15. Chapter 15 #2
Dropping the envelope onto the desk, he crossed to the upholstered chair next to his armoire, dropped into the seat, and propped his feet upon the matching ottoman. Tilting the page to catch the light from the gas sconce mounted on the wall above his head, he returned to her words.
You will probably think me foolish, heaven knows my father and sister thought me so, but I wish to explain my feelings so that perhaps you might not think too badly of me when you learn of my deception.
Deception? Zane's feet fell to the floor and braced his body as he straightened in his chair. The warmth that had been running through him cooled several degrees and caused his stomach to tighten.
That day on the beach, as I held you in my arms and prayed for the Lord to spare your life, something happened to me.
I don't want to call it love, because how can a person fall in love with someone they've never met?
But something shifted inside me. The best description I can offer is that it felt as if my heart recognized yours.
Like combing through the sand and finding one of them fancy shatelanes with a key still attached and knowing without even trying that it fit the lock on the door of my heart.
Zane frowned. Her grammar had slipped, and she'd misspelled chatelaine.
More than that, she talked about the waist chain as if it were a rare object, not something every housekeeper wore on her belt.
Yet her analogy fit his experience. She, at least, had been conscious at their first meeting.
He'd literally been half-dead, yet he'd still felt a pull to find her.
Felt the mysterious connection binding them.
When I first saw you at your home, and you said that you had hoped to see me again, I thought . . . maybe you felt it, too. So perhaps you will understand why I did what I did.
Did what? Impatiently, he shoved the first page of her letter behind the others and poured over the second page.
I wanted so badly to find you, but I didn't know how. Until a friend of mine told me about the Matchmaker. This woman had connections all over town. She could help me find you. Better than that, she could convince your parents that I was a suitable candidate for your affection.
Mrs. Underhill did not wish to take me on as a client, however.
I had to take extreme measures to convince her, and once she agreed, she made it clear that the only way she would help me would be if I helped her in return.
I gave her my word that I would do so. Then she made me promise that I would follow her instructions to the letter.
Those instructions included me pretending to be temporarily mute.
I cannot give you the reasons. Not yet, anyway.
I shouldn't even be telling you this much, but after your reaction to the news of my false injury, I couldn't let you go on thinking that you were to blame.
My voice is not impaired. It's probably coated with a thick layer of rust by now, but you caused me no harm.
Zane – I'm in a tangle. I've involved myself with a spider, and now I'm caught in her web.
You and I don't know each other well yet, and I understand that you have no reason to trust me, but I'm taking a chance by trusting you.
Please keep my secret. Just for a few weeks.
I'll explain everything after I fulfill my duty to Mrs. Underhill.
I pray that you and God both will forgive my role in this deception. As much as I would like to blame the entire scheme on Mrs. Underhill, I agreed to participate, and therefore bear equal responsibility.
I care for you, Zane. Honestly and truly.
Please don't end our courtship before it begins.
But if you feel you must, I will understand.
If our positions were reversed, I would have a hard time trusting someone with my heart if he hadn't been trustworthy in other matters.
I do promise that I will never lie to you from this point forward. Every word I write will be truth.
Forgive me.
Muriel
Zane's hand dropped like an anchor, the weight of her words suddenly too heavy for him to hold the letter aloft. He sank against the cushioned back of his chair, air expelling from his lungs on a quiet groan.
She'd deceived him. She'd come into his house and pretended to be something she wasn't. Why?
To play on his sympathies? To trick him into offering for her?
Was she like all the rest—more interested in the Erickson name and inheritance than in Zane himself?
He felt as if he were drowning all over again.
Lost and thrashing in dark waters, unable to determine up from down, truth from mirage.
Like a lifeline tossed into his murky sea, Grandpa Clem's words came back to him. Just because a woman is perfect for you, don't mean she's perfect. Best not expect her to be.
How had he known? Had he sensed something amiss about her? But wait. Why would he imply she was perfect for him?
Memories from their meeting in the parlor fed his gasping heart.
Muriel's hands on his face, eyes imploring him to believe that her lost voice was her fault, not his.
Her note insisting he wasn't to blame. Her insistence that her voice would return.
She hadn't been completely forthright, but she'd not taken advantage of his distress either.
Recollections of Muriel singing to the Lord with all her heart, her spirit laid bare in every note, swirled through his mind.
No one could worship like that without having an authentic relationship with the Father.
She'd not been putting on a show. She'd been in a secluded place, singing only for the ears of heaven. He'd been the interloper.
Yet if she were devout, how could she also be a deceiver?
Mrs. Underhill.
There had definitely been something shifty about that woman.
Yet his mother had employed her, so he'd assumed her to be respectable.
Perhaps not. He shuffled from the third page back to the first and read the entire letter again, this time approaching the document like a blueprint—shelving his emotions and focusing on the details.
Fact number one. Muriel cared for him.
She could have lied about that, but it made no sense that she would admit to being dishonest about her ability to speak in that case.
If she intended to manipulate his feelings for her, confessing her deception would jeopardize her agenda.
Besides, every moment he'd spent in her company proved she genuinely enjoyed being with him.
She was too young to be that accomplished an actress.
Fact number two. Mrs. Underhill was pressuring Muriel to do things she wasn't comfortable with.
Muriel had tiptoed around the details, but on closer examination, Zane deduced some troubling signs.
Her conscience protested the deception. She wanted to be honest but didn't feel like she could.
She felt trapped. Webs and spiders. And what of this mysterious task she'd promised to do for Mrs. Underhill?
Perhaps Muriel was the one truly being manipulated, not him. Zane's jaw clenched.
Fact number three. Muriel believed his parents would not approve of her if she didn't hide parts of herself.
Why? He couldn't puzzle it out. Why would her voice be a detriment?
She outshone most opera performers. Perhaps the trouble pertained to her speaking voice?
But why would that matter? He turned back to the section in her letter about the chatelaine.
A misspelling didn't mean much, but unfamiliarity with an item common in most households might.
An item common in most wealthy households.
Was that the issue? Was she not the lady of society the matchmaker had made her out to be?
Her letter proved her to be literate and possessed of a basic education, but perhaps she was not of his class.
Perhaps her way of speaking would make that disparity obvious.
But if that were the case, how did she come to be a student at the Ursuline Academy?
A school known to serve the daughters of the elite.
Zane pushed up from his chair and paced the length of his room, putting together a few facts from his side of the equation.
Fact number one. He cared for her.
That hadn't changed. The devastation he'd felt at the initial reading of her letter only confirmed the engagement of his heart.
Fact number two. He owed her his protection.
Whether anything came of their relationship or not, she was a young woman floundering in matters over her head. She'd saved him from drowning. It seemed only right that he repay her in kind.
Fact number three. He didn't care one iota about her social standing or lack thereof.
Grandpa Clem told stories all the time about how happy he and Grandma Iris had been in their small, one-room cabin when they first married.
Money didn't equal happiness. Love did. If he were fortunate enough to find love with Muriel, he'd not let such a barrier stand in his way.
Even if his father chose to disinherit him, which he might, Zane wouldn't think twice.
In the meantime, Muriel needed him, and he intended to be there for her. Though he planned to keep his eyes as open as his heart.