Chapter 22 #3
Sam did, because he was a dutiful son. He reminded himself that Harriet had indeed embraced him rather enthusiastically in the stairwell just a moment ago, but that didn’t help all that much.
“In all seriousness, Harriet, my gel,” Nicholas said quietly, “I don’t want to put you in an uncomfortable position, and this is mostly just to torment my son for sport, but you needn’t date him out of pity.”
“I know, my lord.”
“Then you aren’t completely opposed to him?”
Sam opened the eye farthest from his sire because he couldn’t not peek.
“Not completely,” Harriet agreed.
And then damn the woman if she didn’t exchange a smile with his father that boded very ill for his peace of mind, indeed.
Nicholas cleared his throat with yet more of that parental importance Sam suspected he was going to be hearing too much of in the near future.
“Then I’ll ask if you’re at all interested in this somewhat acceptable lad here?”
“Perhaps a bit.”
“And would you be amenable to any attentions from this selfsame lad?”
Sam didn’t dare ask her if the sudden threat of tears he saw in her eyes came from, as he feared, a violent bout of nausea over the thought of his attentions or something more encouraging such as a tender feeling about his potentially dating her perfect self.
“Actually, my lord,” Harriet said quietly, “I would.”
Nicholas glanced at him. “I don’t imagine we need to discuss your feelings on the matter.”
“Nay, my lord,” Sam said promptly, “we do not.” He looked at Harriet, but was tsk-tsked by his father.
“No unapproved looks shall be sent by you to this gentle maiden,” Nicholas said sternly.
Sam imagined it wouldn’t be kind to rid his mother of her husband in truth, but he was damned tempted.
“My lord?” Harriet said.
“Aye, my gel?”
“He’s thinking about ways to do you in.”
Nicholas laughed, which Sam thought a bit unkind. He definitely had unkind feelings toward his sire when the man drew Harriet’s hand into the crook of his elbow and started off down the passageway with her.
“I would fault him for it, but I believe I had those same feelings about my own sire at about the same point in my wooing of my beloved wife. We’ll watch him tomorrow and see how he fares. Do you indeed find him tolerable enough?”
“Fairly tolerable, my lord.”
Sam would have scowled, but Harriet was waving at him from behind her back. He thought it only polite to catch up to her and take her hand, but he was like that. Chivalrous, gallant, generous.
Besotted.
He suspected it might take him a minute to decide when he’d first suspected he might be in trouble where she was concerned. It could have been when she’d rescued him at that reception, or when she’d looked so undone when he’d quite properly given her his room.
Then again, it might have been when she’d pulled lock-picking tools from her pocket and opened the boot of his car.
He had hardly examined any of those things to his satisfaction before he realized he was standing in front of her chamber.
His lady was chatting quietly but amicably with his father, leaving him wondering what he’d missed.
Then she looked at him and he realized thinking might just be beyond him for the next few moments.
He took a deep breath and looked at his sire.
“May I kiss her goodnight?”
Sounds of horror ensued. “I feel faint. Where did I go wrong in raising you?”
Harried smiled at his father. “Might I kiss him, my lord?”
Sam didn’t dare move, mostly because Harriet was still holding onto his hand and that boded well.
“On the cheek, gel,” Nicholas said. “Don’t raise his hopes unnecessarily.”
Sam could see that Harriet was enjoying the torture far more than she should have, though she did kiss him sweetly on both cheeks, then on the end of his nose. Sam caught her hand again before she could pull away.
“Tomorrow,” he whispered.
Nicholas leaned up close to them. “What about tomorrow?”
Sam straightened and looked at his father pointedly. “I’m going to take her on a date, Father.”
“And I think you’re going to be speaking to her father about that before you even dare consider the like.”
What Sam thought was that he was going to have to do some creative arranging of events and souls to be able to attain his ends. A fortunate thing it was that he had so much practice at the same.
He turned to his father and made him a proper bow. “My lord Father,” he said, straightening and looking at his sire seriously, “you have always displayed impeccable manners that I wasn’t too stupid to take for my own. My lady Harriet will be perfectly safe in my care.”
His father shot him a very quick smile, then made more paternal sounds that Sam was certain he would come to heartily dislike if the torment went on as long as he suspected it might.
“See that she is, my son,” he said sternly. “Her father and I will be taking your measure on the morrow.”
Sam put that off as something to grind his teeth over later, then turned to his lady. He took her hand in his, kissed it very chastely, then stepped back before his father stabbed him or his lady hit him with her shoe.
Fortunately for his heart, she was only looking at him as if she might be slightly fond of him.
He watched her go inside the bedchamber she was sharing with her parents and shut the door. He took a deep breath, then looked at his father.
“And?”
Nicholas slung his arm around Sam’s shoulders. “I think, my son, that you are toast. How did you meet her?”
“I was filling in for Theo at a gathering of book scribblers and Harriet and I found ourselves hiding behind the same small tree.”
“It seems to have worked out fairly well for you.”
“If she’ll have me.”
“I’m sure all the relatives who’ll be endlessly watching you both tomorrow will have suggestions on how you might better your chances, but my superior wit and wisdom are going to be your only salvation.”
“You sound exactly like your brother,” Sam said grimly. “It’s worrisome.”
His father only smiled pleasantly and walked away.
Sam watched him go for a moment or two, then realized his sire had waited for him to catch him up. It took him all the way down to the great hall to be able to ask what he needed to.
“How do I do this?” He looked at his father seriously. “How do I ask a modern woman to be a part of my insane life?”
Nicholas tilted his head slightly and smiled.
Sam held up his hand. “You don’t have to say it.”
“I didn’t imagine I did.”
Sam grasped at a final straw. “’Tis impossible to fall in love this quickly, I’m certain.” He cleared his throat. “How long did it take you?”
“Are we going to count all the moments that I tried to convince myself that I couldn’t possibly ask a woman from the Future to bind her life to mine, the other moments where I was a complete ass to everyone around me in a futile effort to ignore that I’d looked at her and known within half an hour that my life would never be the same without her, or that fortnight when I pretended not to know how she could return to the Future in the hopes that she would learn to love me and want to stay with me here in the past? ”
Sam shut his mouth when he realized it had been hanging open. He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard his father say so many things in one go, never mind such personal things.
“But what if she doesn’t like me?”
Nicholas looked at him, shut his own mouth that had fallen open, then shook his head a time or two in disbelief. He looked at Sam again, then shook his head again before he walked away.
Sam wasn’t sure what sort of answer that was, but he was absolutely sure he deserved it.
He looked around himself at the magnificent hall his father had created for his mother and decided that what he needed was a plan. He wasn’t a complete loss with that sort of thing, so he would carefully lay out for himself a strategy to use in wooing and winning the glorious Harriet Brewster.
And hope he wouldn’t need to do in any of his family members to manage it.