Chapter 28

Mercy thanked Mr. Palmer for a lovely dance, and he led her to Mama. She'd never danced with Mr. Palmer before, and she doubted she would have the opportunity again. She had hardly been an encouraging dance partner.

She hadn't seen Nicholas since his dance with Lady Marion.

Mama smiled at Mr. Palmer and at Mercy, but her smile toward Mercy was forced. She still hadn't forgiven her for not being able to coerce Nicholas into proposing to her.

Another half hour and she should be all right. She'd only thought herself in love with him for a few short minutes. Before speaking with Rosalind, she may have thought falling in love was out of her control, that if she didn't take this chance with Nicholas, she would never have another shot at love. But Nicholas had been right all along; love shouldn't make a person forget everyone else around them or make them do things they knew to be wrong. Love should be calculating, and it should make sense.

And she was certain living without Nicholas would make sense someday.

Years from now.

In the meantime, she would not bring disgrace to his family.

"Mercy," a low voice hissed to her left, and she spun. Penelope was smiling and motioning toward the door with her eyebrows.

"Excuse me, Mama. I'm going to visit with Penelope."

Mama glanced at Penelope, her eyes pausing at her elaborate headdress of feathers and pearls. Based on her quick frown, it seemed that even Mama had a limit to how much jewelry was acceptable, and Penelope had managed to exceed it.

Still, Mama smiled. Penelope was one of Mercy's highest-ranking friends, and while that hadn't mattered in the past, suddenly every relation that might be willing to weather this storm with them mattered now. "Of course."

Penelope took Mercy's hand and practically dragged her to the corridor. Once alone, she took both of Mercy's hands in her own. "I've done it. I've got everything arranged for tonight. We simply need to decide how far we want to take this business with His Grace and Lady Plymton."

Mercy shook her head and tried to piece together what Penelope was saying. "What do you mean, His Grace and Lady Plymton?"

"The next step in our plan. I delivered a letter to him while you were dancing. He's to meet her in the library."

"He's what ?"

"I've arranged it all with Lady Plymton. She was more than happy to comply."

Heavens, their plan . They'd planned to push Nicholas into the arms of other women, and their next target had been Lady Plymton. "Oh, no. Penelope, you didn't."

Penelope's face fell. For a woman who never looked sad, she could certainly pout well. "What do you mean, I didn't? I did. And it wasn't easy. I had to get my hands all over your duke."

"He isn't my duke."

"He is going to be Lady Plymton's duke before long. She seems to be the influential type. One that can convince a man to do... well... anything."

Mercy took a deep breath. Nicholas could take care of himself, and even if Mercy had disappointed him, he still would never agree to meet Lady Plymton. "He won't meet her. I misunderstood his relationship with her, so your note should be of no consequence."

"Oh, she didn't have me sign her name. She didn't want anything to be traced back to either one of them. For all he knows, it could be anyone waiting for him in the library. Even you."

Mercy closed her eyes. He wouldn't, would he? Not after she'd pushed him past where he was comfortable in the drawing room and then ignored him. When she'd shown up without the necklace, he must have known their courtship was over. Even if he thought it was Mercy waiting in the library, he wouldn't meet her alone. Not again.

A man and two women strode into the corridor. The women's heads were pressed together, and they didn't even notice Penelope and Mercy. She only made out a few words as they passed, but one of those words was unmistakably "library."

Mercy froze. "What time were they supposed to meet?"

Penelope shrugged "They should've met a few minutes ago. Should we see what is happening? This could be the beginning of a great love story. Lady Plymton was extreme—"

Mercy pushed herself off the wall and grabbed Penelope by the shoulders. "Go block the library door."

"What?"

"Lady Plymton was not the love of Nicholas's life. She is a viper, and I think the group that just passed us is going to the library. Go tackle those people if you have to, but do not let anyone make it into the library before you do. Do you understand?"

Penelope eyes mapped Mercy's face. She hadn't missed the fact that somehow the Duke of Harrington had become Nicholas. But she didn't ask any questions. Instead, she spun her head to look down the corridor, and nodded seriously. "I'll do it." Penelope picked up her silk skirt and ran.

If there were ever a time for Nicholas to be late for a meeting, this was it. Or to miss a meeting, that would be even better. If Lady Plymton was willing to manipulate a seventeen-year-old boy, there was no telling what she would be willing to do in order to secure Nicholas and his title now.

Mercy dashed down the corridor in the opposite direction of Penelope. She turned into one of the morning rooms that had a door leading outside and into the back garden. She couldn't break Nicholas's heart and involve him in a public scandal all in one day. She tore open the door and ignored the blast of cold air. The library had windows opening to the outside. They would be locked, but she could knock and distract Nicholas and Lady Plymton from... whatever it was they would be doing. Talking, hopefully. But even talking alone in a room could lead to someone calling for a marriage proposal, especially if Lady Plymton asked some of her friends to do exactly that.

Her slippers were soaked through almost immediately from the damp grass. She would have no possible explanation to give Mama, but she would deal with that after she saved Nicholas from the two things he despised most in this world: Lady Plymton and dishonor on the title of Harrington.

She reached the window, her breath ragged and gasping. The library was dimly lit, with only a few candles, and thank the heavens, the door to the well-lit corridor was still closed. Penelope must have found a way to stop the group of people from entering.

Mercy would find a way to thank her later.

She banged her fist against the glass. "Nicholas!" she shouted, not caring who heard her. She pounded again. "Nicholas!" This time, she hissed the name. Because she had no right to call him that, and Nicholas wouldn't want a scandal with Mercy either. She grabbed the window frame and shook it, knowing it was locked, but to her surprise, it creaked open. She stuck her head inside. "Your Grace?" She repented of shouting out his Christian name where anyone could hear her. "Are you in here?"

"He left," a voice, low, feminine, and jaded, replied in the darkness.

Mercy's head whipped to her left. There, practically reclining on a sofa, sat Lady Plymton. In the dim light, her eyes were catlike and vicious. How had Mercy ever thought it would be a good idea for Nicholas to be alone with this woman? Miss Morgan might be conniving, but Lady Plymton was a predator who'd gone without prey for much too long.

Mercy narrowed her eyes. "Where did he go?"

Lady Plymton flicked some imaginary dust from the sofa. "Why? Have you finally wizened up?" Her pretty mouth curled into something dangerous. "Do you know how many women would give their toes to be in your position? And what do you do? Try to throw the man in anyone else's direction? How idiotic can you be?"

A bump sounded near the door that led to the corridor, and muffled voices rose in some kind of shock or surprise. Whatever Penelope was doing was starting to cause a commotion. Mercy pulled up her skirt and climbed over the two-foot masonry work and into the library.

"They're too late," Lady Plymton said flatly.

"Who are?"

"My friends. They were supposed to find me here with..." She paused and looked meaningfully at the window where Mercy had been only moments before. "Nicholas."

Mercy gritted her teeth. The sound of his name coming from this woman's lips made her want to tear them off.

Instead, she took a deep breath and turned away from Lady Plymton, then tore open the door. "What is—" She broke off mid-sentence. Penelope had been sitting on the floor with her back and shoulders against the door. She fell into the room with a small yelp, only just catching herself with her hands before her head hit the ground.

Five people stood behind Penelope. They ignored her and Mercy, a few of them stepping over and around Penelope to get inside the library. They narrowed their eyes in the dim light, looking for something.

Looking for some one . But Nicholas was gone, and finding Lady Plymton and Mercy together in the library was hardly the scandal they'd hoped to witness.

One more figure, taller and marching like a soldier, joined the last few people still in the corridor. "The woman is ill. Everyone, please back away." The deep tones of Nicholas's baritone voice broke something inside Mercy. Their eyes met, and his were unrecognizable. Gone were the subtle hues and softness of the forest. The trees had caught fire, burned to black and blazing with such scalding heat she had to shrink away from them.

But Nicholas didn't wince or step away from her. He took action. He pushed one of the men aside and grabbed his shoulder. "Go fetch Lord Yolten. This is his wife."

The man, struck by that same scorching heat in Nicholas's eyes, nodded and dashed off. Nicholas scooped up Penelope, one arm under her neck and the other beneath her knees, and strode into the library. He reached the sofa where Lady Plymton sat. "Move," he said in a commanding tone that could only have been learned during his time in the army.

Lady Plymton wrinkled her nose but stood.

Nicholas laid Penelope on the sofa and strode back to the door. "Give this woman her privacy. I do not want anyone but her husband to enter this room. Do you understand?" Lady Plympton's friends nodded in unison, those that had pushed their way into the library shuffled back out of it, and then Nicholas shut the door.

Mercy ran to Penelope's side. Was she truly injured? Had the people on the other side of the door wanted in so badly they'd done something to her? Mercy grabbed both her hands, and one of Penelope's eyes cracked open. She glanced quickly at Nicholas, lifted both of her eyebrows, gave him a quick whooshing breath of appreciation, and closed her eyes again.

Mercy slid her jaw to one side. Penelope was most definitely unharmed.

But it looked like she might need a week of convalescence to recover from being carried by Nicholas. Apparently being married to the love of her life hadn't left her without an appreciation for men with broad shoulders and an overactive sense of duty and honor.

Nicholas paced in front of the door. "The three of you will explain exactly what is going on here."

"I don't need to explain anything," Lady Plymton said. "I was simply hoping to reconnect with you tonight, and instead, you had to go dashing out the window."

That was why the window was unlocked and how he had returned to the library from the outside. He hadn't needed her help, after all. Nicholas could have avoided scandal on his own. Of course he could have. He'd probably been dodging scheming women for most of his adult life.

"If that were the case, how did that note make it into my pocket? I hadn't been anywhere near you before it arrived." He turned to Mercy. She swallowed and tried to make herself look smaller. "How did you know to come to the library?" His commanding air dropped the smallest of fractions. His eyes raked over her. "Was it your note? Were you coming here to meet me?"

Mercy lowered her head. "No."

He stiffened. "But you knew about it."

She couldn't look at him. Couldn't watch the moment he learned what type of woman he had been courting. "Yes."

"And you didn't try to warn me?"

She didn't answer. As soon as she had learned about it, she had done exactly that. But it was her fault the note had made it into his pocket in the first place.

"You didn't just know about it, did you? Did you put that note in my pocket while we were in the drawing room?"

Mercy's eyes flashed up to his. He was going to despise her after the events of this ball, but even she had a limit to what she could live with him thinking of her. "No. Of course not."

He narrowed one eye. "So it was Lady Yolten, but she would have no reason to want me alone with Lady Plymton. Which means the two of you planned this together, and Lady Plymton was only too happy to comply."

Mercy couldn't answer him, but she couldn't hold his gaze any longer either, and apparently when she dropped her eyes, that was answer enough.

"Why would you do this?" His voice was hard but hoarse.

Mercy opened her mouth, but there was nothing she could say to excuse herself, not one thing she could say.

Lady Plymton scoffed. "The fool didn't want to marry you."

Nicholas shot Lady Plymton another one of his looks of fire, and she dropped her eyes as well.

Mercy crossed her hands over her stomach. She could tell him that all of this had been arranged before she'd truly known about Lady Plymton, before she'd asked him to take off his cravat and kiss her. But what good would it do? It wouldn't change their circumstances. She'd been too scared to let him know they couldn't marry. Well, now she wouldn't have to. Penelope and Lady Plymton had accomplished that unpleasant task for her. Now that Nicholas had witnessed her artifice and deception firsthand, he wouldn't want anything to do with her.

She couldn't look at the hurt and anger written all over Nicholas's face. "I'm sorry." Her voice came out as a whisper.

Nicholas returned to his pacing, one hand at the back of his neck as if he was deep in thought, or trying to stop himself from punching a wall. "What about the time Miss Morgan and I got separated from everyone else at the Zoological Garden? Did you plan that as well?"

Mercy swallowed. The absolute shame of what she had done weighed on her, making it hard to breath or talk. It was as if she had suddenly been caught under a landslide and a mountain of rubble pressed down on her chest. But she would not lie. "Yes."

He stopped pacing and walked toward her. She dared a glance at him. It was a mistake. His face was twisted in revulsion. "Of course you did," he said. "Was I so repellant to you that you had to force me onto other women? You could have simply told me."

Mercy rubbed her forehead. "No, I couldn't have." She shook her head. "You saw my parents. They were so happy."

"And you didn't have the courage to tell them you had no interest in a man who only sent flowers and asked you to dance and nothing more?"

"That isn't fair." Penelope sat up, perfectly unharmed. "True, what we did was wrong, but a woman can't possibly know right away whether she is in love with a man. She didn't want to reject you outright."

Nicholas turned on her. "No, she didn't. She only wanted to put me into situations that would damage not only my reputation, but that of other women as well."

"I don't care about my reputation," Lady Plymton said with a shrug. "I'd happily risk it for another chance with you."

"Lady Plymton, you will never have another chance with me. Please keep your distance whenever we have the misfortune of being in a room together. I do not look back at our time together with pleasure—only shame and regret." He turned to Mercy. "That is how rejection should be handled. Clean, clear, and without misunderstanding. Why—" He shook his head again. "And I'd thought..."

What? What had he thought? As much as she knew it would kill her, she wanted to know. But she was the one in the wrong, and no amount of begging for forgiveness would change her circumstances. He didn't finish his sentence. Instead, he leaned toward her. Waiting. As if, despite everything, he would, perhaps, give her one more chance to explain herself and make recompense for her wrongs.

But she could not. She mouthed the words, I'm sorry, once again. His jaw clenched, and he straightened. His hand went to his cravat and tore at it. First the knot in front came undone, and then the rest of it fell away at his clawing fingers. He ripped it from his neck and dropped it at her feet.

"I'll leave this with you as a memento of our time together. I'll never wear it again," he said with his lips curved into an awful sneer, before striding out of the room.

Nicholas, the Duke of Harrington, the most proper man she had ever known, stormed past the men and women waiting in the corridor with his neck bare and the offending length of silk left, mocking her, in a pile at her feet.

* * *

Nicholas almost made it out of the Driarwood home without incident. Even Patience and Ottersby didn't dare stop him as strode past the ballroom. It was only as he stood alone in the entry hall pacing while he waited for the servant to call his carriage and fetch his coat and hat that someone dared approach him.

And it was Lord Rayleigh, blast the deuced man. He must have a death wish. Wasn't interrupting his speech and arguing with him in Parliament enough?

Lord Rayleigh pulled a monocle out of his breast pocket and surveyed Nicholas's open neck. "Have you spent so much time with the Irish that you are adopting their style of dress? Your father would be so disappointed."

Nicholas sighed. His father couldn't have cared less about his cravat. But he would be disappointed to know that Nicholas had allowed this man to disrespect the title of Harrington time and time again. Nicholas looked down toward his neck as if he wasn't extremely aware of his open collar. "You don't think I should be dressed like this?"

Lord Rayleigh grunted. "Of course not. You are a duke, for heaven's sake. Think of your reputation."

"Then I suppose there is nothing to do but for you to give me yours."

"What?"

"I'm fairly certain you heard me. I said give me your cravat."

Lord Rayleigh took a step back as if he had only just realized he was in the company of a madman. He should have realized it sooner; it wasn't as if Nicholas were trying to hide it. Lord Rayleigh shook his head. "I'm not going to give you my cravat."

"Yes, you are. You know who I am. You know my title and rank. After all, you've reminded me of those things twice. Are you really going to deny me, a duke, this one request?"

"I—" Lord Rayleigh looked left and right. The only other person in the hall was the same servant, looking for all the world as if he couldn't hear their conversation, but the corners of his lips turned up just enough for Nicholas to know he was enjoying it.

"If you make me ask for your cravat again, you will no longer be admitted to Whites, any business dealings our estates share will be halted, and every other Sunday, I'll personally make certain an order of flowers is delivered to your home with your mistress's name on them."

"Your father—"

"If you try to use my father's reputation against me again, the flowers will be arriving twice a week."

Lord Rayleigh swallowed, mumbled something under his breath, then undid his cravat and handed it to him. Nicholas held it up with two fingers. The edges of the linen were yellowed, and the material limp. There was no circumstance under which Nicholas would be putting it around his neck.

"The next time I speak in Parliament, you won't be interrupting me unless it is to voice support for my ideas. Do you understand?" But Lord Rayleigh simply looked at his cravat with confusion and nodded. "Answer me, you low-living piece of filth, or I will speak to the Queen about your insolence."

Lord Rayleigh furrowed his eyebrows but nodded. "I understand."

"Good. I don't care what your views are. You are welcome to go to the devil because of your lack of sympathy to the suffering and dying, but I will not have you impeding my work any longer. I am my father's son, and the title of Harrington is mine now. It is time you started treating me with the same deference you treated him."

Lord Rayleigh nodded again, but it seemed to pain him.

"Good. Now then." Nicholas pasted on the broadest and most becoming smile he could muster. "Give my regards to your wife. I'll have my mother send her an invitation for a morning visit, if you think she would enjoy it."

The furrows in Lord Rayleigh forehead smoothed out. Nicholas knew Lady Rayleigh's wife only in passing, but she was definitely the type who would love to drink tea with a duchess. "She would."

"Tell her to look forward to it." Nicholas threw Lord Rayleigh's cravat back at him. "And tell your valet to use more starch."