A Marquis for Mary (14 page)

Mrs. Brookfield had been in a wheelchair for five years and had worn full mourning black since the death of her husband twenty years before that. Despite this, she made a formidable figure as she stared up at him, spectacles perched on her nose and thin lips turned down in a frown.

“Lord Woodley,” she said, his name like a curse on her lips. “I was surprised to receive your intent to call today.”

“The nerve of him!” Imogen interrupted, coming forward with her eyes wild.

“Coming here with his whore fiancée and the bastard who defiled our sister?” Isadora joined in, glaring at Gemma and Crispin.

After so many years of keeping his calm in the face of their accusations and cruelties, Edward desperately wanted to snap back. But they had come up with a plan the night before and he was determined to stick to it.

“Mrs. Brookfield, may I present my fiancée, Miss Mary Quinn, and her sister and brother-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Flynn.”

A sniff was Mrs. Brookfield’s reply. She motioned to one of the sisters and reluctantly Isadora moved behind her and rolled her grandmother to a space in the seating arrangement that had been left there for her chair.

“Why are you here?”

“Yesterday your granddaughters asked me here,” Mary said, her voice strong and clear as she settled into a chair beside Edward’s. Her sister and Crispin claimed another set and the twins took the settee closest to their grandmother.

At her words, Imogen shook her head. “No, we didn’t.”

“You did,” Mary repeated firmly, giving the twins a dismissive glare before she returned her attention to Mrs. Brookfield. “They wished to blackmail me into breaking my engagement to Edward.”

Mrs. Brookfield glared at her granddaughters. “Is this true?”

Isadora pointed at Imogen. “It was her idea.”

“Liar, it was yours,” Imogen burst out in response.

Mary took what appeared to be a cleansing breath. “I don’t really care whose idea it was. My understanding is that your family hates Lord Woodley.”

Mrs. Brookfield inclined her head. “We are not fond of Woodley, no.”

Edward pressed his lips together hard before he said, “The feeling is mutual. And understood. But I cannot stand for blackmail, Mrs. Brookfield.”

The older woman’s smile was thin but bordered on triumphant, and Edward’s heart sank. Was this trip for nothing?

“And what will you do about it?” Imogen asked with a side glance at her sister. She, too, looked unconcerned by his declaration. And why wouldn’t she? As far as this family was concerned, they held all the cards.

Edward fought to retain control over his reaction to the venom and the triumph when he spoke. “I believe your grandmother here would not initiate such a plan. It is too cheap for her, too little.”

Isadora shook her head. “Careful, Woodley, or you will get to see what cheap and little can do.”

Edward ignored her and held Mrs. Brookfield’s stare. “Of course that doesn’t mean you would stop them from carrying out their plan. After all, you like to cause chaos as much as the rest of them.”

“Only to those who so richly deserve what is coming to them,” the older woman said softly.

Mary gasped, but Edward merely nodded. “Exactly my point. Which is why even if I could convince these two vipers”—he motioned to the twins—“that they should leave me be today, I could never trust that you or they wouldn’t take another opportunity to attack me another time.”

Mrs. Brookfield’s eyebrows lifted high on her forehead and Edward blinked. She actually seemed
interested
by this turn of events. Not angry, not upset, but truly engaged by the drama. Having raised Alice and the twins, he had often wondered how much their grandmother’s treatment of them had been nothing more to her than a grand experiment. In pain. In disappointment. In turmoil.

“That is very true, Woodley,” she finally said. “And just what do you intend to do about it?”

Across from Edward and Mary, Crispin dug into his inside pocket and withdrew the letter and the book that he had retrieved from his safe the night before. Gemma took them from him, her face a mask of disgust at having to touch them, and rose to her feet.

“What my wife now holds is the final journal that Alice was keeping at the time of her death. And the note written the night she died,” Crispin explained. “I don’t believe you ever saw these, although your granddaughters did.”

Mrs. Brookfield snapped her harsh glare on the twins. “Did they?”

Both Imogen and Isadora flinched at the look. “You can’t prove they are Alice’s!” Isadora cried. Edward could see she was patently avoiding her grandmother’s wrath-filled stare.

“You will find the hand and the signature are a perfect match to other writings that are known to be from Alice.” Crispin pursed his lips, and Edward couldn’t help but wonder if his friend was thinking of the lying letters he had received from Alice during the time she was using him. “No one would doubt their authenticity.”

Mrs. Brookfield shook her head slowly. Her anger seemed to bubble beneath the surface, terrifying and far too quiet.

“They do not put your late granddaughter in a good light,” Crispin said softy. “Gemma, will you hold the items while Mrs. Brookfield reads them?”

Gemma nodded, standing before Mrs. Brookfield as the lady leaned forward and read. The room was silent for a very long time as she reviewed both in detail. When she moved to touch them, though, Gemma stepped back.

“I’m afraid that I cannot allow,” she said, and took her place with Crispin once again.

“If the contents of these items were to be revealed to the world at large, they would cause just as great a scandal as any accusation of murder you level against me,” Edward said, once again taking charge of the exchange, though he felt the support of the others and it strengthened him.

“A scandal for you,” Isadora said, but there was less certainty to her voice.

“Yes,” he agreed. “Of course I would be swept up in the talk, as would all those I loved. But you would, too. You and your sister. Your grandmother. All your cousins. Everyone in your family would be sucked under in the wake of Alice’s poison.”

He watched with a smile as Imogen’s eyes grew wide. She looked to her sister with a shake of her head. “Is that true?”

Isadora did not respond, but just swallowed hard. So it was finally sinking in.

“If you make a move to destroy me or my family, which includes the Flynns and those from the house of Woodley…I will take you down with me.
All
of you.”

“How dare you?” Imogen said, but her grandmother raised a hand to cut her off.

“Do shut up, you two,” she snapped. “It seems you have talked enough.” The older woman leaned forward, examining Edward until his skin crawled. “So you have combatted blackmail with blackmail,” she finally said.

He nodded. “I was left with little choice in the matter, wasn’t I?”

“I suppose you were,” she agreed, then shrugged. “Very well. You will have no more trouble from my granddaughters, I vow that it will be true. This is over between us.”

She sent a glare to the twins, who folded their arms in unison, mirror images of rage, but also fear. They would be punished, Edward thought, for their keeping the journals from their grandmother, for the way they’d gone behind her back to hurt him. He shuddered to think about what that punishment would be. But he had more pressing matters to attend to.

“How can I be sure you are telling me the truth?” he pressed.

“You hold all the cards now. You have evidence that could hurt us. And I won’t allow that.” She smiled, but it was so ugly. “You know, Woodley, if Alice had just waited it out, I think you two would have been well-matched after all.”

Edward swallowed back the bile that flooded his throat, but it was Mary who answered, “No. They would
not
have been. Come, I think we’ve lingered long enough. Good day.”

She stood and the others followed her lead, walking out to the carriage and the fresh air. Gemma and Crispin got into the rig first, but as Mary moved to enter, Edward caught her arm.

“You set me free, Mary,” he said in disbelief as he brushed a lock of hair off her cheek.

She shook her head with a smile. “We set each other free.”

He leaned in and kissed her, right there in the open, right there on the drive. And the love he felt for her swelled in him, bigger than the past, bigger than fear, bigger than the future that had once seemed so uncertain. With her it would be. With her, he could be nothing but happy.

Mary sidled up to her brand-new husband, drawing him away from the guests at their wedding breakfast with only a smile. Once they were away from the others, he looked down at her.

“Sneaking me off already?”

She laughed. “I would like to do so. First, I thought I should report that Audrey has crept out of the party. She looked a bit melancholy.”

Edward frowned. “Did she?”

“Yes, perhaps you should go after her,” Mary suggested.

He shook his head. “No, I will find Samson. He always had a better way with my sister than I did.”

Mary nodded. Samson was her new husband’s man of affairs. A tall, very handsome gentleman who clearly carried a torch that burned hot only for Audrey. But somehow she doubted her husband recognized that fact.

Honestly, she wasn’t certain Audrey did, either.

“Well, if that will take care of one family drama,” she said with a frown. “I will give you another. My father has disappeared. I fear he may be rifling your silver.”

She laughed, but was only half-kidding. Her father had been boasting and hobnobbing all day. The fact he had now all but vanished was troubling.

“Your father left,” Edward said, drawing her a bit further from the crowd.

She tilted her head. “Left? Why would he do that when he can legitimately claim the attention of dozens of London’s elite?” Edward cleared his throat and Mary tensed at the nervousness on his face. “What is it?” she asked.

He took he hand. “I know what he did to you, to your sister, over the years,” he said softly. “And Crispin and I have been waiting for a very long time to put him in his place. Today we did so. Together.”

Mary blinked. “I-I don’t understand.”

“Sir Oswald was promised a sum of money each month that should, if he can stay out of trouble, tide him over until the day he dies. Though perhaps not
quite
in the means to which he has grown accustomed. It was provided in equal parts by Flynn and by myself. To receive that money, he had to come to an understanding.”

“Which—which was?” Mary whispered, hardly able to breathe.

“That he is not welcome in our home, nor in Gemma and Crispin’s home, unless he is asked there by one of you. That he can expect no quarter when it comes to harassing or bothering you. The moment he does that, the
second
he violates that agreement, the money is gone and he will be shunned.”

Her lips parted. “He accepted that?”

“Reluctantly.” Edward’s smile was thin. “I think both of us enjoyed how reluctantly a bit too much.”

“So he will never…never bother me again?” She could hardly believe it. She had spent so many hours worrying over how her father would now insert himself into her happy life, how he would destroy her in new ways. But now she didn’t have to fear that ever again.

“Never,” Edward reassured her. “I will never allow it.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck, the location and observers be damned. She held him close, shaking as she whispered, “Thank you, Edward. Thank you so much.”

He leaned back to look into her face. “I would do anything to make you happy, Mary. For the rest of your days.”

“You do,” she whispered in return, overwhelmed by the power of her feelings for him. “You do that and so much more.”

Look for more books about The Wicked Woodleys—occasionally featuring the Flynn family—starting with Audrey’s story,
Forbidden
, coming August 25!

The Notorious Flynns

The Other Duke
(Book 1)

The Scoundrel’s Lover
(Book 2)

The Widow Wager
(Book 3)

No Gentleman for Georgina
(Book 4)

The Ladies Book of Pleasures

A Matter of Sin

A Moment of Passion

A Measure of Deceit

The Pleasure Wars Series

Taken By the Duke

Pleasuring The Lady

Beauty and the Earl

Beautiful Distraction

Mistress Matchmaker Series

An Introduction to Pleasure

For Desire Alone

Her Perfect Match

Albright Sisters Series

Everything Forbidden

Something Reckless

Taboo

Nothing Denied

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