by Merry Farmer
The Brynthwaite Boys
Season Two - Part Three
Merry Farmer
THE BRYNTHWAITE BOYS
SEASON TWO
VOLUME THREE
Copyright ©2019 by Merry Farmer
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Erin Dameron-Hill (the miracle-worker)
Episode Nine – A Spring Thaw
Episode Ten – An Awkward Confrontation
Episode Eleven – A Life-Changing Choice
Episode Twelve – A Wedding, Two Births, and a Goodbye
Created with Vellum
Contents
Episode Nine - A Spring Thaw
Untitled
Episode Ten - An Awkward Confrontation
Untitled
Episode Eleven - A Life-Changing Choice
Untitled
Episode Twelve - A Wedding, Two Births, and a Goodbye
Untitled
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Episode Nine - A Spring Thaw
Flossie
April was one of the most beautiful months of the year, as far as Flossie was concerned. The long, cold winter was over, the ground was beginning to soften, and new life was shooting up everywhere. The same things that could be said for the earth were true in her life and the lives of her friends as well.
“Can you believe it’s been almost a year since I first came to Brynthwaite?” she asked Jason as she fastened a new brooch he’d given her to the collar of her visiting dress.
“Only a year?” Jason asked in return as he stood in front of the mirror in their bedroom, buttoning his waistcoat. “Surely not. It’s been ten years at least.”
Flossie laughed and finished with the brooch. “The year has been eventful enough for ten, I’ll give you that.”
She rubbed her hands over her decidedly large belly, grinning when her baby kicked in response. She was still about two months from her delivery date, but with all the kicking and moving of Jason’s child within her, she felt as though she knew her baby already.
Jason straightened with a sigh, frowned at his reflection, then reached for his coat. “It’s been eleven months, three weeks, and a day since you stepped through my office door for your interview and transformed my cock into a monolith worthy of Stonehenge. A state from which I have yet to recover, by the way,” he added.
Flossie snorted a laugh as she glanced over her shoulder at him. “You seem to be doing just fine at the moment.”
He met her amused expression with a grim look. “That’s because we’re on our way to Huntingdon Hall. Nothing withers my monolith like the thought of spending an afternoon with E, C, and G.”
Flossie shook her head and crossed the room to slip her arms around Jason’s waist. It was getting more and more difficult to hug him properly with her belly as large as it was. And it would only grow larger still.
“Elizabeth has been a pussycat since returning to Brynthwaite,” she reminded him. “Lady Charlotte has been remarkably quiet since Mr. Fretwell and George left for their wild goose chase. And Lord Gerald adores you.”
Jason stiffened, closing his arms around her and studying the image of the two of them entwined in the mirror. “Elizabeth never wants to do anything but gossip these days, Lady Charlotte barely tolerates me because of my association with Marshall, whom she considers the devil incarnate, and Lord Gerald doesn’t have the first clue who I am.”
Flossie rested her cheek against his shoulder for a moment before straightening. “Lord Gerald knows exactly who you are,” she argued. “You’re the kind young man who comes to visit him and brightens his day.”
Jason fixed her with a dubious look that wasn’t entirely unfounded. Though Flossie had only met the man once—when she’d gone to Huntingdon Hall on an errand when no one else from the hotel’s staff was available to go and Elizabeth had insisted on introducing her—it was clear that Lord Gerald’s mind wasn’t what it once was. But Lord Gerald’s was a benevolent kind of absent-mindedness, one that was clearly due to his advanced age and isolation. Lady Charlotte’s peevishness was decidedly unfriendly.
“Why has E insisted on interrupting our work for the sole purpose of forcing us to watch her drink tea?” Jason complained, facing the mirror once more as he buttoned his coat.
Flossie crossed her arms over her stomach and smirked at him. “She wants to discuss living arrangements after the wedding,” she said. “And to get Lady Charlotte used to the idea that I will be living at Huntingdon Hall along with you.”
“God,” Jason grumbled, fumbling with his buttons. “What a farce this has become. Everyone in town knows what we’re up to. Not a soul will be fooled by this marriage. Not a soul in Brynthwaite, at least.”
“I believe it’s all the people not in Brynthwaite that concern Lady E.” She stepped in front of him, batted his hands away from the mess he was making of his coat, and resumed buttoning it for him. “She wants the social clout of being married to a business tycoon to impress people in London.”
“This isn’t the Regency,” Jason continued to grouse. “There are such things as telegrams and trains. The truth will trickle down to London eventually.”
“Perhaps Lady E is hoping that by then, it won’t matter,” Flossie said.
Jason made a sound as though he might agree, but also as though he didn’t approve. He brushed his hands up over her waist and smoothed them over her stomach and breasts. “Are you sure we can’t stay home this afternoon?” he asked, heat coming to his eyes as he showed his appreciation of her expanded form with his touch. “I would so much rather spend my time exploring new ways to make love to you with your current shape.”
Flossie laughed as she finished buttoning his coat. “No, Jason. There isn’t time.”
“Are you certain?” he asked. “All you would have to do is turn around and bend over the bed. We wouldn’t even have to undress. I could just unbutton, flip your skirts up, and take you from behind.”
“No,” she giggled, smacking his chest, then stepping away to grab her shawl. In fact, it was becoming increasingly more comfortable and convenient to make love in exactly that fashion.
“It would only take three minutes,” he said.
“And you’re proud of that?” She arched an eyebrow at him.
“Of course not,” he said, following her into the main room of their suite. “But it would be decidedly easier on my nervous constitution if I arrived at Huntingdon Hall sated and without worry that I’ll poke Lady Charlotte’s eye out with a raging erection.”
Flossie sent him a flat look as he marched ahead of her to hold the door open. “You’ll be fine, Jason. You haven’t put anyone’s eye out with your cock in at least four days.”
At last, Jason had the good sense to chuckle along with her as they exited their suite and made their way down to the lobby. Flossie nodded to Daniel as they headed for the door. The young Irishman had taken over more and more responsibility for the hotel in the previous months as Flossie had been for
ced to slow down. Jason had stepped in as much as he could with his other hotels still to run, and in the end, they were both satisfied that they could leave hotel business in Daniel’s hands for an afternoon without the whole empire coming down around them.
One of the hotel’s carriages was already waiting to take them up to Huntingdon Hall by the time they crossed through the gate to the street. Flossie spent a frustratingly long time trying to climb up into it before Jason grabbed her by the backside and hoisted her into the seat.
“Don’t misunderstand,” she said, panting, once they were reasonably comfortable and on their way. “I’m overjoyed to be having your baby, but I simply cannot wait to have my old shape back.”
“I can’t wait either,” Jason said, a glint of mischief in his eyes. “I look forward to ruining your figure all over again.”
Flossie rolled her eyes and smacked his arm. “Don’t start dreaming of the next one until this one has made his or her debut.”
They spent the rest of the short journey to Huntingdon Hall chatting about inconsequential hotel business. As far as Flossie was concerned, it was the most pleasant way to spend an afternoon that she could think of, especially after the trauma of the winter.
Though that trauma continued to hang over them like a whisper of storm clouds on the horizon. The mysterious boathouse fire in January had been the talk of Brynthwaite for weeks. Theories abounded about how a secluded shack could have spontaneously ignited. Rumors had swirled along with winter snow about vagabonds hiding out in the shack, grudges that people might have had against old Harry Norton, the shack’s owner, and the shadowy figures that had been seen running around the lakeside in the middle of the night. Most of the whispers were ridiculous and could easily be ignored. One rumor, however, was that the fire was set by gypsies and that more mischief had happened that night than anyone had yet to discover. Lawrence’s friend, Barsali, had been forced to flee town before dawn the next morning in advance of such rumors. If he hadn’t, there was no doubt at all in anyone’s mind who had been involved that night that he would have been blamed simply because of who he was.
One of the most outlandish rumors making the rounds was that George Fretwell had murdered his wife and disposed of her body in the fire. Flossie was tempted to laugh at that rumor—since she knew full well Lady Arabella had been living in secret at the hospital for three months now—but George had turned downright rabid in his hunt for his Arabella, and Flossie wasn’t the only one who feared for Lady Arabella’s safety whenever she chose to come out of hiding.
“We’re here,” Jason sighed morosely as the carriage made the turn to Huntingdon Hall.
“Try not to overwhelm Lady Charlotte with your enthusiasm,” Flossie said with a sideways grin.
Jason frowned seriously at her, but the fondness that sparkled in his eyes told a far different story from the expression he wore. He had undergone a spring thaw himself. After the nightmare of madness he’d experienced in London, he’d skated through a winter of melancholy. All that had changed, though, in the weeks after Hoag’s death, when young Willy had turned to him for comfort and guidance. Jason had seemed to thrive with the boy looking up to him, and as Flossie had become more and more visibly pregnant, his confidence had doubled. Jason might not have liked the man he had been, but the father he was well on his way to becoming sent Flossie’s heart soaring.
“Jason, Flossie. There you are,” Lady E greeted them as she dashed out of the house and into the spring sunlight. She barely paused before saying, “We’re having tea out in the back garden. All of us.” Excitement filled her eyes.
“All of us?” Jason asked, confused.
“Even Papa,” Lady E went on, her eyes wide.
“Lord Gerald has left his bed?” Flossie asked, her jaw dropping.
“Isn’t it extraordinary?” Lady E said, gesturing for them to hurry to the door, through the house, and out through an impossibly long sitting room to the back garden. “He decided this morning, out of the blue, that he simply had to go outside.”
“Good Lord,” Jason said.
He turned to Flossie with a shocked expression. She merely smiled at him and shrugged in return.
Though she had been to Huntingdon Hall several times now, the grand estate still gave Flossie pause. She’d become used to the running of a country house in her time as a maid at Crestmont Grange, but those memories hadn’t been happy ones. Aside from the unpleasantness, she had been in service, she had been inferior. Now, with her marriage to Jason less than two months away, Lady E had taken it into her head that Flossie would come to live with them, not as a servant, but as a long-term guest. Her baby would be raised in the nursery, along with whatever siblings came along in the future. Those siblings would be passed off as Lady E’s children—though the ruse would be impossible for the baby Flossie was carrying now—and Flossie’s second child would someday inherit Huntingdon Hall and all its trappings.
It was an utterly mad plan. Not a soul would be fooled. Flossie was certain she would be miserable in the arrangement. And yet, it seemed inevitable. Lady E’s influence had been key in Marshall’s bid to win his children back from Clara’s family, and as it happened, Lady E’s continued support of Jason had indeed gone a long way toward squashing the rumors that he was mad—rumors which had threatened for a short time to bring Jason’s entire business empire down. Flossie was ready to sacrifice everything for Jason and the continuation of the one thing—besides her—which made him happy, his hotels.
But that didn’t mean she had to like one bit of it. Not even stepping out into the sunny garden filled with spring blooms and seeing Lord Gerald bundled up in blankets as he reclined on a lawn chair, smiling up at the sun with his eyes closed, calmed the sense of wariness in Flossie’s gut.
“Papa, look. Mr. Throckmorton and Miss Stowe are here,” Lady E introduced them with all the enthusiasm of an adolescent girl heading to her first ball as they approached Lord Gerald’s chair.
Lady Charlotte sat with him, as tense as a spring in her chair. Her face pulled into a tight smile that failed to reach her eyes as she glanced up at Jason. “Mr. Throckmorton,” she greeted him in a brittle voice. She paused, her lips pinching as though she’d tasted something sour as she glanced to Flossie and muttered, “Miss Stowe.”
“Lady Charlotte,” Jason greeted her with a nod.
“Lady Charlotte,” Flossie followed with an appropriately deep curtsy.
Lady Charlotte’s gaze dropped to Flossie’s round belly, and she made a derisive sound. A moment later, she cleared her throat and reached for a teacup on the low table beside her.
Flossie ignored the woman’s reaction. Half of the hoity-toity women in town made the same face and the same disgusted noises when they saw her—or rather, her condition, which she made no effort to hide—but their expressions took on a more jealous hue when their eyes landed on the fine jewelry Jason had given her. It was enough for Flossie to believe Jason adorned her with expensive trinkets on purpose.
“What? Who?” Lord Gerald jerked in his chair as though he would sit up straight. He opened his eyes and glanced around with a moment of confused panic. He spotted Flossie and instantly calmed. “Ah, Emily. I was so worried about you.” He extended a hand to her.
Flossie glanced questioningly to Jason before stepping forward and taking Lord Gerald’s hand. “My name is Flossie, my lord. Not Emily.”
“You’re not Emily?” Lord Gerald asked.
His eyes filled with such sadness—not to mention the sort of puzzlement that touched the minds of the elderly—that Flossie instantly gave up on the truth and lowered herself to sit on the lawn chair by Lord Gerald’s side. It was a feat that grew harder by the day.
“Why are you worried about Emily, my lord?” she asked, holding his gnarled hand with its paper-thin skin in one of her hands while stroking the back with her other.
“Why, the baby, of course,” he said. With some effort, he reached over with his other hand to pat both of hers.
“We must be careful of the baby.”
“It’s the most extraordinary thing,” Lady E said, gesturing for Jason to follow her to the free chairs on the other side of the tea table from where Lady Charlotte sat. Polly—who stood guard behind the tea table—rushed forward to pour tea for her. “This morning when I went to have breakfast with Papa, I mentioned that it was a beautiful day, and that you and Flossie would be joining us for tea this afternoon, and he insisted on being brought outside. Can you imagine?”
“No, frankly,” Jason said, taking a seat and graciously accepting tea from Polly. “When was the last time he went outside?”
“Three years ago,” Lady E said.
Flossie turned to Lord Gerald as their conversation continued and asked, “Has it truly been three years since you’ve been outside, my lord?”
“It has,” Lord Gerald answered with a sudden burst of coherence. “My gout, you see,” he went on. “It’s terribly painful. But when I heard that you were coming I knew I couldn’t face you like an old, decrepit man in his sickbed.”
“I’m flattered, my lord,” Flossie said with a broad smile, although she sensed the veil of age had descended on him once more after a brief moment of clarity. “And are you enjoying your sunlight?”
“Wonderfully, now that you are here, my dear,” he said, squeezing her hand, though without much strength. “Have you been keeping well?” he asked.
“As well as can be expected,” Flossie told him.
She glanced to Jason and Lady E, who had rushed into a surprisingly animated discussion of Mrs. Crimpley’s behavior at Easter services on the previous Sunday. Flossie suppressed a grin. Ever since January, Jason had turned into a veritable gossiping hen around Lady E. The two had come to some sort of understanding and interacted like the best of friends. And while Flossie had to admit to some degree of jealousy over the connection the pair had formed, it was far easier to have the two of them get along than to have them at loggerheads, as they had been in the fall.
