CHAPTER THREE
"Ah, Lady Harriet. We were just discussing your future."
Mr. Thornton delivered this pronouncement with the cheerful obliviousness of a man who had spent so many years dealing in other people's misfortunes that he had quite forgotten how to recognise distress.
He was a small, neat person with spectacles that kept sliding down his nose and a habit of shuffling papers even when there were no papers to shuffle.
Harriet paused in the doorway of the study, taking in the scene before her.
Sebastian stood near the window, his posture rigid, and his face carefully blank in that way she was beginning to recognise as a mask for stronger emotions.
Mr. Thornton sat behind her father's old desk, a liberty that made her teeth clench, surrounded by documents and ledgers that presumably contained the full accounting of her family's ruin.
"My future," she repeated flatly. "How reassuring that it's being decided without my contribution."
"Not decided, my lady. Merely... assessed." Mr. Thornton gestured to a chair. "Please, sit. There is much to discuss."
"I prefer to stand."
Sebastian's eyes met hers briefly, and something flickered there, approval, perhaps, or understanding. He, too, had remained standing, she noticed. Whatever Mr. Thornton had been telling him, he had not been comfortable enough to sit for it.
"Very well." Mr. Thornton shuffled his papers again, a nervous habit that was already beginning to grate on Harriet's nerves. "I was just explaining to Lord Vane the full extent of the... situation. Perhaps you would like me to summarise?"
"I have already spoken with my mother. I’m fully aware of the debts."
"Then you know that the estate's obligations exceed its assets by a considerable margin. The creditors have been patient…more patient than we had any right to expect, but they will brook no further delay and they look for immediate redress.”
"And by satisfaction, you mean payment."
"Or the sale of assets sufficient to cover what is owed. Yes."
Harriet forced herself to breathe evenly, to keep her voice steady. "What assets remain?"
Mr. Thornton consulted his papers, though Harriet suspected he knew the figures by heart.
"The London house is mortgaged beyond its value.
The investments were liquidated three years ago.
There are some personal effects, jewelry, artwork, a few pieces of furniture of notable provenance, but their sale would barely make a dent in what is owed.
" He looked up, his expression almost apologetic.
"The estate itself is the only asset of sufficient value. "
"You're saying we must sell Fordshire Park."
"I'm saying it is one option. There are... others."
The pause before "others" was heavy with implication. Harriet felt her spine stiffen.
"What others?"
Mr. Thornton glanced at Sebastian, then back at Harriet. "Lord Vane's claim represents the largest single debt. If that debt were to be... resolved... through means other than direct payment, it would significantly improve the situation."
"Resolved how?"
"Mr. Thornton." Sebastian's voice cut through the room like a blade. "I believe I made my position clear."
"You did, my lord, and I respect your sentiments. But Lady Harriet deserves to know all her options, does she not?"
"Not if those options involve…" Sebastian stopped, his jaw tight. "This is not appropriate."
Harriet looked between the two men, her confusion mounting. "What options? Whatever do you mean?”
Mr. Thornton opened his mouth to respond, but Sebastian was faster.
"Nothing," he said firmly. "Mr. Thornton was merely speculating about arrangements that I have already refused to consider. The matter is closed."
"The matter is not closed if it concerns my family's future." Harriet took a step further into the room, her eyes fixed on Sebastian. "What arrangements? What have you refused?"
Sebastian's expression shuttered completely. "It doesn't matter."
"It matters to me."
"Lady Harriet…"
"Tell me, or I shall ask Mr. Thornton, and I suspect his version will be considerably less diplomatic than yours."
For a long moment, Sebastian said nothing. He stood by the window, his hands clasped behind his back, every line of his body radiating tension. When he finally spoke, his voice was carefully controlled.
"Six months ago, when the situation first became critical, I offered to forgive the debt entirely. Your mother refused."
Harriet stared at him. "You offered to forgive…" She broke off, struggling to process this information. "That's a fortune. Why would you do that?"
"Richard was my friend. I lent him the money to help him, not to profit from his family's misfortune."
"But you could have simply... let it go? Pretended the debt never existed?"
"I could have. I wanted to. But your mother would not allow it." Sebastian's voice softened slightly. "She said that an Fordshire pays her debts, and that she would not accept charity, not even from her son's closest friend."
Pride, Harriet thought. Her mother's damnable pride, which had apparently extended to refusing salvation when it was offered.
"So instead we face ruin," she said. "Because my mother was too proud to accept your generosity."
"It's not that simple. There are other creditors, other obligations. Even if I forgave my portion, it would not solve everything. It would merely... delay the inevitable."
"Then what was Mr. Thornton suggesting? What other 'arrangements' were you discussing?"
The silence that followed was beyond bearable. Sebastian's face had gone carefully blank again, and Mr. Thornton was suddenly very interested in his papers.
"Well?" Harriet demanded. "Someone speak, or I shall be forced to draw my own conclusions, and I assure you they will not be flattering."
"Mr. Thornton suggested," Sebastian said slowly, as though each word cost him something, "that a matrimony between a member of your family and a person of sufficient means might resolve the situation.
The debts would be absorbed into the new household, the estate would be saved, and the creditors would be satisfied by the promise of eventual repayment. "
Harriet felt the blood drain from her face. "A matrimony."
"Yes."
"Between a member of my family."
"Yes."
"And would this 'person of sufficient means' happen to be you?"
Sebastian said nothing. His silence was answer enough.
Harriet turned on Mr. Thornton with a fury that surprised even herself. "You suggested that I wed Lord Vane to pay off my family's debts? Like some medieval arrangement, trading a daughter for gold?"
"I suggested nothing of the kind, my lady." Mr. Thornton had the grace to look uncomfortable. "I merely pointed out that such arrangements have been made before, in similar circumstances, and that Lord Vane's position as the primary creditor made him a... logical candidate."
"A logical…" Harriet couldn't finish the sentence. She was too angry, too humiliated, too overwhelmed by the sheer audacity of what was being proposed.
"Lady Harriet." Sebastian's voice was quiet but firm. "I refused. The moment Mr. Thornton raised the possibility, I made it clear that I would not be party to any arrangement that treated you as a commodity. That is why I said the matter was closed."
Harriet turned to look at him. He was still standing by the window, his face half in shadow, but she could see the tension in his shoulders, the rigid set of his jaw.
"You refused," she repeated.
"I did."
"Why?"
The question seemed to catch him off guard. "I beg your pardon?"
"Why did you refuse? Many men would consider it an advantageous match."
Something flickered in Sebastian's eyes, there and gone too quickly to identify. "Many men, perhaps. But I am not interested in advantageous matches bought with desperation. If I wed, it will be because both parties enter the arrangement willingly, not because one of them has no other choice."
It was, Harriet had to admit, a rather noble sentiment.
Annoyingly noble. The Sebastian Vane she had constructed in her imagination would never have refused such an opportunity,he would have seized it, used her family's misfortune to his advantage, proved himself the villain she had always believed him to be.
This Sebastian was proving stubbornly resistant to her expectations.
"Well," she said finally, because she had to say something. "I suppose I should thank you for not attempting to purchase me like livestock."
"The bar for gratitude seems rather low."
"It is. And yet you've somehow managed to clear it."
Was that a smile? It was hard to tell with Sebastian. His mouth had quirked slightly at one corner, but whether in amusement or exasperation remained unclear.
Mr. Thornton cleared his throat. "If we might return to the matter at hand."
"The matter at hand," Harriet interrupted, "is that my family is in debt, our home is at risk, and the only solution anyone has proposed is resolved to sacrifice me to the first wealthy bachelor who crosses our threshold. Have I summarised correctly?"
"There are other options, my lady. They are simply... less palatable."
"Less palatable than selling myself into matrimony?"
"The sale of the estate would allow the family to settle elsewhere, in reduced circumstances. It would not be comfortable, but it would be respectable."
Reduced circumstances. Harriet knew what that meant.
A small cottage somewhere, perhaps, or a set of rented rooms. Her mother, who had been born into luxury and married into more, spending her remaining years in genteel poverty.
No more London seasons, no more country house parties, no more life as they had known it.
"There must be something else," she said. "Some other way."
"If there were, my lady, I would have found it by now. I have been managing your family's affairs for nigh on fifteen years. I assure you, I have exhausted every possibility."