She had been an observer at enough of these Blankenship balls to understand what he was saying. The antics she observed always felt like a game being played out.
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players . . .” she recited.
He nodded in agreement. “The bard was not wrong.”
Soft tinkling laughter suddenly floated in the air and Mercy froze.
Silas stilled beside her, too.
They stood together, listening, identifying the general whereabouts of those giggles. The sound subsided and then there were whispers. Rushed intimate whispers. But even the low pitch could not disguise that one of the voices was female and recognizable.
“Grace,” Mercy breathed. Lifting her skirts, she took off in that direction at full speed.
“Mercy, wait!”
She did not wait.
Ignoring Silas calling after her, she veered off the row onto one of the smaller intersecting paths. Silas’s footsteps sounded behind her, so she knew he was close on her heels. The pebble path curved and descended a few steps to abut a tall hedge. Mercy paused, looking the wall of greenery up and down.
Silas arrived at her side. With a light touch on her elbow, he turned her around to face her left—and the couple tucked away there, blending into the hedge, almost hidden if not for the familiar pink skirts peeking out of the foliage. Grace was wedged between the hedge and Amos Blankenship.
“Grace!”
The couple sprang apart guiltily.
Before she could caution herself to adopt a calm air, Mercy charged forward in full quivering outrage. “Grace Kittinger, what are you doing?”
Grace nervously grasped and fidgeted with one of the plump sausage curls draped over her shoulder. “Mercy, did you follow me?”
“That is not the question to ask me.” She eyed her sister up and down, relieved to see she was still quite fully attired. It appeared no garments had been discarded. Evidently there had only been kissing and petting. Not that such activity wasn’t ruinous enough if they were discovered. Grace flirted with serious danger here.
Determined to save her before irreparable harm was done, she seized Grace by the wrist and pulled her to her side, leveling her glare rightfully so upon Amos Blankenship. “You, sirrah. Have you nothing to say for yourself?”
Blankenship tugged on his waistcoat. “No damage done here.”
“I will not have you dally with my sister’s reputation or affection, sirrah. She is but seventeen.”
“Mercy! I am not a child!”
“Indeed, she is not,” Blankenship agreed rather lecherously.
Before Mercy could properly express her indignation at that, Silas grabbed Blankenship by his jacket and gave him a fierce shake. “You will keep your hands to yourself and off Miss Kittinger.”
Blankenship’s face puffed up and his voice blustered out, “How dare you? Who are you? Do you even know who I am? This is my house, my party—”
“Then why don’t you take yourself back to your party inside your house and forget about young girls who are unavailable to you?”
“Unavailable,” he sputtered as though the very notion that any female could be unavailable to him was preposterous.
Grace stomped her foot in childlike pique. “Please, stop! You are both embarrassing me!”
“Enough, Grace,” Mercy hissed. “This is a serious matter. You are in no position to wage a protest right now.”
Without waiting to hear anything else from Amos Blankenship—really, who wanted to hear him bluster further?—she guided Grace out from her little trysting spot against the hedge, leaving the gentlemen behind.
When her sister was at a more appropriate age to be considering suitors, she would do far better than the likes of Amos Blankenship. There was more to a man than the plumpness of his pocketbook—or rather, his father’s pocketbook.
Mercy walked a brisk pace. Her sister did not resist, more or less. She was deadweight that Mercy pulled after her.
“I know you are angry, but someday you will realize the error of your ways tonight and be grateful it did not go any further.”
As she heard the words she uttered, she felt a colossal hypocrite. She herself had been less than discreet with a man.
Recently, too.
But you are not seventeen and you did it for a reason. A good reason . . . even if you did enjoy it.
Grace uncharacteristically held her tongue.
Mercy stopped with her just outside the doors leading back into the ballroom. “Are you well enough to rejoin the party or—”
“I was never unwell!” Her sister at last found her voice. “And I am perfectly capable of returning inside.” Grace lifted her chin with a sniff. “In fact, that sounds perfectly delightful compared to staying out here in your wretched company one moment more.” With that said, Grace preceded Mercy into the ballroom with a swish of her pink skirts.
Mercy took a step, on the verge of following, when Blankenship and Silas approached.
She turned as they emerged from the shadows, Blankenship walking at the front. He walked straight inside and past her without even a cursory glance. As though she was beneath his notice.
She crossed her arms and stared after him as he plunged back into the crowd.
Silas stopped beside her. “Well, we briefly spoke. I would like to tell you he is well dissuaded from pursuing your sister.”
Mercy shook her head, knowing that had not happened. “But he is a jackanapes chock-full of arrogance and he made no such promise.”
“Precisely. He did not express an ounce of shame or regret for his actions. He did not seem to even care that he had been caught with your sister, which does not bode well for her. He cares naught for her reputation at all.”
Nodding, she mused, “An honorable gentleman would have offered marriage.” He made a sound of assent, and she continued on, in full indignant rant now, “Or at least declared his intention to a proper courtship.” Not that she wanted her sister bound for eternity to Amos Blankenship.
Silas went still and silent beside her. She stopped and looked at him . . . and then felt a sudden warm flush of embarrassment as her own ill-chosen words played back in her head, echoing in her ears. An honorable gentleman would have offered marriage.
And yet Silas had not.
Awareness passed between them. Words neither would say, but the knowledge was there between them, a living, pulsing thing. Mercy had done everything and more than what her sister had done with Amos Blankenship. Much more. She, however, could muster no shame. She knew she should, but she could not.
Staring at Silas, she did not sense regret from him either.
They were quite a pair. Both shameless and both against the notion of marriage to each other. He had not offered, and she would not accept if he had.
She had more than compromised herself by society’s standards, and she harbored no expectation of marriage from him. Not on that night. Not now. Not ever.
If she was with child, he had vowed that their futures would be entwined, but that was not the same thing as marriage. It was not even close. He had offered her support and a roof over her head but not a ring. Not respectability.
Time, however, would soon reveal that she was not carrying his child and then he would go on his way. Return to his life in Town and forget all about her.
He would no longer be a familiar sight at her home. He would no longer spend his days at her side, or sitting at her dining table, or sleeping down the hall from her bedchamber. He would no longer occupy himself with her family or on her land as though it were his home, too.