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her, but she mainly mourned for herself than for Grant. Why did she have to marry a man who was going to die? Of course, in a way, this was good news. That meant she wouldn’t be married to him for very long before he left this world to meet his maker.
    She pushed the heels of her hands against her eyes and groaned. Forgive me, Lord, for wishing such a thing. Thinking of Grant right now and how to make his lasts days happy were of utmost importance. He’d always been a wonderful and generous friend to her and her parents, and now was the time she would return the kindness.
    Catherine relaxed against the feather-down pillow and closed her eyes. The lumpy bed caused discomfort to her back, but she could sleep on anything. As the daughter of a Colonel she had been trained to adjust to any kind of bed since they traveled so much in her younger years.
    A lot of things had been different in her youth. After her mother’s death, her father had been stricter, and always leery. He suspected her of killing her mother, and the thought pierced through Catherine’s heart even deeper. She hadn’t remembered that night, but his accusing stare always caused her self-doubt. Insanity ran in her mother’s side of the family, he’d kept reminding her. Perhaps that’s why she didn’t recall hearing anything that awful night.
    Father had been away in the neighboring county, and she stayed home to take care of her ill mother. She’d gone to bed like she always did, but when she awoke, something was different. Not only had her mind filled with a disturbing fog, but when she walked out of her room it was as if she were floating, moving through a different house. Dishes were broken and scattered all over the kitchen floor. The padding from the sofa had been ripped and strewn across the floor. On the floor by the fireplace…her mother lay…dead. The poker rested beside her head with blood still on the tip. Her mother’s head split open as crimson liquid stained the carpet beneath her.
    Catherine shook the nightmare from her mind, turned on her side and willed herself to sleep. Trying to remember that fateful night would certainly drive her insane. Instead, she must think of more pleasant things...things like wondering if a pair of intoxicating royal blue eyes would look at her in a tender stare, exactly the way they’d gazed upon the serving woman not too long ago.
    * * * *
    Accepting Gregg’s hand, Catherine climbed down the steps of the carriage and gazed upon the house where she would be living as Grant’s wife. Its grandeur held her in awe. The grounds and the house itself were much larger than she remembered as a child. Carved gray stone held together the two-story mansion. A balcony on the second landing seemed to wrap all the way around the house. Certainly different from the other estates they’d passed.
    A butler opened the double doors for her and she entered. Then she saw him. Grant stood just inside the first of many rooms that lined the large hallway. Bits and pieces still remained in her memory, but the man before her now was nothing like what she remembered. Now he was older. Frailer.
    Although tall as Nick, Grant’s body stooped slightly as he rested on his cane for support. The years had taken away Grant’s thick black hair, replacing it with a thinner patch of prominent silver. His eyes bothered her the most. In her memory, they were a rich, chocolate brown, but not now. These were paler...sicker.
    This was wrong. All of it. Suddenly, the stress of everything consumed her, suffocating her. She couldn’t breathe, and if she didn’t do something soon, she’d become sick all over the floor. Perhaps even swoon.
    Taking a quick glance behind her, she paused. She wanted to turn and run, get far away from here. She didn’t want to go through with any of this; didn’t want to be married to a sick old man whom she’d have to nurse until his dying day. Didn’t want the responsibility of such a grand mansion with