Page 46 of Tempting Harriet
She closed her eyes and dropped her chin. He was so very—kind. As kind as Godfrey. Surely she could grow tolove him as she had Godfrey. He was younger, more personable. “I could not bring you a whole heart, my lord,” sheheard herself whisper. The words were quite unplanned.
There was a short silence. “Ah,” he said, “That is an impediment, ma’am. I would want your heart or at least thehope of making it mine. Is there any chance that in time it will be free?”
She decided that he deserved honesty. She looked up at him, aware that the moonlight was on her face. “It has notbeen for six years,” she said.
“And yet,” he said, “you claimed to have done your grieving.”
“I do not refer to my husband,” she said.
“I see,” He squeezed her hands once more, almost painfully, and released them. “I shall remain one of youradmirers, ma’am. If at some future time you will permit it,perhaps I shall renew the topic of this conversation. Youwill wish to return to the ballroom.”
Fool,the inner voice told her.Fool.“My lord,” she said, walking by his side, not touching him, “if my heart werefree, I cannot think of anyone on whom I would more wishto bestow it.”
He chuckled. “Unfortunately,” he said, “hearts are not always in the control of their owners, are they? It is almost invariably the other way around. Or so poets through theages have assured us. I don’t like to see those eyes full ofdistress. I appreciate your honesty, ma’am, and honor youfor it.”
“Thank you,” she said, distressed nonetheless. She wanted to catch at his arm before they reentered the ballroom and ask him if she might try, if they might attempt acloser relationship, if he would give her a little time. Butthough she wanted desperately to do just that, decency heldher back. He deserved better than anything she could givehim. He had misunderstood when she had told him she was unworthy of him. She was unworthy. And she realized in aflash that that sense of unworthiness would very probablykeep her from any future marriage.
It was a bleak future she looked into as she stepped back through the French windows.
Lady Sophia was thirsty. Harriet got to her feet and offered to fetch her a glass of lemonade from the dining room. But the old lady was also stiff in the legs. With Harriet’s assistance she would go too. The dining room seemeda little too far to walk, though, she decided when they were outside the ballroom. The small, darkened anteroom to theirleft was unoccupied. She would sit quietly in there untilHarriet returned.
Harriet did not return quite as soon as she could have wished. Mr. Horn was in the dining room with anotheryoung man from the neighborhood, and he stopped Harrietto make introductions, to stammer out his admiration forher appearance, and to compliment her on her dancingskills.
“1 can never remember the steps unless I concentrate on them,” he said. “But my partners always want to talk.”
“I can never keep my feet from beneath my partner’s,” the other young man said while Harriet laughed.
“Better that,” she said, “thanonyour partner’s, sir.”
“Oh, the devil, yes,” he said, laughing jovially. “You are very witty, Lady Wingham. As well as devilish pretty.”
Despite her mood of general depression, Harriet could not help but smile as she made her way back to the anteroom, a glass of lemonade held in one hand. The youthmust be all of eighteen years old, swaggering and pretending to be at least a decade older. And probably shaking inhis shoes with nervousness, poor boy.
Harriet smiled when she entered the anteroom and opened her mouth to speak. But Lady Sophia frowned andheld a finger to her lips. Harriet stood very still and glancedto the door that stood slightly ajar in the wall to her right.There must be another anteroom through there. It was occupied, too.
“No, David. It is no use. It is wrong.” The voice was high-pitched and sounded on the verge of tears.
“This whole thing is wrong,” a man’s exasperated voice said. “That is what is wrong, Phyll.”
Harriet closed her eyes briefly and wondered if it were possible to close the door without the couple in the otherroom realizing that they had an audience.
“There was nothing I could do about it.” Lady Phyllis’s voice sounded utterly miserable. “I know I made you apromise.”
There was a lengthy silence, ending with a kissing sound.Lady Sophia shook her head and held up one hand as Harriet took two cautious steps in the direction of the door.
“You said you would keep yourself free until you were of age,” the man said. “And that then you would marry meeven if your papa still objected. You promised, Phyll. I believed you. I trusted you. There was only one more year to go.”
“You have no idea,” she said. “Oh, don’t, Dave. Someone might come. And it is wrong. Don’t. Please don’t.”
There was a repetition of the silence and the sound that ended it.
“You have no idea,” she said again. “They were disappointed after my first Season and angry after the second. I thought I could hold out for one more. But thenhedecidedthis year of all years to choose a wife and of all the misfortunes he looked my way. There was no way I could avoidit. Everything developed a life of its own once he hadlooked. And Mama and Papa were so determined. Whatcould I do?”
“You could have said no.”
“It sounds easy, doesn’t it?” She seemed very close to tears again. “Perhaps I am just weak. But I could not sayno. Everyone expected me to say yes—Mama and Papa, theduchess, him, the wholeton.I could not say no, David.”
“So this is good-bye,” he said, his voice dull with a misery to match her own.
