“Yes,” Thomas said as he retrieved his hat from the rack near the door and settled it upon his head. “No need to wait on me,” he said, though the coachman had no doubt learned the routine by now. “I’ll return by hack and make my way to this evening’s engagement myself. Miss Fletcher will no doubt wish to leave early, so if you might—”
“Oh, not this evening, my lord,” the coachman interjected. “She’s been under the weather today, poor thing. Holed up in her room, she is.”
Thomas paused in the process of pulling on his gloves. “Under the weather?” he repeated. “Mercy?”
“So the baroness said,” the coachman said. “Bit of a cough, as I understand it. Slept most of the day away.”
“So she isn’t at the ball,” Thomas said, absently, and it felt as if some sticky wheel within his mind began to turn once more. “She’s—” Upstairs. Just upstairs.
The window. That sound, that distinctive thump he’d heard. It had been the bloodywindow.
“In her room, my lord,” the coachman replied, a tiny wrinkle of befuddlement marring the otherwise smooth surface of his face, as if he could not quite understand why Thomas had felt the need to continue the conversation. “The baroness is not particularly concerned,” he added. “Said she didn’t seem to be feverish.”
“I’ll just bet she wasn’t,” Thomas gritted out between clenched teeth. He yanked his hat off his head and slapped it into the coachman’s hands. “Wait with the carriage,” he said. “I’ll be out shortly.”
He didn’t start out running, but he’d made it up to one by the time he’d got to the rear of the house and out into the garden. His breath had all but deserted him as he caught sight of her there, halfway down the trellis, the bland brown of her skirts fluttering in the breeze as she picked a slow and delicate path down the latticework framing the house which seemed ill-equipped to support her.
“What thehelldo you think you are doing?” The words burst from his lungs, and while he hadn’t precisely shouted them, still they had been enough to produce a high-pitched squeak of shock from her, to jar her concentration from her task, to make her jump—in so far and in as much as her position upon the trellis would allow.
But it had been enough. Enough for an ominouscreakto rumble through the night, enough for her to scrabble for a handhold that failed her with a snap within moments.
And she fell.
She fell, and for one terrifying instant, Thomas saw the end of everything. Like a grim future that had already happened, he saw his world go dark and silent and grey, devoid of even the tiniest hint of life, of joy. Of happiness.
He moved faster than he ever had in the whole of his life, his muscles burning, straining to reach her, to avert that wretched possibility before it could unfold. He dived for her, with the lingering traces of a fervent prayer still upon his lips, and for the second time in little more than a month, Mercy Fletcher fell straight from the sky and landed atop him.
They collapsed together upon the grassy earth, in a now-familiar tangle of limbs. Thomas’ lungs strained for air through the press of her bony elbow into his stomach, and his head spun as she knocked him senseless once again.
Or perhaps she’d knocked sense intohim for once.
Thank God, he thought, with dizzying gratitude, and a wheeze of a laugh rattled in his throat as he sucked in a lungful of air. And another, more raucous now, as his lungs inflated once more. And then he was laughing in earnest, well past feeling the distant ache of his once-starved lungs or the bruises his backside would no doubt sport soon enough.
At least she had not damaged his spectacles this time around, other than to have knocked them askew.
Mercy levered herself up on her elbow without so much as the tiniest hint of pain, and peered down into his face, baffled. “Thomas,” she said, “are you quite all right?”
“No,” he said, succinctly, cheerfully, even if the word had been delivered a bit on the hoarser side. “No, I am not. I am never going to beall rightagain. And do you know? That’s all right.”
“Oh, God,” she groaned. “I’ve concussed you.” With the fingers of one hand she groped through his hair as if searchingfor a lump somewhere beneath the strands. “You must have struck your head. Hold still.”
God, her fingers felt wonderful, the gentle rasp of them across his scalp a balm to his weary soul. “I haven’t struck my head,” he said, and he was grinning. He knew he was. “I’m not concussed. I have simply given up.”
“Given…up?” she echoed, and those dark eyes studied his face as if she knew not what to make of him.
“I. Give. Up,” he repeated slowly, deliberately. “You are utterly ungovernable. I give it all up.” A concession to the universe, he thought. To whichever capricious god had taken such a peculiar interest in him. To Mercy herself. What did it matter, what was and was not done? Mercy was going to do it all anyway. And now, in this one perfect moment when blessed clarity had struck him like a bolt of lighting, so would he. He lifted his hands, slid them through the delightful tangle the breeze had wrought of her hair, and pulled her lips down to his. That kiss that he’d wanted for days—months—years—eons, on his tongue at last.
She froze, for a space of seconds going still as a statue. And then, with the smallest, sweetest sigh, she melted. Her nails raked through his hair, and he groaned into the seam of her lips. His spectacles were misaligned upon his face, and he didn’t care, because Mercy was in his arms, precisely where she was meant to be.
She was preciselyasshe was meant to be. Chaotic, impulsive, uncontrollable as the wind. Lovely and stubborn and clever. How had he ever thought otherwise? He could not ask her to be any less than what she was. But he could damn well protect her from the consequences.
Only weeks ago he’d silently extended his sympathies to the nameless, faceless damned fool who would eventually marry her, and now—now he knew that fool was going to be him. He’dmarry her to keep her out of trouble. He’d marry her to keepher. To keep the joy and the chaos and laughter of her. To keep the warmth he’d never known he was missing, to keep the comfortable camaraderie they shared.
He’d marry her because she had knocked him straight off his feet and head over heels into love. He’d marry her because he adored every little habit, every idiosyncrasy, every imperfect, untamable inch of her. Mercy was always going to be Mercy—and that was how he loved her best.
He’d marry her despite her father’s certainty that she could do better than a measly baron—if he could only get her to agree to it. If he could convince her that he was, and would endeavor to be, deserving of her. If he could entice her to love him in return. Which might not be too very difficult. No woman could kiss like she did without at least the slightest engagement of her heart.
Too much time had passed. Sooner or later, the coachman was bound to come in search of him. It took an incredible effort to tear his mouth from hers, and he cupped her cheek in his hand. “Mercy,” he whispered. It was not only her name; it was a damned plea.
