The Brynthwaite Boys - Season One - Part Two Read online

  George snorted. A sliver of guilt pierced Alex’s high spirits. It wasn’t right of her to laugh at Marshall when he was only trying to do what was best for the hospital, but her friend was so serious sometimes.

  The mess hall tables had been pushed aside and the benches arranged into a sort of half-circle theater. The hospital had no podium, so Marshall was forced to give his speech from the other side of one of the smaller dining tables. A few of the patients had agreed to be present as displays of the kinds of healing the hospital was capable of. They sat at the front with Marshall. Marshall’s girls sat with the mysterious Matty in the front row on the side opposite the doorway. Alex moved toward the other end of the front row, where she could easily answer any questions directed toward her, but George tugged her aside and led her into the second row. Lady Arabella sat only a few seats down. She smiled at Alex and George in greeting. Across the way, Alex noted Mr. Throckmorton leaning close to Elizabeth, intently listening to whatever she was saying with bright eyes and a hawkish grin.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Marshall began. “On behalf of Dr. Dyson and myself, welcome to Brynthwaite Hospital.”

  He gestured to Alex. There was an awkward pause as the party guests finished finding seats.

  Marshall cleared his throat and went on. “As some of you may know, Brynthwaite Hospital was formerly Brynthwaite Municipal Orphanage, a crown facility responsible for the care and upbringing of vagrant and unwanted children. And a ragged lot that was, too. I can say that without impunity, because I was one of them.” He paused.

  Alex wasn’t certain if his statement was a joke. No one laughed. Mr. Throckmorton turned red and writhed in his seat.

  “Since its conversion to a hospital eight years ago, this building has seen any number of medical cases and emergencies,” Marshall went on, his nervousness palpable.

  Alex listened, doing her best to maintain the manners she had been raised with. She kept her back straight and a benign smile on her face. Marshall was speaking about a topic that she was passionate about, after all. Underneath her smile, she was writhing with discomfort for him. Marshall was not a natural speech-maker.

  “One type of case that we see frequently but are often short of funding for is injuries to children working at any of the county’s factories or mills.”

  The audience perked up when he reached the section that Alex had insisted he include. They’d argued. Marshall had considered the topic of sick and injured children too delicate for the ears of well-bred ladies, but Alex had insisted that if you wanted a lady to loosen her purse strings, mentioning children was the way to do it. He himself loosened up as he spoke, sending her a quick glance of acknowledgement at one point, conceding she’d been right.

  “That man is in over his head,” George whispered in her ear as the rest of the audience focused their attention on Marshall.

  “I think he’s doing splendidly,” Alex whispered.

  “Him? He’s all moustache and quivers,” George scoffed.

  Again, the temptation to giggle was almost as powerful as the sinking guilt that the impulse brought with it. It didn’t help matters when George casually brushed his hand along her leg.

  Alex gasped. Surely that was an involuntary movement, a mistake. But no, he brushed her leg again. A flash of heat spilled through her. It grew hotter when George scooted his foot alongside hers, his toe disappearing under her skirts.

  “Mr. Fretwell,” she whispered to him as Marshall spoke on. “Are you attempting to flirt with me?”

  George swayed closer still. “There’s no attempt about it.”

  Her heart beat in double-time. It was all Alex could do to follow the thread of Marshall’s words. When he turned to her and asked her to confirm the course of treatment they’d come up with to treat the outbreak of bronchitis that had been rampant in town when she had first come to the hospital, Alex could hardly put two words together. She couldn’t remember what she was saying as she said it, not with George’s hand on her thigh.

  Marshall failed to suppress a frown for her, and went on to finish his speech. Alex wasn’t entirely sure when he’d won over the audience, but with his closing words, which went in and out of her head with lightning quickness as George bent close to her to whisper, “You smell of sunshine and summer meadows,” the audience burst into applause.

  Alex applauded with them. When she finished and lowered her hands, George grasped one of them.

  “Come on,” he whispered. “I’d like to show you what I found in my explorations earlier.”

  “If you have any further questions, Dr. Dyson and I are available to answer them. Otherwise, the hospital staff is on hand and ready to show you around,” Marshall said.

  George scooted to the end of the bench. A twist of panic hit Alex as her loyalties tore. She should stay and answer any questions that Marshall needed help with. But a few other guests were already rising and leaving the room.

  The decision was made for her as George stood and whisked her away and into the hall. Alex glanced back over her shoulder at Marshall as she was pulled along. Their eyes met. His expression bristled with betrayal. No, she told herself as she let George lead her on toward the stairs up to the wards, skipping out of a question and answer session was not cause enough for betrayal. Someone else must have said something to him that she hadn’t heard. Mr. Throckmorton had approached him, after all, and friends could say any manner of things to each other that would earn that peevish expression.

  “It’s in here,” George said as he reached the top of the stairs, turning right instead of left where the wards were.

  “There’s nothing down this way but storage rooms,” Alex said, giddiness growing.

  “Funny you should say that.”

  George tugged open a door, pulled Alex inside of a room lined floor to ceiling with shelves of linens, then shut the door behind them. The only light came from a small window above their heads. With the door closed, the room was suddenly cramped. Even more so when George pulled her into his arms.

  “That’s better,” he hummed, like a fox who had found his way into the henhouse.

  His mouth came crashing down over hers. Alex gasped in surprise, but the motion only opened her lips and allowed George to slip his tongue in alongside hers. He clasped her tightly to him. As soon as Alex’s shock wore off, she found herself floating on the most magnificent cloud of desire. Her arms found their way around George’s back, and she let herself drift off, moaning, not caring about anything but George’s kiss.

  Marshall

  It wasn’t that Marshall hadn’t expected the barrage of questions that greeted him at the end of his lecture. He’d known full well that the fine ladies and splendid gentlemen of the Huntingdon Hall house party would be curious about the cause they were being asked to open their purses for. If those questions had been of a technical nature, he would have rattle off answers without a second thought. But no, most of the questions caught him entirely off-guard.

  “Are many of your patients unemployed tradesmen, like Mr. Meyers?” one fine lady, dressed in lace that likely equaled the hospital’s monthly income, asked, batting her lashes.

  “Does the hospital still take in abandoned and neglected children?” another asked.

  Marshall stammered and hummed, giving answers that he knew were too short and not nearly sympathetic enough. He’d been counting on Alexandra to stand beside him to answer these types of questions, but no. That blackguard, George Fretwell, had whisked her off to God knew where the second he’d intoned “the end” and finished his speech.

  He should have known from the moment the two of them walked into the hospital together. George Fretwell was the kind of man that women found irresistibly attractive. He had the fine, slender build and golden, blue-eyed complexion of a hero from a penny-dreadful. Everything about him oozed charm and sensuality. And seduction. It caused the hair on the back of Marshall’s neck to stand up when he saw the way Alexandra looked at him.

  His Alexandra
. His determined, competent Alexandra. Not even the hollow nights of guilt and misery after Clara’s death had ripped so great a wound in his chest as seeing Alexandra belittle herself by simpering and fawning over Fretwell. She was so much better than that.

  Come off it, he scolded himself. You’d die happy if she looked at you like that, and you know it.

  He cleared his throat and forced himself to concentrate on the questions being thrown at him.

  “Do you employ many of your former patients the way you have young Simon?” one of the gentlemen asked.

  “There have been a few cases where patients made themselves so useful while in recovery that we chose to hire them, yes,” Marshall answered. “But funding for such endeavors is very hard to come by.”

  “Ah, I see,” the gentleman replied. He then backed away, pretending to be flagged down by another of the house party guests so swiftly that Marshall despaired of any of the guests loosening their purse strings.

  “Marshall.” Jason approached him from the side of the humming mill of people, thumping him on the back. “Excellent presentation. I was thoroughly impressed.”

  Marshall eyed his friend skeptically, but no, there was a light of genuine admiration in his friend’s eyes. That was something.

  “Now if we could just convince these fine ladies and gentlemen to part with a few coins to keep the hospital going,” Marshall said.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Jason replied with a wink.

  With a man like Jason on the case, the hospital might actually get somewhere. Jason had donated an embarrassingly large amount of money himself, but he was also the kind of man who could talk others into investing in brass teeth for donkeys, let alone a hospital. Alexandra had that charm too. Where was she?

  He was halfway through craning his neck to check the room to see if she’d returned when Mary and the girls came rushing up to him.

  “That was wonderful, Papa,” Mary said, though, bless her, she wore the kind of smile he had come to recognize was her way of humoring him.

  “I didn’t know the hospital did so much,” Matty agreed, more genuine in her praise. “No wonder you spend so much time working.”

  “Papa spends too much time working,” Martha complained, latching onto his leg again.

  “You girls should come play in the hotel’s garden with me more often while your father is here at the hospital,” Jason said.

  All three of them lit up. “Can we, Papa? Can we?” Molly asked.

  “If Uncle Jason is willing to be responsible for you,” Marshall said.

  He continued to search the room, but all he saw was the backs of a dozen lords and ladies as they whisked out of the mess hall. He hoped to God that Mrs. Garforth was doing her part and passing the hat in the waiting room as they left. Alexandra should be there to ensure her friends were generous.

  “Where is Lawrence?” Jason asked. Close but not quite the thought Marshall was having.

  “He’s gone to Grasmere to visit his friend, Mr. Albright,” Matty answered.

  A wave of suspicion curled through Marshall. Albright. Another thing to worry about. He’d have to have a talk with Lawrence about associating with the wrong sort once he returned.

  “Oh?” Jason answered, his tone betraying an entirely different direction of thought on the subject. “I wish I had known. I would have sent a letter with him at the very least. I’d have gone too if it wasn’t for your presentation, Marshall.”

  “He wanted to make it a quick day trip,” Matty explained.

  The conversation was interrupted as a woman slightly past her prime years sashayed up to their group. She was finely dressed and perfectly coiffed, clearly a matron of high society. Jason stiffened the moment he noticed her. In more ways than one, if Marshall knew his friend.

  “Dr. Pycroft, what a fascinating lecture,” she said, her voice a honeyed alto. “So many fascinating goings on here at the hospital, don’t you think, Mr. Throckmorton?” She pivoted toward Jason and flashed him a smile that raised every kind of warning flag Marshall had.

  “It was,” Jason answered, tight as a drum. “Dr. Marshall Pycroft, allow me to introduce you to Lady Philomena Stratton.”

  “Charmed, I’m sure,” Lady Stratton said, extending a hand for Marshall to bow over. As soon as she did, she grasped Jason’s arm. With both hands. Jason turned red.

  Oh Lord. Marshall hadn’t had to hear Jason complain about his ‘affliction’ for a month now, but the uncomfortable look he wore as the matron stroked his arm told Marshall those days were over. Clearly the two knew each other. In the Biblical sense.

  “Are these your charming daughters, Dr. Pycroft?” Lady Stratton asked with a typical society smile of condescension for Martha.

  “They are,” Marshall answered, on the alert.

  “I’ve heard so much about them,” Lady Stratton went on.

  “You have?” Mary blurted before recovering herself and pressing a hand to her lips.

  “Yes, dear,” Lady Stratton went on without acknowledging the slip. “I’m friends with your grandmamma, Mrs. Danforth.”

  Forget alert, Marshall’s pulse shot up as he went into full panic mode. A friend of Clara’s mother? Heaven help him.

  “I was so sorry to hear of your dear mama’s death,” Lady Stratton said to the girls, giving Marshall the cold shoulder.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Mary answered for them.

  “I hope that we will be fortunate enough to see you three dear ones in London soon,” Lady Stratton went on, causing Marshall to see red. The only thing that saved him from calling the woman out and making a scene was the fact that she was evidently more interested in Jason than in tweaking his nose. “Mr. Throckmorton, I so wish to hear about your marvelous new hotel,” she said, dragging Jason aside.

  Jason glanced over his shoulder to Marshall for help, but there was nothing Marshall could do. He wasn’t about to engage Lady Stratton in further conversation, not even to save Jason’s hide. And by the looks of things, it was indeed his hide that Lady Stratton was after.

  “Should I take the girls home now?” Matty asked.

  Marshall blinked back to the moment at hand. The mess hall was almost completely empty now, but for a few patients filtering in with the hopes of supper and Jason having his little tête-a-tête with Lady Stratton.

  “Yes, if you please, Matty.”

  He bent to kiss Molly’s head, and then reached for Mary to do the same. Mary allowed him to kiss her on the cheek, but she wore the long-suffering look of a girl who was convinced she’d outgrown her papa’s affections. She would sing a different tune if Clara’s family managed to sink their claws into her.

  He shuddered at the thought and walked Matty and the girls to the hall. Once he saw them safely off, he dropped to a firm glower. Where was Alexandra? The guests had come and gone, and she’d barely made an appearance. The lecture had been her idea, and she’d come very close to giving him the brush-off.

  “Mrs. Garforth, have you seen Dr. Dyson?” he asked, unable to keep the frustration out of her voice.

  “Upstairs, I think,” Mrs. Garforth answered.

  Marshall took the stairs two at a time, his anger growing with each step. He checked the women’s and children’s wards, but she wasn’t there. She wasn’t in the men’s ward either.

  “Hasn’t anybody seen Dr. Dyson?” he barked once he was out in the hallway again.

  “I thought I saw her near the storerooms with that gentleman friend of hers earlier,” Nurse Stephens suggested as she came from exactly that direction, her arms full of towels.

  Her gentleman friend. Marshall’s temper was already dangerously near the edge after the conversation with Lady Stratton. If Fretwell was still in his hospital, he was about to get an earful.

  Balling his hands into fists, Marshall marched down the hallway to the store rooms. He threw open the first door and checked inside. Nothing. He moved on to the second. Still nothing.

  He knew what he would find as soon as h
e stood before the third door. Soft moaning and a low growl of response betrayed the room’s contents and activities. He hesitated, hand over the doorknob. Whatever he saw on the other side of that door would break his heart. He could already feel the cracks forming. But if he left it, if he walked away and let them continue, Alexandra’s reputation would be in tatters. At least if he was the one who exposed them, he could keep what he saw to himself.

  He took a breath, steadied his expression, and threw open the door.

  Alexandra and Fretwell were locked in an embrace. He had her pushed up against a shelf of linens. Her leg was exposed to the thigh as Fretwell held it high against his hip. The man’s other hand was closed firmly around her breast. Her blouse was unbuttoned, as was his waistcoat, and his jacket was on the floor. Worst of all, their lips were locked together in a passionate kiss that struck Marshall cold.

  It took a half second for them to realize they’d been discovered. Fretwell reacted first, jumping back and shouting, “Jesus.”

  Alexandra gasped, then yelped at being discovered. “Dr. Pycroft,” she panted, hands fluttering over her open blouse, her hitched-up skirt, her disheveled hair. Marshall would have found her gestures supremely erotic, if he didn’t want to grab her and shake sense into her.

  “Oh, I say.” Fretwell recovered. He burst into a sly grin, then laughed outright. “You seem to have caught us at a bit of a disadvantage.”

  Marshall tried to reply, but his throat had closed up in rage.

  “It’s not what you think,” Alexandra insisted.

  Oh, it was exactly what he thought.

  Marshall cleared his throat, desperate to find his voice. When he finally did, he was surprised at how calm he sounded. “Mr. Fretwell, I would like you to leave. This is a hospital, not a bordello.”

  “Right.” Fretwell nodded, bending over to scoop up his coat.

  When he stood, Marshall caught an obscene glimpse of the bulge in the man’s trousers. He saw red for the second time in less than an hour.