Page 9 of Mercy Fletcher Meets Her Match
Or so she hoped.
Her stockinged feet slid between carpet runners along the wood floor as she headed toward the library, and Mercy counted herself lucky she’d not crossed paths with anyone. Mostespecially Thomas, who would no doubt have had words for her general state of dishabille.
The door was closed. Had she closed it behind her when she had left? Ruefully, she had to admit to herself that it didn’t seem likely.
Muted voices rose to meet her ears as she approached. The baroness, her voice just the tiniest bit shrill, tinged with annoyance. “Honestly, Thomas, must you be so ill-tempered? Mercy is a lovely woman, truly. If you could be bothered to spend just a little time in her company—”
“The woman is a goddamned menace, Mother.” This, followed with a throaty, scathing sound.
Mercy jerked back a step, her heel sliding upon the polished floor. A menace. Amenace? That seemed a trifle over-exaggerated. She had known that Thomas had never been particularly fond of her—his propensity to scowl whenever in her presence had been proof positive of that. But amenace?
“Thomas.” This from the baroness, in a sour hiss. “That was both unkind and uncalled for.”
“I nearly broke my neck simply walking into this room, Mother. The fool woman left her shoes in the damned doorway.” There was the faint popof a stopper being pulled from a decanter, then the sloshof liquid dashed into a glass. “She’s driven me to drink, and I’ve been in her company only a handful of hours.”
It shouldn’t have hurt, really. There had been worse said of her. Likely there would be worse said of her to come. She had long become accustomed to not being liked, had given up that futile hope for it years and years ago, when she had failed to make so much as a single friend in London.
But itdidhurt. Just a little. Perhaps they had never been friends, but their families had been. At least as much as a family of his station could be said to be friends with one of hers. Marinaand Juliet had always been welcome in her home. They’d often invited her to theirs. There had been teas and dinners and even the occasional country dance or dinner party, even if Thomas had rarely attended.
The baroness heaved a sigh, so longsuffering and beleaguered that Mercy had the sense that this was not a new argument, merely a continuation of one which had been brought up time and time again for years. “Thomas, it was at yourinsistence that Mercy has joined us for the Season.”
“I know,” Thomas said, and gave a groan so heavy in seemed to resonate even in the hall. “I know. I felt obligated to Mr. Fletcher—in the spirit of neighborly good will, you understand. He wants her married.”
Married? That had to be a lie. Papa had never cared that she hadn’t married. It had been just the two of them for years and years, ever since Mother—
“But who would bother to take her?” Thomas asked on a scoff. “One cannot turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse. The man would have to be mad. Or desperate.”
Just words.Justwords. They had only the power she gave to them. But Mercy winced all the same as her fingernails carved crescents into the soft skin of her palms. It wouldn’t have hurt quite so badly if she hadn’t discarded her gloves. Which were, most likely, still in the library. With Thomas and his mother.
“Or,” the baroness suggested mildly, “possessed of enough sense to recognize a kind, loyal, intelligent woman when he meets her.”
“Mother, the woman causes chaos wherever she goes,” Thomas said. “It’ll be a damned miracle if I can make it through the Season without strangling her. As it is, I’ll be devoting a not-insignificant portion of my time to finding a husband for a lost cause.”
Really, he’d said nothing she did not already know. So why,then, was her heart lashing against the cage of her ribs? Why had she already taken several large steps backward, as if to distance herself from a blow? Thomas had neverlikedher. She had known that for years.
But she had never thought he’dloathedher quite so severely.
Her stomach twisted itself into a knot. Without another thought, she turned and fled, her stockinged feet soundless as she skidded down the hall. Away from those terrible words, which had somehow hurt every bit as much as slings and arrows. Away from the echoes of the cruel words that had sent her fleeing from London so many years ago. Just—away.
∞∞∞
The last of the liquor slid down Thomas’ throat with a searing burn, and he set his glass aside at last only to catch sight of a pair of gloves haphazardly draped across a chair.Christ. The damned woman would be naked by nightfall at the rate at which she was shedding her clothing.
“Oh, Thomas,” Mother sighed. “You have so much of your father in you. Sometimes, I wish you had just a little more of me.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Those damned gloves draped carelessly over the arm of the chair taunted him. Like a glaring symbol of every way in which Mercy Fletcher had failed to conform to societal expectations. He could count off her sins upon the fingers of those gloves, one after another, and still require a roomful of them to spare.
“You are so rigid, Thomas, so unbending.” Mother wilted into the chair opposite the begloved one, and when her gazefollowed his toward the offending accessories, the very corner of her lips quirked up in the hint of a smile. As if such uncouth behavior was something to befondof. “You expect perfection from others,” she said, folding her hands in her lap, “the way your father expected it of you. I wonder, Thomas, who you might have been had he ever allowed you to be less than perfect. If you were not always just a little jealous of Mercy, for being less than perfect and loved anyway.”
“What rubbish,” he said with a scowl, though his eyes lingered still upon the gloves. “I know well enough that I’m not perfect.” He’d let a villain make off with the family fortune, after all. For all his attentiveness to their financial wellbeing, still he had trusted too much, erred grievously in his assessment of another man’s character.
“No,” Mother said. “But I have always felt that you punish yourself for it. I suppose I should be grateful that you have allowed myself and the girls a certain amount of grace. Could you not extend just a little of that grace to Mercy?”
What purpose would be served in indulging the little hellion? Rules were rules, and Mercy Fletcher had never met a rule she hadn’t delighted in breaking. He could not believe she was ignorant of them, which could only mean that each departure from the straight and narrow path she ought to have walked had been a deliberate flouting of convention.
Those damnedgloves. With a coarse sound, he snatched them from the arm of the chair and shoved them into the depths of his pocket. “She’s not a child to be coddled,” he snapped. “She’s at least eight and twenty—”
“Seven and twenty, Thomas, as of January. Perhaps, if you had elected to attend her birthday supper, you might have known it.” The faint narrowing of Mother’s eyes suggested he ought to have known it anyway. “You have been nursing this grudge of yours for nearly twenty years. You decided you hatedher within moments of meeting her, and you’ve not swayed an inch from it in all the years since.”
