Chapter Six
By the time Reed reached the front of the Barringtons’ home, Lucy was gone. He stood looking out into the dark night, worry tying his insides into knots. How had things come to this?
“The scales have tipped decidedly in our favor.” Mr. Harris slapped a companionable hand on Reed’s shoulder. “We’ll have the ladies agreeing to let us stay at home every night of the week soon enough.”
Robert and Charles had come as well, both looking pleased as could be.
“Another evening or two, and we can declare this a decisive victory for the gentlemen,” Robert declared.
“No.” Reed snapped out the word.
“What do you mean, ‘no’?” Robert smiled, even laughingly elbowing Charles. They all thought this a great joke.
“I mean there will be no more evenings like this. No more.” Reed stepped back into the entryway. “My hat and outercoat,” he instructed the butler. “And send for my carriage.”
A moment later, the items were in his possession and he was waiting in the vestibule for his equipage.
His in-laws closed in on him. “You are quitting the field?” Robert asked in a tone of surprise. “But we are winning.”
Reed eyed them each in turn. “Gentlemen, this has gone too far. I saw tears in my wife’s eyes tonight, and that is something I will never abide. Not ever. This ends now.”
They looked at him as though he had lost his mind. “If you give in now, Lucy will be leading you about by the nose the rest of your life.”
“So be it.”
His carriage pulled up, and Reed was grateful for the escape. He preferred staying on friendly terms with his wife’s family, but if they continued insisting he treat her with less kindness than she deserved, he would be hard pressed not to call each and every one of them out.
He’d gone along with the plan because he hadn’t expected it to wound Lucy the way it obviously had. They’d convinced him she was playing along, that it was a friendly bit of rivalry between them. A bit of lark was all. In the process, he had hurt his wife, his darling, wonderful Lucy.
To his surprise, Mr. Harris climbed in the carriage with him.
“If you mean to try to change my mind—”
But Mr. Harris held up a hand. “Actually, I mean to admit to you that you’re right. We took this game too far.”
“That seems a very abrupt change of position.” Reed wasn’t generally a suspicious person, but he’d seen an underhandedness in his in-laws over the past week, albeit it a good-humored underhandedness, and it made him wary.
“Robert, Charles, and I were thoroughly enjoying this little rivalry with the ladies. And I know from speaking of it with my wife that she, Amelia, and Clarissa have been amused as well.”
“Forgive me if I haven’t found it overly amusing.”
Mr. Harris acknowledged Reed’s position with a quick nod. “I am not at all happy with how things have turned out myself. We didn’t mean to hurt Lucy’s feelings.”
“I need to apologize to her,” Reed said.
“Oh, son, you must do far more than that.”
The declaration was not a promising one. “Did you have something particular in mind, because I am currently at a loss.”
Mr. Harris’s expression turned ponderous. “I might. I just might.”