Realm 05 - A Touch of Mercy (3 page)

He had placed his heart and soul into making the former Susan Rhodes happy, but his brother’s ghost had replaced the easy closeness he and Susan had once shared. Susan recoiled from his every gesture of tenderness. Where she had once readily sought his embrace, after their marriage, his wife had avoided him. They coexisted in Lexington Arm’s many passages and rooms. Living as strangers.

“Even with all the chaos between us, I never wanted you to follow Andrew,” he said as his throat tightened. “We could have found a means to come together. We were friends once. I would have given you and the child my devotion.”

Aidan could see her. See Susan swaying from side to side. Her arms wrapped about her waist, and her eyes closed dreamily upon the world. Could she see the flames grow higher. See his feeble attempts to save her. “Forgive me,” he whispered as tears formed behind his lids.

“You require assistance, my Lord?”

Aidan opened his eyes to find Lucifer Hill standing in the folly’s opening. “Do I appear in distress?” he said with a bit more sarcasm than he intended. “I no longer require a nurse maid, Mr. Hill.”

His man of all jobs frowned. “Considering you have been sitting on a cold bench for nigh onto two hours, you will likely be requiring some sort of nurse. If you wish to sleep in the cold, permiy me to fetch you a blanket or two.”

Aidan unfurled his stiff legs. “No need to be practical. I will seek my bed.” He rotated his shoulders and neck. “Despite the poor conditions, the sleep was restorative.”

“Lord Worthing noted your unusual mood. Asked me to check on you,” Hill confessed.

“Inform the viscount I am well. The physician has allowed me to return to my duties.” He heaved a sigh of exasperation. Everyone thought him an invalid.

Hill nodded. “But your heart has not.”

Aidan hated how well the man knew him. “On the contrary,” he said despite Hill’s scowl. “I have been considering how long I have been removed from Lexington Arms.”

“You mean to return to Cheshire?”

Aidan stepped around Hill. “There is nothing for me at Thorn Hall nor at Linton Park,” he asserted baldly.

“Nothing but the best friends you have ever known,” Hill countered.

Aidan turned to stare hard at the man he had rescued from a trumped-up execution. He said earnestly, “The best friends a man can have,
along with their ladies
.” He emphasized the last four words to make his point. “Men who take roots no longer have time for those who fly free as an autumn leaf.”

Hill shook his head in disapproval. “You know that is not true. Those men would lay down their lives for you.”

Aidan shrugged his answer. How did one argue against the truth? “I need to refill the holes in my memory, and I must start from the beginning. From my home. From Lexington Arms.”

Hill nodded his understanding. “When do we leave?”

Aidan noted the sad resignation on Hill’s countenance. “You may remain with Lord Worthing if you wish.”

Hill’s lips formed a tight line. “I promised you ten years of service, and three years remain.”

“It is not necessary…”

Hill interrupted Aidan’s release. “A man’s pride is necessary, Your Lordship,” he said flatly.

“And what of Hannah?” Aidan protested.

Hill smiled easily. “Hannah is a good girl. She will wait for my time to pass. We have spoken on it.” He started off toward the house, and Aidan fell in step beside his friend. “I ask again when we leave.”

Aidan sighed deeply. “I was thinking after Lord Godown’s nuptials. At week’s end.”

“I will see to the arrangements. Leave the details to me, Sir.”

*

She wished she had known her sister Grace had planned her escape from Foresthill Hall. If so, Mercy Nelson would have begged Grace to permit Mercy to accompany her. Instead, it had taken Mercy until the early days of November before she had made her own exit from her brother’s household.

She did not know how long she had traveled the roads of the western midlands. Some five weeks. Possibly six. Mercy had long since given up counting the days. When she had sneaked from her brother’s house in the dead of night, Mercy had thought to be in London by now. Had thought she would have found gainful employment. Likely, she would have if she had not accepted the aid of the Foyles. Mr. and Mrs. Foyle, if that had truly been their names, had offered Mercy a ride in their wagon and a place to spend the night, an offer, which had filled Mercy with genuine hope for the future. “I was such a simpleton,” she groaned as she rolled straw into a tight bundle and laced one of her hair ribbons about it to make a pillow of sorts. Her time on the road had taught her several hard lessons.

First, the Foyles had dashed her dreams when they had bound her with a rope and had stolen her purse, as well as the locket her mother had given Mercy on her tenth birthday. The memory of her assailants’ laughter as they rode away into the dusk still haunted Mercy. “If God is just, some day we shall meet again, and it shall be my turn to laugh,” she declared.

She had also learned when to beg a bite to eat and when to seek out what she could find in the fields and orchards. Even when she was hungry, Mercy had refused to steal from those who barely scraped by. She knew from the way her dress hung loosely upon her frame that she had lost more weight than she had thought possible. A result of too many missed meals. Yet, as a genteel woman, she knew the value of charity, and she would not take from those with less than she.

“Less than me,” she said with an ironic chuckle. Mercy wrapped her cloak about her. She had found a deserted barn, one which would likely fall down about her head, but one which was dry and relatively safe from others on the road. Since the famine of 1816, more and more of the populace had taken to the road–to look for a brighter future. Of course, Mercy had been blindly ignorant of that particular fact when she had set out from Lancashire. Even with the poverty she had observed among her brother’s poorest tenants, Mercy had never considered how widespread the unemployment in England had grown.

“Men be lookin’ fer work everywhere,” a soldier, who had lost his legs in the war, had told her when she had accepted a wedge of dark bread from the man.

Mercy had kept her eyes downcast but wary; yet, she had had no reason for concern. Mr. Peet had offered his protection from several unscrupulous-looking beggars, who had meant to steal the soldier’s meager meal. Mr. Peet, however, had met their plans with one of his own making. The man flashed a gun, which sent his assailants looking for another victim. Having witnessed their ready retreat, Mercy had spent a good portion of the day with Peet, who, obviously, relished her company. He had gallantly kissed her gloved hand in parting when she decided it was best if she covered more miles before nightfall.

After her error in judgment with the Foyles, Mercy had made a conscious decision to travel the back roads. In doing so, she had found less offers of assistance, but she had felt safer.

Some days as she trudged the dusty shire roads, Mercy chided herself for her naïveté. She had thought this a great adventure. After all, although Grace had served as a governess, her sister had met dukes and earls. Grace had even attended a party hosted by the Prince Regent, but there was nothing “great” about the drudgery Mercy had encountered. Yet, even on her worst day, she had never considered returning to Foresthill Hall. All that awaited her under her brother’s roof was a fate worse than the one her sister Grace had known. The thought of her poor sister dead upon the road to London brought a profound grief to Mercy’s heart.

“Where is Grace?” she had demanded when her brother Geoffrey had returned to the house without their sister in tow.

Still reeking of the cheap ale he had consumed the previous evening, Geoffrey swayed in place. “Dead!” Her brother had spat the word with contempt.

In disbelief, Mercy, too, struggled to keep her knees from buckling.
Grace
, she had pleaded silently. Grace: The one person, who had stood between Mercy and Geoffrey’s baseness. When Grace had returned to Lancashire, Mercy had hoped she and her sister could mount a united front against their brother’s ruination of everything for which their father, Baron Thomas Nelson, had stood. Or if worse came, she and Grace could have escaped Foresthill Hall together. Perhaps, they could have found a small cottage to share and mayhap, even gentlemen farmers to wed. A step down socially for a baron’s daughter, but Mercy saw it as a superior choice to what Geoffrey had planned for her.

“What do you mean
dead
?” her voice had sounded hollow, even to her ears. “It cannot be. How can Grace be dead? She departed this house to stop your friend Lord Spectre from taking her under your alcohol-induced nose, but she is not dead! I refuse to believe it!” Mercy and Grace had regularly barricaded themselves in their rooms at night. Geoffrey’s cohorts had robbed the estate of everything of value and had been determined to steal away both Mercy’s and Grace’s innocence.

In his angry response, Geoffrey had thrown a miniature of their father toward the fire. It was a customary gesture when her brother took on his “woe is me” attitude, the one where Geoffrey blamed his rapscallion ways on the late baron. “Our sister is dead, I tell you!” Geoffrey had fumed. “Dead to you and to me. We will never look upon Grace’s countenance again. The road to London and our sister’s own obstinacy have robbed us of Grace’s presence in our lives,” Geoffrey had declared. “That is what happens when a woman takes it upon herself to know what is best. Such decisions are a man’s domain.”

Mercy’s hands had fisted at her waist. “That premise could be true if said woman had a man who would protect her,” she had accused.

“I will tolerate none of your shrewish tongue,” Geoffrey had adamantly warned. “You may save your quarrelsome ways for Sir Lesley.” Sir Lesley Trent had made Geoffrey an offer for Mercy’s hand. A baronet who had outlived two wives, Trent had five legitimate children between the nursery and maturity and another family with his mistress in a nearby village. Trent had thought to marry Grace some five years prior, but the baronet had been in mourning for his second wife, and by the time the grieving period had ended, Grace had accepted employment with Viscount Averette outside of Edinburgh. The baronet had then set his sights on Mercy. Sir Lesley had waited impatiently for Mercy to come of age. The thought of tolerating the baronet’s intimacies had always turned Mercy’s stomach. No future awaited Mercy as Trent’s wife; for when Sir Lesley passed, his son Mathias would send Mercy away. The eldest of the Trent clan held a deep allegiance for his late mother. Mercy would be responsible for Sir Lesley’s children, but would not be afforded even a small cottage on her late husband’s land.

Mercy had fought back the tears forming in her eyes’ corners. Her lips had trembled as she had delivered her pronouncement. “I shall offer my prayers for our sister. At least, Grace has found her escape from the madness this house holds.” Mercy had thought to say more, but her words would have been wasted on the likes of her brother. Instead, she had stormed from the room. That evening, the decision had been made: she had packed a small bag with her most serviceable gowns and had waited patiently for her opportunity to escape. Mercy held doubts her brother would grieve for either her or Grace. She had left Geoffrey one last note: “I shall follow Grace to Heaven or to Hell.”

*

Aidan watched Crowden and Kerrington ride off together. The marquis required a special license in order to marry his Miss Nelson in a timely manner. Evidently, from Crowden’s tale, time was of the essence. Through a twist of fate, Gabriel Crowden required an heir before his next birthday or the marquis would lose a significant portion of his inheritance. “First the bride and then the babe,” Aidan muttered to the quickly retreating figures. Immediately, his thoughts had turned to Susan and his brother’s heir. “A child who should have been mine,” he said with true regret.

“Your Lordship,” a soft voice spoke from behind him.

Aidan turned slowly to find a red-cheeked maid. “Yes.”

“Lady Worthing has requested for you to join the ladies in the morning room.”

Aidan swallowed the groan, which fought to escape his lips. He certainly did not wish to spend the day listening to women twittering on about marriage clothes and what to serve for the wedding breakfast, but he had promised Kerrington he would secure the safety of Lady Worthing, who was heavy with child, and the Earl of Linworth, who had suffered from heart troubles for the past four years.

“I entrust my most precious possessions to your capable hands,” Kerrington had declared as he waited for a groom to saddle his horse. “Make certain both my wife and my father seek their beds for recuperative rests.”

At that moment, Aidan had “hated” James Kerrington. The man he had revered as his
Captain
and friend had achieved it all: parents who doted upon him, a wife who expressed her devotion with every glance and touch, an heir, and another child on the way. Everything Aidan had envisioned for his own life. Everything he had lost.

“Inform Her Ladyship I will join her shortly.” The shy maid nodded and disappeared.

Aidan returned his gaze to the rolling lawns. He missed his home. “At least, Lexington Arms is something of which I require no reminder. My home and that kiss.” Despite the inappropriateness of his musings, Aidan could not wipe the smile from his lips.