Chapter 8 #4
The question, so simple and so serious, pierced her straight through.
“Yes.”
He kissed her.
For one suspended instant Genny knew only the warmth of his mouth, the steadiness of his hand, and the dizzying relief of being wanted in return.
It was not hurried, not the sort of kiss born of frustration suddenly losing patience with propriety. This kiss was something far more potent than impatience: deliberate, chosen, a promise given shape.
His mouth moved over hers with aching gentleness at first, as though he meant to memorize rather than conquer.
Genny had not known one could be kissed like that.
Her hand rose of its own accord and caught lightly at his sleeve, not to stop him, but because the force of feeling running through her required somewhere to go.
Then he drew her closer, just enough that the proper distance between them vanished, and the kiss deepened.
Heat unfurled within her. The roses, the fountain, and the music from the lawn dissolved into the warmth of his hand at her jaw and the steady strength of him beside her.
When at last he lifted his head, Genny opened her eyes slowly. Her lips tingled. Her breath came unevenly, and her hand still held his sleeve, as if letting go too quickly might return her to the girl she had been before he kissed her.
He was looking at her as though she had just become both miracle and problem.
“That,” she said a little breathlessly, “was worth every stolen card in Mayfair.”
His thumb brushed once more over her cheek. “I should prefer not to make a habit of proving devotion through household crime.”
“No,” she agreed. “It would do very little for my reputation.”
His expression altered. “Your reputation, if anyone troubles it now, may consider me personally offended.”
Genny smiled, though her eyes stung anew. “There is the danger of loving a serious man. One says something sentimental and receives a campaign strategy in return, complete with cavalry and supply lines.”
He almost smiled. “Would you prefer sentiment?”
“I should prefer honesty.”
“Then here it is. I do not want to manage you, Genny. I do not want to tidy you into something easier for the world to accept. I want precisely what you are.”
Her heart felt too large for her chest.
“I am not very tidy,” she warned him.
“So I have noticed.”
“I meddle.”
“Endlessly.”
“I may, from time to time, improve things before understanding them fully.”
That earned the expression she had hoped for: half exasperation, half affection, wholly Harrison.
“I shall purchase stronger ledgers,” he said. “And perhaps insure the flower arrangements.”
Genny laughed, then sobered. “I love you too.”
At last the truth of it rang through her as cleanly as a struck glass.
“I think I began falling in love with you somewhere between your first lecture on systems and your first defense of me, though I was much too proud to admit it. And then you kept being impossible in all the wrong ways and exactly right in all the worst ones, and matters only deteriorated from there.”
His hand found hers between them and held it.
“I am relieved to hear it.”
“Relieved?”
“Immensely. I had begun to fear I would be obliged to court you under the close supervision of half our acquaintance while Niall Foxmere laughed himself insensible.”
“Oh, that will happen regardless.”
“Yes,” he said gravely. “That is what I feared.”
They sat together a little longer, saying nothing, because the saying had already been done and there was peace in that.
The fête hummed on beyond the hedge, restored to order.
The roses stirred in the breeze. Somewhere near the musicians’ pavilion, Lady Dorring was likely explaining precedence to an unwilling bishop.
At length Genny said, “What shall we tell Esme?”
Harrison looked heavenward as though silently petitioning for fortitude. “Nothing until we must.”
“She will know at once.”
“She always does.”
“She will be intolerable.”
“So will Redford.”
Genny brightened. “Yes. But differently.”
That, finally, won her the smile she loved best already, not the brief corner-twitch of amusement, nor the startled laugh she had dragged from him by chance, but the real smile that transformed his whole face and made him look like a man who had at last permitted himself happiness.
It was enough to make her kiss him again.
She did so because she wanted to, which was reason enough.
And because a woman ought, when possible, to seize joy before the world remembered how to interfere.
Harrison made a very quiet sound against her mouth that sent satisfaction blooming through her all the way to her toes.
When they parted, his forehead rested lightly against hers for one perfect heartbeat.
“Genny,” he murmured.
“Yes?”
“I believe,” he said, the old dry note returning only enough to make her love him more, “that if we do not return soon, society will conclude I have either abducted you or succumbed to the shrubbery.”
“Which would be the more scandalous?”
“In your company? The opinions would vary.”
She laughed and rose, drawing him with her. Together they walked back toward the fête, hand in hand for as long as the hedges shielded them from view and then, when the lawn opened before them and propriety reasserted itself, with just enough distance to satisfy the world.
But not enough, Genny thought as Harrison glanced at her and she saw the answer in his eyes, to satisfy them.
The fête ended in triumph. Lady Penworth survived, Lady Castlemain was praised, Lady Dorring’s floral arch was admired by everyone except those with taste, and Mrs. Vale found no public slight to nourish her for the next half a year.
And when the last guests began departing under a sky gone pale with evening, Genny stood on the terrace beside Harrison and felt not merely relieved, not merely vindicated, but changed.
The world had not grown kinder. Lady Dorring would not wake repentant. Mrs. Vale would not suddenly discover humility. Some room, somewhere, would always be ready to turn a girl’s laughter against her.
But Genny stood beside Harrison and felt the terrace stones firm beneath her feet. The fragile place inside her had bent beneath laughter and whispers. It did not feel fragile now.
She knew what she had done.
Better still, so did he.
All things considered, it was an excellent outcome for a girl everyone had expected to make a muddle of things.
And if the future promised more chaos, more laughter, and the occasional need to rescue Harrison Jones from the tyranny of his own order, Genny thought she might bear it beautifully, especially now that she knew he meant to bear it with her.
They had scarcely rejoined the terrace before Lady Redford found them.
She did not ask. She did not need to. Her gaze moved from Genny’s heightened color to Harrison’s expression, lingered on the careful distance between them, and filled at once with such wicked satisfaction that Genny knew all hope of discretion had died a swift and merciless death.
“Oh,” Esme said.
Harrison closed his eyes briefly. “No.”
“Yes,” Esme replied, radiant. “Most certainly yes.”
Genny attempted innocence. “I cannot imagine what you mean.”
“Genny Moreland, you can imagine everything. That is one of your chief difficulties.”
Before Genny could answer, Redford appeared behind Esme with two glasses of lemonade and the air of a man arriving at precisely the best moment of the play. “What have I missed?”
“My brother has fallen in love,” Esme said.
Harrison opened his eyes. “Esme.”
“With Genny,” she added.
Redford’s brows rose. “Efficient of him. I had expected another week at least.”
Genny pressed her lips together. “Does no one intend to pretend surprise?”
“No,” said Esme.
“No,” said Redford.
Harrison looked heavenward.
The mortification should have been unbearable. Instead Genny found herself laughing, perhaps because Harrison’s hand had brushed hers at his side, brief and steady, as if to say he would endure this humiliation with her. That made it not humiliation at all, but something warmer.
“Very well,” Harrison said at last, with the dignity of a man surrendering to the inevitable. “Since my sister has taken it upon herself to announce private matters in the middle of Lady Penworth’s garden, perhaps we might remove this conversation somewhere less populated.”
“Excellent,” Esme said. “Mama will want to know.”
“She will not know tonight.”
“She will if she looks at you.”
Redford handed Harrison a glass of lemonade with solemn compassion. “Courage, Woodmere. It comes for all of us.”
Harrison accepted the glass. “Marriage?”
“Family.”
Genny laughed again, but it softened when Harrison’s gaze returned to her.
Beneath the exasperation and the teasing, something true stood waiting.
He had said he loved her. She had said it back.
Yet society, family, expectation, all those proper structures would now come rushing in to shape what feeling had already decided.
For the first time in her life, Genny did not feel as though she had to perform her own happiness. She did not have to hold it up before others named it for her. It settled quietly through her body instead, warm and sure, requiring no audience at all.
She had chosen. So had he.
Later that evening, after Lady Penworth had survived the last departure and the garden had emptied into dusk, Harrison asked for a private word with Mr. and Mrs. Moreland.
Genny heard this because she had shamelessly lingered near the library door.
She had not intended to linger, precisely.
She had intended to pass the door in a casual and wholly dignified fashion, perhaps slowly enough that any sentence of consequence might reach her ears through no fault of her own.
Unfortunately, dignity proved difficult to maintain while leaning toward a keyhole.
“You cannot eavesdrop upon your own future proposal,” Louisa said behind her.
Genny started so violently she nearly knocked her shoulder against the doorframe. “I was not eavesdropping.”