by Merry Farmer
Flossie sighed, rubbing her stomach and telling herself to keep moving. If she could just keep moving, it would all be over soon. Once the wedding was done, she and Jason could reorganize their life and move forward, whatever that would look like.
Her thoughts were interrupted as she paused in front of the town hall as Constable Burnell and Mayor Crimpley dragged a man up the sidewalk and toward the part of the town hall that held the jail. Her eyes popped wide.
“Barsali?” she asked, her heart sinking as Lawrence’s possible brother was jerked past her.
Barsali wore a grim expression, but it softened to a smile as he glanced over his shoulder at Flossie. “Felicitations on the little one, Miss Stowe,” he called to her.
“Quiet,” Mayor Crimpley barked, shoving Barsali hard in the back.
Flossie made a sound of indignation, but there was nothing she could do. She felt worse than helpless. She pushed herself into motion again, glancing around to see if Lawrence was nearby. She couldn’t see him. She wondered if he knew what was happening. And if she’d had the strength and agility to go off in search of him, she would.
As it was, she barely made it to the church, sweat dotting her forehead, before she needed to sit down in the back pew.
“No, Mother, please put that down.”
Flossie sat a bit straighter, straining her neck to find Alex when she heard the sound of her voice. Most of the women who were there to decorate were at the front of the church. Lady Charlotte and Arabella both stood on ladders, attempting to hang garlands over hooks in the support pillars on one side of the pulpit. Lawrence’s Matty and Mary Pycroft worked on the other side, adding more flowers to arrangements that were already in place. Marshall’s younger girls sat on the floor, playing with leftover blooms. Alex stood in the center of the chancel, looking as large and worn out as Flossie felt. It was enough to make Flossie laugh and push herself to stand with a groan.
Her intention was to drag her enormous self up to Alex so that the two could commiserate, but when she was within ten feet of where everyone worked, Lady E rushed in from the side of the room.
“Flossie! You’re here at last,” she called out with a commanding air, the heels of her boots ringing out on the stone of the church as she marched forward. “I’ve needed you and you’re late.”
“Sorry, my lady,” Flossie said tightly, working hard to tamp down the anger that the sound of Lady E’s voice raised in her. “I had hotel business to attend to.”
“The hotel isn’t as important as this.” Lady E dismissed her concerns with a wave of one hand.
Flossie resisted the urge to make a tart reply. “The church is looking lovely,” she said.
Alex noticed she’d arrived and started toward her with a grateful smile. “It’s been an exhausting morning,” she began.
She didn’t have time to say more. Lady E rode over her with, “There’s so much more to do. I thought you were going to throw your full effort into decorations. I don’t see the ribbons I requested anywhere. And there were supposed to be strings of pearls and far more candles than this.” She pivoted toward the chancel, huffing impatiently at what she saw.
Flossie gritted her teeth. “I ordered ribbon and beads—”
“Pearls, Flossie. I want them called pearls,” Lady E interrupted her with a derisive frown.
“—and I received confirmation that they were delivered,” Flossie finished her sentence with a clenched jaw.
“Well, I don’t see them.” Lady E rounded on her, eyes wide.
Jason was right. There was no way they were going to be able to do this, no matter what obligations and benefits the marriage presented.
She would have lost her temper then and there if Alex hadn’t cut in with, “The ribbons and pearls are waiting in the sacristy. We decided it was better to keep them there until they were needed.”
“Good,” Lady E said, tipping her chin up. “Because I want the church to look more beautiful than it has for any other occasion before. I want ribbons on all of the pews, flower petals strewn in the aisles, and a hundred candles flickering.”
“You may have to rethink the candles,” Arabella said, stepping forward. “I spoke to the vicar just now, and he’s deeply concerned about the possibility of fire, what with so much greenery.”
“Nonsense,” Lady E said. She whipped to face Flossie, eyes blazing with indignation. “This is your responsibility. You need to make it right.”
“I’ll speak to the vicar,” Flossie sighed.
“Rev. Charles has gone out to one of the farms to be with the Ivers family,” Arabella said. “Jim Ivers isn’t long for this world, I’m afraid.”
Lady E snorted. “Some poor, dying farmer is not more important than my wedding,” she said. “Flossie, you must go out to the Ivers house immediately to fetch him back and to make him understand about the candles.”
“With all due respect, my lady,” Flossie said, almost laughing with indignation, “I am in no condition to walk two miles to call a man of the cloth away from a dying man’s bedside.”
“You will do as you’re told,” Lady E snapped.
She wasn’t the only thing that snapped. The very last thread of Flossie’s patience with the woman broke clean in two. “I beg your pardon?” she asked, voice raised, hands on her hips, certain there was fire in her eyes.
“Perhaps we should sit down,” Alex said, but to no avail.
“How dare you speak to me in that tone?” Lady E yelped at Flossie. “What do you think gives you the right—”
“I could ask you the same thing,” Flossie shouted. “What give you the right to treat me as though I’m your servant. I’m not Polly, you know.”
“You can’t hold a candle to Polly.” Lady E’s nose was so far up in the air Flossie thought she would catch flies with it.
“I have done more than enough for this wedding already, you scheming, ungrateful witch,” Flossie roared on, feeling something unshackle in her chest.
Lady E shrieked in offense. “I will not be spoken to in that manner by a low-born harlot of dubious moral fiber.”
“And I will not be demeaned by a snobbish, self-obsessed harridan who doesn’t care whose lives she ruins, and all for an invitation to supper,” Flossie hurled back at her. She was well out of control and couldn’t stop herself from adding, “Jason loves me.”
“And half the rest of the women in London,” Lady E shouted. “If you had heard half of the things that where whispered to me this winter—”
“I’m surprised you would even know what people were talking about, you frigid cow. You wouldn’t know what pleasure was if it slapped you across the face.”
“Ladies, ladies, please,” Alex said, her words sounding more like a wail of misery than a plea for the argument to end. “This is not seemly.”
“I never said I was seemly,” Flossie said. “But I know which way the wind is blowing.”
“Uncouth savage,” Lady E said with a sniff. “And Jason loved me long before he loved you. I’m the one he’s marrying.”
“Because he has no other choice,” Flossie said.
She would have said more, but the argument was interrupted by a gloating call of, “Well, well, well. I never expected to come home to a cat-fight like this.”
Flossie’s heart dropped into her stomach, and her anger dissolved into sharp anxiety in an instant. She glanced to Arabella, eyes wide. Because the man who stood at the back of the church, smirking like a fox, was none other than George Fretwell.
Alex shifted straight away to Arabella’s side, slipping a protective arm around her back. “What do you want?” she demanded of George.
“My wife,” George said. He glared at Arabella, his smirk turning to a bitter sneer. “My wife who, I hear, has been in Brynthwaite this entire time. My wife, who has led me a merry chase these past few months.
Flossie would have rushed to Arabella’s side if Alex wasn’t already supporting her. Poor Arabella had gone ghostly pale and was visibly
shaking. She cowered against Alex as George stalked slowly down the aisle, glaring at her.
“Go away, George,” Alex said, staring implacably at the man. “You’re not wanted here.”
“I don’t care if I’m wanted or not,” George said. “Arabella is my wife, and she will come home with me. Now.”
“George.” Lady Charlotte, of all people, stepped forward, standing between George and Arabella as though to block his approach. “I thought you and Anthony weren’t due home until Thursday evening.”
“You knew they were returning?” Alex asked, visibly irate with her mother.
Lady Charlotte sent her daughter a sideways look, then focused on George. She held her hands out as if to appease him. “I was working on bringing Arabella around to the idea of coming home,” she said.
“You knew she was still in Brynthwaite?” George demanded, picking up his pace and coming to stand mere feet from the cluster of ladies on the chancel.
In spite of her size and slow speed, Flossie stepped to Arabella’s other side, eager to do whatever she could to protect the woman.
“Now is neither the time nor the place to resolve things,” she said.
“Now is the time to bring my wife home,” George demanded. “I won’t be made a fool of anymore, Arabella.”
Arabella opened her mouth, her jaw working silently for a few seconds before she was able to form the words, “And I won’t be abused and treated as a slave anymore.”
Her words were thin and quiet, she shook like a leaf as she uttered them, and her face had gone so pale that Flossie was certain she would pass out. All the same, pride for the woman surged within her.
“You cannot force Lady Arabella to return to a situation in which she doesn’t feel safe,” Flossie insisted.
“I can and I will,” George growled.
He made a move as though he would shove Lady Charlotte aside and grab hold of Arabella, but not only did Lady Charlotte stay where she was—although she squeezed her eyes shut and tensed as though she expected a blow—Flossie and Alex wrapped their arms around Arabella as though they could physically best George should he try to take her.
“I won’t be made a fool of,” George repeated, fury bright in his eyes. “Arabella, come home at once.”
Arabella shook her head and shrunk in on herself.
“You defy me?” George demanded.
“She does, and she will continue to,” Alex spoke for Arabella.
George barked an incredulous laugh, visibly irritated. He shifted on his spot, laughing in disbelief and rubbing a hand over his face. Flossie felt the man becoming more dangerous by the second. She could practically see him abusing Arabella in every sort of way, and she wasn’t going to stand for it.
“You think you can stand in my way?” George said, directing his question to Alex. “You, an aberration who whored yourself out to a tradesman?”
“I would rather sacrifice myself a thousand times over than let you raise one finger to Arabella again,” Alex said, straightening her back in defiance.
Flossie straightened as well. If she could have loaned every bit of her strength to her friend to face down the bastard in front of them she would have. But she knew her help was better directed elsewhere.
“Come, Arabella,” She said, hooking her arm farther around the woman’s waist. “Let’s get you somewhere you’ll be much safer.”
Arabella glanced to her, nodding. She must have sensed the way Flossie did that the sooner they got her to the hotel—where Jason and Marshall and staff members, like Reggie, the former pugilist, could protect her—the better.
They started forward, attempting to step around George. Lady Charlotte may have had a thousand faults, but she continued to place herself bodily between Flossie and Arabella and George as they moved.
“Where do you think you’re going?” George demanded, taking a step toward them. Alex joined Lady Charlotte in forming a wall to block him from Arabella as Flossie attempted to rush her past. “You are my wife. By the laws of God and man, you belong by my side. And so help me, I’ll teach you your place once I have you back.”
“You won’t get her back,” Lady E said, surprising Flossie by rushing to join Lady Charlotte and Alex.
Mary Pycroft leapt up from the flowers she’d been arranging to stand with them as well. An older woman, a pregnant one, a girl of thirteen, and an arrogant noblewoman turned out to be exactly the sort of barrier to keep George from capturing Arabella.
“This is an outrage,” George shouted as Flossie rushed Arabella down the aisle toward the back of the church as swiftly as she could. She found strength she didn’t know she had. “This is illegal,” George continued to shout. He dodged this way and that, attempting to break through the female barrier, but they closed him in just enough so that every time he moved, they stayed with him. “You can’t get away from me, Arabella. I’ll have what’s mine in the end.”
As soon as Flossie got Arabella out of the church, Arabella burst into tears.
“There, there,” Flossie said, continuing to hurry her along as best she could. “He won’t be able to do a thing against you once we get to the hotel.”
“He’ll send Constable Burnell after me,” Arabella wailed.
“He tried that before and we foiled him,” Flossie assured her. “Jason has offered you the help of his solicitor before. We can get you out of this.”
Arabella nodded, her face streaming with tears.
Flossie didn’t feel completely at ease until they reached the hotel. Her instinct to get some tea and something sweet into Arabella proved the right thing to do as they stepped into the dining room. Jason sat at a table near the window with Marshall, a man Flossie didn’t know and Colin Armstrong. The wave of relief that hit Flossie as Armstrong shot up from his seat so fast he nearly knocked his chair over was enough to make her giddy.
“My dear, what has happened?” Armstrong demanded, flying across the room without regard for what the other patrons of the dining room would think of his outpouring of emotion.
Jason was a few steps behind Armstrong. Flossie addressed him as she said, “George Fretwell is back. He came to the church and threatened Arabella. We need to—”
“Understood,” Jason said.
Another rush of gratitude that she didn’t even have to explain herself to Jason filled her. She let go of Arabella to walk toward Jason, and Armstrong stepped in, sliding his arm around Arabella’s waist in a way that was entirely inappropriate for another man’s wife, but absolutely what Arabella needed just then.
“I’ll head back to the church to make certain everything is well there,” Marshall said, looking as eager as Armstrong to run to the aid of the woman he loved. Jason nodded to him as he left.
“My poor darling.” Armstrong cooed over Arabella in a way that Flossie would have found maddening. But Arabella responded by letting her shoulders drop and resting her face against Armstrong’s shoulder. “Come over and have a nice cup of tea. Tea will make everything better.”
Flossie sent Jason a wary glance. He returned it as if to say “to each his own”. Aloud, he said, “You look like you need to sit down yourself.”
“Do I ever,” Flossie said with a weary sigh.
Jason rested a hand on the small of her back and escorted her toward the table where he, Armstrong, and the other man—who stood now, but hadn’t approached—had been sitting. He helped her into the chair he’d occupied as Armstrong pulled out his former chair for Arabella.
“Flossie, I’d like you to meet Mr. Piers Johnson,” Jason said. The almost wild grin he wore as he introduced the man was completely at odds with everything that had just happened to Flossie.
“How do you do?” she greeted Mr. Johnson, struggling to stand.
“Please, don’t get up,” Mr. Johnson said, reaching out to shake her hand.
Flossie glanced to Jason in surprise. The man was American. And then Jason said a few simple word that changed everything.
“Mr. John
son has just offered to buy my hotels.”
Alexandra
As much as Alex wanted to breathe a sigh of relief at the sight of Flossie and Arabella leaving the church, she couldn’t. She was the one who was left with a fuming George five feet in front of her, looking as though he might turn into a feral wolf and savage them all at any moment.
“I blame you,” he seethed, his voice low and dangerous, as he dragged his eyes from the church door where Arabella had disappeared to meet Alex’s eyes. “This is entirely your fault, you feckless—” He glanced sideways to Mary and Lady E, swallowing what surely would have been a foul word. Alex was astounded that George had that much self-control. His furious look raked over Alex’s mother for a moment before landing on her again. “You have corrupted my wife with your disgusting ways.”
Alex stood as straight as she could with her stomach protruding, her back aching, and her legs feeling as though they would give out at any moment. “If pursuing one’s dreams regardless of the dictates of a chauvinistic society, marrying for love instead of wealth, and having the strength and courage to stand up to shocking abuse is disgusting, then I will wear the epithet proudly.”
George’s face pinched with rage and he flinched toward Alex, lifting a fist. Alex jerked back in tandem with her mother, Elizabeth, and Mary. Her mother exclaimed wordlessly in horror. When George remained frozen where he was rather than attacking Alex, she gasped, “George! How could you behave in such an ungallant way?”
George’s wrath turned to her. “I will thank you to stay out of things, madam. My father will have a thing or two to say about your impudence. You’re on thin enough ice with him already.”
Alex frowned as her mother shrank from George’s comment. Something was clearly afoot that she didn’t know about. So much so that her mother backed up a few steps, trying to meet George’s eyes and failing, then burst into tears and rushed down the aisle and out of the church.
“This is outrageous,” Elizabeth said, tilting her chin up to the fullest extent of her arrogance, though Alex detected a slight shake in her hands and uncertainty in her voice. “I will not have you ruin my wedding with your impudence.”