Another sip of brandy. Thomas said, “Yes. I told you some nights ago that I hadn’t the faintest idea of what I was going to say to Marina regarding her bookseller.”
“Publisher,” Mercy corrected automatically.
“Publisher,” Thomas repeated. “At any rate, I’ve figured it out at last. I’m going to tell her to marry him.”
Mercy’s eyes widened, brows leaping toward her hairline. “But you were so against it.”
“Yes, well, it’s occurred to me that I’ve been more than a little hypocritical just lately. I’ve held two sets of standards in my head, adhering to one while expecting another of others, and it wasn’t just wrong, it was inherently flawed.” He had given it to her, that certainty that there could never be anything more between them, with his rigid adherence to propriety.Hehad given her that doubt which had so tormented her. She had carried with her twenty years of experience of him—his prejudices and his severity and his stern observance of certain social mores. And only weeks ago, the conclusion to which she had leapt would have been the correct one.
But he had changed. Mercyhad changed him. Not into a different man, but into the man he had hoped to one day become. The one he never could have been without her, for he’d failed to achieve it all these years on his own. He said, “Mymother told me recently that there is nothing more important than happiness, and really, she has always known best. And I realized, as you were talking, that I could only ever be happy with you. That none of the rest of it mattered. That whatever scandals with which you come equipped, I will take them—so long as I have you into the bargain. I would sacrifice everything for you and never count the loss. Marina deserves the freedom to make the same choice in the service of her future happiness.”
She closed her eyes, bowed her head. “Don’t say that,” she said. “Please. I could very well cost you everything. You would grow to resent me.”
“No. Never.”
An odd, strangled laugh eked from her throat. Her shoulders hunched, and she scrubbed the back of her hand across her eyes. “I’ve already refused you, Thomas.”
“No, you haven’t,” he said, quite reasonably, in his opinion. “You can’t refuse me. I haven’t asked you yet.”
“You can’t ask me,” she said, and her voice crackled across the words. “Thomas, youknowyou can’t.”
“No,” he said. “I know only that I have made you feel that way.” His fault; his responsibility to mend it. “I won’t pretend I can solve every problem. But I am going to solve what I can, and the rest—the rest we’ll figure out together.” And when she opened her mouth to protest once more, he interjected lightly: “Mercy, you might have said that you didn’t wantto marry me. But you didn’t. Not once. That you would refuse, yes. That I wasn’t to ask, certainly. But never that you didn’t wantto.”
And even with that fact flung into her face, an easy escape if she truly had wished for it, still she couldn’t force herself to say it. Her jaw worked, her mouth opened—and no words emerged.
Because she didwant to marry him, he knew, and she wouldn’t utter that lie to him. And more than that, she loved him. She loved him enough to sacrifice her happiness for whatshe thought would be his. She loved him enough to let him go, when she thought it would be to his benefit.
Her noble sacrifice be damned; he had been caught already, and he had no intention of being tossed back.
“Suppose we continue this discussion later,” he said. “I anticipate a very busy day tomorrow. I’d prefer to get to it well-rested.”
“There is no discussion to be had,” she said, in tones of increasing desperation. “Thomas, Iwillrefuse.”
“That is your right. I’m still going to ask.” When he had managed to mitigate the worst of her fears. When she could allow herself to believe that the love they would share was something precious and profound, worth any amount of sacrifice. When he could convince her to set her hand in his and trust him to protect her against the world. When she understand that his loyalty to her eclipsed all else.
He unfurled himself from the couch, reached out to cup her cheek in his hand. Those dark eyes looked upon him with such longing and such terror—afraid to trust, afraid to hope. Afraid he hadn’t meant what he said. Perhaps even more so that he had.
She was going to do something foolhardy and reckless. He couldn’t possibly hazard a guess as to what, but he could see it there in her eyes, the desperation lingering in the coffee-dark depths of them. And he—he was just going to have to contend with whatever she chose to throw at him.
“Go to bed, Mercy,” he sighed, bending to press a resigned kiss to the top of her head. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Chapter Twenty Four
Mercy crammed a few dresses into a valise without care for the delicate fabrics she rumpled in the process. A trunk she could not have managed, not the way she intended to escape the house, but a valise would do well enough. In went a few sets of underthings, a nightgown, stockings—less than she would have liked to take, but more than she strictly required. She tossed in her sketchbook and turned for a last look at the room, struggling to slow the frantic pace of her brain enough to pick out anything she had missed.
Her room looked like a storm had swept through it, and she felt a brief flicker of pity for the servants who would no doubt be tasked with returning it to its former state. But her gaze fell upon one of the many notes she had written to herself and pinned up in various places, and for a moment her heart gave a vicious squeeze in her chest. There would be no one to understand her queer habits as Thomas did, no one to make such accommodations for her, or to remind her as he did of the things she had forgotten. Carefully she collected the notes, tapping them into a neat stack. If she could have nothing else, at least she would have this. The tiny bit of order he had wrested from the chaos—for her.
The only thing left was her reticule, and she shoved the stack of notes within it. A sob tore at her throat, and she pressed herhand over her mouth to stifle it. What was she going to tell Papa? She couldn’t stay in London, couldn’t return home to the countryside.
She couldn’t risk seeing Thomas again, and there was nowhere to hide from him. Soon enough he would satisfy that condition he had put upon himself and recover his family fortune, and hewouldpropose. And she—she was so damned weak. Weak enough to accept. Weak enough to ruin all of them.
For his own good, then. For all of them. She shoved her wrist through the drawstring of the reticule and latched the valise. She only hoped it would survive the impact.
As she hefted it from where she had placed it upon her bed, she heard a sudden clamor begin downstairs; no doubt the baroness and the girls arriving home from the ball.Hurry, she told herself. She could use the commotion as cover, hiding the inevitable sounds of her escape within it.
She slid open the window as footsteps thundered upon the stairs, echoing throughout the house. The girls’ merry chatter grew louder, laughter ringing through the corridors, and Mercy—Mercy lifted her valise in her arms, positioned it carefully, and tipped it out the window.
It dropped like a stone, landing in a bush below. The crack of branches and the rustle of leaves cut through the night. The valise popped open, scattering clothing across the bushes, the grass. But the laughter hadn’t yet abated. There was no sudden, suspicious silence. There was just the footsteps receding down the hall and the opening of doors, and Mercy breathed a sigh of abject relief.
