Chapter 27
“Did you hear a word I just said?” Fiona waved a hand in front of Harriet’s face.
Harriet started and turned back around to face her friend. They were standing near the top of a hill on Catherine’s estate. It had been over a week since Harriet had left Irondale, and the ache in her chest seemed to grow heavier by the day.
Fiona, Louisa, and Catherine were gathered around her, their faces windswept and their hair messed. Catherine rested her hands on her very large belly, and Harriet felt a stab of guilt.
It had been Catherine’s suggestion to go for a walk, but Harriet suspected that it was harder on her friend than she was letting on. She had been itching to get out in the fresh air, but forced herself to walk at Catherine’s pace, even though her legs seemed desperate to run.
“I… No… I was distracted.” Harriet gave Fiona a sheepish look. “What were you saying?”
“I was asking you to slow down, Hettie. You are acting like you are on a sort of military march rather than a stroll in the countryside with your friends.” Fiona’s voice was a mix of reproach and teasing.
“I… Sorry.” Harriet forced herself to slow down, realizing that she had managed to move quite far ahead of her friends. “Restless legs, I suppose.”
“Clearly.” Louisa shook her head. “But if it is all the same to you, I would prefer a stroll, not a run. It is far too hot for anything more.”
“Of course. I… sorry.” Harriet fell into step beside her friends, feeling her skin bristle and itch as she gazed to the top of the hill.
“You do not need to keep apologizing, Hettie.” Catherine gave her a smile. “I could tell you needed to get out, it is why I suggested the walk in the first place.”
Harriet swallowed. “Oh.”
“You were practically crawling out of your skin,” Louisa said.
“You have been ever since you arrived.”
“I am not used to you being the restless one.”
“I… I just need to move, that is all. I have done a lot of travelling in the last week or so and one gets a little pent up.” Her eyes drifted to the east.
The rolling clouds hid most of the surrounding lands from view, and she knew that even if they did not, she was too far to see what she was looking for. She realized that Catherine was talking to her again.
“Sorry, I was a million miles away.” Harriet forced herself to look back at her friends.
“And would I be right in guessing that your mind lay a little way to the east of here?” Louisa tilted her head at Harriet. “You could always visit them.”
Harriet’s muscles tensed. The knot in her stomach tightened. She forced her hands to relax.
“We could come with you,” Fiona offered, glancing from Catherine and Louisa back to Harriet. “Strength in numbers and all that. It would only be a short journey.”
“I… That is kind but no. Phoebe is not used to guests.” Harriet realized she was tapping her fingers against her thigh and stopped. “I came here to spend time with all of you. I have missed you.”
“We have missed you too.” Catherine smiled and reached for Harriet, but she shifted away.
She cleared her throat, trying to make her voice light and airy. She stretched her face into what she hoped was a smile, though the motion of it felt foreign. “Tell me what has been going on. What have you been doing these last few months? What have I missed?”
“There is nothing really to tell.” Louisa shrugged. “I have started a new knitting project that is turning out to be fiendishly difficult.”
“I have done very little. I am very ready to have this little one out of me, I feel as big as a house.” Catherine tapped her belly.
I will never have children.
For a moment, Catherine’s face faded and it was Theodore standing before her, his face cold and impassive. Harriet gritted her teeth, and forced the imagined Theodore away, focusing on Catherine’s words instead.
Her friend gestured back in the direction they had come. “And Alaric is getting more protective of me by the minute. I suspect he would have followed us out here is Fi had not convinced Oliver to distract him.”
Harriet could hear the mix of exasperation and affection in her friend’s voice, and it pulled at the scars that were starting to form over Harriet’s heart.
“He wants to make sure you are safe. He loves you.” Harriet turned as her voice broke on the last sentence, and hastily moved the focus elsewhere. “And what about you, Fi?”
Louisa answered before Fiona could. “Fiona has a new beau, but that is hardly news.”
“I am not that bad.” Fiona tossed her hair over her shoulder. “You make it seem like I have a new suitor every week. I will have you know this last one lasted nearly a fortnight.”
“Fi, I love you dearly, but you are a terrible flirt.” Catherine laughed, and the others joined in.
Harriet tried, and though the sound of her friends’ laughter chipped away at the ice that had formed at the center of her, she could not make herself join them.
“I think you will find that I am a rather excellent flirt.” Fiona grinned. “It is simply that I rarely find a man who can hold my interest. They all want to admire me, and then that admiration turns to control. Better to keep them interested but at arm’s length.”
Harriet smiled, though it felt like a fragile sort of thing. Perhaps I should have done the same. She could feel herself turning towards the East and focused her attention back to Fiona and Louisa who were both teasing each other about the latest man attempting to win Fiona to her side.
The teasing was like a burr in her side. She knew that her friends were only doing what she had asked, that they were avoiding asking her the one question she knew they must be burning with, but a part of her felt angry.
Fiona could complain about men seeking to control her, but at least they wanted her. Belatedly, Harriet realized she had curled her hands into fists, and forced herself to relax. Catherine moved to stand beside her.
“You do not have to stay here if you do not want.” She took her hand in hers.
“Is that your way of asking me to leave?” Harriet tried to smile, but the words came out more biting than teasing.
“It is simply me noticing that you cannot help but turn to the East.” “I do not know what happened, and I will not force you to tell me, but I think it means something that of all the places you could have gone after you left your parents, you chose to come here. The estate that is closest to Irondale Hall.”
“You mean the estate of one of my oldest and dearest friends? I came here because I wanted to see you.”
“I think that is only a part of why you came here.” Catherine replied. “I think the other is that you miss what lies to the East. I think you miss them.”
“I miss Phoebe.” Harriet corrected Catherine, but even as she said the words, she knew it was not true.
“You really expect us to believe that?” Fiona had stopped bickering with Louisa and moved to stand beside them. “What about your husband?”
“What about him?” Harriet stiffened.
Louisa gave her a frank look. “You miss him. Come on Hettie, it is practically painted across your face. You are a stone’s throw from home, why not just return?”
“I cannot.” Harriet stepped backwards, and wrapped her arms around herself, tightening her grip as she felt the parts of herself threaten to tear and break.
“Why not?” Catherine asked, her face full of concern. “Did something happen?”
“I… I do not want to talk about it.” Harriet dug her fingers into her upper arms. “Please, let us just have a nice day.”
“Hettie, we are your friends.” Louisa moved towards her, her hands outstretched but Harriet darted out of her grip. “We want to help.”
“You cannot help. Not with this.” Harriet shook her head, she could feel the lump forming again in her throat, pressing against the raw flesh beneath it. I do not want to keep crying. Please, I just want this to stop.
“We can at least listen,” Catherine said, scanning Harriet as though she were truly seeing her for the first time. “And you know that we would do anything for you, Hettie. We will always be in your corner.”
I know. The words pressed up against the tightness in Harriet’s throat. She knew she needed to say something. She should say something and then they would stop. But she could not.
The sun beat down on them. Beads of sweat trickled across Harriet’s skin. Despite the open air around her, everything felt too close, far too close.
She began to fan herself.
“We love you, without condition.” Louisa’s voice was so gentle that it hurt, breaking through the wall Harriet was trying to slam in place as easily as if it were butter and her kindness a knife.
“I love you too.” Harriet’s voice caught. And your love means the world, but… oh ungrateful thing that I am, I want more. I want…
She could not finish the thought. Pressure built within her, she stumbled backwards.
“What did he do? Did he hurt you?” Fiona’s eyes darkened. “I will kill him if he laid a finger on you.”
Harriet was shaking her head. Her breaths came hard and fast. Why was it so hard to fill her lungs? Her corset felt tight, too tight, but she could not fix it.
“Was he unkind?” Louisa pressed.
“If he hurt you I-” Fiona growled at the same time as Louisa said “- we will soon sort him out.”
“He will not get away with this.” Catherine’s fists were clenched.
“I can ask my brothers-” Fiona was saying.
At the same time Catherine added. “Alaric would be more than happy to-”
“- he may be a duke-”
“-powerful friends-”
“-make him pay.”
They were all speaking at once, voices mingling. Harriet was lost within the uproar, just as she always was. The world around her was spinning, the ground threatening to throw her back down the hill. Her friends were full of righteous anger.
It was too much.
“Stop!” Harriet cried out, flinging her hands so emphatically that she stumbled and nearly fell.
Fiona reached towards her but Harriet pushed her away, shaking her head. No, every part of her was shaking. But she did not care. “Just stop it, please. All of you. I do not want you to do anything to him. I do not want to hurt him or make him pay or any of it.”
Her friends froze, each exchanging a look with the other. “We are only trying to help.”
Harriet’s heart rammed against her chest, tumbling and turning. She massaged it. “I know. But… I do not want you to hurt him. I do not want anything bad to happen to him, I do not want him to suffer.”
“What do you want?”
I want him.
“I love him. I love him and despite everything, my foolish heart refuses to stop loving him. I asked to be his wife, to really be his wife and…”
He does not want that.
“He does not love me. Not the way I love him. That is why I left. It was torture to be near him, knowing that he would never feel as I feel. Knowing that I had deluded myself into thinking he could, that he would, return my feelings. I was a fool, and now you now my shame.”
“You have nothing to be ashamed of, Hettie.” Fiona wrapped her arms around Harriet. “You are so deeply, profoundly loveable.”
“We all thought there was something there,” Louisa added as she joined their huddle, adding her arms to Fiona’s embrace. “The way you two danced together. The way he looked at you.”
“There is no shame in believing that you are worthy of the love of a man like the Duke of Irondale. There is never any shame in allowing yourself to fall in love.” Catherine had joined their group hug.
“And men are often idiots when it comes to such things. They stand in their own way and it takes someone else to knock some sense into them,” Louisa added.
“I would be happy to.” Fiona grinned at Harriet.
She could not help but smile back, weak and watery though it was. “I do not think it would help. You cannot force someone into love. He does not feel the way I do, and I will have to learn to live with it.”
She wished she did not feel so warm. That her head and heart did not feel as though they were about to burst. The cool breeze made Harriet shiver.
“You do not have to do anything, Hettie. It is your life.” Catherine’s voice was gentle.
“Phoebe needs me, and I will not have her pay the price for my own foolishness. But I do not know how to be there for her and be in the same place as him.” Harriet managed to push the words through the fog of her mind.
“Speaking of being in the same place, as much as I love you all, it is far too hot for this sort of thing.” Fiona peeled away from the group and everyone else followed.
The heat did not leave Harriet, and without her friends’ arms around her, her body felt far too heavy for her feet. The others were fanning themselves nearby.
Harriet reached up to wipe the sweat from her brow. Her fingers were thick and clumsy as she fumbled with her own fan. Louisa was there in an instant, helping her.
“I think we had best get inside.” Louisa held an arm out to her.
Harriet nodded, her tongue unable to wrap itself around words. She took a step and the world shifted beneath her feet. She stumbled, Louisa caught her.
Then Catherine was beside her too. “Hettie? What is wrong?”
“Hot.” Harriet was swaying now, half clawing at the fabric of her dress.
“Why is her skin so cold?” Louisa’s voice was high and panicked.
“Hettie? Hettie!” Why was Catherine shouting? And why did she sound so far away?
The edges of her vision were lined with black smudges. Harriet tried to bat the little floating specs away, but she could not make her arms move.
She took a step, or she tried to, but her legs had turned to jelly. She could feel Louisa and Catherine trying to support her.
“I am fine.” Harriet slipped from their grasp.
Her legs buckled, and then she was falling. Her head struck something hard and sharp. Pain broke through the smothering warmth. She cried out.
“Get help, now!” She had no idea who was barking orders, but she wished they would not.
It made her head ache.
She could feel something wet trickling down the back of her neck. I am making a mess. At least she was outside, and the grass was cool against her skin.
The voices stopped, and the world faded into black.