The Lady Mercy Danforthe Flirts With Scandal (7 page)

Mercy was determined. Rafe’s father, seeing this and having some familiarity with her stubborn character, eventually agreed that she may use the curricle, but he wanted her to take an escort.

“Why?” she replied, half laughing but as politely as possible. “I travel almost everywhere by myself. I am accustomed to it.” Her brother had been a lax guardian, to put it mildly. A procession of nannies and governesses had come and gone, making little impact, and the most constant companion she’d had for years was Molly Robbins. Eyebrows might be raised, but the idea of taking a chaperone with her to Rafe’s house was, in her mind, patently ridiculous. “What’s he going to do to me? Eat me? No, no, I am quite capable of going there alone.”

Mercy had known Rafe since he was twelve, and she’d watched his relatives try to compensate for everything—his birth out of wedlock, a motherless childhood spent in poverty, and then the sudden revelation of his father’s identity. As a result, there were a lot of allowances made for Rafe, and he was cocky enough and wily enough to make the most of it. Since he’d returned to heal the breach with his father, everyone was on their best behavior, keeping the fragile state of peace. No one wanted to cross swords with Rafe or give him any cause to run off again. Even his father, with whom he had fought the most often, was apparently reined in.

Poor
Rafe
indeed! He worked on his family’s sympathy, but underneath it all he was just what her brother called him—a street-toughened ragamuffin with no need for anyone to stand up for him. Only to stand up
to
him, perhaps.

“Please do not fret. You’ll see. I shall put everything back to rights. Before we know it, Molly will come to her senses, realize she’s in danger of losing a wonderful man, and then she’ll return posthaste. And we shall have that wedding after all.” She set down her glass and picked up her knife.

Mrs. Hartley was looking at her in a very odd fashion.

“What is it now?” Mercy asked.

Mr. Hartley remarked quietly, “It seems you have it all under control then, Lady Mercy.”

She detected a faint wry tone, which she chose to ignore. It was hardly the first time anyone doubted her organizational abilities. But she’d show them all. Let them sit around waiting for that overgrown boy to finish throwing a temper tantrum. She had an orderly plan to keep and no time for tiptoeing around, waiting for Rafe Hartley to apologize to her.

“I remember the first time we met, Lady Mercy,” said Mr. Hartley suddenly, his eyes so like Rafe’s but assessing her with greater warmth. “You were on the back of a galloping pony, racing across Hyde Park, and I followed, thinking you in need of rescue.” He chortled. “How wrong I was.”

Mercy remembered that day in London too, when handsome rakehell, James Hartley, became the hero of her childish romantic dreams. She’d embarked upon a campaign of love letters immediately, fastening herself to him like a piece of sticky goosegrass. Eventually she’d run away, chasing after him into the country, and that was the first time she came to Sydney Dovedale, met Molly Robbins and Rafe. It all felt like a very long time ago, which, indeed, it was.

Although James Hartley assumed she had never really needed rescuing in the park that day, he was wrong. Mercy had been in a state of great panic, on a horse out of control and, as usual, her brother was inattentive. When James rode to the rescue, she was in his debt far more than he knew. At the first opportunity she would repay the favor with a dozen years’ interest, she decided.

***

As it turned out, she did not visit Rafe the very next day after all. Awakening to a rainy, gray morning, she delayed her journey to Sydney Dovedale. Better wait until the sun shone again, she told herself, for nobody could be cheered up when it rained. It was nothing to do with losing her gumption or needing more time to plan her speeches. Nothing at all to do with that.

She wrote letters that day instead—one to her brother, admonishing him severely for his role in all this, and another to Molly, advising her to spend her time away thinking very carefully about her choice. Then, having run out of people to lecture by pen for the time being, she spent the afternoon reading a very melodramatic romance to Lady Ursula and the young Miss Hartleys, with occasional pauses to explain exactly where the heroine went wrong and where her lover’s behavior might have been improved.

The following day it rained again, giving her another reason to delay the visit to Rafe. She had expected to see him arrive at his father’s door, looking for sympathy, tea, and crumpets. But he did not come. At last, on the third day after the abandoned wedding, a weak sun reappeared. Mercy took Mr. Hartley’s curricle to Rafe’s farm, carrying with her a hamper of food prepared by his stepmother and, of course, many carefully rehearsed lines about stiff upper lips, patience, and love withstanding trials.

For the outing, she selected one of her best muslins with a tiny pattern of flowers so small they seemed no more than dots until one examined them closer. The haberdasher, when she purchased the cloth, had assured her the shade was called “Mystery of the Orient,” but Molly Robbins had somewhat annoyingly referred to it as “orangey.” One of Mercy’s reasons for purchasing the material in the first place was to rescue much of it from the tacky clutches of her old nemesis, Cecilia Montague, who had also been eyeing the bolt of cloth from across the shop and would have made something atrociously gaudy, given half the chance. Mercy could not stand to see such a stunning color wasted on that painted, coarse-mouthed hussy, and thus it was purchased for what Molly Robbins scornfully declared to be an “outrageous” amount of money. As far as Mercy was concerned, it was worth every penny. Dressed in this bold color, she felt equal to whatever the day held. It gave her Danforthe courage that extra boost that a softer, pastel shade could not have achieved. She buttoned over it a matching spencer and topped the entire effect with a velvet-trimmed bonnet and a partial veil in ruby lace. There! No one—not even Rafe Hartley—would dare argue with her today.

As she came down the stairs, Mrs. Hartley met her in the hall and stopped to admire the outfit. “Goodness, that is very…bright, Lady Mercy. We certainly shan’t lose you in that color.”

Mercy chose to take that as a compliment. She’d been told before that her taste in fashion was very bold, but she saw it as another of her duties in life—to lead others in the matter of style. Few people had her eye for taste, and even fewer, as Molly Robbins once said, had her gumption.

Alas, although she could control everything about her appearance that day, she could do nothing about the changeable temper of Mother Nature. The country lanes were in an atrocious state after the previous two days of rainfall, and it was not conducive to the picturesque jaunt she’d imagined. Instead, the ride was rough, the curricle wheels lurching in and out of deep ruts filled with muddy rainwater. By the time she finally pulled up before the farmhouse gate, sprinkles of rain began to fall again and the temperature dropped rapidly, causing her to regret the lack of a coat that was practical rather than decorative.

A quick assessment of Rafe’s cottage suggested it was deserted. The windows were shuttered, the yard empty but for a few hens, not a sign of human life anywhere. Surely he hadn’t gone chasing after Molly? That would be the worst thing to do.

It was a pretty cottage, with dimpled pebble-and-flint walls, the windows framed with redbrick. Two dormers peeped through the fringe of a thatched roof, and a stout brick chimney coughed out slender wisps of smoke—proof that someone was home. Mercy clambered down from the curricle and shouted for assistance, but no one appeared, although one of the plow horses looked out of his box and whinnied a greeting. She unlatched the wide gates and marched up to Rafe’s front door, where a few stout raps on the weathered wooden planks were also ignored. After trying the door handle in vain, she checked the building by peering in through cracks and knotholes. At last, she discovered a pair of window shutters unlatched, nudged them farther open, and looked inside, where she searched through a curtain of ashy fog.

There he was, slumped over the table. Panic squeezed around her heart with cold fingers until her searching eyes adjusted to the dim, smoky light and she saw the pewter jug beside his head. Mercy exhaled in relief. Unless he’d cracked himself over the head with it, he was merely drunk. That she could deal with, thanks to experience with her brother. Since no one else was brave enough to beard the beast in his lair, the task was up to her.

She hitched up her skirt and petticoat, climbed onto the brick window ledge, and swung her legs into the room. It was an action no proper chaperone would have condoned, but Mercy could never be kept out of somewhere she intended to be.

The shutters fell back against the wall with a clatter, causing Rafe to jerk upright in his chair as if roused by cannon fire. He swore loudly, holding his hands to his brow, and then she watched his gaze tracking the pale morning light where it cleared a path through the ashen gloom. Stiffly, he turned his head, and a pair of furious, hot blue eyes burned into her, scorching her fine gown.

When he spoke, his voice cracked, and the way he set each word down like a heavy burden was more menacing even than the manner in which his eyes raked over her. “My Lady Bossy-Breeches…what the blazes are you doing here?”

She brushed dirt from her frock and checked that her bonnet remained in place. If she was going to face this man, eye to eye, and deal with the business for which she came, Mercy needed all her parts in order. This was a man who earned money by fighting with his fists, and she knew he had a hot temper. However, she thought with a sudden sly smile, he was her property now, was he not? Rafe Hartley’s boxing contract was in her hands. With this pleasing thought in mind, Mercy ran her wondering gaze over his wide shoulders, down his chest to his narrow hips and thick, hard thighs. Her eyelids grew heavy; her pulse quickened. Her teeth dug into her lower lip, and she forgot—for just a moment—what she’d gone there to do.

“Well?” he barked as he jerked to his feet and the chair fell back to the flagstones with a bang. “You’d better have a damned good reason for coming here, woman.”

It did not escape her notice that this was the second time he’d said “damn” in her presence. He not only said it, he relished the word.

Mercy’s gaze fastened on the abused chair. Someone ought to pick that up before it was tripped over, she thought.

“Well?” Rafe demanded.

Back to the business at hand. “I’m here to set you straight, Master Rafe Hartley. Apparently no one else has the courage. Your father thinks you should be left to your own devices until you stop sulking. But I have no time to wait around on your whim. Oh, and I’ll take an apology, too, for those things you said to me in the churchyard. I understand I must make certain allowances for your temper in the heat of that moment, but I would like an apology nonetheless.”

“Don’t hold your breath for one, meddlesome harridan.”

He stood before her, shoulders braced, fists at his side—a man ready to chase her out. She might as well be ten again and guilty of aiming an egg at the back of his head. Mercy could almost see the yolk dripping down the side of his neck, as it did back then.

Assessing him slowly, inch by inch, Mercy was just as astonished by his height today as she was every time she saw him since he turned fifteen and shot up almost overnight. It never ceased to shock. Rafe Hartley continued stretching north, and his shoulders were, she was certain, wider than some doors.

His eyes were still as blue as cornflowers, his hair as black as a crow’s wing. And that sizable chip remained on his shoulders, possibly growing in unison with their width.

Rafe stared at the scarlet trespasser. Didn’t she know it was dangerous to wear red around a bull? Standing in a shaft of rain-streaked daylight, once again she glowed. Like an angel. No, he quickly corrected himself—not an angel. Like an evil pixie. A demon of some unholy nature.

She observed him slowly, and then her gaze turned to the pewter jug on the table. Her fine eyebrows arched high. “So your first reaction to a little setback is to drink yourself unconscious?”

A
little
setback?
Yes, that is all it would be to her. Nothing ever ruffled her pristine feathers. Naturally the woman assumed he was drunk. In fact, he’d fallen asleep reading last night, but she was prepared to imagine the worst. High-and-mighty people like Mercy Danforthe had their preconceived notions about “common” folk like him. He wouldn’t bother disabusing her of the idea. Hands behind his back, he quietly closed the open copy of
Bell’s Weekly
upon which he’d slept most of the night. “Come to gloat over my misfortunes, woman?”

She passed slowly through the beam of light to stand within his reach—either brave or stupid to put herself that close. It had to be the former, because he knew she wasn’t the latter. She was too outspoken for her own good. Always had been, and he’d known her since she was ten, when she was all bronze curls, big green eyes, and busy mouth.

“Why are you still here?” he demanded, fists clenched at his sides.

Ignoring the question, she stooped gracefully to retrieve his chair from the floor. Her sweet, soft scent wafted up into his nostrils, and his heart slowed. The steady thumps in his chest seemed to thicken, grow heavier. He opened his fists, shook out his fingers.

Don’t think about that sort of thing now. Not with
her
here. The Danforthe Brat.

He groaned and pressed his hands to his head.

“Sit down before you fall down,” she exclaimed. With her hand on his arm, she forced him down into the chair. Even when she took her hand away again, he still felt her firm touch though his rolled shirtsleeve. Bloody woman. Why couldn’t she leave him alone? She’d done enough damage. Perhaps she had yet more planned. Through narrowed eyes, he watched her opening shutters, sighing extravagantly, and tut-tutting at the mess he’d made in his bachelor solitude over the past few days.