“Stanton Harold Hall, our family estate, is in Wiltshire. It’s a drear place and I cannot believe he wishes the girls to grow up there. He hated the place when we were young.”
Leopold smiled and drained his glass to hide his emotions. He had never belonged at Romsey before, but the sensation was slowly creeping up on him. “Opinions change as you age. How old are the girls?”
“Five, four, and two. So young to be motherless and raised by servants.”
“It is the custom.”
“Not in my family, it isn’t,” Mercy snapped. She took a deep breath and then patted his knee. “Forgive me. My brother’s attitude vexes me enormously. But he will be here soon and I will ende
avor to extend his stay beyond the meager two weeks he’s agreed upon. I am hoping he will stay longer because you are here to provide much needed male company. My sister, Patience, will be with us as well but we ladies tend to babble too much for Constantine’s comfort. You’ll like Patience. She has a direct way about her.”
Leopold hooked his arms around his knee and stared off into the distance. Hearing Mercy speak of her family gave him pain. Not pain that she was troubled by the push and pull of family relationships. His pain was that he was not similarly affected. Would his siblings be as he remembered?
Tobias had been a trusting lad, and Rosemary a veritable termagant. He and Oliver had been the closest of friends, but they had fought from time to time over the littlest of things. Usually over Oliver’s obsession with ridiculous calculations. He’d give anything to hear them now, however.
Hoping to banish his anxiety, Leopold reached for his correspondence. The foreign world of gay parties and pompous announcements would calm him.
A tattered letter caught his eye, standing out for its inferior stationary and careless penmanship against the expensive correspondence. Leopold opened it and read.
My Dear Romsey,
You cannot imagine how I long for you. To hold you between my hands and feel your breath quiver as you look into my eyes. Not long now till we meet again. Wait for me.
Ever yours,
A lover’s note? Leopold quickly folded the paper and thrust it toward Mercy. “My apologies. I did not realize the nature of the missive.” As the paper slipped from his fingers, Leopold bounced to his feet and strode away.
How complete an idiot was he?
Mercy must have taken a string of lovers since her husband’s death. The thought curled around his insides until he thought he might strike out if anyone approached him. To protect the innocent, he kept well clear of Edwin and the servants. But they all stopped their games and followed him with their eyes as he moved away. The thought of Mercy welcoming other men to her bed clouded his vision in a red haze. He did not care where his steps took him. He forced himself to walk on, yet when Mercy hailed him, he stopped and let her catch up.
She rushed to his side, hands curling over his forearm and tugging insistently. “What am I to do?”
Leopold shook off her grip as the bitter stink of jealousy whipped him. “I imagine you’ll be welcoming the chap with open arms, Your Grace.”
Mercy hugged her chest. “Why in heavens name would I do that? I don’t know this madman.”
Leopold watched her closely. Her pale face and clutching fingers all spoke to him of great anxiety. Yet the wording of the letter hinted at great intimacy between her and the writer. He didn’t know whether to believe her. “Your beau seems anxious to return to you.”
She bit her lip, a guilty gesture that sickened him. He turned away and watched where the boy played, innocent of his mother’s capricious nature.
However, Mercy wouldn’t be ignored for long. She marched around him until they stood face-to-face. Her clenched fists landed on her hips. “He’s not my beau, you obstinate man—he threatens to harm me and my son.”
Chapter Sixteen
Mercy stared as the affable man she was familiar with transformed before her eyes. His posture stiffened, his gaze hardening to one of fury as it darted about the clearing in search of a hidden foe. In the blink of an eye he had became someone that expected danger to leap upon them. A man who would give as good as he got when faced with a threat.
His fingers closed over her arm and drew her against him. In the next instant, he drew a weapon, a small pistol, from his coat pocket and held it at his side, muzzle pointing down at their feet. Leopold might have shown signs of jealousy a moment before when he’d thought a beau was writing to her, but those emotions had vanished as if they had never been.
If not for the danger they faced, Mercy might have been pleased that he liked her well enough to feel threatened by the madman writing to her. She might have even gently teased him with the idea that she had become dear to him. But the time for forgetting her troubles was over. The fears she had kept to herself were out in the open now.
That he believed her immediately was a comfort. That he would shoot first and ask questions later troubled her a great deal.
His grip tightened and then he released her. “The picnic is over, Mercy. We’ll collect Edwin and return to the abbey now.”
Hearing the stern ‘no arguments’ tone in his voice, Mercy picked up her skirts and turned toward where Edwin played. However, she hadn’t taken more than two steps in his direction before Leopold cautioned her. “Do not rush about and frighten the boy. We do not want to draw unnecessary attention to our departure. Behave naturally.”
Behave naturally? How exactly was that possible when his words and manner had sent her fear spinning out of control. They were exposed here and she had not realized that very important fact when she had decided on the location. She had put Edwin in danger unnecessarily in order to partake of a romantic picnic with Leopold, blinded by her infatuation with the man. She must have lost her mind the minute she gazed upon his dimpled cheeks in the drawing room.