The Brynthwaite Boys: Season Two - Part Three

by Farmer, Merry

  Alex glanced around anxiously. Her gaze met Jason’s and a level of pleading that Jason couldn’t ignore came to her expression.

  “Please excuse me,” Jason said, dropping E’s arm and moving away from the London ladies.

  “Jason,” E called indignantly after him. “You’re supposed to be paying attention to me.”

  “Is there a problem here?” Jason asked as he approached Alex’s table.

  “The problem is that you are interfering with something that does not concern you when I need you by my side,” E answered.

  Lady Charlotte appeared startled, either by Jason’s presence or E’s interruption. She blinked a few times, then said, “Surely you must agree that a wife belongs with her husband, Mr. Throckmorton.”

  “Nonsense,” E answered before Jason could so much as open his mouth. “Once Jason and I are married, I plan to spend the majority of my time in London, whereas Jason has said he prefers to stay here.”

  “I think we all know why that is the case,” Armstrong said with a jolly laugh and a snort. “Where is Miss Stowe anyhow?” He glanced around.

  “Jason adores me,” E insisted yet again, stomping her foot. “I will not be made second to a…a….” Once again, she had just enough sense to bite her tongue.

  The extreme awkwardness of E’s interruption had taken the wind completely out of the sails of whatever argument Lady Charlotte was trying to make against Arabella. It was Alex who attempted to either continue or salvage things by saying, “Arabella has every right to determine her own fate. And to protect herself from certain harm.”

  “George would never deliberately harm her,” Lady Charlotte said in a tight whisper, glancing around as though she were aware people had been listening to them. “George is a charming young man. You once thought so yourself before you sold yourself for pennies on the pound.” She sat straight with a sniff.

  “George cannot hold a candle to Marshall, Mother,” Alex said bitterly. “I think you know what kind of man George is, you simply don’t want to admit it.”

  “A husband should be of the highest character,” Armstrong interrupted, gazing fondly at Arabella. “He should make his wife feel as though she were the most important woman in the world. He should shower her with praise and attention, treat her tenderly and be attuned to her every desire. He should speak softly around her and honor the blossom of her femininity.”

  “See?” E tugged hard on Jason’s arm. “You should behave that way to me.”

  Jason clenched his jaw and was ready to contradict her. The trouble was, Armstrong was right, damn his eyes.”

  “Thank you for your beautiful and noble assessment,” Arabella said, twisting in her chair to smile up at Armstrong. “You will make some blessed woman a magnificent husband someday.” Her voice was filled with maudlin sentiment.

  “I think not, my dear lady,” Armstrong answered, looking as though he were vying for a theatrical award. “One’s heart can only be given away once.”

  E snorted. “Oh, please,” she muttered.

  Thankfully, neither Arabella nor Armstrong seemed to hear her.

  “Either way,” Lady Charlotte went on. “As soon as I send a telegram to Anthony and George, they will be on the next train home. You cannot hide from your husband anymore. You must come home to Huntingdon Hall.”

  “She will do no such thing,” Alex argued. “Particularly not if that bully, George, will be there. Arabella can continue to stay at the hospital for as long as she likes.”

  “The hospital?” Lady Charlotte gasped, clapping a hand to her chest. “That’s where you’ve been hiding her?”

  “Arabella has been staying at the hospital of her own free will,” Alex told her mother. “That is where she feels safe.”

  “After everything I’ve done for you?” Lady Charlotte went on, her voice choked.

  “You’ve done nothing for me,” Alex said with an ironic laugh. “You turned your back on me when I married Marshall. You’ve refused to so much as see me.”

  “I’ve bent over backwards for you,” Lady Charlotte went on, indignant. “Who was it who donated so much to the hospital in the past few months?”

  “Many people,” Alex said, then paused. “Were those anonymous donations from you?”

  “And who was it that so graciously provided your home with a proper instrument for your girls to play?” Lady Charlotte went on.

  “You gave us the piano?” Mary Pycroft interjected. The poor young women had been watching her elders bicker like they were in a schoolyard. Jason could only imagine what his goddaughter thought of them all.

  “Your husband,” Lady Charlotte went on, saying the words as though they were dirty, “wouldn’t even have his children with him if it were not for my intervention.”

  “Your intervention?” Jason blurted before Alex could.

  Lady Charlotte glanced up at him, sitting straighter and tilting her chin up. “Well, Elizabeth helped.”

  “I was the one who wrote to Lord Merion about the case,” E insisted, frowning at Lady Charlotte.

  “Yes, dear,” Lady Charlotte said. “But then you went to London and became caught up in its social life. Lord Merion finally had to send a telegram to me, asking when the trial would take place.”

  “You put your social life above Marshall’s girls?” Jason glared at her.

  “All’s well that ends well,” E said with a nervous laugh. “I was the one who made the initial overtures.”

  Fury roared through Jason, but he didn’t have a chance to do anything about it.

  “Now that things are back to right,” Lady Charlotte said, “the least I could expect is for my daughter to show me the courtesy I deserve.”

  “By allowing you to drag an innocent woman back into a dangerous situation?” Alex balked.

  “By returning Arabella to her husband,” Lady Charlotte insisted.

  “I don’t want to go,” Arabella said in a hushed voice.

  “And you don’t have to.” Alex reached across the table to take her hand.

  “You have friends that will defend you to the bitter end,” Armstrong said with an inappropriate amount of drama.

  Once again, though, he was right.

  “If you wish to relocate from the hospital to the hotel, I would gladly provide you with a room, free of cost,” Jason said.

  Arabella brightened, but Lady Charlotte cut her off before she could say anything. “How terribly wicked of you, Mr. Throckmorton. You cannot simply wedge yourself between a man and his wife that way.”

  “He can if I say he can,” E cut in. “If Arabella wants to stay at the hotel instead of Huntingdon Hall, then she should be able to.”

  Jason blinked at her. He couldn’t imagine what was motivating her to take Arabella’s side in the matter. Except that, perhaps, without another young and attractive woman at Huntingdon Hall, E would have less competition. Or perhaps E did have a heart beating under all that fashion after all.

  “I would like very much to stay at the hotel,” Arabella said in a small voice. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

  “I’m certain it will be no trouble at all,” Armstrong answered, as though it were his hotel Arabella would be staying at.

  “It’s settled, then,” Jason said with a definitive nod. “I will go inform Flossie that you will be our guest at once.”

  “A guest of the hotel,” E called after him in a caustic voice as Jason marched away toward the kitchen. “Not ‘our’ guest.”

  As soon as he was far enough away from the group, Jason rolled his eyes. And people thought that he and Flossie had a tangled relationship. The more he saw of the lives of his friends and acquaintances, the more he was convinced that he and Flossie were among the most normal of the lot.

  “What on earth is transpiring over there?” Flossie asked when Jason caught up to her, directing the hotel staff in their initial efforts to clean up the refreshment table, now that the guests were beginning to leave.

  “Lady Arabella
will be staying with us from today onward,” Jason said, hovering by Flossie’s side as she worked. “Lady Charlotte was the one truly responsible for Marshall getting his girls back. Colin Armstrong is in love with Arabella, and it appears the feelings might be mutual. E feels stung because she wasn’t the center of attention this afternoon. Alex continues to be insulted by her mother’s arrogance, and with good reason. And something about a piano.”

  Flossie stopped what she was doing and turned to Jason, her eyebrows shooting up. “I missed all that?”

  “And more, most likely,” Jason said. He sighed, longing to slip his arms around Flossie and hold her close. “I’m beginning to think Lawrence has the right idea.”

  “What idea is that?” Flossie asked, handing a nearly empty sugar bowl to one of the maids and directing another to take away the tray of crumb-filled plates left in the wake of the hungry ladies.

  “He plans to leave Brynthwaite in search of Barsali Moss and the people he believes are his family,” Jason said.

  Again, Flossie turned away from her work and gaped at him in surprise. “Lawrence plans to run away with the gypsies?”

  “I thought we might do something similar,” Jason said, his heart feeling lighter just being around Flossie. “Instead of gypsies, we could venture to the steppes of central Asia to take up a nomadic life with the Mongol tribesmen.”

  Flossie laughed. “Who would run your hotels?”

  Jason shrugged. “Mary seems to be the only one keeping her head in that tangle over there.” He nodded to where the argument surrounding Arabella and Alex and Lady Charlotte had continued. E looked as though she had become involved. “I’ll hand the reins over to her.”

  “I’ll help,” Willy said, rushing up to the table as Jason spoke. “I can run a hotel, I know I can.”

  “Then it’s yours,” Jason said with a dramatic sigh. “You stay here and boss everyone around and Flossie and I will go live in a yurt on the Mongolian grasslands.”

  “What’s a yurt?” Willy asked, taking the armful of dishes Flossie handed him.

  “It’s a kind of tent,” Flossie said, ruffling Willy’s hair as soon as her hands were free.

  Jason wished she’d ruffle his hair like that. She wished she’d do a few other things with those talented hands of hers while she was at it. There would be time for all that later, once the chaos of the gathering was done, the ladies had all gone home, and he and Flossie could finally be alone. But that time hadn’t arrived yet.

  “One month,” he said, letting out a breath and rubbing a hand over his face. “If we can make it through one month, if we can get past the wedding, get through the investigation, and get everyone settled where they belong, I think we’ll emerge triumphant.”

  “I’m sure we will,” Flossie said, resting a hand on his back as she edged around him, then dropping it lower to give his backside a squeeze before letting go. “If we can survive.”

  Episode Eleven - A Life-Changing Choice

  Matty

  A buzz filled the mid-June air on the morning of the day before Jason and Lady Elizabeth Dyson’s wedding. It tickled through Matty from the moment she woke up, before the dawn, to feed baby Bracken. It stayed with her as she tip-toed downstairs, careful not to disturb Lawrence’s much-needed rest. It poked at her from all sides as she prepared breakfast and laid out her tasks for the day. There was much she needed to get done before heading into Brynthwaite to help decorate the church for the wedding.

  It was madness, really. Flossie had asked her specifically if she would help adorn the cozy, country church with flowers and bunting for the wedding. Flossie. The poor woman was in charge of decorating for the wedding of her beloved, the father of her soon-to-be baby, to another woman. Matty would have been a mess if Lawrence had chosen to marry someone else, even if the arrangement was purely for business and had no emotional implications whatsoever, as Flossie continually insisted was the case with Jason and Lady Elizabeth. Flossie was made of much tougher stuff than Matty, although Matty had noticed the indomitable woman fraying around the edges as the wedding—and her delivery date—approached.

  “That expression is a mite wistful for such a beautiful morning,” Mother Grace startled Matty out of her thoughts as she let herself into the kitchen where Matty worked through the back door.

  Matty caught her breath and gave Elsie a hug as her sister rushed over and threw her arms around Matty’s waist. “You caught me thinking about how odd this entire wedding is,” she confessed to Mother Grace.

  Mother Grace chuckled and shook her head. “There isn’t going to be a wedding,” she said. “Jason would never go through with it. He loves Flossie, not that flibbertigibbet, Lady E.”

  “I don’t know.” Matty turned back to the stove, moving the boiling kettle off of the heat. “From everything Lawrence has said, Jason feels obligated to Lady Elizabeth for standing by him during his bout of madness this winter. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the man, it’s that Jason Throckmorton is a man of honor.”

  Mother Grace laughed. “He is, but in his own way.” She joined Matty at the stove, helping her make tea while Matty turned the sausages sizzling away in a skillet. “In the end, his loyalty toward Flossie will outweigh his feeling of obligation to Lady E.”

  Matty arched a brow at her. “Are you saying that because you know? Because the elements told you so? Or are you simply guessing?”

  Mother Grace didn’t answer, which meant she was guessing rather than relying on supernatural power.

  Matty turned to Elsie, who had taken up a seat at the table and was already helping herself to toast. “What do you think, pumpkin? Do you think there’s going to be a wedding tomorrow?”

  Elsie nodded, biting off the corner of a piece of toast. She smiled and swung her legs under the edge of the chair. Matty turned to Mother Grace, lifting one eyebrow as if to say that Elsie’s word—or nod—was law.

  They continued with breakfast preparations, dropping the subject of the wedding and talking about unimportant things. It wasn’t until Lawrence came downstairs a short time later that Matty remembered there was another, massively-important event set to happen that day.

  “I’ll be going into town to find out the results of Lewis’s investigation right after breakfast,” he said as he sat down and poured himself a cup of tea.

  Matty’s insides seized up. “Are you certain that’s the best idea?” she asked in a thin voice.

  Lawrence glanced across the table to where she was feeding Bracken and shrugged. “I’d rather find out immediately, as soon as the telegram comes through announcing the results of his investigation, than wait until it becomes gossip.”

  “But what if he implicates you?” Matty went on, more worried than she’d been since before Hoag’s death. “Or Willy?”

  Lawrence shook his head. “Lewis won’t implicate Willy. He only interviewed him that one time, and it was apparent when he left the hotel that he didn’t believe Willy had a thing to do with Hoag’s death, in spite of Crimpley’s insistence.”

  “But he’s questioned you several times now,” Matty went on, feeling as though an army of dragonflies were loose in her stomach.

  Lawrence didn’t appear at all concerned. “I’m innocent,” he said, spearing a sausage and biting off the end.

  Matty pursed her lips and stared at him. “Are you?” she asked quietly. “Are any of us?”

  “Enough of that, now,” Mother Grace said, resting a hand on Matty’s shoulder as she stood to take her dishes to the counter. “Today will mark the end of the investigation, the end of Hoag’s interference in our lives. I’m certain Det. Lewis’s report will not implicate anyone.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Matty asked, rising as well. Bracken needed his nappy changed before they headed into town.

  “Because if Det. Lewis found me or anyone else guilty of murder, he would have already come knocking on our door with an army of policemen and carted me off to jail,” Lawrence answered. He stood, steppe
d to Matty’s side, and kissed her cheek with a smile. “I’m still here.”

  She smiled at him, but mostly because she knew that’s what he would expect of her. At heart, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something dire was about to happen. Life had been too quiet, too easy for the past few months, in spite of Lewis’s investigation. Lawrence had been working like mad to fulfill orders for Mr. Armstrong’s hotel. Willy and Connie had both taken to the new lives they found themselves in like fish to the ocean. Elsie was far happier with Mother Grace than she would have been anywhere else, particularly since Mother Grace never pressured her to speak. And for her part, Matty adored motherhood. She loved having a family to take care of. And the way she and Lawrence spent their nights, it was likely that they would add to their family sooner rather than later.

  And yet, still, something wasn’t right.

  As soon as Bracken was taken care of, Matty set to work cleaning up from breakfast as Lawrence headed out to the forge to see how his new assistant, Mr. John Logan, was coming along. Mother Grace helped Matty put everything in order, then accompanied her—Elsie at her side—out of the house and over to the forge when it was time to walk into town.

  “I still think you should stay here and be safe,” she told Lawrence as he slapped Logan on the back, then strode over to join her.

  “And miss all the mayhem of setting up for Jason’s sham of a wedding?” he asked with a teasing grin.

  “If it happens,” Mother Grace said, falling into step with them as they started toward the road.

  Matty and Lawrence both paused and turned to her. Lawrence looked just as surprised as she felt to see Mother Grace and Elsie walking with them.

  “Don’t tell me you’re going into town,” Lawrence said, gaping at Mother Grace.

  For her part, Mother Grace merely shrugged. “I can go to town if I want to. One of my boys is getting married,” she said. “Or pretending to. I wouldn’t miss that for the world.”