Page 4 of Mercy Fletcher Meets Her Match
“You’ve got a London townhouse?”
“Of course I have. Got to have a place to stay on the occasions business takes me to London.” With one hand he rifled through his drawer and withdrew a blank sheet of paper. “Money is no object at all, mind you.”
“Then why don’tyoutake her to London?”
“Because while I have the money to provide for my daughter—generously, I might add, and so you should make it known to any suitable matches—what I lack is social influence. I haven’t the clout to gain her access to the best homes, or to garnerinvitations from the best people. But your mother is well-respected. I imagine she receives a fair few invitations.” Mr. Fletcher gestured to the paper before him with the point of his quill. “However much you require for Mercy, and for yourself and your family to see you comfortably through the Season, I’ll write you a bank draft for it here and now. Furthermore, I’ll inform my solicitor in London to grant you more should you require it.”
“I should refuse.” It would be the wisest course of action. Even if it might lead to his downfall. There was something worse than mere financial ruin, he was certain, and he saw its very shadow looming over him even now. A nameless spectre, ominous and dire and breathing right down the back of his neck. One he was certain he would come face to face with before the Season was through.
“My dear boy,” Mr. Fletcher said, and Thomas fancied he saw a sliver of pity shimmering in the old man’s eyes, “I think we both know you have no choice.”
Chapter Two
Mercy ambled into the dining room at least thirty minutes late, flexing her sore fingers and sighing as she collapsed into her chair. “Papa, I need more silk.”
“Silk?” Papa paused, his spoon hovering over his bowl of soup. “I would swear I received a bill only last week for two bolts of it.” His brows scrunched as if it had only now occurred to him that it had been an extraordinary amount of fabric.
“It’s for my balloon,” she said as a footman placed a bowl of white soup before her. “There was an incident today—”
“Ah, yes,” Papa said placidly. “Lord Armitage made some mention of that.”
Mercy stifled a wince. “I suppose he must’ve done.” She’d not seen Thomas so incensed since—well, since the last time she’d offended his delicate sensibilities, she supposed. Possibly all peers were like that, though his family was the only noble one with which she had had more than a passing acquaintance. His mother was pleasant enough, and his sisters were lovely—but Thomas had had a stick up his arse since childhood, or so it had always seemed to her. “Unfortunately, the wind turned as I alighted,” she said. “And I ended up upon his land. I managed to land safely enough”—give or take a few bumps and bruises—“but my balloon was not so lucky. It’s got a dreadful tear straight through a panel, and I shall need to replace the silk.” And itwould have to be fine stuff indeed. As fine as any that could be got in London. Fine as the finest produced by Papa’s London silk mill.
“Sweeting, I can’t imagine you’ll find much silk in the village. Not a lot of call for it in the countryside.”
“That’s just it,” Mercy said, striving to keep her voice light and innocent. “I’m certain there’s not enough left in the village to suit my needs. I thought—well, I thought, it has been so long since we’ve been to London—”
Papa’s brow furrowed deeper, pleating a crease right there above the bridge of his nose. “You want to go to London for silk,” he said, his voice inflected with no small measure of disbelief.
No, of course not. It had just seemed a convenient excuse. “I only thought—”
“You hate London.”
Not true. Or at least, not entirely true. It was more that London seemed to hateher. There was nowhere she belonged within its rigidly-segmented strata. Too genteel to find a place within the common merchant class; toocommonto be welcomed amongst theTon. “I haven’t been to London often enough to have formed an opinion,” Mercy said. “Though I do prefer the countryside.” Where she was largely left to her own devices, without much of anyone to cast judgment upon her for her numerous and extensive peculiarities.
Except for Thomas, of course.
Still Papa squinted in her direction as if she’d been suddenly replaced by some manner of unknown and potentially volatile creature. “I seem to recall that you once swore that you would die before you willingly set foot in London again.”
“Papa, I was eighteen.” A nasty girl a few years her senior named Lady Frances had been just awful to her at the modiste, and she’d taken it perhaps a little too much to heart. At that tender age, Mercy had privately nurtured the idea of makingfriends, having a proper entrée into society, and perhaps even finding a husband. She’d even had a debut, of a sort. As much of one as a girl could have without the social connections required to merit a presentation to the Queen.
It was just that those coveted invitations she had so anticipated receiving had never arrived. At-home days had come and gone without a single caller. It had taken only a fortnight for Mercy to come to understand that there wasn’t a place for her in London, and to beg her father to return to the countryside, where she would not have to suffer the rejections of those who ought to have been her peers day after miserable day.
She had had no one at all in London.Then.
Surreptitiously, she slid her hand beneath the table, found the pocket in her dress, and slid her fingers within to touch the folded letter within, taking comfort from the letter that had been read and reread so often that it had softened to a fabric-like quality.
“I have got some new fabric patterns to deliver to the mill, besides,” she said. “It would save you the trip, were I to deliver them myself and acquire the silk I need all at once. And perhaps…perhaps while I am in London, I shall give the Season another go.” It was a convenient excuse, with the added benefit of naturally extending what otherwise might be expected to be a short trip. Nigh on a decade had passed since her prior Season; long enough to make a change of heart a credible concept. She was no longer so young as to require constant chaperoning, and she hadn’t much of a public reputation, besides. At best, she would be an unknown quantity. At worst she would be the same as she ever had been—a provincial nobody; a pretender to a class above her own; an unwelcome intruder.
“Hm.” Papa waved away his soup, and a footman replaced the bowl with a leafy green salad liberally flaked with lemon zest. “If you truly wish to go to London—”
“I do.” Mercy suppressed a wince over her own salad, and reassured herself that it was not, in fact, a lie. Shedidwant to go—only, not for the purposes of husband-hunting. But then, Papa would not be surprised if she came home without one. Perhaps a little disappointed, but not surprised. He had never pressed her to marry, never insinuated his spinster daughter had long overstayed her welcome beneath his roof. It had been just the two of them for years and years, and she thought that her presence had brought some comfort, some life to a house that would have been altogether too large for one man. That he would have been lonely without her. “Of course, you need not accompany me,” she said. “I’m certain I can get along with a lady’s maid.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Papa said. “You’ve got to have a proper chaperone. A woman to sponsor you, one who knows her way around society. The baroness will do nicely, I think.”
“The…baroness.” The word clunked off of her tongue as heavily as if she’d dropped her silverware instead.Thomas’ mother? “Papa—”
“And you’ll have the company of the girls, naturally,” Papa said. “I understand the oldest has been through a few Seasons herself.”
