Chapter 15
Rory disentangled the stranger’s head net and pulled it off to reveal his face.
A middle-aged man with thinning gray hair and rectangular wire-rimmed glasses peered back at him.
His vibe was more accountant than commando.
He was sweating profusely from his trek through the jungle, and gratefully accepted a tin cup of water from Sasha.
“Are you Mathilda Wheeler?” he repeated, looking at Mathilda.
“No,” she blurted, surprising everyone. “I mean, yes, but no, I’m not interested in hearing your message.” She turned to flee back into the tent, but Diane and Robert blocked her way.
“Girl, you can’t do this to us.” Diane brushed her beaded locs away from her face. “This is the juiciest thing to happen here since…well, since that plane crash three days ago. Why aren’t you dying to know what he’s here for?”
Mathilda didn’t answer.
“He came all this way, looking like a jackass,” Robert added. “Maybe you should hear him out.”
She shot the two of them such a look of betrayal that Rory sighed with relief that he himself hadn’t chimed in. He too was extremely curious. Had she won the lottery? Gotten an inheritance? Received an award?
“Fine.” Mathilda walked back to the man in camouflage and folded her arms across her chest. “Let’s get it over with. Who are you, first of all?”
“My name is Philip Phelps, and I’m a barrister from London.” He handed the tin cup back to Sasha. “Can you confirm your identity, if you please? Are you in fact Mathilda Daisy Spencer-Sutton Wheeler?”
What a name. One with hyphens. One that none of the others seemed to recognize.
Mathilda glanced around the group of researchers, then stared at the ground. “I am.”
She certainly didn’t seem happy about that. Rory had never seen her so subdued. He was used to the dynamic, free-spirited, expressive Mathilda, not this resigned, rueful woman.
“Go ahead. Let’s hear the message.”
Philip Phelps ponderously dropped down to one knee. Among the crew, mouths dropped open as they watched. Only Mathilda didn’t seem surprised.“This message is verbatim from Duncan Aberdeen to Mathilda Wheeler. It goes, ‘Mathilda, would you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?’”
Rory froze. This was a proposal? It was either the most bizarre or the most romantic one he’d ever witnessed. Along with his surprise, something else moved inside him. Jealousy? Or maybe panic? Say no. Say no. Give me a chance.
“Is that it?” Mathilda asked, her face showing no emotion. “That’s the whole message?”
“No, there’s more, but it’s in written form.
” Phelps patted various pockets of his camo jacket until he found the one he was looking for.
He withdrew a sheaf of folded papers. “You can read it at your leisure. Now is there perhaps a loo I could visit?” He climbed back to his feet, accepting a helping hand from Robert.
“There’s an outhouse,” Mathilda said absently as she took the packet of papers. “But if you only have to pee, you can go in the jungle.”
The man looked like he wanted to cry. Sasha bustled forward and took charge of him. “Here, let me show you around. We’ll get you taken care of. Tell me about your journey. Did you really come all the way from England?” She guided him toward the outhouse.
The others gathered around Mathilda, asking questions, chattering. “Who’s Duncan Aberdeen? Are you going to say yes? That was insane. Did anyone record that?” That sort of thing.
Rory caught the expression on Mathilda’s face—trapped, desperately uncomfortable—and clapped his hands. “Hey! Everyone! Let’s give Mathilda some space, okay? Don’t you have projects to work on? What about that chore chart? Have you done your task for the day?”
After the scientists had all dispersed—even Bjorn, who looked shellshocked—he stepped toward Mathilda. She was still staring at the folded-up papers as if they held some kind of curse that would be released if she opened them.
“Are you okay?” he asked gently.
She didn’t answer for a long moment. Just when he was wondering if he should let her be, she finally looked up and released a long, wistful sigh. “Let me ask you something, Lincoln. Do you feel like your own person?”
“How do you mean?” he asked warily. Right now, he sort of wasn’t his own person. He was someone else. Should he answer her question as Rory or as Lincoln?
“I mean, your family, I know they’re wealthy. You’re the CEO of your family’s business. Do you feel more like a Kerr or like…Lincoln? Like a person or like a set of duties and responsibilities?”
Damn. If only he could say “neither, I’m Rory Baker and I’m just a pilot” and be done with this charade. He’d been intending to do just that, until Philip Phelps dropped his bombshell. This didn’t seem like a good moment to let loose another one.
He searched his mind for an answer that would ease the unhappiness from her face. “Everyone has responsibilities. We try to do our best for the people we love.”
That statement held the ring of truth, because it was true for Rory. He did do his best for the people he loved. Did Lincoln? Honestly, he had no idea. If his sister was actually suing him, the answer was probably no.
She looked back at the sheaf of papers. “Do you ever feel like you’re in a prison that was built before you were even born?”
Her wistful tone made his heart twist. The answer to her question was “not really.” His family obligations didn’t feel like a burden to him.
They felt like an expression of love. He adored his grandmother.
He deeply loved his brother. The fact that he had the ability to make enough money to support them all was a blessing.
Gently, he pulled her over to the plastic lawn chairs around the fire pit, dusted two of them off, and sat her down next to him.
“Do you want to tell me about it? You don’t have to,” he added quickly.
“But if you want to, I’m here. It sounds like…
well, like you think I can relate to your situation. ”
He’d certainly try his hardest.
She let out a tiny sob. “I’m embarrassed to tell anyone here about it. They wouldn’t understand. But you might because you’re, well, because you’re you. You’re probably the only one here who would get it.”
God damn it. He shifted uncomfortably on his lawn chair.
What he wouldn’t give to be able to go back in time and make a different choice after the crash.
Everything she was about to tell him was under false pretenses.
But she clearly needed to talk. So he shushed his conscience and let her spill her guts.
“My mother comes from an aristocratic family in England. The Spencer-Suttons go back all the way to the Wars of the Roses. In the 1800s, one of my ancestors, Rupert Spencer-Sutton, fell wildly in love. There was just one problem. The love of his life was a man, the Marquess of Aberdeen. The marquess loved him back, but it was a doomed romance because obviously they couldn’t marry.
But they wanted to unite their bloodlines somehow.
So they created this special trust, it’s all written up in official royal-approved papers, that could only be accessed if a member of the Spencer-Sutton family married a member of the Aberdeen family.
The title, Marquess of Aberdeen, would go dormant until that happened. ”
Rory’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead as he listened to her story. So Mathilda came from an aristocratic bloodline. That put her squarely out of his league. “Has it ever happened, an Aberdeen marrying a Spencer-Seymour?”
“Spencer-Sutton. Oh yes. Twice since then, the two families were joined in marriage. But it’s only happened two times in two centuries.
There was almost always an issue preventing a match—the ages didn’t line up, or the genders didn’t.
In the case of my mother, she nearly married an Aberdeen, but then she met my father, who’s an absolute dreamboat who swept her off her feet.
He’s American, and he had plenty of family money of his own.
So she didn’t mind walking away from the trust and all that. ”
She caught his surprised glance, and bristled.
“Yes, my parents are rich, but that doesn’t mean I am, so you can wipe that look off your face.”
“It’s just that you’ve been giving me a hard time about billionaires ever since we met.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I have some built-up frustration with the whole thing and I took it out on you. But I’m just as bad as you are.”
As Lincoln is, Rory wanted to scream.
“I pay my own way, but I know that if I’m ever in a tough spot, I can go to my parents.
Not everyone has that. They’d probably write a check for everything we need at this camp, but I choose other methods of fundraising.
And now there’s this.” She looked down at the folded sheets of paper in her hand.
“From an Aberdeen, I assume?”
“Duncan Aberdeen. He’s of marriageable now and he probably wants that title. Why wouldn’t he? The Brits love titles. My grandmother never forgave my mother for walking away from the title. She’s almost eighty now, and she’d be so happy if I became the Marchioness of Aberdeen.”
She said those words wistfully.
“But it’s up to you, right?”
“It is. Ultimately, it’s my choice. But there’s more to it.
The bequest—they call it the Aberdeen Bequest—expires if no one has claimed it in a hundred years.
It’s been over ninety-nine years since that last marriage.
If Duncan and I don’t marry, it will end.
There will never be another Marquess of Aberdeen.
And all the money in the account, which has been accruing interest for a hundred years…
actually, I don’t know what happens to it.
That lawyer probably knows. Ugh. I don’t even want to read this.
Do you have any idea how much pressure everyone is going to put on me? ”
She shoved the papers at him and buried her face in her hands.
With one hand filled with her proposal, he used the other to gently rub her back.
This was a lot to take in. The adorable Mathilda, who he’d appreciated for her scientific passion and nerdy vibes—and the way she looked in boots and shorts—turned out to be part of the English nobility.
Not only that, she had family money of her own.
She was sharing all this now because she thought he would understand, since Lincoln too was loaded.
She was going to absolutely despise him when she learned the truth.
Did it even matter, if she was about to marry a British lord and become a wealthy marchioness? They’d probably never see each other again.
His curiosity got the best of him; he glanced down at the papers.
Just then a gust of wind blew through the camp and wafted them out of his hand.
He jumped up to chase them down. By the time he’d gathered them all up, they were a mess, some upside down, some backwards.
He glanced at the page on top, and froze.
“Mathilda, you might want to look at this.”