Revulsion danced through him, but somehow he managed to smile at Lady E with what he hoped was the kind of mock devotion she wanted from him. “They are indeed, my angel,” he said.
Every cell of his body was aware of Flossie coming to a stop by the hotel desk and whispering something to Daniel, the new daytime concierge. Every part of him wanted to run to her and hide in her arms. But he couldn’t so much as look at her. Now more than ever, if he glanced in her direction, he would give himself away, and too much rode on courting Lord Merion’s favor to blow the whole thing so soon. Marshall was depending on him.
That thought was the only thing that pulled him back from the edge.
“Have you checked in yet, my lord?” he asked, raising Lady E’s hand to his lips so that he could pretend to kiss it casually instead of with absolute deliberateness.
“I was just about to,” Lord Merion answered.
“Once you have everything in order, allow me to give you a tour of the hotel,” he said. “It may not be the grandest of my enterprises, but it is the most personal.”
“What I’ve seen so far is delightful,” Lord Merion said. “Cozy, yet opulent. No wonder it’s become such a popular destination for London society.”
“Miss Stowe here is our hotel manager,” Jason went on, thinking as fast as he could in his shattered condition. Flossie turned instantly to their group with a ready smile, proving she’d been listening all along. Jason blustered on, unable to look her directly in the eye. “Miss Stowe, this is Lord Merion,” he said, knowing Flossie would recognize the name and its importance at once. Trusting in that, he focused on smiling devotedly at Lady E. “He is a great friend and supporter of my dearest Elisabeth, and so I would request that you place him in our finest room and see that his every need is taken care of.”
“Yes, sir,” Flossie said, bobbing a tight curtsy. Jason thanked God that she was better at subterfuge than he was. “It is a pleasure to meet you, my lord.” She curtsied perfectly to Lord Merion. “I would be delighted to help you in any way I can.”
“Is that so?” Lord Merion asked, eyeing Flossie as though she were a delicacy offered to him on a silver platter.
Anger flared so fast and so hot in Jason that the corners of his vision went red. He flinched toward Lord Merion, hands balling into fists. But before Lord Merion saw him or sensed the threat, Lady E yanked hard on Jason’s arm.
“You have a bit of fluff on your collar,” she said in a tight voice, her smile taut. She moved to stand in front of him, blocking him from Lord Merion and Flossie as she rubbed his collar. Her eyes held a steel will and a warning as the stared up at him, along with just enough mischief to make Jason wonder if she’d know Lord Merion would prey on Flossie.
“Would you prefer a lake view room or a garden view, my lord?” Flossie asked Lord Merion, leading him to the desk with no outward appearance of having understood his suggestion. Jason knew her well enough to know she’d fake innocence for as long as she could, and that she’d put her foot down firmly if Lord Merion attempted to cross any lines.
“Whichever you think is most lovely,” Lord Merion replied.
“Don’t embarrass me,” Lady E hissed. “Too much is depending on this party and your behavior. Don’t make me do things I don’t want to do.”
Jason widened his eyes as he stared at her. If this was Lady E doing things she wanted to do, then heaven help them all if she ever felt as though she needed to act.
He smiled at her with what either looked like heartfelt delight or blazing hatred and took both her hands in his. “My darling,” he said, kissing each of her hands and then both together, before leaning closer and whispering, near her ear, “If you ruin things between me and Flossie, I will make your life a living hell that all the money and society in the world can’t save you from.”
He kissed her hands again as he leaned back, smiling the same crocodile smile she usually wore. Lady E outwardly brimmed with affection, but the pink in her cheeks was fury, not love. “I will ruin far more than your sordid little dalliance with that trollop if you make a fool of me,” she said in honeyed tones. “I will ruin your whole life.”
Jason beamed back at her. “Flossie is my whole life. And you seem to grossly overestimate the power of a title when it goes up against money these days.” She opened her mouth to retort, but Jason cut her off with, “I’ll maintain this farce to the best of my ability for as long as you want it maintained, as we agreed. But my friends come first. Right now, I need to do whatever it takes to ingratiate myself to the man who can help us get Marshall Pycroft’s children back. This has nothing to do with you. Do I make myself clear?” he finished, echoing her earlier demand.
“Yes, dearest, you do,” she answered, fury making her eyes bright.
“Good,” he said, then slipped a hand around to cup the back of her head and closed his mouth over hers in what anyone passing by would see as a scandalously forward kiss.
When he let her go, Lady E stumbled back with a desperate laugh. “Oh, Jason. You shouldn’t have.” She stared daggers at him.
“How could I help myself, my love?” he asked. “Now if you will excuse me, I have a hotel empire to rule.”
He turned from Lady E to nod at Lord Merion, who had watched the whole thing from the desk with a devilish grin of approval. Then Jason’s gaze shifted to Flossie. He had a half second to see the wariness in her eyes before he was forced to pretend he hadn’t seen her at all. He stormed back into his office and shut the door, harder than he should have, then collapsed back against it with a groan. Disaster seemed to follow him wherever he went. He’d been a fool to think he could escape his past and have a quiet, loving life with Flossie. At least she wasn’t angry with him. He’d been able to tell that much from his tiny glimpse of her. No, she was worried. And if Flossie was worried, the situation was dire indeed.
Alexandra
Alexandra was convinced she could hear the clock ticking all throughout the day. She jumped at every unexpected sound as well. Every time she was near the waiting room when the hospital door opened, she jumped, heart in her throat, expecting to see her mother marching in, furious. Every moment that passed brought her closer to the disaster she knew was about to happen.
But the only people who came through the hospital doors were patients, the clock ticked by at a normal rate, and her mother didn’t come.
“Relax,” Marshall told her once they were home, hurriedly changing into more formal clothing for Jason and Elisabeth’s engagement party. “Perhaps the fact that your mother hasn’t stormed the hospital with an army at her heels means she’s accepting our marriage and taking things in stride.”
Alex huffed a humorless laugh and glanced at him through the mirror in his bedroom, where she stood, fixing her hair. No, it was their bedroom now, not just his. Their bedroom and their bed. And, heaven help her, she liked the things they did in their bed far more than she felt she should. Even though a large part of her was worried she’d thrown herself into a physical relationship with Marshall merely as a way to distract herself from the coming storm of her mother.
“She won’t approve,” she said. “In any way at all. This silence is terrifying.”
Marshall finished fastening his trousers, shrugged into his suspenders, then crossed the room to wrap his arms around her waist from behind. She sucked in a breath as he planted kisses on her neck. “Everything will be all right,” he insisted.
She wished she believed him. She wished she didn’t feel like she was doing something scandalously wrong when he touched her. She wished she could look him in the eye without blushing when they were at the hospital, and she wished that blush wasn’t from shame.
“We’d better hurry if we’re going to make it to the hotel on time,” she said, sliding out of his arms and going back to styling her hair.
She caught Marshall’s uncertain look in the mirror. The last thing she wanted was for him to figure out how awkward she felt with him. He was an intelligent man, though. H
e would figure out that her body said one thing while her heart said another and her mind said a third. All she could do was smile at him, hoping to delay the inevitable as long as possible.
“Would it make you feel better or worse if I said it was highly likely your mother will be at this party?” he said, returning to his preparations.
Alex swallowed, her mouth dry. “Better, I suppose. At least I know it’ll all be over tonight.”
“And then we can move on with our life together,” Marshall said with optimism that was astounding for him. “We can settle into a new normal and we can work on getting the girls back.”
Guilt bit at Alex’s heart. She fastened the last of her pins into her hair, then turned to Marshall with a genuine smile. “We will get them back,” she said. “And I’ll do whatever I can to help in the efforts.”
“I know you will.” Marshall shrugged into his finest suit coat—something George Fretwell wouldn’t have lowered himself to be seen wearing in public—and crossed the room to take her into his arms again. He kissed her lightly. “Together, the two of us can do anything.”
Strange though it felt, he was right. As out of place and in over her head as she felt she was, she and Marshall made an excellent and effective team. It was the reason she enjoyed their time in bed together, in spite of the awkwardness of knowing he loved her so much more than she could return that love. She owed him her job and her freedom. If she couldn’t give him her heart, the least she could give him was her body.
“Come on. Let’s go take Brynthwaite by storm at our first outing as husband and wife,” he said, a mischievous glint in his eyes that she’d never seen before.
“Let’s,” she answered with a smile, excited to see a different side to him.
Confidence buoyed her as she and Marshall headed out of the house and across town to the more fashionable area of the hotel. A few people they passed stopped to congratulate them, proving that gossip spread as fast in Cumbria as it did anywhere else. The approval of those congratulations came close to convincing Alex that marrying Marshall wasn’t as big of a leap of faith as she’d been telling herself it was.
Until they passed through The Dragon’s Head’s gate and into the beautifully decorated garden. All of the electric lights that Jason had wired throughout the hotel’s grounds were lit, making the gardens appear magical. Even with the slight chill in the air, dozens of guests were wandering through the rows of late-summer flowers or enjoying the fountains. Strains of an orchestra playing drifted out from the dining room, which had, no doubt, been converted into a ballroom for the night. Handsome, well-turned-out men chatted and laughed with exquisitely-dressed ladies bedecked in feathers and jewels.
It was Elisabeth’s crowd to a tee. Three days ago, Alex belonged with those people. Now, she wasn’t so sure.
“You look fine,” Marshall reassured her, leaning close as he walked her around the side of the hotel to the spectacular back garden.
Alex sent him a weak smile. She hadn’t even considered how she looked. The gown she wore wasn’t one of her finest. It was the same one she’d been married in two days before. She still hadn’t had a chance to go back to Huntingdon Hall to collect the bulk of her belongings. She wore a simple strand of pearls with it and matching earbobs. By Marshall’s standards, she must have looked grand enough, but by Elisabeth’s standards, her appearance was shabby.
“Look, there’s Lawrence and Matty,” Marshall said as they started up the slope of the hill in the back garden. “No children, though.”
“Hmm,” Alex hummed as they made their way over to the couple. She glanced out over the garden, searching for Elisabeth or her mother.
“You two look pleased with yourselves,” Marshall greeted his friends.
“We managed to slip away from the forge without my brother and sisters,” Matty said, accepting a kiss on the cheek from Marshall.
“It was a small miracle in the form of Mother Grace,” Lawrence said. Marshall frowned, but held back whatever comment Alex could see he wanted to make. “And I had to put Elsie to bed first.”
“She won’t let him out of her sight when she’s awake,” Matty sighed.
“Is she talking at all yet?” Marshall asked.
“No,” Lawrence said, rubbing a hand over his face. “But it’ll come in time.”
There was something about the electric lights that made every one of Jason and Elisabeth’s party guests look as though they sparkled. At least, they did to Alex’s eyes. She’d hated that world and that life, but there was something about it that was devastatingly familiar as well. It was the world her mother belonged to. She scanned the groups of guests, looking for her family, dreading what would happen when she found them.
“Alex?”
Matty’s gentle prodding dragged Alex away from her search. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, touching the back of her hand to her flushed face. “I’m a bit distracted this evening.”
Matty and Lawrence exchanged a look. Marshall stared at a spot of grass between them all. Instantly, Alex knew she’d done something wrong.
“I said that I saw your mother in the ballroom,” Lawrence told her, his expression compassionate.
“Did you?” Alex’s voice rose to an anxious squeak.
Marshall already held her arm from escorting her, but he closed his hand over hers as it rested in his elbow. “Do you want to go seek her out?”
Alex swallowed, asking herself the same question. “I suppose I should,” she said. “Although let’s enjoy this lovely night for a while first.”
“Let me know when you’re ready,” Marshall said softly.
“I had an interesting encounter with a band of Romani down by the lake this morning,” Lawrence began.
Alex did her best to look as though she were paying attention, but her gaze kept drifting across the garden toward the hotel. The ballroom windows blazed with light. They were all open, letting the sound of the orchestra float across the dusk-colored lawn, and a few of the curtains billowed in the breeze. It was like something out of a novel, but Alex was far from appreciating any of it. Her mother was there, inside the hotel. Surely she would find out that Alex was there as well. Alex’s heart pounded in her ears. Would it be better to get the explosion over with outside, in the garden, or would her mother be less likely to start a scene if they were in a crowded ballroom?
Questions swirled harder and faster in Alex’s mind until she was certain she would burst, but nothing happened. The guests around her laughed with ease, enjoying each other’s company. She could tell by the way Marshall held her arm that he was highly attuned to her anxiety and was supporting her, but he continued to talk to Lawrence and Matty as though nothing were wrong.
Alex was on the verge of giving up and marching into the ballroom to get it all over with when Flossie came hurrying up the path toward them.
“Flossie. Is something wrong?” Lawrence greeted her.
Flossie made a frustrated sound and rolled her eyes. “Everything is wrong when Lady E is involved,” she said.
“Anything specific?” Marshall asked.
Flossie pursed her lips, looking put out. “Jason and Lady E had some sort of…discussion this afternoon,” she went on, looking vexed and at a loss for words. “I haven’t had a moment alone with Jason to ask what it was all about since then, which I think might be part of Lady E’s point.”
“What do you mean?” Lawrence asked, frowning.
“That hoity-toity miss has been deliberately keeping Jason and me apart all day,” Flossie went on, a sharp edge to her voice. “And he’s been fawning all over her. But I can tell he’s miserable about it,” she said, holding up a hand as if one of them would protest that perhaps he enjoyed it. “I think it’s all because Lord Merion has arrived out of the blue for the party.”
“Lord Merion?” Marshall asked, his eyes going wide.
Alex’s heart dropped to her stomach as well. She knew enough about Marshall’s situation and Elisabeth’s cadre of friends
to know that Lord Merion was the man they were counting on to influence the courts in Marshall’s favor when it came to custody of the girls.
“Yes,” Flossie answered as if she knew as well as any of them how important it was. “Anyhow, I can tell that Jason is miserable, and he’s been twitching and flinching up a storm.” She turned to Marshall. “I think something might be desperately wrong with him. I believe his affliction is bothering him.”
Marshall winced. Alex knew that he had his doubts about whether Jason actually suffered from some sort of illness or if he was simply high-strung. Alex had done a bit of reading on the subject in the last few months, however. On illnesses of the mind more than illnesses of the body. They could be just as dangerous.
“Should we go to him to support him?” she asked, glancing from Marshall to Flossie.
“Would you, please?” Flossie asked with a relieved smile. “I would feel so much better knowing he had friends by his side, since I’m being kept away.”
“Certainly,” Lawrence said, glancing to Matty.
“Though it’s wrong for anyone to keep the two of you apart,” Matty added quietly.
“Wrong though it may be, it’s the way things are,” Flossie said, resuming her businesslike mien. “Now, if you will excuse me, I need to make sure this party is the most glorious thing that Brynthwaite has ever seen so that all the fancy people from London are convinced my lover is mad for Lady Elisabeth Dyson.” She spat out the last few words before turning sharply and marching back toward the hotel.
“Poor Flossie,” Marshall sighed, turning to start down the path toward the ballroom, Alex by his side. “Jason is a rank fool for choosing a paper marriage to Lady E over a real one to her.”
“Who needs a marriage of anything other than hearts and minds to belong to someone?” Lawrence said with a shrug as he followed. “Jason and Flossie are more married now than he and Lady E ever will be. Why not let him reap the benefits of society’s frivolity by entering a legal arrangement with someone else?”
The Brynthwaite Boys: Season Two - Part One Page 10