Page 14 of Mercy Fletcher Meets Her Match
Oh, Lord. She had forgotten the mail. When first she had planned to come to London, it had been with the expectation that she might do so alone, or at worst, in Papa’s company—and Papa had never shown much concern over with whom she had corresponded. He had become accustomed, after a fashion, to the arrival of all sorts of parcels and such. The servants at home knew to bring those things directly to her. Here, however, wherethe servants hadn’t long learned such habits, the mail would pass through other hands first. And she had not given it a moment’s thought.
Her eyes landed upon the sketchbook still pinned beneath Thomas’ arm, and she cleared her throat to alleviate the odd tightness that had settled there. “The manager of my father’s London mills,” she said, through an uncertain waver. “Though I don’t believe it’s any of your concern.”
“It is my concern when a gentleman unknown to me is corresponding with an unmarried lady for whom I am presently responsible,” he said. “I would have the same concern regarding Marina or Juliet, were they to receive such correspondence.” His dark eyes searched her face as if he could see the lie she’d told scrawled across it in vivid red ink.
What a fanciful notion. Of course he could not. “I’ll have them now,” she said, holding out her hand and attempting a commanding tone. “My sketchbook and my letter both. It’s quite rude, you know, to pry into someone else’s things.” She snatched them both straight from Thomas’ hand the instant he came close enough to reach.
Marina gave an exasperated shake of her head. “Brothers can be so tiresome,” she said on sigh. “Really, Mercy, you’re lucky you’ve never had to endure the bother of them.”
Mercy had never thought so. She’d have liked to have a brother—or a sister. Someone to have made the times when Papa was away on business, and the Armitages away for the Season, somewhat less lonely. She’d made do, of course, as one had to do. She’d learned to appreciate her own company.
But she would have liked a sibling, nonetheless.
Thomas aimed a whack at Marina’s head with a small stack of letters. “Impertinent,” he chided as she gave a wheeze of a laugh. “These are yours.”
“And mine?” Juliet prompted, with a giddy wiggle as shestretched out her hands, into which Thomas laid another few letters.
“And yours, Mother,” Thomas said, as he turned once more toward the sofa upon which Mercy and the baroness sat to hand over the stack of those remaining, which must have comprised at least a dozen letters. “We’ve hardly been in town a day. I’m surprised there are so many.”
“Word travels fast,” the baroness said in a gleeful, sing-song voice, pleased as punch to have been proved correct in her assessment. Neatly she laid her stack upon her lap, lifting the first letter to peel off the wax seal. “I expect to have a full social calendar rather soon.”
“Mercy, will you not open yours?” Marina inquired, with a nod toward the single letter that Mercy had tucked into her sketchbook, abandoned even while everyone else had begun to sort through their own correspondence.
Mercy managed a careless shrug, or at least the approximation of one. “Later, perhaps,” she said. “Probably Papa has told him I am in town for the Season. He’ll be inquiring after new patterns, most likely. I shall have to find a convenient time to deliver them—”
“Out of the question. Mail them if you must,” Thomas interjected, in a voice that brooked no argument.
Naturally, Mercy argued anyway. “It was always my intention to visit the mill,” she said fiercely. “I have been sending patterns through Papa for years without once seeing the inside of it. And besides, I must have more silk for my—”
“Absolutely not, and if you had half the sense God gave a cabbage, you’d be grateful for my refusal,” Thomas said. “In all likelihood, I am the only thing standing between you and an exceptionally foolish death at the hands—so to speak—of a hot air balloon.”
Oh, now that was categorically unfair! “I had it well enoughin hand,” she said defensively. “Next time—”
“For the love of God, woman, you nearly killed the both of us the first time!”
“Well, if you had not been sleeping in a field, I would not have landed upon you!”
“It wasmyfield to sleep in,” Thomas volleyed back. “And you aimedfor me, by your own admission!” He thrust his fingers through the perfectly combed strands of his hair, raking deep grooves into them. “Your proclivity toward madcap schemes borders on the uncanny,” he said. “If it is the last thing I do—and believe me when I say that I understand it may well be—I amnotgoing to permit you to embroil yourself or my sisters in any of your outlandish behavior here in London. For your own sake, and for theirs.”
Marina looked up from a letter, her brows arching toward her hairline. “Mercy, you have a hot air balloon?”
“GoodGod,” Thomas muttered, sinking back in his chair and pressing his fingers to the bridge of his nose.
“Does it fly?” Juliet asked, enthralled, her dark eyes wide and unblinking.
“Yes—well, no. Not presently. I miscalculated and descended too quickly, and now it’s got massive tear. But it willfly again, once I’ve repaired it.” She shot a victorious glance toward Thomas, who returned a glare of his own through the lenses of his spectacles which suggested if she so much as offered to take any member of his family up in it, he would gleefully strangle her.
“This conversation is growing tedious,” Thomas snapped, all bristling indignation. “I do not intend to entertain any further discussion of hot air balloons, or any other such nonsense. There is to be no tomfoolery, reckless capers, larks, hijinks, or lunacy ofanykind. Is that perfectly clear?”
The baroness, brow furrowed, peeled the wax seal off of yetanother letter and remarked, “Really, Thomas, you were the one to raise the issue.”
“I beg your pardon, Mother, for having a care for my sisters’ continued good health and safety. You cannot condonethis—this madness.”
“I don’t, rather,” the baroness said. “But then I have always been a bit terrified of heights, to be perfectly honest. Perhaps if I had been born of a more adventurous bent…” Her brows pinched yet further as she discarded another letter, the stack steadily waning as she read through them one at a time.
“Oh, but if you could only see the view,” Mercy enthused. “It’s truly magnificent. Great green hills rolling off into the distance, spotted with sheep. The air is cold and thin, but it is so peaceful, so freeing to be up on high above the rest of the world. I felt like I might reach up and touch a cloud.” At least until she’d begun descending a bit too rapidly. “Of course, you are more or less at the mercy of the wind,” she allowed.
“And the earth,” Thomas said with a disdainful sniff. “Which tends to be somewhat unforgiving.”
