The Brynthwaite Boys - Season One - Part Three Read online

  The Brynthwaite Boys: Season One

  Part Three

  Merry Farmer

  THE BRYNTHWAITE BOYS

  SEASON ONE

  VOLUME THREE

  Copyright ©2018 by Merry Farmer

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the retailer where it was purchased and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  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)

  The Brynthwaite Boys – Original Copyright ©2016

  Episode Nine – A Turn for the Worse ©2016

  Episode Six – A Confession of Love ©2016

  Episode Seven – A Crisis Point ©2016

  Episode Eight – A Question Answered ©2016

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Episode Nine - A Turn for the Worse

  Untitled

  Episode Ten - A Confession of Love

  Untitled

  Episode Eleven - A Crisis Point

  Untitled

  Episode Twelve - A Question Answered

  Untitled

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Episode Nine - A Turn for the Worse

  Marshall

  “Mary, please pass the sugar to your aunt Eileen,” Marshall instructed his oldest daughter, who sat rigid in her place at the breakfast table.

  Mary sent him a pleading look, but when Marshall frowned and shook his head, she gave up with a sigh. Silently, she reached for the sugar bowl and passed it to Eileen.

  “Thank you,” Eileen mumbled. She scooped two spoonfuls into her tea and stirred it, not looking at anyone.

  It had been like this for days. Painful breakfasts in which no one spoke and digestion was barely possible. The younger girls had started out by acting up. Martha had even thrown her food one day. But after a stern lecture from him, that all stopped. Now the five of them ate their meals in stilted silence, not bothering to be more than civil.

  Something was different that morning. Marshall could feel it in the air. Where Eileen was usually sanctimonious and difficult, this morning she was subdued. No, expectant. It killed Marshall’s appetite and turned every bite of his porridge to dust. She was planning something, and damn him, but it brought Mother Grace’s dire warnings to his mind.

  Mother Grace. That blasted woman and her fortune-telling had haunted his dreams. He would lose the girls unless he helped someone. Or perhaps that someone could help him not to lose them. Nothing Mother Grace had ever said made a lick of sense to him. Why could she not simply love him as a mother should? As he loved his girls?

  “Won’t you be leaving for the hospital shortly?” Eileen asked, then hid her face by taking a long sip of her tea.

  Marshall glanced at her through narrowed eyes as he cut his breakfast sausage. “As soon as I can, but not sooner than I need to.” He peeked at Molly and winked, though not with as much humor as he used to use.

  Molly grinned anyhow, but that grin was short lived. She played with her sausage, rolling it back and forth across her plate.

  “I was speaking with Mrs. Crimpley at the mercantile yesterday,” Eileen went on. “She indicated there could be a problem with influenza in Brynthwaite.”

  “It’s always possible.” Marshall took a bite of sausage to buy time. Why was she bothering to start this conversation with him?

  Likely to come up with an excuse to whisk the girls off to London, he answered himself. Marshall wasn’t fool enough to think not speaking about it outright meant she’d given up on her quest. No, it was more likely that she was deeper into plotting with Clara’s family than ever. Silence was never a good thing.

  “Papa, what is influzaza?” Martha asked, tilting her head to the side.

  “Influenza is an illness,” Mary answered.

  “Your sister is correct.” Marshall nodded. “Influenza is an illness that makes one very sick indeed.”

  Martha’s eyes went round. From the other side of the table, Molly eyed him warily.

  “I’m not going to get influnenza, am I?” Martha asked.

  Marshall smiled in spite of Eileen’s dour frown. On any other day, without Eileen and her threats hanging over them, this could have been a sweet conversation and excellent learning opportunity for all.

  “No, sweetheart,” he said. “You’re not going to get influenza. Nothing is going to harm you if I have anything to do with it.”

  He finished his comment by pinning Eileen with a stare at the other end of the table.

  The corner of Eileen’s mouth twitched. She refused to meet his eyes directly. She sipped at her tea, then dabbed the corner of her tight mouth with her napkin, saying nothing.

  Marshall’s pulse shot up. Something was wrong. Very wrong. It wasn’t that Eileen refused to meet his eyes. She was staring past him and to the right. Into the hall. At the front door. Every nerve in Marshall’s body prickled in warning.

  “Does anyone at the hospital have influenza?” Mary asked.

  It took a monumental exercise of will for Marshall to pull his attention away from Eileen in order to focus on his daughter. “I believe there are one or two mild cases, yes.” He nodded to Mary, then continued cutting his sausage. “As I understand it, the outbreak is more severe in Windermere. Cases have been reported in Grasmere, as well as Graythwaite and Newby Bridge.”

  “Really,” Eileen snapped at last. “It’s bad enough that you coddle the girls. This talk of illness is inappropriate in the extreme.”

  “I like to know about medicine,” Mary declared, back straight.

  “It is not an appropriate topic for children,” Eileen argued. “And you will hold your tongue.”

  “I want to be a doctor, like Dr. Dyson,” Mary announced. “And I will not hold my tongue.”

  Marshall’s brow flew up at both of Mary’s declarations. A zip of pride filled his chest, so much so that he sent a gloating smile to Eileen.

  “When we are in London,” Eileen began, but stopped abruptly. She hid behind her teacup once more.

  “I’m never going to London,” Mary declared, crossing her arms.

  “Me neither.” Molly imitated her.

  “Girls, I think it would be best if—”

  Marshall was cut off by a knock at the front door. The door Eileen had been staring at. When Eileen lowered her teacup, she wore a wolfish smile.

  Marshall’s blood ran cold.

  “I’ll get it.” Mary pushed her chair back and jumped from her seat.

  “You’d better let me.” Marshall cut her off. His eyes never left Eileen’s grin as he put his napkin down, got up, and strode to the door.

  A second knock came. Moments later, Eileen pushed to her feet and scurried around the table to the hall as Marshall reached the door.

  Two stern men in drab, gray suits and a woman with white hair pulled back in a severe bun waited on the other side. Marshall’s hands and feet went numb.

  “Can I help you?” he asked them.

  “Dr. Marshall Pycroft?” the taller of the two men asked.

  “Yes.” Marshall quickly sized up the men. Strong-arms, both of them.
The woman looked like she could throw her weight around too. His blood pumped so hard it made him dizzy. “How can I help you?”

  The spokesman reached into his coat pocket and took out a folded piece of paper. He handed it to Marshall. “We have come to administer an order from the High Court concerning the guardianship of misses Mary, Molly, and Martha Pycroft.”

  “What?” Marshall barked.

  “Due to your failure to appear at the court’s hearing regarding guardianship of the misses Pycroft, the High Court has determined that Mr. Percival Danforth, Esq., as the girls’ grandfather, should be granted custody, enforceable immediately.”

  “What court hearing?” Marshall boomed, a desperate panic pulling him to shreds inside. He spun to face Eileen. “What court hearing?”

  Eileen sniffed, radiating victory. “It’s not my fault if you fail to read mail and telegrams that are sent to you.”

  Marshall saw red. His head pounded so hard he thought he might pass out. “You hid mail from me.” It wasn’t a question. “Where is it? Where have you been putting those letters?”

  Eileen shrugged. “How should I know? It’s your mail.”

  He rounded on her, snatching her by the arms and shaking her. Behind Eileen, Molly shrieked in surprise. The trio in the doorway leapt into action.

  “None of that,” the spokesman shouted.

  “Told you he would be trouble,” the shorter, bulky man said.

  “Dr. Pycroft, you were given ample opportunity to present your case in court, which you have failed to do after numerous summons were sent to you,” the spokesman went on.

  “I never received any summons,” Marshall railed as the bulky man ripped him away from Eileen, wrenching his arms behind his back.

  “Nevertheless, several summons were sent,” the spokesman insisted.

  “This witch hid them from me.”

  “Dr. Pycroft, that is none of my concern,” the spokesman mumbled. Judging by the droop of his eyelids and the lazy way he gestured for the white-haired matron to round up the girls, he either didn’t care or, more likely, was in on it. “My charge is to take the girls into custody immediately and to deliver them to their rightful guardian.”

  “I’m their father,” Marshall shouted. “I am their rightful guardian.”

  “Not according to the High Court,” the spokesman said. “Take them.”

  Pandemonium erupted. The girls all screamed and bolted in different directions. Marshall yanked and shoved and stomped on the feet of the man holding him, but it was like being trapped in a vise that only grew tighter with each movement he made. The white-haired matron caught a screaming, flailing Martha without much trouble, but Mary dashed upstairs while Molly took off for the kitchen, Eileen in hot pursuit.

  “It’s all right,” Marshall cried out to Martha, the only one of his girls he could see. “Daddy is here. It’s all right.”

  He didn’t believe the words himself, and Martha certainly couldn’t have with the way he struggled, red-faced and sweating with desperation.

  A sharp cry sounded from the kitchen, followed by several sick swatting sounds. Molly’s wails echoed through the hall as Eileen dragged her back through the dining room—breakfast abandoned—and out to the hall. A red mark marred Molly’s face and she screamed and wept, holding her side as Eileen wrenched her along by her wrist.

  “How dare you raise a hand to her,” Marshall bellowed, stumbling in his desperation to break free of the man holding him. He was wild with fury, near to the breaking point.

  “Got her,” a cry came from above, followed by Mary’s high-pitched scream and a thump. “Little bitch,” the spokesman yelled.

  “If you harm one hair on her head, so help me God, you will not live to see the light of day,” Marshall thundered.

  His stomach turned as Mary and the spokesman appeared at the top of the stairs. Mary was red-faced and weeping, and when she lost her footing on the top stair, the spokesman continued to drag her with a death-grip on her arm. Marshall growled and gnashed his teeth as he fought with everything he had to escape. Mary was older than the others, nearly a woman, and the spokesman looked at her with a fiendish light that had Marshall ready to murder him.

  “Do they have bags packed?” the spokesman asked Eileen, still sounding lazy and dull in spite of the chaos around him.

  “You won’t take them.” Marshall shouted, sweating in his struggle to break free.

  He was ignored in favor of Eileen’s reply of, “I packed them last night. Hold this one and I’ll fetch them.” She shuffled Molly off into the burly arms of the white-haired matron, who managed to clamp down on both girls.

  “You traitor,” Marshall hollered up the stairs after Eileen as she rushed to fetch the bags. “I let you into my home, and you stab me in the back like this? You snake. You devil woman. I will not rest until I see you cold and rotting in your grave.”

  “Combative?” the spokesman suggested to the burly man who struggled with Marshall. He still had a hand clamped over Mary’s arm, and no matter how hard she pulled or tugged or wailed, he wouldn’t let her go. “Resisting the implementation of justice? Violent? I’d say his chances of mounting a counter-case are looking dim.”

  As if someone had poured cold water over him and then applied an electrical current, Marshall went still. This was no random atrocity. Eileen—Clara’s entire family—had planned this. These wankers were involved down to their marrow. Anything that he did, any amount of fight he displayed for his girls’ sake, would be noted by three witnesses and dragged into a court of law to ensure that he never saw his girls again. He’d been set up in every possible way.

  He went limp, all fight gone. “It’s all right, girls,” he told them, careful to make eye contact with each one. He held that eye contact to the best of his ability. It was vital that his darlings listened to him now. “It will be all right.”

  “It won’t be all right,” Mary insisted, near hysterics. “They’re going to take us away.”

  Marshall swallowed, his chest imploding in agony. “Yes, they are, my sweets, and I’m so, so sorry.”

  “Make them stop, Papa, make them stop,” Molly wailed.

  “I…I can’t, my love.” He choked on the words. “Your grandfather has fixed it so that I can’t do anything.”

  “I hate him,” Mary shouted, though she too had stopped physically struggling. “I will never go live with him.”

  “You won’t have to, at least not for long,” Marshall promised, though he questioned whether he could make good on that promise. “But for now, you must go with your aunt Eileen.”

  “No, no.” All three girls whined and wept in protest.

  “Here we go.” Eileen made her way down the stairs. She had her suitcase in one hand, and another large suitcase in the other. “The train leaves at quarter past nine. We have twenty minutes to get to the station.”

  “You’ve got tickets for this lot?” the spokesman asked, still bored.

  “In my bag,” Eileen answered. She had the gall to send an anxious glance to Marshall, proving that she had planned this entire, backstabbing travesty to the last detail.

  “I won’t go, Papa,” Mary vowed. “I won’t. You can’t make me.”

  The bitter irony of the situation was that not only could they make her go, not only could these brutes take his girls, his life, all the way to London, if they resisted, harm would come to them. He glanced to Molly. The red mark on her face was in the shape of a hand. Every inch of him wanted to fight, to give back to Eileen ten times what the vile woman had dished out to him and his children, but she’d already proven she was capable of hurting them. The only way to keep his girls safe was to relinquish them to her without a fight.

  For now.

  “I will allow them to go,” he said, standing with as much dignity as he could while the bulky man held him trapped.

  “You won’t allow them to do anything,” the spokesman drawled.

  Marshall ignored him, staring at Eileen with a l
ook that would burn her to cinders if there was any justice in the world. “I will allow you to take them, provided you do not raise a hand against any of them ever again.” His voice shook with fury to such an extent that he could hardly finish his pronouncement.

  “I….” Eileen balked, eyes darting from the spokesman to Molly’s injured face and back to Marshall. “I won’t hurt them if they behave themselves.”

  It was as much an admission of guilt as if she had shouted from the rooftops that she had struck Molly in cold blood and would do it again.

  Somehow, Marshall managed to swallow the bile rising up in his throat and nod. “Girls. I know this is hard. It’s the hardest thing we’ve ever had to do. But you must go with your aunt Eileen.”

  “No,” they continued to protest.

  Marshall shook his head. “It’s only temporary. Your uncle Jason and I have been working on a way to block this, and I know we will find a way.” Though if Clara’s family had managed to push the hearing through the High Court without Jason’s solicitor getting word of it, then they were far more devious than he had given them credit for.

  “You will not try to stop me?” Eileen asked.

  It made Marshall sick to his stomach, sick beyond words, but he nodded. “I will not prevent you from taking the girls, provided you let me accompany them to the train station and to see them off.”

  Eileen pressed her lips tight. She studied the situation before her, the chaos she had caused. At last, she let out a breath and nodded. “All right. You can come with us to the train station. But if you cause a scene, I cannot be responsible for what might happen.”

  “Understood.” He did understand. All too well. Eileen held all the cards in this farce of a game. She knew that he wouldn’t allow a single hair on any of his dear, sweet babies’ heads to be harmed, even if it meant losing them.