To Mercy’s relief, Mrs. Kenton’s attention promptly unfastened from her and switched to Rafe. Having already learned that woman’s ideas on everything from parliamentary reform to removing stains on lace, she was certain there could be no topic left for their discussion. As for the lady’s beloved village of Hawcombe Prior, Mercy now knew the layout of every lane, the distance of every walk, the age of every tree, without ever having been there or nursing any intention of going.
As only the “natural” son of James Hartley, Rafe might have been a person unfit for the Milfords’ notice, other than as a charity cause. But his illegitimacy had not held him back. He was openly acknowledged by his father’s family—except for Lady Ursula, of course—and he’d known the benefit of a Cambridge education. However, his preference to work with his hands rather than assume the mantle of “gentleman” made his status somewhat puzzling to Mrs. Kenton. But however unconventional she might regard his appearance in that drawing room, she must be canny enough to realize that Rafe held a certain position in his wealthy father’s life. He was also, it could not be denied, positively breathtaking to look upon, rendering the ladies in the room quite short of the required air just by walking through it.
“I heard you recently suffered a great disappointment, sir,” said Mrs. Kenton, barely lowering her voice, discretion apparently being a stranger to her.
“A disappointment?”
“Your canceled wedding, Mr. Hartley.” She moved a step closer, head wedged far back on her neck in order to assess his face as it looked down from miles above her.
“Ah, yes. That disappointment.” His tone was unusually restrained, mellow. “But perhaps it was as well the young lady changed her mind before the vows rather than after. It saved us both a great deal of trouble, I daresay.”
Mercy was impressed. He held his temper and showed generosity of spirit toward the girl who’d jilted him. He also managed to look extremely fine while doing so.
Oh, Molly Robbins, you foolish, foolish girl!
Mrs. Kenton was ready to pity him. “The girl must have been undeserving.”
“I’d like to think so, madam, but I’m sure we all have our faults. I am not such a wondrous catch for any woman. I’ve been told I try people’s patience.” His head hung slightly forward, and he gave a morose sigh. “That I’ve been spoiled and get away with too much. To hear some people say it, I need a nanny, not a wife. They would not share my company if the alternative was a hanging at Tyburn.”
Mrs. Kenton absorbed every word. “Goodness, Mr. Hartley, what a dreadful thing for anyone to say. I am most distressed to hear how unjustly you’ve been treated. I do so hate to hear of a sweetheart’s betrayal. There is nothing worse, to be sure.”
“Nothing worse than a mind changed and a wedding broken off?” Mercy exclaimed. “I think you enlarge the matter, madam. There are many tragedies in the world that far outweigh this one.”
“Lady Mercy has never had a broken heart,” Rafe said solemnly, one hand raised to his chest, pressing on it and wincing as if he felt severe pain. “She cannot know what I suffer.”
“Shall I get you a shovel, Mr. Hartley?” she suggested with an arch smile.
“A shovel?”
“To help spread the cow manure?”
The remark went over Mrs. Kenton’s head. “Poor Mr. Hartley, you have been ill used, but I shall see to it that this doesn’t get you down with a fit of the blue devils.” She raised her finger with a flourish. “I, Augusta Kenton, shall personally ensure your spirits are lifted. You need merry company to heal your heart and make up for that other flighty creature.”
“Flighty and sharp-tongued,” he muttered.
So much for his forgiving spirit, thought Mercy darkly.
Mrs. Kenton assured him not to worry. “I shall erase her from your thoughts before too long, sir. I shall take you under my wing and find you another young lady to soothe your wounds.”
“Please do not trouble yourself, madam, just to help me. I daresay I can manage tolerably alone. It is not…” He paused and took a deep breath. “…not so very hard.”
When Mercy gasped in irritation, Rafe looked at her and smiled. If it were possible, she thought, for a wolf to smile.
“Miss Milford”—she turned quickly to the woman beside her—“do you play at all?”
Chapter 13
The Danforthe Brat always assumed that by playing loudly she could hide all her skipped and improvised notes. It was much the same method by which she argued with him for the past dozen years. Bright plumage and a great deal of noise were her shields, meant to distract other people from seeing her faults.
At the end of her song, Miss Milford applauded with an enthusiasm that caused Rafe to wonder if the young lady was in her employ or simply hard of hearing. Mrs. Kenton, he noted, prodded her brother to respond likewise, and Sir William eventually found his feet, sauntered wearily to the pianoforte, and offered to turn her music, therefore giving Rafe’s stepmother a rest. She came over to where Rafe sat in a corner of the drawing room.
“Before you comment to me on how well Lady Mercy looks this evening,” he muttered quietly, “I will agree and dispense with that line of conversation.” He’d always been able to read his stepmother like a wide-open book. With very large print.
She perched beside him on the sofa and spread her fan, using it to hide her lips. “A conversation cannot be ended until all participants are satisfied.”
He sighed heavily and leaned into the corner, elbow resting on the rolled arm of the sofa. “I refuse to compliment her on her playing. Yes, she looks quite beautiful. That is as far as I can go with any degree of sincerity. It is no more of an achievement to be beautiful than it is to be rich, when one was born thus.” Pity Mercy Danforthe didn’t have a softer heart and a little kindness in her soul, he thought. She was so busy pushing people around to do her bidding that she gave no thought to their feelings.
Mercy could take a lesson or two from Lady Blunt, who had offered her advice in such a kindly way that he took it without feeling bombarded and bullied. He could respect the old dear, of course, for she was a woman of advanced years, and there was none of that unfortunate sexual attraction to get in the way between them. He missed their conversations, he realized. Despite their age difference, the old lady had touched a chord in him. He meant it when he said he wished he’d known her when she was young.
His stepmother eyed him above her fan. “I see you made an extraordinary effort with your own grooming this evening, Rafe.”
“Yes. I do manage to scrape the dirt of the farmyard off me from time to time.”
“Just for us. We are honored.”
“I hope so,” he replied tightly, his gaze focused across the room on the pianoforte. “Lady Mercy does not appear in any haste to return home. Odd, is it not?”
“Not especially. She enjoys the country.”
Enjoys meddling, he thought.
“And her company is most entertaining. Don’t you agree, Rafe?”
He snorted. “Like a public hanging. Morbid curiosity makes it impossible to look away.”
“That’s a fine way to talk of an old friend.”
“Friend? We do naught but quarrel. Her view of the world is the very opposite of mine. We agree on nothing.”
His stepmother laughed in her easy, infectious way. “Exactly. If you were not dear friends, you would never bother to argue. It would not be so important to make the other person understand.”
He squared his shoulders against the back of the couch. “She’s a menace.”
“Your father used to say that of me.”
“She gives me a headache.”
“Poor Rafe.” She beamed over her fan. “I daresay it’s the…tension.”
“Tension?” He didn’t like the sound of that, or the pause before it.
“Better stock up on the apothecary’s powders, because I suspect she means to stay a while yet.”
He winced. “God help me.”
Miss Milford now took over the entertainment, and Rafe’s stepmother stood quickly, beckoning to Mercy as if she had something to say. The young woman walked over, smiling expectantly, poised to hear whatever urgent message Mrs. Hartley had to impart, only to discover that she merely meant to give up the seat beside Rafe.
There was no time to escape the proximity for either of them.
Mercy, cornered, sat tentatively and folded her hands in her lap. His stepmother, meanwhile, fanned herself rapidly and gestured to the footman for some wine. “Is it just me, or is it dreadfully warm in here?”
“It’s just you,” the two younger people replied sternly in unison.
Mrs. Hartley persisted. “You look a little flushed, Lady Mercy. Are you sure you do not feel the heat?”
Rafe stole a glance at Mercy and saw her face glowing with a tint of pink. “Quite sure,” she answered softly. The slight vibration of a copper ringlet by her cheek was the only thing that moved, apart from her lips.
“We were just talking of headaches, Lady Mercy,” said his stepmother wickedly. “Rafe seeks a reliable cure. Do you know of any?”
“Our housekeeper makes an excellent elderberry wine,” came the cool response. “Although, as I advise my brother, refraining from the known causes of his headaches would be more beneficial than any cure.”
“There, Rafe, see? I knew Lady Mercy would have a cure for what ails you.” Having amused herself, Mrs. Hartley wandered off, leaving them alone together.
Although Miss Milford showed herself to be an accomplished performer on the pianoforte, no one paid her much attention. Her brother had evidently assumed the task of turning the music only because he wanted to please Lady Mercy, and now that she had abandoned the instrument, he was forced to stay and serve his sister instead. Mrs. Kenton, while making a show of being interested in her sister’s playing, astonished Lady Ursula and Rafe’s father with a soliloquy in favor of gaslit street lamps and various other modernizations that were now common in London but had yet to reach towns like Morecroft. In her eagerness to prove herself conversant with new developments, Mrs. Kenton wildly misjudged her audience, for Lady Ursula was a woman happiest if nothing around her ever changed. In her opinion, good folk had no cause to be out in the dark, so why would they need reliable lighting? Only for the easy accomplishment of criminal deeds, she assured Mrs. Kenton gravely, leaving the other lady with nothing immediately to say.
Rafe, meanwhile, glanced at Mercy and saw her lips pressed tight, her chin lifted, her eyes determinedly focused across the room. While she was this close and they were separated from the others by a good distance, he felt the urgent need to make her talk to him. If he did not, the moment would pass. Always someone or something intervened.
“You left an item behind at my house, Lady Mercy.”
“I believe I did,” she replied hesitantly.
“When will you retrieve it?”
“That will not be possible.”
“Lost the use of your legs?”
Her lips barely moved, her reply little more than a ruffled breath. “Only my wits. Briefly.”
“They are recovered, then?”
“Quite robustly recovered,” she assured him firmly.
He was disappointed to hear it, although it was no less than he expected. A few nights ago, this woman had lain on his bed, exploring his body with eager hands, her warm laughter tickling his cheek. Now she was cold marble again, a statue in a museum or a grand house, something to be admired from a distance. No touching. No trespassing.
In his peripheral vision, he watched each deeply troubled breath lifting the sweet mounds that peeked shyly above her jade-green bodice. Her stiff demeanor was betrayed by that clue—a hint of vulnerability. His hunger quickened, pulse pacing like the paws of a caged tiger. “I suppose I can make use of what you left behind.”
She drawled wearily, “As you wish.”
“I’ll put it on my scarecrow. That should scare the blackbirds from my seed beds.”
He watched her feign a yawn, but she could not hide the indignant flame in her eyes at the idea of her corset being used in such a manner.
“Miss Milford plays very well,” he said, swallowing a chuckle.
“I suppose she does.”
“I suppose it was lucky you played first. Miss Milford would be a hard act to follow.”
She tapped her closed fan against the palm of one hand. “Do you infer that my skill is inferior?”
“I merely point out that she is very accomplished.”
“At the pianoforte, certainly.”
“She is also a young lady with humility, and has a very sensitive way about her.”
“How observant of you to know this already.”
“I find her conversation light and civil, her manner pleasingly demure.”
“You spoke to her for five minutes. I daresay that was not quite enough time for her to disagree with you on any point.”
“Some women could learn from her example.”
The tapping of her fan quickened.
“Perhaps you don’t like my honest opinion, my lady?”
Her delectable breasts, enticingly flushed, rose and fell ever more rapidly. He wondered if they might spill out with a little more encouragement. His stepmother was right, he realized; it was a form of tension he felt around her. A tightening of all his nerves and tendons. It couldn’t be healthy to let it continue without relief of some kind.
“I’m sure I don’t care one way or the other for your opinion, Rafe Hartley.”
“No. But everyone must always care to hear yours.”
Her lips moved, ready to argue.
“One should learn to admit one’s faults,” he added, reminding The Brat of her own words to him just a few days prior. “Or else one might never improve.”
To his surprise, she was silent. Even seemed to shrink slightly. Had he made a dent in her armor? He stretched his fingers over his knees, before they might feel tempted to start cracking knuckles. Or reach for her hand.
But suddenly she changed the subject. “You have not heard from Molly?”
He formed his reply with care. “I know she is not returning to the country. I am resigned to it.”
A slight frown passed over her expression, but she still watched Miss Milford. “Then you have had a reply to your letter?” she persisted.
“Whether or not I have had any communication from Miss Robbins is beside the point. I do not need a letter to tell me what is in her heart. She made that plain by her actions.”
“I think you—”
“The matter is over and done with. I have decided to look elsewhere for a wife. As you suggested recently, Lady Mercy, you might be of service to me.”
“Service?” she murmured, her lush, green-eyed gaze fixed on the pianoforte.
“In the acquisition of a bride. You did say you have had some success as a matchmaker.”
“I have.”
“As a working man, I am too busy to find a bride myself, and even if I had the time at my disposal, I would likely make a poor choice. I possess something of an unfortunate habit in that regard, as I’m sure you agree.” When she finally looked at him, it was Rafe’s turn to stare at Miss Milford across the room. He smiled as she finished the final notes of a well-executed, rather gloomy melody. “Unless, of course, you don’t feel up to the task. For personal reasons.”
“I accept the mission, Mr. Hartley. Please do tell me what you look for in your future wife.”
Apparently emboldened by Rafe’s smile, Miss Milford began another tune, this one much happier, her expression more animated. “A woman who minds her own business, does not try to tell me mine. Someone quiet and still, not prone to wander off.”
“A mute in leg irons, perhaps?”
He wanted to laugh, but curbed it. He also wanted to put his arm around her. What would she do, he wondered, if he leaned over and kissed the side of her neck here and now? Perhaps it was his imagination, or wishful thinking, bu
t he thought she’d just moved her frosty drawers an inch closer.
“What I desire, your ladyship, is a gentle woman to entertain me in the evenings after a long day in the fields. Someone musical, whose voice does not remind me of fingernails on slate and whose approach does not startle me like carthorse hooves over cobbles.” He returned his gaze to her. “A woman who is not too proud to work beside me and does not mind a little dirt on my skin after the day’s toil.”
Her slender brows arched gracefully; her lip quirked. “Is that all?”
“She must not lecture me about my manners and never think it her place to quarrel or question me.”
“She sounds a saint…or a fool.”
“Perhaps it is beyond you to find me such a woman.”
“I would advise you, Mr. Hartley, to consider your list of requirements most carefully. Marriage is a solemn undertaking that cannot be undone. It should not be approached as a jest.”
Amazed she could preach to him on that particular matter with a straight face, he stared. “Cannot be undone? Interesting you should say that. For once we are of the same opinion, you and I. A vow once made should be kept.”
Her lips tightened, eyelashes half-lowered. If she had anything to reply to that, apparently she chose to stifle it. Another first.
“I wonder why you did not mention your fiancé to me when we were last together, Lady Mercy. Perhaps it was the scrumpy that erased him from your mind.” Rafe rose swiftly from the couch. “I look forward to reviewing your selections for my bride. May they improve upon my own.” He strode over to the pianoforte, hands clasped behind his back. There, he thought, that told her.
***
She flapped her fan with as much elegance as she could muster. Rafe Hartley, she thought crossly, was behaving like an ill-tempered boar while attempting to dress it all up in a fine new coat.
And he’d dared to suggest she never listened to anyone else’s opinion. She was still reeling from that remark.
There were several moments when she felt the urge to let him know he belonged to her, that she’d paid good money for him, and he should, therefore, do whatever she bade him. Would that not add some excitement to the party?
Sydney Dovedale [3] Lady Mercy Danforthe Flirts With Scandal Page 16