Marriage of Mercy. Carla Kelly

her eventual fondness for Lord Thomson if he had not come up short in her eyes. One morning—perhaps his washing water had been cold—he elbowed his way into the shop, snarling at a little boy who took too long to make his selection at the counter. He poked the lad with his umbrella. The boy’s eyes welled with tears.

      ‘That’s enough, Lord Thomson,’ Grace declared.

      ‘What did you say?’ the marquis demanded.

      ‘You heard me, my lord,’ she said serenely, adding an extra lemon biscuit to the boy’s choice. ‘Tommy was here first. Everyone gets a chance to choose.’

      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