Chapter Three
HARRIET CROSSED THE CAVERNOUS ROOM, SEARCHING FOR A writing desk, or at least a quill.
The Dunleys’ library saddened her, woefully overstocked for its underuse.
You’d be hard pressed to find a book that wasn’t wrapped in a blanket of dust. Harriet couldn’t help herself; she trailed her fingertips along titles she would have paid handsomely to hold.
Father’s money was rarely around long enough to purchase anything as useful or enjoyable as a book, busy as it was at the gambling tables.
Unfortunately, Harriet couldn’t dawdle. While she was frequently unchaperoned, that didn’t mean she was immune from ruin or censure.
She moved reluctantly to a forgotten escritoire in a back corner of the room, likely last used under the reign of George II, certainly there now merely for show.
Harriet gingerly opened the desk drawer and was rewarded with a blunt quill and a pot of old ink. No paper.
Not unused to this predicament, Harriet rolled down her left glove and dipped the quill into the ink.
She began to roughly scratch the word quim onto her wrist, although the quill hurt and the ink was too old to work well.
The letters were ugly, and her wrist was rather red.
She began next on monosyllable but only got to monos before giving up on the endeavor.
She’d have to remember dirty puzzle on her own later.
She shoved the quill and ink back in the drawer and blew softly on the skin at her wrist to dry the ink, shivering ever so slightly.
“Cold?” came a man’s voice right at her ear.
An unladylike shout escaped Harriet’s lips before she could stop it.
The strange man had wrapped his arms around her!
In the time it took for her to turn and shove her knee upward—she had read once this was the best course of action when being abducted by a man—Harriet also registered that this was the first time she’d ever been in a man’s arms.
The man in question let out a loud groan, dropping his arms and crumpling in on himself.
Harriet turned to escape the madman, when he gritted out a muffled “Lady Ellerton—”
Oh.
Not mad, then. Simply confused.
Harriet turned back to face him. Lord Alexander. Of course her sister had secured the private attentions of the most handsome man of the ton. A man who seemed entirely shocked at his current situation—whether that being her attack or her identity or both, Harriet wasn’t sure.
“Lord Alexander, I’m afraid you have the wrong Bancroft sister. I am Lady Harriet. I do apologize for … well … for kneeing you in the bollocks.”
Lord Alexander, still doubled over, let out a loud crack of a laugh.
How puzzling.
“What?” she spit out.
“Well,” he said finally, straightening with a grimace, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard a lady say bollocks before. Rather I have, but not …”
“An innocent?” Harriet supplied. His eyes sparked, as if he’d intended to say something else. Harriet wished dearly she’d held her tongue and found out.
“Did I use it correctly?” she asked.
“Your knee? Yes, your aim was rather perfect.”
“Bollocks. Did I use the word correctly?”
Lord Alexander looked behind him, as if to confirm that someone else was a party to, and just as confused by, this mystifying conversation.
Alas, he and the girl were completely alone—something he was about to rectify, since ruining innocents was not for him.
As he went to excuse himself, however, he found something else coming out of his mouth.
“Yes, you used bollocks with great mastery.”
“It was my first time saying it aloud.”
“Quite?”
“Yes. Well, again, I beg your forgiveness for the bollocks incident. I read once that it was the best course of action in an abduction. I am glad to discover the maneuver’s success, and sorry it came at your expense. I do hope it recovers.”
“An abduction?” Alexander found himself hiding a smirk.
“Yes. Why else would a man come up behind me?” The smirk quickly morphed into a cough as Alexander choked on absolutely nothing. There were many reasons he could conceive of that a man might want to come up behind her.
“The apology is mine to make. I am afraid I mistook you for your sister, whom I was supposed to meet here.” Now that he saw her face, he had a rather difficult time imagining that anyone could confuse the two.
This girl—Lady Harriet, was it?—had a rounder face and a less prominent nose.
They had the same coloring: chestnut hair; dark, dominating eyebrows; gray eyes; less fair skin than was strictly fashionable.
But Lady Harriet had a fuller mouth. Lush lips, one of which she was biting now, apparently because of nerves.
Lady Ellerton, on the other hand, did not seem the sort to fall prey to nerves.
The woman before him had none of her sister’s sultriness.
Yet something about her struck him as far more dangerous.
“I’m sorry to have interrupted your assignation,” she said, bowing to him as she took her leave.
“Lady Harriet,” he called after her. Once again, he was unsure why he felt the desire to stretch the time he was alone with an unwed woman. “You used it incorrectly.”
“Pardon?”
“You said you hope ‘it’ recovers, but bollocks is plural. They recover.” Harriet’s eyes widened and he immediately regretted having spoken up.
What kind of gentleman—not that he usually identified as such—said such a thing in the presence of a lady, let alone to her?
And when was the last time he’d overthought a remark to a woman?
Christ, but this was why he avoided innocents.
He was about to apologize again—surely this was a record number of apologies in one evening for him—when he noticed her smile.
“That’s ever so useful to know! Thank you!” She looked so genuinely pleased with him that something in his chest twinged.
“Happy to help you with any filthy words you might encounter,” Alexander nobly offered, in jest.
“Truly? There is one, actually,” Harriet eagerly replied, glancing down at her wrist. Alexander followed her eyes to her ungloved wrist, which was red.
He stepped toward her, closing the distance between them and reaching for her hand.
Harriet flinched at the touch, trying to draw her arm back, but not before he saw the word quim quite clearly written upon her skin.
“What is this?” he demanded, hating how high-handed he sounded. Had he ever scolded a woman before?
“Quim,” Harriet explained, squinting at her own handwriting, then up at him as if concerned for his literacy. “Do you know the word?”
Alexander felt himself in danger of blushing.
He had done or witnessed just about every possible act that might call for embarrassment, yet he could not remember a single previous instance of blushing.
Never had a woman—nay, any person—made him feel so off-balance.
It was as if he were the innocent. He gathered himself to his full height, straightened his posture, and cleared his throat, as if to start the whole interaction over.
“I do.”
Christ. That was not starting over.
“And? Its meaning?” she asked, her large gray eyes gazing up at him expectantly. A rather attractive move, he had to admit. Although, was it a move? She hardly seemed the type to employ seductive stratagems.
“I can hardly—” Alexander began.
“We’ve already spoken of bollocks, I hardly imagine this is worse.”
She was correct: Quim was far better than bollocks, although not at all in the sense she meant.
“All right, only if you promise not to tell your mother I told you.”
“Worried I’ll ruin your reputation?”
“Worried I’ll ruin yours.”
Something heated flashed between them then, a familiar jolt of shared attraction. This was not the sort of woman with whom one could share such a thing, Alexander knew. But it had been ages since an interaction with anyone had proven this captivating.
“It means … it’s a woman’s … parts,” he explained inelegantly, entirely unused to striving for propriety or circumspection. At her look of confusion he continued, “Her commodity. Her money. Her …” Alexander nodded downward, and the lady’s eyes widened even further.
“Oh! Oh my! This is wonderful,” she said, almost breathlessly.
What on earth was he still doing in the library with this woman?
Why was he still holding her wrist? Surely, there must be a logical explanation for this, one he would discover imminently—for Alexander, like most men, believed himself to be ruled by logic above all else.
Logic felt very, very far away at the moment.
“You cannot leave this room with that written on your wrist. It’s indecent!” he insisted sharply, taking on a tone he had never employed before with a woman, a tone he was borrowing from his father.
An unwed woman of the ton simply could not walk around with the word quim branded on her. Was this Bancroft sister mad? More to the point, was he mad? Why did he care? His brain tried desperately to contrive a reason why he minded so much what happened to this woman.
“Indecency requires an audience. I don’t plan on anyone seeing my wrist. That’s what gloves are for.”
“There are plenty of indecent things you can do alone, I assure you. And someone has seen it.”
“Tell me what monosyllable means and I’ll gladly erase it,” Harriet goaded.
Lord Alexander groaned. If he heard one more body part come out of her mouth! He took his handkerchief from his pocket, wet it with the only thing he could think of—his own tongue—and started rubbing Harriet’s wrist. She let out a loud, affronted gasp.
A gasp that, as it turned out, covered the sound of the library door opening. It could not, however, cover the shriek that came next.
Alexander and Harriet whirled together toward the sound, more graceful than any dance step Harriet had ever attempted.