Chapter Eleven
HARRIET WAS IN HEAVEN. THE DINNER WAS HEARTY AND SIMPLE, and the room buzzed with people talking and laughing.
The few balls she’d attended paled in comparison to this inn.
Everyone here seemed happy, lively. The citizens of Mayfair prided themselves on their affected boredom; with this one evening, Harriet became certain she’d never see the elegance in that again.
The smiles in this pub made a fool of every stiff upper lip in London.
In the corner a man played country songs on a fiddle, and as the night wore on and more ale flowed, someone took up the old piano in the corner, out of tune though it was.
This, of course, led to dancing. One could hardly be in such a convivial space and be expected to sit still.
Tables were pushed to the walls, and the floor was cleared as a few young couples began a country dance.
Harriet clapped along, gleefully. Sarah stopped by and dropped off two pints of ale.
“You ought to have the full experience,” she said, winking.
Harriet’s eyes widened and she glanced at Alexander, before deciding she didn’t need his permission.
This man might be her husband for the evening, and for the future, but he’d made it clear theirs was to be a marriage in name only.
She wasn’t going to curb his appetite for women, why should he be allowed to curb hers for spirits?
Harriet hadn’t had ale before, and she wanted to try it—and she would.
If he had something to say, he could talk to an opera singer about it.
She glanced at him over the rim of the pint. He didn’t look disapproving at all; in fact, he simply looked surprised. She lowered the glass a bit and looked at him. “Is it as bad as gin?”
He smiled. An easy, open smile. One she hadn’t seen before.
“No, not so strong as that. Although I still do recommend you sip first. It’s a bit of an acquired taste.”
Harriet set the drink down, untried. “I never understood that. How does someone acquire a taste? More to the point: why? If it’s bad to begin with, simply don’t drink it!”
“Yes, but ale comes with other benefits. Such as making it much easier to speak to women.”
“So that’s your secret, then?”
“I don’t require ale for that, personally.”
“Well,” Harriet said, glancing down at the glass again, “I don’t need much help talking to women.”
“You don’t need help talking at all.”
Harriet snorted. Unlike her father, Alexander didn’t seem to be insulting her. He said it like a plain, neutral observation of her character. “Anything else ale can do?”
“Outside of making even the most mundane situations more diverting, it tends to make one slightly less clever, a touch more agreeable, and a much better dancer.”
Harriet looked at him and without saying another word she took a large swig of ale. She winced a little at the taste, but he hadn’t lied—it wasn’t at all like gin. She took another large swill. Alexander sent her a questioning look.
Harriet shrugged and simply said, “It’s always been my dearest wish to be half as clever and twice as good at dancing.”
He tipped his head back and let out a loud, full laugh. The sound of it shot directly and deeply inside of Harriet, filling her with a strange warmth.
“Harriet, all the ale in this tavern won’t change the fact that even half as clever, you’re twice as brilliant as most of us in this room.
As for the dancing, I can help with that.
” He pushed his chair back with a scrape and stood, holding out his hand.
She took a deep breath and another bracing drink, then took his hand.
Alexander was not used to being wrong. But he could not, as it turned out, make Harriet a good dancer. She was, for all her sins, hopeless.
Her movements were awkward and jerky. She resembled nothing so much as a newborn horse, lurching around the room, stepping on his toes, turning the wrong direction.
But Lord, was she having fun. She hadn’t stopped laughing since they stood up, likely aided by the reinforcements of ale she kept sneaking in between songs.
After dancing four or five sets, Alexander left her at the table to get another couple pints, and when he returned, she was in the arms of an old, half-toothless man, and yelling over her shoulder to Sarah, who was dancing with a woman who had been behind the bar earlier.
Spotting Alexander, Harriet’s smile grew even wider, which hadn’t seemed possible.
Alexander stumbled, sloshing the ale over the tankards in his hands.
He couldn’t remember the last time someone had been so genuinely happy to see him, although at this point, she may have been simply happy to see more ale.
He sat and watched her dance with the old man, sipping his drink and enjoying the music. When the song ended, Harriet came back to the table, blowing loose tendrils of hair out of her face. She took a swig of her freshly delivered ale and then reached out her hand to him.
“Come on now, I’ve learned a lot from Mr. Gibbons over there.
I can teach you a thing or two.” He smiled and shot to his feet, eager to have her back in his arms. They danced together and apart and together again and wheeled around the room, Harriet barely avoiding catastrophic crashes into other couples and errant bar tables.
“Shall we head upstairs, wife?” Alexander asked at the end of another disastrous reel, leaning in quite close to her, as if what he asked was indecent. He supposed in some ways it was. They were still unwed until tomorrow.
Harriet was breathing heavily from the exertion of her twirling and looping and stomping on his toes.
She was still flushed and giddy, as she had been since entering the inn.
It was after midnight, though there was something about the night that felt separate from time, apart from the rest of life.
She put her hands on her hips and nodded, her chest rising and falling heavily, making Alexander think of dangerous things. Things she’d vowed not to do with him.
“Good night, Sarah!” Harriet called over her shoulder as she left the crowd, waving her hand like a princess in a passing carriage.
Her energy was not at all diminished by the evening ending.
She lifted her skirts to ascend the stairs faster; Alexander didn’t bother averting his gaze from the flashes of ankles she exposed.
As soon as the door closed behind them to their room, she collapsed against the door, giggling.
Alexander hoped she hadn’t had too much ale.
“I haven’t had this much fun in ages,” she said, her hands over her face. She was heaven to watch like this. A shiver ran down her back, and she whined, “It’s quite nippy up here!” but she was still smiling. She didn’t seem to be drunk, but she certainly was happy.
“Yes, well, dancing keeps one rather warm. As does ale,” he replied, matching her smile with his own. He couldn’t have stopped himself if he wanted to. He hadn’t had as much fun in perhaps … forever.
“Do you mind?” she asked, turning her back to him for help with her dress.
He minded. Oh god, he minded helping her undress yet again with no relief in sight.
He braced himself and tried to think of curricle accidents and typhoid fever.
As soon as he undid the last button, he backed away from her and began on his own clothing.
He couldn’t trust himself. Besides, it was rather cold in the room, and the bed was calling, even if it meant the torture of her proximity.
“I’m going to die from the cold!” Harriet complained again, still laughing.
She was rubbing her arms and bouncing herself to keep warm.
Alexander fought the urge, strong as it was, to cross the room and help warm her up.
Instead, he turned and finished undressing looking at the wall.
He soon heard her gown fall to the floor, and then the soft thud of each of her shoes.
Something light then—stockings perhaps? He did not turn to look.
Surely by the end of this trip, walls would be the most erotic sight in the world to him. Inconvenient, that.
She was still hopping about making small sounds of complaint about the cold as Alexander finished undressing and crawled into their warm bed. It was a grave tactical error. The only natural view from the bed was Harriet, and the sight was … unbearable.
She wore only a thin night shift—although thin was not the most distinct attribute of the slip of fabric she was in.
No, the poor scrap of fabric clinging to Harriet was, above all else, too small.
Although, even across the room, Alexander could tell the garment could not be described as poor.
For one, it was fine cream-colored silk, with expensive lace around the edges designed specifically to taunt a man.
But more importantly, it was touching Harriet in many places Alexander would like to be.
Alexander knew then why the French called them negligées—to neglect, to disregard, to treat carelessly.
He wasn’t sure who was being more mistreated, himself or the chemise.
“Where the devil did you get that?” he asked, unable to help himself.
“Pardon?” Harriet said, looking around, unsure what he was referring to and still rubbing her arms for warmth. The posture did miraculous things to her breasts.
“That …” Alexander gestured to the clothing in question, truly unable to refer to the piece as a night shift.
The shifts he had experienced in his time on earth—which had been quite a few—had nothing in common with what Harriet was wearing.
The modiste who made it would herself have fainted upon seeing it on Harriet’s body. The word obscene came to mind.
Harriet caught his meaning and looked down, dropping her arms. And hell, the thing was see-through! She didn’t seem to recognize just how indecent she looked in the garment.