The Lady Mercy Danforthe Flirts With Scandal (11 page)

Rafe’s uncle looked up from his newspaper. “That girl doesn’t deserve my nephew. She’s broken his heart. If he takes her back, he’s a fool.”

“I have put off paying him a visit,” Sophie exclaimed, finally falling into a chair, looking exhausted. “I know how he is when in a temper, and at such a time, he is best left to his own devices.”

Mercy decided to say nothing of her visit to the jilted groom, for they would only ask her what had happened, what sort of state he was in. Neither question could be answered without causing her to blush.

“Will you stay long in Morecroft, Lady Mercy?”

“I’m afraid not. My fiancé returns from Italy in a month.” She faltered. “But I can stay a day or two. I hate to leave with everything so…undone. I am determined to put everything in order again before I leave.”

“It is good of you to help,” his aunt whispered. “But that girl made up her own mind. The best we can hope for now is that she changes it back again. For Rafe’s sake.”

“Well, I hope she stays away,” his uncle snapped as he shook out his newspaper with an angry rustle. “Humiliating that boy before the whole village. He ought to find a good woman, a steady woman with her feet on the ground. Someone content with what he has to give, not a girl always looking for something better. Tomorrow I’ll visit the lad, talk sense into him. There’s many a young woman in these parts that would jump at the chance to wed our Rafe, and he needs a wife now, a companion to help him with the farm.”

Mercy’s heart had a very erratic beat that day and now it almost lost the rhythm completely. This was very bad. They needed time for Molly to return, more time to settle this in a calm, organized manner. If Rafe’s uncle stuck his oar in, that fool boy just might grab the nearest willing female to save his wounded pride. That, naturally, would infuriate his father, who still had hopes of Rafe following Molly to London, where he could make use of his education in some profession. Everyone had plans for Rafe, and they all thought they knew what was best.

Rafe’s aunt got to her feet again, having sat still for no more than a few minutes. “Would you stay and take tea, Lady Mercy? Goodness! Where are my manners that I didn’t ask you earlier?”

“Oh no, that is quite all right. I called in only to—”

The lady suddenly tipped forward, her face drained of color. She caught hold of the table edge to right herself, and Mercy rushed to her aid. “You look very ill, madam. You should sit.”

Her husband dropped his reading and hurried over. “Sophie, the doctor told you to rest more.”

“I am perfectly well,” she stubbornly declared, when it was quite evident that the opposite was true. Rafe’s uncle, whose skin was of a naturally swarthy tone, turned almost as pale as his wife. His strong, work-roughened hands trembled as he eased her down in her chair.

Mercy fetched a woolen shawl from the rack of clothes drying before the fire, and he wrapped his wife in it, muttering, “Now rest. Put your feet up.”

“Put my feet up, indeed. I’ve been through this seven times before. I think I know what I’m doing by now, don’t you?”

Rafe’s uncle shook his head, his lips set firm in silent disagreement, his forehead lined with anxiety. Mercy had not realized the lady’s condition until that moment, for no one had mentioned it to her, of course. She was surprised, knowing the lady to be in her early forties and therefore beyond the average age of childbearing. No wonder her husband was so concerned. Ah, but was it not also his fault that she was in this state?

Now there was even more for her to worry about. Women in this state were so fragile. It made Mercy extremely nervous just to be around them.

Men
, thought Mercy with a hearty sigh. They were always unmindful of the trouble they caused until it was too late.

When she drove Mr. Hartley’s curricle back through the village, softened sunlight had just begun its descent, lowering shyly behind the white blossom sprigs of the proud horse chestnut trees along the common. It was a mellow, pleasant evening, the sort that made her wonder why Molly Robbins should be in such haste to leave the country behind forever.

During her visits to Sydney Dovedale with Molly—visits that stretched over a dozen years of her life—Mercy had come to know the place very well. Most things never changed, but there were a few new developments of note, one being that the village shop was no longer managed by the very solemn Mr. Hodson. It was now run by his much livelier son, a tailor of questionable skill, known to the village inhabitants as “Jammy Jim,” not only because of his predilection for the sweet comestible, but also because he was well known for the talent of talking himself out of sticky situations. From his father he inherited the ability to sell milk to a cow, but while old Mr. Hodson had used this convincing chatter to run a successful business, Jammy Jim used it mostly to argue with his wife—a very pretty and hot-tempered young woman he’d talked into marrying him a few years ago. Much to Mercy’s amusement, when the couple were not fighting, they were wildly in love, and there was not often a great deal of time elapsed from one kind of passion to the other.

This evening, as she rode by in the curricle, Jammy Jim was cleaning his upper windows while his wife held the ladder.

Mercy slowed the horses to view the display in the bow-front window—an old habit. She did love to discover a good bargain and felt her inner huntress on high alert whenever passing a well-designed shop front. The young Mrs. Hodson, recognizing her as she trotted by, forgot her husband’s ladder to run into the lane and tell her all about some new silks and summer muslins available in the shop and, most importantly, a millinery counter recently enlarged and under her sole management.

“I shall be trimming bonnets myself to order,” the lady explained earnestly. “All the latest styles can be had now here in Sydney Dovedale.”

Mercy promised to return soon and sample her fashionable wares. Meanwhile, Mr. Jim Hodson’s ladder began to waver precariously in the corner of her eye. “Madam, perhaps you had better—”

“And I have just the thing for you, Lady Mercy! A peacock-feather muff I know you will adore! Mr. Hodson was just saying yesterday that he wondered why I thought such an item as a peacock-feather muff might be needed in Sydney Dovedale. He inferred that I made a mistake”—she raised her voice so he would hear—“that no one would wish to purchase it, and that it would gather dust on the shelf. But I said to him, it is just the thing for a discerning customer of fashion—the very sort of customer we should court. It should arrive direct from Paris in a day or two. And here you are, Lady Mercy. Conjured up like a genie, just in time!”

Behind the young woman’s head, her husband’s ladder swayed. Dropping his bucket, he looked for her in some understandable alarm. “Cathy!”

She dropped a hasty curtsy. “Do excuse me, your ladyship.”

“Please go and save your husband.”

Jammy Jim clung to the thatched edge of his roof and bellowed for his wife in tones that startled several nesting doves above his head. As they fluttered up into the sky, he gave a high-pitched shriek and almost lost his footing completely. Somehow he stayed on as the ladder tilted first one way and then the other. Perhaps, mused Mercy, his feet were as “jammy” as the rest of him.

As she drew the curricle around the village common, slowing for the geese that crossed the lane in no particular hurry, she looked to her right and assessed the front of Merryweather’s Tavern. A few weathered benches were set outside, filled with farm laborers who enjoyed a pint pot after a hard day of spring planting. No sign of Rafe. Good.

Several men watched her pass, and those who knew Mercy from her previous visits to the village—particularly those familiar with her generosity toward anyone who opened and closed a gate for her—doffed their hats respectfully. Suddenly one of them jumped up and trotted alongside the curricle. “Milady, good eve to you.” He tipped his dusty old cap. “I ’ope you don’t mind the liberty, ma’am, but I think someone should step in like and put a stop to it, afore young master Rafe gets ’imself in trouble.”

She drew back on the reins. “What has he done now?”

“Gone and got ’imself into a game o’ cards, ma’am, and losing money as if there’s a hole in ’is pocket. We all know yon lad’s had a tough time of it—what with young Moll Robbins running off like that, but some folks will take advantage, milady. There’s some fellows who never held much liking for young Rafe, and reckon he’s too big for his boots. Now’s their chance to kick the lad while he’s down. If thee knows what I mean, milady.”

“Yes, I see.” He did have a habit of rubbing folk up the wrong way, because he was so fond of speaking his mind. She glanced over at the open door of the tavern. Raucous laughter spilled into the mild, sweet evening air. “Is he in drink?” she demanded.

“Not yet, milady, but I daresay the lad’s fair on the way to it.”

“Please go in and tell him I wish to speak with him.” She settled the horses and waited while the old man lurched inside. The wait stretched on, and the laughter continued unabated. Finally, the worried fellow reemerged and hobbled over to the curricle once more.

“Well?” she demanded.

“Master Rafe says if you want ’im, milady, you’ll ’ave to come and get ’im yerself, if yer please. Beggin’ your pardon, milady.”

And that, she thought, was probably not all he said. Or how he said it. Rafe Hartley never cared about the words he used, or how, or when.

Mercy exhaled a hefty sigh. If she rode on, she would fret all night about Rafe and any lack of judgment he might suffer under the influence of too much ale. He could end up with the wrong woman that evening. He might trip and fall in a ditch, or encounter a poacher’s trap if he wandered off the path. Well, she was there to help, was she not? This was no time for her Danforthe nerves to fail. Once again she seemed the only one capable of dealing with the wretched boy. “Lady Blunt” would certainly not let anyone stop her from entering a tavern once she got the idea in her head.

“Here,” she said, “will you hold my horses for me, my good fellow?”

“But, milady, a young lass—
lady
, like yourself, shouldn’t—”

“I am not afraid, I assure you.” She climbed carefully down and straightened her skirt. “How bad can it be?”

She soon found out. Marching boldly through the door of the tavern, riding crop in both hands, she was hit at once by the thick odor of stale ale, wood smoke, rotten apples, and masculine sweat. It almost swept her back out again, but she gathered her courage to push her way through the mob. Men’s faces turned in shock, the laughter cut off as if by a scythe. Some hats were lifted; many were not.

“Rafe Hartley,” she shouted.

He was at a corner table, leaning with his bared forearms on the pitted wood, cards in his hand. He blinked several times in disbelief when he saw her. “What do you want, woman? Come to continue our quarrel? I thought I was rid of you.”

Someone tittered and then yelped as they were abruptly silenced. Mercy waved a hand before her face, clearing a spot through the dense smoke that belched from the fireplace. “It’s time you went home. I’ll take you.”

He leaned back, watching her with those intense blue eyes, one arm hanging over the back of his chair. “I’m in the midst of a game,
your
ladyship
, and I’m not inclined to leave it unfinished. Unlike some folk”—his eyes darkened meaningfully—“I finish what I start.”

He might not be drunk yet, but as the old man had said, he was on the way to it. Someone had just bought him another filled mug. She walked up to where he sat and urged him again to get up and go with her. There was a pile of coins in the middle of the table, and right at the pinnacle sat Rafe’s gold pocket watch. She knew it was his—a present from his father three years ago when he turned one and twenty. Molly had told her about it.

“I can’t go yet, you see.” He grinned up at her. “Got to win my watch back.”

It was quiet enough now in that tavern to hear a moderate-sized pin drop.

“You sit here next to me, your dainty ladyship,” Rafe drawled, patting a stool at his side. “Mayhap your fine, aristocratic”—he eyed her up and down—“
presence
will bring this poor country boy some luck, eh?” He snorted with laughter, but none of the other men around the table joined in, too in awe of the uncommon stranger in their midst.

She sat hastily, almost lowering her backside onto his hand. “As you wish. I’ll wait here until you’re done, and then I’ll take you home.” She swung her gaze to the face of each man around that table. “While I’m here, I’ll see that no cheating occurs.” Mercy might not know the rules of their game, but she could tell a guilty expression a mile away, and several of his opponents had very suspiciously shaped ears. For instance, Tom Ridge, the blacksmith’s son, was, in her opinion, a sly, untrustworthy fellow and an opportunist. She treated him to one of her most forbidding frowns.

Rafe reached for a newly filled tankard, but she beat him to it, determined to keep him at least partway sober. “I’m thirsty,” she exclaimed when he glowered at her.

“It’s strong scrumpy. None of your ladylike sherry, my lady.”

“Thank you for the warning. I can assure you it is not necessary.” Her brother always said she had hollow legs and tin innards. So to prove herself to Rafe and all those who watched, she lifted the small veil of her bonnet and downed the tankard of cider in one long gulp. “Quite refreshing.” Ooh. Yes, it was certainly refreshing. If that was the word for it. For a moment she thought it had removed the surface of her tongue.

“Watch yourself, my lady.”

She gave him an arch smile that already felt slightly looser and wider than usual. “And you do the same.”

The game progressed, and she tried to follow, but cards had always bored her, and she knew only solitaire. Even that she seldom played, for in her opinion, games of chance were an utter waste of time. She preferred chess, something where real skill and planning was involved and it didn’t all depend on how the cards were shuffled.