by Wilma Counts
Harriet held her breath. She knew exactly what was coming. She glanced at her grandfather, who stepped close to put a hand on her shoulder.
Quint said, “Humphreys, you are drunk. Now, let these fellows get you some food and some coffee and a place to lie down.”
By now this part of the ballroom commanded the attention of every living being in the room. Nevertheless, with a strong footman holding to either of his arms, Humphreys raised his voice even more. “You still do not know, do you, Burnes, that she owns those shares of Sedwick Mills—and all that other Sedwick debt as well?” His drunken laugh ended in a cough.
Harriet closed her eyes, but she was sure he made a dramatic picture in his black evening wear pointing his accusing finger at her. She sank her head against her grandfather’s chest. The old man’s arms tightened protectively about her as Quint moved closer to them.
“Is what he says true?” he asked quietly, holding her gaze steadily.
Harriet nodded, her cheek rubbing painfully against the metallic silver thread of her grandfather’s waistcoat.
“I see.” Quint’s voice was calm, detached. He turned and walked away.
The dowager stared at Harriet in utter surprise, then followed her son. Soon the orchestra picked up the melody of a popular dance and the floor was once again full of color and the sounds of a grand ball as Harriet and her family members quietly left the ballroom.
The next morning she broke her fast with the children in the nursery and she was determinedly cheerful in telling them goodbye and admonishing them to write her faithfully. She made a point of charging Miss Clarkson and Mr. Knightly with the extra duty of seeing to it that the twins and Sarah and even Elly supplied the teachers a missive for Aunt Harriet once a week—or else.
“Or else what?” Robby demanded. “You won’t be here.”
“Ah, but I have my secret agents willing to help me,” Harriet warned. “If I do not get my letters, Mrs. Hodges just might end up being too tired or too busy to make those ginger biscuits or lemon tarts you like so well.”
“No fair,” Robby wailed.
Harriet gave him a hug. “Just write to me, Robert. I want to know all about the latest adventures of Sir Gawain.”
“And Muffin?” Elly asked.
“And Muffin.” Harriet gave the eldest of the siblings direct looks. “Phillip, Maria, I will look forward especially to hearing from you. I know you will not let me down.”
“No, ma’am,” they said in unison.
Three hours later, the coaches had been loaded and she had said her goodbyes to servants with whom she had been in almost daily contact for months now, and intermittently for years before. But of the leading adults of Sedwick Hall, she had seen nothing this day. She told herself she regretted there had been no opportunity to clear the air with Quint before she left, but so be it. The man was angry. Perhaps he was hurt as well as angry. She was the last to go out to the waiting coach and as she started out the door, Chet detained her.
“Couldn’t let you get away without saying goodbye,” he said, offering his arm to walk her to the vehicle.
“Thank you,” she said. “It is nice to know there is at least one adult in this household who does not hate me.”
“Few as hates ye, lass. Quite the contrary, I’d say. Quite.”
“I did not mean this to happen, Chet. Not this way.”
“I know, lass. Unlike some I could name, I have read those bank documents—all of them. Eventually, this will all come out. You’ll see.”
“It will for Phillip—and for his earldom and what he can, in turn, do for the others. That was always the end that justified the means.”
He not only held her hand as she mounted the step into the coach, but held her gaze very directly. “I’m thinking there is much more of concern here than just young Phillip and his inheritance.”
“Chet—” she started to admonish.
He released her hand. “Just don’t do anything rash, lass. Don’t do anything rash. Give it time. It is not only the mills of the gods that grind exceeding slow.”
She smiled. “Goodbye, Chet.” Impulsively, she kissed him on the cheek before taking her seat next to her grandmother, who patted her hand and said, “Goodbyes are always so hard.”
* * * *
From an upstairs window overlooking the stable yard, Quint had observed that farewell kiss. “Damn and blast!” he muttered to himself. Why should he care that she so freely showed simple affection to another man? He found himself—hours later—still consumed by cold fury. Why had she not told him? Good God! She had sat in that mill office, heard Stevens recite those problems in detail—and she knew all along! Was it some kind of game? Was that it? A joke?
No, that did not make sense. The sort of cold, cynical calculation it would take to enjoy such a joke was simply not in the makeup of a woman who could be so protective of children’s feelings over such thing as, say, a gift to their grandmother. Or one so innocently generous in sharing her body. And she had been—both innocent and generous in the act, had she not? A virgin, for God’s sake! That was it, wasn’t it? She had shared her body with him. And all the while—he realized now—he had thought they were sharing something more. Was that it? He asked himself again, and came up with same answer and more. That was it. He knew for a certainty it was. There was more. He had fallen in love with Harriet Mayfield. Deeply, irrevocably, eternally in love. With Harriet. And she did not even trust him.
And beyond that, what did he have to offer a woman like Harriet Mayfield? As an ex-soldier, he had whatever his commission was worth when he sold out. That was it—and the distinction of being the Sedwick heir’s guardian for a few more years. After that scene with Humphreys at the ball, a few discreet questions among other guests had been highly revealing. Apparently even his mother had been ignorant as to the extent of Harriet’s wealth.
“Good heavens! Had I known—” But Lady Margaret left the rest unsaid, and Quint thought that was probably just as well.
“And what is more,” one of the lady guests said enviously, “as a woman, she has total control of that vast fortune. What woman gets that kind of power?”
He suddenly realized that his brother’s wife must have come to her marriage with at least a comfortable dowry. But not enough to keep Sedwick afloat. He needed to go over those books again—and those infernal bank documents. Chet had been at him about those. Which brought him back to thinking about Harriet again. God! How he wanted her. Yes, that luscious body, but beyond that the woman who laughed with him and at him, the woman who could kiss away a child’s tears and take Parliament to task because soldiers were sleeping in the rain in Spain. He wanted her. But she was forever out of his reach now. And that was that. Life was life. Get on with it.
He watched until the small group of coaches was out of sight.
Over the next three days the remaining houseguests left Sedwick Hall to move onto another such affair in another part of the kingdom, or to return to their own estates.
All but one.
“I have asked dear Barbara to stay on for a while and she has agreed until St. Nicholas Day in early December. Is that not wonderful news?” Lady Margaret announced at breakfast the second morning after the ball.
Quint smiled and murmured an appropriate welcome to Lady Barbara, who returned his smile and said brightly how very much she had enjoyed her stay so far. Quint glanced at Chet, who had the cheek to grin at him and wink.
Phillip and Maria, along with their respective teachers, had already left the breakfast table for the library or music room when the dowager made her momentous announcement. Quint wondered idly how they would react to it. Not that it mattered, but he had not seen Barbara around the nursery set at all, though he knew her to be the mother of a five-year-old son, heir to an earl. He remembered asking her at the picnic if she missed him.
She had looked at him,
surprised. “Heavens, no. I know he is well cared for. That is all that matters. I prefer children beyond the ‘puling’ age,” she said with a laugh, “out of the schoolroom—or even university!” She had then assumed an ultra-shy demeanor. “Oh, dear. Now you will think me a terrible mother.”
He had shrugged. “Not necessarily.” He had drawn her attention to a peculiar cloud formation, and shortly afterward, he and Barbara had been on the fringes of that Snow White scene at his mother’s picnic.
Sometime after the other guests had left, Quint lay stretched out on the wicker couch in the morning room one afternoon, actually recalling how much both he and Harriet enjoyed this room, when his mother popped in on him.
“There you are,” she said. “No, don’t get up. You look too comfortable.”
“You were looking for me?”
“Earlier. Sylvia and Barbara and I went into Hendley shopping. We thought it would be nice to have you drive us.” She sat down in a chair that gave her face-to-face communication with her son. Quint silently thanked whatever gods had spared him that drive.
“Quinton, dear,” she began with a phrase that always put him instantly on alert. “You really should be a little more attentive to Barbara.”
He twisted his head on a large green and yellow pillow to look at her more directly. “Why? She is your guest, is she not?”
She leaned forward in her chair. “She is our guest, and I invited her for you. Well, to be honest, for you and for her.”
“Mother—” The word came out as a bit of a moan.
“It is time you married, and dear Barbara would be perfect for you. You would be perfect for each other.”
“You mean she would be perfect for you,” he said sourly. “Yes, Lady Margaret. No, Lady Margaret. I quite agree, Lady Margaret.”
“Don’t be mean-spirited. I admit that we get on quite well, but I should think it would be a definite plus if a prospective bride got on well with one’s mother.”
He yawned. “It might—if said ‘one’ were looking for a bride. I am not.”
“Don’t be obtuse, my dear. She is yours for the asking—surely you know that. Moreover, she is very rich. And you are not.”
“You mean her late husband, the Earl of Riverton, was very rich.”
“No, I mean she has a huge fortune.”
Quint snorted. “There was certainly no sign of such ten years ago when she insisted she had to hang out for a rich husband.”
His mother looked smug. “Ten years ago, that was true. But then she inherited from a bachelor uncle who doted on her and a rich husband who settled a huge amount on her when she gave birth to his son—not to mention an outrageously generous widow’s portion.”
“Well, good for her,” Quint said disinterestedly.
“Quinton! Can you not see: if you marry Barbara, we can buy back those notes!”
“We?”
She ignored him and rushed on. “We shall be free of those horrid Mayfield connections. Things will be as they were when life was good and beautiful.”
Chapter 22
The weeks following the dowager’s house party, and through to the end of the year and beyond, were the most miserable of Harriet’s life. When she had lost her parents, she had had Anne as a constant in her life. In losing Anne, she had drawn ever closer to Anne’s children. Now, not seeing them daily, not hearing of their little or great troubles and triumphs as they occurred was—well—heartbreaking, no matter how much she chastised herself for dwelling on her misery.
Nor was it only the children who occupied her thoughts morning, noon, and night. Looming beyond, over, and always was Quint. Especially the nights—there he would be. Quint: his face—that faint growth of whisker still visible during an early morning ride, his quick teasing grin, his voice in telling Sarah he loved her, his kiss—Ah, God! his lovemaking. How was she supposed to put these out of mind—out of heart? No doubt she would—one day—see the children again. But would she ever see Quint again? Be allowed to explain why she did what she did? Daily she went through the routine of “brace the shoulders and carry on”—that is what Miss Pringle’s girls were taught to do. But, dear God! It was hard.
She lived for letters from Sedwick. Miss Clarkson and Mr. Knightly kept her updated—briefly, and merely as a courtesy, for the children’s guardian was their employer. Harriet was glad that both of them seemed to have settled happily into their positions, for that was what Ricky, Robby, Sarah, and Elly needed: settled. So did Phillip, Maria, and Tilly, but not to the same extent, perhaps. The children were good about writing their weekly letters, though Harriet sensed they had sometimes been prodded into writing—especially Robby, who occasionally mentioned his continuing to deserve his ginger biscuits and lemon tarts. Phillip and Maria were as faithful as they had promised, and it was from their letters that Harriet gleaned her real news of Sedwick.
Phillip reported that besides his regular lessons with Mr. Knightly (whom he liked very much, by the way), he was continuing to enjoy studying piano with the vicar’s wife once a week. Harriet wrote back to encourage him in that endeavor, for both she and Emma Powers thought Phillip quite talented. Harriet thought his music also provided the young man a sorely needed emotional outlet. She was best pleased, though, by Phillip’s report that his Uncle Quint had insisted the young earl be present for a twice-monthly meeting with Mr. Stevens and floor leaders at the mills. Phillip reported that he himself had little to say in these meetings, but he was learning a good deal. She could tell he was thrilled to be included, to be treated like an adult. She had thought of writing Quint a note to thank him for including the boy, then thought better of that. He might think her presumptuous, or condescending, or…
From Maria she received newsy bits over all those weeks that were amusing or insightful, often making Harriet homesick—for that was what Sedwick had become: home. It was Maria who told her Lady Barbara had left Sedwick sooner than she intended and in something of a pet—and why.
According to Hodgie—I overheard her talking with Mrs. Ames—and you must never tell them I eavesdropped!! Anyway, Aunt Harriet, you will find this hard to believe, but apparently Lady B thought Grandmother was going to persuade Uncle Q to marry her! Mrs. A said there had been “something there years ago, but the colonel wasn’t no green boy any more” and it did not work.…So, Lady B left, and Gran was that angry with Uncle Q. They are still not talking much. I thought she might move back to the dower house, but I think she liked Mama’s rooms too well—and running things here—or trying to! Uncle Q says she is to make no more changes—and to undo some she has made—including moving out of Mama’s rooms! So—Guess what? She moved into yours! He was angry about that, but he let it go.…Uncle Q. spends most of his time sequestered (are you impressed with that word?) in the library. Or, weather permitting, riding the very devil out of Papa’s devil horse. Especially now that Mr. Gibbons is gone—at least for a while. I did tell you, did I not, about his sister coming down here from the Highlands to “drag him back to see his family” she said. She was a fierce one—I wish you had met her! He promised to come back soon.…We missed you sooo much at Christmas! We had the Yule log and carols and wassail and the smells of spices and greenery—even a kissing ball! But it just was not the same without you—and Mama and Papa, of course. Maybe next year—
Harriet refolded the letters and tucked them away. “Maybe. Maybe next year, Maria.” But she hadn’t much faith in that. Before restoring the box of letters to its place in a bureau drawer, she withdrew Maria’s last letter, which carried a troubling postscript:
P.S. The two youngest of the Powers brood have contracted chicken pox! Do you suppose its progress to the Hall is inevitable? Sigh. (But do note that big word, oh favorite aunt of mine: If nothing else, writing you is improving my vocabulary!)
Harriet had not found it difficult in London to fill her days with activities and people she enjoyed. She ro
de Miss Priss in the park nearly every morning, sometimes with her friend Lord Beaconfield, more often with just a groom, though occasionally her longtime school friend Lady Henrietta Parker—Retta—joined her. She chose always to ride early, before the nursemaids arrived in the park with their little charges. She made and received social calls, often accompanied by her grandmother or Elizabeth. She renewed her association with Retta’s favorite charity, which helped abused women and children. And she picked up where she had left off with the literary group, all of whom told her how much they had missed her.
Gavin, Lord Beaconfield, had called for her and accompanied her to that first meeting. As they settled into his coach on leaving, he said, “They were all sincere, you know, Harriet. They have missed you.”
“I know, and I am appreciative,” she said.
“I know you miss the country life,” he said with a smile, “but surely the last few weeks have reassured you that London still has much to offer.”
“Yes, Dr. Johnson, ‘He who is tired of London—”
“‘—is tired of life,’” he finished with a chuckle. “But Johnson aside, I doubt you are tired of life.”
“Gavin, what are you trying to say?”
“Two things, actually. First, you have not written anything since your return. Why?”
“I cannot give a reason other than it all seems so pointless, does it not? You walk in those oh-so-sacred halls of power. What do you see being accomplished—really?”
“I will admit it is slow, but even the gods grind slowly, you know.”
Feeling herself go very still at those words, she said after an instant of pause, “You are not the first to tell me that in recent months. What was your second thing?”
He shifted on the seat to face her—they were sharing the forward-facing bench of the coach—and he wore a serious expression. “The second thing is in the nature of a confession.”
“A confession?” She stared at him.
