The Brynthwaite Boys - Season One - Part Three Read online

  “Mr. and Mrs. Throckmorton,” Jason gave their names to the young man behind the inn’s desk.

  Flossie raised an eyebrow. And there her transformation was complete. In just a few short months, she’d gone from plain Flossie to Miss Flossie to Miss Stowe, and now Mrs. Throckmorton, false though it was.

  Then again, none of the other titles had felt as right and natural to her as this final one.

  The man behind the desk handed Jason a key. “This arrived for you as well a few hours ago,” he added, handing Jason an envelope that had been resting on the desk.

  With an excited nod, Jason took both envelope and key, and escorted Flossie out of the tiny lobby and down a short hall to a quaint suite. It was nothing half so spacious as any of the rooms at The Dragon’s Head, but it had a large window that had been left open to let the sea air flow in.

  “This must be from Lawrence,” he said, handing the key to Flossie as soon as the door was shut behind them and tearing into the envelope.

  A thrill of excitement raced through Flossie’s limbs at the sound of ripping paper. “What does it say?” she asked, bouncing to the tips of her toes and craning her neck by Jason’s side to get a look.

  “Trial successful. Matty found innocent. Released. Hoag arrested.”

  “Oh thank heavens,” Flossie exclaimed, clapping her hands to her chest.

  “Thank God,” Jason echoed. His whole body relaxed with relief. “I don’t regret a single penny of the money I spent hiring lawyers and investigators now.”

  “Would you have otherwise?”

  He paused for only a moment before answering, “No. But I never had any doubt they’d prove their worth. I can only hope they do the same for Marshall.”

  A twist of tension filled the air between them. Marshall’s troubles, though not murder, were in their own way far more complicated than Lawrence’s. Everyone who knew Matty knew she was innocent. Proof wasn’t so hard to come by as all that. In Marshall’s situation, the titan they were all up against was far more cunning and infinitely harder to beat than one evil man.

  It pulled Flossie’s thoughts back around to part of the purpose for her and Jason’s jaunt to the seaside. Recuperation after influenza was one thing. Even if she admitted influenza was merely an excuse to get away for a touch of romance, the real question that faced them was Lady E.’s offer.

  “There’s a bit more to the telegram,” Jason said, the excitement in his voice replaced by curiosity.

  Flossie peered around his side to read it when he held the paper out for her. “Matty’s siblings coming home with us to stay.”

  Flossie blinked and straightened. “Siblings? Did we know about siblings?”

  Jason shrugged, crossing around the bed to set the telegram on the bureau. “I feel like Lawrence might have mentioned something at one point. I can’t remember how many there are or whether they’re boys or girls.” He paused, leaning against the bureau. “Lawrence with a parcel of children.” His eyes met Flossie’s with a sparkle of something both amused and longing. “I wonder how a man who has prided himself on his hedonistic enjoyment of independence will do with a full house.”

  “You don’t think he wants children?” Flossie asked.

  “Oh, I’m sure he does. Eventually.” His lips tweaked up with a teasing grin, as if the idea of one of his closest friends finding himself in a stew that he wasn’t ready for would be a never-ending source of amusement.

  Flossie didn’t have a chance to ask him about it. A knock on the door announced the arrival of the porter from the train station with their suitcases. The next few minutes were spent unpacking, shaking out dresses, shirts, and trousers, and hanging them in the wardrobe. After some instruction, Jason had been a fair hand at packing and now unpacking, more like a working class man than one with enough money to buy the inn they were staying in ten times over.

  “What next?” he asked once everything was put away. “Would you like supper or shall we go for a walk along the beach?”

  Again, a trill of uncertainty, the weight of the question hanging over them gripped Flossie’s heart. She pressed a hand to her stomach. “I don’t think I could possibly eat after all that rocking on the train.”

  Jason nodded. “A walk it is, then.”

  He crossed back around the bed and headed for the door.

  “Jason,” she stopped him. Her own mischievous grin pulled at her lips when he paused to send her a questioning glance. “Take off your coat.”

  “My coat?” He blanched, closing a hand protectively over the buttons near his stomach.

  Flossie crossed her arms. “We’re at the seaside. We’re miles away from anyone who knows us. It’s been a long, exhausting day. You can’t possibly tell me you need that heavy black thing to hide anything untoward.”

  He made a mock serious face and squared his shoulders. “If you and I go walking alone on the beach in the twilight, I could very well need it in short order.”

  Flossie laughed and shook her head. “No.” She moved to stand in front of him, unbuttoning his coat. “With all the fuss of influenza and trials and proposals, we’ve slacked off in our special arrangement,” she said, reaching the last button, then lifting her hands to push the coat off of his shoulders. She met his eyes with iron determination and said, “I forbid you to wear your coat for the entire time we are at the seaside.”

  Jason’s brow flew up as she slipped the coat down his arms. A look of surprise mingled with worry, but topped off with absolute trust kissed his features. Flossie tossed the heavy coat to the bed, then stood back to survey him.

  “No.” She shook her head again, tapping a finger top to her lips. “This has to go too. It is the seaside, after all.”

  Before he could protest, she reached for the buttons of his waistcoat, slipping each one through their hole to loosen the steel-gray brocade of the tight garment.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” he asked, watching her hands at work.

  As she peeled off the waistcoat, he took in a breath that expanded his broad chest and loosened the soft linen of the shirt he wore underneath. The heat that radiated from him, his rich masculine scent, was everything comforting and home-like to Flossie. It struck her that it didn’t matter whether she was in Silecroft or Brynthwaite, Lincoln or London, wherever Jason was, wherever she could put her arms around him and hold him close, that was home.

  “I think it is an excellent idea,” she said once she had his waistcoat off and folded and laid on the bureau. “The best I’ve had all day.”

  He stood before her, transformed from the master of the business world into just simply a man. Freed from restrictions and mantels, he seemed taller, stronger. His shoulders were broad, his waist narrow, and while, yes, there was evidence of his fondness for her below the line of his waistband, there was nothing seedy or unseemly about it. He was simply a man who loved a woman.

  “Perfect,” she said, smiling.

  He flushed with pleasure, the smile in his eyes a world away from the fearful tension she’d seen there the day they’d met. “If you’re going to get away with making all these demands of me, then I have one for you as well.”

  “Oh?” Excitement pulsed through her chest and limbs, igniting a familiar passion in her core. But no, there would be time for that later, and all weekend long, she suspected. “What are your demands, sir?”

  He grinned, stepped closer to her, circled his arms around her, but rather than pulling her into an embrace, he reached for the pins holding her chignon in place. It took him all of half a minute to tug them all out and to shake her hair loose, combing his fingers through it as it spilled down her back in heavy waves.

  “I forbid you to wear your hair up for the duration of the weekend,” he said. Now his arms closed around her, pressing her close against him.

  “Forbid?” She arched a brow at the challenge.

  “Under any circumstances,” he finished in a low growl.

  It was all Flossie could do to keep her head
about her as he brought his lips down over hers. His kiss was devouring, pulling her in and tipping the balance between them. How, after so many months and after beginning things in such a businesslike fashion, could she still desire him so completely? There was not a hint of the mundane or a trace of boredom in the way she reacted to his touch. Even now, she longed for the feeling of him inside of her, wanted nothing more than to press him to his limits, wringing every last drop of arousal out of him until he lay, sated and peaceful, in her arms.

  “A walk,” he said after ending their kiss abruptly.

  “It could wait,” she suggested.

  “No.” He stepped away from her, the bulge in his trousers more evident now. Still, he said, “We have important matters to discuss before we indulge.”

  That reminder was enough to douse the flame of desire that, moments ago, had threatened to burn out of control. “Must we?” she asked.

  He nodded, suddenly serious. “I have something else I want to ask you too.”

  “You do?”

  Her curiosity would have to wait. Jason’s only response was to nod and take her hand, leading her out of the room and into the hall.

  Lucky for them, the hallway had a door leading straight out to the beach. After a brief setback when they took a few steps onto the sand and discovered it would be far more appropriate to leave their shoes in their room, they headed off up the beach, the waves lapping in low tide against the shoreline, the sun dipping ever closer to the horizon.

  Jason took her hand as they walked, sand squishing up through their toes. Anyone watching them would have assumed they were an ordinary couple, not too well-off, taking the sea air, utterly in love. Part of Flossie wanted to laugh at the seed of truth inside of that image, for she did love him. More than she ever would have thought possible. That same terror of a man whose desk she’d stood in front of months ago, insisting she could do any job he set for her was the man in shirtsleeves and bare feet walking through whispers of surf beside her.

  “I never thought my life would come to this,” she said with a sigh that was both happy and wistful.

  “What did you think your life would come to?” he asked. As he turned to smile at her, the sea breeze ruffled his hair, making him look every bit the naughty young boy she was sure had terrorized the halls of Brynthwaite Municipal Orphanage.

  Flossie shrugged. “Before going into service, I assumed I would work hard for several years, meet some nice lad, then marry and have half a dozen children.”

  Jason grinned at her words. “And then?”

  Her smile fell. “After the way I was treated at Crestmont Grange, after learning there was money to be made for a few minutes of lying on your back….” She couldn’t finish. That time seemed so far away now, the choices she’d made so distant, that all she could do was shake her head and swallow the pain.

  “What about now?” he asked, reflecting her seriousness. “What do you see your life coming to now?” It was his way of bringing the larger question before them into focus.

  Flossie stopped, Jason stopping by her side. She glanced up the beach. Ahead of them, night was falling, and it was difficult to see the curve of the sand, the shape of the rocks, and what might lie ahead. Behind them, their seaside inn seemed far away. Not a soul walked along the quiet stretch of beach where they stood.

  She spotted a small clearing to their side against a dune, where the grass didn’t grow quite as close to the water. With a tug on Jason’s hand, she started that way. He saw her intent, and before she could say anything, he found a good place to sit in the sand, then pulled her down to nestle in his arms.

  There was something infinitely safe and peaceful about sitting in Jason’s arms, her back resting against his chest, her head on his shoulder. She could still twist to see his face, see the deep lines of thought that told her their entire future was about to come down to the answer to another woman’s question.

  Instead of answering it, he said, “I never let myself imagine what my life would come to,” in a quiet voice.

  “Never?” She smoothed her hands along his arms, pulling them tighter around her.

  He shook his head. “It has always been too terrifying a thought.” He paused, then went on with, “I have always feared that I would sink further and further into debauchery, that I would become careless and depraved, become sick and lose my mind. I have always feared that I would die alone, in pain, and despised.”

  She held her breath at his confession, hugging him by helping him to hug her. “Do you still think that?” she asked, afraid of the answer.

  “No.” There was more certainty in his tone than she expected. “At least, not if I am with you.”

  Heart full to bursting, she twisted in his arms so that she could look into his eyes, rest a hand on his cheek. “I love you, Jason Throckmorton. More than I ever thought I could love anyone.”

  He smiled, at once humble and gloating. “You took the words right out of my mouth.”

  He kissed her, but unlike their kiss in the inn, the question continued to linger behind it.

  “I love you, Flossie,” he said when he couldn’t hold it inside any longer. “Don’t ever doubt that. Please. You have given my life meaning that it never had before.”

  “But?” she spoke the word that they both knew lingered behind his outpouring.

  Jason sighed. He closed his eyes and touched his forehead to hers. “Lady E. could be a key that unlocks more than I ever dreamed possible.”

  There it was—the truth she couldn’t deny.

  “So you want to marry her,” she said. It was strange how little emotion—either pain or joy—that she felt at the statement.

  Jason opened her eyes, stared directly into hers. “I want to marry you,” he said.

  Her breath caught in her throat and tingles of starlight broke out along her skin.

  “I want to build a life with you, have a family with you,” he insisted. “That is what I want.”

  “But?” she said again, a ghost of a grin tickling her lips. It was too hard not to smile when he had just more or less declared the deepest kind of love for her.

  “I don’t think Marshall can win the case to get his girls back without the help Lady E. could provide,” he said in a rush. “Her relatives in London are extremely powerful.”

  She knew him far too well—too well not to smile fully. “Powerful enough to lend you help beyond Marshall’s troubles,” she filled in the blanks. “Powerful enough to introduce you into the highest circles in the land and to make you into a financial force to be reckoned with?”

  “We could be a force to be reckoned with,” he said, holding her tighter. “Lady E. will do whatever she wants to do. Ascend to the highest levels of some flippant social circle of gossiping countesses or the like. But we, you and I, we could control industry.”

  As well as she knew him, he knew her. He knew just how to make her blood pump and her mind flash with ideas. “You would keep me with you? Even at that level?”

  “Of course I would,” he replied without hesitation.

  “People would know. They would know who I am, the connection between us. Do you think Lady E. would stand for it? For her husband publically having a mistress with her fingers in whatever empire you create?”

  “Lady E. can do whatever she wants. All we need to do is rise up beyond her reach, and then she can’t touch us.”

  Flossie shook her head over the bubble of trepidation that his words raised in her. “If she is the means to lift you up, she could be the means to bring you down.”

  “Not if it would cause her to come crashing down with me.”

  Flossie let out a breath. She dropped her hand and her eyes from his cheek to his shoulder. Broad, strong shoulders, but could they withstand that much pressure, carry that much weight?

  “There’s more,” he went on before she could formulate a reply.

  “More?” She glanced up to meet his eyes once more. To her surprise, they held uncertainty.

/>   “I…I have something to ask you, something I have been thinking about for quite some time now.”

  “Really?” Butterflies formed in her stomach.

  “Yes. Ever since Eileen took Marshall’s girls away. Ever since Lawrence announced Matty is pregnant.” He paused. With one arm still around her back, he found her hand with his other and threaded their fingers together. “Flossie, whether we choose to accept Lady E.’s offer or not, I want us to have children together. Now. No waiting. I want to hold a baby in my arms, knowing that part of it is mine and part of it is yours, that we created life together. Not just one, but many. Those half dozen you mentioned before and more even than that.”

  Flossie’s slack-jawed surprise dissolved into a joyful laugh. “More than half a dozen?”

  “Yes. A dozen at least,” he answered, eyes shining with hope and excitement.

  “Jason, that is an inordinate amount of children,” she told him with mock scolding.

  “I don’t care,” he said, kissing her quickly. “All I care about is having a family with you, whatever else happens.” He kissed her again, longer. “After all, Mother Grace tells me she sees me surrounded by children, boys in particular.” He kissed her a third time.

  “Mother Grace is a troublemaker,” Flossie replied, still giggling. In fact, the idea of bearing Jason’s children as soon as possible, no matter what happened in their ridiculous, twisted lives, filled her with such longing that she felt an almost irresistible urge to loosen Jason’s trousers, lift her skirts, straddle him, and get started right there on the beach. He may have complained about his rebellious drive to mate almost from the day he met her, but she seemed to have caught it from him, just as she’d caught influenza.

  “Mother Grace knows me better than anyone else,” he went on. “Except you. You know me better than I know myself.”

  “I do,” she agreed, smile wide and wicked. “I know that you want these children of yours, and that, come what may, they will be the most loved, adored, and most likely spoiled children the world has ever seen.”