Page 27 of Tempting Harriet
“Your drive in the park yesterday will have worked to your advantage if anything,” Lady Forbes said. “If any people suspected—though I am quite, quite sure that no onedoes—they will now believe that they must have been mistaken. Tenby would not have done anything as brazen asdrive out with his—with you in company with his grandmother and his aunt, they will believe.”
Harriet smiled rather wanly. “You have a river excursion to get ready for,” she said.
“Yes.” Lady Forbes got to her feet again as Harriet stood. “And you have an outing to prepare for too, dear. Takecare. Oh, do take care.” She hugged her young friend before leaving the dining room with her.
Anger was an emotion that Harriet did not often experience. Her mother had used to tell her sometimes that she was too placid for her own good, that she had a tendency tomake a doormat of herself. She was very much in danger ofbecoming a doormat now. She had been lifted, as usual,into his carriage, but beyond one cool look in her directionhe had acted as if he were unaware of her existence. By thetime they had reached his love nest and he had escorted herupstairs and through the sitting room into the bedchamber,she knew that he was angry.
Well, she was angry too. She could remember his parting words of the day before. She had been in a little too muchdistress then to be angry at what he had said. But she wasangry now.
“Well?” His first word of the afternoon was like a cold whiplash. He had released her arm and closed the door.“You have your explanation ready, ma’am?”
“I would be foolish not to,” she said, “when I have had a day in which to think of it. I suppose I must tell the simpletruth, your grace. I wangled the introduction to your grandmother and maneuvered to be invited to the park on the assumption that she would fall instantly in love with mybeauty and refinement and insist that you make me yourduchess.”
His eyes narrowed and he took a step forward until their bodies almost touched. “Have a care, ma’am,” he said.“Sarcasm does not become you.”
“On the other hand,” she said, “arrogance becomes you very well indeed, your grace.”
His silver eyes sparked dangerously. “It was unspeakably improper for you, my mistress, to set foot inside my home,”he said, “and to impose your company on my unsuspectinggrandmother and aunt.”
“I have heard,” she said, “that it is infectious, like typhoid. Do you fear for their—health, your grace?”
His hands felt like iron bands riveting themselves to her upper arms. They squeezed even more tightly as he shookher until her head flopped back and forth and her breathwas gone and she was reaching blindly for the lapels of hiscoat.
“Harriet, have done,” he said harshly, releasing her abruptly before she could find a handhold.
“You forget,your grace,”she said, emphasizing his title, “that I am not one of your doxies, that I do not take payment for the favors I grant you on that bed. I am a lady bybirth and a baroness by marriage and I will not be made tofeel like a soiled whore. If I am a whore, then so are you.Why should women be considered to have fallen when theygive themselves outside marriage, but not men?”
She did not know where the words were coming from. She had never been so furious in her life. Perhaps it was because his attitude to her echoed her own, but she was tooangry to analyze her feelings fully. If he touched herroughly again, she would go at him with her fists, sheknew.
He looked at her steadily, his arms at his sides. “You are not a whore, Harriet,” he said. “Or my doxy. Evenmistressis an inaccurate word since it suggests a kept woman. Youare my lover.”
Something turned over in her stomach. The word caressed her. And mocked her. They were not lovers. Lovers loved. The very word suggested that. They did not love.They merely had sexual relations.
His eyes and his voice had softened. But only for a moment. They were both cold and hard again when he spoke once more. “Why did you see fit to call at St. James'sSquare and present yourself to her grace?” he asked. “Didyour acquaintance with my aunt seem excuse enough?”
She watched her arm lift as if of its own accord and her hand whip with a satisfying stinging slap across his face.And she waited in steely-jawed terror for him to retaliate.He did not do so. She watched in fascinated horror as theimprint of her fingers reddened his cheek.
“Did you not think to ask them?” she asked. “Did you not think that perhaps I was invited?”
“Were you?” he said. “Why did you go?”
“Perhaps,” she said, “it was out of courtesy. Perhaps it was because I am fond of Lady Sophia, though of course itis hard to believe that anyone could be fond of a lady whois so very old and so very deaf, is it not? And perhaps itwas because I did not know that was your home or that thelady to whom I was presented merely as Lady Sophia's sister-in-law, the duchess, was in fact the Duchess of Tenby.Perhaps I did not know it until you walked into the room.”
“You did not know where my home was?” he asked,frowning.
“Why should I?” she asked. “Did you imagine that I paced lovelorn outside it each day and night?”
“I told you my grandmother and my aunt were coming to town,” he said.
“Why would I have made the connection when I received the invitation from Lady Sophia?” she asked. “People arrive in London every day. It is the Season.”
“I have done you an injustice,” he said stiffly. “I beg your pardon, Harriet.”
“Granted,” she said. She was pleased to hear that her voice was as crisp as his own.
“Well,” he said, turning his eyes away from her and looking across the room, “we are wasting time. Let’s go tobed.”
“No,” she said.
