The Lady Mercy Danforthe Flirts With Scandal (30 page)

“Is there such a difference?”

“Apparently.”

“Well, Sydney Dovedale is too rural and remote for many folk.” For Rafe, that was the attraction. He did not like crowds or busy streets where he had to adjust his stride to suit the speed of others.

“That will change in time.” Mercy sighed. “New developments will come even to Sydney Dovedale. One day I shouldn’t be at all surprised if even the smallest country cottage has indoor plumbing.”

“I hear it never works properly for those who have it.” He sniffed, digging his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets. “And who needs to bathe that often in any case?”

“You sound just like your great-grandmama!”

He did it on purpose to hear her laugh, to see her eyes light up. The pleasure he got from it never faded. Rafe was plucking up his courage to ask her to dance, when she raised her hand in an elegant gesture, and suddenly there was Mrs. Pyke at his side with feathers in her hair and too much punch on her breath. Efforts had been made to dress her up in dark blue silk, but the only thing about her not drooping was her bosom.

Mercy exclaimed jauntily, “You must find space on your dance card for Mrs. Pyke.”

His friend’s wife was tapping her feet to the music, which was loud enough at that point to prevent her hearing anything they said. There was a definite tilt and sway to her motion and a brilliance to her cheeks that went beyond the application of rouge. “Mrs. Pyke,” he shouted, “have you been at the punch?”

She nodded merrily. “To excess, Mr. Hartley.”

“Where are the children?” he demanded, annoyed. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d forgotten the little Pykes.

“The children are in good hands,” Mercy replied on the woman’s behalf. “They are in the care of a good lady I hired for the evening.”

“Oh, do let’s dance!” Mrs. Pyke exclaimed, grabbing his sleeve and pulling on it. “Do let’s!”

Rafe looked at Mercy. Her mouth was set in a firm pucker, her eyes stabbing at him like sharpened icicles. “Do dance with your particular friend.”

Fine
, he thought angrily. Now she’d passed her snippy mood on to him. “Mrs. Pyke”—he turned to the bouncing woman—“we shall indeed dance. What was I thinking to delay?”

She knew his aunt Sophie had given him dance lessons that week. Luckily for him, his partner was too dizzy, even before the dance began, to realize he steered her the wrong way most of the time. But he was trying. He had taken lessons in dancing. That he should bother was a surprise to Mercy, for he counted himself above all this. He might have mocked her for being proud and conceited, but he was no less discriminatory in his own way, scorning certain activities he considered beneath his trouble. Busy trying to convince her that he was Humble Farmer Rafe, he failed to recognize his own snobbery.

Lady Ursula had suggested she take Rafe’s “improvement” on as another of her missions. “The boy plainly needs a knowledgeable eye cast over his clothing choices and his grooming,” she had said. “We might at least see that he does not embarrass us on sight, even if the image is destroyed the moment he opens his mouth.”

Mercy had agreed with a chuckle. “I always think it a great pity men have to open their mouths at all. It would be much easier on us if they remained silent.”

This—she was forced to admit tonight—was equally true of some women. And she followed Mrs. Pyke around the room with a pained gaze. Several other faces were observing the lady with wondering eyes. She was loudly laughing now, having slipped on a piece of cake and fallen into Rafe’s embrace.

William Milford returned with cake and punch, but she had no time to enjoy either. A number of irate ladies headed directly for her. As head of the planning committee, they came to Mercy, ready to complain about the loss of the partner for whom they’d bid. Mr. James Hartley had saved many of them from a wallflower’s fate in the absence of his son, but he was, of course, a married man, and so not the catch they’d hoped to win. Now, adding insult to injury, Rafe not only came late, he danced with an anonymous lady.

Mercy hastily directed them all to Mrs. Kenton who, she assured them, was responsible for the foolish bachelor auction in the first place. Let her take some of the blame. If the woman was eager to meddle where she was not needed, she ought to take the arrows as well as the accolades. Mercy certainly had.

And she had more than Rafe’s lack of punctuality and a group of disgruntled ladies to worry about. Earlier that evening, Sir William had mentioned quite casually that he brought his sisters into the country entirely on the suggestion of Mrs. Hartley, who wrote to him very recently at his London house. It was wholly her idea, it seemed, that the ladies should come to Sydney Dovedale with him. She had wanted them, most particularly, to meet Mercy.

Mrs. Hartley, however, had always acted as if she had no hand in the ladies coming with Sir William—as if she barely knew them. It was all very strange. Did Rafe’s stepmother think that she and Mrs. Kenton would be friends? Did she, like Rafe, think they had much in common? A horrifying thought indeed.

Glancing around the room, she saw Mrs. Kenton apparently badgering one of the young ladies into eating a slice of cake she plainly didn’t want and advising another on drinking less punch. On all sides of the loud lady, people withdrew, trying not to catch her eye or likewise her criticism. Slowly, Mercy took measure of the wide space left around herself. Sir William was the only soul standing near, and he did so on the balls of his feet, ready to take flight. His nervous gaze constantly darted about, as if the room was on fire and he sought an exit.

She’d noticed a chill on her shoulders and now realized it was because no bodies were clustered around her, as they were around other people. Each time the doors opened to admit another person, and with them a blast of cold air, Mercy felt it directly, because there was no one nearby to shelter her. There were a great deal of backs turned. When she met an eye, it was hastily turned away and fastened intently elsewhere. In the past, she’d assumed it was natural deference—respect for her status. Now she wondered.

She swallowed with difficulty, for her throat was suddenly dry.

Had she been such a painful nuisance?

Mercy’s blurred gaze found Rafe. At least he liked her.

She couldn’t be so bad, if Rafe sought her company. He was honest about his likes and dislikes, and even though they quarreled—fiercely at times—no one made him walk over to her, did they? No one had made him call a truce with her.

Rafe. Thank goodness she was not completely without friends. Her gaze cleared after several more blinks and a hasty dab with a handkerchief. She observed him now with greater benevolence and forgiveness than ever before. Rafe.

***

Aware of his father and stepmother watching in bemusement, he steered Mrs. Pyke toward them. Time to begin Lady Know-All’s lesson.

“Father, may I introduce Mrs. Pyke of…” He glanced down at the woman wilting against his arm, cooling her face with flapping fingers in the absence of a proper fan. “From whence do you hail, madam? I forget the place.”

She looked blankly up at him, lips parted, cheeks flushed.

“Where are you from?” he whispered urgently.

Mrs. Pyke seemed vexed by the question and then exclaimed, “I was born in Pillory Lane, weren’t I?”

Well, that would do for now, he thought, amused. “Mrs. Pyke of Pillory Lane, London,” he confirmed to his startled parents.

His stepmother was the first to recover and politely ask how Mrs. Pyke enjoyed the ball.

“I’m fair worn out,” the woman replied. “Ain’t been to a ball in ages.”

“Perhaps some punch?”

Rafe interjected that he thought Mrs. Pyke had drunk enough punch, and his father gravely agreed. This left his stepmother temporarily at a loss for subjects. So Rafe said brightly, “Lady Mercy has selected Mrs. Pyke as a potential bride for me. Is that not thoughtful of her?”

While his parents looked on in undisguised horror, Mrs. Pyke slapped his arm and laughed.
“Sauce box!”

Having left this news to ferment, Rafe gallantly led his partner back across the room, smiling broadly.

***

Within a quarter of an hour or less, the news was all over the room.

Mrs. Hartley rushed over to ask her what mischief she played to match Rafe with Mrs. Pyke. Mrs. Kenton approached her with the same question shortly after, but broached in less polite terms. “That frightful, common woman for Mr. Rafe Hartley? He tells us you selected her as a potential bride? This cannot be the case. I think he jests with me again.”

Mercy looked over and saw him grinning at her. “Mr. Rafe Hartley is full of jests, as you’ve observed.” He’d done it to irritate her, of course, make her look foolish. “I thought you liked Mrs. Pyke. You lent her a gown.”

“I begin to wish I had not,” the woman replied haughtily.

“But after all, despite Mrs. Pyke’s lack of elegance and refinement, she is a victim of unhappy circumstances. As such, she should be an object for our concern, not our scorn.”

“Well said,” exclaimed Mrs. Hartley.

“But I did not know you had plans of this nature. What about Isabella? She is a much better match for Rafe Hartley.”

“I’m not sure your sister is suitable for Rafe.” Mercy grappled with the best way to word her objections without seeming to criticize Isabella. “His character is too strong.”

His stepmother agreed that Rafe needed a wife capable of keeping him in line, not one who would permit him to rule the roost.

Mrs. Kenton’s feathered headdress trembled fitfully. “I will not let my sister’s chance for happiness be spoiled again, young woman.”

“Again?”

Mrs. Hartley intervened with another cup of punch for Mrs. Kenton. Mercy, fearing the woman would throw the drink at her, attempted to smooth the waters. “I can assure you both,” she said steadily, “Rafe is not going to marry Mrs. Pyke. It’s just another of his pranks and an opportunity for him to make sport of me. Of us all.”

Mrs. Kenton demanded to know why.

“I’m afraid it’s what he does,” his stepmother replied with a soft sigh. “He’s always looking for ways to ridicule convention.”

“Well, I must say!” Mrs. Kenton muttered under her breath, eyeing Rafe as he whirled his
particular
friend
about the dance floor. “That fellow has gone down in my estimation, to be sure.”

“I thought you enjoyed his lively manner,” said Mercy.

“There’s lively and there’s impertinent. Mr. Rafe Hartley, I see now, is in danger of becoming the latter.”

Next came his father, who strode around the perimeter to complain to Mercy as if it was all her fault. “I thought that boy was settling down at last, finally growing up, serious about life. But now I see I was wrong. He’s just as intent on mischief as ever.”

“Mrs. Pyke is the wife of a friend,” she explained. “Rafe has been helping them, that’s all.”

The subject of their conversation was spinning his colorful partner around the floor like a dust mop, enjoying the scandalized expressions around him.

“And why could he not tell me this?” his father grumbled fiercely. “To make me suffer, of course.”

“Mr. Hartley, I’m sure he—”

“That boy will never change. He refuses my assistance, never heeds my advice. Everything in life to him is a jest.”

“But he is so anxious for your approval, sir.”

He scowled, adjusted his stance, put his hands behind his back. “I see scant evidence of that.”

“He wants to make his own way in the world so you will be proud of him.”

James gestured at the dancing fool. “And this is how he means to do it? He might at least have worn clean clothes and gloves.”

“But those things are not important to Rafe, sir.”

He sniffed. “I’m not sure what is these days.”

Mercy looked up at James Hartley, who was impeccably attired, as always. Like her, she supposed he took comfort from the proper garments and could not understand how anyone else managed without them. She was only just beginning to realize herself that it was not necessarily clothes that made the man. “You must remember, sir, your son’s experiences of life have been very different from your own. He has learned to value other things. He must wonder why appearances matter so much to us. Actions are far more important to him.”

James still frowned, watching his son escort Mrs. Pyke and her bosoms up and down the dance. “And his actions tonight? What are we to make of those?”

Mercy shook her head. “I fear this is my fault. He thinks he’s teasing me, sir. He’s making one of his points.”

“Which would be?”

“That he is not afraid of rumor or other folks’ opinions.”

“Those things may not be important to my son, but they are to me. It’s time he learned to consider the feelings of others.”

Mercy replied, “I’m sure he does not mean to hurt you, sir, but sometimes getting any reaction from a parent is better than getting none at all.” She knew this, because of her own trying relationship with Carver, the brother whose concern and attention she could capture only by running away.

Oh, Rafe was walking toward her with a very purposeful look on his face.

The prickly, overgrown hedge loomed again, and she raced toward it, wind whipping her face, tugging on her hair. Again, voices shouted warnings, urging her to slow down and take the gate instead. But she faced that hedge, put her head down, and gripped the reins.

It was not the fault of the horse out of control under her. This was her decision, just as it had once been her mother’s. She wanted to know what was on the other side of that hedge.

Her mother did not want the gate, because she preferred the thrill of adventure. Nothing would have stopped her that day. Mercy understood that now.

***

When she saw him heading toward her, she turned her back and walked through the crowd at the edge of the dance floor. Rafe lengthened his stride, took a sharp turn, and blocked her path.