Chapter 15

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Colin had searched the entire estate, but he could not find his wife or Lady Edith. His fingers tapped against his leg to the beat of a trifling fear that they were together somewhere, plotting against him. Plotting what, he did not know, but it was just the sort of thing his aunt would do.

He stopped before the drawing room doors, closed with a rope lying over the handle to remind the servants—and Mercy—not to enter it. She would not have taken Lady Edith inside, would she? He reached for the door before hesitating. No, of course not. Mercy wouldn’t subject an aging, dying woman to the falling debris from the ceiling. She was wiser than that.

Then where were they? Colin had gone so far as to look at the kitchen garden and trudged through the snow toward the stables, but no luck. The women were gone.

Unless…

He had not checked the kitchen itself. But surely Mercy would not drag Lady Edith down there.

Colin made his way down the servants’ staircase into the kitchen, the sound of laughter and chatter confirming his suspicions. He descended into an overly warm room that smelled of crackling fire and rich, warm biscuits. Colin clenched his teeth when he left the stairwell and found Lady Edith sitting at the long servants’ table. Mercy stood at the work counter with Mrs. Johns and the new kitchen maid, flour spotting her gown.

What the devil was going on here? Everyone seemed to look up at him at the same time.

Blast. Had he spoken aloud?

“Your wife and I are having a bit of a competition,” Lady Edith said, her beady eyes narrowing slightly. “Do tell me you haven’t come with the intention of spoiling our fun.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Colin looked from the bowl Lady Edith was mixing to the pan Mercy was pressing her dough into. Both spaces were covered in a dusting of flour, as were both women. “What is the nature of your competition? To see who can create a bigger mess?”

Mercy’s face hardened slightly, her cheeks growing red. “Some mess is required when baking, Colin. I would like to see a pan of shortbread made without one.”

“So would I,” he muttered.

“I would not,” Lady Edith said. “If you set unrealistic expectations, Nephew, you will consistently be disappointed.” She pushed to her feet and used her cane to point at Mrs. Johns. “I need a pan, young lady. My shortbread needs to be baked.”

Colin nearly choked on his cough. Only the esteemed Lady Edith could refer to his white-haired cook as young lady without anyone batting an eye. Mrs. Johns fetched a pan and carried it to Edith, but was swatted away when she tried to help press the dough into the pan .

Colin stood there, feeling a little lost. The women were all busy with tasks, none of them seeming to pay him any mind. Should he disappear? Sulk back the way he’d come? Incite a riddle competition to go along with their baking so he could remain and be of some use?

No, that would be too obvious. Besides, it was Mercy’s turn to provide a riddle, and she had yet to give him one.

“If you insist on remaining, you might as well make yourself useful,” Lady Edith said, pushing her pan toward Colin.

He went to her side immediately and lifted the cold pan.

“Take it to Mercy,” she said. “She knows what to do.”

Colin did as he was told. Mercy took the pan from him and carried it to the oven, pushing it inside. She noted the time on the clock and returned to Lady Edith at the table. He quickly realized she was cleaning the space. Her eyes avoided him, as did those of Mrs. Johns and the new maid—blast, what was her name?—but he was used to that from his servants.

Not from his wife.

Mercy cleaned his aunt’s workstation, then her own, before removing a pan of ginger biscuits from the oven with a cloth and setting them down. Her gaze rose to his, a sense of challenge in them. Her cheeks were rosy, her mouth firm. Gads, how her eyes sparkled. Who knew defiance could provide such a rich expression?

“Those smell delightful,” Lady Edith said, closing her eyes and inhaling the rich, buttery scent of warm ginger. “Mr. Walker would have eaten the entire batch were he with us today.”

“Your husband?” Mercy asked, moving to the table and sitting beside his aunt. “I thought he loved shortbread.”

Colin did not know what to do, only that he had lost the desire to flee. He wanted to join them, so he pulled out the chair beside Mercy and sat in it, waiting for her to smile encouragingly at him.

She did not.

In fact, she did not bother to look his way at all.

“Yes, he did.” Lady Edith fidgeted with the top of her cane. Her color looked better, the pink in her cheeks doing much to fight the pallor she’d claimed last night. “He was very fond of all sweets. Some of my favorite memories are fighting over the last piece of pie or cake after dinner. It was never much of an argument, mind. We were good at sharing.”

“He sounds like the best sort of man,” Mercy said warmly.

“Any man who will always give you the last bite of pie is the best sort,” Lady Edith said with a crisp nod. “My Mr. Walker was that way.” She gave Colin a narrowed-eyed glance. “What of you?”

“We have not yet been presented with that situation,” he said, feeling for all the world like the women in this house were joining forces against him, much as he’d feared. Whatever had he done to earn their ire?

Mercy still avoided his gaze. “Colin would likely slice the final piece of pie in half with exactness. He is nothing if not meticulous.”

Lady Edith grinned. “Very true, dear. I’m afraid he comes by that honestly. His mother is a staunch supporter of order and cleanliness.”

“Is she?” Mercy asked, tipping her head to the side. “I did not realize that.”

Lady Edith looked at Colin expectantly. If that was her attempt to draw him into the conversation, it was artfully done. Mercy, it seemed, had forgotten their primary objective was to prove to Lady Edith how much they cared for one another. This cold dismissal was the opposite of that.

“Very much so,” he said, unwilling to lose this road into the conversation. “In fact, I am nearly certain it was why she left Winterbourne. She claims Honora needed her once she began having children, but it was difficult for my mother to reside in a house that was veritably falling apart around her.”

Mercy glanced at him then, and he held her gaze. “Did your father not mind the disorder?”

“He did not have to face it, not really. His answer to Winterbourne’s problems was to drive us into debt and worry about the consequences later.” Colin realized how many ears were listening to the sordid details of his troubled finances but pressed on anyway. “I have managed to put us back on solid footing, but the house suffered in the interlude.”

It had taken great care and meticulous budgeting to pay off his father’s creditors and put Winterbourne back into a position to make an income again. He would do well in the future, but he couldn’t fix the entire estate on such a small budget, not when the current income needed to be recycled back into the land so he could keep producing. He had only contrived a way to cease falling further into debt.

Lady Edith broke through his thoughts. “Now that Colin has joined us, we have a judge.”

Mercy wrinkled her freckled nose. “You think that wise? I was hoping Mrs. Johns could provide that service.”

“Mrs. Johns would choose me in order to avoid offending her guest,” Lady Edith said without pause. “We can trust Colin to be truthful. He is too precise to lie. ”

Mrs. Johns sliced into a block of meat on the counter, likely beginning her preparations for dinner. “It is true,” she said without malice.

“Shall we set the judging to be for after dinner?” Lady Edith asked. “I am tired. I think I will retire until then.”

Mercy stood immediately. “Shall I walk you upstairs?”

“You needn’t bother. I can manage. Perhaps you two ought to go riding. The sun was out this morning.”

They both stood, smiling at her until she disappeared up the stairs. When she was gone, the sound of her retreat fully absent, Colin faced his wife. “That was the opposite of what we are trying to accomplish.”

“Oh? So you think I should have refused when your aunt asked me to match my shortbread recipe against hers?”

“It was her idea?”

Mercy made an exasperated sound. “I did not set out to drag Lady Edith to the kitchen and cover her in flour.”

“No, of course not.” When she stated it like that, it did sound ridiculous.

“What would you have had me do?” Mercy asked, folding her arms over her chest.

“Nothing differently from what you’ve done.” It was then Colin realized he owed her an apology. He glanced toward the oven and found Mrs. Johns and the new kitchen maid watching them with interest. Both women’s eyes darted away, but he had not been fooled. He reached for Mercy’s hand, untangling her ire. “Will you come with me?”

“Yes,” she said. There was a hint of questioning in her voice. She seemed hesitant but was evidently interested enough to follow him.

He tugged her down the corridor and into the stillroom, closing the door behind them. Memories of when they were last in that room together flashed through his mind. Was it really only a week ago he had found Mercy in the garden, cutting his palm in a pathetic attempt to join her in her task? At the time, he hadn’t been entirely sure why he’d done it, only that he wanted to help. If his wife was intent on doing something so ridiculous as weeding the kitchen garden, he was not going to let her do it alone.

Madness. That’s what it was.

Or a growing fondness for his wife, despite how he had disagreed with her choices.

He flexed his hand, glad the cut had healed. Only a thin scab remained.

“What is this about?” she asked, eyeing him warily.

Colin cleared his throat, shoving away the thought of her gently holding his hand and ministering to his cut. Their future was very much on the line here. “We must make more of a concerted effort to prove our affection for one another in front of Lady Edith.”

She seemed to deflate a little, as though disappointed. Had she thought he’d brought her into this room for another reason? “We were only bickering, Colin. Most married couples do that on occasion, do they not? My father is forever teasing my mother. She is constantly telling him to cease, despite how anyone can see that she enjoys it.”

He gave a faint laugh, noting a smudge of flour on her chin. He could not help but stare at it. “I am nothing like your father.”

Mercy’s eyes flashed. “Indeed,” she said, the word cutting through the room.

He could sense she had taken offense, but it was the truth. He was not the teasing sort, and he felt sudden umbrage at being compared to someone of that ilk, of something he could never become. “If you had wanted to be married to a ridiculous man, you should not have agreed to our arrangement.”

Mercy huffed a snort. “Good grief, Colin. Anyone would think you mean to say you are not ridiculous.”

His back straightened of its own accord. “You imply I am?”

“There is no implication. I will say it outright. Not everything needs to be perfectly organized. Some ventures find success without employing a list. And if your knife and fork are not exactly straight on either side of your plate, dinner will still go on!”

He wanted to gasp in outrage, but that felt a little dramatic. Instead, he reached forward, pushing through his hesitation, and gently wiped the smudge of flour from her chin. “You had something there.”

“I imagine I have a great deal of somethings on my face,” she said petulantly. “I was baking.”

Something about the way he’d touched her took the ire out of him, and it had seemed to do the same for Mercy, if the way her shoulders had fallen away from her ears was any indication. They stared at one another, their breathing audible, filling the room with sound. Tension seeped from the room.

Colin held her gaze. “I knew my aunt had a fondness for shortbread, but it was beyond my knowledge that she made the stuff herself.”

“She told me it was her husband’s family recipe.”

A tendril of guilt swept through his gut. “She must miss him fiercely.”

“I believe that is the truth.” Mercy seemed to deflate further. She crossed her arm over her chest, holding her opposite elbow, and worried her lip. “I wanted to do something for her, something kind. I do not like that she is so ill, and I find it a little sad how determined she is to visit all her family despite this. Did you know she intends to visit York and Scotland as well? She told me of her plans while we were in the kitchen.”

Scotland was unexpected, but Colin imagined she was checking on each of his cousins—the three who had been in the solicitor’s office with him last month. “I cannot say I am surprised. Lady Edith does what she wishes, despite what any doctor or family member might feel.”

Mercy continued. “I’d hoped agreeing to our little competition might bring her some joy.”

“Thank you for doing that.” Their baking suddenly felt less gauche and significantly more charitable—not only because of Lady Edith’s feelings, but also because she knew how much Colin wanted to prove themselves to the woman. Mercy was intelligent. She understood the depth of their situation and how important it was to make certain Lady Edith did not revoke the fortune. Even still, he had the firm sense Mercy had done what she could for his aunt simply out of the goodness of her heart.

Colin had chosen a wife who embodied charity and kindness in their purest forms. He owed her his gratitude, though he didn’t quite know how to phrase it.

“If that is all, I have more baking that needs to be done,” she said.

“More? Whatever for?”

“My mother sent around a note requesting my help with some Christmas parcels. We often deliver them over Christmastide and, though she did not say as much, I fear she is overwhelmed trying to manage them all without my assistance this year. If it is agreeable to you, I planned to bring biscuits and shortbread to her home tomorrow and help her assemble the parcels after Lady Edith leaves.”

“I have no objections.”

She gave a faint nod of understanding. “Thank you. I do not imagine it will require much from your stores, but–”

“That is of little concern to me, Mercy. Help me prove our affection to my aunt, and you can provide biscuits and shortbread to the entire county for all I care.”

She gave him a tight smile. He did not miss the disappointment that briefly washed over her face. “I will do my best. Did you know she intends to leave in the morning?”

“That makes success more imperative. It is our last night to make an impression and gain her approval.”

Mercy moved toward the door, then paused and looked back. “Do you have a plan to prove this affection?”

The simplest way would be for Lady Edith to find them kissing, but Colin wasn’t certain he could broach that idea quite yet. His body flushed warm with the images it conjured, and he found he wanted to propose that option. But Mercy blinked at him, and he thought of how he’d told her he would give her time before their relationship needed to become physical. “Perhaps we can both consider the situation and bring our ideas to dinner. We can meet in the antechamber a quarter of an hour before six and discuss it.”

Mercy nodded. “That is agreeable to me.”

She moved toward the door, and Colin’s hand reached toward her of its own accord—an impulse he did not fully understand. He snapped it back to his side, but the motion had garnered her attention.

“Do you need help?” he asked, for lack of anything else to say .

She gave him what he imagined to be the first real smile he had received from her that day. “And dirty your finely pressed coat? I wouldn’t dream of asking that of you.”

Colin remained in the stillroom for a few minutes after she had gone, unable to wipe the rueful grimace from his face.