Page 18 of Mercy Fletcher Meets Her Match

A scratch at the study door pulled Thomas’ attention from the papers strewn across the desk, which he had been attempting, for the last half hour or so, to sort into some semblance of order. A difficult and thankless task, but one which he had hoped would prove itself useful, since his trip earlier in the day to the Bank of England had not. Apparently, there were doors that not even a title could open. He’d managed to confirm nothing more than that Fordham did indeed possess an account within the institution.

Which they had already known, he and Mercy. At the very least, it was one more location that he could be certain that Fordham would return to—eventually.

“Enter,”

he said distractedly as the scratch came again, and as the door swept open he glanced up at last. “Mother,”

he said, his voice gone tight and hoarse. With a renewed sense of urgency, he began to scrape documents off the desk into a neat stack. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

She offered a small smile as she wandered in. “To the fact that I recalled that we do, indeed, share the same house,”

she said, her gaze sliding across the bookshelves that wreathed the room. “You have been so absent of late, Thomas. Far more so than you usually are during the Season. We’ve hardly seen you.”

“I was at breakfast,”

he said, though it took effort to restrain the wince that wanted to creep across his face. For once, Mother’s swift, chiding glance seemed to say, and she was not wrong. He’d missed rather more meals than he’d attended of late.

“Yes,”

she said. “But you weren’t present, Thomas, not really. You’ve missed so much.”

“Oh?”

He swept the last of the papers off the desk just as Mother settled into the chair before the desk and folded her hands in her lap, and for a moment he was reminded of the rare audiences Father had once granted to his wife and his children—as if he had been a king presiding over his court. His approval sparing; his condescension doled out with a heavy hand.

Now it was Thomas who had taken up the mantle of the family patriarch. Weeks already into the Season, and this the first Mother had broached his lack of attention to it. Had he already cultivated too much of Father’s indifference?

He had never wanted to be a man in Father’s image. And yet, in striving to be the sort of baron his family deserved, that his tenants deserved, somehow he had come too damned close to it anyway. Too much a baron. Not nearly enough a son, a brother.

Tucking away the last of the papers within a disused drawer, he settled into his chair. “I’m sorry,”

he said. “You’re right. I have been absent of late. You always seem to muddle on well enough without me, I suppose I never stopped to consider whether my presence—or lack thereof—was strictly necessary.”

“Of course it is not always necessary, Thomas. That is to say, we understand that you have a great deal of responsibilities to manage, that there will be times that your attention will be elsewhere. But we do miss you when you are gone.”

She smoothed a few wrinkles from her lilac skirts. “I worry,”

she said, “that you will miss the most important moments. Juliet, I think, is not seriously interested in any one gentleman this Season, but Marina—”

“Marina has got a suitor?”

“You needn’t sound so surprised,”

Mother snipped.

“I’m not surprised,”

he said. “I’m only—”

Surprised. Not because Marina was not a lovely girl, deserving of a decent gentleman, but because he’d somehow missed a courtship. But, then, he’d missed more events than he’d attended, or arrived late, or left early. “You’re right,”

he said again. “I suppose I have missed more than I ought to have done. Tell me what I have missed. Has the gentleman in question come to call?”

“Not exactly,”

Mother said, with a hint of a wince. “Truth to tell, Thomas, the gentleman in question might not be…well, suitable.”

“Not suitable? What the devil does that mean?”

“He’s a bookseller,”

Mother blurted out. “Well-heeled, I suppose, but she must know he is not the sort of gentleman she is meant to encourage. She’s said nothing of it yet, so I can only guess she is conflicted about it.”

Thomas felt his brow furrow. “How did you discover it, then, if she hasn’t told you?”

“For God’s sake, Thomas, I’m not a fool. She asks to visit the bookshop thrice a week, when she has got a dozen novels she hasn’t so much as glanced at since they were purchased. And I could hardly fail to notice that we’ve encountered the same gentleman at the opera, in the park, at the shops.”

She gave a vague gesture, half a shrug.

But never at a ball, or a dinner party, or any of those social events which were intrinsic parts of Marina’s life. “And you’ve said nothing to her?”

“What am I meant to say, Thomas? It’s only a harmless bit of flirtation thus far. She’s not had a proper suitor in all her Seasons out, and I am loath to deny her a small bit of pleasure in it.”

Mother gave a short sigh, pressing the tips of her fingers to the bridge of her nose. “There is nothing to say of it,”

she said, “because, strictly speaking, nothing has happened. But I would like you to consider, Thomas, what you would say of it.”

“Marina could do better than a merchant,”

he said. “Even a wealthy one. What would you say of it?”

Mother pursed her lips, drew in a short, sharp breath. “That it is my fervent hope that my children—all of my children—will choose happiness first. All the money in the world could not hope to buy it.”

“She can just as easily find happiness with someone of suitable social standing.”

“Could she?”

Mother inquired. And then: “Could you?”

His brows arched toward his hairline. “What do you mean by that?”

Mother gave an aggravated little gesticulation of her hands. “Do you think it has escaped my notice that when you are at home, you inevitably retreat to the billiards room with Mercy? That on those rare occasions you dance, it is only with her? Just because I have not remarked upon it does not mean I have not noticed.”

“I—I—”

Thomas snapped his jaw shut and tried again. “That is t—t—to say—”

Christ. The abrupt thickness of his tongue, the knot that had formed in his throat, prevented clear speech. He scrubbed his hands over his jaw, which felt as though it had locked up entirely.

“Thomas,”

Mother said gently, and she reached out one hand to him. “I adore Mercy. We all do. I would offer you the same advice. If you are lucky enough to have found someone who makes you happy, do not sacrifice that happiness on the altar of societal expectations. It is such a rare and precious thing. Don’t you think?”

It was a long moment before that wretched tightness faded enough to speak clearly, and he took his time, breathing through his nose as he collected himself and his thoughts. At last, when he trusted himself to speak, he admitted, “I am going to marry her.”

Because she did make him happy. He was happiest when he was with her, and that happiness—it was precious.

“Does Mercy know that?”

Mother asked.

“Not yet.”

And neither did her father, which would be a problem of its own. “But she will. I can’t ask her just yet. Not until—”

He caught himself, felt his shoulders draw back tight at the realization of what he had almost confessed.

Mother had all but accused him of hypocrisy, and she was more right than she knew. He’d been holding two sets of standards in his head; one for himself and one for Marina. Hell, he had practically extorted Mercy for her secret, while keeping one of such magnitude from his own family.

Still there was that little voice in his head, that nasty murmur at the back of his mind jeering at him for his weakness, for the very thought of conceding the point. He was meant to be the patriarch of the family, the one in control, in command. He was meant to be better.

But the only way to be better was to do better. He had always meant to be a better man than his father had been. A better brother, a better son.

God willing, he would be a far better husband.

They deserved that of him, all of them. Of its own accord, his hand fell upon the drawer wherein he’d stashed all those papers, those documents that held the evidence of the ruin he’d made of their finances. A problem he hadn’t yet solved, but one which Mother deserved to know of. And he said, “There is something we must discuss.”

∞∞∞

It was not done, Mercy knew, to decline the offer of a dance without due reason, most especially if one intended to dance later in the evening. It would have been a snub in the truest sense of the word, and even if she had not truly wished to dance with the few gentlemen who had asked—those that had less interest in her than they had in the dowry with which she came—she did intend to dance with Thomas, when he got around to asking.

Once. Only once, though they might have gotten away with twice, had either of them the boldness to do it. For the first time in the Season he’d been present all evening, but then, she now knew precisely why he could be.

There was nothing much that could be done for the next week to locate his missing solicitor, and so she—they—would at last have his attention for more than a handful of moments at a time. And even if she had danced a half a dozen times already, still he had waited there at the edge of the ballroom beside his mother, without seeking a partner of his own.

He had never quite managed to suppress a glower whenever she had gone off for a dance, and it…pleased her, just a little, that he disliked it so plainly. Like a hint of possessiveness he could not conceal, and which she would never have expected of him.

One could know a person for years and years, she thought, and still not know them at all.

She had just handed off her empty glass of champagne to a passing servant when a familiar face broke through the crowd of people seeking their next partners.

“Mr. Earnshaw,”

she said as he arrived before her. “How lovely to see you again.”

And she did mean it, since he had been kind and amiable the last few times they had spoken. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw Thomas straighten and tense.

“And you, Miss Fletcher,”

Mr. Earnshaw said with a smile. “I thought you might be interested to learn that I’ve heard from your father. My thanks for your assistance, there.”

“It was my pleasure,”

she said. “May I assume your proposal has met with success?”

“Only on your account, I am convinced. But yes, your father was amenable to my terms. In fact, he’s asked me to visit his mill when next he is in town, which I understand should be soon. A good thing, that, as I might have missed him otherwise. I’m due back in Boston in a few weeks. But at least I will return bearing good news indeed for the ladies of Boston, who might otherwise be forced to resign themselves to inferior fabrics,”

he said, with a cheeky grin.

“Flatterer,”

Mercy accused, laughing. “You have got what you came for already; there isn’t the least need to play to my ego.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,”

he said. “In fact, I came for that dance you promised when last we met. Have you got this one free?”

“I have,”

Mercy said. But as she extended her hand, Thomas stepped between them, seizing it in his instead, and Mercy found herself swept away from the wall and past a startled Mr. Earnshaw.

“Bad luck, Earnshaw,”

Thomas cast over his shoulder as he pulled her along. “She’s promised this one to me.”

“I had not,”

Mercy protested as he led her away. “Really, Thomas. You might have asked!”

“I was waiting for a waltz,”

he said, and as if the musicians had been waiting for just that moment to strike up their instruments, the first notes of a waltz hummed in the air. “Bit difficult to hold a private conversation during a quadrille.”

She pressed her lips together to stifle a laugh as he swung her through a turn. “You had every occasion for a conversation while neither of us were engaged to dance.”

“Bit difficult to hold a private conversation while in eavesdropping distance of my mother,”

he said dryly. “She has ears like a fox, and she’s nosier than you might expect. But really,”

he added, “I just didn’t want you to dance with him.”

“Whyever not? He’s a nice man,”

she said. “He is charming, genteel—”

“He has designs upon you.”

“Designs! Thomas, please, he has got designs upon my father’s good opinion. Nothing more.”

So surprised was she by his assertion that she had nearly stepped upon his toes.

“A man can always tell,”

he insisted. “He might have approached you because of your father initially, but he wasted no time coming to claim a dance this evening. I saw him arrive just moments ago. He made straight for you as soon as he’d caught sight of you.”

“Because he is a man of his word!”

she said. “He asked if I might save him a dance when last we met, and I agreed. Honestly, Thomas, you sound as if you are practically eaten up with jealousy, and for nothing.”

But he’d not much liked any of the other times she’d danced, either. “If you keep glaring at my dance partners as you have been doing this evening, people will begin to wonder at your behavior.”

“Then let them wonder,”

he said, and she envied him his steadiness, the rote repetition of dance steps he could keep in his head without even the slightest error, when he had knocked her senses askew so severely that she struggled to keep the rhythm of the dance. “I spoke with my mother today,”

he said, sotto voce. “And I told her the truth. I told her what has happened, the circumstances we are currently in. Why I have been so absent of late. How I intend to remedy our situation.”

“Did you?”

Mercy resisted the urge to peek back at the baroness. “She’s given no indication of it. I would have thought there would be some distress.”

“It would seem she has more confidence in me to resolve it than I have had in myself just lately,”

he said. “She wishes for it to remain a secret from the girls, particularly Juliet. She’s a bit prone to dramatics on occasion. We shouldn’t like to make her first Season one full of worry.”

“I won’t say anything of it.”

“I know you won’t,”

he said. “You’re not one to betray a confidence. I told my mother also that I intend to marry you.”

Mercy missed the next step and trod directly upon his toes, and to his credit he did not betray her misstep with so much as the tiniest of flinches. “Oh, Lord. Thomas—”

He gave a small shake of his head. “I’m not asking. Not yet, not when I haven’t the right to ask. Not when asking now would make me no better than the rest of them. But when I have caught up with Fordham, when I have recovered our family funds—then, I will ask. I only wanted you to know.”

“And to this”—this utter lunacy—“your mother said…what, precisely?”

“She thinks I’m a fool not to have married you straight off. Not because your dowry could replenish our coffers, mind you, but because she has always adored you.”

He drew her to a stop, and she realized that the music had ended at last, that their dance had concluded.

The only one they would be permitted.

“I don’t want you dancing with Earnshaw,”

he said, “because you are going to marry me. I have got a week going spare while we wait for Fordham to reappear, and I mean to use it to the best advantage I can manage.”

He tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and led her from the floor once more.

“Which is?”

she inquired, and he turned her not toward the baroness, who waited with the girls upon their next partners, but toward the door of the ballroom.

“To make certain that when I do ask,”

he said, “you will agree.”

He laid his free hand over her own, his fingers warm and strong as they grasped hers. “Billiards?” he asked.

And she found herself strangely glad to be the wallflower she had always been. Nobody noticed as they walked out of the doors and into the night.