Chapter 9 #2
So I’d been worthy of help when I was desperate, but not worthy enough to court and marry her cousin.
Could Harriet marry better than a captain retired on half-pay?
Certainly. But I wouldn’t be a bad match.
I had Applewood and plans to restore it.
The fact that I’d been invited to this house party at all possibly meant that Harriet’s parents didn’t disapprove of me as a candidate for her hand, even if they didn’t know the promises we’d already made to each other.
What made Miss Blackwell so suddenly mistrusting? “Has Harriet spoken to you about me?”
Miss Blackwell’s eyes flashed and then darkened at my use of Harriet’s Christian name.
Blast. I needed to be more careful. I hadn’t even called Harriet that when we’d been together all those years ago—she’d always been Miss Pryor.
It was only after she’d left her glove that I realized how deeply we’d connected.
I’d spent the next years thinking of her as Harriet.
“Pardon. Has Miss Pryor spoken to you of her time together with me?”
She lifted her chin. “She has. But only since you arrived. She never mentioned you before then.”
If Miss Blackwell aimed to wound me with that information, she missed her target. Harriet had known as well as I had that my return was not guaranteed. Of course, she wouldn’t mention our understanding until she’d seen me safely returned. “What did she say?”
Her lips pursed together as if the last thing she wanted to do was answer my question. “She said you were upstanding and kind.”
It was a general description, but a good one. Some of the bitterness that had been rooting around in my mind since seeing her smiling at Brookhouse dissipated. “And that was all? She said nothing else?”
“No, that wasn’t all, but none of it was unflattering, so of course I would rather not mention it. But I will say one thing—she called you Captain Calder, not John, and so I think you should respect her by not using her Christian name so casually.”
I winced. “Of course, I shall do so.” And then because for some reason I simply couldn’t allow Miss Blackwell the upper hand, I added, “At least until I am given permission otherwise.” I was impatient for it.
No one had called me John in over seven years.
I was always Captain or Calder. Seven years was too long for a man to go without having someone dear enough to call him by his name.
One corner of her mouth turned up. “Don’t hold your br—” Something changed in her face—that impertinent corner of her mouth dropped and her eyes flashed briefly to the buttons or perhaps the pocket of my evening coat.
She quickly recovered and lifted her half-smile back into place.
“Breath,” she said, perhaps louder than she needed to, and then looked away.
Something had flustered her. She kept her eyes locked on the guests who sat on the sofas, but I didn’t have to see those stormy eyes of hers to know she was reliving something of that night of ours together. And based on the way she’d looked at my chest, I guessed it was my breathing.
I’d been in Walcheren.
I’d seen far too many men succumb to the fever. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Those who cared for the sick looked as haunted as those who were ill. I had the strange desire to reach out my hand and place it over hers, to look her in the eye and remind her that I was perfectly healthy now.
But that wouldn’t help my situation with Harriet and she was my main objective here. I couldn’t get distracted by biting remarks and haunting eyes.
We sat in silence for several minutes before I returned my attention to Harriet.
She was still with Brookhouse at the bookshelf.
The two of them looked comfortable together—more comfortable than we had been.
But that was to be expected, wasn’t it? They were meeting for the first time, while Harriet and I had a long history together.
It would take time for us to adjust to our new circumstances.
“Don’t charm her, Captain Calder.” Miss Blackwell’s voice landed as softly as the ashes in the fire, and they burned with a heat that was equally hot.
“I can see you want to. But I won’t allow it, and I think you know enough about the Blackwell family to understand what that means.
If you decide to go back to Applewood and finally give it the attention it deserves, I can give your excuses. ”
She was so fierce, like a dragon guarding her long-hoarded treasure. She was still the protective woman I’d seen in the croft, but it was no longer me she was protecting—it was Harriet.
“You’ve been to Applewood?”
“It’s only seven miles away. Papa and I have ridden there on several occasions. It has been sadly neglected.”
“Yes, well, technically it is still my father’s estate, and he took most of the funds that could have been used to repair it with him when he moved his new wife and my siblings to Connecticut.”
She flinched slightly at my response, but then hardened again. “They are half-siblings, are they not?”
I stilled. I’d never seen them as such, but everyone else, including Father, had.
He’d taken them away not long after marrying his third wife without so much as a discussion with me.
Miss Blackwell was striking at every weakness.
She was a Blackwell indeed. My own mother had died in childbirth.
I’d known no other mother save Arthur’s and May’s, and she had never treated me as anything else but her son.
The newest Mrs. Calder was nothing like her.
“Yes. You’re quite right. Thank you for that reminder. ”
She closed her eyes slowly, the hardness in her jaw softening.
Some small portion of the kind woman I’d seen in the croft dared to show her face.
I sighed. I didn’t want to be on such adversarial terms with General Blackwell’s daughter, or Harriet’s cousin, for that matter.
“I didn’t do or say anything inappropriate while I was under your care, did I?
Something to make you think so poorly of me?
Or question my intentions with your cousin? ”
Miss Blackwell’s shoulders tightened, the movement barely perceptible. “Nothing noteworthy, I assure you.”
Ah, so I had. But what? I straightened my posture.
Coming to Blackwell to court Harriet was no different than coordinating a battle.
I needed to think about this more strategically and stop acting like a bumbling fool.
Miss Blackwell saw herself as an enemy, but she didn’t need to.
“I have no ill intentions toward Miss Pryor.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I owe a great deal to Hattie. Her family has suffered because of my mistakes, and I will not see her suffer again. I don’t trust you. You don’t seem to be the type to stay true to one woman.”
“I . . . what?” I’d been true to her cousin for six long years. “Miss Blackwell, I assure you—”
“I don’t want your assurances. I cannot allow a man whose heart isn’t fully hers to distract her from finding the man whose heart will be. And while I don’t know you well, I do know this—you may like my cousin, but you aren’t in love with her.”
I opened my mouth to tell her that was exactly who I was, but her certainty gave me pause.
Did I love Harriet? My eyes sought her out—her delicate fingers sliding over the spine of a large tome on the bookshelf, resuming her search now that Brookhouse was no longer accosting her with his deuced humor.
She was even more graceful now than she had been at seventeen.
But we hadn’t had more than a few moments to speak to each other.
She’d been a lifeline at a time when I’d been drifting without a tether, and a dream to hold onto and fight for from then until now, but how did I feel about Harriet, the woman?
How much of my heart was hers? I was going to marry her, that much was certain.
I’d promised myself I would have a family again, and each year I’d heard that Harriet was still unmarried, and that she was waiting for me, the more secure I was in the fact that just when I’d needed one, I’d found a faithful woman.
A woman who would never leave me in the situation I’d been in at twenty-four—alone, the caretaker of a house with no one in it.
I would marry Harriet. She was the only woman I could trust.
I leveled my gaze back at Miss Blackwell. “If you believe that of me, then it appears we are at an impasse.”
“It appears we are.”
I nodded. Miss Blackwell was going to be a formidable foe in a place I hadn’t expected to find one. But I’d vanquished plenty of foes in my lifetime. “May I trust you not to mention our first meeting? Even to Miss Pryor?”
“Most likely not.” She sighed. “If you are so bound and determined to pursue my cousin, there may come a time I may need to tell her of it. I learned my lesson about keeping secrets from her a year and a half ago, and I won’t be repeating that mistake.
If you keep your distance, however, I see no reason I would need to tell her or anyone else. ”
I clenched my jaw and stood.
Even if Harriet returned to our table, there would be no use speaking to her if Miss Blackwell was beside us. I was going to have to find her some other time, when she was alone, or at the very least, not with her domineering cousin.
It seemed as though I’d found myself on the wrong side of a war with a Blackwell.
Evelyn Blackwell