“I would never leave without you,” Lady E said, the spark in her eyes terrifying him. It was imperative she be kept in the dark until the coup took place, but her sly look hinted to Jason she knew something was afoot and that he was involved. “How gallant of you to offer to walk with me. I do so delight in spending time with you, my handsome, powerful fiancé.” She glanced around at the people in the lobby as she spoke.
“Yes,” Jason grumbled leading her toward the door.
She tugged on his arm, stopping him from going on. “Aren’t you going to compliment me in return?” she asked.
Jason sent a wary look toward the office, where Flossie still stood in the doorway, before trying to smile at Lady E. “You are, as always, a beautiful and delicate flower, my dear, whose petals are as soft as the morning dew.” He was certain he’d read that sort of clap-trap in a book at one point or another. Maybe it was something he’d overheard Lord Waltham say to his wife. That couple was ridiculously sentimental, even after fifteen years of marriage.
Lady E rewarded him with a throaty laugh and slapped his arm playfully. “Oh, Jason. You do know how to flatter a girl.”
It took everything Jason had not to roll his eyes as he walked on. He spared Flossie one last, pitiful look.
“Hold on,” Reggie, the new porter, said as he held the door open, looking mightily confused. “I thought you and Miss Stowe—” He turned toward Flossie.
“Reggie, could I speak to you in here for a moment,” Flossie cut him off, her cheeks pink.
Jason’s mouth twitched into a smile in spite of himself as he took the door from the man and held it for Lady E and Polly. He winked at Flossie as Reggie scurried toward her. He’d have given anything to stay at the hotel with her, working on his growing hotel empire by her side. But duties of another sort called. Lady E didn’t have to know that those duties had nothing to do with her.
“Thank you for being so willing to walk me home, Jason. It adds a lovely hint of authenticity to the image we present,” Lady E said, morning sunshine glinting off her blonde hair.
“Quite,” Jason grumbled.
“It’s surprisingly balmy for September,” Lady E went on as they headed out through the hotel’s garden to the street and on to the road that wound up through the woods to Huntingdon Hall.
Jason was surprised that Lady E was as enthusiastic about walking as she was. He’d have thought she’d be much more interested in ordering someone to drive her around in a carriage. But Flossie had told him that she’d heard from Polly that Lady E enjoyed walking as a way to maintain her figure. A figure which, in spite of his heart’s devotion to Flossie, Jason’s rebellious body appreciated to the fullest. He cleared his throat and tugged at his coat with his free hand.
“We can’t expect too many more cheery days like these,” Lady E went on. There was a pause before she said, “Autumn is just around the corner, and then winter.” Another long pause followed. “Although I’m hoping to spend most of the season in London.”
Jason didn’t answer. The very thought of London turned his stomach and brought up more miserable memories than he wanted to deal with at that moment. He was well aware that he’d have to go to London soon. The hearing to decide custody of Marshall’s girls was scheduled for early January, and there didn’t seem to be a way for him to get out of being present for it. His clout and the influence that Lady E could bring to bear on the case was their trump card in the whole matter. He couldn’t very well continue to hide in Cumbria, much as he longed to, when his friend needed him.
Lady E let out a frustrated growl and a huff. “Really, Jason. Why did you offer to walk with me at all if you have no interest in speaking to me?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It sounded to me as though you were doing an adequate job of talking to yourself.”
They were beyond the limit of the town, and few people of what Lady E considered consequence were around to see them, so she threw his arm down, huffed, and stomped a few steps ahead of him. Her fit of temper was short-lived, though, and within moments, she’d fallen into step at Jason’s side, and Polly had stepped up to flank her other side.
“I simply meant that I enjoy listening to you talk,” he said. It was a brazen lie, but with any luck, Lady E’s sense of herself would stop her from hearing it as such.
She met his comment by pouting for a moment before breaking into a pleased smile. Polly wasn’t the least bit convinced, however. She crossed her arms and eyed Jason with suspicion, as she always did.
“You’re going to have to do better at convincing people you’re in love with me, you know,” Lady E said, smiling in spite of the snap in her words.
“Why does anyone have to be convinced I love you?” he asked, staring warily at her. “People like us marry for mercenary reasons all the time.” That was the one part of their forthcoming marriage that was both true and that no one, from London to Brynthwaite, would bat an eyelash over. He was rich beyond his wildest dreams and she was an earl’s daughter. In the circles of high society, they were normal, with or without love. It was the only way in which they were normal. “Besides,” he went on, “you plan to spend most of your time in London, at my hotels, don’t you?”
“Yes, but I want everyone to believe I’m adored,” Lady E said with a smile.
Inwardly, Jason groaned. What kind of a mess had he gotten himself—and Flossie—into?
One that would benefit far more people than himself, he answered his own question.
“You are adored, my lady,” Polly said from Lady E’s other side.
Lady E’s cheeks went pink. “Thank you, Polly.”
Jason glanced sideways at the pair and bit his tongue. He wondered if Flossie had gleaned what was now obvious to him as a man who had experienced every kind of sexual proclivity in one way or another during his seedy days in London. Lady’s maid indeed. There was another name for what Polly Penrose was to Lady Elizabeth Dyson, and it wasn’t “maid.”
“What is that strange look for?” Lady E asked him as they turned a corner and started up the long and arduous slope that led to Huntingdon Hall.
“My friends are constantly telling me I wear my heart on my sleeve,” he said.
“Your friends Dr. Pycroft and Mr. Smith?” Lady E asked. “Or your important friends.”
Jason scowled. “Dr. Pycroft and Mr. Smith are my important friends. They’re the only friends that matter,” he added in a mumble, then went on before she could steal the conversation again. “They rib me constantly for being unable to hide my true feelings.”
“So?” Lady E shrugged.
“So if I attempt to pretend to adore you, it’s likely to come off as laughable and false,” he answered.
“You could pretend she’s Flossie,” Polly muttered, clearly not intending for Jason to hear. She and Lady E burst into giggles.
Jason sighed. “I couldn’t. Believe me. It’s best if I simply treat you with the respect and admiration that I honestly feel for you.” Although even that had been slipping in the last month as her demands mounted.
But to his surprise, Lady E sent him a genuine smile. “Do you really respect and admire me?”
Jason couldn’t decide if she was sweet or aggravating for being flattered. “I do,” he admitted. “I always have.” Ignorant sot though he’d been.
Lady E continued on with a bounce in her step. “Flossie Stowe is a lucky young woman,” she said, causing Jason’s feelings toward her to warm. At least until she added, “Though if I had any real interest in you, she wouldn’t stand a chance.”
It would have been rude for him to roll his eyes, so instead he clenched his jaw and walked the rest of the way to Huntingdon Hall in silence as Lady E and Polly chattered. Because the trouble was, there was more truth to Lady E’s statement than he wanted to own up to. If Lady E had taken an interest in him before Flossie had come along, or even for the first few months after Flossie had entered his life, it was entirely likely that his childhood obsession with Lady E wou
ld have continued unabated. Though he didn’t see how he could possibly have been happy, even if he’d won her.
Not that he could call himself happy now. Except for those blissful, quiet moments when he and Flossie were alone.
“Here we are,” Lady E said once they reached the front steps of Huntingdon Hall. “You have fulfilled your gallant duties toward me, and now you may go.”
Jason cleared his throat and prayed his face didn’t go red. He had been telling the truth when he’d said he was a terrible liar. “Actually, I was wondering if I could….” He froze. Flossie had come up with the perfect excuse for him to bluster into the house and cause a distraction for Alexandra, but in that moment, he couldn’t for the life of him remember what it was.
“You were hoping you could what?” Lady E asked, blinking rapidly as she and Polly stared down at him from a higher step.
“I was hoping…I’m at the house…I need to come in and—”
“Mr. Throckmorton, what are you doing here?” Alexandra greeted him, marching out onto the front steps. He wasn’t the only one who made a terrible liar. Lady, or rather, Dr. Alexandra Dyson’s color was high and her eyes held a suspicious light that would have made it obvious to a child that she was plotting something.
“Oh, uh, Dr. Dyson.” Jason cleared his throat, mind racing blankly. “I, er, I came to see your uncle.”
Blast it, no. The last person he wanted to see was Lord Gerald Dyson, the Earl of Thornhill.
“Papa will be so happy to see you,” Lady E said, clasping her hands in front of her in delight. “He’s been so lonely since Aunt Charlotte left, and he’ll be lonelier still once she and Mr. Fretwell and Alexandra move to Hampshire permanently.” Lady E glanced to Alexandra. “I still can’t believe you’ll be leaving me so soon, dear cousin. You must promise to stay at least until after the engagement party.”
“Mother has written insisting that I be ready to return to Hampshire as soon as she and Mr. Fretwell return tomorrow,” Alexandra said, unable to look at Lady E or Jason. “If you could, um, excuse me for one moment.” She ducked back into the house.
Lady E followed, Polly on her heels as usual, and Jason trailed them. Alexandra was halfway across the front hall by the time he entered the house. A moment later, she turned a corner into a side room, her skirts swishing behind her, then popped her head out to stare hard at Jason.
“Darling, if you could let your father know I’m coming up to see him, perhaps that would be better than me simply charging into his bedroom,” Jason said, hurrying Lady E and Polly across the hall to the staircase.
“Good idea,” Lady E agreed, by some miracle. “Papa hates surprises.”
“I have work to do, my lady,” Polly said, leaving them at the stairs and veering off toward the servant’s corridor.
“We’ll talk later,” Lady E called after her. She turned to Jason. “Wait just one moment.”
Jason nodded, trying not to fidget as Lady E hurried up the stairs. The moment she disappeared from sight, he turned and rushed toward the room where Alexandra hid.
“I packed as much as I could into this case,” Alexandra whispered, her color still high, as soon as Jason reached her. “There’s so much more I’ll need to send for later, but for now, these are the basics.”
Jason picked up her suitcase and carried it toward the front door. He had no idea how Alexandra had managed to clear the front hall of all servants and of Lord Thornhill’s aged butler, Hugo in anticipation of his arrival, but for the moment, they were alone.
“I’ll pick this up again as soon as I can get out of whatever God-forsaken visit I’ve just doomed myself to,” he said, resting the heavy case against the Hall’s outer wall. “I’ll leave it in the honeymoon suite for you tonight.”
“Thank you.” Alexandra touched his arm for a brief moment. She looked at him more like a prisoner about to be taken to the gallows than a woman about to elope with one of his best friends.
“Don’t worry,” he did his best to reassure her. “You’ve made a far more sensible decision than I have.”
Alexandra broke into a grin. “I won’t disagree with you.”
Jason wasn’t sure whether he wanted her to or not. “Go on,” he said, gesturing to the road that would take her into town. “Get out of here before your cousin realizes you’ve made your escape.”
Alexandra nodded and dashed down the steps. She gave him one last wave before breaking into a jog.
There was no time for Jason to watch her go. He dashed back into the house and made his way up the staircase, working to regulate his breathing and to look dull instead of like an accomplice in something that was likely to throw the entire Dyson family into fits of rage.
His timing was perfect. He made it to the family’s hallway just as Lady E came out of her father’s room.
“He’s ready to see you,” she told him with a smile. “Thank you for taking the time to visit him. I really do worry about him,” she added in a whisper.
Jason gave her a sympathetic smile before entering old earl’s bedroom. Lady E wasn’t all bad. She truly did care for her father. But then, in Jason’s experience, no one in the world was all good or all bad.
“My lord,” he greeted Gerald Dyson, who lay in his sickbed, a mountain of pillows behind him, a tapestry strewn over his gouty legs, and a book in his hand. “It’s a pleasure to see you looking so well.”
Lord Thornhill scowled at him. “Who are you again?”
“Papa, this is Mr. Throckmorton, my fiancé,” Lady E told him, pushing Jason closer to the bed. “You remember. The two of you have talked before.”
“Hmm.” Lord Thornhill stared at him, rubbing his chin. “Nope. I still can’t say that I remember who you are. Though there is something familiar about you. Who are your parents?”
“I was here last week,” Jason said, avoiding the question. He took a seat in the stiff-backed chair beside the old man’s bed. “I own the hotel in town, and several others besides.” Several others that needed his undivided attention and business acumen if they were going to succeed.
“Hotels, hotels,” Lord Thornhill said. “I stayed at a smashing hotel when I visited Cairo last year.”
Jason sighed inwardly. Lord Thornhill hadn’t been out of his bed for several years, and he hadn’t traveled for nearly a decade. It was going to be that kind of visit. “I’ve heard Egypt is lovely,” he said, sending Lady E a sidelong glance.
“It is, it is,” Lord Thornhill said with a smile. “The air is hot and dry, and the natives are ignorant and grubby.”
Jason sat back in his chair, hiding a wince. It was going to be that kind of visit. So much for getting work done. At least he’d played his role in his friend’s game.
Marshall
Try as he did, Marshall couldn’t get his nerves to steady as he paced his hospital’s halls, checking on long-term patients with fractured attention. He hadn’t slept a wink the night before. He hadn’t slept well since Eileen Danforth, sister of his deceased wife, had heartlessly wrenched his three, darling daughters, Mary, Martha, and Molly, from him two months before. The house was too quiet without his beloved girls filling the rooms with their laughter and chatter. The silence was driving him mad, particularly since, in spite of the optimism Jason expressed about their chances of winning the girls back in the custody hearing scheduled for January, Marshall couldn’t shake the feeling that the Danforth clan was too clever and too well-connected even for Jason’s machinations.
But Marshall’s nerves had an additional reason to be frazzled. As of that night, he wouldn’t be in the house alone anymore. If everything went according to plan and all those who had pledged their support came through, he would be bringing home a new wife. Not that evening, of course. In typical form, Jason had gifted him with a night in the luxurious honeymoon suite at The Dragon’s Head. But that only exacerbated Marshall’s nerves. A honeymoon suite implied things. It implied romance and sensuality. It implied love. And while there was no lack of love on
his end, he knew full well Alex didn’t love him in return.
Dr. Alexandra Dyson. Marshall stopped halfway down the hall as he walked from the men’s ward to the staircase that would take him down to his office and leaned against the wall. Alex was the most beautiful thing that had ever entered his life, aside from his girls. She was elegant and accomplished. She could discuss medicine and operate on patients in dire need side-by-side with him, then wash her hands and head out into the town to charm donors into giving more than he’d ever been able to collect for the hospital on his own. She was the niece of an earl, miles above him, and yet she’d said yes when he proposed to her just a month before.
Granted, she’d agreed to marry him not out of affection, but because marrying him would remove her from the strangling influence of her mother and allow her to remain in Brynthwaite, practicing medicine, instead of being trundled off to Hampshire. But from the moment she’d said yes, Marshall hadn’t been able to shake the hope that, if he played his cards right, the two of them might have a real marriage, one built on mutual respect rather than emotion, but one that could grow into true love in the end. He also hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that honeymoon suite and the distinct possibility that he and Alex might end up in a sweaty, naked tangle within a matter of hours.
“Good Lord,” Mrs. Garforth, the hospital’s head nurse, exclaimed as she came around a corner and saw Marshall slumped against the wall. “Whatever is the matter with you? You look feverish.”
Marshall pushed himself straight and smoothed a hand over his white physician’s coat, glad it was there to hide the evidence of his thoughts. “I’m fine,” he said in curt tones, marching past her.
The Brynthwaite Boys: Season Two - Part One Page 2
