No, Jack decided as he looked for some sign of the girl
he remembered, Mercy wasn’t well at all. She sat in the
parlor, a delicate porcelain tea cup held in one hand.
She’d been holding it for some time and had yet to take
a drink.
Mercy stared outside, but Jack suspected she wasn’t
seeing the lovely gardens or the vast sprawl of land.
She just sat and stared and the lack of movement was
almost as disturbing as the lack of emotion.
In all the time he had known Mercy Harper, he’d never
seen her go more than a few minutes without jumping out
of her seat, or running around, and chattering like a
blue jay. The stillness and the silence bothered him a
great deal. She was too contained, too controlled.
He’d expect her to try scalping him when he had told her
that he was there to watch over her. But instead of
lashing out at him, she had politely smiled. “I
appreciate the intent, Jack, but I am perfectly fine.”
It was too—polite. Mercy didn’t trouble herself with
niceties.
“Regardless, I gave Richard my word,” Jack said. He sat
on a silk covered chair that seemed as though it would
break under his weight. Mercy sat across the room. In
the pretty, feminine parlor, she should have looked out
of place in her breeches and waistcoat.
She didn’t, though. There was something innately
feminine about her, something that had just been
beginning to bloom when he had left. The swell of her
hips and the curve of her backside drew his eye and he
kept having to remind himself that he was here to watch
over her, not ogle her.
It wasn’t something he had counted on. In the years
since he had left Williamsburg, he hadn’t often thought
of Mercy, but when he did, he thought of the wily,
demanding child with tangled hair, big eyes and a mean
streak. A wide mean streak.
It was taking some time to acclimate himself to this
sad, solemn eyed woman. With the loss of her husband and
brother, that sadness was to be expected. And if she
hadn’t plugged him with silver, he could have accepted
that sad, somber exterior without a qualm.
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