Chapter 15

The next morning, Penelope came for a visit. Mama was still resting and Mercy was able to have her to herself. Mercy thanked Mrs. Brooksby for delivering the tea service and turned to Penelope.

"Any thoughts from the ball? Did you notice anything?"

"All I did was watch your duke last night. Poor Yolty. I think he was worried about me."

"And?"

"Truthfully, I didn't notice him paying serious attention to any of the women he danced with. None of them made him smile more than another. He didn't follow any of them with his eyes afterward. Well, except for—"

"Lady Plymton." Mercy jumped up and snapped her fingers. "Right?"

"I was going to say you ."

Mercy shook her head and waved a hand away from her face. Of course, he would look after her now and again. They were supposed to be courting. "I don't count."

Penelope pulled her face into a disbelieving grimace and shook her head. "Who is Lady Plymton?"

"You didn't see her? The dazzling woman in the emerald dress?"

"Oh, her. I did notice her. But I never saw Harrington look at her."

"If he didn't, it was through sheer force of will." She took Penelope by both shoulders. "He was in love with her, but his father broke them up and made him join the army. The man does, indeed, have some deeper feelings. They have just been shut off due to a misunderstanding parent's disapproval."

Penelope set down her teacup. "Are you certain? I asked Yolty about him last night. He said His Grace is one of the most upstanding men he knows."

Lord Yolten said that? But how well would Lord Yolten really know the duke? And if he didn't know the story of Harrington and Lady Plymton, perhaps it wasn't one Mercy should be blabbing about. But Harrington had told her so quickly, she'd assumed the whole business had been fairly well-known. "The Duke of Harrington told me the whole story himself. And he used it to explain why he is so stiff and proper. He will never make those mistakes again, etcetera." She waved her hand about. "Don't you see? This is our opportunity. I can get out of the courtship, and he can return to the woman he loves."

"Once loved."

"Please." Mercy flopped down into her seat. "Could anyone be more stalwart and steadfast than that man? His whole persona is a direct result of the pain she caused him when she married someone else. Lord Yolten may be correct, that he is upstanding, but at one point, she enticed him, and I don't think anyone has done so since."

Penelope didn't look convinced, but as Mercy lay in bed after the ball, the more she thought about it, the more she became certain the duke must still have feelings for Lady Plymton. The Duke of Harrington had never shown her a tenth of the emotions that Lady Plymton had evoked in him. "I tell you, I have never seen him so impassioned. It was like he was another person. I don't expect you to understand, since Lord Yolten has always been passionate about you. You didn't have to resort to anything devious in order to have the type of match you deserve."

Penelope's hand dove to her tea, and she took a quick sip, a mite too fast for how hot it still was. After blowing through her lips for a moment, she set down her cup. "I suppose we could try to give him a chance with her. Make him face her so he can decide." She tipped her head from side to side, considering. "It isn't as though we would be harming anyone, and sometimes love does need a bit of a push."

"Yes." Mercy couldn't believe Penelope was actually starting to believe her idea had merit. "Then I will approach him about releasing him from the courtship. I'm certain, if given a chance, he will make the choice that was robbed of him when he was younger. He just needs to be taken away from Society and its prying eyes to see what he wants."

Penelope tipped her head to one side. "So you want to get him alone with Lady Plymton. How will we manage that?"

"He made it quite clear that he managed it plenty when he was pursuing her."

"Yes, but he isn't pursuing her now. He is pursuing you ."

Mercy waved her hand. "A minor detail."

Penelope pushed her lips to one side. "One of us will have to become acquainted with Lady Plymton."

"It might be strange if it were me." Meeting an old flame of the duke would be not only awkward, it might give away what she was trying to do.

"I could do it." Penelope shrugged. "I don't mind meeting new people." She didn't. Penelope was one of the most unassuming people she had ever met. Mercy could hold conversations, but Lady Yolten could steer them like she was a naval captain. "Step one, get an introduction to Lady Plymton. Step two, create a situation where the two of them can be alone together."

"For now, let's concentrate on step one."

Penelope nodded and returned to her tea. Mercy rested her back against her chair and sighed. With any luck, she would be free of the Duke of Harrington and the enormous pressure this courtship had put on her. She could go back to dancing and enjoying life until a man she couldn't live without came along.

There was a soft knock at the door, and a footman entered. "A Mrs. and Miss Morgan to see you, Lady Mercy."

Morgan? Mercy glanced at Penelope and raised her eyebrows, but Penelope shook her head. Mercy had been introduced to a Morgan family the previous year, but other than their short introduction, they'd had no further interaction.

"Could you let Mama know they are here and send them in?" Mama must be more acquainted with the Morgan women than Mercy was. Otherwise, this would be a strange morning call, indeed.

The footman nodded and returned a moment later with the two women. It was the Morgans she had met, although she only vaguely remembered them. What were they doing here? Mercy was never one to stand on tradition, but when others didn't follow it, she was taken by surprise.

"Mrs. Morgan, Miss Morgan. My mother will be here shortly. She is still resting after the festivities last night. Have you met Lady Yolten?"

Mrs. Morgan's eyebrows rose slightly at the mention of Penelope's title. "We have not but would be very pleased to be introduced."

Mercy managed the introductions, though it was a task she was seldom required to do. Mercy motioned to the two chairs not in use at the tea table. "Won't you join us? Mrs. Brooksby will bring more tea things."

Mrs. Morgan took her seat with force while her daughter shuffled shyly to the seat next to her. She only made eye contact a few times before quickly looking away. She was either painfully shy or mortified by the questionable propriety of their visit.

No one spoke. Mercy should be the one keeping the conversation civil, but her mind went blank. Why couldn't she think of a simply social nicety when she needed one? Penelope picked up her small gold spoon and stirred her tea, the metal scraping the sides of her cup as if she were purposely trying to break the silence. She probably was.

Mercy cleared her throat. "Are you and my mother well acquainted?"

"Lady Driarwood? No, not particularly well. Although, we would like to remedy that, wouldn't we?" Mrs. Morgan looked to her daughter.

Miss Morgan glanced down at her hands. "Yes, Mama," she said quietly.

Mercy's heart immediately went out to the girl. For some reason, her mother had dragged her here, and her discomfort couldn't be more obvious.

Mrs. Brooksby arrived with a tea tray and set a cup and saucer in front of each of their new guests. Mercy reached for the teapot, poured Mrs. Morgan a cup, and turned to Miss Morgan. She waved a hand above her cup. "No, thank you."

Mrs. Morgan scoffed. "Oh, have some tea. It will settle your nerves."

Miss Morgan shook her head. "No, thank you. But..." Her big doe eyes looked up at Mercy. "If you don't mind, I may sit in front of the window for a bit. I think the cool air coming through the glass may help me settle."

"Of course," Mercy said. She had never seen anyone be quite so uneasy in her home. Then again, most people did not come uninvited, unless they were very close friends or family. Miss Morgan gave her a shaky smile, then stood quickly and dashed off to the window.

"Don't mind my daughter. She has had a rough go these past few years, and she has become quite sensitive."

Penelope coughed, and Mercy caught her meaning. Anyone might be sensitive with a mother as graceless as Mrs. Morgan.

"Large groups are hard for her. She does much better speaking one on one with a person."

"I don't mind speaking with her. Do you think she would want company by the window?" Penelope asked.

Mrs. Morgan's eyes lit up. "She would love that. She does like people, and meetings like this never used to be a problem. It has only started lately. She has had a few disappointments."

Penelope started to stand, but Mrs. Morgan put a hand on her arm. "However, she might feel more comfortable with a woman closer to her own age."

Penelope blinked, then turned to Mercy. Mercy blinked back. True, Penelope was three years Mercy's senior and married, but it wasn't as if she were an octogenarian. If Mercy had to guess, Miss Morgan looked to be closer to Penelope's age. Mercy caught Mrs. Morgan's eye. "You think I should go?"

"Oh, could you? It would mean so much to her."

This meeting was getting stranger and stranger, and Mercy wanted nothing more than for Mama to enter the room so she could take over hostess duties. Perhaps Mercy should have waited to hear exactly how Mama knew them before allowing them into the drawing room. Still, if given the choice between sitting with Mrs. Morgan or her daughter, the daughter was definitely preferable. Mercy gave Penelope a sympathetic shrug and stood.

Mercy reached Miss Morgan just as she heaved a large sigh. She jerked in surprise when she noticed Mercy standing beside her. "Oh, you didn't need to come."

"I wanted to make certain you were comfortable."

"I'm much more comfortable here than at the tea table."

"Lady Yolten is rather intimidating, isn't she?"

Miss Morgan's eyes flashed in surprise, and then the corners of her lips turned up. "You are toying with me, aren't you? My mother is intimidating. Lady Yolten seems lovely."

There was only one chair by the window, and Miss Morgan occupied it, so Mercy sat halfway inside the windowsill. "She is, isn't she?"

"You're fortunate in your friends."

Mercy nodded, for she was, and she was extremely grateful for her good fortune. Perhaps this Miss Morgan needed a bit more fortune in her life. "How are you enjoying the Season?"

The hint of a smile that had been on her face earlier dropped. "I am enjoying it," she answered.

"But?"

Miss Morgan snuck a glance at her mother, but she and Penelope were deep in discussion about the quality of the tea. "I'm afraid I've become a bit of a disappointment to Mama."

Miss Morgan was a beauty, with her blonde curls and pert little mouth. She had a quiet demeanor that many men looked for. What on earth could have made her a disappointment? Her shyness, perhaps? "I find that hard to believe."

"It's true. I'm practically on the shelf."

"You are hardly—"

"This is my fifth Season. You don't need to pretend otherwise."

Miss Morgan couldn't be more than a couple years older than Mercy, and Mercy had not once worried about an impending shelf. But that was most likely a privilege Miss Morgan didn't share. She didn't know the Morgan family well enough to know their financial position or even their exact social standing. Perhaps Miss Morgan's plight was valid. But what could someone in Mercy's position say to comfort her?

"It is much better to be on the shelf than married to the wrong person."

"I can see how you would think that. But in your situation..." She very nearly blushed. "With one of the kindest, most passionate men courting you, I'm not certain you can fully grasp what I'm feeling."

Kindest and most passionate... Did she mean the duke? Kind, certainly, but passionate? She had never seen that side of him, even though he'd mentioned it in regard to Lady Plymton. "The duke? Do you know him?"

"I did. I had thought... well... I had thought perhaps he and I..." That little mouth of hers quivered. What was Miss Morgan trying to say? But then her eyes lifted, half full of tears, and Mercy knew.

Heavens above. She had a sudden desire to press her own forehead against the cool glass of the window. The Duke of Harrington and this sad little creature crouching in the corner of her drawing room? What had he done to raise her hopes?

"Oh," Miss Morgan said. "But I shouldn't mention that, not when he is so ardently pursuing you."

Ardently? Chess games and well-turned dances were hardly what she would call ardent. "I don't know that I would say he is ardently pursing me."

Miss Morgan raised one eyebrow. "Oh, I know how he is. Always extremely careful in public, but in private?" Miss Morgan smiled, and her eyes glazed over, as if she were reliving a very pleasant memory. "I am probably an awful human being for admitting this, and I shouldn't, for my own reputation's sake, but I do envy you."

Mercy was at a loss for words. In the course of two days, she had heard from the duke, and now this young woman, about his supposed escapades. True, she hadn't known the duke very long, but it was starting to seem like she didn't know him at all. "I'm sorry, but when did this happen?"

Miss Morgan glanced out the window. "Off and on for the past two years. But I see now what he was doing. I thought the secrecy was exciting, and I, well, I fell for his plan. I'm still not even sure I mind. I should have known the duke would never take someone in my position seriously. What do I have? A large dowry, for certain, and the Duke of Pemramble as a cousin." She looked up at Mercy as if to see whether she knew of the duke. Vaguely, she did. But it wasn't until recently that dukes had become a more common feature in her life. "I will also possibly gain a Scottish title someday, but still, compared to you? A lady? Of course, he would feel obligated, no matter his feelings toward me, to marry better than what my family can give him. It was such a disappointment to Mama."

Why was Miss Morgan telling her all of this? She barely knew the woman.

"I know what you must be thinking. Why are we here? Why did we come, when we are only the slightest of acquaintances? I will tell you. Mama was hoping to dissuade you. Then, perhaps, he would look at me again, like he used to. Like he hasn't allowed himself to do. But I know better, and I only wanted to let you know that—well... you aren't the only woman he has pulled into dark corners..." She let her voice peter out. "And perhaps you are all right with that, but on the chance that you weren't, well, I wish I would have known sooner. I was so certain of his love for me." Her voice broke, and she pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve, dabbing at her eyes.

Mercy sat dumbfounded, absently listening to a carriage that rolled down the street in front of their home, the cobblestones clinking as the horses' hooves marched forward. The Duke of Harrington had never pulled her into a dark corner. He'd never shown Mercy the type of passion Miss Morgan was speaking of. She knew Miss Morgan expected her to be angry, or perhaps indifferent, depending on the depth of her relationship with the duke. But she felt neither of those things.

She was extremely confused. And, perhaps, even a bit disappointed.

Which was ridiculous. If the man didn't want to pull her away from a crowd and kiss her senseless, then she didn't want him to do it.

"He wanted—" Mercy's voice came out a bit gravely, so she cleared her throat. "You mentioned he wanted to keep you a secret?"

Miss Morgan stopped dabbing her eyes and opened them in complete shock. "I shouldn't have said that. I know he had to give me up. No matter his feelings for me, it was necessary. He is a duke, after all, and a duke wouldn't marry a mere miss. It was foolish of me to even think." She shook her head. "I thought you should know, before you marry him. That's all."

"He is only courting me. We aren't engaged."

"But he has never courted anyone before, no matter how interested in them he was. You are perfect for him, so of course you will marry."

Mercy straightened her spine. There was always a recurring theme in her conversations about the duke. Surely Mercy wanted to marry him. He was a duke. "I wouldn't count on it."

"It doesn't matter." Miss Morgan waved her hand to the side of her face. "It really doesn't matter whether it is you or some other lady. He won't let his heart make his decisions for him—not any long-lasting decisions, anyway." Mercy clenched her jaw. Miss Morgan knew the duke very well indeed. Miss Morgan tucked her handkerchief back into her sleeve, blinked a few times, and pasted an obviously fake smile on her face. "I should probably return to Mama. She hates when I spend too much time by myself."

They rejoined the two sitting at the tea table, and Mercy sipped her lukewarm tea. A few minutes later, Mama sent her regrets to Mrs. and Miss Morgan, stating that she still had not recovered from the ball.

Miss Morgan's initial shyness wore off, and by the end of their conversation, she had turned into a lively young woman. One the Duke of Harrington would have certainly enjoyed kissing.

After they left, Mercy turned to Penelope. "Well, we can add one more name to the Duke of Harrington's list."

"Miss Morgan?" Penelope's eyebrows rose.

"Apparently he was quite taken with her a few months ago."

"Exactly how taken?"

"Quite," was all Mercy said.

Penelope eyed the window where the Morgan carriage was waiting for its passengers. "I'm starting to wonder if, perhaps, there is more to this duke than he has led you to believe."

"As am I, and I don't know how I feel about it."

Penelope whipped her head back around. "What do you mean by that?"

"He is handsome, wealthy, personable, bad at chess—all things I admire. My one complaint of him is that he has no passion. And now, suddenly—"

"Mercy."

"What?"

"Don't tell me you are jealous of that sad, quiet woman."

Mercy leaned forward until she was only inches away from Penelope's face. "What is so wrong with me? Am I not attractive? He has never once tried to get me alone or take advantage of me."

Penelope pushed her lips tightly together, but her wide, sparking eyes betrayed the fact that she was about to laugh.

Mercy narrowed her eyes. "I'm serious."

Penelope shook her head and allowed her laugh to escape. "You must be the only woman in London who, upon hearing that her admirer has raised false hope in other women, likes him better for it."

"I didn't say I like him better for it."

"You didn't have to. I can see it. Passion and philandering are two very different things, Mercy."

"While you were cavorting with Lord Bryant, you didn't seem to worry about that. And look at him now, completely devoted to his wife."

Penelope stilled. "Do not use Lord Bryant as your compass for what a loyal husband might look like before marriage. He's not the man Society painted him to be."

"It seems that neither is the Duke of Harrington. He wants everyone to think he is the most proper man in London, but that is only a facade."

"Mercy, are you certain you aren't sabotaging your courtship because you're hurt the duke hasn't been arduous with you?"

Penelope didn't understand. She hadn't seen the look on Miss Morgan's face while she was so obviously remembering her very pleasant trysts with the duke. "No. I'm not at all certain of that."

"Because if you change your mind and he finds out we've done this—"

"I know." What could she say? Miss Morgan had awakened a beast from somewhere so deep inside Mercy, she hadn't even realized the beast existed. The duke had pulled away from Mercy every single time she'd touched him. And now, in the course of two days, she'd learned of as many women who had gotten much more than scintillating conversations over chessboards with him.

Devil take his thick lashes and smile that made her want to reach out to him, when he had no desire to do the same. She would not settle for a man who saw her only as a way to solidify his social standing, even if he wanted that social standing for noble reasons. She would wait and give her heart to someone who didn't see her has chattel. "I just want to go back to being the person I was a few weeks ago. Someone who doesn't care one whit for the Duke of Harrington."

Penelope pushed her lips together in thought and sighed. "All right, then. Let's start that list. One way or another, we will either get the duke a wife or, at the very least, destroy any connection you have to him."

Mercy jumped from her seat and dashed over to the writing table before she could change her mind. Making a list of possible suitors for a man who was courting her would be a pleasant way to spend the remainder of her morning, and the sooner she got this over with, the sooner her life could return to normal. The next time she saw Harrington, she would be the one in charge of their courtship for a change, and she would get to see how he handled his perfectly organized world becoming invaded by chaos.