No magical solution occurred to Harriet as the first banns loomed closer. When she tried to think about how to approach Ferrington, her brain veered off into memories of those melting kisses. A sly inner voice repeated the temptation—she should simply marry the man. Why not? Parts of her thought it a fine idea. They were not parts she knew well or fully trusted, however.
One sad irony was she’d established a new harmony in her home. The relief was considerable and the idea of losing it hard to contemplate. Her mother was bubbling with good humor and had not asked for the laudanum since the engagement was announced, a heartening sign that she was not too dependent. Harriet’s grandfather remained jovial at the dinner table. He hardly barked out any contemptuous criticisms these days. This was partly because he directed his ire at the workmen constructing Winstead Hall’s new wing. His increasingly grandiose plans for a celebratory ball were held back by the lack of a ballroom, and he was driving the carpenters to complete it. This outlet for his impatience was a boon for Harriet and her mother, if not for the workers.
And so, in this increasing muddle, they somehow came to the day set for Charlotte and Sarah to arrive for their visit. For weeks, Harriet had looked forward to seeing her old friends. Now she was worried they would think ill of her. No, that was silly. They never had and never would. But they would certainly be surprised at the state of things. Which they would ferret out down to the least detail. She had no doubt about that.
The post chaise came in good time, and the visitors stepped down in a flutter of ruffled skirts and merry greetings. Harriet felt something ease deep inside when she saw their smiling faces. These two—along with Ada Grandison—had been drawn to Harriet by common interests and lively curiosity in their first year at school, at age thirteen. Unlike many of the other girls there, they had not disdained her poverty. They didn’t care that Harriet paid for her schooling with household chores and teaching younger, slower students. Their steady friendship had helped Harriet endure the many little slights and disparaging remarks thrown her way, and even the school’s dancing master’s disgusting little compliments, whispered in her ear because she was poor and powerless. They had become her extended family when Harriet had no one but her mother. Together, the four of them had discovered a love of solving mysteries and had a number of successes. Indeed, they had helped uncover an ancient lost treasure and made Ada’s happy marriage to her indigent duke possible. It was a delight to have them with her.
Here was Sarah, a smiling, round little person with sandy hair, pale brows and eyelashes, and a sprinkling of freckles. Sarah’s light-blue eyes sparkled with intelligence, and her head was full of esoteric bits of knowledge gleaned from constant reading. She was a scholar and a peacemaker, and her even temperament was always a comfort.
Beside her, Charlotte was much taller, her stature made more pronounced by a slender frame. She had black hair, pale skin, a sharp, dark gaze, and was the most methodical person Harriet had ever known. Charlotte could draw charts that reduced the knottiest problem to precise order. She also cut roast beef into precise bits, all the same size, before eating them. There was a constant edge of dispassionate analysis in those eyes.
“It’s been such an age since we saw you,” exclaimed Sarah.
These summer weeks had been both like and unlike the school holidays. They’d come back together after being separated. But the reunion was not really the same. The absences would only increase as they established themselves. Ada was already gone. The others would soon follow into whatever fate life brought them. But they were here now, and Harriet was very glad. “Come in and say hello to Mama,” she said. “Grandfather is occupied, but you will see him at dinner.”
They exchanged looks that perfectly conveyed their mixed attitude toward Mr. Winstead. Harriet loved how much they could say without words and the similarity of their opinions.
“Here are Sarah and Charlotte,” Harriet said when they reached her mother’s sitting room.
“Oh!” Mama dropped her sewing and stood. “You’ve come. Harriet has missed you so.”
“And we, her,” replied Charlotte.
“Of course, now that she is engaged, she has other things to think about as well.”
Naturally Mama would mention this immediately. It was foremost in her thoughts. Harriet had foreseen this.
“Engaged?” cried Sarah. “What, when…?” She glanced at Charlotte to see if she had known. Charlotte shook her head. “How could you not write us about that?”
“It’s quite recent,” said Harriet.
“Well, who is he? My goodness, Harriet.”
“The Earl of Ferrington,” answered her mother, her face glowing with pride.
“Lady Wilton’s missing heir?” Sarah’s blue eyes went round. “You found him?”
“More than found apparently,” said Charlotte with raised brows. “Found, beguiled, and bagged, all in a few weeks.”
Harriet frowned at her. The word bagged was an obvious provocation, but she wasn’t going to be baited.
“And you solved the mystery without us,” said Sarah.
“The Terefords did most of it.”
“Are they here?” asked Charlotte.
“Staying at Ferrington Hall. Lady Wilton sent them up.”
“I wouldn’t think the duke would submit to being sent,” said Sarah.
Harriet shrugged. “You know Lady Wilton.”
They’d all seen this lady’s dictatorial ways during the past season. Harriet didn’t intend to mention the letter about the Travelers that had brought the duke and duchess here. Not yet at any rate. She was used to telling her friends everything. But the story of the rogue earl was…complicated.
Charlotte gazed at her as if she could see her ambivalence. “It seems there’s been a great deal going on. How did the Terefords recover the missing earl? Where was he?”
“And how did you fall in love with him?” asked Sarah. “I want to hear everything.”
“Everything,” echoed Charlotte.
“The duke is very clever,” said Harriet’s mother.
“And Cecelia is even more so,” said Harriet.
“Indeed. And so they…” Charlotte raised her eyebrows and waited.
“Found him,” said Harriet. She glanced at her mother and then back at her friends.
They got the point and fell silent. There was a short silence, indicating that Sarah and particularly Charlotte would require more than this. Eventually.
“You must invite your earl to call immediately,” said Sarah then. “We have to make certain he’s worthy of you.” She smiled to show she was joking.
Harriet’s mother was not amused. In fact, she looked worried. “He’s very kind, a true gentleman,” she declared.
“You like him?” asked Charlotte.
“Anyone would. You mustn’t…play any of your tricks.”
“I was only funning, Mrs. Finch,” said Sarah. “Any man Harriet has chosen must be wonderful. Her standards are so high.” She smiled at Harriet.
Her friends had teased her about this during the season. They hadn’t understood what it was like to be a newfound heiress, tossed into the marriage mart like a fox among the hounds. Sarah had never been courted with blatant calculation or totted up like a column of numbers. During her time in London, Harriet had seen so many varieties of greed—desperate, arrogant, pathetic, relentless. Smiles and flowery compliments might hide mercenary motives for a while, but something had always revealed the grubby truth in her town suitors. Her rogue earl had shown no trace of that, another mark in his favor and reason for her heart to ache.
“Your grandfather must be pleased,” Charlotte said to her. “An earl.”
“Yes.” Harriet had never been on the opposite side of one of Charlotte’s probes. Her friend’s tenacity, which she’d always admired, was less pleasing now that Harriet was a mystery herself. “Shall we have some tea?” she asked.
Her mother frowned at her. “You should show them to their rooms, Harriet. They will want to settle in. They haven’t even taken off their bonnets.”
At any other visit, she would have been eager to get her friends alone for a good talk. This time, it would be more like an interrogation.
“I should like to see my room,” replied Charlotte, confirming her conclusions.
Harriet gave in. The questions had to come. And she wanted to tell her friends what had happened. She just didn’t want them to think ill of her.
“All right, what’s going on?” asked Charlotte as soon as they were alone in her bedchamber. “Did your grandfather force you into this engagement?”
Sarah gaped at her, then turned to Harriet.
“How could he?” Harriet asked.
“By threatening to change his will again,” replied Charlotte impatiently. “That’s the sort of thing tyrannical old people do. And he is among the most tyrannical.”
They knew her too well. She hadn’t fooled Charlotte in a long time. “Let us sit down at least.”
Bonnets, gloves, and shawls were shed. Sarah and Charlotte took armchairs, and Harriet sat on the bed. It might have been any cozy afternoon in the past six years. But it wasn’t.
“It all began with a rogue,” said Harriet.
Charlotte frowned.
“Soon after we arrived here, I walked over to Ferrington Hall, which I supposed to be empty. I wanted to see the place because Lady Wilton had made such a mystery of her missing relative.”
Her friends nodded, perfectly in harmony with this mission.
“I found a…fellow lurking about there. I thought he was from the Travelers’ camp nearby. Perhaps planning to rob the place. But he didn’t seem just like them, and…”
“He turned out to be the missing earl,” said Charlotte with the air of one cutting to the chase.
Harriet nodded.
“How did you know that?” asked Sarah.
“It is a simple logical progression,” Charlotte said. “An unidentified gentleman surveying the hall. An heir gone missing. Harriet centering her tale on this person. Who is he likely to be?”
“Easy to see in retrospect,” Harriet commented acidly. “As many things are.”
“I expect it was not so clear at the time,” said Sarah.
“Precisely.”
“Because Harriet was falling in love with him,” Charlotte replied. “I’ve noticed love clouds one’s perceptions to a marked degree. It is sad to see.”
“I wasn’t.” But she had been, Harriet acknowledged. When he was the rogue. Her plans for a free-wheeling future flitted through her mind.
“All very obvious,” finished Charlotte in her most superior tone.
“Charlotte the all-knowing,” said Sarah.
“I can follow a clear train of logic.”
“Like the time you were convinced that workman was a spy for Napoleon,” said Sarah.
Charlotte glared at her. “He was skulking beneath the school building.”
“He was checking the drains,” said Harriet.
“I was fourteen. You are not.”
That was inarguable, Harriet acknowledged. She was nearly twenty, and she’d been taken in by her own rosy imaginings.
“If you were not falling in love with him, why did you end up engaged to him?” asked Charlotte. She was clearly not to be diverted.
“And how did he propose?” asked Sarah. “You must have been so downcast, since your grandfather insists on a great match. And then, like a miracle, the lurker turned out to be an earl.”
“Ugh,” said Charlotte. “You are so romantical, Sarah. Next you will be comparing Ferrington to a knight of the grail or some such thing.”
“No, I won’t. Those days are long gone.” She sighed. “So, when he told you, Harriet…”
“He didn’t. Cecelia let it drop. And I found out he’d lied to me. He told me he was plain Jack Mere.”
“Mere?” repeated Charlotte. “What sort of name is that?”
“Exactly!”
“You might have noticed it sounded odd. I would have.”
“He told me it wasn’t his real name,” Harriet admitted.
“Was that when you first met?” Sarah put in, smoothing the waters. “Before you had become well acquainted?”
Harriet nodded. She had noticed, of course. She’d just brushed it aside in her headlong plunge into fantasy. “I understand he was wary at first. Lady Wilton was quite unkind to him, and he was…” Wounded, melancholy? “But he had ample time to tell me the truth later.”
“What sort of time?” asked Charlotte. “How did you become acquainted with this lurker?”
“I called him a rogue,” Harriet said. She thought of the walks, the conversations, the dancing. The kisses.
“Perhaps he didn’t tell you because he could see you wanted him to be a rogue,” said Sarah. “Not a real one, of course.” She shook her head. “A real rogue would have…taken advantage. But a dashing, chivalrous adventurer. And he didn’t wish to disappoint you.”
The other two stared at her. “That’s rather…deep,” said Charlotte.
“And you are surprised because?”
“I wanted him to be honest,” said Harriet. But Sarah’s reasoning had struck a chord. She still sometimes wished Ferrington was less earl and more rogue.
Charlotte let out an impatient breath. “I see that, and he should certainly apologize.” Examining Harriet’s face, she said, “Has he done so?”
“Well, yes.”
“And you forgave him,” said Sarah happily.
Harriet realized she had, somewhere along the way.
Charlotte eyed her. “So, he turned out to be an earl, and now you are going to marry him. Why aren’t you blessing your luck?”
“How did he propose?” asked Sarah again.
Harriet’s two best friends focused their keenest gazes on her. There was no deceiving them. Harriet didn’t even want to. “It was Mama,” she said.
They looked skeptical, well aware of her mother’s gentleness.
And with that, the story of her mother’s trials and her grandfather’s meanness came pouring out. Every bit of it—the lost income, the threats, the laudanum, her rising anxiety, and her making the earl offer for her. “And so, I engaged myself to Lord Ferrington, and now everyone is happy,” she ended.
“Everyone,” said Sarah uncertainly.
“I don’t understand,” said Charlotte when she had finished. “Why should the earl give in to your urging?”
“We’d been alone so much,” Harriet murmured. “At the camp. Compromising.”
Her two friends gazed at her. It was very likely they saw more than Harriet wished.
“I’ve made a muddle of it. He had no thought of marriage. He is doing the honorable thing. I have to break it off before the first banns are called on Sunday. But then my grandfather will probably throw us out. And I fear Mama will break down completely.” Harriet bit her lip. She would also lose Jack the Rogue, which might be worse than all the rest.
Charlotte turned to Sarah. “Clearly we must get to work,” she said to her.
Sarah nodded. “The first thing is to meet this rogue person.”
“Lord Ferrington,” murmured Harriet. They ignored her.
“Undoubtedly,” said Charlotte. “We must examine him thoroughly, and then we will see.”
“Indeed,” replied Sarah.
“I don’t think—” began Harriet.
“There is no need for you to do so,” interrupted Charlotte. “We are here now.”
“You know we will take care of you,” said Sarah.
Harriet did, but this wasn’t some schoolgirl mishap, and she didn’t see what they could do.
***
Jack was glad to be invited to call at Winstead Hall. He’d begun to fear Harriet was avoiding him. The fact that he was to meet her visiting friends was a good sign. But also a challenge. The opinions of one’s friends could make a difference. “What if they take against me?” he asked the Duchess of Tereford as she approved the borrowed clothes he’d donned for the call.
“Why would they?”
“Lady Wilton said my manners were not fit for polite society. And presumably these young ladies are part of…”
“I am an established member of the haut ton,” interrupted the duchess. “And James—well, he is a nonpareil.”
Jack gazed at her. She looked back, as always the picture of blond perfection with the piercing eyes of a hunting hawk. The haut ton was what the English called high society. They’d fought the French for years and yet, for some reason, they used their enemy’s language to describe elegance.
“And we find your manners perfectly acceptable,” added the duchess.
Indeed, he’d seen no sign of the contempt Lady Wilton had predicted. The Terefords hadn’t mocked him for his dress or his variable accent or a brief confusion over items of cutlery. And yet Lady Wilton’s rejection still rang louder in his consciousness than their cordial welcome. “You are unusual?” he suggested.
She smiled. “We are discerning and intelligent, with exquisite taste. You can rely on our judgment.”
“So Lady Wilton…”
“Is an antiquated relic.” There was a touch of impatience in her tone, as if she thought he should put this issue behind him.
Jack enjoyed hearing his great-grandmother criticized. He couldn’t help it after the way she’d treated him. But he wasn’t quite convinced. “Some probably agree with her, and these young ladies might be among them.”
“They are not. I am well acquainted with both of them, and they are clever and kind and curious.” She smiled again. “They like solving mysteries.”
“What? Finding lost thimbles or straying lapdogs?”
“If you wish to turn them against you, say something like that,” replied the duchess.
“Like what?” asked her husband, strolling into the drawing room with his usual languid elegance. “And turn whom?”
His wife explained.
“Oh, by no means mention thimbles, Ferrington. Do you remember, Cecelia, when Mrs. Moran asked them to use their skills to find hers? You’d have thought she offered them a mortal insult.”
“She was a bit patronizing, James. Also, the thimble was right there, perfectly visible. She’d simply put it on the wrong finger.” She turned back to Jack. “These young ladies helped recover a treasure trove that had been lost for centuries.”
If she thought this sort of information would ease his nerves, she was mistaken.
“Watch out for Miss Charlotte Deeping,” added the duke. “She has a sharp tongue. Practically makes an art of the satirical.”
“Oh, James.”
“She told young Pelot he was less intelligent than his horse.”
The duchess bit her lower lip. “I believe he was about to walk into a lily pond in the park at the time. And his mount was pulling on the leading rein, trying to turn him away.”
The duke shrugged. “It’s true that a thing doesn’t exist for Pelot if he can’t hunt it, shoot it, or, er, mount it.”
“James!” She shook her head. “That was not an example of polished manners,” she told Jack.
“Indeed.” Both the Terefords’ eyes were gleaming with humor, and Jack had to wonder if they really understood how their exalted positions gave them license that a “foreigner” might not be granted. He reminded himself he was an earl.
He set out for his neighbor’s house on foot, knowing the walk would ease his nerves. At Winstead Hall, he was admitted like an old friend and conducted to the parlor where Mrs. Finch customarily sat.
The small room was remarkably full today. Beside Harriet and her mother stood the two visitors—a small, sandy-haired girl and a taller, dark one.
Introductions were made. Jack bowed to their curtsies. Everyone sat. Now he would have to produce polite conversation.
Jack longed to see Harriet alone. He wanted to talk more of their future. The idea of creating a family of his own had been growing in his mind. He knew it might not be easy. His parents’ match had been tempestuous—loud disputes, fiery reconciliations, and bitterness when his father fell into the abyss of drink for days at a time. But nevertheless, he had hopes. He would never behave so.
And, of course, he wanted to hold Harriet close again. Memories of her lingered in his hands, on his lips. He thought of her constantly, and his dreams were full of her. To be so close and not be able to touch was frustrating.
“So you are the missing earl,” said Miss Deeping.
Maybe it was to be not-so-polite conversation. The duke’s warning came back to Jack. He wasn’t afraid of this slender, sharp-eyed young lady. He was only…wary. “Missing no longer,” he answered.
“No, you turned up out of the blue.”
The gleam in Miss Deeping’s dark eyes told Jack she knew quite well where he’d come from. It seemed Harriet had confided in her friends. But how much? Her mother looked mildly bewildered. “I’d been taking a look around England,” he replied. “Seeing my father’s country.”
“Yes? Which parts precisely?”
“The ones between London and here.”
Miss Sarah Moran giggled. “Did you find it very different from America?” she asked. “I would be interested in your views on the comparison.”
She spoke like a schoolmaster. Which Jack found odd from a small, delicate-looking girl.
Harriet rose as if there were springs in her legs. “I’ll see about refreshments,” she said and left the room.
“The servants will bring them,” said Mrs. Finch, looking even more bemused.
Miss Deeping leaned forward. Jack found himself drawing back just a little.
***
Harriet stopped in the corridor outside and leaned against the wall. Of course, the servants had refreshments well in hand. There was no need to ask. She’d just found it too unsettling, sitting there with her rogue earl and her mother and her old friends. She had different ways of speaking to each of them, and she didn’t know how to match these up. Time was running out. She had to break off this forced engagement. But she couldn’t make herself do it. So she stood there and eavesdropped, well aware she should not.
“The two countries have many things in common and others that are different,” said Ferrington.
He sounded uncharacteristically stiff.
“Can you be more specific?” asked Sarah.
“Harriet said the Terefords are staying with you,” Charlotte put in.
“Yes.”
“It was the duke who found you, I understand.” Charlotte was in full interrogation mode.
“He did, er, track me down.” Before she could go on, he added, “He lent me this coat as well. They are determined to make me fashionable.”
“Are you interested in fashion?” asked Charlotte.
“No, are you?”
“Is that a comment on my attire, Lord Ferrington?”
“It is simply the same question you asked me.”
Leaning against the corridor wall, Harriet admired his spirit. People could be offended or intimidated by Charlotte. He was obviously neither.
“Well then, I find fashion tedious and shallow,” Charlotte answered.
“There we can agree, Miss Deeping.”
“You see,” said Harriet’s mother. She sounded both relieved and uncertain.
“One large difference between here and Boston is my friends,” said Ferrington. “I miss them.”
“Oh, you do have friends?”
“Of course he does, Charlotte,” said Mama. “Don’t be silly.”
“A good number, though only a few really close ones.”
“That’s the way, isn’t it?” said Sarah.
“My business partner and some other mates.”
“Are you in business?” asked Charlotte.
“What is the matter with you?” said Harriet’s mother.
“I am a partner in a shipping concern. And that is one of the differences between England and America, it seems. There, one is not despised for such activities.”
“You think you are here?”
“Lady Wilton assured me I would be. She warned me never to mention it.”
“Oh, Lady Wilton,” replied Charlotte dismissively.
“If she didn’t want you to make your own way, she shouldn’t have thrown your father out,” said Harriet’s mother, with the fire this topic always inspired in her.
“What were you supposed to do?” asked Sarah. “Starve?”
“That is rather what I thought.” He sounded surprised.
Harriet felt a surge of warmth for her friends as well as Mama. They were sensible, sympathetic people.
“Lady Wilton is a goose,” added Charlotte. “One of those ill-tempered ones who dashes at people, flapping and squawking.”
Sarah giggled.
“I was told she is one of the chief arbiters of polite society,” said Ferrington.
“By whom?” asked Charlotte.
“Well…”
“Lady Wilton herself?”
“Ah. Yes.”
“There you are then.”
Harriet could visualize the gesture Charlotte always made when she’d scored a point in an argument.
“You are not what I expected,” said Ferrington.
“How so?” asked Sarah.
“I was told society people would disapprove of…everything about me.”
“By?” asked Charlotte acidly.
“Ah. Lady Wilton.”
“I must say that woman has far too many opinions,” declared Harriet’s mother. “Nearly all of them wrongheaded.”
The laughter that followed both pleased and concerned Harriet. It was pleasant to hear him finding common ground with her friends and family. Except… What was that going to accomplish? Beyond making things harder when she broke the engagement.
“The high sticklers in society don’t think much of me,” said Charlotte. “And the feeling is mutual.”
“You don’t care?” Ferrington asked.
“About them? No.”
“You have to pick and choose among the people you meet,” said Sarah.
“But can you? I was told…”
He stopped. Harriet could imagine Charlotte and Sarah cocking their heads at him. She had exchanged knowing looks with her friends so many times that she could see them in her mind’s eye.
“Right,” said Ferrington. “Lady Wilton.”
“Where in the world can Harriet be?” wondered her mother.
She could be at a loss, Harriet thought. She had to go back. A muted rattle made her turn, and there was one of the housemaids a few feet away, holding a tray. She looked puzzled. Harriet nodded as if lurking in the corridor when she had visitors was not at all strange, beckoned, and stepped back into the parlor. “Here we are,” she said.
The maid came in behind her, providing a diversion, placed the tray on a low table, and departed.
“Macaroons?” said Harriet.
Charlotte looked at her as if she knew she’d been eavesdropping. Her mother simply stared.
“You didn’t tell us Lord Ferrington had a shipping business,” said Sarah to Harriet.
She’d half forgotten. Because she’d thought he was a rootless rogue and then a deceptive earl. Instead of seeing an individual, she’d been far too ready with assumptions. She’d called him a shipping clerk, she remembered. Harriet wondered what else she didn’t know. Well, scads of things, apparently.
Ferrington kindly refrained from saying so.
“What sort of things do you ship?” Sarah asked him.
“A good deal of machinery. My partner, Nathan, is fascinated by power looms and that sort of thing. We trade American timber and ore for innovations, as he puts it.”
“Harriet’s grandfather might be interested… Or, er…” Sarah’s face changed. No doubt she’d remembered Harriet would not be uniting two enterprises with a wedding. Not to mention Harriet’s disinclination to help her grandfather in any way. Sarah reached for a macaroon and bit into it. “Oh, these are delicious,” she added.
***
Jack lost track of the conversation briefly when Harriet sat across from him. Once she was in a room, it was hard to look elsewhere. She offered him only her profile, however, seeming uncomfortable. Where had she gone for the greater part of his visit so far? For that matter, why had she put off his last two attempts to see her? That was worrisome.
He thought he’d done all right with her friends. He had at least not alienated them. At most, they liked him. But now that they were here, it would be next to impossible to catch Harriet on her own.
A servant came to fetch Mrs. Finch about some household problem. The proper amount of time for a morning call had elapsed. When Jack said perhaps he should be going, no one objected. In fact, he was afraid Harriet looked relieved. He rose to go, hoping she might see him out. She made no move. Feeling thoroughly dissatisfied, he made his farewells and walked out.
He was well down the corridor when he realized he’d forgotten to deliver the duchess’s invitation to dinner in a few days’ time. He turned back and was a step away from reentering the parlor when Miss Moran’s voice floated out to him. “I really don’t see why you want to break it off with him, Harriet,” she said.
Jack felt as if someone had thrown a bucket of icy water in his face. He couldn’t move.
“I’ve told you,” Harriet replied.
“He seems…acceptable,” said Miss Deeping.
“Well, but it seemed to me that you both…”
“Sarah! The engagement is a lie.”
Jack surged through the doorway into the parlor. The three young ladies looked startled, none more so than Harriet. “A lie?” he repeated. “What the deuce?”
Harriet stared at him. Her lips parted, but she didn’t speak.
“What do you mean by that?” he demanded. Jack caught movement in the corner of his eye. Miss Moran was plucking at Miss Deeping’s sleeve and pointing to the door. Miss Deeping shook her head. He wished they would go. “Well?”
“I pushed you to offer…” Harriet began.
“Because you’d been compromised.” Jack’s world was falling down around his ears. “But now that your society friends are here, you find I’m not good enough after all. Not polished like your London beaus.”
“No! It’s nothing like that.”
Jack made a slashing gesture. Yet he still couldn’t quite believe it. There had been more than this between them. He was sure of it.
“Grandfather was nagging at Mama,” Harriet began. “He insists…”
“That you marry a nobleman,” said Jack. He’d gathered as much. “And I am a thrice-damned earl. So I fulfill his conditions. Quite nearby, too.” Jack had never been so insulted in his life or so hurt. “He forced you into it.” He waited for her to contradict this.
“No, I…my mother.”
“She wanted it, too,” Jack said. That had been evident. “When I think how you railed at me for being deceptive…”
Still, she just sat there, offering him nothing.
“Well, you need not worry. I declare the engagement ended.”
“A gentleman cannot end an engagement,” said Miss Moran. “That is ruinous to a lady’s reputation.”
“Be quiet, Sarah!” said Harriet.
Jack set his jaw. Even now, he could not do that to her. “I suppose you must do it then.”
“I had planned to…”
“So all is going as you wished. My felicitations.” He gathered the rags of his dignity and marched out.
***
Silence fell over the parlor. No one spoke for quite a time, in case he returned again. Finally, Sarah rose and shut the door. Charlotte said, “That didn’t go very well.”
Harriet was clenching her jaw so hard, it hurt. She’d been witless, idiotic. Why hadn’t she explained? The hurt in his eyes had cut her to the quick and rendered her silent. “I must go after him,” she said, rising.
The parlor door opened again, and they all jumped. But Harriet’s grandfather, not Ferrington, stood there. “The ballroom is ready at last,” he said. “Come and see. Where is Linny?”
“There was some question in the kitchen,” replied Sarah. She and Charlotte were watching Harriet with concern.
Harriet’s grandfather made an impatient gesture. “Typical, she is never around when wanted. But never mind. You will do. Come along and let us talk about the decorations for the ball. Linny’s ideas are too plain.”
“P-perhaps a bit later, Grandfather,” Harriet tried. “I must go and…”
“Nonsense!” he snapped. “There’s nothing more important than this. Come along!” He chivied them out with an unanswerable scowl.