The Brynthwaite Boys - Season One - Part Two

by Merry Farmer

  Bobbo shook his head. “As long as they think she did it, we’re safe.”

  It was agonizing, like casting a horseshoe when the metal refused to behave. “For how long?” Lawrence pushed on. “What’s Hoag going to do when the true story comes out? What are you going to do?”

  All color drained from Bobbo’s face. “She won’t say nothing. He’ll make sure she don’t say nothing. She’s scared of him, she is.”

  Lawrence caught his breath. “Hoag did it, didn’t he.”

  Bobbo’s eyes darted around the room, and he hunched closer to Lawrence. “So what if he did? You ain’t never gonna be able to prove a thing. The law, they think the girl did it, and no one’s gonna say otherwise.”

  “You will.” Lawrence smiled. “For the right price, you will. You just did.”

  Bobbo’s throat convulsed as if he’d swallowed a nettle. “I ain’t gonna say nothing.” His expression shifted, pinching and growing sharp. “You don’t want me to say nothing either. Cuz if I go pointing fingers, I’ll point one straight at Mathilda.”

  “Matty is innocent.”

  “Innocent.” Bobbo spat. “That girl hated her mother. Hated her for years. Everyone knew it. She may not have done her in, but she stood by and watched. You think a judge is gonna let her get away with doing that?”

  Lawrence clenched his jaw. Bobbo had a point. Unless they could prove that she did nothing out of fear, which Lawrence believed was far more likely than Matty failing to act out of malice.

  He feigned coolness, spreading his arms and looking Bobbo in the eye. “The law doesn’t look kindly on men who withhold key information in murder cases.”

  For a split second, Bobbo blanched. Then his eyes narrowed and he leaned across the table.

  “I know what this is about,” he whispered. “You had that little piece of ass. You had her and you want more. You’d do anything to keep her.”

  It was true, so Lawrence kept silent.

  “Well, Trevor ain’t gonna like that. Oh no. That piece was his for the taking. He won’t be happy when I tell him what I know.”

  “I couldn’t care less about Hoag’s happiness. He’s a murder, and he’ll be brought to justice,” Lawrence said.

  Bobbo shook his head. He stood, still leaning over the table. “You think you’re clever, but clever ain’t nothing. Just you wait until I tell Trev what I know.” He leaned even closer. “You think the law is something to worry about? One word from me, and Trevor will be down here, looking for vengeance.”

  Lawrence met the threat with a stony face. He ignored the cry of warning in his heart.

  “That little bitch burned him,” Bobbo went on, “and once I tell him what I know, he’ll come down here and he’ll burn her too. Harder. Worse. He’ll have her while she’s burning, then he’ll give her what her bitch of a mother got. And then he’ll come after you.”

  Words. They were just words. Hollow threats from a stupid man who basked in the shadow of a black-hearted murderer.

  And yet they still sent Lawrence’s urge to protect Matty to nearly insane heights.

  “He’ll never find her,” he said.

  “Oh, he will,” Bobbo countered him. “He’ll find her if he has to burn the whole wood down to do it.”

  Bobbo pushed away from the table. He turned and marched out the pub’s door before breath could come back to Lawrence’s lungs. Burn the whole woods? Bobbo couldn’t know. It had to have been a guess. The forge was located at the edge of the woods. It was coincidence, nothing more.

  But if it wasn’t, the danger Matty was in had just increased.

  Jason

  “As you can see, the placement of the windows on both the east and west sides of the dining room/ballroom and the position relative to the floor and ceiling allow for the maximum amount of sunlight to illuminate the space.” From his position in the center of the hotel’s dining room, Jason gestured toward the windows. With his left hand. His right hand was stiff at his side, as per the rules Flossie had imposed on him today. “You may also notice that the beveled edges of the window glass also creates an illumination effect.”

  His right hand twitched, so he balled it into a fist. Damn. It took far more concentration than he had bargained for to ignore his natural inclination to use his right hand. Then again, the whole point was to avoid his natural inclinations to begin with. And on that score, Flossie had effectively pulled off a miracle.

  Jason relaxed his right hand and smiled, content down to his soul.

  The investors—a stodgy bunch from York—pivoted this way and that, humming and murmuring at the windows. Jason could see the pound signs flickering through their minds, but it didn’t bother him a bit.

  “It is quite an attractive design,” Mr. Fredericks nodded, stroking his pointed beard.

  “Yes, yes,” Mr. Thorpe agreed. “Beautiful and functional.”

  “Thank you.” Jason grinned, standing straighter.

  He clasped his hands behind his back, pulling the fabric of his coat tighter across his chest. He didn’t even mind the potential for embarrassment that lay in stretching the garment flatter around his hips. Things were indeed flat in that area, just as they should be.

  “If you would like to follow me,” he continued, “I can show you one of our typical guestrooms.”

  He gestured with his left hand and started across the ballroom. Some of his staff were already poking their heads out from around the kitchen door, ready to convert the room from its extravagant set-up to the usual dining room arrangement. As he led the investors through the double doors to the lobby, Flossie crossed from the back hall out toward the stairs. Their eyes met as they passed. His heart sped up for a moment and the urge to put his right hand to use by reaching out to touch her flared, but neither of them paid any outward attention to the other. Flossie bobbed a respectful curtsy, then continued up the stairs.

  Jason’s heart continued to throb as he ushered the investors down the lower hall to one of the garden rooms. The joy of each expansive beat threatened to put a smile on his face so big that anyone who saw him would think he was daft.

  “The Dragon’s Head has four grades of rooms,” he explained to the investors with a ridiculous lilt in his voice. “Two grades of garden rooms, on the east side of the hotel’s wings, and two grades of lake rooms on the west. The room you are about to see is the lower grade of the two—as all of the upper grade are occupied at the moment—but as you can see, it is still the height of luxury.”

  He unlocked the vacant guest room that had been prepared for the tour—with his left hand. The pack of investors shuffled in, humming over every detail as though they were government inspectors. Jason stood in the center of the room, smiling.

  “Now, if we contract you to build our hotel,” Mr. Fredericks said as he ran a finger along the bureau at one side of the room, “would you recreate this hotel or come up with another design?”

  “I can design to whatever specifications you require,” Jason answered with a nod. “Though I strongly suggest incorporating electricity into your design, as all hotels will be electrified within just a few years.”

  More coos and hums, followed by, “And you say you designed this hotel yourself?” from Mr. Waterston.

  “I did, yes.” Jason’s smile grew.

  Never mind that taking up architectural design had been a desperate bid to distract himself from the incessant demands of his rebellious body and an excuse to shutter himself away instead of drowning in London’s underworld. He’d entertained this inquiry from Mr. Frederick’s cartel because he was curious to see what kind of work he could do in a proper state of mind.

  Mr. Fredericks turned to him once more. “One thing I don’t understand, Mr. Throckmorton. You are a successful hotelier in your own right. My research indicates that the businesses you run are profitable and expandable. Why would you act counter to that and resort to designing—like a common architect—for another entity who could become your competition?”

  Jason
shrugged. “One does what one enjoys, even if there is no need to do so for survival.” He heard the statement in Flossie’s voice. Indeed, Flossie would likely praise him as she straightened his coat and tidied his hair, and tell him that he was a clever man for having so many skills to fall back on. How had a man like him ever been so lucky as to find—

  “Mr. Throckmorton, sir.”

  Jason spun toward the door as Samuel entered, a benign smile in place.

  “Yes?” Jason asked.

  “Lady Elizabeth is here to see you. In the lobby, sir.”

  Jason’s brow shot up. Lady E.? A flutter of excitement and dread rolled up together zipped through his gut. He nodded to Samuel, then pivoted toward the investors. “Gentlemen, if you will excuse me.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Mr. Fredericks said, a knowing spark in his eyes. “We’ve seen more than enough today to give us quite a bit to think about.”

  With a final smile—not quite so free or generous as the one that had settled over him before—Jason bowed to them, then turned and followed Samuel out to the hall.

  “Did Lady Elizabeth say why she was here?” he asked. He raised both hands to straighten his coat, but froze as if he’d been bit, thrust his right hand down by his side, and used only his left hand to do the straightening.

  “She did not, sir.”

  It was all Samuel had time to say before they turned the corner into the lobby.

  “Ah, Mr. Throckmorton. There you are.”

  Lady E. swept forward, appearing to glide across the marble floor of the lobby in her long lace gown.

  “Lady Elizabeth.” Jason had barely straightened from a formal bow when Lady E. waltzed up to him, hooking her arm through his right one.

  Damn. She was on the wrong side. That thought was swiftly followed by the pulsing confusion over the fact that she had taken his arm at all. She’d never swept right up to him and…and clung before.

  His senses pushed into calamity as she began a slow walk across the lobby toward the front door with him. His arm bristled with tension, some of it sexual. His heart thundered and his legs felt far more elastic than they should have. Worst of all, that rebellious part of him that he was so certain he’d tamed—with Flossie’s help—jumped into action.

  “I was just in the neighborhood,” Lady E. went on, “when I thought what better way to spend the afternoon than to have tea with Jason Throckmorton?” She placed her free hand on his arm, angling her chest toward him as they strolled through the lobby and into the hot sunshine of the summer afternoon.

  “I am honored,” Jason managed to reply. Honored. So why did part of him want to run headlong down to the river and jump in to swim away and never be seen again.

  Get a hold of yourself, man, he scolded himself. On second thought, ‘getting a hold of himself’ was not the image he needed with Lady E. fawning all over him.

  And she was fawning.

  She drew in a deep breath of garden air—a movement that brushed her lace-clad chest against his arm. A jolt of lust shot through him. A jolt that terrified him on too many different levels.

  What are you doing? He demanded of himself. Push her away. Get rid of her.

  But no, that was absurd. Hadn’t he spent all this time, all these years, aching for just such a moment? Lady E. was the holy grail, as far as he was concerned. She was the reason he’d built The Dragon’s Head in the first place, the reason he’d fled London. He wanted to prove he was worthy of—

  “I just love the way you’ve constructed these paths,” she said, slowing their pace even further as they meandered into the rose garden at the side of the hotel. “They’re so romantic, so…so secretive.”

  It was not his imagination that she gave his arm a squeeze as she said it.

  “I found the designs in an old manuscript of monastery gardens,” he mumbled. “Though the arrangement of the paths in those establishments was more for contemplation than courtship.”

  Lady E. sighed. “Courtship. What a beautiful word. You are so eloquent, Mr. Throckmorton.”

  Jason gasped for breath as they turned down a side lane. Sighing? And now she was inclining her head toward him? What the bloody hell was going on?

  “I do so admire your initiative, Jason,” Lady E. went on. She stopped, gasped, and turned to face him. “May I call you Jason?”

  Jason’s mouth fluttered open, but it took him several more stuttering moments to form words. “Yes, of course, Lady Elizabeth.”

  Lady E. laughed, pressing a hand to her chest near the high collar and glittering brooch she wore. “If I’m to call you Jason, then you simply must call me Elizabeth. It’s what friends do, after all.”

  A war broke out in Jason’s head and heart and body. Somehow, the moment he found himself stuck in was nothing like reality as he assumed it should be. There, right in front of him, casting coquettish looks in his direction, was everything that he had ever wanted in life, everything he had longed for since he was a boy.

  And it felt wrong.

  “Lady…Elizabeth, you must forgive me,” he said, blinking rapidly and rocking slightly away from her. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this increase in intimacy?”

  Again, she laughed. It was a beautiful sound, like a well-trained pianist tickling the ivories. “Only that you have proven yourself to be deliciously clever and delightfully competent in your involvement with my aunt’s house party,” she explained. “Seeing you hard at work has given me a whole new appreciation of your skills.”

  Was it his imagination or did her gaze slip downward at the mention of the words ‘hard’ and ‘skills?’ Had Lady Stratton said something to her? Good Lord, the idea turned his guts to jelly…and his nether regions to decidedly inconvenient stone.

  “I’m pleased that I could prove myself in your eyes.” He smiled nonetheless and walked on with her. What was he supposed to do now? Now, when everything he’d always wanted was being handed to him?

  But he already had everything he’d ever wanted.

  “Ah,” Lady E. came to a stop when they rounded a corner, facing the hotel once more. “There’s Flossie. I’m certain she can provide us with tea. She’s far and away the most delightful member of your staff, don’t you think?”

  Caught between intense relief at the sight of Flossie coming to his rescue and absolute dread of what she would see—in his eyes, in his body, in everything about him—Jason could only make a tight, strangled noise in response.

  “Sir, your ladyship,” Flossie greeted them with a soft smile, curtsying low. “Samuel informs me that you would like to have tea in the garden.”

  “He does?” Jason croaked.

  “Yes, that would be lovely,” Lady E. answered. The smile she gave Flossie was as bright as a winter morning.

  Flossie curtsied again. “I’ll have everything you need set up on the south patio in ten minutes,” she said, then turned to leave, a confident spring in her step.

  Wasn’t she anxious? Shouldn’t she be…jealous? Just a little? She couldn’t possibly trust him. She knew how he felt about Lady E. She knew how he pined.

  “She is such a delight,” Lady E. said. “Of course, Flossie has been a lifelong friend of my maid, Polly. Everything Polly has told me about their days growing up together indicates that Flossie is the sweetest, kindest, most loyal and loving friend anyone could have.” Her eyes darted up to check his.

  Dear God, was Lady E. jealous? Of Flossie? No, that couldn’t be right either. No one knew a thing about Flossie and him. At least, he prayed no one knew.

  Somehow, Jason managed to stumble his way through ten minutes of frivolous conversation with Lady E. She gossiped all about the house party, about the engagements that had come about as a result of it, and about the couples who she was certain would soon declare themselves. It seemed her aunt had much to be proud of, though Lady E.’s focus was much more on the topic of matrimony and how happy it could make people than on Lady C.’s success as a hostess. By the time they were seated on the south p
atio with a beautiful tea spread out before them, Jason knew more about the matrimonial leanings of the contingent at Huntingdon Hall than he ever supposed he would.

  “Thank you, Flossie,” he said with pretend calm as she finished laying out the plates.

  “You’re most welcome, sir, my lady.” Flossie curtsied perfectly.

  As she stood to go, Jason caught her eye. He pleaded with her not to leave him with a look that was so blatant and so pitiful that he was certain Lady E. would say something about it. But no, Lady E. was absorbed in pouring and stirring her tea. Flossie’s face twitched into a confused frown, but she received the message. Rather than returning to the hotel, she backed off to a suitable distance and watched. Watched over him. Just as he needed.

  He lifted his left hand to take his teacup when Lady E. presented it.

  “Why, Jason. I had no idea you were left-handed,” Lady E. commented.

  “I’m not,” Jason replied with a twitching smile.

  Lady E. stared at him in confusion, then took a breath and went on. “I tell you truthfully, all of the matchmaking going on at the Hall has caused me to seriously consider what my own matrimonial future might look like.”

  Jason choked on his tea. He swallowed hard, coughed several times, then croaked, “I’m terribly sorry. Please forgive me.”

  “That’s quite all right,” Lady E. smiled.

  “Here, let me clear that, sir.” Flossie stepped forward, swiping up one of the napkins from the table and dabbing at the tablecloth where he’d spilled tea. He put his teacup down, hand shaking, and Flossie instantly picked it up and moved it out of his reach.

  “Thank you,” he mumbled when she finished and backed up. This time she didn’t move as far away. Thick embarrassment washed through him. He scrambled for a way to hide it. “After all these years Lad—Elizabeth, you would truly give up your independence for marriage?”

  “Why not?” Lady E. smiled and batted her lashes. “Coupling is, after all, the natural state of things between man and woman.” She sipped at her tea, casting a coy glance over the edge of the cup at him.