Page 26 of A Very Roguish Boxing Day
Unfortunately for him, that happened to be the evening of the weekly meeting of the local Women’s Assistance League.Gwendolyn was in attendance, along with a dozen of the town’s most prominent female citizens.
Mrs.Smithers, the magistrate’s wife, spotted him as they stepped out of the Feathers Hotel.“Is that your brother?”
Gwen squinted into the darkness.“Joseph?”she gasped.“What are you doing here?”
He surged forward, grabbing Gwen’s arm.“Taking back what is mine!”
Gwen was frozen in shock.
But not her companions.
Jane Reynolds, the wife of Aunt Agatha’s solicitor, charged up to Joseph.“Let her go, you villain!”she cried, rearing back and swinging her reticule at his head.
She missed his temple, only managing to clip his jaw.But the reticule struck with a heavy, metallicclank.Gwen gaped at Mrs.Reynolds as Joseph’s hand on her wrist slackened.Gracious, what did she keep in that reticule?
Mrs.Hervey, the choirmaster’s wife, who had a passion for Gothic novels, kicked him in the shin hard enough to make him grunt in spite of his top boots.“Begone, foul despoiler!For though we be weak in body, we are mighty in spirit, and we shall not leave our friend unaided in this, her hour of woe!”
Joseph’s jaw hung slack.Whether he was baffled by Mrs.Hervey’s speech, or this was a lingering effect of Mrs.Reynolds’s reticule, Gwen could not say.But he shook his head and tightened his grip on Gwen’s wrist.She cried out as he twisted her arm, and she felt a pang of panic, certain that it was too late.
It was not too late.Because at that moment, Miss Mercy Charbonnel, the pampered daughter of the richest man in town, who was fifteen years old and all of five foot two, defied her name by pulling the hat pin out of her bonnet and stabbing Joseph right in the bum.
Joseph screeched in an octave that was usually the dominion of sopranos and released Gwen’s wrist so he could grab his posterior.
Miss Mercy’s perfect blonde ringlets trembled as she brandished her hatpin, which glinted red in the faint light emanating from the tavern.“You leave Miss Gwendolyn alone!”she cried in her sweet, melodic voice.“You had best get on your horse and ride for home, because next time, I will aim for thethroat!”
Joseph stumbled back, clutching his backside.“This… This isn’t over!”
From behind her, a woman bellowed, “Oh, yes, it is!”Gwen turned in astonishment to see Mrs.Pritchard, the vicar’s wife, brandishing a pitchfork.Giving a battle cry worthy of Boadicea herself, she charged.
It was a shuffling sort of charge, truth be told.Mrs.Pritchard had celebrated her sixty-third birthday the previous week, after all.But, thanks to Miss Mercy, Joseph wasn’t moving so well himself, and he did not seem keen to discover what other sharp implements Gwendolyn’s friends might be harboring upon their persons.He fled into the darkness, a decided hitch in his gait.
Two stable hands who worked at the Feathers, Roger and William, jogged out of the alleyway.“Did Mrs.Pritchard come this way?”Roger asked.
“It was the strangest thing,” William said.“She came bustling into the stables, grabbed the pitchfork, shouted that she’d be right back, and ran off into the darkness.”
Mrs.Reynolds pointed down High Street.“She went that way.”
Miss Mercy’s cheeks were flushed a becoming shade of rose.“It was Mr.Brocklesby.He tried to snatch Miss Gwendolyn!”
Roger’s face darkened.“Right.We’ll take care of it.”
The two stable hands disappeared into the darkness.A moment later, Mrs.Pritchard returned sans pitchfork.
Gwendolyn’s friends insisted on waiting, clustered around her in the darkness.They chattered about the nerve of Joseph to show his face in Merstham.But Gwen did not join the conversation.Her lower lip was quivering, and she suspected that if she attempted to speak, only a faint burble would emerge.Who would have thought that after so many years of being disdained by her own parents and brother, that she would find such wonderful friends?
Five minutes later, Roger and William returned.Gwendolyn was relieved to see that the pitchfork’s tines were not glinting red.“He’s gone, ma’am,” Roger said.
“I warrant he’ll think twice about coming back here,” William added darkly.
“Thank you,” Gwen said, voice trembling.“Truly, thank you so much.”
They all walked her back to Frogcroft Cottage, and Mrs.Hervey insisted on spending the night in Gwen’s spare room, just in case.But Joseph did not return, and Gwendolyn did not hear from him in the weeks and months that followed.
Another person she did not hear from was Tom Talbot—not that she had really expected to.Their acquaintance had always been of a limited nature.Two months after their night together, she had sent him a letter advising him that she had not found herself in the family way.She did not receive a reply.
But she found herself hoping he might come strolling down the lane, and her pulse always sped up a notch when she flipped through the post on the off chance she might find a letter in an unfamiliar hand.
She even took to reading the sports column of the local paper, something that had never interested her before.She was rewarded one October morning when there was a snippet on the latest heavyweight bout.Tom Talbot, it declared, had retained his title, fighting off challenger Bruno Jervis, an up-and-comer seven years his junior whom the author seemed to believe was destined to hold the title one day.The article described how they fought seventeen rounds.Tom was bleeding from the nose, and they were both listing on their feet.Jervis had just knocked Tom to the ground, and everyone thought the fight was over.But Tom somehow managed to get up and fell his opponent with his famous right hook—the Stinger, the reporter called it.The article said the crowd had roared, but it made Gwen feel ill to think of Tom lying on the ground, bleeding and disoriented.She knew boxing was a brutal sport, knew this was what he did.But she could not help but worry for him.
