“He’s the son of a murderer and a known thief,” Crimpley exclaimed.
“His father is irrelevant,” Jason said. “He’s under the protection of stronger men now. And if you are going to throw around accusations of him being a thief, prove them.”
“The little blighter stole my watch,” Crimpley fumed.
Jason nodded to Crimpley’s waistcoat. “The one you’re wearing right now?”
Crimpley sputtered, his face going red. “He was caught. He gave it back.”
“Then he didn’t steal it,” Jason said.
“I didn’t,” Willy agreed with a smile.
“Does this boy have a criminal record?” Jason asked.
Crimpley continued to growl and grunt before saying, “Not as such, but he’s been known—”
“Then he’s not a criminal,” Jason said. “And I’ll thank you to leave my office and stop harassing my employees.” He took a step toward Crimpley, backing him out of the office and into the lobby.
“You think you’re so high and mighty,” Crimpley snapped once they were in the hall. “But you’re nothing but a dirty orphan, the son of God only knows who. You were a troublemaker when you were young, the rumors of your behavior in London are atrocious, and you’re a deceitful, lecherous snake now. Lady Elisabeth Dyson deserves better than a man who makes his bed with common trollops masquerading as respectable women.”
“Get out,” Jason said, the cords on his hand pinching sharply as he tried to form a fist. The shock of pain was all that kept him from losing his head at the insult to Flossie. “Get out of my hotel this instant. You are never to set foot on my property again.”
“You can’t order me around, you arrogant jackanapes, you—”
Crimpley was cut short as Jason nodded to Reggie, who stepped forward and held up one, beefy arm. He didn’t even need to touch Crimpley to have the man scurrying backward and darting out the front door. Once again, Flossie’s wisdom in hiring a former pugilist to serve as a porter was beyond brilliant.
“What’s a jackanapes?” Willy asked once Crimpley was gone.
“It’s someone who is impertinent,” Jason answered. “And if you ask me, some people deserve impertinence.”
“I don’t like that man,” Willy said, crossing his arms. “He was mean to Mr. Lawrence.”
“That man has been mean to Mr. Lawrence and me and Dr. Pycroft since we were your age,” Jason said, turning and walking Willy back to the office. “He used to own the grocery before he became mayor. And he had a daughter who ran off to South Africa to marry a black man. I know, because I helped them.”
“You did?” Willy glanced up at him with more than a little hero worship.
“I did,” Jason nodded. “They named their son after me. He’s probably about your age now. They run a library just outside of Cape Town where they teach anyone who wants to learn how to read. Even if it’s illegal,” he added with a smirk. He sent money to Andrew and Aggie Noble’s library on a regular basis and paid their legal fees when they ran into problems educating black people.
“Maybe I could own a library someday,” Willy said, taking up his book and opening it once more.
“You can do whatever you want,” Jason told him as he settled at his desk and prepared to work. “And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
They hadn’t been settled for more than five minutes when Flossie swept into the office, her smile back in place, a pair of black gloves in hand.
“I found these,” she said, approaching the desk. “Good morning, Master Willy,” she greeted Willy with a smile.
“Good morning, Miss Flossie. Mr. Throckmorton gave me a book,” he answered.
“That was very smart of him,” she said as she rounded the desk and handed Jason the gloves. “Try that on for size.”
Jason made a thoughtful noise as he fit one of the gloves over his left hand and its binding.
“Mr. Throckmorton also defended me from Mayor Crimpley,” Willy went on.
A twist of sheepishness hit Jason as Flossie turned her impressed glance from him to Willy. “That was also very smart of him,” she said.
“This fits very well,” Jason said, rotating his left hand to see if the cords were at all visible under the black leather.
“Good.” Flossie leaned in to kiss his cheek, then marched toward the door. “You boys behave yourselves this afternoon,” she said on her way out, giving Willy a cheeky wink. “I’ll let you know how my appointment goes,” she told Jason, then practically danced out of the room and into the lobby.
Willy turned to Jason with a smile. “Miss Flossie loves you, doesn’t she? Even though you’re broken.”
“She most certainly does,” Jason answered with a smile of his own. Though most of the time he wasn’t sure he deserved it.
Alexandra
It was hopeless. Completely hopeless in so many ways. Alex sighed and dragged the pan off the stove, almost throwing it on the counter.
“Six weeks, and I can’t even scramble an egg or fry bacon,” she said, beyond irritated.
“I’m sure it’s not that bad.” Marshall walked up behind her, glancing over her shoulder at the pan on the counter. His arms snaked around her waist, pulling her flush against him.
Heat infused Alex, both the heat of lust and embarrassment. Six weeks, and she’d barely spent a moment of time at home not wrapped in Marshall’s arms in some way. After a lifetime of being raised as the niece of an earl, a member of the most refined social circles, and a daughter kept at polite arm’s length, it seemed crass to be ruled by such base instincts. But she wasn’t about to complain. Marshall was a skilled and attentive lover. It was her doing as much as his that he was also a frequent lover.
“Hmm.” He let her go and moved to her side, holding a hand over the stove. “Well, there’s your problem. You’ve made the stove too hot.”
“How am I supposed to make it less hot?” she lamented, throwing up her hands.
“By putting less coal in it,” Marshall said. “How much did you add to the fire this morning?”
“A shovelful, just as you said,” she said.
“How much of a shovelful?”
She turned to him in exasperation. “A shovel is a shovel, isn’t it? You mash it into the coal scuttle and toss whatever you come up with in the firebox.”
“Within reason,” Marshall said, his mustache twitching with humor.
“I don’t even know what that means,” Alex sighed, pressing a hand to her aching forehead. It was only morning, and already her head was aching. Her stomach too.
“Look,” Marshall said with infinite calm. He crossed the cramped kitchen to the coal scuttle, took up the shovel, and brought out what must have been the perfect amount of coal to cook breakfast. “Just a shovel, not a heap.”
“Are you sure that’s enough?” she asked.
“That’s more than enough,” Marshall said, putting the shovel back in its place. “We’re not heating the entire building. I’m not made of money, you know.”
He froze as he straightened, his amused look turning anxious. Alex’s cheeks went pink and she glanced away, biting her lip. All of the unspoken hiccups of the last six weeks bristled between them. She used too much soap when she washed. She wasted food by burning or undercooking it. She threw out what was apparently a perfectly good broom before she understood that they couldn’t afford to buy another one. Because Marshall wasn’t made of money, and now neither was she.
“It’s all right,” he said in his too-kind voice, taking her in his arms again and kissing her. “I’ll eat the eggs and bacon, no matter what they look like,” he finished with a dire, teasing tone. “And I’ll cook oatmeal for you if you’d like.”
Alex’s stomach turned at the thought. “No,” she said, prying herself away from him and crossing to the table. “I don’t feel much like eating.” She took up the damp rag she’d left near the sink and set about trying to at least clean the kitchen, though she was horrible at cleaning as well.
“Don’t you?” Marshall asked, taking the plate he’d used for supper the night before—a plate Alex hadn’t had a chance to clean before he’d coaxed her into bed to forget all her troubles—brushing off a few crumbs, then sliding the burnt eggs and bacon onto it.
Alex’s stomach heaved as he carried it past her to the table. How was it possible for burnt eggs to smell so bad?
“I’m certain once I learn to cook worth a damn I’ll feel like eating again,” she grumbled. She was swearing now too. Her mother would laugh if she could see it. Or perhaps she’d simply glower over how far her daughter had fallen.
“I’m certain that’s it,” Marshall said, a little too cheerful as he tucked into his mess of a breakfast.
Alex joined him at the table, flopping into her chair and reaching for the pot of tea. At least she’d been able to figure out tea early on in her descent.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “I attended medical college against all odds when most women rarely accomplish more than primary school. I battled my way through a residency at a hospital where I was frowned on and pushed to the margins more often than not. I navigated London society and was presented to the Queen, for heaven’s sake. Why can’t I cook a simple breakfast?” Or a supper either. They were lucky that they took luncheon at the hospital most days. The fare was simple, but Maude, the hospital cook, was at least competent.
“Different skill sets for different lives,” Marshall said with a shrug. “You still have time to master domestic chores before….” He let his sentence trail off as he nodded to her, an unaccountable sparkle in his eyes.
He was referring to when his girls came back, she was sure. Mary Pycroft had done all of the cooking and cleaning and laundry—with Matty’s help—since even before Clara died. But even if she’d be able to eat well and not worry about scrubbing holes in Marshall’s shirts in her feeble attempts to wash them and not have soot marks running up all the walls when she didn’t have time to scrub them once Mary and her sisters returned home, she would be bested in all things domestic by a girl half her age and more.
“Perhaps you should stay home today and rest,” Marshall suggested, the hint of mischief still in his eyes. “Take a nap, read a book, have a nice, long soak in the tub.”
She replied with a sideways smirk and an ironic laugh. Her last attempt to take a nice, long soak had ended up with Marshall in the tub, her knees bruised from where they’d repeatedly knocked against the sides, and so much water splashed onto the floor that it’d soaked through to the dining room below. No wonder Marshall wore such a superior grin that morning.
“If only there were enough money to hire help,” she sighed, resting her elbows on the table and rubbing her face. “I know that I can’t go on thinking as though I’m a lady anymore and I know that we can’t afford anything, but to make the entire transition in one, rough go like this?” She sighed.
Marshall stood and carried his empty plate to the sink before returning to her and rubbing her back. “There, there, Dr. Dyson. You’ve overcome bigger things than hot stoves and bacon before.”
She hummed, reaching up to rest her hand on his as he clasped her shoulder, glad for the little comforts he gave her.
“Besides,” he went on, leaning close and whispering in her ear. “We’ll be a family soon.” He kissed her cheek.
Alex smiled, standing when he moved back to the sink. “Things are going well with St. Germaine and the case?”
He glanced over his shoulder at her as he rinsed his plate. “That’s not what I mean and you know—”
Before he could finish, a rustle and a clap sounded from the front hall. Alex turned toward it with a frown, then marched out toward the door. A pile of post had been shoved through the letter slot—several letters tied in twine.
“No.” Alex’s heart dropped to her sour stomach, and she bent to pick up the packet. She knew what it was before she turned it over to read the address. Five letters, all marked Return to Sender—Refused. Each one of them was addressed in her own handwriting to her former address in Hampshire. “She wouldn’t,” Alex said, instantly on the verge of sobbing.
She’d written to her mother five times in the past six weeks, one letter a week from two days after the engagement party, when she’d heard through gossip that her mother and Anthony Fretwell, along with George and Lady Arabella, had departed for Hampshire. They’d left without a word. Alex had called at Huntingdon Hall to see if the gossip were true—and in an attempt to fetch some of the things she’d left behind—but she had been turned away. Hugo had stared implacably at her, as though she’d offended him personally, and said she was not welcome. Furthermore, he’d added that if she ever had business at the house, she was to call at the servant’s entrance. Alex had begged to speak with her Uncle Gerald, to speak with Elisabeth, even, but she had been flatly refused on all counts.
Now here she was, refused again. The angry, red letters on her carefully-addressed envelopes said as much.
“What is it?” Marshall asked, coming up the hall and heading straight to the pegs that held their coats.
Alex couldn’t speak. With her eyes watery and stinging, she handed the parcel of letters to Marshall, then yanked Clara’s old coat off the peg. Her winter coat was a casualty of her mother’s stubbornness. She’d been relegated to wearing Marshall’s dead wife’s warmer things, and Clara had been a size smaller than her.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Marshall said, the aching tenderness in his voice that inspired both devotion and misery in Alex. “I’m so sorry.”
He set the letters aside and moved to hug her, but Alex held up her arms, staving him off. “No. I don’t deserve pity. Mother was very clear what she thought of me at the party. I was a fool to even try to bridge the gap between us. I created that gap, and I now have to live with it.”
She shrugged into Clara’s coat and fumbled to do up the buttons. The coat felt as though it had shrunk since Marshall had first pulled it out of mothballs. It didn’t help matters that she burst into tears as she struggled and failed to button it.
“Let me,” Marshall said.
Alex let her arms drop uselessly to her sides as Marshall tugged the coat tight—very tight—and did up the buttons. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Alex sobbed. “I’ve never been such a ninny like this.”
“It’s a big change,” Marshall said. “Clara went through it. Every woman goes through it.”
Alex fixed him with a hard look, irritated that he would try to placate her. Although she supposed Clara did go through something similar. She’d come from a well-positioned family of London solicitors, and although Marshall had never said that the family thought she’d married down by wedding him, the little she remembered of Clara seemed to indicate that Clara thought so.
“Are you certain you don’t want to stay home today and rest?” Marshall asked her one last time as he reached for his hat.
“No.” Alex swiped her own, pitiful hat from the shelf above the pegs. “I would go mad staying home. Besides, Flossie Stowe is coming in to see me today on a very delicate matter.”
“Is she?” Marshall asked, back to smiling as he opened the front door, offered his arm, and escorted Alex out into the nippy, late-October morning. “I’m happy to hear that.”
“Really?” Alex blinked at him, perplexed. Then again, Marshall had proven himself to be a caring friend, especially where Jason and Lawrence and their loved ones were concerned.
“Of course,” Marshall said as they settled into a brisk walk up Church Street toward the hospital. “It’ll give the two of you something to connect over.”
Alex frowned at him, but Marshall looked as though the world and everything in it were beautiful. It didn’t surprise her, not really. Guilty though it made her feel to think about it, Marshall had gotten everything he’d ever dreamed of in their marriage alliance. He had the woman he loved in his bed, the doctor he trusted thoroughly committed at the hospital, and though Alex had her doubts about w
hether Elisabeth would continue to help them get his girls back now that she considered Alex to have betrayed her, Jason was still at work on the case. And if Brynthwaite had taught Alex one thing, it was that Jason Throckmorton always got what he wanted.
The hospital was already buzzing by the time they walked through the front door. With the arrival of cooler weather, Brynthwaite was awash in cases of head colds and fevers. That was in addition to the usual assortment of broken bones, chronic complaints, and a few more serious cases that required constant monitoring.
“Good morning, Dr. Pycroft,” Winnie Everett greeted Marshall with a wide smile as he and Alex passed the stairs leading up to the wards. “Dr. Dyson,” she added as an afterthought before rushing on to tell Marshall, “You’re looking happy today.”
“Thank you for noticing, Winnie,” Marshall said, smiling at the young woman, then grinning at Alex.
Alex rolled her eyes as they turned the corner into the office. “I told you she’s nursing a tendre for you,” she said as she unbuttoned her coat. It was a relief to get it off and to be able to breathe again.
“Who, Winnie?” Marshall asked, feigning innocence. “She’s just impressionable.”
Alex hummed, smirking at him. By all rights, Winnie should have been discharged weeks ago. She’d lost an eye and been badly lacerated in her canning explosion, but her cuts had healed, for the most part. Her hands were functional again, and she wore an eye patch over her missing eye. But as she’d explained tearfully to Alex and Marshall three weeks ago, she’d lost her job because she hadn’t been to work, she had nowhere to live, and no family. Marshall had confessed to Alex that Winnie reminded him of his girls and that he couldn’t just toss her out on the street. So they’d found tasks for her to do around the hospital. She’d been given a bed in one of the unused quarantine wards on the understanding that if there were an epidemic, she’d have to give it up. The young woman had become an unpaid employee and a non-paying guest of the hospital.
The Brynthwaite Boys: Season Two - Part One Page 13