Chapter 25
“Temperance?”
At first, the name did not register to her. It was as though she was having an out-of-body experience. She leaned her elbows against the cold marble of the balcony, and let the cool air hit her face until she calmed down enough to turn around to greet the person who had followed her.
One would expect Albina, or even Elias to have followed her out.
“You left suddenly,” Harper said to her, worry flashing in her eyes. “Did he say something to upset you?”
“Were you keeping an eye on me this entire time, Your Grace?” she replied. “I would think that you would busy yourself with other, more important things. Rather than observing me.”
He took a few steps towards her, now only a few steps away from her.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he said.
“I just needed some air,” she sighed. That was the honest truth of it. “I don’t know why… or what even came over me, but he said… I suppose there was something that he wished to discuss with me, and I suddenly felt as though I was suffocating.”
“Do you wish for me to speak with him?” the concern returned in his voice, and she softened at the gesture.
“You don’t need to worry about me,” she smiled, though it was tinted with melancholy.
“That does not change the fact that I do,” he said and then quickly added, “because you are under my care and..”
“Yes, you’ve made that abundantly clear many times,” she replied, “I am a responsibility for you, and that is the root of any concern you might show me.”
“Why are you being cross with me?” he said, knitting his eyebrows together. “We do not need to be arguing.”
“Correct,” she said, feeling as though she had reached her emotional limit.
“Temperance,” he said softly, “you’re truly beginning to worry me now. It is unlike you to give up so easy.”
A laugh escaped her lips before she could control it.
“And this is somehow amusing to you?” he said, offended now.
“No, Your Grace. It is simply that I cannot seem to win with you. You ask me now to argue, and when I agree, you say that is worrying.”
Harper let out a sigh, and slid his back against the balcony railing.
“Perhaps I should get going,” Temperance said. In her mind, she was scared that if she stayed a moment longer in his presence, she would not be able to hold back what was in her heart anymore. “Elias must be wondering where I have disappeared to.”
At the mention of his name, Harper’s face darkened and his posture stiffened.
“Have you made up your mind, then?” he said, and Temperance swore she heard an unmistakable jealousy in his tone. “About marrying him.”
Temperance felt a lump form in her throat.
“I suppose so.”
“That is not a definitive answer,” Harper pressed, looking at her directly now. His gaze was piercing, and it felt impossible to lie to him when he was looking at her like this. “If he is to ask you now, to marry you, you say yes to him?”
“Would that not be the wise choice?” she returned his gaze, and for a moment held it in place before he looked away. “After all, he is a good man and it is in the best interest of everyone if I am to settle down quickly.”
He was quiet then and Temperance turned to leave.
“Don’t leave, I need to talk to you,” he said.
She turned to look at him then, which was a mistake. She felt something press against her chest from the inside.
“There is nothing to talk about,” she said. “I have made my decision and I would like you to respect it.”
“I cannot,” he said. “And certainly not under these conditions.”
She hadn’t expected that answer.
“Why not? This is for the best, and your practical sensibilities should allow you to see that clearly.”
He said nothing for a moment. The garden was dark below them and the noise of the ball moved behind the glass.
“Because I have watched you all evening,” he said, “and I cannot watch Elias ask you to marry him and say nothing.”
A small glimmer of hope appeared in Temperance’s mind, but she knew better than to let herself be deluded.
“There is no one forcing you to do so,” she said, feeling her voice shake, “You can back to Sedgewick, as you have been wanting for months. Consider this your opportunity. I will be settled and you will be free of us, with everything will be exactly as you planned it.”
“It is not what I planned,” he said. “You cannot make assumptions like that on my behalf.”
“Pray tell, then. What did you plan?” she said, voice rising now and the anger pulsing through her, “Because from where I have been standing, the plan has always been to manage us. To find me a suitable husband and put my mother somewhere sensible to eventually return to your orderly life…. And never think about any of this again.”
“That is not what I want,” he said. Once again, she felt hope again but what good was it? He would never tell her anything clearly.
“Then what do you want?” she said. “Because you have had months, and you have never once said anything. You have looked at me and said nothing. You have sent away every man who approached me and still said nothing,” tears pricked at her eyes.
In her mind, it did not make sense to her why he was suddenly bringing up the need to talk. It was unlike Harper to discuss things with her that he found uninteresting, nor had he ever really offered to speak like this before.
Her heart was thudding loudly in her chest.
“And now I have found someone, you want to talk?” She did not mean for it to sound like an accusation, but it did.
“I did not know how,” he said, “you may be able to communicate freely but I do not possess such capacities.”
She looked at him for a moment. Then she looked back at the garden.
“You say that as an excuse.”
“Excuses are for weak men. I’m only telling you things how they are. Is it so difficult for you to see that we might be different from one another?”
She turned his words around in her mind, trying to make some sense of them.
“That is not enough,” she said. “I am sorry, but it is not enough.”
“Temperance.”
She was fully shaking now, feeling overcome with emotion.
“It is so easy for you to have an explanation to everything but what you do not see is that…. These things… when you say them like this… I..”
At that moment, whatever little self-control she had remaining snapped.
“Don’t you see? I love you,” she blurted.
Temperance had never been in love before, much less confessed something like this out loud. But somehow, in her head she had assumed that it would always be a romantic moment.
The reality was different, and a silence fell between them.
“Do you mean that?” Harper asked in a careful voice. The tension between them felt thick enough to be cut with a knife.
“I have for some time,” she said, looking at him with a forlorn expression, “I am aware that it does not change anything what I am going to do because whatever you feel…. I know you feel something… I am not going to spend my life waiting for a man who cannot say it. Who looks at me the way you look at me and still cannot say it.” She turned to go back inside but then spoke again.
“I do not feel even an ounce of the same emotion for Elias, but at least, he does not keep me guessing and remains clear with his intentions,” the hurt in her voice was palpable. “Something that you have never done.”
She took one step toward the door, but Harper was quicker than her. Immediately, he had moved several steps closer to her and his hand closed around her wrist.
“What are you trying to say here?” he said, his voice thick was emotion. “That you believe that Elias is a safer option than myself? You want to marry him, but tell me that you love me?”
Her heart ached even more hearing the words from his mouth.
“You understand that is a safer option,” she went on, not wanting to hold back any longer. “But do you see why? It’s because he will not… marry me out of pity. He does not see it as a generosity that he is bestowing on me.”
Anger flashed in his expression, and he tightened his hold onto her hand.
“I would not marry you out of pity,” he said. “I want you to know that. Whatever you think, whatever you have decided about my motives, that is not it. You’ve concocted it out of your imagination.”
“Yes, because my imagination was all that I had as you never bothered to provide me the clarity that I needed. Please now, let me go.”
He wouldn’t let her move.
“Harper,” she warned again, but there was no conviction in her voice.
“Don’t go like this,” he said.
Suddenly, he was moving closer to her. Harper, who had been someone extremely mindful of propriety, was now closing the gap between them. So much that she could take in his scent, which was fresh and masculine. Intoxicating, in a strange way.
“If you move any closer…”
“Then, what?” he challenged. “You haven’t done anything to move away.”
“Harper..” the words fell out of her mouth like a whisper.
He did not answer it. Instead, his lips hovered against hers, as if waiting for some conformation from her. And then, he kissed her.
Temperance’s entire world fell away around her, and all that she could feel was his lips against her own. There was no resistance from her, and she kissed him back.
It was as though all the emotions that they had suppressed were flowing freely now amongst them.
She never wanted it to stop.
But they broke apart as the ballroom erupted in noise downstairs.
“What’s happened?” she said, cheeks flushing and still entangled in Harper’s arms.
If anyone was to see them like this, her reputation would be soiled for a lifetime and there would be no coming back from it.
There were shouts and the sound of something falling, and then the dogs started to park.
“Something has happened,” Temperance remarked, snapping out of her moment. “We must go see immediately.”