Still there was that little voice in his head, that nasty murmur at the back of his mind jeering at him for his weakness, for the very thought of conceding the point. He was meant to be the patriarch of the family, the one in control, in command. He was meant to bebetter.
But the only way to bebetter was to dobetter. He had always meant to be a better man than his father had been. A better brother, a better son.
God willing, he would be a far better husband.
They deserved that of him, all of them. Of its own accord, his hand fell upon the drawer wherein he’d stashed all those papers, those documents that held the evidence of the ruin he’d made of their finances. A problem he hadn’t yet solved, but one which Mother deserved to know of. And he said, “There is something we must discuss.”
∞∞∞
It was not done, Mercy knew, to decline the offer of a dance without due reason, most especially if one intended to dance later in the evening. It would have been a snub in the truest sense of the word, and even if she had not truly wished to dance with the few gentlemen who had asked—those that had less interest in her than they had in the dowry with which she came—she did intend to dance with Thomas, when he got around to asking.
Once. Only once, though they might have gotten away with twice, had either of them the boldness to do it. For the first time in the Season he’d been present all evening, but then, she now knew precisely why he could be.
There was nothing much that could be done for the next week to locate his missing solicitor, and so she—they—would at last have his attention for more than a handful of moments at a time. And even if she had danced a half a dozen times already, still he had waited there at the edge of the ballroom beside his mother, without seeking a partner of his own.
He had never quite managed to suppress a glower whenever she had gone off for a dance, and it…pleased her, just a little, that he disliked it so plainly. Like a hint of possessiveness he could not conceal, and which she would never have expected of him.
One could know a person for years and years, she thought, and still not know them at all.
She had just handed off her empty glass of champagne to a passing servant when a familiar face broke through the crowd of people seeking their next partners.
“Mr. Earnshaw,” she said as he arrived before her. “Howlovely to see you again.” And she did mean it, since he had been kind and amiable the last few times they had spoken. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw Thomas straighten and tense.
“And you, Miss Fletcher,” Mr. Earnshaw said with a smile. “I thought you might be interested to learn that I’ve heard from your father. My thanks for your assistance, there.”
“It was my pleasure,” she said. “May I assume your proposal has met with success?”
“Only on your account, I am convinced. But yes, your father was amenable to my terms. In fact, he’s asked me to visit his mill when next he is in town, which I understand should be soon. A good thing, that, as I might have missed him otherwise. I’m due back in Boston in a few weeks. But at least I will return bearing good news indeed for the ladies of Boston, who might otherwise be forced to resign themselves to inferior fabrics,” he said, with a cheeky grin.
“Flatterer,” Mercy accused, laughing. “You have got what you came for already; there isn’t the least need to play to my ego.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said. “In fact, I came for that dance you promised when last we met. Have you got this one free?”
“I have,” Mercy said. But as she extended her hand, Thomas stepped between them, seizing it in his instead, and Mercy found herself swept away from the wall and past a startled Mr. Earnshaw.
“Bad luck, Earnshaw,” Thomas cast over his shoulder as he pulled her along. “She’s promised this one to me.”
“I had not,” Mercy protested as he led her away. “Really, Thomas. You might have asked!”
“I was waiting for a waltz,” he said, and as if the musicians had been waiting for just that moment to strike up their instruments, the first notes of a waltz hummed in the air. “Bitdifficult to hold a private conversation during a quadrille.”
She pressed her lips together to stifle a laugh as he swung her through a turn. “You had every occasion for a conversation while neither of us were engaged to dance.”
“Bit difficult to hold a private conversation while in eavesdropping distance of my mother,” he said dryly. “She has ears like a fox, and she’s nosier than you might expect. But really,” he added, “I just didn’t want you to dance with him.”
“Whyever not? He’s a nice man,” she said. “He is charming, genteel—”
“He has designs upon you.”
“Designs! Thomas, please, he has got designs upon my father’s good opinion. Nothing more.” So surprised was she by his assertion that she had nearly stepped upon his toes.
“A man can always tell,” he insisted. “He might have approached you because of your father initially, but he wasted no time coming to claim a dance this evening. I saw him arrive just moments ago. He made straight for you as soon as he’d caught sight of you.”
“Because he is a man of his word!” she said. “He asked if I might save him a dance when last we met, and I agreed. Honestly, Thomas, you sound as if you are practically eaten up with jealousy, and for nothing.” But he’d not much liked any of the other times she’d danced, either. “If you keep glaring at my dance partners as you have been doing this evening, people will begin to wonder at your behavior.”
“Then let them wonder,” he said, and she envied him his steadiness, the rote repetition of dance steps he could keep in his head without even the slightest error, when he had knocked her senses askew so severely that she struggled to keep the rhythm of the dance. “I spoke with my mother today,” he said,sotto voce. “And I told her the truth. I told her what has happened, the circumstances we are currently in. Why I have been so absent oflate. How I intend to remedy our situation.”
“Did you?” Mercy resisted the urge to peek back at the baroness. “She’s given no indication of it. I would have thought there would be some distress.”
