Chapter 14 #2
Sebastian felt a fresh surge of anger burn in his gut. Harriet was a woman grown, a widow, and yet her father had treated her as though she were still an unwed debutante under his thumb. “So she dismissed them,” he guessed.
“Nearly all of them,” Richard confirmed.
“It left her with a nearly empty household. No footmen, no maids save for a single scullery girl, no butler. But she did keep one person, her cook. An old woman who had served her since childhood and whom she was certain had no loyalty to Hargreaves.” He shook his head.
“But even with Cook, she still had problems. The woman could no longer go to market herself, so Harriet went in her stead when the maid had her day off.”
Sebastian exhaled, pinching the bridge of his nose. “A viscountess forced to buy her own fish and bread.”
Richard gave a small shrug. “It was necessary. And while she was there, she found something, or rather someone, that would shape the course of her decisions going forward.”
Sophia, who had been watching them both in quiet patience, finally spoke. “This was when she met her first rescue,” she said knowingly.
Richard nodded. “Aye. That was the day she met the battle-axe herself.” He leaned back against his chair, his lips twitching with amusement.
“Picture the scene … Harriet, dressed modestly, attempting to buy apples, when suddenly she hears a loud, no-nonsense voice berating a fishmonger for trying to pass off subpar haddock as fresh catch. And there stands a woman, built like a brigadier and twice as fierce, eyes sharp as bayonets, and utterly unimpressed by the poor man’s attempts to defend himself. ”
Sebastian almost smirked despite himself. “You are speaking of Finch?” He had seen Finch in action. The description was all too fitting.
Richard smiled in assent. “Harriet approached her, intrigued, and struck up a conversation. That was when she learned Mrs. Finch’s story.
She had been the wife of a tavern keeper.
A successful one at that. It was she who had turned their business into a thriving establishment, managing the accounts, dealing with customers, ensuring the place remained respectable. ”
Sophia made a sound of disapproval. “And yet, despite all that, she lost it.”
“Because of her husband,” Richard confirmed. “A faithless, feckless scoundrel who, after years of living off her hard work, wagered the entire tavern away in a game of dice. And when the deed passed to another man, he abandoned her altogether, leaving her with nothing.”
Sebastian’s jaw tightened. “And what became of her?”
“She was reduced to being a mere barmaid in the very tavern she had once run. Forced to serve the new owner, to watch him reap the benefits of what she had built.” Richard shook his head. “She had nothing left. No property. No security. Just her wits and her determination.”
Sebastian leaned back against his chair, considering.
It made sense now, why Finch carried herself with such authority, why she seemed so ferociously loyal to Harriet.
She knew what it was to have everything taken from her, to be left at the mercy of others.
Harriet had given her something she had lost … dignity.
“So Harriet offered her the position of housekeeper?” Sebastian guessed.
Richard nodded. “And Finch, after a bit of skepticism, accepted. I do not think she trusted Harriet’s motives at first, but she saw something in her, just as Harriet saw something in her.” His gaze flickered. “That was when it started.”
Sebastian frowned. “What started?”
“This idea of hers, that she could not undo the past, but perhaps she could do some good going forward. If she could not atone for her own mistakes, then perhaps she could offer a place for others who had been wronged. Women who had been cast aside, abandoned, or left with little means to make an honest way forward.”
Sebastian exhaled slowly, his thoughts turning over.
So Harriet had been trying to change, to build something better.
The drawing room fire had burned low while Richard spoke, and no one had moved to tend it, as though to do so might break the thread of what was being laid before him.
But why had she never told him? Why had she lied, deceived, and made such a mess of things?
And why, despite everything, did he still want to believe in her?
* * *
Finch sniffed, folding her arms over her stout chest, reminding Harriet once again of a general surveying an ill-disciplined army. “All men are addlepated fools,” she declared with years of bitter experience behind her.
Belinda choked on a sip of tea, while Evaline politely hid a smile behind her teacup. Jem, wide-eyed, merely nibbled on a biscuit, absorbing the housekeeper’s words as if they were gospel.
Harriet, however, merely sighed and rubbed at her temples, knowing better than to engage Finch in a debate when she was on one of her tirades.
“Oi’m sure Lady Slight did nuffin’ wrong,” Finch went on, her voice rising with righteous fervor. “An’ if she did, it were only ’cause that man o’ hers put ’er up to it. So, really, it’s ’is fault after all.”
Harriet opened her mouth to protest, but Finch was just getting started.
“Ye think Oi don’t know ’ow men operate?
Bah! I spent years servin’ ale to the sort what swore undyin’ love in one breath an’ were slippin’ a ring on some other wench’s finger in the next.
Sweet words, false promises, an’ when they’ve wrung ye dry, they move on without so much as a backward glance.
An’ let’s not forget my own bleedin’ husband, may he rot wherever ’e ended up, who took me life’s work an’ tossed it aside like a scrap o’ spoiled meat! ”
She gave a disdainful snort, as though just the memory of him were enough to turn her stomach. “Mark me, my lady. Men’ll blame ye for their own shortcomings, then leave ye to clean up the mess they made!”
Harriet listened to Finch’s tirade, but inwardly, she argued against it.
Sebastian was not like other men. He had never been like the men Finch spoke of, had never been careless with her feelings or dismissed her as unworthy.
Even now, after all the pain she had caused him, after the mistakes she had made, his anger stemmed from hurt rather than cruelty.
He had never abandoned her, not truly. Not when they were young, not now. Even when she had given him every reason to walk away, some part of him had still wanted to believe in her.
She had ruined that today.
“Mark me,” Finch went on, still railing, “this is why a woman’s better off without ’em. No grief, no betrayal, no bloody heartbreak.”
Across the room, Jem set down her biscuit and stared into the middle distance with the grave expression of a child absorbing a lesson she was not entirely certain she ought to be absorbing.
Belinda, more composed, refilled her teacup with the careful attention of a woman who had learned long ago that some storms were best waited out in silence.
Harriet exhaled slowly, turning her teacup between her hands.
No grief? No heartbreak? Finch was wrong about that.
The absence of love did not protect one from pain.
She had spent years keeping the memory of Sebastian at arm’s length, believing she was guarding herself against heartache, but in the end, it had found her anyway.
And it was a thousand times worse knowing she had done it to herself.
The fire had burned to a quiet glow, the painted room settling into the particular hush of an afternoon that had asked too much of everyone in it.
* * *
Richard leaned forward, his expression grave.
“I must ask for your discretion in this matter, Sebastian,” he said quietly. “What I am about to tell you is not my story to share, but I believe you need to understand.”
Sebastian, still brooding over Harriet’s duplicity, gave a sharp nod. “Go on.”
Richard hesitated for only a moment before exhaling and rubbing a hand over his face. “It is about Lady Wood.”
Sebastian blinked in mild surprise. Lady Evaline Wood was an ever-present shadow at Harriet’s side.
Polite, unassuming, and often overlooked in a room full of louder personalities.
He had thought little of her, beyond the fact that she seemed a steadfast companion to Harriet, a chaperone with the proper pedigree.
Now, something in Richard’s tone told him there was far more to her story than he had ever suspected.
“You know that her husband died last year?” Richard asked.
Sebastian nodded. “An accident, was it not? A misfire?”
A muscle in Richard’s jaw twitched. “Yes. An accident.”
Something about the way he said it made Sebastian straighten.
Richard cast a quick glance at Sophia, who gave an encouraging nod before he continued.
“Lord Wood was not a gentleman, as you well know from his reputation. He was”, he broke off, shaking his head, “a monster. He had abused Lady Wood for years, being noted for his fists, and in the last few weeks of his life, he had kept her locked away in that house of his. I doubt she saw sunlight for the better part of a month.”
Sebastian frowned, his mind sifting through the quiet observations he had made of Lady Wood over the weeks of their acquaintance.
She had always been composed, measured in her words and actions.
There was a delicacy about her, not of frailty, but of restraint.
Now, knowing what Richard was telling him, he understood why.
The stillness she carried was not composure cultivated by circumstance, but armor forged by necessity.
“She endured it for years,” Richard went on grimly. “And when she was finally free, when he died …” He paused, swallowing hard. “I was there, Sebastian. Wood was drunk, and he had a pistol. We struggled, and it went off. The fool shot himself.”
Sebastian’s brows furrowed, but he said nothing.