She straightened her spine. “Let me pass, Mr. Beck.”
“Mr. Beck,” he mocked. “As if we weren’t in the same schoolroom and you didn’t follow me around with your thumb in your mouth.”
She’d been lucky in that regard. The pastor had allowed girls to attend the church-run school room. More importantly, he’d allowed her to attend, even though she hadn’t always had proper clothes or shoes to do so. She had sat near the back—at first, with her thumb in her mouth—and learned.
She tightened her grip on her nightgown, the last threads of her supposed propriety. Truthfully, she had lost any rights to virtue years ago. “We aren’t children anymore.”
His hair had escaped its queue, framing his face in wet tendrils. “I’m not letting you do this.”
She never had an older brother, but it appeared Owen wanted to act as one. Why had he not done so at her home, when her father had threatened her sister? Or for the years before that when she desperately needed help? No one in the village had intervened, though her father’s nightly rages were almost as legendary as the countess’s.
Only one man would have helped her, who had enough power to. Enough goodness. And it wasn’t the man in front of her.
“I intend to honor my word, Owen.” She used his name as a jab, since he insisted.
Let him pretend to be her friend when just weeks before he had barely troubled himself to acknowledge her. “Even us lowly villagers understand a simple trade.”
Though the thought of actually following through with it choked in her throat. She’d had no doubt of the earl’s intentions when he’d asked her to come with him. The look in his eye had explained intentions for her more clearly than watching the sheep breed in spring. And so, she would do it. Out of gratitude, out of desperation. What did it matter? He wouldn’t mistreat her, of that she was sure. He wouldn’t leave her empty-handed, and her sister Hannah needed to eat.
Owen scowled. Even marred such, his face was smooth, almost pretty. The girls swooned when he walked by, but Mercy had never been moved. He had grown up in the village but had been sent off to boarding school when his family could afford to do so. When he came back, he had lived in the steward’s house, drinking tea in the afternoons like a regular gentleman, only nodding to Mercy at church and then looking quickly away.
“I never thought that about you.” Owen’s eyes, deep wells of brown, pleaded things she did not understand. “You’re not like them. That’s why you cannot do this.”
Pretty words, but Owen could not save her now. Even through the rain she could see the thin silhouettes in the attic windows, witnessing her ruin. She could not return home without spreading the disgrace to her sister. Her inner shame would be known by everyone, and she could not help but feel a little relieved.
“Everyone will know that I’ve come here before dawn. They’ll know why I’ve come.” To fall. To be ruined. Too late. Her only choice was to earn the protection of Rochford. “I’m a fallen woman now.”
“Then let me help,” Owen said grimly. “I’ll marry you.”
Her breath caught. It was the kindest thing anyone had ever offered her. Far more than she deserved.
Owen had teased her endlessly and licked her apple before she got to eat it, but that was practically a statement of everlasting friendship from a young boy to a girl. Which was why she couldn’t marry him.
She retained her virginity, but she was far from innocent. Her father’s hands marked her soul, even as the bruises faded from her body. She refused to taint Owen with her wickedness. He deserved someone whole of heart and pure of body.
The earl, though. He was like her.
So she ensured Owen would let her go, and be glad of it. “There are some women who prefer to be the whore of a lord than the wife of a steward,” she said, and stomped up the hill to the servants’ entrance, her cruel words ringing in her ears. He didn’t try to stop her.
Which was for the best.
The kitchen bubbled and sizzled its welcome like the hell she would surely be sent to. Instead of smelling of brimstone, the savory aroma of meat and spices suffused the air, reminding her that the ordinary world carried on.
A maid barely glanced up from her cleaning, but Cookie looked up from her papers as she approached. The cook’s face was mottled and apron streaked with blood, at the end of a long day. She peered at Mercy from beneath thick lids. “What, more trouble? A beggar?”
Mercy recoiled. When Cookie reached her, she clasped Mercy’s hands between her thicker ones and rubbed furiously. Pinpricks turned into knives and Mercy swallowed a cry.
“Oh, dearie. This ain’t the night,” Cookie said. “But I suppose a bit of soup won’t go noticed, then.”
In her bedraggled state, she had been mistaken for a beggar. The truth was much worse.
“That’s not why I am here.” Mercy fought the urge to shut her eyes for the telling. “That is, Lord Rochford is expecting me.”
A small lie, since he’d told her to leave. Come, go. He didn’t know what he wanted, but she needed this.
The callused hands covering hers froze. Cookie’s face swallowed her eyes as she squinted. “Mercy? Mercy Lyndhurst, that be you?”
She looked down. “Yes, ma’am.”
Cookie flinched away. “And you say the young lord is expecting you. Tonight.”
Mercy stared at the flour-covered floor. There could only be one reason for a half-dressed village girl to attend upon a young lord. “Yes, ma’am.”
Cookie stepped back. “I see.”
The disgust in Cookie’s voice slapped the breath from her. Mayhap she would grow accustomed to it.
“You’re a right mess, then.” The sympathy she had granted a beggar now evaporated. The woman spoke with the superiority she was due as a cook to a whore. “There’s a washroom back that way where you’ll find water to clean yourself.”
Cookie looked over her too-large nightgown, surely taking in its tattered hem and the way it sloped off her slim shoulder. Perhaps it was even transparent. Mercy’s face burned.
“I’ll have something brought for you to wear,” Cookie finally said, then pointed to the washroom.
Mercy hurried inside and began to wash with the cold, soapy water.
Her friend Jennie worked as a housemaid here. Maybe she had even seen her from her attic room. Even if she hadn’t, she would know soon enough. Would she speak to Mercy or cut her on the street?
The freezing water branded shameful words of dishonor into her skin. Considering how numerous her sins were, soon there wouldn’t be any more room left.
“Don’t you grieve him?”
“You were just trying to protect my sister.”
It had been true. He had protected her sister, not just that night but every night hereafter. She had entertained her own thoughts of vengeance, in the dark of night and under the weight of evil. It was not moral superiority that had stayed her hand, but fear.
Rochford had been strong enough to carry out the act. That was enough reason to give herself to him. For that debt, she owed him everything, and this was all she had.
A young maidservant shyly thrust a dress into the room, which Mercy accepted gratefully. Her fingers fumbled on the ties, but she slipped it on then stepped back into the enveloping warmth of the kitchen.
Cookie