The Lady Mercy Danforthe Flirts With Scandal (4 page)

Rafe required something to steady his nerves, temporarily abandoned the process of dressing, and stepped into the cool larder for a tankard of beer. As long as he didn’t arrive at the altar stinking of ale, nobody could begrudge him a little jug today. He took a long gulp of beer, and some spilled from the corners of his mouth as he tipped his head back a little too far and too hard. Better. Now emboldened, he approached his new waistcoat—a fancy, printed silk of the sort he would never have worn if he wasn’t talked into it by a very persuasive tailor. He slipped it over his shirt and tackled the buttons with hasty, fumbling fingers. Again he checked the shadowy reflection in his crooked mirror. Not bad. Slight resemblance to a trussed-up Christmas goose, perhaps. If anyone laughed, he’d just laugh harder. Molly wouldn’t, of course. She’d already warned him that he’d better keep a straight face in church.

He cast a wary eye around his small farmhouse and wondered, as he often did lately, whether Molly had grown too fine for him now. Would life as a farmer’s wife be dull and tedious after her time as a lady’s maid, living in that grand house with Mercy Danforthe in London?

Damn and blast! Don’t think of The Brat today.

Lips pursed in a whistle that was more volume than tune, he slipped the last waistcoat button through its hole and tucked certain thoughts away likewise.

“Rafe?” His father was at the open front door, tapping with his knuckles.

Caught up in restless thoughts, Rafe hadn’t heard the carriage and horses. “Come in,” he shouted as he still fussed with the linen neckcloth which felt as if it might strangle him.

James Hartley, impeccably dressed as always, stood in a wedge of sunlight, one foot on the doorstep. Two more different men could scarcely be found, and Rafe occasionally wondered whether James really was his blood father or if there’d been a mistake. After all, they had only Rafe’s mother’s word for it, and she, a housemaid with whom James had a brief affair, died within a few hours of his birth. According to the tale Rafe was told, he came under his uncle’s guardianship immediately after his mother’s death because his father was unaware of his existence until years later. Now his father tried to make it up to him.

He’d been trying to make it up to Rafe for twelve years. Sometimes Rafe wished he wouldn’t try quite so hard. It chafed to be reined in suddenly when he’d been free to run wild most of his youth.

“Well, Son, are we ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be to don the shackles,” he replied jovially.

His father did not crack a smile but looked Rafe up and down with a stern, critical perusal.

“Do I pass inspection, then?” He should, he mused—he’d spent an hour just polishing his boots that morning because he couldn’t sleep.

“I’m glad you had a new suit of clothes made. Should have gone to my tailor in Norwich, however.”

“Aye, well, Jammy Jim was cheaper.”

“Evidently.” His father exhaled the word gravely. “And I suppose there is no point reminding you of my offer to pay.”

“When a man fills out his breeches, he ought to be able to pay for them himself, sir.” He laughed, trying to lighten the mood.

“Yes, well…when you’re ready, the carriage is outside.”

“I told you I can walk to church, Father. There was no need to bring the chaise.”

But James Hartley insisted. “No son of mine will saunter to church on his wedding day.”

“Does it make a difference if I go on wheels, hooves, or feet?”

His father was looking around the farmhouse, inspecting it. Finally his cool gaze returned to Rafe. “Yes, it does.”

Apparently his wedding day was no time for a sense of humor. His father looked as tense as Rafe felt inside. “Like what I’ve done with the place, sir?”

“You’ve made it very comfortable. I’m sure Molly will be happy here.” It was, Rafe suspected, what his stepmother told James to say. She very much wanted the two men to put past quarrels aside and find peace, but with differing opinions on what Rafe should do with his life, they had some distance to bridge. “I am, naturally, disappointed with your decision to abandon the law and any hope of working for the family business in order to take up farming instead…” He cleared his throat. “But this is perhaps not the day to discuss the matter.”

“Perhaps not.” Rafe gave up trying to make his father smile, and shrugged into his new blue superfine tailcoat.

“I hear Lady Mercy Danforthe plans to attend the wedding,” said James suddenly.

Well, there went his chance of getting through the day without using a curse word. Of course that interfering, bossy-mouthed girl had to come, didn’t she? “Aye. Every silver lining has a cloud.”

His father clearly saw her attendance today as a social coup—if such a thing might be had at a small, unfashionable country wedding. “Molly is fortunate to include Lady Mercy as a friend. I hope you won’t be rude to her today.”

“As long as she says naught to me, I’ll have no cause to say aught to her, shall I?”

His father sighed. “For Molly’s sake, hold your temper. Don’t spoil the day.”

“Like I said, Father, if The Danforthe Brat keeps her opinions to herself for once, I’m sure we can tolerate each other for a few hours.”

“Yes, well… See that you make an effort. And stop cracking your knuckles.” His father did not come any farther inside but hovered uncertainly in the door frame.

“Are we late, sir?” Foolish question. It always felt to Rafe as if he was never on time for anything. No matter how hard he tried, too many obstacles and distractions got in his way.

“We shall be, if we dally,” his father confirmed. “Don’t want to keep the young lady waiting.”

“I’ll just take a last look around and make sure everything is as it should be. For when Merc…Molly comes.” His nervous stomach had started again, and his fingers felt fuzzy. He needed a few moments alone to compose himself without his father’s stern gaze watching and reading his face. For some terrible reason, he couldn’t stop his thoughts from wandering down the very worst of paths—one that led him through knotted and scratchy brambles. Somewhere down that mysterious lane in his mind, over the treacherous ruts and wayward tree roots, there lived a chattering, obnoxiously proud pixie with curly copper hair.

As soon as James stepped outside, Rafe grabbed his tankard and drained it.

It didn’t help much. He burped.

One last look around. Damn. He should have picked some flowers and put them in a vase for the mantel. He’d meant to do it and forgot, but he was never one for fancifications, and Molly knew it. She would probably have looked at him with her big doe eyes and said, “Flowers? For whose approval did you do all this, Rafe Hartley? Not for mine, to be sure.”

As if there could be anyone else on his mind.

So this was it.

Resuming a tuneless whistle, he grabbed his new hat from the table and followed his father out into the sun.

***

As Mercy exited the carriage, her foot had barely touched the ground when she was descended upon by two anxious women: the groom’s stepmother and his aunt.

“Thank goodness you are here,” they chorused almost in unison.

Gratifying as it was to be greeted so eagerly—for it was not always the case in Lady Mercy’s life—she sensed at once that theirs was not an exclamation of delight but rather one of relief.

“What is it?” A dark foreboding quickly settled over her as she recalled her brother’s teasing words. “What has happened?” She barely had time to straighten her bonnet—a much more modest affair today, gilded straw scattered with dainty primroses—before the two women shuffled her speedily through the lych-gate and down the church path. “Am I so late?” she muttered.

They assured her she was not late and, once at the door of the vestry, they halted, both gathering their breaths with grateful sighs and finally allowing her boot heels to touch the ground.

“Don’t you look lovely!” Rafe’s stepmother exclaimed with a false sort of jollity. “What a fresh shade of yellow—so springlike. And your hair has lightened to such a pretty gold. I remember when it was almost copper, a fiery lion’s mane. But now it is much softer.”

Mercy frowned, skeptical of this excessive and unlikely flattery. “Is something amiss, madam?” She’d endured two days of uncomfortable travel, worrying the entire time that she might be captured by a bloodthirsty highwayman or—even worse—that she could be late. The last thing she wanted now was to be waylaid by these two ladies, infamous for their love of a good prank.

“Amiss?” Rafe’s stepmother had wide violet eyes that seemed in a perpetual state of amusement, even in moments of dire emergency. “Goodness no. Just a little…a slight delay in the proceedings.”

“A delay?”

The two older women looked at each other, and then Rafe’s stepmother confessed in a breathless whisper, “Molly has changed her mind.”

“She will talk to none other but you,” his aunt added, clearly annoyed with the bride-to-be.

Mercy’s heart fluttered up into her tight throat. “Changed her mind? After all these years?”

They shrugged haplessly, gesturing at her to go in. She took a breath as deep as she could muster after that shocking news, then opened the vestry door and entered.

In one step, she left the bright spring sun behind. Her skin pimpled, swept by the coarse brush of a grave-like chill, the cold, damp mustiness of ancient stone closing her in. One shaft of light filtered in through a narrow, arched window, and there Molly stood, wringing her hands, gazing out wistfully. She might have been posing for a portrait in watercolors.

It struck Mercy suddenly how so much had changed in the twelve years since she first met Molly here in Sydney Dovedale. Not that the village had changed hardly at all, but they had. Together they’d grown from girls to women. Mercy liked to think she was much more sensible now, although she still had a tendency to assume the world would turn the way she wanted it to. And why shouldn’t it? Did it have anything better to do?

At the sound of the heavy door creaking open and closing again with a solid thunk, Molly turned and ran into her friend’s arms. “Oh, what have I done? What have I done?”

“I can’t imagine,” Mercy replied drily. “What
have
you done?” She couldn’t, for a moment, believe her old friend was prepared to turn her back on Rafe Hartley. Mercy was not about to let it happen after all she’d gone through to bring this wedding forward. It must simply be a case of last-minute nerves.

Weddings, of course, were emotional events. Not that hers would be. Mercy knew how dreadful she looked with a red nose and eyes, so she always did her weeping in private, under the bedcovers. If only other ladies were so prudent, she thought as she surveyed the tattered, mournful exhibit of womanhood wilting before her. Apparently here was another girl whose stockings had lost their staying power at the prospect of a wedding night. “Do pull your garters up, Molly.” She withdrew a silk handkerchief from her muff. “Now, blow.”

Obediently, Molly blew into the handkerchief but could not stem the tide of tears falling in lush droplets down her pale cheeks. “He will never forgive me, I know.”

“Forgive you for what?”

“For not marrying him. But I can’t. I just…can’t…” Molly descended into more sobs, louder ones this time that shook every inch of her slender form and disturbed the neat arrangement of her chestnut hair. Petals of orange blossoms fell like snowdrops to the stone floor of the vestry.

Mercy steered her friend back to the light of the window and tried straightening the bridal headdress. “Molly, do cease these dramatics, which are so unlike you. How many times have I heard you say how much you look forward to being married?”

“I have not said that for a long time. I suppose you have not noticed. I hardly realized it myself, until this morning as I was being dressed.” Molly looked down at her wedding gown—one of her own creations—and shook her head. “Quite suddenly I realized I hadn’t felt that way for months, perhaps even years. It just became something I was accustomed to saying out loud. Without thinking.”

“This is merely a case of matrimonial nerves, Molly Robbins. Now, where does the parson keep his wine?” Mercy began searching the cupboards and shelves. “Gracious! What happened to cleanliness is next to godliness?” she muttered, swiping at the dusty shelves with a folded altar cloth and setting a stack of tumbled prayer books back upright.

Behind her, Molly blew her nose again, the disturbed dust quickly worsening her red-eyed state. “When someone claims they love a person, the other has no choice but to return the sentiment, do they? Otherwise it seems so dreadfully rude and unappreciative of the compliment.”

After a brief, bemused glance over her shoulder, Mercy continued her search for wine. Always in control of her own wits, and never having her opinion swayed by another, she couldn’t quite comprehend the notion of agreeing for the sake of courtesy. Honesty might be brutal in some cases, but it was often kinder in the long run. As they now had evidence.

“I do care for him, but I don’t… I’m not
in
love
with him.”

“Aha!” Mercy found a crystal decanter. She lifted the stopper and sniffed. “Not bad.” A further search for drinking vessels turned up empty-handed. “Here,” she said, passing the decanter to her friend. “You’ll have to swig it.”

Molly wrinkled her nose and shook her head at the offered decanter. She folded her arms. “I don’t want to be a wife. Not yet, in any case. I want to start my dressmaking business. I have some capital now to start, and I…I have a lease on a small room in a building near—”

“Molly Robbins!” Mercy was astonished that so much could have been done without her knowledge, and especially without her advice. “I always told you I would lend you the money, if you wanted it, but I thought
this
was what you wanted.”

“I thought so too. I thought marriage and children were what I
should
want. But this other need has crept up on me. It is so strong now that I cannot deny it. Not any longer.”

There was something about the gentle way the other girl spoke, even through half-contained sobs, that suggested her mind was made up. As if she knew that when she turned at this crossroads, the path she’d walked before was lost for good. She did not want to search for it. She had her eye on a new horizon now, her mind set on it.