Page 69 of Mercy Fletcher Meets Her Match
- Charity Nightingale
Thomas snorted. Well, at least he now knew for certain that Mercy was safe and, most likely, being cared for. He retrieved a fresh sheet of paper from a drawer in Mr. Fletcher’s desk, and dabbed a quill into the inkwell near his elbow to scratch out a response.
Dear Miss Nightingale,
My apologies for the intrusion. You may have noticed that, on occasion, Mercy has the tendency to act before she thinks. I’ll be round to fetch her as soon as I’ve attended to some urgentbusiness. If you might extend to her your hospitality until I’ve come to collect her, I would be most appreciative.
Sincerely,
Thomas Armitage
He folded up the letter and sealed it with a dab of wax. Possibly it was a great deal to request of the woman. But she had asked, after all.
Letter in hand, he jogged down the stairs to deliver it to the butler for the next penny post, and instead ran directly into the path of his mother and sisters, who lingered fretfully in the foyer, dressed to go out.
Belatedly, he realized he had not yet told them. Not any of it.
“Mercy’s not come down,” Marina said, wringing her hands in distress. “We were meant to go to the bookshop this afternoon, and she’s not come down. She’s not usually so late.”
Hell. “She’s not coming down,” he said. “She’s not heretocome down.”
Mother produced a quizzical frown. “Whatever do you mean?” she asked. “Where else could she possibly be?”
Thomas heaved a sigh. “Into the drawing room, if you please,” he said, waving his arms to herd the lot of them, like wayward sheep, into the room. “Sit. It’s past time for all us to have a proper chat. It’s been a long while since we’ve last had a good talk.” And so many things had happened in the interim. He’d lost the family fortune and acquired a betrothed. Then lost the betrothed. Juliet had acquired half a dozen suitors she didn’t intend to accept. Marina had fallen in love with a bookseller. No—apublisher.
Like colorful birds they perched upon chairs and couches. “Thomas,” Juliet said. “Truly. What is this all about? We were meant—”
“To visit the bookshop,” he said. “Yes, I know.” And heturned to settle his gaze upon Marina. “The next time you go, I want you to tell your gentleman that he is to come and make himself known to me,” he said. “If he wishes to court you, he will do it properly. There is to be no more of this skulking about. Is that understood?”
Marina jerked in her chair, her hands flying to her mouth to stifle her gasp. “How—how—”
“Mother,” he said. “And Mercy. And you are damned lucky for it, for if I had noticed before they had, I might well have dismissed him out of hand. Almost certainly I would have done, had they both not championed you.” In his arrogance, he might have stuck firmly to his convictions, misguided as they had been.
As tears glittered in her blue eyes—tears of joy, he hoped—he realized that without Mercy’s guidance, without Mother’s, he could very well have destroyed Marina’s happiness along with his own. He had always meant to take care of his family, and he had, until now, thought he’d been doing a fine enough job of it.
He might have seen Marina married off to a perfectly suitable gentleman, one of her own class, with the proper bloodlines and title, and stillshe might have been miserable. And he knew he didn’t have to ask her to consider those things she would be surrendering to pursue her happiness. She had already considered them, and dismissed them just as he had. Because there was nothing so important as love.
But there was also Juliet to consider. She had no bookseller—publisher—waiting in the wings to marry her. She loved the whirl of the Season, the romance of it, the fawning attention she had received. And there would be more of it in the years to come, until she deemed herself ready to be married at last. At least, there would have been.
“I have a question to ask of all of you but before I do I have some explanations of my own to make. Mercy is not present today because we quarreled evening last. She has gone to staywith her sister.”
Just as he had, in the exact same baffled tone, Juliet said, “But Mercy hasn’t got a sister.”
“She has,” he said. “More than one, in fact.” Possibly more even than two. “Half-sisters, through their shared mother. The woman is not quite so deceased as we had otherwise been led to believe. It seems that her marriage to Mercy’s father was somewhat less than legitimate, when one considers that at the time of that marriage, she had a living husband and two daughters already.”
“Oh, poor dear Mercy,” Marina said on a gasp. “I cannot imagine how it must have hurt her to learn it.”
“Do you know, I think she was less hurt by her illegitimacy than she was happy to discover she had sisters,” Thomas said. “She will not give them up, and I will not ask her to do so. Just as I would never abandon either of you, so too would it be unfair and mean-spirited to demand it of Mercy. And one of those sisters,” he added, “is a rather notorious courtesan. Miss Charity Nightingale.”
“Oh, dear,” Mother breathed. “And the other?”
“I haven’t the faintest,” he said. An unknown quantity, Felicity—impossible to say whether or not she would come with her own share of scandal. “I know her given name, and little else. To my knowledge, Mercy has not yet met her.”
“But she has met Miss Nightingale?”
“Yes. And she means to continue to do so. I am telling you all first and foremost that I intend to marry Mercy”—he paused, heartened by the giddy squeals of glee issued by Marina and Juliet both—“irrespective of whatever bit of scandal that lies in her past. But I cannot deny that there may be consequence beyond my control. I have already made my decision, and now you must make yours.”
“What are you saying, Thomas?” Juliet asked, her browknitting.
