Love, Come to Me(38)

“I’d like something to drink,” she said, noticing abstractedly that her voice was no longer so choked and tight. She felt better already, as if coming here had given her the control she had lacked before. Knowing exactly what kind of drink she meant, Heath rose to his feet and returned shortly with a small draft of whiskey. Lucy took a sip and tightened her fingers around the glass as the liquid seared down her insides. Strange—how she could feel it burning, even though the ice inside her had not melted. “I’ve been frozen out by the entire town this week,” she said bitterly, taking another sip and coughing from the sharpness of it. “Everyone I know has managed to get a cut in one way or the other. My father told me that I couldn’t live with him any longer. The business . . . you understand.” She didn’t mention Daniel. The fact that she was here made what had transpired with Daniel obvious. “You told me once that hell was a cold place. You were right.”

Heath remained silent, picking up a poker and shifting a log in the fire to fit over the blaze more comfortably. The light shone on one side of his face, leaving the other side with the scar in darkness. He kept his expression blank, unwilling to reveal his thoughts to her. He knew that somewhere under Lucy’s defeated exterior there had to be a huge load of anger, and probably no small amount of it was directed at him. That being the case, he knew it galled her to have to accept his help. But the two of them and everyone else knew that he was the only way out for her, unless she wanted to turn her back and leave her town, her people, her whole life. He knew from experience how hard that was. God, he had wanted her, but not this way—not with her hate, not with the gratitude and sense of duty she might come to feel later. He swallowed hard, finding it difficult to accept the fact that once more he would not have what he wanted without a handful of bitters thrown in.

“I’ve thought about your offer to marry me,” Lucy continued, hearing her own voice as if it were someone else speaking. “It’s funny, isn’t it, that you’re the only one in this town who can save the last shreds of my respectability, seeing that you contributed so much to ruining it. If the offer still stands, I accept. If not, I’ll go to Connecticut to live with my aunt and uncle. Truly, I don’t care which it is, so don’t martyr yourself on my account—”

“No. It sounds like there’s enough martyring going on already,” Heath said, but she refused to respond to the gentle sting.

“Then you’ll still go through with it?” she asked.

He paused, and it seemed like forever before she heard him speak. “Only if you wear a white wedding dress.”

“Oh, I intend to,” she said grimly. “It’s my right . . . though everyone in town will say that red would be more appropriate.”

“Cinda . . .” he said slowly, his eyes searching. “You’re giving yourself to the man who ruined you.”

“You don’t deserve all the blame,” Lucy said after a long hesitation. Then she finished off the whiskey, which had helped a little to soften the hard lump in her throat, and added coldly, “After all, I wasn’t exactly kicking and screaming, was I? That’s my burden . . . you can carry the rest.”

“I don’t believe in lifelong burdens . . . or martyrdom,” Heath said, his eyes gleaming with mockery. “But since you do, I guess I’m heavy enough penance for you.”

Lucy felt a stab of uneasiness. She stared into the empty bottom of her glass. So he knew that she was marrying him to punish herself. She wondered why he was going through with this. There had been no pity in his expression, just a hard sort of amusement and maybe a trace of understanding. She tried to envision her future with him, an entire lifetime with no escape, but she couldn’t see anything except hazy darkness. And then she told herself that the future didn’t matter any longer.

“I’d like another drink,” she said.

“No, honey. I’m taking you home now, before you get too liquored up to remember what we talked about.”

“I’m a full-grown woman. I can decide what I want to do and what I don’t want, and if you don’t want that in a wife, then just forget that our discussion tonight ever took place, because I’m through with being told what—”

“Shhhh.” He took the glass from her and helped her up, his touch light and strangely reassuring. She had the strangest feeling that he understood exactly what was going through her mind. “Don’t throw away all the rules at once, honey . . . do it one by one. You can do whatever you damn well want after we’re married. For now, I’m taking you home.”

“Because I want to,” she corrected fuzzily, now utterly exhausted, “not because you’re telling me to.”

“Yes, I know,” he said gently, guiding her towards the door. She would have told him not to humor her, except that just now it felt good to be humored and helped and talked to softly. Heath was the only one in the entire world who wasn’t looking at her with the cutting gleam of judgment in his eyes, the only one who wasn’t smirking or gloating over her downfall. Whether or not he was the cause of it didn’t matter at the moment. The fact was, he knew the truth, and it was comforting to have someone believe her.

“Oh, good Lord . . . ,” Lucy murmured wearily, shaking her head. “I’m going to be the wife of a Confederate. None of the Caldwells will ever accept it.”