Don’t look down, he chanted to himself like a mantra.Don’t look down.
∞∞∞
Mercy set down her sketchbook with a sigh and scratched her fingers through her unbound hair. Her busy brain again made sleep seem a far distant prospect as her mind reeled through the events of the day, and how she might soothe Papa from his well-earned pique long enough to permit Thomas to pay a call.
Papa had been justifiably furious, but that fury hardly boded well for her impending engagement. Especially as Thomas had been ejected from the house. And unless Papa could be brought down from his righteous anger, there was every chance that they might only see one another at social events—where she did not doubt but that they would be carefully supervised.
Pity. Mercy turned onto her side and buried another sigh into the pillow beneath her head. If only she had some inkling of where he might be residing, she would find herself unbearably tempted to go after him. But that knowledge—if indeed it was known—had not been imparted to her.
A curious sound caught her attention. Not quite a knock, but a tap. A gentle rapping, not from the direction of the door but upon the glass of her window. Soft, unobtrusive. Almost as if—
Almost as if it had been meant for her ears alone. She jerked herself out of bed, clambering to her feet and racing for the window. And there, just outside of it, eyes wild behind the lenses of his spectacles, Thomas peered in at her.
She shoved the window open. “Thomas! Whatever are you doing?”
Rather than answer, he rasped simply, “Help.”
And she was obliged to reach out and grab fistfuls of his coat in the service of aiding him in hauling himself over the sill. He all but fell into the room, landing upon the floor in an ungainly sprawl, and his chest heaved with exertion, and probably more than a little panic. “I am never,” he managed to wheeze, lifting his trembling fingers to right the spectacles which had gone askew upon his face, “doing that ever,everagain.”
Mercy choked on a flutter of nervous laughter. “Why did you do it at all? You might have broken your neck.”
“God knows. I suppose I thought it would be romantic, or some such nonsense.” Flat on his back, he stared up at the ceiling, his chest still heaving. “It wasn’t. I was terrified every moment. I would swear upon my life that I climbed for hours.”
“Three minutes at most, and that is only if you are particularly slow.” She was, however, somewhat surprised that the trellis had supported his weight. Slowly she dropped down onto her knees beside him. “You must be very quiet,” she said. “I wouldn’t put it past Papa to have set spies upon me, since he has already learned that I have sneaked out of the house before.”
“If no one heard me collapsing upon the floor as I have, I doubt speaking above a whisper will garner much attention.” At last he seemed to relax, the anxiety his brush with danger had provoked deserting him as she stroked her fingers through the dark, sweaty locks of his hair. “I had to see you,” he said. “And I was certain your father would turn me away.”
He’d be lucky to only be turned away, but Mercy thought it would not be prudent at this particular moment to mention it. “Still, you didn’t have to come through the window.”
“Well, I could hardly come through the door.” A gusty sigh, and he turned his cheek into the cup of her hand. “I have got aring for you in my pocket. That is advance warning that I am going to ask you to marry me,” he said. “But before I do, I would like to tell you what transpired after you ran off to your sister’s home.”
“I suppose you must know you’re meant to be down on one knee,” she said.
“Couldn’t manage it at this moment if I tried. Here, come lie beside me.” He patted his chest, and held out his arm to make a space for her there in the crook of it. As she settled beside him and nestled her cheek against his shoulder, he turned his head, buried his nose in her hair, and breathed deeply, drawing the cinnamon scent into his lungs as if it might sooth away the last of his frazzled nerves. “I told my mother and sisters everything,” he said. “I offered them a choice. We join them in town for the social Season regardless of whatever scandal might rear its ugly head, or we absent ourselves from society and retire to the countryside. I told them also that I was going to marry you regardless.”
Mercy shifted uncomfortably, her stomach pitching. “What did they say?”
“That they’d rather have you in the family than social respectability,” he said. “I also told Marina to send her gentleman round to pay a call upon me. Perhaps it’s early days yet, but I think…I think she will marry him, provided I give my approval.”
“And you will?”
“If she wants him, then I will give my approval,” he said. His lips touched her temple. “Juliet said she doesn’t expect to marry for several years yet, but that she would never choose a man who would snub either of us.”
“And your mother?”
“Loves you more than she loves me, probably,” he said gustily, and then wheezed at the advent of Mercy’s pointy elbowinto his stomach. “She’s learned some unpleasant things about the people she had thought of as friends. That they are rather more small-minded and arrogant than she had thought. But she loves you. She always has.”
She had always been fond of the baroness as well, who had been more of a mother to her than her own had ever been. She had opened her home and her heart to a lonely little girl badly in need of some sort of maternal figure, had let her pretend to be a part of their family. And now—now she would be. Truly.
“Fordham paid me a visit today, as well,” Thomas said.
Mercy gasped. “I beg your pardon?Fordham?”
“Yes; just as I was about to go in search of him myself.” Thomas sniffed. “Do you know, I find it almost offensive in hindsight. I have spent so bloody long searching for the damned man, weeks scurrying about London employing all sorts of ruses in my efforts to find him, and he just…he just walked into the house accompanied by Mr. Sumner, as casually as you please. The audacity of it.”
Mercy nudged his shoulder. “Tell me what happened,” she prompted.
“Oh. He gave it all back. And then some—or at least so claimed my solicitor, though I haven’t gone through the papers he left behind just yet.” Thomas heaved a sigh. “He stole everything I had and wagered it all away, and then had the goddamned temerity to come into a bloody fortune from an investment he’d made years ago in a Welsh gold mine.”
