Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
Harriet spent the morning in her father’s estate room.
She was not supposed to possess a key, but the lock had been unreliable since she was a child.
There were few secrets left for her to uncover.
The ledgers confirmed what she had already learned from Selby’s conversation with her father.
Alderley owed more than the estate could pay.
Repairs had been delayed because there had been no money for them, rents had fallen when crops failed, and the loans taken to cover one bad year had ensured the next would be worse.
The door opened behind her. Harriet closed the ledger but did not pretend she had not been reading it.
Her father looked at the key still in the lock. “How long have you been able to get into this room?”
“Since I was twelve.”
“I suppose I ought to be angry.”
“I rather suspect we both should be. But it wouldn’t be helpful for either one of us, would it?”
He shook his head and closed the door. In daylight, the exhaustion she had glimpsed the previous evening was more evident. Harriet wanted to be angry with him. She was angry, but it did not prevent her from loving him or from seeing how frightened he was.
“You heard the conversation between Selby and I,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I am sorry.”
Harriet looked down at the ledger beneath her hands. “For the debt or for my hearing of it?”
“Both.” Her father came farther into the room. “I believed I could repair matters before any of you needed to know. Every solution required time, and I continued to believe I had more of it than I did.”
She laughed bitterly. “Selby meant you to believe that. He did not acquire the notes because he wanted repayment. He acquired them because he wants Alderley.”
“No. He wants the eastern land.”
“Only as a start,” she corrected. “It’s the way in, isn’t it? Seize the one portion of the estate that is profitable and let the rest of it sink into such ruin and decay it can be obtained for a song!”
“I am not a fool, Harriet. I will not be spoken to as one!”
Her own temper flared to life then. “And I am not a fool either! I have studied every possible measure to make Alderley more efficient and more profitable and have been dismissed outright! Yet, when Benedict brought my ideas to you as his own, you accepted each one. Do you despise me because I am a woman or because I am the daughter you wish would have been a son?”
He appeared stricken at the very thought. “Neither. I do not despise you, but these matters are not for you to tend to! They are the purveyance of men!”
Men who had done nothing but fail at every turn. There was no point revisiting every decision that had brought them to that pivotal moment or the prejudices that had steered them. Harriet had done so all morning and had found no path back through them. “What happens now?”
Her father sat across from her. “The Denhams may be willing to discharge the debt.”
She ought to have felt relief. Instead, humiliation rose so swiftly that it nearly choked her. Benedict would know everything. He would know that while she lectured him about the south meadow, her father lacked the funds to dig a ditch in it.
“On what terms?” she asked.
“The land must be protected from further borrowing. Denham also requires a permanent interest in the road and water rights.”
“Then he will purchase it.”
“No.” Her father paused, and Harriet knew the worst had not yet been said. “The families would be joined.”
She stared at him. “How?”
“By your marriage to Benedict.”
For a moment, Harriet could not form a reply. Of all the humiliations she had imagined, this had not been among them.
“Whose suggestion was that?”
“Lady Denham’s.”
That answer surprised her. Lady Denham had always been kind to Harriet, but kindness did not make this less of a bargain. “And Benedict has agreed?”
“He has agreed, if you will have him… his condition being that you must be informed of all aspects of the arrangement and not be compelled to accept it in any way.”
Harriet rose and walked to the window. From there she could see the roofs of the tenant cottages and, beyond them, the bare trees lining the eastern road.
Selby had made no effort to hide what would happen if he took the land.
Some tenants would be turned out. Others would face rents they could not pay.
Her father would lose the income from the farms and, in time, perhaps the house as well.
She had spent years trying to persuade him to let her help. Now the only help anyone required from her was a wedding.
“You need not agree,” her father said.
Harriet turned. “Do not say that as though refusal bears no cost!”
“It should not cost you your life.”
“Marriage is not death.” But it was. The death of freedom. In these circumstances, the death of choice, of falling in love and marrying on her own terms—if such a thing were ever possible.
“It may feel little better if you despise the man,” her father stated flatly.
She did not despise Benedict. It would have been simpler if she did.
He angered her because he was arrogant, intrusive and too often right.
He also remembered the names of her father’s tenants, listened when others dismissed her, and had once ridden six miles in a storm to fetch a physician for a groom’s child.
He’d even carried her miles cross-country to see her safely home after she’d turned her ankle.
Harriet knew better than most that his coldness was more manner than feeling.
When one looked beneath his austerity, there was a well of compassion and kindness.
And that irritated her more than anything else about him.
Because he was simply too blasted perfect.
It made every petty and ungenerous thought which crept into her head worse by comparison.
Knowing what she did of him, both bad and good, did not mean she wanted to marry him.
A knock sounded. Her father’s butler entered and announced Lord Benedict Denham, Viscount Everton.
Harriet’s pulse quickened, an absurd reaction she immediately blamed upon anger. “Send him in.”
Her father started to rise, but she stopped him. “I would speak to him alone.”
“Harriet—”
“If I am expected to consider marrying him, I ought to be permitted a private conversation with him.”
Her father could not dispute it. He left as Benedict entered, and the two men exchanged only a few quiet words at the door.
Benedict looked as he always did, composed and properly dressed, as though nothing in the world could occur without allowing him time to prepare for it. Only the set of his shoulders suggested he was not as comfortable as he appeared.
“You know,” he said.
“I do.” Harriet remained beside the window. “Did you enjoy reviewing the evidence of my father’s incompetence?”
His expression hardened. “No.”
“But you did review it.”
“He asked me to find a way to stop Selby.”
“And your mother found one, unpalatable as it may be.”
“Yes.” Benedict did not attempt to soften it. “I have found no better one.”
Harriet looked away. “How unfortunate for us both that you chose this moment to suddenly not be in possession of every answer.”
“I do not have all the answers. I do not have yours, most specifically.” He crossed the room but stopped well short of her. “You may refuse, Harriet. No one could fault you for it. Not even I. We are— oil and water at best,” he offered with a degree of chagrin.
“We are oil and water. Or perhaps match to tinder, I am uncertain. As for refusal…well everyone keeps telling me that I may do so, but it is a remarkably hollow assurance.”
He ached for her in that moment. Marriage, particularly whom to marry or whose courtship to accept was one of the few choices a woman had in life. That was now being robbed from her. “I know.”
That checked the angry reply she had prepared. Benedict was watching her steadily, but there was no impatience in his face.
“If I refuse,” she said, “Selby takes the farms. He controls the road and the stream. He may force my father from Alderley within a year.”
“Yes.”
“My sister and I would both be ruined. Any chance or marriage at all, much less marriage of our own choosing, would be forfeit.”
“Perhaps… you are both quite lovely with many fine qualities to recommend you. Not every match must be advantageous.”
“This one is not… not for you. I bring nothing but debt and a bad temper.”
He dipped his head, his lips quirking with amusement that he dared not show.
It was not the time. “You do not bring ‘nothing’, as you term it. You bring yourself. You bring a stronger foothold to the prosperity of Denham Park. If Selby seizes those lands, water rights will be challenged. Tenants will be evicted. And life as everyone in this county knows it will alter entirely.”
“And you call that a choice?”
He sighed. Weary for them both, he replied honestly, “No. My mother does. Your father wishes to. I do not.”
It was clear from her stunned expression that Harriet had expected persuasion. His refusal to offer it obviously unsettled her. “Then why are you here?”
“Because you asked to see me.”
“And before I asked?”
“I meant to bring you the proposed terms and answer whatever questions you had.”
“How considerate.”
He let the insult pass. “The eastern land would be settled upon you and any children from the marriage. Your father could not borrow against it again. Neither could I. You would receive the income from it and participate in its management.”
“Participate.”
“Manage it, then.”
She studied his face. “You would allow that?”
“It would be yours.”
“A married woman owns very little that her husband cannot claim.”
“Which is why the settlement must be written carefully.” Benedict came closer, his voice still quiet. “I know you understand the farms. I also know your father has not made sufficient use of that understanding. I do not intend to repeat his mistake.”
It was the right thing to say. Harriet resented him for knowing it.
“And what do you expect from me?”
“Honesty.”
“Nothing else?” She uttered the query with incredulity.