Gingerbread Bride

Chapter Two: Part 1

            

Usually, he hated admitting his weakness. In his own mind, he feared the doctor was wrong about his eventual recovery, and he sometimes wondered if the decision to keep the leg was doing him any favors. Somehow, he didn't mind Mary knowing about the pesky thing.

Perhaps because he knew she wouldn't make a fuss. In London, his male friends had looked away, embarrassed, and his sister and her friends had hovered over him and fussed around till he was ready to scream.

Mary just said, "Very well."

They sat in silence for a few minutes.

Rick broke the silence. "May I inquire about your intended direction, Mary?"

She frowned at him, then looked pointedly away. "Am I in another bumble-broth from which you must rescue me, you mean?"

He smiled back. "Are you? I would be happy to be of service, you know."

"I am no longer nine, thank you, Lieutenant Redepenning." Her voice dripped ice. "I would not at all wish to further inconvenience you."

Miss Mary was in a taking. What had he done to offend her? Rick hazarded a guess. "I called on you in London. Did you know?"

She turned startled eyes to him. "You did? When?" Then, brows drawing together, she asked, "Did my aunt send you to find me?"

So she had run away. "I called several times. Not recently. Not since your aunt told me that you had no wish to see me."

An angry huff of air escaped. "She... I... That..." Mary swallowed whatever words might have finished the interrupted sentences, taking to her feet to march up and down the small, flat ledge, with her lips tightly pressed together, as if to stop any further outburst.

Rick waited. Her angers were sudden, but quickly over. In a few more strides, she would be calm again. How pretty she was, with indignation coloring her cheeks under the light dusting of freckles.

She stopped in front of him, looking down. "Rick, I had no idea you had visited, and I certainly never gave such a message. I would never turn away..." She blushed a little more, and finished, "...someone who served with my father."

Rick wondered what she first thought to say.

"My aunt takes too much on herself." She fairly quivered with indignation.

He ventured another guess: "And is that why you're here, Mary? Your aunt taking too much on herself?"

Mary didn't answer; not directly. "I am going to Haslemere to live with my Aunt Dorothy and my Aunt Marjery. I find the frivolous life does not suit me" She frowned down at the rooftops. "It is not far, is it?"

He accepted the change of subject, levering himself back to his feet. "Shall we have a go at this path, Mary? I can hear the coachman and his ducklings up on the road above us, and I would like to secure rooms at the inn before they arrive."