“It has been a long day. For me it has been a long week. I’m glad it’s over.”
“Me too. This nightmare is over, thanks to you.”
He gave a quick nod of acknowledgement. “Listen, James. Don’t breathe a word of this to anyone. Not even your family or servants. No one. I don’t like secrets, but this is a secret we must keep for a few days until the arrest is made.”
“I tell my wife everything, and this will be hard to keep from her, but I can wait a few days.” They chatted for awhile longer and soon the coach pulled up in front of the Creed’s house and he slowly got out and walked to the door. Addison knew Mr. Creed was in his early fifties, but he moved like an eighty year old man. It broke his heart. As he started to lean back, he could’ve sworn he saw a dark figure dart behind a tree. What on earth? He looked closer, but it was gone. His coach began to roll forward and he practically leaned out the window trying to get a better look, but he saw nothing. Oh, well, maybe it was just his tired imagination playing tricks on him. He looked back one more time and saw it again. He banged against the side of the coach and his driver stopped and he jumped out and hastily whispered, “Head back. I’ll just walk home in a minute.”
Thankful for his black cape, he wrapped it around him and followed the prowler to the back of the house. As if Mr. Creed didn’t have enough problems, now a common thief was planning to steal from him. He reached for the knife he kept hidden in his boot and quietly followed in the phantom’s footsteps. But instead of heading toward the house, he made his way to a white gazebo in the middle of a secluded garden. How strange. What could he steal in there? Well, Addison was about to find out.
As he got closer, he could hear a low, angry voice seething, “Are you calling me a liar?” Then he could make out a faint female voice, but could not hear any actual words. Perhaps he just stumbled upon a late night tryst and right now they were having a lover’s quarrel. It seemed one of the Creed’s maids had found herself a clandestine suitor. He could hear the murmur of soft, angry voices, and he decided he should probably just leave. But something would not let him. He stuffed his knife back into his boot and stepped closer as he heard the man plead in a slow and slurred voice, “Don’t say that. Don’t say that. After all our years together, how can you say that to me? I know you don’t mean it. I would die without you. I’m telling you the truth. I would die.”
Addison rolled his eyes in disgust. He hoped the gullible girl didn’t fall for this type of manipulation from a man obviously under the effects of a heavy narcotic. Opiates made people act crazy sometimes, and as much as he hated to intrude, he decided he should stay and make sure the girl was safe. He heard a struggling sound and he peered around the corner of the gazebo to assess the situation. In the dark, he could only see shadows and the back of the man in a long, black coat.
At last he heard the slurred words, “Oh, my love, don’t struggle. You know I love you. You know I love you more than anything in the world, and I know how much you love me. You are the one who always says we were meant for each other. Don’t push me away now when I need you so much. Just kiss me. Please.”
The woman ceased her struggling and Addison watched her arms come around the man’s neck as she relaxed against his kiss. Stupid woman. Oh, well, it was none of his concern. He turned to leave when he heard the words, “Oh, Mercy, my love,” and he stopped and jerked back as suddenly as if a knife had plunged into his heart. It felt like it had.
He needed to leave, but he couldn’t move. His legs had become paralyzed. When he reached out to steady himself on a beam of wood, it creaked and Mercy untangled herself and gasped when she saw that someone stood watching them. Slowly, she took a few steps forward and when her eyes met his, they widened in shock and horror. She looked as if she might faint. His instinct took over and he reached out to grab her. She mumbled almost incoherently, “How long were you watching?”
Anger, frustration, concern and a dozen other emotions whirled around him at such a dizzying rate that he couldn’t begin to form words. He looked up to the dark form approaching him with daggers in his eyes and gasped in surprise, “Magregor?”
Addison spun Mercy around and sat her on the bench, then turned to face the wild-eyed monster who screamed, “Get your hands off Mercy. She is mine!” A fist flew at Addison’s face in slow motion, which he easily blocked and returned a hard punch to the gut and another to the face. Magregor flew back against a pillar before sliding into a heap on the floor. Wild, bloodlust overtook him, and he picked up Magregor’s body, slugging his fist into the man’s face again.
Mercy flew at his back, trying to restrain him, “Addison, don’t hurt him. Please don’t hurt him.”
Fury buzzed in his ears and blocked out her words. This despicable worm had been destroying Mercy’s life by day and then holding her in his arms and kissing her at night. He deserved to hurt. He deserved to die. Magregor tried to get up and Addison punched him again in his side and heard something snap. He hoped it was a rib.
“Addison, stop! You’ll kill him.”
How could Mercy’s concern be for this monster?
“Addison,” she cried, “If you kill him, you might hang.” She clung to his back, and somewhere through the fog of his anger, he felt her stroking the side of his face and kissing his cheek as she begged, “Please. You have your whole life ahead of you. Don’t do something you will regret forever. Please, stop.”
He stilled and let her continue to kiss his face. A deep and profound yearning overcame him mixed with an equal measure of disgust. Her lips had just been on Magregor’s lips. The thought repelled him and he pushed her away. Suddenly everything made a great deal of sense, yet no sense at all. Mercy had chosen this bag of scum over him. Slowly, he stood and grabbed her arm, “I’ll walk you to your house.”
She clung to his arm desperately as he pulled her along at a frantic pace. Her chest heaving against him, she asked in a barely audible voice, “Will you tell my father?”
“No. It would break his heart. He is going through enough right now.”
In complete despondency, her head flopped against his shoulder, “Do you think I’m a horrible person? Have you lost all respect for me?”
Somehow he managed, “Mercy, you don’t want my opinion on anything right now.”
She let out a moan of anguish which reverberated into the innermost core of his being. He longed to comfort her, but right now he couldn’t even think, leave alone speak. He opened up the back door and shoved her inside.
She spun around and grabbed onto his collar as she cried, “What about Ian?”
“I’ll have my driver take his good for nothing body and drop it off at Madame Framboise’s place. He spends enough time there. I’m sure he has an account.”
She looked up at him in utter confusion. “The brothel. What do you mean?”
“Go to bed, Mercy. And don’t come back out here. I mean it.”
As he stalked toward his house, a dozen conflicting emotions descended upon him with such force he actually felt his knees buckle. He placed his hand against a tree and rested his head on his arm. He wanted to tell Mercy the man of her dreams was about to stand trial and would probably hang, but he didn’t trust her. She could warn Magregor and he’d bolt before he even came to trial. Mercy would find out soon enough what kind of a man Magregor was, but she would not hear it from him.
He pushed himself away from the tree and made his way back to his house to find his driver. The poor man had already dressed for bed, but he was all that came between Macgregor and death. If Addison left the bag of scum where he was, he would freeze to death. But if he got anywhere near him, he’d certainly be unable to restrain himself from breaking his worthless neck.
When he walked in the door of his home, he barely had the energy to climb the stairs, put on his nightclothes and fall into bed. He stared up at the ceiling and thought about the many times Mercy had tried to tell him she didn’t deserve his respect. He wished he would’ve listened. Anger burn
ed in his chest, radiating across his body until he had to swallow over a rising ball of acid in his throat. Then a realization hit him with startling force—he was a hypocrite. He wasn’t perfect, yet he expected her to be? With a groan, he rolled onto his stomach and everything became clear. He’d been infatuated with a saint, but now he needed to face the truth. He was in love with a woman…a woman who was in love with a demon.
Understanding Mercy
Understanding Mercy
Chapter Twelve
The door burst open and Mercy glanced up with blurry eyes to see her mother bustling across the room with a breakfast tray. She set it on a table and opened up the drapes with a flourish while practically singing, “It’s a rare, sunny November day. Too pretty for you to spend another day in bed.” A dainty spoon clanked against the sides of the china as her mother stirred the cream and sugar and then she sat on the side of her bed as she offered Mercy a teacup with a little biscuit on the saucer.
Mercy shook her head. “No thank you.” The last three days of not hearing from Ian or Addison was sheer torture and the anxiety of it all twisted her stomach into knots and took away her appetite.
Her mother let out a breath of frustration. “You haven’t eaten anything for three days. You are already so tiny. I will not leave this room until you drink your tea and have this biscuit. It’s right out of the oven.”
“I’m not feeling well.”
“Mercy, eat this biscuit now and then I have to tell you some news.”
“Good news or bad news? Because if it’s bad news, I don’t want to hear it.”
“Well, it’s disturbing news, but when it’s all said and done, it will end up being good news.”
“What do you mean?”
“Eat your biscuit, and I’ll tell you.”
Mercy’s curiosity was too strong, so she ate the biscuit in two bites, gulped down her tea, and handed the empty cup to her mother. “Here. Now what is it?”
Her mother reached behind her and placed the teacup down and grabbed a newspaper off the tray. “It’s on the front page of the paper. Your father’s accountant Ian Magregor was arrested yesterday. He has embezzled over a hundred thousand dollars from your father in the last three years. Can you even imagine that? Your father was generous with him too. Mr. Magregor had more than enough money to live quite well on, and yet he did this. Inconceivable.”
At first Mercy began to shake her head slowly in shock, and then her shaking became hysterical. “No, no, no, no. That isn’t possible.”
Her mother reached out and held her face to stop her frantic shaking. “Mercy. It’s going to be fine. I know it seems impossible that someone could even spend such a vast amount of money, but this horrible person squandered it at gambling halls and brothels and other unsavory pursuits. To think your father trusted him. But I have to admit his big, brown eyes looked so trustworthy. What a shame such a handsome young man could be so wicked.”
“It’s not true! It’s just not true!”
“Mercy, it is true. Don’t be so upset. As I said, this is actually a good thing. We were about ready to be forced to sell our home, but now we will not have to. Now that we have figured out what has gone wrong, your father’s business is going to get back on course. I know it must be terribly embarrassing for your father that he trusted such a scoundrel, but he is handling it quite well.”
Mercy grabbed the newspaper from her mother and quickly scanned the article. This had to be a nightmare. So many times she read the newspaper before with little or no compassion for the people whose private lives where on open display for people to devour with their morning toast.
When she read the last horrible word, she gripped the newspaper tightly. “Where is daddy?”
“He is still in his office.”
Without even putting on her slippers, she flew out the door, and down the stairs and into her father’s office where she heard him say, “… and that is the truth. If it wasn’t for you, I never would’ve figured out Ian Magregor was guilty and who knows…” Her father stopped midsentence and looked up at her in surprise. Then none other than Mr. Berkeley turned around and his eyes widened as he stared at her.
The expression on his face caused her gaze to slide down and look at herself. She could only imagine the image she presented in her thin, almost transparent, linen nightgown with her wild hair tumbling all around her. She should be mortified, but the only thing she could feel right now was anger. With as much dignity as she could muster, she stepped forward. “What did you just say, Daddy?”
In shock, he asked, “Sweetheart, what are you doing?’
She repeated louder, “What did you say when I came in? Mr. Berkeley made you see that Ian Magregor is guilty?” With a flourish she held up the newspaper and glared at Mr. Berkeley. “This is your doing?”
Her father walked toward her and placed a blanket around her shoulders as he said soothingly, “It’s not Mr. Berkeley’s doing. The mess was made by Mr. Magregor, but thank God, Mr. Berkeley helped me expose it.” He wrapped his arm around her and ushered her toward the door. “Sweetheart, go get dressed and then come back and we will talk about it. Mr. Berkeley has an appointment at Hancock Manor in a few minutes, but I’ll be working out of my office at home for the rest of the day, so I can answer any questions you have.”
Without giving her a chance to argue, he shoved her out the door and closed it behind her. She stood in the hallway shaking with a blinding rage. Her original impression of Mr. Berkeley was the right one. He was a horrible man. No he was more than that. He was a spiteful, vindictive, repulsive excuse for a human being. To punish Ian for taking what he wanted, he framed him for something he didn’t do. The man was pure evil. The devil himself sat drinking tea with her father. She would stop Mr. Berkeley. She would stop him if it was the last thing she ever did.
****
As Addison walked up the hill toward John Hancock’s house he shook his head trying to bring himself out the daze that came over him the moment he turned around and saw a vision beyond belief. Never in his entire life had he seen anything so heart-stoppingly beautiful as Mercy flushed and disarrayed with her spectacular blond curly hair cascading down to her waist and every square inch of her perfect body on glorious display through her transparent nightgown. He knew he should not have stared at her like he did, but he couldn’t have pulled his eyes away for all the silk in India.
The last three days away from Mercy had been torture, but he knew he couldn’t see her again until Ian had been arrested and she found out about it from someone other than him. This must be a horribly difficult time for her, discovering the man she’d been in love with was truly evil. Addison decided he needed to be patient and give her time to get through this. The trial would be a difficult experience for their family and he didn’t want her to associate him with any negativity. He would wait. He actually thought this would be a good time to go to Philadelphia to visit Benjamin Franklin. That way, by the time he got back to Boston, the trial would be over, Mr. Creed would be ready to start focusing on their business ventures together, and Mercy would be ready to move on in her life—with him.
****
After Mercy got dressed she came back into her father’s office and sat on his desk and pleaded, “Tell me what is happening Daddy.”
“The newspaper explains it all well, sweetheart. I’ve been treacherously deceived by someone I trusted.”
“How do you know Ian is the one who deceived you and not Mr. Berkeley? How do you know he didn’t frame Mr. Magregor?”
“Don’t be silly. Why would Mr. Berkeley do that? Don’t worry your pretty, little head. Everything will be better now. Run along. I have a lot of work to do.”
So many emotions swirled in her head that she became tongue tied. How could she explain to her father that Ian wouldn’t deceive him this way? Ian loved her. He would never do this to her family. Never. She knew it. But Ian was supposed to only be an acquaintance she met a few times in her father’s office. How could sh
e defend his character without her father becoming suspicious? She couldn’t confess her relationship with Ian to her father now, or he would be furious and even less likely to listen to reason that Ian was incapable of deception. She stopped herself short. Well, Ian was capable of deception, but not the type that would lead him to do something as horrible as embezzlement. Her father patted her leg and brought her out of her deep musings. “Run along. The trial starts in a few days, and I need to get to work.” With a reluctant nod, she left his office.
She went outside and tried to garden, but she couldn’t do it. She tried to read. She tried to paint. She tried to just sit and come up with a plan to prove Ian’s innocence. Her restlessness led her to contemplate doing something horribly reckless. After leading her mother to believe she would be taking a long nap, she slid out the back door and ran all the way to the jail.
Standing at the back of the brick building she stared at the three windows with bars covering the openings. Grabbing a fallen tree stump she dragged it to the first window and stared inside. An old, grey haired man lay on his side snoring loudly. She dragged the stump to the next window and overwhelming emotions of love and concern filled her heart as she saw Ian sitting on a cot with his face in his hands.
Understanding Mercy Page 24