The Lady Mercy Danforthe Flirts With Scandal (3 page)

As Julia Gibson said, a young lady must marry; there was simply nothing else to do. Far better to pick out the man for oneself, make certain he did not have any unsightly edges—if he did, file them down—and then quickly stake one’s claim. All very simple.

Women like Julia Gibson fretted and whimpered as if they were being asked to scale the dome of St. Paul’s. In their drawers.

Mercy stood briskly, making the last adjustments to her gloves. “I bid you good day, Miss Gibson.”

The other young lady scrambled out of her chair for a clumsy curtsy, tripping over her own feet. “Lady Mercy.”

It was a good thing the Gibsons had wealth—even if it was acquired merely through trade. Poor Julia hadn’t much else in her favor. Fortunately for Miss Gibson, her aristocratic friend never balked at a challenge.

***

Mercy swept into her brother’s library without knocking. “Well, I’m off. Although it hardly need be asked—I suppose you will not come with me?”

Dealing with the daily correspondence, Carver did not look up from the letters on his desk. “Why on earth would I attend the wedding of your maid?”

“She is far more than my maid, Carver. Molly Robbins is my friend and has been my companion for twelve years. As you well know.”

He gave a small snort. “You may think she is your friend, but she is your employee first and foremost. You pay her a wage. Thus, she’s obliged to be nice to you.”

“Carver, you have a very bitter, distrusting view of people.”

“And you have an overly romantic one.” He smirked at his papers. “Perhaps the less said about that the better.”

Mercy strode to his desk, hands tucked securely within her muff. “Molly will be disappointed.”

“Your maid can make her own silly mistakes without me bearing witness.” His brow creased in a stern frown. “Marriage is a fool’s venture at the best of times. Besides, does she not have ambitions to begin her own dressmaking enterprise?”

Mercy was surprised he knew that. It might have been mentioned in his hearing, she supposed, but he seldom listened to anything she had to talk about and generally acted as if Molly Robbins was invisible. Which was, as he would say, exactly how the master of the house should treat his little sister’s lady’s maid.

She took a hand from her muff and leaned over his desk, intent on straightening a pile of papers that were most distressingly bundled in a loose pile, so close to the edge that should the window be left open and a strong breeze blow in, they could easily drift to the carpet or be wafted into the fire.

“Her country-farmer husband,” Carver went on, frowning as she fussed over his desk, “won’t appreciate his wife going off to start a business. He will expect her to keep house and raise his children.” Sniffing angrily, he returned his gaze to the letter he wrote, pressing so hard Mercy was surprised he didn’t break his pen. “She’ll be pregnant by the summer.”

Seizing a large paperweight from his desk, she thumped it down hard onto the tidied pile of papers. “Don’t be coarse!”

“It is a fact of life, little Sister. I believe I gave you that lecture about the birds and the bees, did I not?”

“No,
you
did not! You left it to Edward Hobbs. Unless, of course, you refer to the time I walked in on you in the stables with that flotsam, Mary Nesmith—the one with the dyed hair.” She cocked an eyebrow. “That was quite a revealing lesson, to be sure.” Mercy, sixteen at the time of that event, had endured an early education in certain improper matters, thanks to her brother’s behavior and her own eavesdropping, but the most memorable lesson occurred when she wandered into that stable and witnessed her brother with his paramour-of-the-moment. Their harried solicitor’s hasty explanation of “conjugal relations” could not possibly have prepared her for the sight of the widowed Mrs. Nesmith bent over a hay bale, her moonlike posterior exposed to the air and Carver in the process of mounting her from behind while curiously humming “The Soldier’s Adieu.”

He set down his pen and laughed curtly. “Ah, yes. Poor old Hobbs.” He ignored his sister’s remark about his old flame. It was likely he’d forgotten all about Mrs. Nesmith in any case. Many women had come and gone since then, all of them totally unsuitable and, knowing Carver, deliberately so.

As she turned away from his desk, he demanded abruptly, “What on earth are you wearing on your head?”

She swung around to face him again. “’Tis called a hat, Brother dear.”

“Good Lord.” He sat back in his chair, grinning. “I thought it was a drunken parrot.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand style and fashion.”

“Well, I suppose it is a fittingly theatrical costume for the event.”

Although she knew it would be best not to ask—far less trying on her nerves—she heard herself asking what he meant by that remark.

“This entire wedding is a farcical performance,” he replied, waving his letter opener through the air. “A comedy, or a tragedy. Perhaps both. Robbins feels she must marry to please everyone else—her family and his. Even with your romantic inclinations, you must see the truth. Trapped into this marriage, she will very soon know discontent.”

“I am amazed, Brother, that you can form these opinions of a situation about which you know nothing.”

“Have I not witnessed that girl moping about my house for the past few months? Her lips droop every time the wedding is mentioned. Several times of late I’ve passed her in the hall, and her expression inspired me to inquire whether her cat had just died.”

“For pity’s sake, you will never understand women. A curious fact, considering your association with so many.”

Carver stretched in his chair, arms behind his head. “Mark my words, little Sister, this wedding is nothing to celebrate. You’ve lost not only a maid, but a friend. If that’s what you truly think of her.”

She bristled. “What can you mean?”

“Her life travels in a new direction now. Her first responsibility will be to her husband and then her children. She will have less and less time to spare for you.”

Mercy felt a swift chill that caused little bumps on her arms under her sleeves. But she said nothing, finding it necessary to straighten the window drapes instead.

“What will you do with yourself when Robbins is no more at your beck and call?”

She let his words fade out while she examined the window frame. It could certainly benefit from a sanding and fresh paint, she thought.

“You will have to discover more new projects to keep busy, Sister. I can’t see your fiancé giving you much to do. He is too easily molded already.”

Oh, was he
still
talking?

Mercy focused hard on the window. When she returned from the country, she would bring the chipped paint to the butler’s attention. She would not let this happen in her house. Nothing should be allowed to get frayed or rotted or dusty. Or out of place. That was how accidents happened.

“But I wouldn’t be at all shocked,” he added, “if Robbins doesn’t call this wedding off at the last minute. If she has any wits about her, she will.”

Mercy spun around from the window, unable to keep looking at the chipped paint a moment longer. “Don’t talk nonsense!”

“I feel it in my bones that this masquerade won’t go off without a hitch. Tell you what…how about a wager?” Carver laughed sharply, but his gaze darkened to the black of a cold, moonless midnight. “If Robbins marries him, she’s making a tremendous mistake, which she will regret for the rest of her life. He is the wrong choice for her.”

Mercy rolled her eyes. “Oh? And who would you choose for her? I suggest you leave the matchmaking to me, Carver. I can only imagine the disastrous outcome of any meddling in which you might find the time to indulge.”

“Go then, little Sister. Won’t you be late if you dally here a moment longer? Travel is so unpredictable this time of year, and they might feel obliged to delay the proceedings until the guest of honor arrives.” He took out his fob watch. “Gracious! Is that the time already?”

Her pulse quickened erratically at the idea of falling behind the clock with many miles yet to travel. As he said, the country roads were unreliable at best.

“Remember, Sister, should you be apprehended by a highwayman, your wisest defense is to talk his ears off in your usual manner. Advise him on his love affairs and his diet, water down his wine, and then tell him how to dress. The tediousness of your company will surely cause him to leave you behind and take the horses instead.”

Head high, feather bouncing, Mercy prepared a grand exit.

But her brother’s voice stopped her midstep, yet again. “Robbins knows nothing, I assume, of what happened five and a half years ago?”

Heat rushed to her face. “Of course not. Only you and I know. And Edward Hobbs.”

“And
him
.”

Inside her muff, Mercy’s hands tightened until her fingers hurt. A knot in her stomach began turning and twisting, much like the wretched handkerchief in Miss Gibson’s sweaty hands earlier that day. “That was all a very long time ago, and Rafe Hartley was not Molly’s sweetheart then.”

He shrugged. “Don’t you think Robbins ought to know her fiancé was married once before? To her
friend
?”

“For three hours!” Hearing her voice rise to an unladylike tenor, she fought to control it and regain her composure.

“Lucky for you, I found you both before it was consummated, or I’d have been obliged to make the rotten little bastard keep you, despite your ages.”

Mercy was unwilling to be reminded, yet again, of that singular blot on her past. She stormed out, slamming his door in her wake, leaving him laughing. Carver always managed to upset the neat order of her apple cart.

The footman held the front door for her, and she marched out, down the steps to the waiting carriage, squinting against a blinding shard of sunlight. She paused for a few deep breaths of spring air until the seeds of anxiety were safely dispersed, her spirits bolstered, lifted back where they belonged. That beautiful, luxurious feather sweeping over her shoulder, visible in all its magenta glory from the corner of her eye, helped enormously.

She looked up at the sky. A recent cold and rainy spell gave way that very morning to a bright shimmer of sunlight across a cobalt background, barely troubled by a few plump clouds skipping jovially by. It seemed the weather would obey her wishes and turn at exactly the right moment for a picturesque country wedding. There would be wine and cake, orange blossoms and rice. All as it should be.

Whatever Carver said, everything would go wonderfully. With Lady Mercy Danforthe in attendance, it would not dare be anything else but a perfectly proper and divinely romantic wedding. Mercy had everything under control. Even the weather.

Rafe bent low to find his partial reflection in the small, mottled, jagged scrap of mirror that rested on a shelf of the old dresser. Not bad, he thought, slicking his hair above both ears. He’d seen worse. Good thing he didn’t let his friends talk him into stopping at Merryweather’s Tavern too long last night. Molly would never forgive him for tipping up at the church with bloodshot eyes.

In a few more hours he’d be a married man, and he—

Uneasy suddenly, he lost his line of thought. Were his sleeves too tight? Had he put on the wrong shirt? Something felt uncomfortable. With fumbling fingers, he lifted the shirt he’d discarded a few moments ago and checked for a small tear in the sleeve, making sure he was wearing the new one. He was. Perhaps the new shirt felt odd because it
wasn’t
torn, he mused.

Had he put it on wrongly? Back to front?

No. It wasn’t the shirt that was inside out.

With a quick shake of his shoulders, Rafe straightened up. No point feeling his nerves rattle now, was there? Every man must wed sooner or later, and Molly was a good girl—steady, reliable, a calming influence on his life. He’d been told that many times. She’d be a wonderful mother for his children and a hardworking partner at his side. His family liked her, and he didn’t want to let anybody down. It was hard to please all the important people in his life when they pulled him in different directions, but at least this marriage was the one thing they all agreed upon, the one thing that made everyone content. For once.

At least, unlike his old school friend Pyke, he had not found himself married with three children before he was five and twenty—drowning in debt.

Rafe trailed fingers over his newly shaven chin, and those wings in his belly began to beat even faster. The taking of a wife, his uncle lectured him last night, was a considerable task to assume. Soon there would be children.

Responsibilities of that nature had very nearly been the end of poor Pyke. Rafe had taken Lady Blunt’s purse to pay some of his friend’s debt, only to find Pyke had escaped the Fleet Prison and run off, leaving his wife and children behind in Rafe’s care. There was nothing he could do but bring them with him into the country.

For now, Mrs. Pyke and her children were housed at the Red Lion Inn in Morecroft—about an hour’s ride away—until he could find a more permanent place for them. Molly knew nothing about it. Yet. She would not be pleased at the burdens he shouldered for another man. Having met Pyke once, she’d declared him “sly and silly.” Molly had no time for people who couldn’t look after themselves.

“You’re too easily taken in, Rafe,” she’d said to him once. “Your generosity is abused by others. When will you put your needs first?”

“I will,” he’d replied, “when I know what they are.”

“Well, if you don’t know by now, Rafe Hartley, you never will. You’re too soft.”

Molly could be quite sharp at times.

But after a few cross words, she would let the matter rest. She didn’t try to boss him around. She didn’t quarrel with him at every turn. Molly was smart as a whip and steady as a rock. And penny-wise. Most importantly, reliable Molly Robbins would never abandon him.

He broke off his thoughts again, trying to see his full reflection in the window. Why the devil was this shirt pulling on his shoulders? He couldn’t possibly have grown since he was last measured. But it definitely felt as if he wore another man’s clothes today. Glancing at his old shirt, he thought, somewhat wistfully, that he’d wear that one if he could get away with it. If it wasn’t stained in the front, where it showed. He’d never hear the last of it from his father.