Page 73 of Mercy Fletcher Meets Her Match
And he wouldn’t have done. Everything had looked well enough—until it hadn’t. “I certainly learned it eventually,” he said. “Just in time for my staff to begin deserting their posts due to lack of wages. In time to discover the debts that I had accrued in outfitting my sisters for the Season had not been paid. Had I discovered it any later, there might have been irreparable damage done to my reputation and my family’s well-being.” Hisfingers tented upon the desk, knuckles going white. His gaze fell upon the documents arrayed before him. “I assume,” he said, his voice tense and clipped, “once you had gotten in too deep to recover yourself, you helped yourself to the rest of my funds. Hit a lucky streak, did you?”
“No, my lord. I—I did take the rest. Only to cover my losses. And then—and then I lost more, besides.”
The shame in the man’s voice gave Thomas pause. His brows arched in surprise. “Mr. Sumner has claimed that what you have stolen has been restored to me.”
“Not merely a claim, my lord,” Mr. Sumner said, and there was a vaguely offended inflection to his voice, as if his pride had been pricked by the suggestion that he might, somehow, have provided inaccurate information. “I have seen to it all myself, alongside Mr. Fordham, whose assistance was invaluable.”
“Invaluable?” Thomas echoed. “How so?”
“In fact,” Sumner said, “Mr. Fordham has kept meticulous records for himself. It was only because of them that your funds have been restored to you so quickly. It might have days, weeks even, of putting it all straight again otherwise. Instead, only hours.”
“How is it, then, that my funds—lost to some squalid gaming hell, no doubt—have been restored to me?” Thomas asked.
Bravely, considering the circumstances, Fordham took a few careful steps forward, firming his shoulders, his fingers flexing at his sides. “You might recall, my lord, some years ago I advised you upon a certain investment. A proposition for a gold mine in Wales.”
“One in which I declined to invest,” Thomas said. He had been new to the title then, and not particularly eager to make free with the family funds. He had thought the scheme too risky, too complex, its originators acting upon little more than a hunch. Like as not he’d have lost his money entirely. Even if ithad succeeded, he’d thought it just as possible that that investment would show no returns for years.
“I did invest,” Mr. Fordham said. “I could not convince you of it, so I invested my own funds. A bit more than I could afford to spare, in all honesty. And then I heard nothing of it for nearly two years. Not a word. I assumed, as you likely would have done, that it had failed and my investment had been lost. Until just over a month ago, when I received a missive from the fellows with whom I had invested, requesting a meeting.”
“Your gold mine paid off?” Thomas squinted at the paperwork before him once again.
“Handsomely,” Fordham said. “Ludicrously. I’d not have believed it myself—initially I did not, in fact.” He swallowed hard, audibly. “I had intended to flee the country,” he said. “I knew there was no other escape for what I had done. But when I received that letter, I thought—there might be a chance for me yet. So I stayed. I stayed, and I hid, and when they came to London to inform me of their progress, I met with them. They invited me to Wales with them to see for myself.”
“Wales,” Thomas breathed.Northwest, the barkeep had said. With the Welsh toffs who had accompanied him. Fordham had been in Wales this last week, overseeing what had been made of his investment. The goddamned gold mine. And he’d said he’d come into money not because he’d stolen Thomas’, but because his own damned fortune had been made.
He might have fled with his fortune, might have gone anywhere in the world. But he hadn’t. He’d come straight back to London to right the wrong he’d done. And then some, if Mr. Sumner were to be believed.
“I am not asking your forgiveness,” Mr. Fordham said, swallowing heavily. “Lord knows I do not deserve it. Those things of which I have been accused—I am guilty of them, all. I came here today only to put right what I have done wrong and tobeg for your mercy.”
Mercy. Thomas smothered a strange laugh beneath his fingers, surprised at the phrasing. In a way, he thought, Fordham had givenhimMercy. His legs collapsed beneath him and he sat down heavily in the leather-covered chair situated behind the desk. If not for Fordham’s perfidy and the ensuing debacle it had caused, he thought, there would have been no reason to accept the devil’s bargain Fletcher had offered. No reason for Mother to sponsor Mercy for the Season. No reason at all to have spent more than a few moments at a time in her presence.
He would have missed the love of his life by inches, because he had been too stupid and too stubborn ever to trulyseeher. He would never have learned what manner of man he truly was, never unbent himself enough to permit Marina’s common suitor to call upon her. By some strange twist of fate, Fordham’s deceit might well have saved them all. In a stranger way, he could almost find himself…grateful.
Mr. Sumner cleared his throat. “I would warn you, my lord, that the publicity a public trial would garner would hardly be ideal. You might be called to give evidence, testimony. In light of the fact that has been no harm—that is to say, nopermanentharm,” he amended swiftly as Thomas produced a glare, “it might be best simply to consider this matter closed.”
Sumner was right. With a sigh, Thomas scrubbed at his face. “You have got your mercy, Fordham.” And soon enough, Thomas would have his own. “So long as you get the hell out of my sight—and contrive to staythere.”
∞∞∞
There was something very nearly farcical about the civilized routine of tea, Mercy thought, when those in attendance included both one’s father and one’s courtesan half-sister. She thought perhaps all of them had been a bit stunned at Papa’s arrival some ten minutes earlier—even Papa himself.
Hardly a word had passed between them since Charity had cracked the door to admit him. Though she had undertaken the perfunctory courtesies that would be expected of someone receiving a guest, they had seemed somewhat strained, as if performed by rote repetition rather than of conscious action. As the water had heated in the kettle upon the stove, Charity had swept about the room, lighting a succession of candles to beat back the burgeoning darkness as sunset swept away into evening.
Mercy’s head had been swirling with disjointed fragments of thoughts ever since Papa’s arrival, her busy brain cycling through them in quick succession, but eventually, as she sipped her tea in the heavy silence that had descended upon them, enough pieces clicked into place to form a cogent sentence—and an accusation. “You knew,” she said, as she set her tea cup down upon its saucer with a clatter. “You knew!”
It was the only explanation she could find amidst the chaos of it all for how Papa had arrived here, at Charity’s door. He had known. He had to haveknown.
Papa winced, his face drooping into a hangdog expression. “Yes,” he admitted softly. “I knew.”
“For how long?” Mercy demanded, her chin lifting along with her ire. “You kept this from me. You kept mylifefrom me! Howlong did you know?”
“A year,” Papa said, directing his gaze to the toes of his boots upon the floor. “Perhaps as many as two. I swear to you, Mercy, I never meant to cause you any harm. I didn’t know—I didn’t know how I was meant to tell you. What your mother truly was. What she had made you. Made the both of us.”
A harsh retort crawled up Mercy’s throat and stuck there, lodged behind her tongue. For all the hurt that clawed at her heart, still there was the prick of her conscience. She had kept the same secret, and for the same reason. With the back of her hand she swiped at her eyes, swallowing back those recriminatory words once more.
The heat of anger fled as swiftly as it had come upon her. “I’m sorry, Papa,” she said in a choked voice as Charity gave a few awkward pats to her back. “I didn’t know how I was meant to tell you, either.” But she might have had a sister for longer than a few months. Might have known the family she had never known she had always had. “How did you come to be here?” she asked. “You weren’t meant to be in London for weeks.”
Papa cleared his throat. “I would not have been,” he said, “except that Lord Armitage wrote to me last week to inform me that he intended to marry you.” His brow furrowed into a severe frown. “I came to tender my response in person. But there was nobody at home when I arrived, and I heard the servants whispering that you had not been seen since evening last.” He shoved one hand into the pocket of his coat and withdrew a fistful of letters. Charity’s letters, the ones Mercy had scrupulously saved, collected within her drawer. “I found these in your nightstand. I recognized the name, of course. I suppose I thought—hoped—I might find you here.” His gaze flitted to Charity, as if her appearance came as something of a shock each and every time he laid his eyes upon her. “I beg your pardon,” he said to her. “It is only that you resemble her so closely.”
