The Brynthwaite Boys - Season One - Part Three Page 20

  Seeing her cousin was a surprise, but in current circumstances, it couldn’t be called a pleasant one. Elizabeth was gorgeous in her blue silk, her hair done up with ribbons and pearls, and just the right amount of rouge tinting her lips, but when Alex looked at her, all she saw was a peacock and a traitor.

  “Which wretched man?” she asked. She took a deep breath, stepped away from the fountain where she’d been staring at her miserable reflection, and left her gloomy thoughts behind her.

  “Jason,” Elizabeth growled.

  “Is Mr. Throckmorton coming to Mother’s wedding?” Alex asked. She thought she’d seen him and Flossie heading to the train station with suitcases in hand as she’d left the hospital after her early-morning check-in.

  “I told him he should be here,” Elizabeth said, kid gloved hands clenched into fists. “I sent him not one, but two notes this morning demanding his presence. The wedding begins within twenty minutes. What does he think he’s about?”

  “I think he’s about conducting his life the way he sees fit,” Alex fired back.

  The indignant sneer that Elizabeth sent her only served to spark a brief feeling of satisfaction in Alex’s breast. She shouldn’t be the only one unable to get what she wanted.

  “That’s ridiculous.” Elizabeth brushed her off with a wave of her hand. “I told him to be here, he should be here.”

  “My lady, your mother is looking for you.”

  Alex turned to find Polly striding toward them, her pretty face serious for a change. Elizabeth must have told her maid to dress in something other than the standard black, but rather than opting for a subtle gray or taupe, as most lady’s maids would, Polly wore bright green. It highlighted her rather Irish coloring, bringing out the green in her eyes and the ginger in her hair. Hair that was done up in a fashionable style. In fact, as Polly paused by Elizabeth’s side, she looked less like Elizabeth’s maid and more like her dear friend.

  “Did she say what she wanted?” Alex asked, long-suffering tension in her voice.

  “She is having trouble with the flowers, I believe, my lady,” Polly answered. “She needs you to fetch new ones for her.”

  “Doesn’t she have bridesmaids for that?”

  It was bad enough that her mother was making life-altering demands of Alex, but she hadn’t even chosen her own daughter to be one of her bridesmaids. Instead, a couple of older friends, well-positioned ladies from nearby estates, had been asked to perform the duties.

  “She does, my lady,” Polly said, sympathy softening her eyes, “but she insists that she needs them for other things. She believes you can be spared.”

  Alex huffed out a breath. “Of course.”

  She pivoted and stomped off, leaving Polly and Elizabeth whispering behind her. Alex tried not to burn with envy. She didn’t even have a maid to rely on in a time like this. Instead, she was the one who had been relegated to the position of maid. Well, if it would keep her in Cumbria and spare her being bundled off to Hampshire, she would take a position as a scullery maid in any house that would have her.

  “And where are you running off to in such a hurry?”

  The honeyed tones of George’s voice stopped Alex like spikes placed in her way. She squeezed her eyes shut as he approached her, Lady Arabella on his arm, balled her hands into fists for a moment, then forced herself to smile and turn to face the happy couple.

  “Mother has need of me,” she said. “So you will excuse me for not staying to greet you properly.” She hesitated at the genuine disappointment on Arabella’s sweet face. “Perhaps we can visit later, at the reception.”

  “I would like that,” Arabella said.

  “As would I,” George added. “Wouldn’t it be jolly for us all to become close friends? Seeing as we shall be cohabiting in Hampshire, I think it would be grand for the three of us to get to know each other very, very well.”

  There was something tawdry about the suggestion, something sinister. George gloated after he’d made it, eyes boring into Alex with a familiarity that was unmistakable.

  Unmistakable to all but Arabella, it would seem. George’s pretty fiancé only smiled at Alex with the touch of shyness that was her nature.

  A stab of anxiety hit Alex’s heart. She couldn’t let the sweet young girl make the worst mistake of her life. Not even in her present state of disgust with the world and distrust of all in it could she let that happen.

  “Lady Arabella, I was wondering if you could help me,” she said.

  “Oh?” Arabella flickered a questioning glance up to George. George smiled at her with all the indulgence of a wolf about to devour a lamb.

  Alex rushed on. “My mother has requested my help with flowers. I’m not certain what her concern is, but I’m certain that it would be better tackled by the two of us together. Will you come with me?”

  Arabella blossomed into a smile of relief. “Why certainly.” She let go of George’s arm and moved to Alex’s side.

  Without a backward glance for George, Alex took Arabella’s hand and charged on.

  “I’m grateful that you would ask for my help,” Arabella said as they walked down the lawn to where chairs and a trellis for the wedding ceremony had been set up. “I feel badly about how things were between us during the house party. You must believe that I never intended to—”

  “Don’t do it,” Alex cut her off. She drew Arabella behind a hedge before they could venture off into the green of the open lawn. “Don’t marry him.”

  Arabella gasped and blinked in surprise, raising a hand to her chest. “I…I don’t know what to say. I am sorry that you felt some sort of a tendre for George.”

  “It’s not that,” Alex said, shaking her head. She wracked her brain for a way to explain without humiliating herself and damaging Arabella’s innocence. “George Fretwell is not the man you think he is.”

  “Oh, but he is,” Arabella insisted. “He’s kind and generous and so handsome.”

  Alex gripped her arm. “He may appear to be all those things, but you must trust me when I tell you that he is deceptive. His character is not…is not what I would wish for you.” Dammit, but it was difficult to speak the truth without damaging someone’s sensibilities. She didn’t want to come off as sounding jealous or bitter either.

  “I don’t know what to say.” Arabella lowered her head, eyes wide with confusion. “I love George.”

  “Yes,” Alex sighed. “George is loveable, but that is part of the problem.”

  She tried to fix Arabella with a look that would tell her just how loveable. She worked to put as much seriousness into her expression as possible, to communicate without words what she could never say aloud. Arabella only glanced at her with uncertainty.

  “Alexandra.” Her mother’s shout from farther down the lawn shook them out of the sudden intensity of their communication. “Alexandra, I need you with me right now.”

  “We should go,” Arabella said, visibly relieved at the interruption. Without waiting for Alex to finish, she rushed off across the lawn toward the patch of grass where the wedding party stood.

  “Please don’t do it,” Alex called after her, but it was too late.

  She puffed out a breath, shoulders dropping in defeat, and marched after her.

  True to form, the adjustment to the flowers that her mother needed was trivial and could have been handled by one of the servants. At the very least, it gave Alex the opportunity to separate herself from the wedding party and to go off with a pair of shears into the garden in search of a replacement bloom for her mother’s bouquet.

  As she rounded a billowing hydrangea bush, shears at the ready, looking for exactly the right size blossom, she came face to face with Marshall. Her heart, her whole body, exploded with such relief that she came close to tears.

  “You have no idea how glad I am to see you,” she burst out without introduction.

  Marshall froze mid-step, eyes flashing wide and cheeks staining pink. His mouth hung open for a moment before he said, “
I hope you don’t intend to use those on me.” He nodded to her open shears.

  “Believe me, at this point I’m far more likely to use them on myself,” she said.

  “Oh dear.” Marshall frowned. Even his most dour, disapproving frown filled Alex with hope. Here she had a friend, a real and true friend.

  “Mother sent me on some ridiculous errand to find a better blossom for her bouquet,” she told him in a rush. “Why she can’t be satisfied with the one that her lady’s maid constructed for her this morning is beyond me. She sent me instead of a servant, because she couldn’t bother to make me one of her bridesmaids. I suppose she’s preparing me for the role she wishes me to play once we reach Hampshire. I have no doubt that she intends for me to be little more than an unpaid companion to her new married life, seeing as she’s stealing every bit of my life away from me.”

  She knew she was becoming hysterical, that the display of emotion was far beneath her dignity, but weeks’ worth of emotion had built up within her to the point where she could no longer stick a stopper in her disappointment with life. And with the only person who she could consider a true friend in front of her, blubbering was inevitable.

  “I’ve tried and tried, Marshall, but every scheme I come up with to convince them to let me stay, every argument and theory I’ve presented to them they’ve ignored. It’s as though I’ve ceased to be with them, my own family. They refuse to see me, as if I’m invisible and my hopes and dreams mean nothing to them.”

  She was going to cry. Lord help her, once again, she was going to cry in front of Marshall Pycroft. The man didn’t deserve that. She’d burdened him more than enough with her pitiful emotional state far too much in the last few months when what he truly needed was her strength.

  “Shh.” He tried to calm her. “It’s just a wedding. Just a minor set-back.”

  She shook her head violently. “No, it’s more than just that. It’s the culmination of years’ worth of being undermined and disregarded. I know who I am. I know what I want. I know what I was called to this world to do. And yet, at every turn, my own family, the people who are meant to support and cherish me, have done nothing but pressure and stifle me. And now I’m being sent off to find flowers for a woman who already has an entire garden surrounding her. She could have sent a servant, she could have sent anyone, but she sent me, sent me away as though I meant nothing. Meanwhile, I’m quite certain that George and the charming and lovely Lady Arabella are standing right there by her side, greeting guests and behaving exactly as appropriate young people should, when we all know what corruption lurks under the surface.”

  She huffed out a breath. If she didn’t steer away from that topic in a hurry, it would follow her for the rest of the day. And there was Marshall, standing placidly aside, listening to her. Truly listening to her, with compassion in his eyes. Compassion and something more.

  “I don’t know what to do, Marshall,” she said, raising her free hand to rub her forehead. “I simply don’t know what to do. I’m disappearing from my own life, like a drawing left out in the sun, colors fading, and no one around me seems to notice or care.”

  “I care,” he said.

  His words tugged at her heart, but her frustration crested. “Then why does no one else? Why must I constantly be surrounded by people who wish to destroy the essence of who I am? Who don’t care to ever look or see what burns in my heart. I can’t bear the thought of moldering away in a country house in Hampshire for the rest of my life, thrust at every eligible man who comes through town until it is decided that I’m too old for such things. I can’t bear to be a footnote in my own family, to be cast aside when—”

  Without warning, Marshall leaned into her, one hand touching her waist, and pressed his lips to hers to silence her. The shock of it sent an electric jolt from her lips to her gut to her core and on to her toes. There was something warm and soft in Marshall’s kiss, though it was little more than a brush. The scent of him—herbs and soap and a faint trace of hospital disinfectant—filled her nostrils, even as his moustache tickled her lip.

  The slippery sensation of melting had only just begun to take hold of her, urging her to respond with her whole body, when he stepped back.

  He cleared his throat. “Please forgive me,” he said, voice gravely. His eyes darted up to meet hers. “It was that or slapping you, and given the current circumstances...”

  Alex blinked. She could still feel the pressure of his lips against hers. The flash in his eyes spoke of humor and sympathy and so very much more. She raised a hand to press to her lips, confused by the disappointment of such a short kiss.

  Then she laughed. Not in derision, but because his gesture was so perfect, so well-timed, and so heart-felt that it filled her to bursting with joy. The world could crumble down around her, and Marshall Pycroft would stand by her side and tell her the weather was a bit daunting.

  Somewhere in her laughter, she caught her breath. “Yes, I suppose it would be a shock to return from picking flowers with a hand mark on my face,” she furthered his joke.

  A hint of tension dropped from his shoulders and he swayed closer to her. “Whatever would people think?” he offered his elbow.

  She slipped her hand gratefully into his arm. “I would simply tell them that I’d encountered an impertinent footman, and that I gave as good as I got.”

  Marshall laughed at her joke, and it was as if the sun had come out from behind dark clouds. He took the shears from her.

  “What kind of bloom does your mother want?” he asked.

  “Oh, I don’t known know,” Alex answered, exasperated. “Something better, she said, though Lord knows what she means by that.”

  Marshall let go of her arm long enough to carelessly clip the closest flower to his hand, a ball of blue hydrangea. “There,” he said, handing her the bloom. “That’s taken care of. Now on to better things.”

  He settled her hand against his elbow once more and continued at a slow pace out through the garden and along the way to the lawn where the wedding guests were gathering and taking seats.

  “What are you doing here?” Alex asked, sense returning. “I didn’t realize you’d been invited.”

  “I wasn’t invited,” he said, surprising her. When she gasped, he went on with, “Not precisely. Your uncle sent word that he wanted to attend the ceremony on the lawn and that he needed me to supervise the professional orderlies who he insisted would bring him out to the lawn in a special chair.”

  “That is a load of rank nonsense,” Alex said. They stepped out of the garden and into the full sunlight of the lawn. She breathed it in as though the world had suddenly been set right.

  “Of course it’s nonsense,” Marshall agreed, even though his tone was a touch angry, as was his way. “A footman could have carried him out in a chair. Your uncle should take to the outdoors more often. A little sunlight is good for the soul.”

  “A true friend is good for the soul as well,” Alex agreed. She squeezed his arm.

  A sudden look came to Marshall’s eyes, at once longing and terrified. His smile remained intact, but a tension passed through him. His lips tightened, as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words. Alex found herself holding her breath, staring at him intently, willing him to say whatever it was that was bottled inside. A part of her felt as though whatever it was had been bottled for weeks, aching to come out. That part of her wanted it to come out, waited for echoes of a certain confession that she had not been ready for a fortnight ago. But now?

  “Heaven’s sake, Alexandra. Why are you dawdling?” her mother called from the side of the lawn. The wedding party was still assembled and waiting as guest took their seats and the parish vicar readied things under the trellis. “We’re ready to start,” her mother told her in a harsh whisper as Alex and Marshall approached.

  “Your bloom, madam,” Marshall greeted her, presenting her with the hydrangea blossom as greeting.

  “Oh, I don’t care about that anymore.” Lady Char
lotte batted the blossom away. She hit Marshall’s hand and it dropped to the ground.

  Alex’s heart and soul, her hopes and dreams, dropped with it. The only thing that kept her from sinking into the mire of despair was Marshall’s arm holding her up.

  “Go take your seat,” her mother ordered. “We’re ready to start.” She pointed to the front row, where Elizabeth and Uncle Gerald were seated.

  Without a word, Alex and Marshall started toward the row. Before they were halfway there, George and Arabella slipped into the remaining seats in the front row, seating themselves by Elizabeth’s side without a thought for who the chairs were intended for.

  Alex didn’t realize she’d frozen in her spot until Marshall whispered, “Never mind. We’ll find somewhere else to sit.”

  She swallowed, then nodded, face flushed pink with shock and sorrow. The string quartet that had been hired to play for the ceremony began their song. Marshall escorted her to a chair a few rows back from the front, then sat by her side. There was nothing left that Alex could do but watch as the last of her life changed forever.

  Lawrence

  The courtroom should have been crowded, packed to the rafters. People should have come from far and wide to see the testimony, to see the most important moment of Lawrence’s life. Everything he had ever wanted, everything he had ever loved, came down to a decision that would be made by the wiry, gruff old man who shuffled onto the bench at the front of the half-filled courtroom. For Lawrence, it was the heart-stopping moment he had waited for all summer. To the rest of Kendal, the rest of Cumbria and the world, it was just another trial in a backwoods town.

  “Come to order,” the magistrate directed the courtroom.

  For the most part, the people assembled complied. Lawrence took his seat, back stiff with anticipation.

  “We’ll do well,” Beach reassured him to his right. “The barrister your friend, Mr. Throckmorton, paid for is amongst the very best. That alone could sway the magistrate. And with the testimony of young Connie, we may even see Hoag taken into custody after Matty is set free.”