As if love was the only concern.
Lord Linsley stood by the fireplace, dressed in a casual day suit with wide lapels. His countess sat calmly sipping tea from a tray that had been set before her.
Seeing Sera, she put down the teacup and held out her hands. “Mrs. Thomas,” she said gaily. “We’re terribly sorry to come upon you at such an inopportune time.”
Sera dipped a small curtsy. “I’m at your disposal, I assure you. Please don’t worry.”
The earl gave a bow entirely deeper than warranted by Sera’s station in society. His face etched with lines of concern, making him look years older than he had the other night. Worry spiraled through Sera. What had she done to cause such disturbance in a man she didn’t know?
Lord Linsley stood behind his lady’s chair and rested a hand on her shoulder. They evinced such quiet care for each other. A soft, gentle love that Sera desperately envied. Perhaps if that was what she had with Fletcher, she’d be less afraid.
Lady Linsley covered her husband’s hand with her own. She glanced up at him. “Mrs. Thomas, I’m sure you’re wondering what brought us here.”
Sera sat across from her. “I am curious.”
“My dear husband…” She patted his hand. “He’s had something on his mind since seeing you at Lady Honoria’s ball.”
The earl cleared his throat. “I’m sure this will sound a little strange, and for that I apologize. I was wondering if I might more closely examine your necklace of the other night.”
“The emeralds? I’m afraid I left them behind at…Mr. Thomas’s house,” she said when her throat choked over the words “my husband”. She wasn’t much of a wife to him if she’d left, now was she?
Lord Linsley shook his head. “No. The locket.”
Her fingers tucked into her pocket automatically. She’d taken to keeping it with her at all times. It was an easy way of carrying both Fletcher and her mother with her, no matter the contradiction between the two. “But why?”
Lord Linsley’s color heightened and his cheeks hollowed out. “It bears a striking resemblance to a piece of jewelry I saw a long time ago, and which I’ve been looking for.”
Oh heavens. If Mama had stolen the locket… Sera wasn’t sure what she’d do. Her hand fluttered to her throat, where her pulse raged. But that was her mother’s picture inside. Unless perhaps it was something she hadn’t been meant to take from her family when she was forced out in disgrace?
She couldn’t rightly deny an earl the opportunity to examine it and yet… “Do you mean to take it from me?” she whispered.
“Oh no, child.” Lady Linsley leaned forward and patted Sera’s knee. The part of Sera that had been so desperately sad and confused absorbed the motherly touch like rain after a drought. “We only wish to look at it.”
Sera slipped it out of the pocket at her waist with cold, numb fingers. She trembled as she held it out.
Lord Linsley’s expression was reverent as he reached out. “May I?”
She nodded. She couldn’t bring herself to say anything else.
The earl took the oval locket and immediately opened it to Mama’s picture. He nodded as if he’d expected exactly that image. But what he did next sent swirling confusion through Sera.
He nicked a fingernail into the hidden catch without a moment’s hesitation. The second picture, that of the unknown man, popped open. Lord Linsley dipped as if his knees had gone watery and gripped the back of his lady’s seat to prevent falling down altogether. Lady Linsley rested a hand on his in comfort.
The earl cleared his throat. His eyes had gone red, and he blinked rapidly. Englishmen, particularly gentlemen and lords, never cried openly. Sera had the feeling this might be the most sadness the man had ever shown in public.
What it meant, she had no idea. She looked back and forth between the earl and the countess. Her blood rushed frantically on a silly, foolish dream that she couldn’t give word to.
Lord Linsley coughed his throat clear again. “It’s him,” he said, but his voice was much rougher than his normal polished tones.
“Are you sure?” asked Lady Linsley. She rose to her feet to peer around his arm at the locket.
He touched the tiny oval with one fingertip, exactly the same way Sera had touched her mother’s picture. “I’m positive.”
Lady Linsley put her arms around her husband. Their heads bent together in such open affection it made Sera’s heart crumble into dust. She could hardly concentrate through the unadulterated jealousy ripping through her.
She’d wanted such easiness with Fletcher. Such openness.
Though Lord and Lady Linsley were normally paragons of the ton, in this moment they turned to each other to give and take support. Lady Linsley’s gloved hand passed over the earl’s wider back in succor, while he clutched at her shoulders.
Sera averted her gaze to the windows, which were curtained to keep out the dank London fog that permeated the day. It seemed too private a moment to interrupt, no matter her curiosity.
After a moment, Sera looked back to find them separated to an appropriate distance, though they stood near enough to turn to each other immediately. The earl surreptitiously tucked a handkerchief in his coat pocket. His eyes were red, but they’d lost the glassy sheen.
With quiet words Lady Linsley urged him to sit beside her. Once there, they tucked their hands together like lost children, though the lady nearly hid them under her flowing skirts.
Lord Linsley held the locket, his thumb stroking over the rim compulsively. “Mrs. Thomas, what do you know of this man?”
Sera shook her head. She laced her fingers in her lap. The air had taken on a heavy pull, as if she stood on the edge of a precipice, looking down. Frightening and yet exhilarating at the same time. “Nothing. I remember my mother wearing the locket when I was a child, but I had no idea of the second portrait.”
“And your mother? Who was she?”
“Agatha Miller.” Sera clenched her fingers as tension cranked tight between her shoulder blades. She didn’t speak of her mother any more than she’d had to. To her friends, and that was it. Never an earl. “She was the daughter of a baron and quite the country miss. Until her marriage, of course.” The lie ought to be a matter of course by now, but her ears still burned hot. She’d given it as seldom as possible, since she didn’t deceive well.
In fact, Lord and Lady Linsley passed another silent conversation as if they’d seen through her lies.
Lady Linsley leaned forward and put her hand on Sera’s wrist. “There’s no need to prevaricate with us, my child.”
Lord Linsley held up the locket so the portrait faced out. The man inside looked ridiculously cheery, while Sera was lost in a miasma of confusion. “We know the truth.”
Sera gulped. Words flew from her, freed by the possibility that someone else might be able to fill in the blanks in her life. Take the fairy tales and chip them into truth. “The marriage is my invention, but Mama always did tell me she was a baron’s daughter. The third of four, she said, and she also said they lived very quietly in the country while she dreamed of the exciting city. I was orphaned at ten, so I’ve no idea how much is truth.”
He looked down at the picture in his hand. A small smile tipped his mouth. He flipped back to Sera’s mother’s picture. “There’s a thread of truth in it, I suppose. Your mother was the third of four girls, and they all did live in the country. But her father was a squire, not a baron. Your mother’s name was Agatha Yarvis, not Miller.”
Sera nodded. That sounded like Mama, to take a kernel of reality and expand it into something more beautiful. She’d done that many times when they had only day-old bread to eat, pretending it was a sumptuous feast and describing to wide-eyed Sera every item that overloaded the table.
“Squire Yarvis’s land abutted the rear of my ancestral properties. We didn’t spend much time there, as we had a more modern property in Yorkshire. This—” he opened the locket back to the man’s picture, “—was my brother, A
lbert.”
Sera’s heart clenched. For the first time in days—no, weeks—all thought of Fletcher fled from her. She’d suspected the portrait might be of her father, but to have a name to put to the man was more than she’d ever dreamed. She reached out unconsciously, but the earl saw.
Slowly, he set the locket in her palm, obviously reluctant to give it up again.
Sera cupped her hands around the tiny miracle she’d been given. Her cheeks had gone numb, and her eyes burned with threatening tears.
Lady Linsley took the earl’s hand in hers. “Lord Albert was a very special man.”
He nodded. He blinked rapidly, holding back the glassiness that threatened. “As a child, he was frequently in ill health, but he never allowed it to dim his outlook. Determinedly cheery, always. As a result of his frequent sicknesses, our entire family coddled and treasured him. My mother in particular. When he met your mother…” He trailed off, an awkward expression twisting his features.
Sera cleared her own thick throat. “Please, speak plainly. I’d rather know.”
“She was…wild. Exciting.” He shook his head. “Her parents didn’t seem to know how to control her, and as a result my mother decided it would be a patently unsuitable match. She had hopes he’d settle down with a quiet girl who could tend to him should he need it. So she had my father send us away on a trip to the continent.” A faraway look took over him as he saw through the years.
He sat up straight. “We went with little protest. Albert thought if he went and was still determined to marry Agatha on his return, Mother would acquiesce. So hopelessly optimistic was he. He was likely right. Mother only wished him to have some distance to consider his options. He became sick on the journey and died within days of reaching Spain.”
Lady Linsley wrapped an arm around her husband’s shoulders. It was an absolute breach of all propriety and warnings about demonstrations of affection, but in that moment it seemed perfectly natural.
Wetness trickled down Sera’s cheeks. She dashed it away with the back of her hand, unsure of when she’d started crying. The story was everything her mother would have loved, but for the lack of a happily ever after. She wondered why Mama had never told her the real story.
Perhaps she couldn’t stand the idea that her love had died. If she admitted it to Sera, she’d have had to admit to herself that he could never come to claim her, no matter how hard she wished for it.
The earl went on, lost in his own tale. “Albert loved your mother desperately. His last words were of her. I returned to England determined to tell her, but she was already gone. We weren’t sure why. Squire Yarvis would say only that she’d been shamed.” His voice cracked on the last word, and he turned his face away toward the fireplace.
Lady Linsley went on for him. “Lord Linsley searched for her yet, on and off through the years. But he never found her. We never thought to look for her under the name of Miller.”
“I should have,” he said, disgust turning his features hard. “Miller was Albert’s third name. I looked under everything but that. So we lost you, even though we never knew you existed.”
“Lost me?” Sera said, full of wonderment that turned her buoyant. “You were looking for me?”
“Child, if I had known my brother had a child anywhere in the world, there’s not an inch of soil I wouldn’t have upturned searching for you. Heavens only know what you’ve been through.”
A hesitant smile pinched at her cheeks. What an amazing feeling, to know such. She shook her head. “My life has been fine. I should have liked to have known you earlier, but my mother…she did her best for me. And after she died, I was a very lucky girl to have been placed where I was.”
As she said the words, she saw the truth shining through them. Mama might have had her head in the clouds most days, and she might have had to do things no gentlewoman should, but nothing had dimmed her optimism. She’d done her best to pass that trait onto her child through the only medium she could, her fairy tales.
Afterwards, Fletcher had watched out for her, though he’d been no more than a child himself. He’d put her in the Waywroth Academy and there she’d grown into the woman she was.
A woman who threw away the blessings she received because of fear. Her blood ran cold.
Mama would have been disgusted with Sera. She’d discarded her chance of having a happy life with her husband. Locked herself into little, tiny boxes for fear of what others would say.
She looked from Lord Linsley to his wife. Not a whisper passed through society about them being anything but perfectly appropriate at all times, but in the face of such tumult they turned to each other. Willingly. Openly.
She wanted that desperately. Fletcher had tried to give it to her, but she’d been too closed off.
Hopefully it wasn’t too late.
Lady Linsley took Sera’s hands in both of her own. “Would you be willing to enter into a relationship with our family? We’d like to acknowledge you as Albert’s daughter.”
A hot blush choked her. “The matter of their marriage? Or lack of one?”
The earl cloaked himself in every bit of aristocratic power years of breeding had given him. He abruptly displayed a cold and remote mien. “Who’s to say there wasn’t one? In fact, now that I think on it, I do believe I remember my brother making a deathbed confession to an elopement.”
Sera couldn’t help a near-hysterical giggle. “Do you, now?”
He nodded. A conspirator’s smile lit his eyes—the brown of which looked remarkably familiar. Sera had seen the same color in mirrors. “I do indeed. It’s become crystal clear now.”
“See? Between my husband’s not-inconsiderable societal pull, your excellent schooling and our husbands’ alliance in business, there will be no one who dares to doubt us.”
“Oh,” Sera exclaimed. “The railroad syndicate… I must admit I haven’t much knowledge of Mr. Thomas’s intent in that matter.”
The earl shook his head. “I’ve little worry on that front. We’ll sort it all out later.”
Yes, they could. Because they all had the possibility of a later. Unlike her mother and father. Her chest caught on a surge of amazement. She actually had a father. Though he was gone forever from her grasp, she had his family willing to accept her to their loving bosom.
Loving certainly was the word for them. They didn’t shy from showing affection for each other, not when they needed it.
Fletcher could give that to her. A happy life filled with love. He’d said so, declared he loved her.
It could be true. Even their burning passion wasn’t too much. The idea of standing up to the world at large became much less frightening when she contemplated doing so with a family at her back. Between them and her friends, she’d never be alone again.
Most of all, there was Fletcher. He’d never leave her.
If only she could make things right between them.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The thick fog suited Fletcher’s mood exactly. Yellowish and sickly, it was threaded through with a distinct sulphurous scent, as if the bowels of hell had opened and spewed its stinking breath upon the city at large. Anything could roam through the fog.
Good people didn’t go out in a dark London fog. They stayed home, tucked in their parlors, and stuck their hands out at their fires as if that would keep hell’s breath away.
Fletcher roamed through the fog at will. A small army of knee breakers and rough men charged with him.
St. Johns, the sailor he’d kept under watch for nearly two months, stumbled along at his side. Micky wasn’t particularly gentle as he jerked the man by the arm. He’d reported to Fletcher that the sailor had whinged and complained with every breath he’d taken over being locked in a dank, prisonlike room. Fletcher had been unwilling to risk any chance that St. Johns would fly the coop or send off a letter of warning before presenting his partner in crime. They’d considered trying to snatch the man when he disembarked his ship, but the docks would have been busy. Fletcher
wasn’t willing to risk letting the man who’d organized the attack on Fletcher and Sera slip through his fingers.
Despite the fact that she’d bloody left him, there was no way he’d allow a danger to her roam the streets.
She was his to protect, by God, whether she’d admit it or not. He’d done it for more than a decade already, and that was before he’d come to love her.
He’d be damned if he shrugged and walked away because she was too afraid to lay claim to what could be.
One hand curled into a fist as they marched along, the other clenching on his cane. Though it looked like a gentleman’s instrument, it was anything but. A real gentleman’s cane wouldn’t be weighted at one end with iron and have a concealed blade on the other. Not to mention the pistol tucked beneath his waistcoat.
He’d never laid claim to be a gentleman. That was Sera’s whole problem with him.
The streets had become more narrow and crooked than the dingy area of town he normally bothered with. Buildings listed against each other like the drunken sailors who called the apartments home when on shore. The thick stench of stagnant water and rotting fish barely cut through the thick fog, but it was enough to have some of Fletcher’s half-dozen men wrinkling their noses.
St. Johns drew to a halt before one building. Tall and skinny, the windows were covered with oiled paper. “Here,” he said. “This is his normal place when he’s home.”
Fletcher rolled his shoulders. He could do with a bit of violence. It had been a while since he’d had a good excuse to knock some heads. “You’re sure?”
“Sure as can be without being allowed out in the past weeks.”
“That’s good,” Fletcher drawled. “Because you’d hate to see what happens to men who lie to me. They end up in a bit of a mess.”
St. Johns gulped. “Yessir.”
“Come on,” Fletcher said. “Barnaby, you take your contingent to the back alley. Let no one escape until I’ve approved them.”
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