by Merry Farmer
“He’s getting in my way.”
Lawrence blinked wide and stepped back. One of the farmers from the north side of Brynthwaite who had spoken stepped into the gap he’d left at the counter, glaring at Lawrence as he did. The shock of it was a hard blow. Plenty of people in town had treated him with suspicion over the years, but none had ever refused to serve him. Crimpley and Stapleton and the police from Grasmere and the county had asked him a hundred questions about Matty in the last week, but in the end they’d concluded that he wasn’t directly culpable in the murders or obstructing justice. Not yet, at least.
The farmer collected his mail, purchased some stamps, then rushed away from the counter with a dark look for Lawrence.
“Next,” the postmaster called. “Mrs. Mercer?”
Mrs. Mercer took one step up to the counter, then another sideways step along it. “Get him what he wants.” She nodded to Lawrence. “It’ll get him out of here and away from good people all that much faster.”
The postmaster sighed and turned to the back counter where telegrams were kept. Lawrence clenched his jaw and moved to stand at the counter. When the postmaster turned back with an envelope and muttered, “That’ll be sixpence,” Lawrence fished for the coin in his pocket and paid, taking the envelope without further comment.
By the time he strode out into the street, the fuss with the post office patrons was quickly forgotten. He tore into the envelope and wrenched out the telegram it contained, hungry for news.
“No new developments. Hoag missing. Shop closed. Oldest girl caring for young kids.”
That was it. Lawrence hissed and lowered his arms, crushing the letter in one fist and the envelope in the other. He knew everything Beach had to say already. Almost everything. It was obvious that Hoag was missing from Grasmere because he was burning cottages in Brynthwaite. The rest was superfluous, though from what Matty had told him of her oldest half-sister, Constance, he didn’t think she was old enough to be entrusted with the care of two smaller children. He remembered the terrified little girl he had seen at Hoag’s shop when he visited Grasmere, surely the younger sister. If Constance was in any shape close to that, she was hardly fit to care for herself, let alone siblings.
There had to be something that could be done. Hoag was spinning him in circles, the police were watching him like hawks, and his friends were wrapped up in their own affairs. It seemed that every which way Lawrence turned, he was blocked.
With a frustrated growl that startled a pair of young girls walking past on some errand, Lawrence picked up his pace, heading toward the hotel. At least he could visit Jason to see how he was recovering. He’d seemed better when Flossie let him speak to Jason the day before, but still wrapped up in blankets on the couch in his front room. If Lawrence was lucky, Jason had heard something that he hadn’t. If only he could hold onto the hope that that was true.
“Looking a little down in the mouth, are we?”
The voice that stopped Lawrence as he crossed past an alley between two buildings was as sharp as if Bobbo had thrown out a hook and pulled him aside. Lawrence stopped and whipped around to face Hoag’s wormlike henchman.
“You got news?” Bobbo continued to tease him, nodding to the crumpled telegram. He leaned against the brick of one of the buildings, a toothpick poking out from between the yellow teeth of his thin-lipped smile.
“Tell Hoag to stop burning the cottages of innocent people,” Lawrence snapped without a greeting.
Bobbo laughed. “Feeling a little hot, are you, Smith?”
“Harming the innocent won’t get him any closer to Matty.” Lawrence would have said more, would have thrown out that Hoag was looking in the wrong place to begin with, but even words meant to help some people could easily hurt others.
“The way I see it,” Bobbo shrugged, “it’s only a matter of time before he reaches her. And when he does, he has such lovely plans for the little bitch.”
“Stop wasting my time,” Lawrence replied. He turned and started to march off.
“I’m not the only bloodhound in the pack, you know.” Bobbo stopped him. Reluctantly, Lawrence turned back to him. “Oh no. Hoag’s got loads of them scouring the forest, ears to the ground, listening for clues.”
Lawrence scowled at the threat. He turned to leave again.
“In fact, you might say he’s got the mother of all bloodhounds deep, deep in the forest now.”
A cold wash of panic spread down Lawrence's back. Those words could have meant anything. Bobbo could have heard a whisper about Mother Grace and have been testing him to see if he would react. Lawrence walked on, ignoring him, but his heart pounded. It could have been a bluff, but it could have been more.
He had to see Matty. He had to talk to her. As much as it pained him to admit, he had to get her away from Mother Grace. If there was any chance Hoag knew the connection, both of the women he loved more than his own life could be in danger.
He cursed as he rounded the corner and proceeded up Lake Street. Instead of heading on at the intersection, he crossed and marched on to the hospital. He would visit Jason later, but right now there was only one person who could go to the forest to tell Mother Grace what was going on and to fetch Matty and bring her back.
The hospital waiting room was crowded when Lawrence entered. Several of the people waiting were coughing and a few more looked feverish. Lawrence didn’t have time to worry about influenza. He spotted Marshall, squatting beside an old woman who was pink with fever, listening to her back with a stethoscope, and headed straight to him.
“I need a favor,” he asked without preamble.
Marshall glanced up to him from the sick woman, brow lifting in surprise. He shook his head to focus himself and said to the woman, “If it is influenza, Miss Timmons, you’ve already come through the worst of it. Your lungs sound clear for the most part. I’ll have Mrs. Garforth bring out a packet of aspirin for you to reduce your fever, but my recommendation is bedrest for a few more days and plenty of fluids. If your fever doesn’t break or if it gets any worse or your lungs begin to fill, call for me at once. Otherwise, you’re far stronger than your years would suggest.” He smiled, squeezed the woman’s shoulder, then faced Lawrence.
Lawrence stepped aside to a space away from the waiting patients. “I need you to go into the forest,” he said, careful to keep his words as vague as possible.
Marshall’s curiosity dropped to a scowl. He nudged Lawrence’s arm and motioned for him to continue on into the hall, out of the waiting room. When they had more privacy, he asked, “Why would I do that?”
“Because Hoag is burning down the cottages of innocent people in his attempt to get to Matty. Because Bobbo suggested to me just now when I ran into the vermin on the street that Hoag knows about Mother Grace and has sent his dogs into the forest to find her.”
In spite of the bristling antipathy Marshall had for Mother Grace, his face flushed hot with alarm and defensiveness. “Does she know Hoag knows about her and suspects she’s hiding Matty?”
Lawrence shook his head. “I haven’t been able to get out there for a fortnight. Jason was taking messages, then he fell ill. I have no one else to turn to.”
Marshall clenched his jaw. His moustache twitched. The spark in his eyes held a thousand emotions. “Have there been any developments since I was gone?”
“None,” Lawrence sighed. “Though Beach is looking.”
Marshall stepped closer to him. “I know you care for her, Lawrence, and I do believe in Matty’s innocence, but with Hoag on the warpath, would it not be better for Matty to turn herself in to the authorities? At least that way she’ll be out of Hoag’s reach.”
Lawrence shook his head far more vehemently than he felt. In truth, he’d been thinking the same thing for days now. If Matty was in prison, at least he would be able to visit her.
“I need you to bring her back,” he said. “We’ll face the rest once she’s home.”
Marshall let out a breath, lowering his head.
>
“Dr. Pycroft,” Dr. Dyson’s call came from the end of the hall. Marshall snapped straight, a deep blush splashing his cheeks. “I haven’t had a chance to do inventory on the hospital supplies since you’ve been gone. That will need to be seen to today as well.”
“Thank you, Dr. Dyson.” Marshall nodded to her.
Dr. Dyson paused at the bottom of the stairs, tangling her hands together over her apron. She was pink with embarrassment as well, uneasy in her stance as she and Marshall stood staring at each other. Then she sucked in a breath and scurried up the stairs as if someone had set off a cracker.
Lawrence frowned. “What was that all about?”
Marshall blew out a breath and winced, rubbing his eyes. “Fool that I am, I told her that I loved her this morning.”
“You what?” Lawrence gaped.
Marshall arched an eyebrow, then shook his head. “I was a bloody idiot. It just came out before I could stop myself. Now I’ve gone and wrecked everything, once again.”
Lawrence blinked. “You love her?”
Marshall scowled at him. “Where have you been, man? Of course I love her. Alexandra Dyson is the best thing that’s happened to me in years. Only now I’ve gone and made a hash out of all of it.” He grunted and reached for the ties of his apron as he moved toward the dispensary. “Perhaps now is the perfect time for me to go off for a jaunt in the woods. Stop me from proposing marriage to Mrs. Garforth or seducing Nurse Callow in the children’s ward or some such nonsense.”
“Does she return your feelings?” Lawrence asked in all seriousness.
Marshall sighed. “No. Which is only to be expected.” He hung his apron and turned back to Lawrence. “I’ll go on this mission, but I go as a coward who can’t face his own mistakes. You’re a fool for putting your trust in me.”
Lawrence managed a weak smile. He thumped his friend on the arm. “You give yourself far too little credit, Marshall Pycroft. You’re the most genuine man I know, and I love you like a brother. Any woman would be blessed to have you, especially Dr. Alexandra Dyson.”
Marshall humphed, but his cheeks glowed with pleasure at the compliment. “Let’s see if I can manage this errand without letting you down.”
Flossie
“I’m not a baby, you know,” Jason complained as Flossie plumped the pillows on one end of the sofa in the main room of Jason’s suite. “I can at least sit down on my own.”
“Prove that to me and I’ll believe you,” she said, gripping his arm firmly and helping him ease into the cushions.
“There. I just did.” He let out a breath that turned into a cough and relaxed into the pillows piled on the sofa’s arm.
Flossie arched a brow at him and planted her hands on her hips. Now that he was past the worst of it, Jason presented a sight that was as adorable as a box of kittens. He wore a long nightshirt—something Flossie had found buried at the back of his wardrobe, barely used as he preferred to sleep in the altogether—and a velvet dressing gown. His feet were shod in soft slippers and he hadn’t bothered to shave or brush his hair in days. He was a sulky, pouting child of over six feet who nestled against the nest Flossie had made of his sofa with arms crossed in defiance…even as he closed his eyes and made himself comfortable.
“Well,” she sighed, “you may get your chance to leap back into action far sooner than you think.”
After nearly a week of watching over Jason as he battled through influenza and keeping the hotel running at the same time, Flossie could feel the tell-tale signs that she had exerted herself too much. Her head ached and her throat was just sore enough to hint that she was about to repeat everything Jason had just gone through. But if she was smart, she could ride out the illness in a few days.
After she put everything at the hotel in order.
Jason popped one eye open. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing you should worry yourself over.”
In fact, everything Flossie had done in the last week was designed to keep Jason from worrying. She had paid the hotel’s bills, managed the reservations, seen to the needs of the guests and the staff, and ensured that no one had any reason to fret. She crossed to the edge of the sofa and sat so that she could brush Jason’s hair away from his brow. His forehead was cool now, a blessed relief from a few days ago when he had burned with fever.
Her heart expanded to near bursting with the love she felt for him, her puzzling, challenging, endearing lover. In spite of the flu sneaking up on her, she smiled, leaning forward to kiss his lips, her hand cradling his scruffy cheek. He kissed her back with a breath of surrender, all tension leaving him under her touch.
“I don’t deserve you,” he whispered when she broke their kiss and touched her nose to his.
“No, you don’t.” She grinned.
His grin matched hers, and he surged up to kiss her again. “Thank you for taking care of me. And the hotel.”
“It was my pleasure.” She kissed him one final time and sat straight. “And now, I must go set your hotel in order before I….” She paused and swallowed, feeling just how raw her throat was. “Before I take a rest.”
“You? Rest?” Jason teased as Flossie stood. He caught her hand to keep her close. “I can’t imagine it.”
Her lips twitched in a wry smile. “You might want to get used to the idea.”
His brow knit. “Is something wrong?”
She stepped around the end of the sofa and headed toward the door instead of answering. “Nothing to worry about.”
“Flossie.” He stopped her before she reached the door, muscling himself to sit straight. His brow was still knit in thought, but not over her subtle hints. He stared at the back of the sofa for a moment, then met her eyes. “When Dr. Dyson was here earlier. Did it seem to you as though she…she looked at us strangely?”
A hot blush crept onto Flossie’s already feverish cheeks. “Strangely?” She frowned at herself for delaying the inevitable confession.
“Yes,” Jason answered. “As though…as though she…suspected.”
Suspected indeed. There were too many thing Jason needed to know, things that had transpired while he’d been ill.
She chewed her lip and slowly approached the back of the sofa. “Dr. Dyson is aware of the connection between us.”
Jason’s brow twitched up. Pink flooded his cheeks. “Is she?”
Flossie nodded. She picked at a loose thread on the back of the sofa. “She is not the only one.”
“Oh?” His question was more serious.
Ah well. She knew that as soon as Jason was recovered, there would be no hiding the truth.
“You fainted in the garden when you took ill,” she explained, meeting his eyes in spite of the lingering fear she had of how he would react. “It was necessary to have Donald and Richard carry you here, to your room. I did not have a chance to tidy up before they observed the bedroom.”
Jason’s brow fell. “I see. And?”
Flossie shrugged. “I may have also been forceful in my insistence of caring for you and the hotel.”
Color worked its way up Jason’s neck until he was bright red. He closed his eyes and let out a breath. “Just tell me.”
“Everyone knows,” she said.
Jason winced, then opened his eyes. “Everyone?”
“The hotel staff,” Flossie clarified. “Beyond that, I’m not sure. Dr. Dyson, obviously. I assume she was told by my friend Polly.” Though how Polly discovered and whether Flossie could still count her as a friend remained to be seen.
Jason’s expression took on a strange, expectant hue. “Lady E.?” he asked. It was hard to tell how he felt about that possibility.
“I don’t know.” She let out a breath.
“I see.” Jason sank back against his pillows.
Flossie took a few steps toward him so that she could still see his face. “Do you mind people knowing?”
He didn’t answer immediately. “I’m not sure,” he said at last, glancing up at her. “
I would have preferred to be in control of the information becoming public.”
“So would I,” Flossie answered, planting one hand on her hip. “But I wasn’t the one who fainted in the garden and required immediate attention.”
His brow rose. “And I wasn’t the one who came flying into the garden in hysterics over some letter.”
Flossie dropped her arm and stepped up to the back of the sofa, clutching it and leaning over to bring her face close to his. “What’s done is done, and the staff has been discreet as far as I know.”
Jason let out a breath, his frown melting into a tired smile. He reached up to cradle her cheek. “I’m proud of you.”
Those simple words, so rich with meaning, filled Flossie with enough emotion and strength to take on the world. She bent over the back of the sofa to kiss Jason’s lips one final time.
“We are only co-authors of our destinies,” she told him. “Fate has as much of a hand in the plans that we make as we do.” She thought of the contents of Betsy’s letter, the revelation that the purpose of her relationship with Jason was a lie, but what had become of that lie was the most solid truth she could imagine.
“You sound like Mother Grace,” Jason said with a mock frown, letting her go. “I shall have to introduce the two of you at some point, though I fear once I do, between the two of you, you will have my entire fate mapped out within three minutes.”
Flossie arched her brow. “No doubt we would.”
She smiled, kissed him one more time, then pushed away from the sofa and toward the door.
She was still smiling by the time she reached the bottom of the stairs in the lobby, but with Jason tucked away on the sofa upstairs and a list of chores to see to before she succumbed to the aches and fever that were growing more pronounced by the moment, that smile didn’t last long. After a trip to the laundry to give instructions to the maids and a visit to the kitchen to make sure Cook could handle the next few days on her own if needs be, the muscle aches of influenza had reached the point where Flossie couldn’t ignore them any longer.
