A Deal with the Rebellious Marquess
Author
Bronwyn Scott
Reads
18.1K
Chapters
23
An elemental little masterpiece, where earth and fire and water become terroir and passion and tears. After tragically losing her husband, Fleur is determined to expose the man responsible in a tell-all news article. Yet she's thwarted by Jasper, the infuriating, rebellious — and undeniably handsome! — Marquess of Meltham, when she implicates his brother. His deal? They work to uncover the truth together! As sparks of hostility turn into sparks of desire, Fleur must decide whether her vendetta is worth the cost of losing her heart…
Prologue
Fleur Griffiths loved her friends more than she hated whist, which explained why she was up an hour past midnight, playing poorly at cards in Mrs Parnaby’s lace-curtained parlour and being positively trounced by Emma Luce, who was on her way to navigating a grand slam. Normally, by one in the morning, she would be asleep beside her husband. They all would. Except this evening they’d sent their men home without them. Fleur sighed and tossed out a useless card—Emma was unstoppable tonight—and reassessed her reasoning for the late night. It wasn’t all due to her affections for her friends. It was about the quarrel, too. She was here because she didn’t want to be there, in their temporary lodgings with Adam, not yet. Her temper was still too hot.
She and Adam had fought—hard—tonight right before all three couples had left their lodgings on Water Street in the nearby village of Hinchliffe Mill for supper at Mrs Parnaby’s in Holmfirth proper. Beneath the table she pressed a hand to the flat of her stomach. They’d fought about the baby, or rather the potential of a baby. Nothing was certain yet. She wanted children, Adam did not.
Neither had made a secret of their preferences when they’d married eight years ago. She’d always assumed the issue would work itself out, that Adam would come around in time. But he remained adamant in his stance that a man should not start a family in his late fifties. Now, though, it seemed possible that nature disagreed with him. Her courses were late and with each passing day, her hopes rose that there would be a son who would grow up and take over Adam’s news syndicate, a collection of newspapers that stretched from London to York in the north and all the way to Bristol in the west.
Surely, with such a legacy on the line, Adam would see the merit of having a son, someone to carry it all on. What was the point of all this work and sacrifice to build the newspaper empire if there was no one to leave it to when she and Adam were gone? But Adam had been grim tonight when she’d floated the idea. ‘Let’s hope it’s just stress causing the lateness,’ he’d said. She should have left it alone. After all, nothing was decided. But she’d pushed the issue. She’d gone to him, helping him with his neckcloth, pressing up against him, flirting as she fussed with his clothes. ‘Would it really be so bad?’ she’d cajoled, hoping for a smile. She did not get one.
‘Yes, yes, it would,’ was the terse response she’d got instead and, because there was a real possibility the child was no longer the hypothetical subject of an old argument, she’d not let the discussion go. Hot words had been exchanged along with blunt opinions that had sustained hurt on both sides.
She tossed another card. Would this hand ever end? It wasn’t she and Adam’s first fight. They were a rather volatile couple in private, something that would surprise Emma and Antonia with their perfect marriages and doting husbands. They didn’t have disagreements. They had discussions. Not so with her and Adam. Fleur prided herself on having a ‘real’ marriage where there were quarrels and hard truths and imperfections but where there were also apologies, commitment from them both to do better and sex—the glorious, heated sex that reminded her that, beneath it all, Adam loved her and she loved him, desperately, completely. Together they could conquer anything.
Tonight had felt different, as if here at last was something they’d not get past. When Emma had suggested an impromptu round robin of whist after supper, Fleur had let Adam go without a kiss or whispered, ‘I love you.’ She’d stood apart from him in the hall while the others had said goodnight to their husbands and the three men had headed back to the Water Street lodgings. No doubt, the men would stay up a while, have a drink together and discuss the business of the mill that had brought them all to Holmfirth. Then they’d retire.
She knew Adam would retire first. He didn’t like late nights. In London, he preferred to rise early and get into the office while it was still quiet. She knew his routine, his preferences, intimately. She’d spent eight years adapting her schedule to fit his. If not, she might never have seen him. Adam loved his work as much as he loved his wife. On nights like tonight, nights where they fought, she wondered if he didn’t love it more. Or perhaps she was just selfish in wanting all of his attention.
Emma was just about to claim the last trick when Fleur heard it—a sound in the street: running feet, a shout. She froze and looked up from her hand. She could not hear the words, but she knew what panic sounded like. The shout came again, closer now. ‘The embankment’s breached, the river’s in Water Street!’
Oh, God, the men! Adam, asleep in his bed. Would he even have a chance? Similar thoughts were mirrored on the faces of Emma and Antonia. Fear galvanised them. The four women raced to the lace curtains to peer out into the night. They could see nothing but darkness, but they could hear. Even at their safe distance, they could hear the river ravaging, hear its heavy churning as it rushed through Holmfirth, hungry to devour the next village in its path.
‘We’ll be safe here,’ Mrs Parnaby tried to assure them, but Emma was inconsolable in her panic. She raced for the door.
Fleur grabbed for her. ‘Help me, Antonia! Help me hold her!’ The silly fool meant to go out after them. With Antonia’s help, she wrestled Emma from the door. ‘What do you think it will accomplish, you running out there? You can’t see a thing,’ Fleur scolded her friend too harshly in her own panic. ‘It’s too late to warn them.’ She forced Emma to sit.
Antonia took Emma’s hand and knelt beside her. ‘They’re strong men, they can take care of themselves.’ That was Antonia, always the optimist. Fleur could do with a little of that optimism herself right now.
Mrs Parnaby was all bustling practicality, ordering a tea tray. ‘We’ll go help when the water has settled and there’s less chance of us being another set of people in need of rescue ourselves.’ Fleur knew what that meant. It meant there was nothing to be done until daylight. Fleur noted the grimness around the woman’s mouth. Despite her hopeful words, Mrs Parnaby already feared the worst and, in truth, Fleur did, too.
It was the longest night Fleur could remember, especially given that their vigil hadn’t started until half-past one, the night already well advanced. But the five hours until there was enough light to be abroad dragged at a snail’s pace, the hall clock seemingly frozen in time. None of them could sleep. They spent the night wide awake in the parlour, ears craning for the sound of footsteps, for a knock on the door. None came.
The moment it was light, they donned cloaks and followed Mrs Parnaby to the Rose and Crown Inn, but morning did not bring relief, only reality, and what a grim reality it was to see the result of what they’d heard last night. Fleur noted it all with a reporter’s eye as they picked their way through mud and debris: the dead cow mired in the muck, the various parts of metal machinery deposited willy-nilly wherever the river tired of carrying them, the heavy oak furniture reduced to sharp, dangerous splinters, the timbers and stones that had once been houses, torn asunder, the sheer amount of ruined home goods, and the oddness of the things that had survived intact.
They passed a credenza still whole and a set of uncracked blue dishes. Fleur wondered if their owner would find them. How many miles had that credenza travelled down the river? There was hope in that. Some things in the river’s wake had survived the night. Perhaps that meant their husbands had, too.
Others were at the Rose and Crown. It was fast becoming a gathering point, a place where families could find each other, where people could exchange news and where those in need could get help, medical care, a blanket and a hot meal.
Fleur tied on an apron and went to work immediately. There were children who’d come in alone, bedraggled and looking for parents, armed with horrifying stories of having spent the night clinging to the roof timbers of their homes and praying the water wouldn’t reach them. Those were the least horrifying tales. Others told terrible stories of watching their families being swept away in the raging current.
She spent the morning washing faces, spooning broth, the journalist in her avidly listening to stories and asking questions. She offered reassurance where she could. Across the room, she saw Antonia do the same, quite often with a small child on her hip. Antonia had always been good with children. Fleur tried to keep her eyes from the door, to keep her attentions on those she could help. She tried not to think of Adam. He would come. If he was with Antonia’s husband, Keir, he’d be out there helping those in need first before helping himself. He would come when he could.
There was good news. James Mettrick, one of the men they’d come to do business with who also lived on Water Street and had been in his residence at the time of the flood, straggled in mid-morning, bruised but alive. This was tempered with the reality that his family had not survived. Fleur clung to the knowledge that survival was possible. If James Mettrick had survived, perhaps Adam had, too. Perhaps Adam was still out helping others. Perhaps he’d been pushed downstream and needed transport back, or perhaps, heaven forbid, he was hurt and even now some kind stranger was caring for him as she was caring for others. It gave her own hope a much-needed second wind.
That second wind was short-lived. At ten o’clock, George Dyson, the town coroner, arrived. Fleur tracked him with her eyes as he sought out Emma. Fleur watched Emma nod before Emma turned her direction with a gesture that indicated the three of them should adjourn to the Rose and Crown’s private parlour.
In the parlour, Antonia stood between her and Emma, gripping their hands as Mr Dyson cleared his throat and addressed them, using Emma’s title, Lady Luce. The formality lent an ominous quality to his tone and Fleur braced herself against words that never prefaced the positive. ‘I wish I had better news.’ Oh, God. Fleur felt her stomach sink. ‘I will be blunt; Water Street didn’t stand a chance. The river hit it from the front and the side, absolutely obliterating the buildings.’ He paused and swallowed hard.
How many times today had he needed to deliver bad news? Fleur wondered. But the wondering didn’t make his next words any easier to hear. ‘James Mettrick’s family and the Earnshaws, with whom you had business dealings, are all gone. Their homes are entirely destroyed.’ Homes that had been next to the ones Fleur and her friends had rented.
The world became muffled to Fleur. She was vaguely aware of Emma arguing something about James Mettrick, the son, surviving. Dyson was shaking his head, delivering the death blow as gently as possible. ‘Lady Luce, the bodies of your husband and his friends have been recovered.’ There was more. Fleur didn’t care. She’d get the details later. For now, all that mattered was knowing they were gone. Garret was dead. Keir was dead. Adam was dead.
No, it had to be a mistake. Adam couldn’t be dead. Not when there was unresolved anger between them. Not when there might be a child to raise. Her world reeled. She staggered forward, catching herself on the fireplace mantel lined with blue ware pieces like the set they’d seen in the mud, unbroken and whole. Rage surged. Damn it all! Why should the universe choose to save dishes over the life of one good man, her man? It wasn’t right. But she could make it right. She picked up the blue ware piece nearest her and threw it hard against the wall, watching it shatter into a thousand pieces. Like her heart. Her life. Her very soul.
Anger began to burn, a source of fuel against her grief. This was what Adam had feared—that the dam was insufficient to its task. It was the reason Garrett had asked him to come, to bring his investigative journalistic talents to bear on determining the quality of not only the mill, but the river that mill depended on. Now the very worst had happened. Naturally? Or as the result of human error? If it were the latter, she could make sure someone paid for all they’d taken from her.
Apparently, one could live on anger, at least for four days. While Emma and Antonia had stayed in with their grief at Mrs Parnaby’s, Fleur had gone out, channelling her rage into walking the muddy, ruined streets of Holmfirth. She helped with the recovery effort from daybreak to sunset. She helped rehome those who’d lost everything. She sat on the committee charged with collecting funds to distribute to those in need—of which there were many when the realisation set in that the river had destroyed homes and jobs. There was no work to go back to, no income to earn. In the evenings, she wrote copious articles to the newspapers Adam owned, sharing first-hand testimonies of survivors and reports of the developing situation. She instructed the editors to send artists to draw pictures. She wanted lithographs printed, she wanted word spread far and wide about the depth of tragedy in Holmfirth.
Anger could only go so far, though. It kept her fuelled and busy. But it could not change the fact that Adam was gone. ‘We’re widows now. Widows before the age of thirty,’ Fleur ground out, pacing before Mrs Parnaby’s fireplace. The woman had been a generous hostess, taking in three women who were only supposed to have been dinner guests.
Emma spoke up as if reading her thoughts from across the room. ‘I think it’s time to go. There’s nothing more we can do here.’
Fleur raised an eyebrow in challenge. Nothing more to do here? There was plenty to do here. She couldn’t possibly leave now. But of course, Emma would be thinking about concerns with Garrett’s estate and his investments. She would need to be in London. Antonia nodded agreement, citing the need to take over the reins of Keir’s department store project. That was a bold move on Antonia’s part. Fleur was aware of Antonia’s gaze on her as her friend asked, ‘Shall we all travel together as far as London?’
Fleur shook her head, not daring to look at her two closest friends. They would argue with her. They’d not been out in the streets and seen what she had seen. ‘No. I think I’ll stay and finish Adam’s investigation. There are people to help and justice to serve.’ She would take rooms at an inn if Mrs Parnaby needed her privacy back.
Emma’s face showed disagreement. ‘Do you think that’s wise, Fleur? If this disaster was man-made, there will be people who won’t appreciate the prying, particularly if there’s a woman doing it. You should think twice about putting yourself in danger.’
‘I don’t care,’ Fleur snapped. She loved Emma, but they often butted heads, both of them stubborn. ‘If Adam died because of carelessness or greed, someone will pay for that. I will see to it and I will see to it that such recklessness doesn’t happen again.’
Emma’s gaze dropped to her waist and Fleur snatched her hand away from her stomach. She’d been unaware she’d put it there. But it was too late for Emma’s sharp eyes. ‘And Adam’s babe? Would you be reckless with his child?’
Fleur reined in her anger, softening her voice. ‘I do not know if there is a child. It is too soon.’
Emma relented with a nod. ‘Just be careful, dear friend. I do not want anything to happen to you.’ Emma rose and came to her, Antonia joining them. They encircled each other with their arms, their heads bent together. This would be their private farewell. ‘We’re widows now,’ Emma echoed her words.
‘We have lost much,’ Fleur murmured, ‘but we are still friends. Whatever else changes, that will not, no matter where we go, no matter what happens.’ She looked at the pale faces of her friends, her resolve doubling. For Garrett, for Keir, for Adam, for Antonia, for Emma, and for herself, there would be justice for them all.
