by Merry Farmer
“Probably.” Lawrence shrugged. “Listen, I came to talk to you about Matty, to see if that solicitor of yours, Beach, has learned anything new.”
Jason sighed, still caught up in his own concerns. He pushed the door to his rooms open, but before he could go in, he spotted Agnes crossing the lobby and heading up the stairs, tea tray in her hands. He shut the door and stepped aside, waiting for her.
“Lawrence, could you get that,” he nodded to the tray as Agnes reached the top of the stairs. She flinched, expression flaring to even more girlish excitement at the sight of two romantic heroes. Good God. Women had always looked at Lawrence like he was some sort of gypsy lover, but for him to get the same treatment? “I’ve been too sick to lift a tea tray,” he finished, indulging in a coughing fit to prove it, and hopefully to dispel any romantic notions Agnes had.
“I can bring it into your room for you, sir,” Agnes insisted.
“No,” Jason snapped.
“I’ve got it.” Lawrence took the tray from the maid with a smile that would, no doubt, fuel her fantasies for months to come.
Jason shuddered at the thought, waited for Agnes to go, and when she had finally turned her back and shoved off, opened the door and stole into his suite, Lawrence and the tea behind him.
“Help yourself to some of that if you’d like,” he said, gesturing for Lawrence to set the tray on the table in front of the sofa. “I don’t know why I ordered it. Flossie is probably asleep.”
In spite of the fact that his friend had come to visit him, to talk about dire business and his own life’s dangers, Jason marched straight on into the bedroom. Flossie was, indeed, asleep. Her face was red with fever, and she’d tugged the bedcovers up to her neck as though chilled. Her black hair spilled across the sheets, and her dark lashes brushed the porcelain skin of her cheeks. God help him, she had entered his life like a lightning bolt, scattering his wits and enlivening them at the same time. His world had been tipped off its axis, but it was a price he was willing to pay.
Almost.
“I’d fetch Marshall to take a look at her,” Lawrence said from Jason’s side, “but I’ve just sent him to Mother Grace’s to fetch Matty.”
Jason hadn’t heard Lawrence come into the room, and it took several more moments for his words to register. When they finally did, he frowned and faced Lawrence. “You sent Marshall to Mother Grace’s? To bring Matty back? What the bloody hell for?”
“Because he was the only one who knows how to find the place that I trust who isn’t half-delirious with influenza.”
Jason frowned. “I am not half-delirious, and that is not what I meant. Matty is safer where she is. Why would you put the woman you love in danger like that?”
His glance shifted to Flossie once again. She seemed so small and helpless, tucked into his bed, fever painting her cheeks. He would have given anything to ease the suffering she would likely face in the next few days.
Hell, he would give anything to stop the suffering she would face in the next few years, for the rest of her life, now that their secret was out. If his staff was treating him as an equal now, if Samuel dared to be impertinent, how must they be treating Flossie?
The sudden burst of rage that question brought with it caused him to lose Lawrence’s reply entirely. He balled his hands into fists and sank to sit on the side of the bed. Lawrence had said something about Matty being safer where he could visit her. That much was true.
“They sneak up on you,” he said, letting go of his anger long enough to let out a breath and smooth a hand over Flossie’s forehead. “You think you’re going one way, that you have your life planned out and every aspect of it controlled, then they sweep in like a summer breeze and change everything.”
“That they do,” Lawrence agreed. He sighed and reached for a ladder-back chair in the corner of the room, bringing it to the side of the bed and straddling it, arms resting against the top. “I’m beginning to think they know better than we do too.”
“Do they?” Jason rested his hand over Flossie’s forehead. He sent a brief glance to Lawrence—who watched Flossie with a seriousness in his eyes that said he was thinking of Matty and the dangers she faced—then focused on Flossie once more.
“I thought I was happy before Matty came along,” Lawrence said. “I enjoyed my life, enjoyed food, drink, women whenever I wanted them. Then came Matty, and I realized I was only ever content. Now I see that I can only truly be happy with her beside me.” He sighed. “A fine thing to realize when I stand on the brink of losing her forever.” He rubbed his face, resting his head in his hands.
Jason suppressed a cough, his heart pushing hard against his ribs. “I can’t imagine what I would do without her,” he murmured at Flossie’s sleeping form, a form he knew so well now. “And yet, I’m not entirely sure what I will do with her.”
To the side, Lawrence frowned. “How do you mean?”
Jason took a deep breath, striving to sort through the jumble of his thoughts. “Everything I have done with my life, every milestone I have achieved, every pound I’ve earned, every ounce of respect I’ve fought for and won, has been for one purpose and one purpose only: to prove myself worthy…of Elizabeth Dyson.”
Lawrence’s brow shot up, and he sat straighter. “Lady E.?”
Aching with defeat, Jason nodded. He resumed stroking Flossie’s forehead. “I’ve wanted her for as long as I can remember. She has always been the pinnacle of everything a woman should be—beautiful, titled, wealthy. I knew I could never deserve her if I stayed here in Brynthwaite, so I left to make my way in the world. I worked, I struggled, I did things that I never would have dreamed I’d see myself do, both good and bad.”
He let out a breath and brushed the back of his fingers along Flossie’s cheek, eyes never leaving her face.
“I clawed my way up in order to win Lady E.’s love, and when I found myself mired in the worst of humanity, betrayed by my body’s nature and the reputation my debaucheries had won me, I swore that I would become a better man for her, for Elizabeth Dyson. I moved back here, built this hotel, as a final testament of my devotion to her, my single-minded devotion.”
“Surely there’s no harm in that,” Lawrence said.
“No?” Jason tore his eyes away from Flossie to stare at his friend. “Everything I’ve made of myself was made to please another woman. I’ve given years of myself to Lady E., almost my whole life. Today, when I went downstairs, when I looked into the eyes of the men and women I employ, I saw all of that come to nothing.”
Lawrence arched a brow. “They know?”
“Yes. I’m certain half the town or more knows.”
Lawrence shrugged. “I fail to see the problem.”
Jason sighed and shifted closer to Flossie. Her chest rose and fell in the rhythm of slumber cut by illness. “The problem is that everything I am, everything I have accomplished, means nothing now that I love her.” The full truth of the implication gored his soul.
“I don’t follow,” Lawrence said, shaking his head. “How does falling in love with a magnificent woman who, I assume, loves you deeply in return, negate all of the grand things you’ve done with your life? Wouldn’t it make them all better?”
He wanted to latch on to his friend’s line of logic so desperately that he curled the fingers of his free hands into the bedclothes, clutching them tight. “You don’t understand. What was it all for? What was the use of striving and working and sinning and repenting, becoming a man of power and influence, one that common folk look to in awe—all for Lady E.—only to give my heart to a woman who would have been just as content to marry a poor orphan who drives a hack or sweeps up a shop or tends bar? How could those years of hardship and devilry mean anything if I was destined to love the daughter of a laborer who would have been content with a simple life?”
“Would she?” Lawrence asked. “Would Flossie have been content with a simple life with you?”
“Yes.”
The answer welled up out
of his heart with such pathos that his vision blurred. It was only when he blinked and felt the hot trail of a tear on his cheek that he realized how ridiculous and maudlin his identity crisis had made him. He sat straight, wiped his face, sniffed, then fell into a coughing fit. It must have been the influenza.
“I refuse to believe that my entire life has been a fool’s errand,” he said, running a hand through his dirty hair and attempting to pull himself together. “I did not suffer through London, risking everything to build hotels, only to have my staff look at me the same way the people of this town looked at me before I left.”
“I doubt they did that,” Lawrence said.
Jason shook his head. “Close enough.” He took a breath and twisted to face Lawrence. “I love Flossie more deeply than I have ever loved anything. I adore her beyond the sun and the moon. She crept into my life unannounced and grafted herself to my heart in a way that can never be undone.”
“And that’s a wonderful thing,” Lawrence prompted.
“No.” Jason sighed. “Because if I have done so much with a single-minded focus on Lady E., what could I possibly have left to give to Flossie?”
“Everything that you are now and will be from this day on,” Lawrence answered.
“Everything I am, I owe to someone else,” Jason insisted.
Lawrence blew out a breath and threw his hands up. “You’re making this far more complicated than it is, Jason. You love Flossie. You don’t love Elizabeth Dyson, right?”
“I do not,” Jason confirmed.
“Then I still fail to see the problem.”
“The problem is that Lady Elizabeth Dyson wants to marry me.”
Lawrence gaped at him. When the shock wore off, he shook his head and laughed. “You do beat all, Jason Throckmorton. Just when you achieve the goal you’ve had in mind since we were boys, you fall in love with someone else.”
“Exactly.” A fraction of the tension that had built up in Jason’s chest relaxed. “So you see the trouble I’m in.”
“The only trouble I see is a man who is doubly blessed—once for achieving his dreams and once for finding the perfect mate to enjoy those dreams with. Who cares if Flossie wasn’t part of the original plan? She’s better than Lady E. a thousand times over.”
“And I don’t deserve her,” Jason finished.
Lawrence laughed again. “Light help us if we were each to get what we deserved.”
Jason frowned. He wanted to let go and float along on Lawrence’s line of logic, but something was holding him back, something that gnawed at him, an impurity of some sort. Something that whispered that he should get what he deserved as punishment for his legion of sins.
“Look, if you want my advice,” Lawrence began, “Forget Lady E. and her history of charms. Yes, underneath the fine clothes, the money, and the power, you are the son of the Goddess knows who, and no better than those people in uniform downstairs. By birth. By accomplishment and by talent, you are worth a hundred lords of the realm, and you know as well as I do that Flossie is worth a thousand of Lady E. All the rest is—”
He was cut off by a knock at the door in the main room of his suite. Jason frowned, darting a glance to the main room. The knock came a second time.
“What in God’s name—” He stood and tugged his dressing gown tighter around his chest, making certain the sash was tied tight before starting into the main room. Lawrence followed behind.
The tray of tea had grown cold on the table. Jason had forgotten about it entirely. He hoped that whoever was behind the door, it wasn’t Agnes, come back to spy on him and weave her own conclusions. That was the last thing he needed.
But when he yanked open the door, it was not Agnes, nor any other member of his staff. It was Marshall, and Matty beside him.
Matty
It had been weeks since Matty had walked the streets of Brynthwaite. They hadn’t given her the creeping sense of being watched then that they did now. Even with Marshall Pycroft close by her side, her pulse raced and her hands shook as she clutched her carpetbag to her chest. Entering the grounds of The Dragon’s Head hotel hadn’t lessened her fear by an inch, even when she and Marshall ducked inside and discreetly made their way up the staircase to Jason’s door.
When Jason opened that door and Matty saw Lawrence hovering behind him, face lined with curiosity, all of the fear and tension that she’d carried with her from Mother Grace’s burst into tears of relief and renewed panic.
“Matty.” Lawrence breathed her name with a tremulous smile. He nudged Jason aside and reached out to her, drawing her into the suite.
Her vision blurred, Matty rushed to Lawrence, dropping her carpetbag along the way, and threw herself into his arms. She’d missed him, but had no idea how much until he closed his arms around her, enveloping her in the heat and smoky scent of his body.
“I’m so frightened,” she admitted, her voice muffled against his shoulder.
“There, there. It’s all right. I’ve got you now,” Lawrence reassured her, squeezing her close.
The door clicked shut behind her.
“I managed to get her here without too many people seeing us,” Marshall said. “Thank God the notion struck me to bring her to the hotel instead of trying to take her to the forge. I figured the forge was being watched but the hotel wasn’t. Thank God you’re here.”
“I came to see if Jason had any more news from Beach,” Lawrence said.
“Bloody hell,” Jason cursed. “I’m sorry, Lawrence. You didn’t come here to listen to my whinging.”
“I wouldn’t miss your whinging for the world, and you know it,” Lawrence replied.
Matty could feel the smile in his voice. It filled her with confidence to witness Lawrence teasing his friend. If he was still capable of poking at Jason, then the situation couldn’t be as dire as all that.
She took in a breath and lifted her head from Lawrence’s shoulder to look him in the eyes. “Marshall says you want me to turn myself in to the police?”
Lawrence frowned and let out a breath. He pursed his lips and scolded Marshall with a glance. “I don’t want you to turn yourself in, but the case has been made that right now, the best protection you can have from our real enemy, Hoag, is to be guarded behind bars.”
Fear swirled up through Matty’s gut, sending her pulse soaring once more. “No. No, I don’t want to go to jail.”
“Surely we can find some other way,” Jason said, then burst into a coughing fit. He was forced to move to his sofa to sit down.
Marshall and Lawrence exchanged wary glances—glances that did not set Matty’s heart at ease.
After a heavy pause, Lawrence said, “I can’t protect you the way that four solid walls and a cadre of prison guards can.”
“But that’s not protection at all,” Matty insisted. She stepped away from Lawrence, hugging herself. “If I turn myself in, won’t they see that as an admission of guilt? Won’t that mean a trial and…and worse?”
Lawrence shook his head. “I have full confidence in Beach to come up with the evidence we need to prove your innocence. Besides, Hoag and his cronies don’t have proof of your guilt, only hearsay.”
“Hoag is powerful,” Matty insisted. “He has friends. If the trial is in Grasmere, it doesn’t matter what evidence anyone has, I’ll hang.” She swallowed at the thought.
Lawrence let out a breath and stepped forward to take her in his arms once more. “That won’t happen. We’ll do our best to see that the trial is not in Grasmere.”
“Something as serious as a murder case should be tried in Kendal, shouldn’t it?” Jason added from the sofa.
“It should,” Marshall agreed. “Surely between us we have enough pull to be certain that happens. Besides which.” He turned to Matty. “There is an extenuating circumstance that may help ensure Matty is treated with care.”
Lawrence leaned back to look at Matty in his arms. A spark lit his eyes. “What is it?”
That spark spoke volumes. He knew he
r condition, or at least suspected.
Matty lowered her head. “I’m with child.”
“I knew it,” Lawrence said, letting out a breath and holding her close. “I just knew it.”
The surprise swell of relief at sharing the secret she’d been holding onto for weeks was enough to bring a smile to her face. It didn’t last long, though.
“I can’t leave you when I have your child growing inside of me,” she said.
Lawrence stroked her cheek, cradling her jaw and kissing her, his eyes bright with hope. “Our child is exactly the reason why you must turn yourself in. I can’t go to see you if you’re at Mother Grace’s and I can’t protect you on my own. But at least if you are in a crown prison, I have every right to visit you.”
“Do you?” Matty asked. “We…we aren’t married.”
Lawrence’s smile faded.
“That’s easy,” Jason spoke from the sofa. “Go down to the courthouse and marry her.”
“We’ll come along as witnesses,” Marshall agreed.
Lawrence lowered his head. “No.”
“No?” Jason and Marshall said at the same time.
“No,” Lawrence repeated. “I don’t believe in ridiculous contracts and laws that bind people together. I won’t subject you to any of that.” He clasped Matty’s face in both of his hands. “As far as I’m concerned, we’re already as one.”
“Bloody hell, Lawrence.” Jason pushed himself to stand, glowering, and tightened the sash of his dressing gown. He walked around the sofa to stand with their group. “Can’t you forego your hedonistic principals for the sake of protecting Matty?”
“Will a false contract protect her?” Lawrence argued. “No,” he answered himself. “The only thing that will protect Matty is the truth.”
“But if you were married—”
“He’s not going to change his mind,” Marshall stopped Jason from protesting. He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “We need to get this over with before word spreads that Matty is back in town. We can accompany you to the police station, but we should go now.”
