it was too painful to watch her hope turn to ashes.

  But evidently she should have.

  Dismay filled her, and she clenched her eyes shut, trying to block out the image of Solomon reading it. The thought made her ears and cheeks burn.

  “You gave it to Solomon?”

  Viola nodded again, that same, slow, remorseful nod. “I thought such exquisite sentiments should not go unread.”

  “But, Vi!” Mercy suddenly felt frantic. “I was never going to give it to him! It was never meant to be read by him. If you had read it as you say you did, you would know that it says as much!”

  Viola turned her knees toward Mercy, clasping her hands in hers. “Yes, but only because you thought he was already married, and he is not!”

  Mercy let out a pained groan and allowed her head to fall back against the squabs, shaking it from side to side.

  The letter was far more candid than she would have been if she truly thought it would be read by Solomon.

  “I hadn’t any time to think,” Viola said, “for the coach was waiting, and I still hadn’t changed my clothing or packed the last of my things. But I am truly sorry if you are terribly angry with me.” She hung her head. “I believed with all my heart that you and Solomon were meant to be together, and now I have ruined everything, and I shall understand if you can never forgive me.”

  Mercy took in a long, slow breath and returned her hand to Viola’s back. She didn’t need to impress upon her cousin how wrong she had been to take the letter and give it to Solomon. Viola’s conscience was already overly active. “Oh, Vi. It was all in an irreparable muddle before you attempted anything.” Mercy sighed. “It is hardly your fault, so you mustn’t blame yourself. I certainly don’t.”

  Viola sent her a grateful smile, full of woe. “You are unfailingly kind and good.”

  Mercy looked away. She was not. It was precisely her failure to be kind and good that had created this muddle in the first place. It was not a mess of Viola’s making—she had merely intensified it.

  The coach jostled lightly as the change in horses was accomplished.

  Mercy looked out the window at the bustling yard of the inn.

  She felt Viola’s eyes upon her, earnest and urgent. “Mercy, I know you do not wish to speak of Mr. Kennett, and I shan’t say another word on the subject after this. But one thing I feel I must say: you cannot spend the rest of your life regretting your decision or blaming yourself.”

  Mercy took Viola’s hand in hers and pressed it gently. “You needn’t worry for me. I cannot promise that I shall cease to regret the past, for how could I not regret a decision so naive and so life-altering? I am sad as I think on what could have been. But I rest easier knowing that I took your advice.”

  “My advice?” Viola asked with uncertainty.

  “It was your words that convinced me to make my feelings known to Solomon, and though he could not return them, I feel at peace knowing that I at least followed my heart this time. And with the letter?” She shrugged. “He shall be in no doubt about how well and for how long I have admired him. And that is something every one of us could stand to know.”

  Viola patted her hand, too touched to speak.

  Mercy sighed. “I think I shall step out to stretch my legs. Between the sick room and traveling, I have been sitting far too much over the past few days.

  She stepped down from the carriage and let the coachman know she would be but a few minutes.

  She rolled her shoulders and tilted her neck from side to side to relieve the ache from leaning her head against the side of the coach for so long. There was no rest in sight even once she arrived at Westwood, for she would have to speak to Uncle Richard and convince him to listen to Deborah and Mr. Coburn.

  She sighed.

  The pounding of galloping hooves sounded on the dirt lane, quickly turning to a slower clopping on the cobblestone of the inn yard.

  Mercy turned, expecting to see a messenger of some type. She stilled.

  Solomon swung a leg over his horse and slid down onto the stones below, his eyes trained on her. Without taking his gaze off her, he handed a servant the reins to his horse. He looked like an entirely different person than when she had last seen him—a determined air about him so that someone unacquainted with his situation would likely not realize how acutely ill he had so recently been.

  Mercy’s stomach dropped. Had Deborah and Mr. Coburn decided to elope after all? Even after their assurances that they would follow behind?

  Whatever the reason, Solomon certainly shouldn’t be riding after all he had been through—capable and strong as he might appear.

  Sure enough, he stumbled slightly, and the servant reached out a hand to stabilize him.

  Solomon planted his two feet sturdily, thanking him. His gaze intent on Mercy, he strode toward her, pulling a paper out of his coat—the letter.

  She swallowed with difficulty, and her vision oscillated for a moment as her head spun.

  “Do you still mean this?” he asked, holding the folded paper up.

  She glanced at it, afraid to meet his eyes. She had borne her soul in that letter, and she hardly knew how to behave now that he had read it.

  But she had told Viola that she did not regret declaring her love for him, and it was true.

  Her throat caught, and she nodded wordlessly.

  His brows knit, and he shook his head. “Why did you not send it?”

  Her shoulders came up. “You were so angry and I so self-assured. And your last words to me were so final and condemning that I was sure you could never respect or love me again.”

  He shut his eyes and exhaled. “I spoke out of pain.”

  “Would you truly have forgiven me so easily if I had sent it?”

  His jaw shifted. “I don’t know. I was very hurt—for a very long time.”

  Their gazes held for a moment.

  He extended a hand toward her. “Walk with me?”

  Her heart thumped, and she glanced at the coach behind her. Viola’s head disappeared quickly from the window, and Mercy smiled. “Let me tell Viola.”

  “If you think she has not been listening to every word we have said, then you must not know her very well at all.” He opened the coach door, and Mercy stepped up a stair to peek her head in.

  Viola was reading intently from a book, though Mercy noted that her eyes glided along the page far too rapidly and haphazardly.

  “Vi,” she said in an amused voice. “I know you have seen that Solomon is here.”

  Viola looked up, the picture of surprise. “Is he?”

  Mercy looked at her quizzically, and Viola’s lips spread into a guilty smile.

  “
Oh, very well,” said Viola, shutting her book. “I did see that he had come. But it was mere happenstance and not for prying that I noted his presence.”

  “Of course,” said Mercy. She glanced at Solomon, who had stepped away from the coach and had his hands clasped behind his back, watching her with a look that made her breath catch in her chest.

  She turned back toward Viola with burning cheeks. “I am just going to stretch my legs a little more with Solomon, but I shall be back very soon.”

  Viola clasped her hands in front of her chest, her lips smiling but pressed together, as though she might burst forth into song if they came apart. “Take all the time you need!”

  Mercy’s heart beat erratically. She daren’t hope. She couldn’t allow her thoughts to venture to the place that Viola’s had likely gone the second she saw Solomon.

  She stepped down, finding Solomon’s hand clasping hers to assist her. He put out his arm, and she set her hand upon it with a fluttering of her heart.

  “What of Deborah and Mr. Coburn?” Mercy asked, anxious to fill the excruciating silence.

  “Ah,” Solomon said on a chuckle as they walked toward a small, well-worn path that wrapped around and hugged the side of the inn. “I passed them two or three miles back. I imagine they will be here in the next quarter of an hour.”

  Mercy put a hand to her chest and breathed her relief. “Thank heaven! I worried that they might have recognized their opportunity once Viola and I left and recommenced their journey to the border.”

  Solomon laughed. “I admit, I should not have been surprised if your cousin had orchestrated such a deception. But no, Mr. Coburn at least is true to his word.”

  They turned the corner, and Mercy’s skin tingled as she realized how utterly alone they were now. The din of the inn yard could still be heard, but not a soul was in sight. For company, they had only the nearby trees and a tabby cat who lay in a patch of flattened grass, watching them with a baleful stare, as though they were intruding.

  Solomon turned, bringing himself in front of Mercy and taking her hand in his.

  “Mercy.”

  Her heart thudded painfully against her chest.

  “I have been a terrific fool,” he said. “I was so hurt by your rejection of me, so determined to prove you wrong, that I refused to even try to fathom why you made the decision you did—or that it might have been the right decision.” He rubbed his thumb softly on the back of her hand. “I was so set on proving everyone wrong when I returned that I couldn’t admit I might be wrong about you.”

  She averted her eyes and shook her head. “I should have trusted you. I never should have given up on us.”

  He tipped her chin up and sought her eyes. “I was asking you to sacrifice every bit of your security, with no real guarantee of a happy outcome.”

  She swallowed, her knees shaking at his proximity. “I would have been happy being with you.”

  He shook his head. “It was too much to ask of any person. And besides”—one corner of his mouth turned up into a half-smile—“your rejection motivated me in a way nothing else could have. I was determined to prove you wrong—to achieve the success I believed you thought me incapable of.”

  He moved his hand to her cheek. “Mercy, I have loved you and only you for all these years. And, fool that I was, I thought I could erase that love by hard work, by taking revenge through my prosperity, by proving you wrong. What I failed to realize was that, in pursuing such a course, I was merely proving how dearly I loved and needed you—how much I wished to regain your love and respect.”

  She set her hand atop his, pressing it more firmly into her cheek. “I never stopped loving you, Solomon. Much as I thought I could. It was a long and hard-won lesson.” She held his gaze intently. “You are all I have ever truly wanted, rich or poor. And I promise you that I shall prove my love to you if you but grant me the chance.”

  He wrapped a hand around her waist, pulling her toward him so closely she couldn’t be certain whether the pounding she felt against her chest was his heart or her own.

  He pressed his forehead against hers, and she closed her eyes, inhaling the scent she had missed for two long years.

  “Forgive me,” she whispered.

  “Only if you forgive me.”

  “There is nothing to forgive.”

  He pressed his mouth to hers, moving his hand from her cheek to the back of her neck where its warmth traveled down her spine.

  Little tremors rippled through her and, feeling her head spin, she wrapped her arms around him, grasping at the back of his coat to steady herself.

  She had kissed Solomon before, but this was something entirely new. Intoxicating and exhilarating so that her skin tingled and her lashes fluttered. Her heart, slowing from the exhausting thudding of the past ten minutes, began to ache with love for him, with the sweetness of what she hadn’t dared let herself hope for.

  His fingers moved upward, threading through her hair and grasping it, just as her hands grasped at his coat.

  He stepped back, mouth still pressed to hers, and she had no choice but to follow him, for he held her tightly about the waist—and she would have followed him anywhere even were it not.

  His back thudded lightly against the wall of the inn, and he tugged her closer, closing a distance Mercy hadn’t even thought existed. Their lips moved urgently, and Mercy felt the back of her hands meet the wall, the only physical evidence that the world around them still existed.

  Their lips separated, and Solomon’s chest heaved in concert with hers. He smiled breathlessly and righted her bonnet, which had fallen back. “Is it safe to say that we have forgiven one another?”

  Mercy put a hand to her hot cheek and laughed. “I believe so.”

  He leaned down to kiss her again, gentle and soft this time, letting their lips hover and brush against each other for a moment. Once they parted, she breathed in before opening her eyes, savoring a moment that felt too good to possibly be real. She could stay this way forever, in Solomon’s arms.

  She opened her eyes and glanced at the corner of the inn. “Viola will be wondering where we have gone off to.”

  “Undoubtedly,” said Solomon. “She will no doubt believe us to have fled toward Gretna on foot or some such romantic nonsense.”

  Mercy’s eyes glazed over, and her mouth pulled into a conspiratorial grin.

  “What?” Solomon asked, narrowing his eyes at her. “Why do you smile so?”

  “What if it wasn’t nonsense?” Mercy asked, surprised at her own daring.

  Solomon looked nonplussed.

  “What if we did flee to Gretna?” she asked.

  Seeing Solomon open his mouth to expostulate, she rushed to say, “Not on foot, of course. But”— she looked at him through her lashes, suddenly feeling shy—“I see no reason why we should wait to be married.”

  He looked at her, amusement in his eyes. “Perhaps because we have just spent the last three days persuading your cousin against that very thing!”

  Mercy brushed away his words with a hand. “Yes, but that is different. You and I have no need of our families’ approval to marry. In fact, much as I love my family, I have little interest at all in hearing what they have to say to my decision. I know what I want.” She reached a hand up and fingered the piece of hair that had dropped down on his forehead. “Besides, we needn’t be overly concerned with what Society thinks when our future is thousands of miles away from here.” She went up on her tiptoes to press her lips to his and felt his lips smile through the kiss.

  “You are very persuasive,” he said softly, kissing her again.

  She pulled away. “Of course, I don’t wish you to feel pressured or entrapped. I would be mortified to discover that you had left a note behind. Help. On the road to Gretna Green. Unwillingly.”

  “Ha!” He threw his head back and took her by the hand. “I have been waiting to marry you for more than two years now. If I could find a way to get us to Scotland tonight, it wouldn’t be soon
enough for me.” He looked down at her in a way that brought a flush of heat through her. “Gretna it is.”

  They kissed, as if it were a pact.

  Mercy smiled widely, and Solomon pulled her along toward the front of the inn, bringing them to a halt as they turned the corner.

  Viola stood in conference with Deborah and Mr. Coburn. Her mouth formed an “o” as she spotted Mercy and Solomon, and she directed the gazes of the other two toward them.

  “Ah.” Solomon linked his arm with Mercy’s. “This is ideal, for I was not at all certain how we were to make our way to Gretna when all I brought was a horse.”

  “Oh.” Mercy frowned. “I hadn’t even considered that. And what should Viola have done, left to herself here?”

  “I imagine she would have found it the very adventure she has been wishing for.”

  Mercy chuckled. He was probably right.

  “Now she may accompany your cousin and Mr. Coburn back to Westwood.”

  “And where might you two have been?” asked Deborah with a mischievous glance at Mercy.

  “Planning our elopement,” Solomon said unapologetically.

  Mercy turned her head, directing a censuring glance at him, which, by the provoking way he looked at her, seemed to please him greatly.

  Viola looked as if she hardly dared believe such a magnificent revelation; Mr. Coburn too seemed unsure how much stock to put in Solomon’s words; and Deborah looked back and forth between Mercy and Solomon for an explanation.

  “You are entirely serious,” she said wonderingly. She set a hand on her hip. “Well, of all the things! Very hypocritical, I call it”—her mouth turned up into a smile—“though naturally I wish to congratulate you, for I couldn’t imagine two people more meant for one another than you two—saving my Frederick and me, of course.” She smiled up at him adoringly, and he kissed her forehead. “But I do think you owe Frederick and me your thanks, Mercy, for if we hadn’t eloped, who is to say that you and Mr. Kennett would have sorted everything out?”