The Lady Mercy Danforthe Flirts With Scandal (2 page)

“The sooner he puts his stubborn pride aside and goes home to his father, the better.” With a few wipes of the cloth, she removed the thick white paste from her cheeks. “He needs a good kick in the breeches.”

“Like most young men these days.”

She sighed, shaking her head. “I knew Rafe was not cut out for the law. He only ever wanted to work the land, but I suppose he put that aside and tried for his father’s approval.” Now the fool boy, having quit his studies and his post as a clerk in a barrister’s office, stayed in London rather than face another bitter quarrel with his father. He’d turned to boxing, but under no circumstances could she let him continue fighting with his fists for a living. What if he scarred that fine face? Nor would she sit by and let him fall in with more unsavory company, develop worse habits, and form a taste for cheap wine. London was a treacherous pit for a generous-hearted but aimless young man with good looks and too much earthy charm for his own good. It was time he settled down.

But as they trotted along the darkened streets, her mood lifted, and she began to hum softly. At least she’d seen Rafe again, he was in good health and spirits, she had persuaded him to go home, and he still had not the slightest suspicion about her identity.

“I should like to have met you when you were young. I suspect you were quite something.”

Little did he know he shared his wine and his hearth with a ghost from his past.

“Oh, and, my lady,” said Edward, “I think scarlet ruffles might not have been the most appropriate of choices.”

She glanced down at the hem of her petticoat, now clearly visible under the black taffeta as she swung her feet. “Well, of course I had to wear
some
color,” she exclaimed. “For pity’s sake, Edward Hobbs, you are my solicitor. Reserve your advice for matters of the law, not fashion.”

He gave her one of his bleakly despairing looks, as if a crimson petticoat might indeed be a crime of some sort, and then adjusted the collar of his coat against the brisk chill that whipped through the open window.

“One can hardly expect you to understand, because you’re a man. Naturally, you have no sense of style.”

“I’m sure you are right, my lady, as always.”

Smiling to herself, humming her jolly tune, she looked out on her side of the street and considered Mr. Rafael Hartley with more warmth than he deserved. Almost from the very first time they met, she knew it would be her duty to save that man. Not that he was ever grateful.
The
Brat
he used to call her when he was considerably smaller than he was now.

Nevertheless, she’d vowed to straighten out his life, even if it killed her. Which it probably would.

And never knowing what she’d done for him, he would probably dance upon her grave.

Well, in her case, it would be the family vault, of course, but dancing upon a family vault would require the foresight to bring a ladder for climbing up, and Rafe never planned ahead. It would also demand a high level of balance and coordination—neither of which Rafe Hartley possessed when dancing. Curiously, he had both when swinging his fists in a boxing match, so she’d heard. But she knew, firsthand, that his dancing left much to be desired.

Far safer to think of him dancing on a grave.

“Which reminds me,” she announced, “I ought to write out specific instructions for my burial. I have just the outfit in mind, and if I left such things to you and my brother, who knows what atrocity my corpse would be dressed in.”

The solicitor turned his head to inspect her in some bemusement. “Fortunately, we have time enough to worry.”

“Always plan ahead, Edward. Be prepared for any eventuality.”

“In addition to the fact that you are two and twenty, your health is of the rude variety.”

“But this fly could overturn and kill us both.” She shook her head. “Our lives snuffed out as speedily as a candle flame.”

“A cheering thought, my lady.”

“And who will manage things when
I
am gone?”

He had no response to that, and she had not meant for there to be any. It was purely a rhetorical question. No one managed things so well as Lady Mercy Danforthe. Everyone knew it and, should they ever forget, she was quick to remind them.

“It looks like snow,” she observed grimly. “I do hope, if the fly is overturned, we are killed outright. Otherwise we could be buried alive under a snowdrift and die slowly, in dreadful agony, frozen to our very bones.”

“Might I observe, my lady, as I have before, that you possess a tendency to find one small thought and let it expand with many others until it no longer resembles any form of reality? Fact is too often replaced with fiction.”

“And your point, Edward?”

“I rather fear that is just what you have done again,” he observed tranquilly. “In fact, there are seldom snowdrifts in London, my lady.”

“Even worse! The horse and driver will be unaccustomed to the circumstance should we encounter one.”

Edward burrowed deeper into his collar, like a turtle. “If your brother ever finds out about this mission of yours and that you have acquired possession of a six-foot prizefighter, we shan’t have to worry about a slow, painful death,” he muttered. “I believe it will come swiftly for both of us.”

“Six foot four and fourteen stone.”

She did not have to see Edward’s eyebrows to know they arched upward, like two caterpillars taking shelter under the brim of his hat. “I stand corrected, my lady. Again.”

“Still,” she added jauntily, returning to her previous thought, “at least if I am to die in the snow tonight, I shall be discovered in my splendid new petticoat.” With that pleasing point to mitigate the tragedy of her inevitable demise, she settled back to enjoy the ride.

London, April 1835

“The spring has gone out of your blasted stockings, Miss Gibson. Do pull your garters up.”

While this reprimand might appear somewhat harsh and a trifle indelicate for a drawing room conversation between two young ladies, it was, in Lady Mercy Danforthe’s opinion, also necessarily shocking. Brevity, she always said, was a busy woman’s best friend, and terms of a more ladylike nature had scant chance of sinking in when dealing with the cork-brained. Miss Julia Gibson might sew a fine seam, trot amiably in a quadrille, and fumble her way through a repertoire of songs on her mama’s pianoforte, but she was not, by any means, the brightest of sentient beings.

Lady Mercy would never be observed with wrinkled stockings, literally or metaphorically speaking. And the nervous, teary-eyed Miss Gibson must surely have realized, after a hasty perusal of her own ankles, that in this case she meant the latter. But imagery failed to relay Mercy’s point. The object of her criticism assumed the expression of a spaniel pup, eager to please yet bewildered. Possibly thinking of its dinner and undoubtedly about to leave a puddle on the rug.

So much for the advantage of brevity.

With a sigh of grand proportions—the only sort of sigh one might expend while wearing a very smart bonnet lavishly caressed by a magnificent, downward-curling magenta feather—Mercy reinforced her meaning. “While I can find you a suitor, it will not assist my endeavors if all you do, whenever you see an eligible man, is burst into tears and run away.”

Pausing to sip her tea, she stole a sly glance at the mantel clock and calculated a quick sum in her head. She must cut this meeting short, or she’d never make her friend’s wedding on time, and that would be inexcusable. It took two days of travel along bad country lanes to reach the village of Sydney Dovedale, and she was already later setting off than she’d hoped to be. Few things annoyed Mercy more than a lack of punctuality. She could not abide it in others and was especially vexed by the possibility of her own lateness.

This was her last visit of the morning, and her feet itched to be on their way. She had already spent a grueling hour relating instructions for Edward Hobbs to keep an eye on things while she was gone. Despite her brother’s decade advance on her in age, Mercy had no confidence in Carver’s ability to make wise decisions, especially in her absence. Carver would be the last person she dealt with today. She’d organized her list with him at the end, because it was unlikely she’d find him out of bed before noon light streaked across his bedchamber, stung his eyelids, and woke him. Then it always took a period of half an hour at least before he was fit to be seen and could manage more than a few grunts.

Mercy checked the mantel clock again, astonished by how quickly the hands of time moved today. If Julia Gibson were not such a hapless creature in need of guidance, she would have made her excuses not to pay this visit. It was, however, a duty she took upon herself to never let anyone down. This, as she would explain patiently to Carver, was their life role—to be there for those in need, to look out for those less well placed, to lead those who stumbled. He might firmly refuse to fulfill his role, but Mercy took her part very seriously.

Miss Gibson perched on the edge of her narrow chair, possibly about to dive into the willow-pattern bowl of potpourri that sat between them. “But I can’t seem to help myself, Lady Mercy. I know I must marry. What else am I to do?” She lowered her voice to a faded squeak. “Alas, I think of the horrors one must endure on the wedding night.” The young woman blushed brightly, competing with the scarlet tulips nodding outside her mama’s drawing-room window. “And I simply cannot look him in the eye.”

“Horrors?”

“In the marriage bed,” she whispered. “With…a man. And…that…thing.”

Although Mercy knew very well what the other woman meant, impish fingers of mischief suddenly tickled her amusement. She feigned bafflement. “Thing?”

“A man’s…private…
accoutrement
. His Arrow of Cupid.”

Still she waited, brows arched high, forcing her laughter down, where it bubbled away deep under her corset.

“His…” Miss Gibson tried again, squeezing out the word “appendage.”

Afraid she might convulse with laughter—which would not be at all seemly—Mercy set her cup and saucer on the table and began wriggling her fingers into a pair of kidskin gloves. “The awfulness to be endured at the hands of one’s husband and his trouser tentacle, my dear Miss Gibson, is nothing compared to the true agonies of this world. There are always people far worse off than oneself.”

The girl looked confused again, screwing her handkerchief into a damp knot. It was possible, thought Mercy, that Miss Gibson knew nothing of affairs beyond her own limited existence. Some women never bothered to read a newspaper or acquaint themselves with the larger issues. Mercy, on the other hand, poured over various lurid accounts of the world’s many injustices, especially those against women. Unbeknownst to her brother, he contributed largely to charities meant to improve their lot. It was a good thing for Mercy—and for Mr. Hobbs—that Carver seldom paid attention to the accounts.

“Think of the poor, unfortunate women plying their trade in the gin shops and dark alleys,” she explained. “There are almost as many prostitutes in London, Miss Gibson, as there are domestic servants. Imagine how those women suffer daily trials, struggling to find food, medicines, and shoes for their children. I am sure they must put themselves through great degradation to survive.”

Miss Gibson opened her mouth, but this time Mercy did not wait for any sound to come out. She continued rapidly, “You need tolerate your husband’s intimate company only once a month for precisely three and one-half minutes. It is hardly
The
Harlot’s Progress
.” There, that should put things into perspective for the trembling creature. In truth, Mercy was no longer very interested at that moment in poor Julia Gibson’s love life—or lack thereof. However, she considered it her mission to meddle in the lives of those she liked and to secure happy matches for her young friends most in need. People told her she was rather good at it, although, as her brother had recently pointed out, they would never dare say otherwise.

Miss Julia Gibson was, so far, her one failed project, and Mercy did not like this blot on her perfect record for matchmaking. Well, almost perfect, she thought with a frown, remembering that Carver still resisted any attempts to find him a wife. He was now thirty-three, in danger of becoming set in his ways and, as the Earl of Everscham, did not believe he should ever have to change those ways. This blinkered regard for the path ahead was a peculiarly stubborn trait he shared with his sister. Aware of this fact, she simply excused the characteristic in herself as a necessary and “clearheaded” devotion to what was proper. Mercy was the sensible one; she knew what she was doing, but the same could not be said for Carver. His obstinate frame of mind was a wretched annoyance, because it kept him from agreeing with her most of the time.

She took another, more searching perusal of Julia Gibson’s wincing features. Hmm…perhaps…if she could get her two most difficult projects together, would that not make a very tidy conclusion? She dearly loved a neat solution, everything squared away, corners perfectly aligned. There was nothing so comforting as an answer found, a mission completed.

Just then, Julia struggled with a meringue and sneezed violently, sending a spray of sugar down her frock. A dollop of cream remained on her chin, but she didn’t appear to notice.

Mercy drew an imaginary line through her idea. Perhaps not. Carver would chew the girl up and spit her out. He was far too critical; that was his problem.

“I’m afraid I must be off, Miss Gibson. I am expected at a friend’s wedding in the country, and I still have my brother to organize before I leave, but when I return, I shall attend to this matter. Worry not.”

“Oh, thank you, Lady Mercy. You are too kind.”

Yes, she mused, she probably was—devoting so much of her time to girls who hadn’t the gumption to find their own husbands. She really couldn’t understand what they feared. Mercy had just become engaged to Viscount Grey, a gentleman she’d picked out for herself and pursued with single-minded intent until he proposed. He was away now enjoying the sights of Italy, taking benefit from the dry, warm climate that improved his health, but in a month he was due to return, and then they would make the wedding arrangements. Everything proceeded on Mercy’s say-so, and just as it should be. Viscount Grey, having reached his fortieth year and survived the most trying age, would fit very well into the small space she’d allotted for a husband. He would not get in her way too much. He had coloring that coordinated very well with her favorite garments and furnishings, he was a perfectly proper three inches taller than she, and his love of outdoor sport, when health permitted, would keep him out of her hair for a good portion of the year. His wavering bouts of infirmity also gave her something to fuss over. A man in too fine a working order was often more independent than was good for him or his marriage, but Viscount Grey was just needy enough to give Mercy a purpose. And she did love a purpose.