Marriage of Mercy Read online

  After a filthy look at her, the marquis turned on his heel and left the bakery, slamming the door so hard that the cat in the window woke up.

  ‘I fear I may have cost you a customer,’ Grace told Mr Wilson, who had watched the whole scene.

  ‘I can be philosophical,’ Mr Wilson said, patting Tommy on the head. ‘He’s a grouchy old bird.’

  She worried, though, acutely aware that Lord Thomson didn’t come near the shop for weeks. Easter came and went, and so did everyone except the marquis. Quimby was a small village. Even those who had not witnessed the initial outburst knew what had happened. When he eventually returned, even those in line stepped out of the way, not willing to incur any wrath that might reflect poorly on Grace.

  With a studied smile, Lord Thomson waited his turn. As he approached the front of the line eventually, an amazing number of patrons had decided not to leave until they knew the outcome. Grace felt her cheeks grow rosy as he stood before her and placed his order.

  She chose to take the bull by the horns. ‘Lord Thomson, I’ve been faithfully making Quimby Crèmes, hoping you would return.’

  ‘Here I am,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll take all you have, if you’ll join me in the square to help me eat them.’

  She had not expected that. One look at his triumphant face told her that he had known she would be surprised and it tickled him. She smiled again. ‘You have me, sir,’ she said simply. She looked at Mr Wilson, who nodded, as interested in the conversation as his customers.

  To her relief, they ate Crèmes and parted as friends.

  Year in and year out he visited the bakery, even when the decade started to weigh on him. When an apologetic footman told her one morning that Lord Thomson was bedridden now, and asked if she would please bring the crèmes to Quarle, she made her deliveries in person.

  Standing in the foyer at Quarle, Grace had some inkling of the marquis’s actual worth, something he had never flaunted. The estate was magnificent and lovingly maintained. She felt a twinge of something close to sadness, that her own father had been unable to maintain their more modest estate to the same standard. Quarle was obviously in far better hands.

  She brought biscuits to Lord Thomson all winter, sitting with him while he ate, and later dipping them in milk and feeding them to him when he became too feeble to perform even that simple task. Each visit seemed to reveal another distant relative—he had no children of his own—all with the marquis’s commanding air, but none with his flair for stories of his years on the American continent, fighting those Yankee upstarts, or even his interest in the United States.

  His relatives barely tolerated Grace’s visits. Her cheeks had burned with their scorn, but in the end, she decided it was no worse than the slights that came her way now and then. She found herself feeling strangely protective of the old man against his own relatives, who obviously would never have come around, had they not been summoned by Lord Thomson’s new solicitor.

  At least, he introduced himself to her one afternoon as the new solicitor, although he was not young. ‘I’m Philip Selway,’ he said. ‘And you are Miss Grace Curtis?’

  ‘Just Gracie Curtis,’ she told him. ‘Lord Thomson likes my Quimby Crèmes.’

  ‘So do I,’ he assured her.

  She returned her attention to Lord Thomson. She squeezed his hand gently and he opened his eyes.

  ‘Lean closer,’ he said, with just a touch of his former air of command.

  She did as he said.

  ‘I’m dying, you know,’ he told her.

  ‘I was afraid of that,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll bring you

  Quimby Crèmes tomorrow.’

  ‘That’ll keep death away?’ he asked, amused.

  ‘No, but I’ll feel better,’ she said, which made him chuckle.

  She thought he had stopped, but he surprised her. ‘Do you trust me?’ he asked.

  ‘I believe I do,’ she replied, after a moment.

  ‘Good. What’s to come will try you. Have faith in me,’ he told her, then closed his eyes.

  She left the room quietly, wondering what he meant. The solicitor stood in the hall. He nodded to her.

  ‘Coming back tomorrow?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, indeed.’

  Lord Thomson’s relatives were returning from the breakfast room, arguing with each other. They darted angry glances at the solicitor as they brushed past him and ignored Grace.

  ‘You’ll be back tomorrow?’

  ‘I said I would, sir.’

  ‘Grace, I believe you’ll do.’

  ‘Sir?’

  He followed the relatives, but not before giving her a long look.

  As she considered the matter later, she wondered if she should have stayed away. But who was wise on short notice?

  Chapter Two

  Mr Selway knocked on the door of the bakery the next morning before they opened for business. Apron in hand, Grace unlocked the door, wondering if he had been waiting long.

  He didn’t have to say anything; she knew. ‘He’s gone, isn’t he? Mr Selway, I’m going to miss him,’ she said, swallowing hard.

  ‘We are the only ones,’ he said. ‘I wanted you to know.’ He put his hand on her arm. ‘Please attend the reading of his will, which will follow his funeral on Tuesday.’

  Surely she hadn’t heard him right. ‘I beg your pardon, sir?’

  He increased the pressure on her arm. ‘I cannot say more, since the company is not assembled for the reading. Be there, Grace.’

  * * *

  And there she was, four days later. The foyer was deserted, but Mr Selway had told her they would all be in the library. She opened the door quietly, cringing inside when it squeaked and all those heads swivelled in her direction, then turned back just as quickly. The family servants stood along the back wall and she joined them. Mr Selway looked at her over the top of his spectacles, then continued reading.

  This reading was different from her father’s paltry will. Mr Selway covered a wide-ranging roster of properties, even including a Jamaican plantation, part-interest in a Brazilian forest, a brewery in Boston and a tea farm in Ceylon.

  ‘T’auld scarecrow had his bony fingers in a lot of pies,’ the gardener standing next to her whispered.

  She nodded, thinking about Lord Thomson’s generally shabby air. She tried to imagine him as a young army officer, adventuring about the world. Her attention wandered. Before his relatives had descended on him, Lord Thomson had had no objection to her borrowing a book now and then. She thought of two books in her room behind the ovens and hoped she could sneak them back before the new Lord Thomson missed them. Not that he would, but she did not wish to cross him. Grace was a shrewd enough judge of character to suspect that the new Lord Thomson would begrudge even the widow her tiny mite, if he thought it should be his. Books probably fell in that category.

  Mr Selway finished his reading of the properties devolving on the sole heir, who sat in the front row, practically preening himself with his own importance. The solicitor picked up another sheet and started on a much smaller inventory of items of interest to other family members, ranging this time from items of jewellery to pieces of furniture. She listened with half an ear.

  The servants were given their due next, some of them turned off with a small sum and thanks. Others were allowed to keep their jobs, probably, Grace reasoned, no longer than it would take for the new Lord Thomson to decide them superfluous. Still, a pound here and a pound there could mean the world to people on the level she now inhabited.

  Mr Selway put down that document and picked up the last one remaining in front of him. He cleared his throat, looking uncertain for the first time, as if unsure how this final term would be received.

  Without a look or a word, Grace knew instinctively that whatever the term was, it would fall on her. She looked around the room in sudden panic. Everyone had been accounted for and Mr Selway had explicitly insisted on her presence. She started to ease toward the door, afraid for the attention
soon to be thrust upon her and wanting only to return to the bakery. She stopped moving when Mr Selway looked directly at her.

  ‘There are two final items in the will, recently added, but no less attested to,’ he said. ‘One is a small matter, the other a large one. Let me mention the small one first. I will read what the late Lord Thomson dictated to me, only one month ago.’ He cleared his throat and took a firm grip on the document. ‘For the last five years at least, I have been kindly treated by Mr and Mrs Wilson’s assistant, Grace Louisa Curtis. She has never failed to bake precisely the biscuits I craved, and—’

  The new Lord Thomson groaned. ‘Good Lord, next you’ll tell me that my uncle is bequeathing her a brewery on the Great Barrier Reef that we have no knowledge of! Let her have it and be damned.’

  Now dependent on this new marquis for whatever thin charity he chose to dispense, his relatives laughed. Grace cringed inside and started sidling toward the door again. It looked so far away.

  Mr Selway stared down the new marquis and continued. ‘‘Knowing of her kindness to me, when none of my relatives cared whether I lived or died, I have arranged for Miss Curtis to take possession of this estate’s dower house and its contents for her lifetime.’’

  ‘Good God!’ Lord Thomson was on his feet, his face beet red.

  Mr Selway looked at him and then down at the page.

  ‘…for her lifetime. In addition, she will receive thirty pounds per annum.’

  ‘This is outrageous!’ the marquis shouted.

  ‘It is a mere thirty pounds each year and a small house you would never occupy,’ Mr Selway said mildly. ‘Do sit down, Lord Thomson, I am not quite finished.’ He glared him down into his chair again. ‘As I said, this was the easy part.’

  Grace stared at the solicitor. The colour must have drained from her face, because the gardener standing next to her guided her towards a stool that a footman had vacated.

  ‘I don’t want this,’ she murmured to the gardener, who shrugged.

  ‘Since when has what we wanted made a difference?’ the man whispered back.

  ‘Go on, tell me the rest,’ Lord Thomson exclaimed. ‘Lord, this is a nuisance!’

  Mr Selway put down the document and folded his hands over it. ‘Lord Thomson, it will probably come as a surprise to you that your predecessor had a son.’

  ‘I’ll be damned,’ the new marquis said. ‘A bastard, no doubt.’

  ‘Takes one to know one,’ the gardener whispered, but not in a soft voice. The back row of relatives turned around, some to glare, others to titter.

  ‘Yes, my lord, a bastard, so you needn’t fear you will lose a penny of your inheritance,’ Mr Selway said. ‘While his regiment was quartered in New York City during much of the American War, your uncle dallied with one Mollie Duncan, the daughter of a Royalist draper. The result was a son.’ He looked at the document again. ‘Daniel Duncan.’

  ‘How could this possibly concern any of us?’ Lord Thomson snapped.

  ‘Ordinarily, it would not. Through various means, your uncle managed to keep track of Daniel Duncan’s career. When this current American war began, Duncan commanded a privateer called the Orontes, out of Nantucket.’

  ‘So Uncle’s bastard is making life difficult for British merchant shipping,’ the marquis said, smirking. ‘Why do you think I even care about this?’

  Mr Selway picked up the document again, and pulled a thicker packet from a drawer in the desk. ‘Because before his death, your uncle arranged for Captain Duncan, currently a prisoner of war in Dartmoor, to be paroled to Quarle’s dower house.’ He glanced at Grace, his eyes kind. ‘He specifically requests that Grace Curtis provide his food and care during his parole here. When the war ends, he’ll go free. That is all the connection you will have with him.’

  Lord Thomson laughed. ‘You can’t seriously honour this. The old devil was crazy.’

  He had gone too far. Grace could see that in the way the other relatives whispered to each other. The new Lord Thomson seemed to sense their disgust of him. He folded his arms and sat silent, his lips in a tight line. ‘Well, he was,’ he muttered.

  Mr Selway spoke directly to him, leaning forwards across the small desk. ‘Lord Thomson, your predecessor would have done this sooner, had he not had this sudden decline that led to his death. Everything has been approved for such a transaction. I tell you that the deceased had friends in high places, whom it would be wise not to cross. You are in no way rendered uncomfortable at an estate you seldom visit, anyway.’

  Apparently Mr Selway was not above a little personal pride. He smiled at Lord Thomson, even though Grace saw no humour there. ‘I build only airtight wills, Lord Thomson.’ He looked down at the document before him. ‘Any attempt on your part to alter or in any way hinder the carrying out of this stipulation would be folly. I repeat: Lord Thomson had friends in high places.’ Mr Selway folded the will and left the room.

  Lord Thomson sat slumped in his seat. After a disparaging glance at her husband, the new Lady Thomson rose and gestured his relatives toward the dining room, where refreshments waited. Grace sidled out of the door ahead of everyone, eager to leave the building by the closest exit. If I hurry, I can be out of here and pretend none of this has happened, she thought.

  But there was Mr Selway, obviously waiting for her. She sighed.

  ‘Mr Selway, please don’t think I need any of the provisions mentioned in Lord Thomson’s will,’ she told him, even as he guided her into the bookroom. ‘I want to go back to the bakery.’ She tried to get out of his grasp ‘Mr Selway, please!’

  ‘Sit down, my dear,’ he said, his expression kindly. ‘There is no stipulation that you must remain in the dower house, if you don’t wish to. The thirty pounds is yours annually for life, though.’

  Grace nodded. ‘I want to save money to buy the bakery some day, when the Wilsons are too old to run it.’

  ‘Then this is your opportunity.’ The solicitor said nothing else for a long while. When he spoke, his words were carefully chosen. ‘Grace, I have observed in life that most of us place our expectations abnormally high and we are disappointed when they remain unfulfilled. Have you placed yours too low?’

  She shook her head. ‘I have not,’ she told him quietly. ‘You know as well as I do that thirty a year will not maintain me in any style approaching my former status. It will not induce anyone to marry me. Heavens, sir, I am twenty-eight! I have no illusions.’

  ‘Indeed you do not,’ Mr Selway replied. ‘You may be right, too.’ He leaned towards her. ‘Think about this, Gracie: it is 1814. This war with America cannot last for ever. Dartmoor is a fearsomely terrible place. You would be doing a great favour to our Lord Thomson to succor his only child, no matter how boisterously he was conceived.’

  ‘I suppose I would,’ she said, feeling that the words were pulled from her mouth by tweezers. ‘Could I discuss this with the Wilsons? If I have to live in the dower house with a paroled prisoner, I’d like to keep working at the bakery.’

  ‘I see no harm in that, as long as the parolee is with you.’

  Grace stood up, relieved. ‘Then I will ask them directly and send you a note.’

  ‘I ask no more of you, my dear,’ Mr Selway said.

  * * *

  The Wilsons had no objections to any of the details of Lord Thomson’s will, so amazed were they that a marquis would consider doing so much for their Gracie, a woman others of her class seemed content to ignore in perpetuity.

  ‘What’s a year or less?’ Mr Wilson asked. ‘You can live in a nice place, take care of a paroled prisoner, then return to us and all’s well. Or keep working here, if you wish. Maybe he’d be useful to us.’

  ‘Maybe he would be.’ She hesitated. ‘And…and might I some day buy your bakery?’ Grace asked timidly. ‘I’d like nothing better.’

  Both Wilsons nodded. ‘The war will end soon, Gracie,’ Mr Wilson assured her. ‘You’ll be doing a favour for old Lord Thomson. How hard can this be?’

 
; * * *

  Grace had sent a note to Mr Selway and was greeted by him the next morning as she opened the shop.

  ‘We’ll go at once,’ Mr Selway told her. ‘I’ve heard tales of Dartmoor and how fearsomely bad it is. Let’s spring the man while we can.’

  ‘Must I be there, too?’

  He nodded. ‘I fear so. Lord Thomson stipulated there would be three signatures on the parole document. Yours and mine, signed and notarised in the presence of the prison’s governor—a man called Captain Shortland, I believe.’

  ‘Three?’

  Wordlessly, he took the parole document from a folder and opened it to show her the first signature. Grace gasped. ‘The Duke of Clarence?’

  ‘Sailor Billy, himself.’ Mr Selway put away the parole. ‘Let’s go get a man out of prison, Gracie.’

  And they would have, the very next day, if news had not circulated through all of England—glorious news, news so spectacular that all of Quimby, at any rate, had trouble absorbing it. After nearly a generation of war, it was suddenly over. Cornered, trapped, his army slipping away, the allies moving ever closer, Napoleon had been forced to abdicate.

  Mr Selway told Grace he must return to London, muttering something about ‘details’ that he did not explain.

  * * *

  ‘If the war is over, will the American return home?’ she asked, as he came by the bakery in mid-March. She didn’t want to sound too hopeful, but as each day had passed, Grace realised how little she wanted to honour Lord Thomson’s will, not if it meant the continuing animosity of the new marquis, who still remained in residence.

  ‘Alas, no. That is a separate conflict. We still have a

  parolee on our hands, or at least, I think we do,’ he told her. He nodded his thanks as she put a generous handful of Quimby Crèmes in a paper for him. ‘Our recent peace could be worse for the Americans, if better for us.’

  ‘How?’ she asked, embarrassed at her ignorance of war.

  ‘Now we can focus all our British might on the pesky American war.’ He nodded to her. ‘I expect I will be back soon, though. War seems to grind on.’