Page 6 of Mercy Fletcher Meets Her Match

The thread tangled in Mercy’s fingers for perhaps the tenth time in the last hour or so, and she bit back a sigh as she delicately worked the needle backward through the fabric in the hope of unraveling the knot. She winced in the glow of the candlelight as she searched for the offending knot amidst a chaotic backdrop of untidy stitches and fraying threads, uncomfortably aware that she was the only lady present who had had such difficulty maintaining her concentration. Even Juliet, who still possessed all the exuberance of her youth, hadn’t had the slightest issue keeping her thread straight and her needle steady as she stitched away at the flowery border of a handkerchief.

Mercy’s thread seemed not only to have become irreparably snarled, but the once-smooth and shining perfection of it had grown nearly ragged, tiny fibers breaking themselves off of the strands. Resigned, she reached for a tiny pair of scissors and snipped the needle free of its mooring thread.

Tactfully the baroness, who sat beside her upon the small sofa and whose own handkerchief appeared perfectly tidy and organized, said nothing of the wretched state of Mercy’s own fumbling stitchery. Instead she asked, “Oh, have you finished already? Might I see?”

With a sigh, Mercy turned over her sampler over to reveal the pattern she had managed to stitch upon it. Not the perfect, intricate borders that ladies painstakingly stitched upon samplers, copied over from the pages of ladies’ magazines or else acquired from friends, that would inevitably end up upon gowns or gloves or handkerchiefs, but rather a design of her own devising that she had thought—hoped—she could work well enough to pass as a fabric pattern, since she still had not located her missing sketchbook.

Alas, the thread had cooperated somewhat less ably than a sketching pencil. Or perhaps her fingers were simply too clumsy with a needle, or too quick and restless for the delicate and precise art of needlework. She could have rendered a line in graphite in a hundredth of the time it had taken to stitch out the same. “I know it’s dreadful,”

she said. “It’s just—I mislaid my sketchbook. I thought I could make do with needlework instead.”

Across the room, slouched into a large wingback chair and nestled within a corner which neither the candlelight nor the firelight had quite managed to breach, Thomas snorted over his glass of brandy.

The baroness turned to face her son, her gaze sharpening as her eyes narrowed to slits. “Thomas,”

she said severely. “Have you not returned it already?”

“Returned what?”

Mercy echoed, her brows pleating.

“Your sketchbook,”

the baroness said. “I believe you left it in the library yesterday afternoon. Thomas found it—”

With a roll of his eyes, Thomas added, “And your shoes and gloves. You do have a remarkably tendency to leave things lying about. It’s hardly my fault I discovered your sketchbook.”

“Then you must fetch it now, Thomas, as I do seem to recall instructing you to return it immediately,”

the baroness said, and the saccharine tone of her voice could not conceal the irritation thrumming beneath it.

“I meant to,”

Thomas said, bracing his hands upon the arms of the chair as he made to rise. “I simply—”

He paused, a queer expression crossing his face for a fraction of a second before it fell carefully blank.

“Forgot,”

Mercy supplied in an eerily pleasant tone. “You forgot.”

A muscle jumped in his jaw, highlighted by the shadows clinging to it. “One does occasionally forget things,”

he said, a surly inflection coloring his voice. “Occasionally. I have never, for instance, forgotten my shoes. Or breakfast. Or a scheduled appointment to visit to the modiste.”

Juliet giggled, exchanging an amused glance with Marina. “How could you?”

she inquired. “You’ve never visited the modiste.”

“No, but I have never missed an appointment with my tailor, either,”

Thomas said, adjusting his spectacles upon the bridge of his nose. For all that he had slouched within his chair, still his clothes bore not a wrinkle, his dark hair not so much as the slightest tousle. But those spectacles— still they sat upon his face just a bit crooked, made him look just a bit more human. Fallible. Imperfect.

Mercy took a perverse enjoyment from that imperfection she had given him. If he had not deserved it then, surely he had now earned it.

“I didn’t intend to pry,”

the baroness said as Thomas headed for the door. “Into your sketchbook, I mean to say. Thomas, however, did.”

With one hand the baroness reached over and smoothed at the mangled mess of fabric upon Mercy’s lap. “This is quite good,”

she said. “Do you mean to turn it into a pattern as well?”

Good was probably more praise than she deserved, given that she hadn’t had the patience to do it justice. But still Mercy’s cheeks warmed at the encouragement. “Probably I’ll sketch it out again first,”

she said. “I have to see it to know—and I haven’t much talent for needlework.”

“No,”

the baroness agreed, though her eyes glinted with amusement. “Thread is not your medium, I’m afraid. But you’ve an incredible artistic talent with a pencil. I must say, I had no idea that your father’s patterns were your doing.”

Because she’d never thought it particularly worth mentioning. They were just sketches upon a page, which Papa had delivered to his mills. “When I was younger,”

she said, “and still in the schoolroom, I sketched a pattern for Papa to take to London with him. I only meant to ask him to find a fabric with something like it to bring back for me. But there was nothing to be found that he deemed close enough. So he took it to his mill instead, and had it made up especially for me. It was meant to be special, personal. Just enough fabric for a dress.”

Marina sighed, “How lovely.”

The baroness inclined her head. “But?”

“But the mill’s manager thought it was a shame to have spent so much time working up the pattern block only to never use it again. As soon as Papa came home again, he had it done up in half a dozen different color variations. Lighter colors for young ladies; darker for matrons. Even some on machine-made netting embroidered with silver thread, and gold, for those with the blunt to pay for the extravagance of it. It sold like mad. He couldn’t produce it fast enough to meet demand.”

Her lips twitched at the memory of Papa’s incredulity—and exasperation. “Papa had to go back to London within a month to unravel the mess of it. And then he had to open another mill, buy more machinery, and hire additional workers necessary to produce the fabric at the volume required.”

“And was your Papa angry with the manager?”

Juliet inquired, with a tilt of her head.

“Oh, yes. He’d accidentally turned what was meant to be a special gift into something rather common. Papa shouted himself hoarse about it, so he said. But in the end he gave the man quite an extravagant raise in his wages for having such a business acumen. He oversees several of Papa’s mills, now. I provide him with my patterns, and he chooses the ones he thinks will sell best.”

It wasn’t exactly done for a lady to be involved in business, but Mercy was her Papa’s only child, so the business would one day fall to her management. Her involvement, presently, was minimal—but she had devoted many long hours to learning everything she could about fabric mills, about the machinery involved, the methods for printing on fabric, about machine-made netting and which patterns could best be adapted for it. She’d modified patterns for weaving silk brocade, and those very same patterns had become some of the most sought-after fabrics to be had in London.

The drawing room door opened once more, and Thomas strode through with her sketchbook tucked beneath his arm and a fistful of letters clutched in his hand, thumbing through them one at a time.

Juliet gave a tiny shriek of delight, casting her needlework aside to scramble to her feet. “Have we got invitations?”

“It would seem so,”

Thomas said absently, though he paused with a vague frown of confusion over a particular letter. His dark eyes lifted, gaze landing upon Mercy. “Who is C. Nightingale?”

he asked. “You said you hadn’t any friends in London.”

Oh, Lord. She had forgotten the mail. When first she had planned to come to London, it had been with the expectation that she might do so alone, or at worst, in Papa’s company—and Papa had never shown much concern over with whom she had corresponded. He had become accustomed, after a fashion, to the arrival of all sorts of parcels and such. The servants at home knew to bring those things directly to her. Here, however, where the servants hadn’t long learned such habits, the mail would pass through other hands first. And she had not given it a moment’s thought.

Her eyes landed upon the sketchbook still pinned beneath Thomas’ arm, and she cleared her throat to alleviate the odd tightness that had settled there. “The manager of my father’s London mills,”

she said, through an uncertain waver. “Though I don’t believe it’s any of your concern.”

“It is my concern when a gentleman unknown to me is corresponding with an unmarried lady for whom I am presently responsible,”

he said. “I would have the same concern regarding Marina or Juliet, were they to receive such correspondence.”

His dark eyes searched her face as if he could see the lie she’d told scrawled across it in vivid red ink.

What a fanciful notion. Of course he could not. “I’ll have them now,”

she said, holding out her hand and attempting a commanding tone. “My sketchbook and my letter both. It’s quite rude, you know, to pry into someone else’s things.”

She snatched them both straight from Thomas’ hand the instant he came close enough to reach.

Marina gave an exasperated shake of her head. “Brothers can be so tiresome,”

she said on sigh. “Really, Mercy, you’re lucky you’ve never had to endure the bother of them.”

Mercy had never thought so. She’d have liked to have a brother—or a sister. Someone to have made the times when Papa was away on business, and the Armitages away for the Season, somewhat less lonely. She’d made do, of course, as one had to do. She’d learned to appreciate her own company.

But she would have liked a sibling, nonetheless.

Thomas aimed a whack at Marina’s head with a small stack of letters. “Impertinent,”

he chided as she gave a wheeze of a laugh. “These are yours.”

“And mine?”

Juliet prompted, with a giddy wiggle as she stretched out her hands, into which Thomas laid another few letters.

“And yours, Mother,”

Thomas said, as he turned once more toward the sofa upon which Mercy and the baroness sat to hand over the stack of those remaining, which must have comprised at least a dozen letters. “We’ve hardly been in town a day. I’m surprised there are so many.”

“Word travels fast,”

the baroness said in a gleeful, sing-song voice, pleased as punch to have been proved correct in her assessment. Neatly she laid her stack upon her lap, lifting the first letter to peel off the wax seal. “I expect to have a full social calendar rather soon.”

“Mercy, will you not open yours?”

Marina inquired, with a nod toward the single letter that Mercy had tucked into her sketchbook, abandoned even while everyone else had begun to sort through their own correspondence.

Mercy managed a careless shrug, or at least the approximation of one. “Later, perhaps,”

she said. “Probably Papa has told him I am in town for the Season. He’ll be inquiring after new patterns, most likely. I shall have to find a convenient time to deliver them—”

“Out of the question. Mail them if you must,”

Thomas interjected, in a voice that brooked no argument.

Naturally, Mercy argued anyway. “It was always my intention to visit the mill,”

she said fiercely. “I have been sending patterns through Papa for years without once seeing the inside of it. And besides, I must have more silk for my—”

“Absolutely not, and if you had half the sense God gave a cabbage, you’d be grateful for my refusal,”

Thomas said. “In all likelihood, I am the only thing standing between you and an exceptionally foolish death at the hands—so to speak—of a hot air balloon.”

Oh, now that was categorically unfair! “I had it well enough in hand,”

she said defensively. “Next time—”

“For the love of God, woman, you nearly killed the both of us the first time!”

“Well, if you had not been sleeping in a field, I would not have landed upon you!”

“It was my field to sleep in,”

Thomas volleyed back. “And you aimed for me, by your own admission!”

He thrust his fingers through the perfectly combed strands of his hair, raking deep grooves into them. “Your proclivity toward madcap schemes borders on the uncanny,”

he said. “If it is the last thing I do—and believe me when I say that I understand it may well be—I am not going to permit you to embroil yourself or my sisters in any of your outlandish behavior here in London. For your own sake, and for theirs.”

Marina looked up from a letter, her brows arching toward her hairline. “Mercy, you have a hot air balloon?”

“Good God,”

Thomas muttered, sinking back in his chair and pressing his fingers to the bridge of his nose.

“Does it fly?”

Juliet asked, enthralled, her dark eyes wide and unblinking.

“Yes—well, no. Not presently. I miscalculated and descended too quickly, and now it’s got massive tear. But it will fly again, once I’ve repaired it.”

She shot a victorious glance toward Thomas, who returned a glare of his own through the lenses of his spectacles which suggested if she so much as offered to take any member of his family up in it, he would gleefully strangle her.

“This conversation is growing tedious,”

Thomas snapped, all bristling indignation. “I do not intend to entertain any further discussion of hot air balloons, or any other such nonsense. There is to be no tomfoolery, reckless capers, larks, hijinks, or lunacy of any kind. Is that perfectly clear?”

The baroness, brow furrowed, peeled the wax seal off of yet another letter and remarked, “Really, Thomas, you were the one to raise the issue.”

“I beg your pardon, Mother, for having a care for my sisters’ continued good health and safety. You cannot condone this—this madness.”

“I don’t, rather,”

the baroness said. “But then I have always been a bit terrified of heights, to be perfectly honest. Perhaps if I had been born of a more adventurous bent…”

Her brows pinched yet further as she discarded another letter, the stack steadily waning as she read through them one at a time.

“Oh, but if you could only see the view,”

Mercy enthused. “It’s truly magnificent. Great green hills rolling off into the distance, spotted with sheep. The air is cold and thin, but it is so peaceful, so freeing to be up on high above the rest of the world. I felt like I might reach up and touch a cloud.”

At least until she’d begun descending a bit too rapidly. “Of course, you are more or less at the mercy of the wind,”

she allowed.

“And the earth,”

Thomas said with a disdainful sniff. “Which tends to be somewhat unforgiving.”

“I miscalculated,”

Mercy ground out between clenched teeth. “It will not happen again.”

Her first ill-fated ride had been a valuable lesson.

Thomas threw up his hands with a scowl, and the candlelight glinted off the lenses of his spectacles with a dramatic, vaguely menacing flare. “I ought to have taken a hatchet to that balloon when I had the chance,”

he said viciously. “Someone has got to save you from yourself. I suppose—for the remainder of the Season—that unhappy task falls to me.”

The air fairly crackled with tension, a fierce battle of wills raging silently in the stillness of the drawing room. Mercy curled her hand around her sketchbook, drew in a deep breath, and prepared to unleash a resounding rejoinder that would put Thomas in his proper place.

Marina, ever the peacekeeper, leapt to head off another round of squabbling, pasting on a brilliant smile and addressing her mother perhaps a touch too brightly. “Mama, have you got many invitations?”

The baroness startled at the address, the last letter quivering in the clutch of her fingers. “Well,”

she hedged, laying down the final letter upon the rest of the stack. “A few,”

she admitted in a low voice, her lips pursing. “None we’ll accept, however.”

“But there were so many letters,”

Juliet said, in a faintly pleading tone, her face falling in disappointment. “Surely a ball, or a garden party…”

The baroness shifted uncomfortably, and for perhaps half a second her gaze fell upon Mercy before it shied away almost guiltily. “None we’ll accept,”

she repeated, her voice soft but firm.

Mercy’s residual anger left her in a rush reminiscent of how swiftly her hot air balloon had begun to deflate as she understood the significance of the words, why the baroness had failed to meet her eyes.

Perhaps the whole of the stack of letters had been nothing but invitations. But Mercy had not merited inclusion in any of them.