Chapter Nineteen
IN THE NEXT WEEK, HARRIET FELL INTO A ROUTINE. DURING THE DAY, she met with Mr. Dawkins in the library. After he left in the late afternoon, she’d spend an hour or two gleefully organizing the books there. Truly, it looked as if the room had been ransacked by someone.
Most evenings, she and Alexander ate dinner together in the dining room.
Harriet had a reputation in her family for being overly garrulous, but he never betrayed any boredom or disinterest. If anything, he encouraged her topics of conversation, odd though she knew they were.
One evening, she’d found herself explaining the origin of the word bastard to him, how it had likely come from the French fils de bast, meaning a “packsaddle son,” as saddles were sometimes used as beds, with the implication that the son had been born outside of the marital bed.
Only after she’d spoken on the subject for a while did she stop herself in horror.
She hadn’t given any thought to either the propriety of the topic or to the personal connection Alexander had with it.
He’d waved off her concern and asked more questions.
Twice that week, Alexander hadn’t returned home until past dinnertime, and she had taken her meal in her room. She did not ask where he had been. And if she missed his presence, she dismissed the thought as silly.
She hadn’t gone to him again for help with her quim, nor had he offered—not that she expected him to.
Embarrassingly, she knew that had he done so, she would have readily accepted; she had still been unable to reach her peak on her own.
The more time she spent around Alexander, the more pleasant his company, the worse the ache became between her legs.
Perhaps that was why, appallingly, Harriet found herself watching Mr. Dawkins’s hands during their meeting today. She had entirely lost track of what he was saying about balum … something …
Mr. Dawkins’s hands were not like Alexander’s.
They were ordinary and ink-stained. They didn’t seem strong and capable.
When he put his gloves on at the end of their meetings, she hardly felt it a tragic loss.
She could not imagine them cradling her face as they kissed.
She couldn’t imagine him kissing at all, in fact.
Indeed, it was a wonder she’d ever been able to picture herself as his wife.
Her mind did something incredibly wicked to her then.
It asked a dreadful question. What would Mr. Dawkins be like in the bedroom?
Harriet overturned her teacup into her lap.
Alexander had stayed out of the house most days, as was the normal order of things for him.
He had business to attend to and properties to manage.
And a wife to avoid. He was not going to become one of those dull men who married and suddenly proved incapable of living an independent life.
When business proved insufficient to fill his hours, he rode his horse around Hyde Park until he was too exhausted to think.
At night he ought to have been resuming his social habits—balls, operas, routs, musicales.
If not for the sake of normality, then to display their union to the ton.
Yet he could not find within him a desire to share Harriet; he felt sorry he’d invited her to the Henderson ball.
He’d spent one evening that week at White’s, after a pointed observation from Presley, if only to prove to both himself and his meddling butler that he was not entirely changed.
He had not returned to Giuliana’s and had sent a note of weak excuse on the day of their normally scheduled appointment.
She never minded an extra free evening, and it wasn’t as if she wasn’t being paid.
After five full days of activities, something dreadful occurred: rain. Worse, Hawthorne had left to see some land near Swindon. Being at home for a day wasn’t so terrible, he decided. He had spent days inside before marriage. It was not, he assured himself, a sign of atrophy.
It took only a singular hour in his study for him to grow restless and decide to go look for Harriet.
While he inquired after her days at dinner, she usually ended up talking about things like how the word clue had come from the Greek myth about the minotaur or interrogating him about other terms for a vagina.
He was minorly surprised, therefore, to happen upon her in the library with Mr. Dawkins.
Sure, he knew she’d been meeting with him, but she hadn’t specified when or where.
Alexander had, until that point, yet to encounter him.
Alexander ducked out of the library before he could be seen only to find himself in the embarrassing position of hovering outside the door.
At least she had left it open. That was …
well, he supposed it was unnecessary, wasn’t it?
She was a married woman. Besides, he had always believed that if you couldn’t seduce someone with a door open, you weren’t a very good lover.
Knowing he ought to feel more shame than he did, Alexander lingered, listening in to their conversation.
“I have never heard of a Hertfordshire kindness before,” she said. “That is rather a sweet term, isn’t it?”
“I suppose.” The man did not sound inclined to talk with Harriet, despite her efforts.
It made Alexander unduly distrustful of Mr. Dawkins—who wouldn’t want to speak to Harriet?
Presley passed Alexander in the hall and shot him a disapproving look.
He tried to shoo the butler, but Presley was intent on traveling as slowly as possible down the corridor.
Awful, impertinent man. Alexander turned back to listen in some more.
“I think you might ask your husband about this one,” Mr. Dawkins suggested, rather prudishly. Alexander shook his head; withholding a word from Harriet would go over as well as the Peninsular War.
“It’s quite all right,” Harriet said, laughing politely. “This is an educational project. My husband understands what that entails. You may tell me.”
“Well, it’s a dance, you see.”
“Yes, that makes sense. Balum—as in ballare in Latin.”
“And rancum?”
“Hmmm, I don’t know the origin of that.” Balum rancum?
They were speaking of balum rancum? Where had either of them encountered the phrase?
What sort of man was Mr. Dawkins? There was a long pause then, with only the sound of flicking pages and the clink of a tea cup on its saucer. Then a quiet thump and a small gasp.
“Oh dear, I’m quite wet,” Harriet said. Quite wet?! Alexander charged back into the library only to see both of them standing, Harriet blotting at her dress with a handkerchief, her teacup sitting in a saucerful of tea.
“Good day, pardon my interruption,” he nodded, schooling his face into something resembling a normal countenance, “I have not been introduced.”
“My lord,” Harriet said, the title a surprise, although it should not have been.
“May I introduce Mr. Dawkins? Mr. Dawkins, as you likely surmise, this is Lord Alexander.” The man nodded and sniffed, seeming a little perturbed by Alexander’s presence.
This was the esteemed Mr. Dawkins? What a prig.
What right had he to explain filthy words to Alexander’s wife?
“I thought I might spend some time reshelving some of these books, if you two won’t be disturbed.” Alexander was being an ass and he knew it. He only hoped Harriet didn’t.
“Oh, I had come up with an order of things, in fact,” Harriet said, biting her lip, a concerned look in her eyes. It was utterly adorable to see how much she cared for the library. Though now Alexander could hardly hover around the pair under the guise of reshelving. Bollocks.
“I won’t disturb it. I—” Alexander scrambled to find a reason to stay in his own damned library when Mr. Dawkins did something truly commendable.
“Actually, my lady, I must be going. I have an appointment with the publisher.” Harriet looked a bit dejected, which pinched something in Alexander’s chest. She was sad to see him go?
“Until tomorrow then!” Harriet singsonged.
Why was her voice so high-pitched when talking to the man?
She didn’t speak to Alexander that way. Christ, he was being a fool.
With the removal of Mr. Dawkins, Harriet turned to him, and Alexander grew lightheaded.
Her tea-soaked dress had become rather transparent in her lap.
Nothing in particular was showing. But one only had to imagine …
Hell and damnation.
Harriet was looking at him oddly, no doubt confused by his perusal of her. He shook himself.
“It’s a dance, by the way, that prostitutes do. In the nude,” he said, to distract her. Her eyebrows pinched in further confusion before rising in excitement.
“Oh, how lovely!” Lovely? She crossed over to the paper she’d been writing on and scratched a note to herself. “I wonder how Mr. Dawkins knows of such things,” she tittered.
Alexander had wondered the same, though he did not like the thought to be in Harriet’s head. And since when did Harriet titter?
He was going fully mad. The rain must have waterlogged his brain. He left the library without excuse and retreated to his study. Perhaps there was a piece of paper there he could read again. Or a column of sums to go over.
On the night of the Henderson ball, Harriet stood in the entryway feeling rather like a little girl waiting for her parents.
Alexander had told her to wait at half past eight.
It was now nearly nine. Her gloves were on, she had a small reticule with a pencil and paper inside, and she had donned her pelisse a quarter of an hour ago.
All she was missing was her escort. Alexander had indeed taken care of her gown for the evening.
If one was so generous as to consider the fabric she wore a gown.
Clearly, he employed the same modiste as Philippa.