Harriet returned to a house in covert uproar. Her mother had woken, found herself alone, sent a servant to find Harriet, and sunk into muted hysterics when she could not be found. When Harriet came into her bedchamber, Mama rushed over and clung like a drowning man. “Where have you been?” she whispered.
Her eyes were wild. Her mouth and hands trembled. Efforts not to attract any attention from the master of the house had apparently increased the strain.
“I went for a walk, Mama,” Harriet said. “As I often do.”
“You promised to stay with me!”
This had been more assumption than promise, but that was clearly irrelevant. Harriet patted her hand. There was something clutched in it. Harriet opened her mother’s fingers and discovered an empty vial of laudanum. She’d known Mama was taking a sleeping draught at night, but if she was resorting to it in the daytime, that was worrying.
Her mother snatched back the vial as if it was a treasure she could not let go.
Harriet led her to an armchair before the hearth and urged her into it before sinking to the floor to sit at her feet. She dismissed the hovering maid with a nod and leaned against her mother’s knee, as she’d so often done as a little girl. “Please tell me what’s wrong, Mama,” she said.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Harriet again took possession of her mother’s restless hands. “These last few days, you’ve been dreadfully upset.” She nearly added, Even more than you’ve been the whole time since we arrived here. But she decided against it.
“No, I haven’t.”
“Mama.” Harriet waited until her mother looked down and met her eyes. It took several minutes. “You have. It’s obvious.”
Her mother flinched as if threatened with a blow.
“Tell me,” Harriet urged. “Whatever it is, I will help you.”
Her mother gazed down, her face so creased with worry that she looked years older than she had just a few months ago. She swallowed, then sighed. “Papa found out,” she muttered. Harriet just barely heard her.
“What?” Harriet squeezed her hands in reassurance. “What did my grandfather find out?”
Her mother’s fingers closed in a spasmodic grip and then went lax. “That I spent the last of our money on the season in London. There is nothing left.” Her breath caught on a sob.
Harriet struggled to take this in. “But Grandfather was paying all the bills.”
“For the house and large purchases. But there were so many small things that were needed as well. The first few times I asked him about something like that, he shouted so—about my foolishness and feckless ways.” She grimaced. “If it is not something he wishes to buy, then it is a wicked extravagance.”
“But…” Harriet knew they had a small capital sum, which generated a very modest income. Her father had managed to scrape together that much before he died. It had sustained them through her school days and the short time afterward, before her grandfather descended upon them with his oppressive largesse. The thought of this reserve had remained, a comfort, in the back of Harriet’s mind when she thought about the future, since no position she could find as a schoolteacher or governess would support them both. Lately, she’d even dared to dream it would sustain her mother should she make…other choices.
Surely her mother would not have used up that sum without telling her. But meeting her despairing eyes, Harriet saw that she had. “Why didn’t you come to me? We could have done without…whatever it was you bought.”
“Will you also reproach me?” her mother cried. “If he wins you away from me, I don’t know what I will…”
“Mama! You know that is impossible. I only wish you had consulted me.”
“I didn’t want you to worry.”
Actions meant as kindness could turn to disaster, Harriet observed.
“I thought you would make a good match—a great success, like your friend Ada. And then it wouldn’t matter.” Her mother frowned. “Couldn’t you have tried harder, Harriet? There were so many suitable gentlemen courting you.”
“Because of grandfather’s money.”
“Well, that is the way of the world. A man can be charming and attractive even so. Isn’t it right that he thinks of his family’s future?”
“So you wanted me to take the path you refused? A mercenary marriage?”
“Yes!” declared her mother with more spirit than she’d shown in days.
Harriet stared at her, shocked.
“I want you to be happy.” She said it like an accusation.
“But you and Papa…”
Harriet’s mother pulled her hands free and sat up straighter, her mouth turned down. “Love wears thin when every day is another round of scrimping and falling short,” she said. “When each bit of news is bad and no scheme succeeds. After a while, there is nothing to talk about but failures, you see. And the pain of seeing someone you love fretting begins to give way to…irritation.”
“It was not Papa’s fault that…”
“No, it was mine. I should not have married him.”
Harriet’s indignation dissolved in stark surprise.
“I should have done as my father wished and refused him,” her mother added. “Or avoided him from the beginning. If only I had done that! Never met him at all. How much easier for us both.”
“You would have turned your back on love?” Harriet asked.
“It would have been better for everyone if I had. Anthony would have been a great success in business. My father would have made him a partner, you know, instead of wrecking everything he tried to do. He thought him very capable.”
“And I would not have been born,” Harriet pointed out.
“I would have married someone else,” her mother replied. “An approved suitor. With a title, as Papa wanted. His fortune would have found me one. And you would have been born into a noble family and led a much easier life. You would have had everything you wanted and respect besides. Those girls who snubbed you at school would have fawned over you instead.”
“That person would not have been me,” Harriet said.
“You would always be my daughter,” was the somewhat irrational reply.
“You cannot mean this, Mama. You are distraught.”
“Anyone would be!” she cried. “I am squeezed between my father and you. You are always on the edge of dagger drawing. At any moment, our arrangement may fall apart, and there is nothing I can do about it. It is driving me mad.”
Harriet almost believed this was literally true. Her mother’s eyes were red with weeping. Tufts of her hair stood on end.
“You have endured a trying lifetime because of my wrong choice, Harriet. And don’t try to tell me you liked it. The pity and the condescension and the shoddy gowns! You hated all that as much as I did. Except I also had to watch my daughter being slighted.” She wrung her hands.
Harriet was not sure she had hated it as much as that. Of course, there had been difficulties, but they had been simply part of her world. She hadn’t known anything else until her grandfather turned their lives upside down. Had she felt the sour bitterness she heard in her mother’s voice?
“That horrid girl who persecuted you? That wretched dancing master?” Mama bared her teeth. “How I wanted to scratch their eyes out!”
“Mama!”
“I did.” Her hands crooked into claws.
“We had happy times,” Harriet tried. “I made good friends.”
Her mother didn’t seem to hear. “All those years. Every minute was a desperate calculation—how to stretch far too little over too many demands. I faced down bailiffs, you know. And that dreadful doctor who refused…” She pressed her lips together and seemed to gather herself. “You will have better. I insist!”
It was fortunate Mama knew nothing about Jack the Rogue, Harriet thought. She would break down completely over that adventure. Except—there was no Jack the Rogue, she remembered. He was a fiction, a liar, and she didn’t care about him anymore.
Her mother leaned down and grasped her shoulders. “You will have better,” she repeated, giving Harriet a little shake. “You’re the heiress I ought to have been. You will not throw that chance away.”
Looking up into her frantic face, Harriet couldn’t argue. Not while Mama’s unsettling, muted hysterics were so close to the surface. Perhaps when she had calmed down, they could discuss matters more rationally.
“Do you understand me?”
“I have heard you, Mama.” Harriet wished she hadn’t. Her picture of her parents’ perfect love was spoiled.
“So you will do as I say. Promise me!”
She was not going to do that. “I will take care of you, Mama. You must stop worrying.”
“I’ll stop when you’re safely settled. After that, I don’t care what happens.”
There was a soft knock at the bedroom door, and the dresser looked in. “Did you wish to change for dinner, madam?”
Harriet’s mother sprang up. “Is it time? Yes, of course.”
Harriet rose as well.
“Wear your jonquil crepe,” her mother added. “Your grandfather admired that gown. And be sure to agree with him.”
“About what?” Was there some other issue she hadn’t been told about?
“Everything, Harriet!”
“Yes, Mama.” She would say those words whenever she could to soothe her mother’s troubled spirit. But the time would clearly come when she could not utter them. And then what would she do? Harriet’s throat tightened with uneasiness.
***
The carriage pulled up in front of Ferrington Hall, and Jack jumped down before anyone could come out to assist him. “What’s your name?” he asked the groom who had driven him.
“Rafe, milord.”
Jack nodded. “Thank you, Rafe.” He turned to pull his bundle out of the vehicle.
“Bert’ll fetch that for you, milord,” said the groom.
“Bert?”
“He’s the footman. He oughta…there he is.”
The door to the hall had opened, and a group of people came out, led by the duke. A dapper young servitor peeled off and approached Jack. “Shall I take your luggage, my lord?”
Would they call him that every time they spoke to him? Jack was sick of it already. He handed over the bundle, which hardly qualified as luggage. “Thank you, Bert.”
The young man blinked, startled by this use of his name.
“Hello, Ferrington,” said the duke.
“So glad to see you come home, Lord Ferrington,” said the woman beside him.
The duchess certainly looked the part—quite lovely, blond with luminous blue eyes, dressed like the society women Jack had glimpsed in London. Her smile seemed sincere, but who could say what lay behind it. Harriet Finch called her friend, and Jack might have trusted that. If he hadn’t seen that cordiality depended on one’s position in this country.
“These are the Rileys, who have been taking care of the house for you, as you know.” She brought forward the old couple he’d spied on from the gardens.
It was odd to meet them after all that covert observation, to receive a bow and curtsy and tremulous greetings. Close up, they looked even older, and worried. Jack realized that they were afraid of being ejected from the house now that he was here. The idea made him angry.
“We’ve brought some of our people with us,” said the duke, indicating the others in the entryway. He reeled off more names.
Jack missed most of them as he considered the way the man said “our people.” As if they actually belonged to him. But servants were employees, who were paid. He’d hired and fired workers in Boston. Not like these, he suspected. He nodded in acknowledgment, and the whole circus began to move inside.
“I’m sure you’d like to see your room before dinner.” The duchess smiled again. “You are our host, of course, but I’ve taken the liberty of organizing the household. Naturally, you will be making your own arrangements in future.”
Would he? He supposed he must, if he stayed here.
“We won’t change,” she added.
Startled, Jack wondered if she was actually commenting on the intransigence of the English upper classes? Then he realized that she meant clothing. Lady Wilton had been shocked to find that he possessed no “evening dress,” as if this was a sign of his barbarism. Jack couldn’t see why one would need a special ensemble to sit down to dinner. Unless it was designed to hide spilled gravy.
He followed the duchess and her entourage upstairs to a bedchamber. “This is the earl’s room,” she said.
The superior servant who had dressed Jack at the carriage was there. He’d opened Jack’s bundle and was sorting through it, which felt like an intrusion.
“You’ve met Marston,” said the duchess. “He is happy to help you until you hire a valet of your own.”
As if it was preordained that he would do so. As if strangers had a right to paw though his possessions and turn up their noses at them. Jack grappled with his temper.
“We brought the things you left at…in town,” she said.
Was it a good sign she avoided mentioning Lady Wilton? Or a bad one? Did he care?
“If there is anything you need…”
She was indeed acting like his hostess. But the house was his. He was not at their mercy. Perhaps he needed to make that point? Jack surveyed the room. He walked to a window, looked out over the garden. He turned and strolled around the chamber, not hurrying. He opened a wardrobe and found it stuffed with clothing.
“We didn’t clear away your great-uncle’s clothes,” said the duchess. “That seemed…”
“Overreaching?” asked Jack. He observed the flickers of surprise in the ducal couple’s eyes with satisfaction. “Perhaps I can use them,” he added. “Save a bit of money.”
“I fear they are outmoded,” replied the duchess.
“I don’t care a snap of my fingers for fashion.” It wasn’t quite a taunt. More of a challenge. They needed to see he wasn’t some timid creature ripe for manipulation.
“It can be a bore,” said the duke.
“Your Grace!” Marston—the valet—betrayed into the exclamation, looked mortified.
“And yet also a diverting game,” said the duchess.
It seemed the Terefords, pictures of modish elegance, might be amused. Jack couldn’t really tell. The English nobility seemed to be trained from their earliest years to reveal only what they wished to.
“We’ll leave you to settle in,” said the duchess. “I’ve ordered dinner in half an hour. Unless you would prefer another time?”
He was hungry. “That will be fine.”
She smiled at him. The duke gave him a nod. And they left, trailed by an escort of “their people.”
When the door closed behind them, Jack relaxed for the first time since he’d stepped into Ferrington Hall. There was no one watching him. He was not shadowed by a cloud of mysterious expectations. For a time, at least. Also, he could send all these people away if he wished to. He could live on bread and cheese with the Rileys.
But that would not mend his fences with Harriet Finch.
Jack took a deep breath. She was his reason to be here. He must remember that.
He looked more closely at the grand chamber. The room was spacious but shabby. Windows looked south and west. The blue hangings were frayed and faded in stripes by the sun. Bits of gilt had fallen out of the trim around the fireplace. The furnishings were solid but old. It didn’t look like a place to be happy, he thought. And then wondered where that notion had come from.
The atmosphere seemed stifling suddenly, though the ceiling was high. Jack went over and opened one of the casements. Outside air flowed in, carrying the scent of flowers from somewhere in the neglected garden. Neglected. The whole place felt as if no one had cared for it in a long time. He had an odd flash of sympathy.
Jack wondered about the man who’d lived here before him—his great-uncle, the previous earl. Why hadn’t he taken better care of his home? Jack’s eyes narrowed. Had the Earl of Ferrington been one of those impoverished aristocrats mocked on the stage? Had he stepped into the shoes of such a caricature? Lady Wilton hadn’t mentioned money. In fact, he knew next to nothing practical about his new status. That wasn’t like him. He was known for sharp analysis and decisive action, not for running from challenges. He’d let Lady Wilton’s scolding rattle him. That had to stop.
He breathed in the soft air. He’d taken time to recover from the disappointment his father’s remaining family presented. Well and good. More than that, his flight had led him to Harriet Finch and let him make her acquaintance in easy circumstances. Until they became distinctly uneasy. Perhaps it had all been for the best. With a determined nod, Jack turned away from the window.
He joined the duke and duchess at the appointed time and sat down to a meal that was far better than anything Jack had eaten in his life. Each dish he tried was rich with subtle flavors, a revelation on the tongue. “Your cook travels with you?” he asked.
“Not usually,” replied the duchess. “We’d heard there was no staff here.”
“Syllabub, my lord?” asked Bert, the footman, popping up on Jack’s right to offer a dish.
Suppressing a start, Jack said, “What is it?”
“A creamy dessert,” replied the duchess.
“I wouldn’t recommend it,” said her husband. “Sickly sweet.”
“It is not.”
The duke grinned at her. “One of Cecelia’s indulgences,” he added.
“Shouldn’t you have said ‘many indulgences’—to achieve a proper effect?” she replied.
“Not at all. Exaggeration quite spoils commentary.”
“Am I some weighty issue then, to warrant commentary?”
“More a work of art,” the duke replied.
They laughed at each other. Jack had heard no sting in their exchange. They seemed to enjoy the teasing, and he got the impression of a couple very happy in their marriage. It didn’t seem fair they should have a high position, striking good looks, and marital felicity.
The meal concluded, and the servants withdrew. “Are all these my lords and Your Graces necessary?” Jack asked when they were gone. “It becomes oppressive.”
The duke looked surprised. “They’re customary terms of respect.”
“Are they?”
The other man paused. His expression grew wry. “Well, customary at any rate.”
“But I am not to use them?” Jack had gathered this much.
“You can say Tereford, as I call you Ferrington,” the duke answered. “Friends use first names.”
Jack wondered if they were likely to become friends. It seemed doubtful. “And…my lady?”
“Oh, call her duchess.”
His wife made a face at him. “That’s silly. You two are…” She counted on her fingers. “Second cousins? Something of the sort. Family, at any rate. Why stand on ceremony?” She turned to Jack. “You should call us Cecelia and James.”
He wasn’t certain that was more comfortable. Though these two were friendly, they were also intimidating. Perhaps he could simply avoid using names. “It seems this place hasn’t been kept up,” Jack said, changing the subject. “I thought that was part of the job.”
“Job?” The duke—James—looked blank.
“Of noblemen. Managing their properties.”
“Ah, yes. Fecklessness appears to run in our line, however.”
“Along with flippancy,” said his wife.
“No, no, that is only me. Unless…” He glanced over at Jack. “You are right, my dear. Jack the Rogue had a strong measure of flippancy.”
“Had?” asked Jack.
“Do you intend to keep it up? Bravo.”
“James,” said the duchess.
When their eyes met so warmly, one felt invisible, Jack thought. It was irritating. “The job,” he repeated. “What the earl is supposed to do.”
“Manage the estate,” answered the duke, as if this was self-evident.
“Which includes what, precisely?”
“You should talk to Cecelia. She’d be far better at that sort of thing than I.”
Jack was surprised both by that fact and that the duke would admit it.
“I’d be happy to look over the estate records with you and see where things stand,” the duchess said.
He nodded his thanks.
“It is a great opportunity to set things to rights,” she added. Her tone suggested she was offering him a special treat.
“I suppose.” Jack shrugged. “Or one could just sell the place.”
Both his companions looked shocked.
“The main estate is probably entailed,” said the duchess.
Jack didn’t know the term, and he was tired of asking. Well, he would learn and understand before he began giving orders. Should he decide to do so. “I should make the acquaintance of my neighbors,” he said.
“Indeed,” replied the duke. “A good idea. Unless you want to wait…”
Until he was more like an actual earl, presumably. Jack had no time for that. “The closest house is Winstead Hall, I believe. I shall pay them a visit.”
His companions exchanged another glance. “That might be a good place to start,” said the duchess.
A little weary of their silent communications, Jack replied with a touch of mockery. “Because they are nearby?”
“We have friends there,” she answered.
Who would make allowances for a clumsy earl, presumably. Jack nearly said as much but decided their prejudices didn’t matter.
“We can introduce you,” the duchess continued. “You will like…the Finches.”
And not Mr. Winstead, Jack concluded. He hadn’t expected to. But he had to pass the gateway of Harriet Finch’s grandfather to reach her. Once in the house, he would find a way to speak to her privately and mend the rift between them.
***
Harriet looked through the window of her mother’s private parlor at the lovely summer day. The morning sun poured rich, golden light over the garden. Dew still sparkled in shaded spots. Birds spread their wings and lifted their voices. Flowers created swaths of color and a symphony of scent. It was wrong to think life had lost its savor. Craven and silly and stupid. She did not think that. Her mother’s overspending and the reprehensible behavior of one deceitful man could not leach the joy from existence. Perish the thought!
“I believe I will finish this piece today,” said Harriet’s mother. She sat with her back to the window. A strip of embroidery lay over her knees, its colors echoing the bright outdoors. “You can read to me while I sew,” she added with a bright, brittle smile. “I know you don’t care for fancywork.”
As she was meant to, Harriet heard this as an order not to leave her mother alone for a moment. Mama’s spirits had not recovered. She left Harriet only to sleep, and last night she’d come into Harriet’s room in the small hours and stood over her, her candle dripping wax on the bed linens, her eyes wide and frightened. Startled and unnerved, Harriet had tried to comfort her, but words didn’t seem to reach Mama in the deep night. She’d had to escort her back to bed and sit with her for some time before Mama’s eyes closed.
They would walk together in the garden later, Harriet determined. She would insist. Exercise might clear some of the clouds from Mama’s brain. She had thought of sending for the doctor, but the suggestion had met with hysterical resistance. There was to be no hint of upset or illness in the household. Horace Winstead despised such weakness. He was not to know, not to hear…anything. Harriet sighed softly. The doctor would probably just prescribe a stronger dose of laudanum, and that did not seem advisable.
Her grandfather’s voice sounded in the corridor. Her mother’s head came up like a fox scenting a hunting pack. She crumpled her embroidery in spasmodic hands. The noise seemed to be approaching.
“Is he coming here? Why? He doesn’t come here in the morning. What have you done, Harriet?”
“Nothing, Mama. You know I have been with you.” But Harriet wondered if her grandfather had discovered her wanderings. She rose to go and intercept him.
Before she could, he entered, saying, “Here they are.” His tone was jovial, and Harriet could see the Duke and Duchess of Tereford behind him. Harriet stepped forward. Grandfather shouldn’t have brought callers here to this small chamber. He should have summoned Harriet and her mother to the drawing room. Indeed, she couldn’t understand why the servants hadn’t done so rather than involving the master of the house. But Grandfather went his own way, and he’d ignored this convention, or forgotten it. He was practically rubbing his hands together in glee over the noble visitors. Harriet prepared to greet them as they crowded in.
And then she saw the fourth member of their party, and the smile froze on her lips.
“Our new neighbor has arrived at last,” said her grandfather. “May I present my daughter, Mrs. Caroline Finch, and my granddaughter, Miss Harriet Finch. Harriet, Linny, the Earl of Ferrington.”
Jack the Rogue offered quite an elegant bow. His dark eyes met hers and held as if he would tell her something. As if she would listen!
His appearance was transformed. His dark hair had been cut in a fashionable style. His clothes were elegant. They must be borrowed. Harriet thought she’d seen the duke in a dark-blue coat with buttons very like that one. Didn’t he find this humiliating? Had he no shame whatsoever? No, he did not, she reminded herself.
In his new guise, he looked very like the young men she’d met during the season. Her heart sank. Their time in the Travelers’ camp faded. She dropped a small, cold curtsy.
“Papa,” twittered her mother. “So unusual…the drawing room.”
“Do sit down,” interrupted Harriet. If they were to be unconventional, then she would brazen it out. There were enough chairs. Just. She glimpsed the butler hovering in the corridor, looking distressed. She signaled for refreshments.
“A duke and an earl calling on me,” muttered her grandfather. His glee was obvious. “So, Lord Ferrington, are you settled in the neighborhood for the summer?” he asked.
“I expect so,” said Jack the…no, the earl. He was the sneaking, perfidious earl, and he was looking steadily at Harriet. How did he dare? Could he never behave properly? He was going to draw attention. Indeed, Cecelia had already noticed. She was clearly puzzled by Harriet’s manner and the fraught atmosphere.
“Good, good,” her grandfather said. His beady eyes sharpened. “You’re not married, are you?”
Harriet flushed and looked away.
“I am not,” he replied.
Grandfather’s gaze shifted from the newcomer to Harriet and back again. The idea taking root in his brain was so obvious that he might have been shouting it. Harriet longed to drag him from the room and shut him away until their guests were gone. Or longer.
“Such lovely weather we’re having,” said Cecelia.
Her husband gave her a sidelong glance. Harriet watched silent communications pass between them, as she’d seen before. “Positively balmy,” he replied.
“There is nothing like a fine day in the country.”
“To be sure.” The duke’s deep-blue eyes glinted. “Except perhaps a sunny morning by the sea. In Brighton, say. On the promenade, with all the fashionable world to observe.”
“Up to their necks in salt water?” asked Cecelia sweetly.
“They say immersion is good for one’s health.” Tereford’s tone was even, but a smile was tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“They being the people who rent out the bathing machines?”
“And, er, experts.”
“Oh, experts.” Cecelia laughed. Her husband clearly appreciated the sight and the musical sound.
Jack the Earl was eying the duke and duchess as if they were some fascinating curiosity he’d never encountered before. Harriet’s mother was pleating her handkerchief in nervous fingers.
“Never visited Brighton,” declared Harriet’s grandfather. “I don’t care for the sea. You never know what’s in there, do you? Something could swim up and pull you under. Never be seen again.”
“And what would the experts say to that?” murmured the duke.
No one ventured a reply.
Having disposed of that topic, Harriet’s grandfather turned to Ferrington. “Our properties share a border,” he said.
“Indeed. I noticed you have some men posted there,” the earl replied.
There was no limit to his effrontery, Harriet decided. He could sit there and speak of things they had endured together as if he’d only just noticed them.
“To guard against those filthy Travelers,” her grandfather replied.
“The ones you wrote the letter about,” said Harriet, goaded beyond endurance. “Giving them permission to stay on your land.”
Her grandfather glared at her. The duke looked amused, Cecelia curious, Mama distressed. And Lord Ferrington held her gaze briefly, before turning back to his host.
“I’ve always found them to be decent people,” he said.
Harriet had to appreciate the way he faced down her grandfather, practically daring him to disagree. A wave of feeling threatened to engulf her. She shoved it away.
It seemed for a moment that Grandfather would choke on the dilemma—his strong need to state his opinions warring with a reluctance to offend his noble neighbor.
“Will you take refreshment?” blurted Harriet’s mother.
The butler had arrived with a tray and a means to dissipate the awkwardness. Drinks were poured. A plate of macaroons was passed. Harriet watched Ferrington grow more and more restless. He kept glancing in her direction, as if urging her to come closer. Which was, of course, impossible in this small, crowded room. Should she have wished to. Naturally, she did not. Instead, she indulged in a savage enjoyment of his plight.
The callers stayed a generous half hour. When they rose to go, her grandfather ushered them out.
As soon as they were gone, Harriet missed the reprehensible earl. The energy seemed to go out of the room with his departure.
“Why did Papa bring them here?” wondered Harriet’s mother. “You don’t think he will do so with other callers? This was to be my private parlor. It was agreed.”
Harriet understood her anxiety, but she couldn’t assuage it. She had no idea what Grandfather would do. Except that it would be whatever he liked. Moreover, she heard his heavy footsteps returning along the corridor. The chagrin on Mama’s face when he walked back in was pitiable.
“This is most convenient,” he said, his round face radiating satisfaction. “A fine match plopped down right next door to us, Harriet. And no other young ladies nearby to cut you out.”
“Oh, Papa,” murmured her mother.
Expecting an annoying thing didn’t make it any easier to bear, Harriet observed. “The earl may have his own ideas about his future,” she said. And of course, she cared nothing about them. She did not wonder why he had come to sit and stare at her like a tongue-tied suitor. He was not a suitor. He was a weasel.
“He’ll be on the lookout for a wife. These titled fellows want to secure their succession. And he’ll want her to have plenty of money, too.”
Harriet had known her grandfather was vulgar. But this was so blatant. “He’ll want to look about next season and choose from the debs, I suppose.” The idea was surprisingly unpalatable.
“Not if you make a push to attach him, girl.” Her grandfather glowered.
“I shall behave with propriety…”
“You’ll flutter your eyelashes and bring him to heel. You can’t throw away an opportunity like this.” His mouth went hard. “Unless you want to be cut off and sent back where you came from.”
Harriet’s mother made a distressed sound.
“Titled gentlemen don’t want to marry vulgar romps,” Harriet replied. A memory of dancing around the fire at the Travelers’ camp flashed through her mind. But that romp hadn’t been vulgar. It had been…joyous. Then. She dismissed an ache from the region of her heart.
Something like a growl escaped her grandfather. He would not be contradicted. He turned on the easier target. “It’s up to the mother to push matches forward, is it not? You must be less useless, Linny.”
“Mama is not useless!” cried Harriet. Although her mother’s cowering posture didn’t support her point.
Her grandfather looked at them sourly, like a man who’d made a bad bargain in the market. “Between the two of you, surely you can find some way to bring this off.”
Harriet stood straight and cold and stared him right in the eye. He scowled at her for another long moment, then turned on his heel and left.
“Oh, Harriet.”
“Don’t begin, Mama!”
“You always make him angry.”
“I make him…”
“You must make a push. You heard what he said.”
“So you would have me fling myself at this…stranger to satisfy Grandfather? Like some shameless hussy?”
“You can try. You scarcely spoke to the earl today. You might like him very well when you get to know him. He seemed perfectly charming. Not particularly handsome of course, but …”
“He is,” popped out of Harriet before she could stop it. She bit off the words.
“But beside the Duke of Tereford, any man would look commonplace,” her mother continued. “You need only make an effort, Harriet.”
Somehow it was always up to her to make the effort, to adjust and change. “He may have no interest in me at all.” She knew this wasn’t true. But what was his interest, precisely? Why had he stared so?
“Why wouldn’t he?” Her mother frowned at her. “You’re quite pretty and intelligent and sweet-natured. When you wish to be. I’m sure you can capture his interest if you exert yourself.”
She’d dreamed of running away with Jack the Rogue, leaving the constrictions and shameful inequalities of English society behind. Now that man was gone, as if a magician’s wand had passed over him and left behind a new-minted earl. And she was expected to marry him simply because he was an earl. Her family cared about nothing else. Not his true character. Not her feelings. Or Ferrington’s. What did he feel? No one was making any mention of love.
“You will try, won’t you, Harriet?” asked her mother.
No, she would not! Her grandfather could rant and rave until he turned blue, she would not be pushed.
“Because if you won’t, I don’t know what will become of us,” her mother added in a quavering voice.
Harriet turned and saw that Mama had begun crying. Her handkerchief was a crushed wad in one hand. Her cherished embroidery had fallen to the floor. She was the picture of misery. And of…defeat. She looked utterly defeated.
Going to comfort her, Harriet tried to think what she should do. There had to be something, some way out. But at the moment, she couldn’t see it.