Judas Flowering by Jane Aiken Hodge

more ailing than she will admit and would be only too happy to think of you out at Winchelsea to help Abigail care for her, but there is your future to be considered.”
    â€œPlaying God, Mr Purchis? I’ll consider my own future, thank you. As for Saul Gordon, I don’t much like being in
this
house with him, let alone in
his
. Unless you actually turn me out of Winchelsea, which you have every right to do, I would like to stay there.”
    â€œBut, Mercy …” He wanted to say something, give some warning about Francis, but she left him with a firm little click of the door between his study and the house. No use …
    Back at Winchelsea, he found himself even more anxious to be gone. It was curious how life there had changed. On his own instructions, Sam was taking his orders from Francis now, and seeing how smoothly things continued to go on the estate under this new management, he could not help wondering if he had been flattering himself with a mere illusion of indispensability. And, as bad or worse, now that he had time to spend in the big, cool house, he found himself outof things there too. Giles Habersham rode out most days to sit with Abigail on the porch or walk with her under the shade of the ilex avenue, and Mercy seemed to spend most of her time either working on the extensive new wardrobe Mrs Mayfield thought necessary for her Charleston visit, or eagerly listening to Frank’s talk of his day’s work in the fields.
    Not, of course, that Frank actually worked, but he rode about and played the part of the master, better, Hart found himself thinking, than he had ever done. Perhaps the servants actually preferred a man who merely sat his horse and gave orders, rather than getting down into the dirt and working with them. It was all uncomfortable together, and he was delighted when the last stitch was set in what Frank laughingly called Mrs Mayfield’s trousseau, and his own small boxes were packed and ready.
    â€œYes?” He had been packing his books and looked up at the light knock on his door.
    â€œHart.” It was Mercy, looking unusually shy, with a pile of something in her arms. “I do hope you won’t mind it; I have been making you some shirts on the English style. I am sure you will find the other students all mighty fine in Cambridge.”
    â€œWhy, Mercy!” Once again that maddening blush. “How very good of you. It’s true, I’m afraid I haven’t given much thought to what I am to wear.”
    â€œNo!” She laughed at him over the shirts in her arms, looking at the piles of books. “And you are not to pack these underneath your Johnson’s
Dictionary
either, or I will come up to Cambridge and haunt you.”
    â€œI wish you could.” He took the shirts from her. “But, Mercy, there are a dozen—”
    â€œOf course there are a dozen,” she said tartly. “What would Purchis of Winchelsea be doing with less?” And then, suddenly flushing to the roots of her hair at an impatient shout from somewhere down the hall, “Yes, Mrs Mayfield, I will be with you directly.” She paused for a moment, her hand on the door, half in, half out of the room. “Hart?”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œIf I should ever think of somewhere that press might be, what should I do?”
    â€œNothing.” He dropped the shirts unceremoniously onto a chair and moved over to take her hand in his hard one.“Mercy, it seems to have been forgotten. For God’s sake, let it remain so. Speak of it to no one. No one, I tell you. Not even”—now his colour was as high as hers—“not even to Francis.”
    â€œNo?”
    â€œNo.” Here at last was his chance for a word of warning. But how to put it? “Frank’s—oh, everything I want to be, but, Mercy, he does keep odd company. And you’re a girl of sense—you know how it is, with men. Sometimes, I think, at