Page 10 of Mercy Fletcher Meets Her Match
Thomas threw up his hands in aggravation. “She pushed me into a damned pond!”
“She was a child, Thomas, just as you were—and to my recollection, you did not comport yourself particularly well, either.” Mother brushed at the fall of her skirts, smoothing the lavender fabric of the wrinkles traveling so long in a carriage had pressed into it. “Mercy, at least, had the excuse of having no mother living to teach her social graces. What was yours?”
Only that his father had been a cold, arrogant man who had loathed the very idea of their common—if wealthy—neighbors from the start. A prejudice which he had impressed upon his son. “She’s not a child any longer,” he said. And yet she was permitted to behave like one. To leave her belongings strewn about the house. To fail to conform to social conventions. To have her trespasses dismissed as merefoiblesto be chortled over. “She’s not a child, for all that she behaves like one. She ought to have grown up long ago.” As hehad.
If indeed he hadbeen jealous, it had only been because she had been allowed to be so much freerthan he. Than his sisters, or indeed even his mother. That the rules which had long governed their lives had never constrained her in a similar manner. That to all accounts,herfather had never rebuked her for aught she did, no matter how shocking.
“It costs nothing to be kind, Thomas,” Mother said. “Do you think I would have encouraged her friendship with Marina and Juliet if I had thought her character to be lacking? Perhaps Mercy is a bit willful—”
“Spoiled,” Thomas cast out resentfully. “Pigheaded. Stubborn and reckless.”
“Spirited,” Mother corrected. “Intelligent and determined. My goodness, Thomas, she spent the afternoon letting the girlschoose any gowns they fancied from her dressing room, and you know her father produces the finest fabrics there are to be had. Even if he has been indulgent, it does not mean he has raised a selfish child.” She gave an abbreviated wistful sigh. “I wish you could unbend just a little. If you could bear to spend more than a few minutes in Mercy’s company, then perhaps you would see her differently.”
“I don’t need tolikeher to find her a husband,” Thomas growled.
“Perhaps not, but it couldn’t hurt. If the most flattering thing you can say of her is that she is spoiled and pigheaded, how do you imagine you will persuade any gentleman to call upon her? You must find something in her to admire, Thomas, or no one else will.”
Hell. She was right, after a fashion. And he owed it to Mr. Fletcher to do his damnedest to accomplish the goal which had been set before him. With a sigh, he sank into the chair across from Mother, upon which Mercy’s damned gloves had once rested.
A sharp pain darted up his thigh as something stabbed him, and with a fierce yelp, he shot out of the chair. A pencil fell to the chair, rolling across the upholstered surface to tuck itself up against a small book that had been wedged between the arm and the seat.
The damned woman was tryingto kill him.
“Now, Thomas,” Mother soothed, though there was a certain strained tightness in her voice that made it sound rather as if she had suppressed a chortle. “This isMercy’s home. We are prevailing upon her father’s hospitality.”
“Heis prevailing uponours,” Thomas gritted out between clenched teeth as he bent to retrieve the pencil and the little leather-bound book, thumbing it open to skim the pages. “The use of the house is the least he could offer when one considers—”
Mother cleared her throat in disapproval, cutting straight through his words. “I’m certain I taught you better,” she said, “than to invade someone else’s privacy.”
“It’s a sketchbook, not a diary,” Thomas said, though of course he couldn’t have known that when he’d opened it. “You can hardly even call it prying—unless you mean to suggest that Miss Fletcher has somehow hidden her private thoughts into pages and pages of nonsensical sketches. See?” He held the little book aloft, spreading the pages for her perusal. “Not so much as a landscape amongst them. The wretched woman can’t even be bothered to sketch like she ought. It’s all just frills and flourishes.” No detailed figures; no idyllic gardens or pastoral countryside scenes. Not so much as a face sketched in profile.
Mother stifled a laugh with the tips of her fingers as she rose to her feet once more, her lips twisting in the wry echo of a joke he had missed. “Oh, Thomas,” she said, with a slow shake of her head. “They’re not nonsense at all. They’re patterns.”
“Patterns?” he repeated inanely. “Whatever for?”
“Fabrics,” she said, with a fond pat to his cheek. “Mr. Fletcher’s mills produce the finest silks and the most coveted prints to be had in England. And Mercy, it would seem, produces the patterns for them.” She gave a little flutter of her fingers toward the open pages revealed within the sketchbook he yet held in his hand. “You’re wearing that one on your waistcoat.”
With a queer sense of shock, Thomas looked down at the patterned cloth of his waistcoat, comparing the intricate curls and flourishes rendered upon it to the strokes of graphite on page held down beneath his thumb.
Hell. Itwasthe same. He’d never paid much attention to his clothing; largely it was his tailor that kept abreast of the current fashions. But it would not surprise him if the man sourced his fabrics from Mr. Fletcher’s businesses. There was a reason Fletcher was so goddamned wealthy.
Apparently, at least a part of that reason was Mercy. How long had he been wearing her patterns without knowing?
“Of course, it must be returned to Mercy immediately,” Mother said lightly, as she turned toward the door.
“I suppose so,” he said on a faint grumble, snapping the book closed once more and extending it to her. “Here, you may—”
“Not me, Thomas,” Mother said with a little sniff of amusement at his presumption. “You. And for God’s sake, my dearest, pigheaded son—bekind.” She swept out of the room, content to have gotten the last word in.
Thomas sank back into the chair with a groan, rubbing at his temple with one hand.It costs nothing to be kind, Mother had said, and he supposed she was correct. And a damn good thing it was, too, since he hadn’t so much as two pence to rub together.
Chapter Five
Mercy poked at the filet of sole upon her plate with the tines of her fork, her appetite vanishing as the dinner conversation had turned from idle chatter to speculation upon the Season. It couldn’t be helped, of course—it was to be Juliet’s very first, and she could hardly blame the girl for her excitement.
She had once been every bit as enthusiastic, until that enthusiasm had been crushed out of her.
“Thomas, do you think we shall have callers tomorrow?” Juliet inquired, squirming in her seat like an overexcited puppy.
