Chapter Fourteen
UPON RISING, IT TOOK HARRIET A MOMENT TO REALIZE SOMETHING was different.
Wrong. The room was empty of Alexander’s effects.
Confused, she got out of bed and wandered to the table and chairs, where a small breakfast waited for her, still mostly warm.
And a scrap of paper, folded in half. She’d never seen his handwriting before, and she traced her finger over her name in his hand.
Harriet,
I’ve ridden ahead to London. I left instructions and sufficient funds with Charleston. There should be a day dress for you, if the innkeeper was able to procure one. I hope your travel is agreeable.
—Lord Alexander Stirling
Agreeable? He had left her? With nary a hint of contrition. A chasm opened in her chest, and she felt tears welling up in her eyes.
This was the cost of refusing him, apparently.
Harriet felt like the world’s biggest fool for having believed he’d grown to like her company. Yes, they’d laughed in bed. And she’d given him a cockstand, if her understanding of such things was correct. However, there was no shortage of either in Alexander’s life.
Their marriage was to be in name only. Anyone with a decently functional brain could have predicted how this would go. The rake did not fall for the wallflower. He wasn’t pining over her simply because she wouldn’t lie with him. He had moved on.
And so should she. She allowed herself a maudlin breakfast, hardly aware of what she ate.
It was good to allow oneself a quarter of an hour to wallow.
When her time was up, she gave herself a stern talking-to.
Only a week ago, the man had been a stranger, and she’d been perfectly happy, hadn’t she? Hadn’t she?
Lord Alexander wasn’t sparing her a thought, and thus, even if solely for prideful reasons, she ought not to give him another.
Her eyes traveled around the room and landed on a dress that was draped over the footboard of the bed, the ball gown that she had been wearing for days under it. The dress was plain, and rather worn, and Harriet almost wept with excitement.
She stepped into the dress, grateful for its simple design that did not require a lady’s maid. It did not fit well—too large for her in most places, oddly tight in others—but she couldn’t have named a dress she loved more.
She decided to grant Alexander one more small, short, non-amorous thought: thank you.
Then she pinned up her hair, washed her face, gathered her book, and shoved Philippa’s soiled gown into her valise.
She wished she could have left the reminder of this week—of him—behind.
She looked around the room, and at the last minute decided to take Alexander’s note with her.
Charleston was waiting downstairs, cap in hand, shyly shuffling from foot to foot. At Harriet’s arrival, he stood at attention. Harriet felt glad to see the driver. It was always much easier to put on a happy face for the sake of others.
“Charleston, good morning.”
Charleston blushed at her direct attention. “My lady, should you like to break your fast before we leave?”
“I already have, thank you. I’m ready if you are.”
“I’ll pull the carriage around, my lady,” Charleston said, taking her valise and handing over a heavy leather pouch. “Won’t be but a moment.”
“Thank you, Charleston,” she said, bewildered by the exchange.
But he was already out the door, buzzing with frantic, nervous energy.
Confused, Harriet opened the bag. Then swiftly closed it and tucked it against her.
Inside was at least thirty pounds. Maybe fifty.
It was more coin than Harriet had ever seen.
It would have changed her and her sisters’ lives.
And Lord Alexander left it in a purse with a driver.
Harriet stepped out of the inn and Charleston—seeming far less nervous now, perhaps because he was around horses or not in possession of the moneybag—deftly handed her into the carriage. Then she was alone.
Truly alone.
As they pulled away from the inn, Harriet had the peculiar feeling that she had left something behind.
Upon his arrival in London, Alexander was hit with a sense of unfamiliarity. Obviously, the city hadn’t been altered by his weeklong absence; the change must lie within himself. The notion was probably worth examining, and therefore, like any reasonable man, Alexander quickly dismissed it.
Nothing was changing. Not him, not his ways, not the company he kept. That was the agreement he’d made with Harriet. Theirs was not a love match. Life would continue as it had been. Those were his conditions.
He grunted as he passed his hat and gloves to Presley, hoping it seemed like a greeting and didn’t betray his inner turmoil.
“Ahh, Lady Harriet found you then, did she?” Presley intoned in a singsong voice, the one he used when he was filled to the brim with satisfaction.
Alexander gritted his teeth and spun to face his butler.
He was about to explain something—why he was back without said lady, how the marriage came to be, the proper deference to be shown to one’s employer—although the effort would be lost on Presley, who knew things about people before they knew them about themselves.
“She was here?” Alexander asked, the implication of Presley’s words dawning on him.
“Indeed. I almost sent her up to your room, my lord. I assumed she was one of your appointments.”
“Good Lord, Presley, she’s a lady!”
“I shouldn’t send the ladies up to you in the future, then? Why, the widows of London will wear black!”
“Presley.”
“Only trying to learn my place, my lord.”
“You have absolutely no interest in your place and we both know it.”
“Yes, but one always must pretend for the sake of one’s employer,” Presley said, bowing his head solemnly.
Alexander settled a warning look on the butler and stormed off to his study. He spent the rest of the day with his man of business, Hawthorne, going over everything he’d missed.
Hawthorne was small and twitchy and had the terrible habit of starting sentences with “Yes, yes” or—when he was really excited—“Yes, yes, yes.” Still, Alexander trusted him implicitly.
After a few quick hours of minor crises about sheep and some vital decision-making about crops, Hawthorne began fiddling with his mustache, a sign Alexander understood to mean there was a topic he wanted to broach.
“What is it, Hawthorne? Something wrong?” Alexander sighed, even as he found their familiarity comforting.
“Yes, yes, oh no. No. Nothing, nothing of concern.”
“Better to tell me what you’re thinking.”
“Yes, yes, it’s about the land … up near Applethwaite.”
“What about it?”
“I dine with Lord Holden’s man of business from time to time. Nothing too extravagant, Mr. Pottingale is uncommonly dyspeptic. He revealed to me, however, that Lord Holden has some reservations about working with you … as you are …”
“A reprobate? A degenerate?” Hawthorne’s mustache was twitching with nerves. “This has been known for quite some time about me, Hawthorne.”
“Yes, yes, yes.” A third yes. Oh dear. “Only now, you’ve gone and ruined an innocent and kidnapped her and dragged her to Gretna Green. Which is a rather precipitous deterioration in your reputation.”
Alexander couldn’t argue with that. In fact, that’s precisely why he’d married Harriet. To avoid this.
“I did marry her.”
“Yes, yes. Good, good. I did assure Mr. Pottingale that you had made things right. Still … one does worry.”
“And we can’t get the land without Lord Holden?”
“No. Well. No, no. It’s unlikely. He holds the lands on the other side. Besides, there’s the matter of the magistrate.”
“I know, devil take it!”
“Yes, yes. Perhaps you could …”
Alexander stared at Hawthorne, daring the man to finish his sentence. He knew he wasn’t going to like Hawthorne’s proposal. Nothing that made Hawthorne this nervous was going to be pleasant.
“… a man doesn’t like to meddle in another’s business.”
“Hawthorne, you are, unless I’m mistaken, my man of business, are you not?”
“Yes, yes, quite right. Excellent point, sir.” Alexander held the man’s gaze until he relented. “I thought perhaps you could make a show of it.”
“Of … what?”
“Your marriage. I thought you might … make a gesture at reformation. Take her around with you. Act besotted, devoted. Act changed. That sort of thing.”
Alexander thought for a moment. He had been doing his level best not to think of her. The sooner they were permanently apart, the better for both of them. Still, Hawthorne had a point. Certainly, a display of affection would aid Harriet’s reputation as well.
“All right. When she arrives, we’ll gad about for a short while. At least until the land is purchased.”
They finished their meeting and Alexander sent Hawthorne off with instructions for his various properties and investments. The man was positively quivering with excitement at the prospect of having tasks.
Alexander poured himself a brandy and considered Hawthorne’s advice.
If he were to do this, he couldn’t exactly return to his ordinary activities.
It wouldn’t do to go to a ball or the opera without his new wife.
In fact, going anywhere on his own might raise questions about her whereabouts, and it didn’t seem at all the thing to say, “Oh yes, she’s in a carriage alone somewhere near Doncaster.
Left a bit of coin for her with the driver.
” He’d better stay at home until she arrived.