Page 30 of Mrs. Merritt’s Remorse (Lord Dere’s Dependents #2)

The fortune of the day was quickly changed.

—William Robertson, The history of the reign of the Emperor Charles V (1769)

The Barstows were gathered in the Perryfield drawing room, listening to Frances at the pianoforte as Mrs. Dere prepared the tea, when the footman Wood reappeared only a minute after having deposited the tray.

“Er—Miss Egerton is here, madam,” he announced.

“Here? Alone ? How peculiar. Well, show her in, Wood.”

Cassie hurried in, still cloaked, bringing with her a rush of cold air. “Do forgive my imposition, Lord Dere, Mrs. Dere, but I did not know where else to turn!”

A clamor of questions swallowed her, after such a dramatic beginning, even while Lord Dere led her to the fire. “You must tell us all about it,” he murmured, “when you have warmed yourself.”

“Thank you, sir, but I am afraid my news cannot wait,” she cried, her voice breaking into sobs. The suspense was dreadful to her listeners, and knowing this, she did her best to master herself, scrubbing at her eyes with one of the many handkerchiefs offered her. Jane was at her side, gripping her arm in a manner which would have been comforting, had it not been almost painful.

At last the curate’s sister choked out her story. “I-I do not know all the details—the messages I received by express were very short. But my brother went to meet my uncle in Oxford, though my uncle could not come after all—but Philip doesn’t know that because he had already gone. That was one of the messages—the other was that—that Philip—he was there and—and—and—somehow he became involved in a—a violent altercation!”

Another volley of gasps and exclamations met this, but it was Jane’s voice which rose above the others to pierce Cassie’s ear, even as her grasp tightened. “Dear God! Is he hurt?”

Even in Cassie’s distress Jane’s heightened concern struck her, as it did the others, more than one of whom turned to regard her.

“I do not know if he was injured,” Cassie replied, easing her arm from Jane’s iron fingers. “But I think he could not be—not seriously, in any event—or surely he would have mentioned it and asked me to send for a doctor.”

“What did he tell you, then, my dear?” asked the baron calmly. “Why did he not simply return to Iffley?”

For a moment she could not answer as her throat worked and a second handkerchief was resorted to. But then: “He—could not come back, sir, because—because—he was arrested and taken by the constable to the city gaol!”

Then it was Mrs. Dere’s turn to shriek. What was the world coming to? The curate of her own parish church, to be arrested! It was the end of everything!

Unruffled by his niece-in-law’s outburst, Lord Dere persisted, “Was the—other person—arrested as well?”

“I—don’t know. My brother’s note was only two lines. He only said he had been in an altercation and was then put in gaol for disturbing the peace, and could I—could I please come or send someone to—to pay the fine, so that he could be released until—until he need appear in court to answer the charges. Lord Dere, I did not know where else to turn! I went first to Iffley Cottage, but Reed said everyone was here.”

Lord Dere was already striding to his locked desk, even as Mrs. Dere wrung her hands and Jane wobbled on her feet. “We will go at once. Frances, if you would be so kind as to ring for Wood again. Harker and Ogle must ready the coach. We will take the Barstows home and proceed directly to Oxford.” Having secured several banknotes in his pocketbook, he hesitated a moment and then looked at Jane. “Jane—forgive me for mentioning this, but it must be said. Mr. Egerton does not name his—er—opponent, but one possibility would be our neighbor Mr. Beck.”

“Yes,” she said, scarcely audible.

“If Beck is there, do I have your permission this time to threaten him?”

Mrs. Dere let out another shriek, and she rushed to take him by the sleeve. “You cannot, sir! At your age! Think of your family. Think of little Peter, if we were to lose you. I forbid it.”

Gently, he detached himself. “Alice, I do not mean to threaten him with violence, if it can be helped, but rather with the force of social opprobrium.”

“‘If it can be helped’?” repeated Mrs. Dere. “No, sir, I will not allow it! Why should you—or, indeed, Mr. Egerton, for that matter—jeopardize your own well-being and reputation to—to—if Mrs. Merritt will understand I mean no offence—to defend what is already past remedy ?”

Her normally serene and patient brow darkening, Mrs. Barstow drew herself up once more to repel this attack on poor Jane, but before she could speak, the baron raised both his hands.

“Alice,” he said, as quietly as ever, “I give you your head in most everything at Perryfield, and I do not resent it, for you do a fine job as mistress. But in matters of gentlemanly honor, you must give way to me. I will brook no argument. Nor do I agree with you that Jane’s story is past remedy. If not for Beck’s uninvited impositions on her, not a person in Iffley could fault her conduct in the past two years, nor doubt her true remorse.”

Silenced, Mrs. Dere crossed her arms tightly over her bosom and was reduced to looking the daggers she felt, but Jane could have kissed the baron’s feet. He extended a hand to her. “Since this so nearly concerns you, Jane, would you care to come with Miss Egerton and me to Oxford? You will not see Beck, of course, but you will know what has occurred as soon as it can be told to you.”

“Oh, yes , sir,” Jane accepted with tears in her eyes. “Yes, and thank you!”

The many bells of Oxford were tolling nine when the gaoler reappeared.

“Aren’t you the lucky one,” he said, shaking his key ring. “Who needs the dean of Christ Church or the Censor Thingummy? Come on, then. Out you come.”

Egerton raised his head from his hands. “I’m—free?” However had Cassie managed it?

“Free to go now, but you’ll appear when the magistrates sit, or so your friend the baron has sworn. Sworn and paid your fine.”

One of the drunks scrabbled at his ankle, jeering, “Ooh, a baron !” but Egerton dazedly shook him off.

“Philip!” sobbed his sister, flinging herself at him when he emerged. “Your lip! Your—your clothes! What happened?”

“Not here, my dear,” said Lord Dere behind her. “He will tell us all in the coach.”

“Lord Dere, sir,” began the curate, “I must thank you and assure you that—”

“Yes, yes. Tell me in the coach, young man.”

Apparently when one was a baron, one expected things to be resolved quickly, for the Dere coach waited just outside, the horses’ breath smoking in the night air.

It was not only the vehicle which waited. When Hoskins unfolded the steps and opened the door, who should Philip glimpse within but the last person in the world he expected and, at the same time, the one he most yearned to see?

“Jane?” he gasped, her Christian name escaping his lips before he could think. But she had cried, “Philip!” just as Cassie had, her eyes taking anxious inventory of his condition.

Hearing Miss Egerton suck in a breath at these unexpected familiarities, the baron said, “Ah ha. There is more to the story, it appears. Well, into the coach, all of you.”

But when they were closed in and rattling along the High Street, with the baron and Jane sitting across from him and the glow of the occasional lantern sliding across her beloved face like a caress, Egerton hardly knew where to begin. He wished he might take her upon his lap and lay her head against his chest while he told her everything. Everything. But short of ejecting his rescuers from the carriage, that was impossible.

Still—where to begin?

Lord Dere helped him. “Miss Egerton informs us you were in an altercation.”

“Forgive me for telling the Barstows and the Deres,” Cassie interposed hastily from beside him. “I had no idea what to do, Philip, or who to ask. You know we haven’t any extra money lying around the rectory.”

“I know. It’s all right, Cass.” With a wrench he tore his gaze from Jane to face the baron. “Sir, yes, I am sorry to say I was in another tussle and—again—I was the one who initiated it.”

“Was it—Mr. Beck?” ventured Jane, and he was glad of an excuse to look at her again. But this was the hard part—the awful part—and how he would rather have confessed it to her alone!

“It was,” he admitted.

“Well, for pity’s sake, Philip,” protested his sister. “The first time you attacked him was bad enough, though everyone later said you did the right thing. But what will they say now, if you are going to throw yourself at him whensoever he crosses your path? What will the bishop say this time, when he learns of it? And the dean of Christ Church!”

“I was not without provocation,” he said shortly, his nostrils flaring. “I had my reasons—though I was mistaken. I admit that. You see…when I rode into the yard of the Cross Inn, I saw Beck’s carriage. You know how it is there—the light isn’t very good because it’s so narrow. Beck was there, accompanied by a woman with her back to me. He—they—were embracing. I thought they were eloping.”

Cassie threw up her hands. “So? He’s a scoundrel! Let him elope with whomever he pleases. You cannot defend every woman in Christendom.”

But it was Jane who said in a low voice, “Was it—that you thought I was the lady?”

He hung his head. “I did. She had dark hair and your—ahem—your shape. I suspect it was Archie Wilson’s mother. You remember how Archie took to you? You must have reminded him of her, at least in appearance.”

Though she said nothing, he saw her swallow, her expression pained, and her unspoken reproach knifed through him. He couldn’t bear it.

“Forgive me,” he whispered. “Jane. Forgive me. Of course you would never. Would never again. Not with him, nor with anyone. I was a fool. Jealousy swallowed me whole. I have no excuse, except that…I lost my mind.”

“If I’m not mistaken,” said Cassie slowly, looking from one to the other “your mind is not the only vital organ you’ve lost.”

“That’s right,” her brother answered steadily, his gaze never leaving Jane. “I’ve lost my heart, too. Lost it who knows how many weeks—months—ago. And I wanted to marry Mrs. Merritt, though I had no right to ask because I had no income to speak of. But because I seem unable to master myself, where she is concerned, I asked her anyway and said we could keep it secret for now.” His voice cracked, and he leaned his elbows on his knees to hold her lowered gaze. “Keep it secret! Lest she harm my chances of securing a benefice.” With a rueful chuckle, he shook his head and sighed. “I need no assistance there, it seems—in harming my chances, I mean.”

“The two of you are engaged, then?” asked the baron.

Egerton’s mouth twisted. “We were. For a few hours. Until Jane’s conscience smote her, and she told me she could no longer submit to secrecy or deceit. So…no. We are not engaged. Which means I had no right to assault Beck, even if he had been absconding with her. Jane,” he said again, leaning farther, “say you pardon me—because ‘I believe; help thou mine unbelief!’”

A tear traced a glistening path down her cheek, and with trembling lips she murmured, “I pardon you, Philip. I do.”

So rapt and intent were the lovers that Lord Dere and Cassie felt decidedly de trop , but Egerton was contrarily glad of their presence. Let the world know, now.

Sliding from the cushioned bench, he angled himself so that he might drop to one knee, laughing when the carriage jolted and nearly sent him tumbling.

“Jane, won’t you be mine, before all the world? What little income I have from my fellowship and my curacy will not be mine through the end of the week, I daresay, but if you will wait for me, we will see what the future still holds for one miscreant and one reformed miscreant.”

“Oh!” squeaked Cassie, clapping a hand to her mouth. “Philip, I quite forgot—your note saying you were thrown in gaol quite blew it out of my head!”

Nobody heard her the first time, for all was tumult in the coach. Jane had thrown herself at the curate, laughing and crying and making the carriage rock alarmingly. Lord Dere laughed along with them, tucking his legs up to be out of their way and urging Philip to “give her a kiss to seal the bargain, my lad.”

But when order was restored, and Philip had given Jane not one kiss but rather a half dozen, and she had kissed the baron and Cassie in turn, and the baron and her betrothed had exchanged places in the coach, Cassie tried again, giving her brother a hearty thump on the knee.

“Philip, do listen! Because yours was not the only express I received today. Did you not wonder what happened to Uncle Geoffrey?”

“I was just relieved he was not there to witness my imbroglio,” he grinned. “No doubt he would have refused to pay my bail.”

“Do be serious,” she begged earnestly. “My cousin Martha sent an express to say Uncle Geoffrey must delay coming to Oxford because the vicar Mr. Spacks had a stroke of palsy, and they feared for his life!”

This got his attention, all right, and he left off stroking Jane’s hand to gawp at his sister. “A…stroke of palsy?”

“Martha says it happened when Uncle Geoffrey and Mr. Spacks had ‘words.’ It seems Mr. Spacks did not wholly approve of my uncle marrying Miss Hynde next Sunday, and Uncle Geoffrey flew into a temper, and then Mr. Spacks had his fit!”

“Heavens.”

“But you see what it means, don’t you, Philip?”

“I hesitate to say it, lest everyone think us vultures.”

“We are certainly that, I suppose, in considering the implications,” agreed Cassie. “But wishing Mr. Spacks long life will not make it so. What is done is done, and now, even if he were to survive, he could not possibly carry out all his duties. He would need a curate!”

Her brother frowned. “In any event, I don’t know if my uncle still wishes me to have the living—or if he will after he hears about today’s misadventure.”

“I will speak with him,” declared the baron, slapping his knees. “Have no fear. I will explain all and vouch for your character. I know the Bishop of Oxford as well and will intervene there if need be.”

“Would you truly, sir?” Egerton asked, as Jane reached to press the old man’s hand and hold it to her lips. “It is too good of you. Jane and I would be so grateful, for your word would carry much weight with them, as would your rank, frankly, with my uncle.”

“And you didn’t tell Uncle Geoffrey that he shouldn’t marry Felicity, did you, Philip?” asked Cassie anxiously. “Because then Lord Dere might say what he liked, but my uncle might still be angry with you as he was with Mr. Spacks.”

“No,” he answered, remembering his note. “Quite the contrary. When Martha wrote to us last time, I knew I would never marry Miss Hynde. Therefore, I encouraged him, in so many words, to ‘have at it.’”

“Hurrah!” cheered his sister. She clapped her hands and nearly fell in Jane’s lap when she leaned across to hug her just as the coach clattered to a halt. “Well, my dear Jane, whether it be in the coming months or five years from now, I will rejoice to call you my sister. You see? Secrets are not altogether bad things. You two have been very sly, but I am not the less happy for it.”