Having decided to take control of his destiny, Jack wasted no time in laying plans. Convinced that advance preparations were never wasted, he made a variety of arrangements and then caught up with the duke again as Tereford returned from his daily ride. Jack caught him as he came in from the stables. “Had a good gallop?”
“Capital. I’ve become rather fond of Blaze.”
This was one of the horses Jack had bought from the Travelers. Jack thought the duke was surprised by its quality as well as rather bored at Ferrington Hall. Tereford usually went to Brighton in the summer, he understood, and then on to large house parties. Certainly, his houseguest was accustomed to far more society than he found in this neighborhood.
“Would you consider selling him to me?” Tereford went on.
“Of course, if you like. There are some other promising horses at the camp as well.”
“Perhaps I’ll have a look,” said the duke.
“You should go soon if you wish it. They will be moving on in the next few days.” The idea still saddened Jack.
Tereford nodded and started to move on toward the house.
Jack fell in beside him. “I am going to see Mr. Winstead,” he said.
“Oh, yes?”
“I wondered if I might ask your advice?”
“Of course.” They walked into the study and sat down.
“What do know about Winstead’s business?” Jack asked then.
“Nothing whatsoever.”
“And you make a point of not learning.”
“Well, he’s in trade.”
“Which is some sort of stigma? Similar to a plague? So a noble Englishman must avoid any contact lest he be sullied?”
The duke laughed. “I wouldn’t go so far as that. It is simply thought to be…”
“Distasteful? Grubby? Vulgar?” Lady Wilton had certainly said as much.
Tereford shrugged. “I suppose there’s a good deal of envy involved. Fortunes are being made in trade these days, while some of the ancient families teeter on the edge of ruin.”
“We may be in rags, but we have our lineage?” Jack suggested.
The duke examined him. “You are going to be a breath of fresh air in the House of Lords.”
Would he be? Jack wasn’t certain whether he’d bother. On the other hand, he could imagine speeches that would make these lords sit up and take notice.
“But all I know is Winstead does some sort of trading,” Tereford added. “You should ask him. I daresay he would be happy to tell you about his business.”
Jack nodded. Perhaps he would. It might even be interesting.
“You’re going to speak to him about the marriage settlements?”
Jack allowed him to think so.
He was received at Winstead Hall with a gratifying show of welcome and only a trace of surprise when he asked for its master rather than his fiancée. After a brief wait, he was ushered into Mr. Winstead’s study. A cowed young man, being hustled out as he entered the room, threw him a covert, curious glance. “The Earl of Ferrington,” Winstead said as he shooed the fellow away. “Going to marry my granddaughter.”
The young man murmured something that might have been a congratulation.
“You get that letter to Grankle today,” Winstead added.
“Yes, sir.” The weedy lad put a hand on his coat pocket as if to assure himself of its contents and went out.
“Sit down, my lord. You’ll take something, I hope? A glass of wine.”
Jack accepted the offer and the chair. Winstead, small and round but not the least jolly, sat down behind his large desk. He reminded Jack of a drawing he’d once seen in a book of fairy tales—a crafty gnome preparing to cheat the hero out of a hidden treasure. And then cut off his head, if Jack remembered correctly.
“I expect you’re here to discuss the marriage settlements, eh?” the older man continued.
There was to be no pretense of polite conversation then. Jack was relieved, as he had none to offer.
“Best to get things clear.” Winstead probably thought he was smiling. The effect was something else entirely. Predatory, Jack decided. “You needn’t worry that I’ll try to cozen you. We’ll have the documents drawn up all right and tight. The money to be settled on her at marriage. No loopholes for backing out.” He laughed as if this was a joke.
Jack tried to imagine having a granddaughter he would bargain over in this way. Without even mentioning her name. He couldn’t. He’d run a business. He’d negotiated bargains and made the best terms he could. But not about people he loved. Obviously, Winstead loved no one. Jack’s idea of asking about the man’s trade and possibly exploring some joint efforts died a definitive death. “There’s the matter of banns,” he said.
“Yes?” Winstead instantly looked suspicious. Clearly, it was his natural state.
“There’s no need…”
“Has that granddaughter of mine done something to put you off?” Winstead interrupted. “I’ll soon teach her better if she has. Don’t you worry about that!”
“No,” Jack began.
“You can’t shab off now. Try it and I’ll ruin you.” His scowl was ferocious.
He was one of those men who must have every detail go his way or he threw a fit of temper. Jack had seen them before, and he didn’t think much of them. For them, power was oppression. It came to him that he could not leave Harriet and her mother in the clutches of this man, whatever happened. “There’s no question of that,” he said.
“There had better not be. I’ll make you pay.”
Jack didn’t think his influence would extend into the ranks of the English nobility. But there was his partner in Boston to consider. They did business in England. Jack summoned his father’s most refined accent. “It is simply that I’ve discovered banns are a bit…common,” he drawled. “Tereford told me so.” Let Winstead chew on that—the pronouncement of a duke.
“Eh?” The old man was brought up short. “Common?”
“And unnecessary,” Jack added. “The duke himself simply procured a license from the proper registry.” Parroting what Tereford had told him, he sounded supremely confident, which was the idea.
“We always did the banns,” Winstead replied.
Jack let the remark sit. He tried to look like an aristocrat pretending not to notice a social lapse.
Seemingly he succeeded, because Winstead flushed.
“I thought I would take the duke as my model,” Jack said, heaping coals on his head.
“What’s this registry?” the older man growled.
“I intend to look into that.”
“I’ll find out.” Winstead glowered. He had a broad repertoire of threatening expressions. “I’ll brook no delays. And if you think you’ll see a cent of my money before the knot is tied…”
“This is actually faster than banns, I believe.”
Winstead glared. He didn’t like being opposed, even when he was being given something he wanted. He would almost…almost prefer to throw it away. But not quite. How had Harriet and her kindly mother resulted from such a forebear? The man was a monster of selfishness, and the sooner they got away from him, the better. However that separation was accomplished.
Could it not be marriage? The pang that followed this thought laid Jack’s soul bare—he loved Harriet. With all his heart. This had made her denial of the engagement a greater blow than any rejection from society. He adored her. If she did not love him, then…a sudden pain twisted in his chest. But her mother had been sure about her affections. Jack sat straighter. Whatever the truth, the first step was to wrest control of the situation from this tyrant. He was quite able to do that. “So we are agreed. There will be no banns. I will procure a license…”
“I’m to trust you to do it then?”
Had Winstead bullied his way to commercial success? Jack supposed he had. Such things happened, unfortunately. “Tereford said the bridegroom generally does.” He was wielding the duke’s name like a duelist’s sword.
Winstead growled what might have been an assent. “I’ll tell the vicar there’s to be no banns,” he said, reasserting his primacy. “Useless fellow might have let me know about the license,” he muttered. He glared at Jack. “You’d best have it in hand before the ball.”
“The…oh yes.” He’d heard there was to be a ball. Winstead had been lashing his builders along to finish his new ballroom.
“I’ll have the whole neighborhood here, and I want everything in order.” Winstead leaned forward, bracing for an argument.
Jack refused the gambit. “Indeed.” He rose to go.
“What about the settlements?”
Right, he was expected to care about those. “Perhaps you could have something drawn up?”
“You would allow that?” Winstead seemed incredulous.
“I can look the documents over, and we can discuss any points of contention.” Actually he would ask the duchess to read the things. She would ferret out anything that needed negotiating. If he was getting married. He so hoped he was.
Smirking like a man who’s put something over on a rival, Winstead stood. “Very well, my lord. I shall have the papers for you in a few days.”
Jack nodded and, gratefully, took his leave. Once they were married—should they be married—he and Harriet would spend as little time as possible with her grandfather, he decided.
“I shall expect to hear you have the license,” Winstead called after him.
Of course, he had to have the last word. With a wave of his hand, Jack gave it to him and made his escape.
***
“You have just missed him,” the Duchess of Tereford told Harriet not long after Ferrington had gone out that day. “I believe he went to see your grandfather.”
“He what?”
“James said he intended to discuss the marriage settlements.”
That couldn’t be right. Not after their last encounter when everything had gone so wrong and she’d been too tongue-tied to explain. Harriet had come to Ferrington Hall today to do so and set things right.
“Is that surprising?” Cecelia asked. “Why shouldn’t he? It must be done.”
Only if they were to wed. Harriet wasn’t certain of that after she had so wounded the man she…loved. During a dark, tearful night, Harriet had faced it. She loved Jack the rogue earl, and she had hurt him. The look in his dark eyes when he’d come back into the room after overhearing their careless talk had cut her to the quick. Her throat had been tight with remorse, her mind frozen.
“Will you tell me what’s wrong?” asked Cecelia.
Harriet looked at her beautiful, concerned friend—the perfect duchess, with a perfect life.
“I want you to be happy,” Cecelia added. “I would like to help.”
As did Sarah and Charlotte and her mother as well, should Mama learn there was a threat to their settled future. Which must not happen! Harriet did not need another helper. She had a surfeit of those and a dearth of solutions. “I merely wanted to speak to Ferrington,” she said. “Will you tell him so?”
“Of course. I’m sure he’ll call on you as soon as he learns you wish it.”
But he did not.
Harriet returned to Winstead Hall. She chatted and strolled in the garden with her friends. She changed her dress and went down to dinner without having heard from the rogue earl. It seemed he was refusing to see her. Silently. So she didn’t know if he was angry or despondent or vengeful. Was he longing to be free of the engagement now? The uncertainty was driving her to distraction. Her friends were giving her concerned looks. Finally, although she tried to avoid conversation with her grandfather whenever possible, she had to ask him, “Did Ferrington call today?”
“Yes, he came to see me.”
“What did he…did you talk about?” Harriet asked, avoiding her mother’s worried glance.
Her grandfather dabbed gravy from his lips. “Settlements. Nothing that need concern you.”
Of course not. It was only her life, her future. Why should she be concerned about that? Or why a man who did not answer her summons was talking to her grandfather about them? A familiar anger rose in Harriet.
“The fellow is clever,” added her grandfather. “He knows his own mind. Not that he’ll get the better of me.” His laugh grated.
Harriet couldn’t keep quiet, even though her mother obviously wished she would. “Clever about what?” she asked.
“There are to be no banns,” was the astonishing response. “It’s more fashionable to get a license from the registry. The duke said so.”
“The duke?” Grandfather didn’t chat with the duke. They’d barely exchanged three words when they’d last been in a room together.
“Well, he told Ferrington as much. The earl will procure the license, and then we can set the ceremony whenever we like, you see. No need to wait three weeks. The vicar is a fool. I’ve always said so.”
“No banns,” murmured Harriet. That meant she had no public announcement looming over her. But did it also signify the earl didn’t want to be pushed into marriage? She had to speak to him!
As soon as they rose from the table, Harriet sent a note over to Ferrington Hall, with orders for the messenger to await a reply. It came from Cecelia. The earl had gone away for a few days. She wasn’t certain where. James did not know either. Ferrington had left before Cecelia had an opportunity to pass along Harriet’s summons, as she had not been aware of his plan to go.
Harriet sat in the drawing room with the open page in her lap. Gone? Where had he gone?
Sarah and Charlotte came and dragged her over to the pianoforte, where they pretended to look over music they might play. “What has happened?” asked Charlotte “You look dreadful.”
“Thank you, Charlotte,” replied Harriet.
“You did seem shocked when you read that note,” said Sarah.
Harriet had always valued her observant friends. But in the past, they had not been observing her. “Ferrington has gone away.”
“Where?” wondered Sarah.
“Cecelia does not know. Nor the duke.”
“Perhaps he went to get the license your grandfather spoke of,” Sarah suggested.
“Cecelia said he had gone for a few days.”
“The license shouldn’t take that long,” said Charlotte.
“And why would he be procuring one when we are not…not to be wed?” Harriet stumbled over the phrase.
“That’s easy,” answered Charlotte. “To remove the threat of the banns.”
“Threat?”
“Well, the last time I saw Lord Ferrington, he was extremely angry and wanted to end the engagement himself. So he wouldn’t want to be pushed by the posting of banns.”
The words were like a blow. “Is that how he seemed to you?”
“Of course. How else would he be?”
Charlotte’s famous bluntness could be unwelcome, Harriet observed.
“I thought he was surprised,” said Sarah.
“He was?” said Charlotte. “He popped back into the room like a jack-in-the-box. Ha, he calls himself Jack, does he not?”
“And hurt,” Sarah added, ignoring the jest. “Which he had some right to be, perhaps.”
Harriet winced.
“He did?” said Charlotte.
“Stop saying he as if it referred to some bizarre, alien creature,” said Harriet.
“Perhaps it does.”
“I wish you would stop quizzing me, Charlotte.”
“I won’t.”
“Because you are determined to be annoying.”
“No, because you are one of my dearest friends, Harriet, and I care about you. Also, I know you rather well, and I can see you are not telling us everything.”
“I don’t have to tell you everything,” Harriet retorted.
“Very true. You have a right to your secrets. I want to help, however.”
Sarah nodded in agreement.
“And we can’t do that if we don’t know what it is you really want,” Charlotte finished.
And wouldn’t it be nice if she had the least idea? As she shook her head, Harriet realized she was very glad she was still engaged. She shouldn’t be, perhaps. But she was. She decided to keep that inconvenient fact to herself.