The Lady Mercy Danforthe Flirts With Scandal (16 page)

At least he had a part of her, he mused. But, as he soon found, that was worse than having nothing. Expending his excess vigor on whalebone and linen was like trying to scratch an itch with a feather.

Mr. James Hartley escorted her back to Morecroft in his carriage, and a groom drove the curricle behind. They were almost clear of the village and in safer territory when they passed Mrs. Flick, the most notorious gossip in Sydney Dovedale, out for one of her notorious “early morning constitutionals,” which was really just an excuse for her to spy on the comings and goings of her neighbors. The old lady hobbled onto the verge as they passed rapidly along the lane. She stared hard through her spectacles at the flying carriage, and there was no doubt she observed the little curricle following along in their wake.

“Well, that’s put a cat among the pigeons,” Rafe’s father exclaimed under a rush of terse breath. “The world’s oldest surviving gossip will soon get her teeth—or rather her gums—into this item of news.” He smirked coldly through the window on his side of the carriage. Although his face was turned away from her, Mercy caught the steely chill of his expression reflected in the glass.

“You mustn’t blame Rafe, Mr. Hartley.”

“Mustn’t I?”

“No. It was entirely my doing.” Father and son clearly had a strained relationship, and she would hate to be the cause of any further problem. Someone ought to step in and put the two obstinate men to rights. They had already missed out on many years they might have known together. Would they let their pride—for they were really far more similar in character than either believed—get in the way of a future relationship? “Your son is really a good man, sir. He is a little wild and rebellious, but he means no harm, and he is trying to settle down. I…I believe he is.”

James Hartley scowled at her floury boots. Nothing about her person was perhaps more suspect this morning than the state of her boots. She might have got away with her bold bluster, but there was really no excuse for Rafe putting her boots in the flour jar other than to hide them and keep them out of her reach. Explaining why he thought that necessary would require a confession she was not prepared to give. Even as a woman with a measure of independence, it would not be easy to admit she’d imbibed too much cider and become so wayward and insensible that Rafe Hartley took those extreme measures for her safety.

Mercy fiddled with the buttons on her gloves. Oh dear, she’d really made a mess of things, and that was not like her at all. Now she was on the verge of becoming a drunk
and
a harlot. “I meant to put everything straight,” she mumbled.

“That boy cannot stay away from trouble. I would have thought, at his age—”

“But it was my idea not to send anyone to Morecroft, Mr. Hartley. I thought if I could rest a moment I’d feel much improved and then be capable of returning in the curricle. But I fell asleep. I suppose Rafe didn’t want to wake me.”

Yes, it was a reasonable excuse, but it still did not explain the boots in the flour jar.

Thanks to his seductive qualities and a certain weakness in her own character, she was a few silk petticoats removed from a gin-shop hussy.

On their return, Mrs. Hartley was very solicitous for her health after yesterday’s sudden “illness.” The ancient Lady Ursula insisted it was something in the air.

“Spring is a dreadful season for spores, my dear,” she explained as they sat down to breakfast. “The less one goes out and allows oneself to be bombarded by them, the better, and sunlight is very bad for the complexion.”

“I fear you are right, Lady Ursula. I am quite freckled enough already.”

“I shall lend you Dr. Swithun’s Elixir. You will find it quite beneficial.” The old lady glared at her grandson’s wife. “Although some creatures in this house stubbornly refuse to recognize the benefits.”

“The best thing for a complexion,” Mrs. Hartley assured Mercy with a knowing smile, “is love. I daresay you’re missing your viscount.”

Mercy quietly nibbled her toast, but she had no appetite and merely went through the motions. She could think only of her secret former husband eating his breakfast alone at the farmhouse. By now they could have been lovers. They could have been eating breakfast together beside his fire.

Not once had she thought about a nightgown, she realized. Neither had she thought of the betrayal they committed—to Molly and Viscount Grey. She had not cared about anything except being in his arms.

***

Seated at the dressing table in her room, Mercy still felt his kisses on the pulse at the side of her neck, sometimes fluttering like butterfly wings, other times more insistent. Again she remembered the sweet friction of his rough cheek against her soft skin, the unique sensation of his tongue lapping over her nipple. And savage, unfulfilled lust—until then something she’d assumed to be entirely the province of men—burned through her like a flaming arrowhead. Nothing could extinguish it.

Mercy touched her cheek and found it quite warm, although she was not blushing despite the winding path of her thoughts.

It was so very wrong to let these ideas cut their way through her mind like a scythe through wheat. She should be on her way back to London by now, awaiting Grey’s return, making her wedding plans. Instead, she sat there, daydreaming in her chemise and drawers.

If only Rafe could be kept like a special trinket in a secret treasure box. She shook her head, amused, imagining his face if she ever suggested he submit to being a kept man.

Solemn again, Mercy rested her elbows on the dresser and thoughtfully traced her lips with her warm fingertips. It was almost a pity, she mused, that his father came when he did. By now she would have known what it was like to be a complete woman. Rafe was eager to make her one. His desire was rough, primitive even. He wanted to claim her, like a prize of war. Why? To get his vengeance on her brother, perhaps? To get his vengeance on her?

You
owe
me
, he’d said.

A quick shiver lapped over her skin, as if a draft found its way into her bedchamber. Her nipples hardened under her lacy chemise when she thought of his rough hands on her body, caressing her so intimately, taking what he wanted and giving at the same time. Pleasure of a kind she’d never known.

Oh…another shiver rippled over her skin, and her lips parted against her hand so she could feel what Rafe must have when he kissed her. She’d touched the tip of her tongue to her fingers and sighed. No, she was not confused, even if he was. She’d had all her senses about her when they lay together on his bed. In fact, she’d become aware of some senses she never knew she possessed until then.

Glancing at her bedchamber door, she checked that the key was turned in the lock. Then she slid her hand down her stomach to the juncture of her thighs. She closed her eyes. It was not the same as when Rafe touched her, but it felt very pleasing. Closing her legs tightly on her stroking fingers, she bit her lip and swallowed a moan of part excitement, part despair. She placed her other hand on her breast and cupped it though the soft lace of her chemise, picturing Rafe’s lips on her nipple again. The fire he’d begun in her loins, never fully smothered, quickly gained strength, heat, and density again. She gasped at the trickle of dew against her fingertips, where she blossomed and throbbed with unremitting tension. Mercy rubbed harder, biting her lip to keep from crying out.

At the moment of her peak, she opened her eyes to witness the wanton hussy she’d become. Her curls—sporting a new luster this morning—fell loose over her shoulders, her lips looked very dark and full, and her brown nipples pricked through the delicate, ivory lace with unabashed impertinence.

Nothing about her expression looked sorry, she realized. If anything, the woman staring back at her looked relaxed, content as a cream-thieving cat. An entire basket of naughty kittens, in fact.

Perhaps, as Lady Ursula said, it was all the fault of fertile spring air—pollen and spores invading her body, making her flustered.

She mouthed at her reflection in the mirror, “Do pull your garters up, woman.”

It simply wouldn’t do to let herself lose control this way. Rafe Hartley was a mischievous, lusty young man who took ungentlemanly delight in unsettling her nerves. She should put him out of her mind at once. Never again could she let him kiss her. Never.

There was just one more thing she must take care of before she left for London.

***

Spring was a busy time on the farm. Rafe barely had a moment to think of anything beyond the routine of work. Each morning he rose with the dawn to go out into the fields, and at night, soon after supper, he fell asleep quickly—a blessing. When the first opportunity arose, he traveled with his cart to Morecroft and called upon Mrs. Pyke at the Red Lion, anxious to make sure she was comfortable there. It was his hope that Pyke would soon show his face again and relieve him of this burden, but until then, he’d promised to keep the family safe.

A bosomy woman with no refinement but a great deal of natural cunning, Mrs. Pyke had spent her blossoming spring on the stage—which was how she caught Pyke’s eye—and her summer living in a style her husband could not afford. Now, having born three eternally crying children and suffered an autumn in penury, her formerly pretty face sagged like an empty wine sack. Since her life with Pyke had not turned out at all the way she expected—or her husband had promised her—Rafe supposed she was entitled to some pity, although her temperament, which was needy and querulous when not kept content, made her very trying to deal with at times. His patience was challenged when she presented him with a list of complaints about her new surroundings. The other guests at the Red Lion Inn, she said, looked down on her, and the innkeeper asked too many questions. She thought they would be better off in other, quieter lodgings, away from prying eyes.

“I’m quite sure Mr. Pyke wouldn’t want us to stay ’ere. There’s a vast deal o’ drunken rowdiness at night, and I must lie awake wondering what might become of us in such a den of ill repute.”

“I can assure you, Mrs. Pyke, it is a respectable place.” Far safer than the lodgings in which her husband had previously left them, he thought.

But she was adamant that the Red Lion would not do for them. “Truth be told, me ’ealth suffers since we came ’ere, and our littlest one ’as such a cough. I daresay an afternoon in the sea air wouldn’t go amiss. Yarmouth is not far, so I ’eard.”

“It is not, Mrs. Pyke, but it would be an expense for all four of you to travel there.”

Her lips squeezed into a plump pout. “To be sure, I do miss my Pykey.”

“Indeed. We all miss him.”
And
wonder
where
he
ran
off
to
in
such
haste, leaving his family to the care of another.

“’Ere I am, all alone without ’im. Me and the little ’uns, left to manage in the cold, cruel world.”

Rafe attempted to cheer her spirits. “You have me, Mrs. Pyke. You are not alone.”

“I wager ol’ Catchpole is fair miffed.” She swung the youngest Pyke onto her hip and jiggled him so rapidly his sobs turned to hiccups, giving Rafe a brief respite from the noise. “To lose ’is best fighter and two tenants, all at the same time. Serves ’im right for being cruel to my Pykey, sendin’ ’im off to the Fleet like that.”

The fact that Pyke owed a vast amount of money to Catchpole, and many other tradesmen besides, made barely a dent in her awareness. Everyone was always against them, and it was never their fault. “You are my Pykey’s oldest pal and particular friend,” she’d said once. “Who else should stand up for us if you did not?”

And who else would pay her bills if Rafe did not? With her husband disappeared off the face of the earth, if not for Rafe’s support, she and her children would have been in the gutter, begging for food.

“Mayhap you should take up fighting again, if money’s short,” she said with a loud, wet sniff.

“I have put that behind me, madam,” he replied.

“Seems a shame to waste the talent.”

“I hope I have other avenues to success.”

Being a woman who looked always for the easiest, fastest route to coin, she had no comprehension of patience or the potential reward of slow toil. She screwed up her face in confusion, until a sudden thought occurred to her.

“Your pa lives here, don’t ’e? A right fancy gent, so my Pykey said. Mayhap your pa can ’elp us.”

Under no circumstances did he want his father meeting Mrs. Pyke. “I will see what can be arranged for your accommodations, but I’m afraid, for now, the Red Lion will have to do.”

Peevish, she grumbled at the child to stop pulling her hair. “At the very least we’d be able to get out more, if I ’ad proper shoes to walk in.”

He looked at her feet. Clad in a worn pair of boots, they looked perfectly normal to him. “Proper shoes?”

“These are winter boots, ain’t they? I need slippers for fine weather, and wooden pattens for when it’s wet and muddy. Like the other ladies I see walking about. Otherwise I stick out, don’t I? Since my Pykey went off to the Fleet, I’ve made do with these boots, but folk ’ere will notice.”

Rafe sincerely doubted it was her footwear that made his friend’s wife stand out, but he did want her to blend in as much as possible. Reaching into his coat pocket, he drew out another banknote.

***

Old Mrs. Flick wasted no time informing the general populace about Lady Mercy “sneaking” away from the village at first light in her “fancy orange frock, just as brazen as you please!”

There were also, of course, several witnesses to her presence at his side that night in Merryweather’s Tavern—in the same brightly colored frock. Rafe told anyone who asked him that she was taken ill and she’d had to wait at his farm for his father to fetch her. Then he left it at that. Whether they believed him or not was up to them. As his aunt Sophie said, there was always gossip of some sort in a small village. The less kindling thrown upon it, the less stirring and poking it received, the quicker it fell to a smolder before dying away to ashes that would disperse when the next wind passed through.