Chapter 20
“She will not need to concern herself with anything you think.”
The voice came from behind her, and it was Harper’s voice.
She had seen him displeased before but she had never seen him like this.
His face was hard, his jaw set with such force that even from several paces away she could see the strain in it, and there was a dangerous stillness in the way he moved.
It was almost as though he was different man entirely, and the only word she could use to describe him was…
Menacing.
The gentleman who had been speaking to her seemed to sense the change immediately.
The smug ease that had colored his expression only moments before began to fade as Harper approached, though he tried to mask it behind an awkward smile.
“Your Grace,” the man said with a nervous laugh, “I did not realize…”
Harper stopped at her side, placing himself so deliberately between her and the gentleman that the movement could not be mistaken for anything polite. His eyes remained fixed on the man before him.
“I would like to know,” Harper said, “what possessed you to believe that speaking to Miss Hosmer in such a manner was acceptable.”
The gentleman shifted awkwardly, trying to recover some measure of confidence.
“I assure you, this is a misunderstanding. We were merely having a frank conversation.”
Harper’s expression did not soften.
“A frank conversation?” The words were repeated with such cold contempt that the gentleman’s face flushed.
“Yes,” Whitfield said weakly. “No harm was intended.”
Temperance felt Charity and Alethea stiffen beside her. The way he placed himself between her and Whitfield was so deliberate, so unmistakably protective, that there could be no misunderstanding his intention.
This was not the subtle redirection of a courteous escort attempting to spare a lady embarrassment, it was something far more instinctive than that.
It was almost possessive.
Temperance had expected Harper to respond as he always did with polished restraint and civility. But this was nothing of the sort.
“Yet I arrive to find you speaking to a lady with deliberate cruelty, insulting her as though she ought to stand quietly and be grateful for your contempt. You will forgive me if I find your explanation insufficient.”
Whitfield’s composure weakened further, the color in his face deepening as the full force of Harper’s anger settled over him.
“I think,” Whitfield said, attempting a laugh, “that you are making this far more serious than it truly is.”
At that, something in Harper changed. Whitfield’s dismissive tone seemed to crack whatever little control he seemed to have left.
“More serious than it is?” Harper repeated with no civility left in his voice now, “You approached a woman under my protection, insulted her upbringing, insulted her family, implied that she should accept any offer made to her because she is somehow beneath the respect owed to every decent woman, and you believe I am overreacting?”
Whitfield glanced around uneasily, clearly aware now that nearby walkers had slowed. People were beginning to watch.
Ordinarily, Harper would have despised becoming the center of attention, Temperance knew this much about him. But at that moment, he seemed utterly indifferent to the eyes turning toward them.
“Surely,” he said, “this level of hostility is unnecessary. I was merely being candid.”
“Then allow me to be candid as well,” Harper let out a short breath that contained no humor at all.
Whitfield swallowed visibly.
“You will not address Miss Hosmer again,” Harper said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me,” Harper said, his tone unchanged but somehow even more dangerous for its steadiness. “You will not speak to her again, you will not approach her, and if I hear that you have so much as uttered her name in the same tone you used today, then you will answer to me.”
Whitfield stared at him in disbelief.
The duke was threatening him in the middle of the park, and he did not seem to care in the slightest how improper it was.
“There is no need,” Whitfield said, though the bravado in his voice had begun to crumble, “for this sort of drama.”
‘You mistook her kindness for weakness, and her circumstances for permission to humiliate her. If I hear that you have ever so much about her again, in any company, in any form, I will consider it a personal matter and I will address it as one, and I will not feel any particular need to be subtle or measured about how I do that. Do you understand me?”
Whitfield looked at Harper for a long moment.
“Of course,” in a voice that had lost most of its prior confidence, and nodded once, and moved away with his companions, and the path was clear.
Harper stood where he was for a moment.
She watched him bring the composure back and watched the whole practiced architecture of his self-possession reassemble itself from the outside in. It took perhaps five seconds.
It was the most revealing thing she had ever seen him do.
“Are you all right?” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
He looked at her for a moment longer, in the way he had when he was checking something properly rather than just asking. Then he looked at Charity and Alethea, briefly, with the respectful acknowledgment he brought to people he considered worth acknowledging.
“I’ll be at the fountain,” he said to Temperance. “When you are ready.”
He turned and walked back toward the fountain, and Temperance watched him go, and then turned to find Charity and Alethea already looking at her.
“Well,” Charity said.
“Don’t,” Temperance said.
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You were about to.”
They both looked at Temperance.
“Is he always like that?” Charity asked.
“Like what?”
“Like… you know,” Charity gestured vaguely in the direction Harper had gone. “That. He threatened a man in the middle of the park in front of at least twelve people, and it did not even look like he had the slightest bit of concern of who might be watching.”
“He was being protective,” Temperance said. “He feels responsible for my situation. That is all.”
“Oh, that would be oversimplifying thing, what we just witnessed was not that.”
“He got very angry,” Alethea said, quietly. “I was watching his face. Something changed in him entirely, and it was like he was a man possessed.”
“He has a temper,” Temperance said. “I have seen it before.”
“It looked far more personal than just a temper, I am telling you.”
“It was not personal,” Temperance said. “I am under his care and Whitfield was…..”
“He was possessive,” Charity said simply. “I am sorry but he was. The way he put himself between you and that man was not the movement of a guardian managing an obligation. It was something else entirely and I think you know that.”
Temperance said nothing, her friends were playing a dangerous game here and giving her hope when she should have none.
“And,” Alethea said, very gently, “I think he has feelings for you.”
“You are both being very silly,” she said. “You are reading things into a situation that are not there because you want them to be there, which is very kind of you but not helpful.”
“Temperance,” Alethea said. “You are still flushed.”
“It was a stressful situation.”
“You do not flush in stressful situations,” Alethea said.
“I have known you for twenty years. I watched you face the Sisters at the nunnery at their absolute worst without so much as a change in color. This is not one sided, Temperance. Whatever you are telling yourself about it, it is not one sided.”
Temperance looked at her friends, and felt something in her chest press against something she had been keeping firmly in place for a very long time.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, and her voice came out quieter than she intended.
“Of course it matters,” Charity said, softly.
“It doesn’t,” Temperance said, “because nothing can come of it. Because I need to marry someone who can give my mother and me a stable life, and Harper is not… is not that. Whatever he feels or doesn’t feel, he is not that. And I cannot afford to let it matter.”
Neither of them said anything.
“So please,” she said, “can we just walk to the fountain.”
Charity took her arm without a word. Alethea fell into step on her other side. They walked toward the fountain, and Temperance looked straight ahead.
Her feelings were more serious than she had ever expected them to be.