Chapter Twenty-Eight
UPON HER ARRIVAL AT A SHOCKINGLY WELL-KEPT MANOR AN HOUR’S ride outside of the city, Harriet was shown into a small sitting room to wait.
Her hands twisted in her lap at the prospect of meeting Alexander’s brother.
Of being here. She didn’t know who else resided in the home, if anyone.
Would he be willing to meet her? Was he mobile?
What was she to call him? Certainly, John was far too intimate, even for someone who was nearly one’s brother, but Harriet had no idea of the man’s title.
She had hastily looked up his name in Debrett’s the night before, only to find out that her father’s copy was woefully out of date.
Harriet wasn’t even certain precisely what her aim was in visiting him.
She hoped she wasn’t making a mistake coming here. But she wanted to understand.
Finding the residence wasn’t as difficult as she’d expected; she simply wrote to Hawthorne and inquired about the house and hoped he wouldn’t inform Alexander that she was asking after it.
Or, if he did, that Alexander would assume, based on his low opinion of her, that she was simply taking stock of properties that one day might become hers.
Her worry, as it turned out, was for naught.
The door to the sitting room opened with a flourish and a lean and impeccably dressed man waltzed in.
He smiled broadly and bowed deeply to her, which was not what propriety asked for.
One had the immediate impression, although Harriet couldn’t say precisely why, of him being uncommonly striking and rather unusual.
Like the peacock she’d seen once as a child at the Royal Menagerie.
That trip was one of the last memories she had of her mother.
The caged animals made her cry for some reason.
Philippa had rolled her eyes and called her a ninny, and their mother had nearly cried herself at the trouble she’d gone to taking her three young daughters out of the house.
It always made Harriet’s chest ache to think of that day.
Something about this man made her chest ache too. Perhaps it was that he was dressed too warmly for the balmy weather. Or that he seemed to be exerting a bit too much effort to simply be standing. Or the sadness in his eyes, which nevertheless crinkled with kindness when they met hers.
“You must be Lady Alexander. I am ever so happy to make your acquaintance.” He dropped a soft kiss on her hand and gestured for her to sit. “Tea will arrive shortly.”
Harriet relaxed immediately in his presence, which was just as warm as his dress. “I—I don’t know your title. I beg your pardon—”
“Oh, I hardly have any use of it, but the Marquess of Weston. Although I beg of you, call me West if you must, and John if you will. You are my sister now, after all.”
Tea arrived and John poured her a cup and sat back on the divan, legs crossed, eyes still twinkling.
“Alexander couldn’t make it, he is—”
“A bit of an arse? Yes. Well, we won’t hold that against him, will we? No one else does!” Harriet’s eyes widened at his candor. She sipped her tea, not sure what to say, and blessedly, he continued. “He doesn’t like coming here.”
“Why not?” Harriet asked; then, realizing her words, she demurred. “I apologize for being so forward. Please ignore the question.”
“I refuse! It’s the best one I’ve gotten in ages! Alexander …” He became contemplative, cautious. She could tell when someone shared an affinity or care for words. It endeared her even further to him, which she hadn’t thought possible. “Alexander is afraid.”
“Of you?” she asked, rather incredulous. “Not to imply that you aren’t fearsome,” she teased, hoping her familiarity matched his, made him feel as he had made her feel. His easy smile was her reward.
“Of himself.”
Harriet dearly wished he would elaborate, but it seemed incredibly démodé to ask someone to explain your husband to you.
“I’m sure he wishes to come. He’s rather busy,” she supplied weakly, knowing it was a poor excuse and one John would see through easily. But in the case he wanted to make use of it, she offered it.
“You don’t have to protect me from him. I know he loves me, in his own bullheaded, emotionally impoverished way.”
“He is rather unlearned in that department, isn’t he? In fact, it’s part of why I came.”
“Oh dear, are you here to do his bidding? Is there a painting he wants off my walls? A piece of Mother’s jewelry he’s under the impression I have?
He has loads more money than I do, so it can’t be that.
” He was jesting, but Harriet thought she heard a hint of pain in his words, as if some of the sadness in his eyes had seeped into them.
“He doesn’t know I’m here.”
“How chic of you! A wife off on her own—is there anything more enticing? You’ve come to the wrong place for trouble, I fear. It’s quite dull here.”
“Yes, I had … I’d noticed.” John laughed.
“It’s rather glaring, isn’t it? I’m locked away in this tower to wait out my days,” he said, waving a biscuit around with one hand. “Don’t make a face of horror at me. It suits me quite fine most of the time. I’ve got a fully stocked library and a divine chef. What more could a man want?”
“Company,” Harriet answered, a little too pointedly.
“Yes, well, my father gave up on me as soon as I got sick. Mighty inconvenient when your heir won’t outlive you, eh? Rather defeats the entire purpose of my existence.”
“And Alexander?” John’s mouth twitched and Harriet could tell he was weighing how honest to be with her, so she interrupted his considerations. “I should tell you, I guess, that Alexander and I—we didn’t have a … real … marriage. We don’t. That is … we were caught in a library.”
“Which one?”
“Lady Dunley’s, I’m afraid.”
“How dreadful, no wonder you took to kissing him. Terrible collection.”
“Actually, quite embarrassingly, nothing happened,” Harriet confessed, reluctantly.
“What a black mark on his character! I shan’t forgive him.” Harriet laughed then, enjoying herself for the first time in ages.
“Lady Neddlesby caught us. Or thought she did.”
“And so he offered for you?” John said, a little skeptically.
“I rather forced his hand.”
“Good girl,” John affirmed, pouring them each another cup of tea.
“He made clear from the beginning that he couldn’t offer me his … sole affection. Or any affection really.”
“The blighter!”
“Oh, no, it was quite all right with me. I’m rather …”
“Too good for him?” Harriet laughed at their unspoken but shared understanding that while she probably was too good for Alexander, no one else would see it that way. At least no one outside of this room or her family.
“I suppose I came here … to understand him better. It sounds awful silly when said out loud. Especially after telling you our marriage is false. Truly, it’s more pathetic than that because, well, we had quite a confrontation. But I find myself …”
“Loving him despite his poor behavior? Happens to the best of us.”
“I’m afraid so,” she said, admitting for the first time to herself or anyone that she might just love Alexander.
“I can’t fault you. Well, I can but ’twouldn’t do anyone any good. He’s rather lovable even when he isn’t likable.”
“It’s odd, isn’t it, that everyone else sees it the other way around?” She shared then with John a deep look, an intimacy that she had heretofore only shared with her sisters.
“Then I will tell you—and only because you’ve admitted you love him, and I adore finding someone whose flaws line up so preternaturally with mine—all my secrets about him.”
“I’m all ears.”
“To start with why Alexander is the way he is, you must look where one always must look: the parents. My father is—”
“I’ve met the man.”
“Brilliant; that saves us time. Rather embarrassing of me to be actually related to him. I was always envious that Alexander wasn’t.”
“Truly?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be so callous as to wish to be a bastard.
He was quite mistreated by my father until I became …
unviable. But knowing you have that man’s blood in you in some way is rather like knowing the wine you drank with dinner was poisoned.
Our mother was … well, she was stunning.
No one had better taste—her only blind spot was men, I’m afraid.
She did her duty and married my father, and they made each other miserable until she provided an heir, and then she left.
Then, as you know, she returned with a spare. And then she left again.”
“Have you seen her?”
“No, but I wrote to her. And her solicitor wrote back on her behalf on occasion. Once or twice I’d receive a letter asking for money, which I sent. I didn’t mind who she turned out to be as much as Alexander did.”
“How do you mean?”
“She was so young when she had me, and trapped in a marriage with an older man. I felt for her, even if I didn’t understand her.
I saw my parents together—it was hell. Alexander never really did.
I felt happy when she left the first time; it meant a more peaceful house.
And then she returned and gave me the best present I’ve ever received: Alexander.
I was happy when she left the second time too.
Only Alexander was miserable. He was three or four and he howled through the night.
Eventually, I let him into my bed just to shut him up long enough to sleep.
” Harriet felt a bit like weeping at the thought of it.
“He said he saw her once.”
“He did. He discovered she was in Calais, so he took a boat over. I warned him not to. That he might not like what he found. But by then, he was a young buck who’d charmed every single woman he’d ever encountered and he never imagined she might be immune to him.”
“What did she do?”