Chapter Twenty
“WHAT THE DEVIL WAS THAT ABOUT?!” ALEXANDER DEMANDED AS soon as his father sauntered off, pulling his boot out from under her foot. “Good Lord, I thought to spare my toes by not dancing with you, yet you still managed to find a way.”
“I met your father,” Harriet said, as if that weren’t obvious.
“My condolences,” Alexander said, offhandedly.
Though his eyes were searching her face for something.
She felt quite … examined. Harriet turned away, put her back up against the wall, and began watching the dancers again; it felt safer than looking at him.
For some reason, she felt like she might cry, although she had no idea why.
“Are you all right?” he said, bending a bit to try to meet her eyes.
Lord, how she wished he’d asked any question but that. It was so much easier to pretend to be all right if no one inquired. She avoided his gaze, focusing instead on the buttons of his waistcoat.
“Was he rude to you? No, never mind, of course he was,” Alexander said, obviously frustrated. He dragged a hand through his hair and sighed, growing silent.
Alexander’s eyes were scanning the ballroom, probably hoping to find the company of anyone else. Harriet couldn’t even blame him, since she was being uncharacteristically irritable. She felt chastised and forgotten and useless. Tired. She felt tired.
He was clearly already bored standing with her. She wished he’d go and find another dance partner. Some small, sick part of her enjoyed how happy he looked while dancing, even if it wasn’t with her.
“Hell and damnation,” Alexander muttered at a sight across the ballroom, seeming for a moment to forget whose company he was in because he then quickly apologized for his language. Harriet followed his line of sight to see what had caused the oath.
Alexander had already taken off, tossing an “If you’ll excuse me” behind him.
He was heading right for Philippa, who was, much to Harriet’s dismay, fawning over the Duke of Belhaven.
Alexander cut in between his father and Philippa and then leaned low to whisper something in her ear.
Philippa leaned back a bit and gazed up at Alexander a moment before answering; the pair seemed to be communicating with their eyes alone.
Harriet watched as Alexander bowed to his father, reached for Philippa’s hand, and then steered her sister onto the dance floor.
Of course he’d rescue Philippa from his loathsome father.
God forbid she endure a moment’s unpleasantness with the man.
It was one thing to watch a more beautiful woman dance with your husband; it was quite another to watch your more beautiful sister do so. Surely, Philippa meant nothing by it. You couldn’t quite decline a gentleman’s invitation to dance—at least, if you actually could dance.
Harriet couldn’t decide which was more painful: watching or not watching.
Not watching did appear to have its advantages, except an active mind could fill in intimacies where none were.
But watching? Watching was surely worse.
In the end, Harriet decided that another glass of lemonade and imagined tenderness were preferable to whatever she might actually observe between her sister and Alexander.
Plus, it gave her hands something to do.
How she wished Caroline were here, or Frances. Or even Mr. Dawkins.
She’d never been so ready for a ball to end, and they had hours to go.
Alexander had never been so glad to leave a ball. He had no desire to watch the sun rise in the Hendersons’ ballroom. He’d been unsurprised by how agreeable Harriet had been about leaving; she hadn’t seemed to be enjoying herself.
For the first time in memory, he hadn’t either.
He’d danced half the evening with some of the most beautiful ladies of the ton.
The dances had been fine enough. Earlier this month, they would have amounted to a perfect evening.
Instead, he couldn’t stop thinking about him and Harriet laughing behind a potted fern.
Or, worse, about the look in Harriet’s eyes when he’d returned after dancing with her sister.
He couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d caused her pain somehow.
Asking about it seemed out of the question.
How did one do that? “Oh, have I hurt your feelings? Jolly sorry, dear.” He wanted to bang his head against the squab.
These very emotions were why he’d so studiously avoided matrimony. That, and his duty to John.
Guilt shot through him. He’d barely thought of his brother in weeks, and he’d written to him even less.
He didn’t know what to say. How did you write about your new, beautiful wife, the balls you were going to, life in the city—how did you tell someone that you were living the life they were meant to live?
It was as if Alexander were biding the time until John died, just like everyone else in the ton was.
Time should have stopped when John fell ill.
Alexander felt sick to his stomach.
Suddenly, he felt a hand on his. Her touch was temperate and reassuring.
It wasn’t erotic or romantic, she had simply reached out to …
comfort him. Alexander felt something like shock.
He looked down at their hands and then up to her.
She shrugged weakly and smiled a small, almost sad smile, as if she’d given in to something.
Harriet leaned across his lap to open the window slightly.
“Carriage sickness?” she asked, knowingly.
Although, of course, she did not know. Sickness had nothing to do with why riding in carriages with her was ordinarily so intolerable.
This time, it was his sentimental mood causing the problem.
The gesture from her, the care, it only made things worse.
She held his hand the entire ride home, which felt so kind it verged on punishment.
Alexander didn’t deserve someone who noticed his discomfort—even if they misattributed it to a swaying carriage—he didn’t deserve someone who held his hand. He didn’t deserve her.
She’d been right to avoid consummating the marriage.
It would only make him want more. For the first time in memory, he felt like there was something more—some bigger, better, unnamed thing that went beyond charm, beyond dance floors, beyond fucking.
With that frightening realization came another: Neither of them would ever have it.
Perhaps it was the warmth of her hand and the comfort of the gesture.
Or her ease with the Holdens earlier in the evening.
Or the fact that she didn’t seem cowed by his father.
Certainly, at least one third of what he did next could be blamed on how beautiful she looked.
All night, he’d felt certain that ordering those gowns had been the gravest mistake of his life, though now, as he sat inches away from her in the carriage, covered though she was by her pelisse, he knew it had been among his wisest decisions.
As for what he did next, it would not be.
Removing the distance between them, he cupped her face, capturing her lips in a kiss he was doing his best to keep polite.
She remained stone-still for a moment, a moment which felt at least as long as any opera he’d ever sat through.
Finally, when Alexander began to pull back, she moved.
It was slight at first, just the inclination of her head to give him better access to those wicked lips of hers.
Thank God she talked so much; it gave him the perfect cover for watching her mouth.
Had he known from the start how delicious her mouth was, he might never have let her speak a word for keeping it busy.
He licked the seam of her lips, and she opened up for him.
A groan escaped him. He wrapped his arms around her back, drawing her in closer.
From her mouth, he moved his way down, kissing her throat before traveling eastward.
He brushed his lips in the hollow where her neck met her shoulder, producing from her the most delightful sound he’d ever heard.
Alexander meant to do everything in his power to hear it again as soon as possible.
He went back to the spot to attempt an encore, but he was suddenly being pushed away from Harriet.
Panic set in immediately. Had he gone too far? Too fast? Was she upset? Only upon their disentanglement did he notice the carriage was slowing.
“We’re home,” she whispered. It probably said something embarrassing about his mental state that he found her calling his town house “home” erotic.
He shook off the thought and opened the carriage door himself.
The crisp night air should have cleared his amorous thoughts, but instead it reinvigorated him.
Grabbing the carriage blanket, he jumped out of the vehicle.
He reached for Harriet’s waist and helped her down, steps and footman be damned.
Waving off the man, he took up her hand and hurried Harriet up the steps.
If he acted expediently enough, perhaps they might continue what was happening in the carriage; perhaps the spell they’d been under wouldn’t break and the evening wouldn’t end.
He took off down the hall toward the closest, most comfortable room he could think of. Though “thinking” was a generous term for what his mind was doing.
He wished there’d been a fire in the grate burning, ready for them, but even he wasn’t so rich as to leave a fire burning when no one was in the house. He closed the door behind him, and then, for good measure, locked it. He turned around to a blushing, delectable Harriet.
They were in the library, of course.