Page 48 of Tempting Harriet
He lifted her face with hands cupped on either side of it and kissed her lips gently. “Thank you,” he said. “Thankyou.” And he turned to hurry back the way he had come amere few minutes before.
Chapter 15
It felt so very good to be back in London. Harriet traveled back alone on Tuesday morning, having declined the offerof a place in the duchess’s carriage. The duchess and LadySophia were not leaving until the afternoon. Lady Sophiawas spending an hour of the morning walking very slowlyon the terrace with Lady Phyllis. She was getting to knowher future niece-in-law, she explained. Harriet was glad tobe alone, to have the whole ghastly weekend behind her.
She flew up to the nursery when she arrived back in London after doing little more than poke her head about the door of the salon to announce her return to Lady Forbes.She picked Susan up and twirled her about and hugged heralmost hard enough to bruise her ribs. Never, never againwould she leave her for longer than a few hours, shevowed.
Susan launched into an excited account of all the places Sir Clive and Lady Forbes had taken her and of the ices andcakes they had bought her. And the doll. She dashed acrossthe nursery to produce a wonder of porcelain and silk andlace.
“Annabel and James have a new brother,” she announced.
Harriet sat down and drew her daughter onto her lap. Julia had been right, then. Her time had been near. Andnow she had three children. Harriet had hoped after Susanthat she would conceive again. But it had not happened.And now she was eight-and-twenty and had refused twomarriage offers within the past few weeks. She did notknow if she would ever be able to contemplate anothermarriage. Perhaps she would never have more children thanSusan. But she must count her blessings. At the time she had thought of her daughter as her little miracle. Shehugged her again now.
“And I was afraid that you would be missing me as much as I was missing you,” she said, smiling.
“I did miss you, Mama,” Susan said, regarding her gravely. “I cried one night when I could not show you mydoll, but only a little bit. Aunt Amanda read me a story.”
Harriet kissed her cheek. “Would you like one now?”
“Yes, please,” her daughter said, getting down to fetch her favorite book. “Aunt Amanda does not read the wolfright Mama.”
It was good to be back in London. Perhaps it would be better to be back in Bath. To be home. Harriet longed for itsuddenly, for the familiar safe surroundings of her ownhome. If only she could go back and find Godfrey there.She missed him with a welling of sadness. He had been invariably kind and dependable. There were no ups anddowns of emotion with Godfrey, only the even keel of dailyliving—and the certainty of a deep affection.
No, she did not want to return to Bath yet. She would feel her loneliness more acutely there. Yet she knew shecould not stay in London. Not when staying there wouldmean seeing him wherever she went—as she had done allSeason so far. But now he would be more often in companywith Lady Phyllis. With his betrothed. Harriet had not expected the actual betrothal to be quite so upsetting. She hadknown it was coming and had thought herself prepared forit. But there was a raw pain in knowing that he had chosenher as his mistress and another woman as his wife. Eventhough she understood the reason, she felt soiled, slighted,inferior. Unloved.
Though even that was untrue, she knew, and tried not to know it. She did not want to know if it was true. In the garden on the night the betrothal was announced she had believed it true. He had not said it, but she felt with a deepcertainty that he loved her as she loved him. But if it wasso, she did not want to know it beyond any doubt. Theknowledge could only bring the worse pain of hopelessness.
She would go to Ebury Court, she thought suddenly. Clara had invited her, and it was ages since she had seenthe woman who had been her dearest friend as well as heremployer. It would be good to spend a few days, perhaps aweek, in the country. It would be soothing. It would begood for Susan too.
“Would you like to go into the country for a few days to play with Paul and Kevin?” she asked Susan when the storyhad been read. “And see Aunt Clara and Uncle Freddie?”
“With you, Mama?” Susan asked.
“Yes, with me,” Harriet said. “You and I together. Shall we go?”
Her daughter nodded. “I’ll show Aunt Clara my doll.”
They should go tomorrow, Harriet decided, eager to be gone now that she had thought of it. She should go andavoid Thursday’s painful good-bye. The very idea of thatbrought on a pain so intense that she wanted to run inpanic. And that was what she would be doing if she left forthe country without seeing him. Somehow the good-byewas necessary. She knew that if she avoided it she wouldbe forever haunted by something that had never been finished.
Besides, if she was strictly honest with herself, then she must admit that she could not resist the temptation to seehim one more time, to be alone with him once more. Except that there could be nothing between them except thegood-bye. He was a betrothed man.
“We’ll go on Friday,” she said. “In the morning bright and early. I’ll send word so that they will be expecting us.”
“I can’t wait,” Susan said.
“Neither can I.” Harriet hugged her.
He had returned to town with his grandmother and his aunt on Tuesday afternoon. In the evening he had escortedLady Phyllis to the opera as a member of a party that included her parents. On Wednesday he drove her in the park.In the evening he danced two sets with her at the Seftonball. If thetonhad not drawn the obvious conclusion withcertainty, then all their doubts were put to rest on Thursdaymorning when the announcement appeared in theMorningPost.
Phyllis was unhappy, he knew. Although they seemed to have set the foundations for a cautious amity while he wasat Barthorpe Hall, she had become icy, quite uncommunicative since their return to London. He wondered if hewas succeeding in playing a better part. Since for years hehad retreated behind a public facade of aloofness and a certain haughtiness, he guessed that he probably was. And hewas making every effort to set the girl at her ease, to makehimself agreeable to her. He had no intention of deliberately punishing her for the mess he had made of his ownlife.
He lived for Thursday afternoon and dreaded it. He feared the inflexibility of Harriet’s moral principles. Shehad bent them recently in order to become his mistress, buthe knew that doing so had put a severe strain upon her conscience. He suspected that she would go no further. He hadencountered her inflexibility, like a brick wall, six yearsago. He dreaded that the afternoon would have no more tooffer than good-bye. He dreaded that it would be the end,that after Thursday he would not see her again except bychance and at some distance at a social function they bothattended.
One of his fears, at least, was eased when he saw her hurrying toward his carriage only three minutes after the appointed time, and his coachman lifted her inside. She glanced at him and sat in the farthest corner, her handsclasped in her lap. Had she not been wearing gloves, hewas sure he would have been able to see the white of herknuckles. Perhaps this would be the last time, he thought.He was going to have to fight the battle of his life to get herto continue their liaison for a while longer. He had beggedfor one more meeting and she had granted it—to say goodbye. He sat in his own corner of the carriage, looking ather, saying nothing.
For the first time since they had begun their affair, she hesitated when they were in the sitting room of his house.But his hand at the small of her back guided her firmly oninto the bedchamber. He was not going to lose her. Hecould not lose her. It was the one thought that poundedthrough his head. He turned her as he shut the door, drewher to him with both arms, and set his mouth to hers. Hefelt her mouth and body leap into instant response.
“Harriet.” He trailed kisses along her jaw to her ear. “I have missed you. It has been an agony being without you.Tell me you have missed me too. Tell me.”
