“I did not mean—Harry, it was just a—”
But he could not take his words back, and by the look of Harry’s glare, she was not going to let him.
“Reputation ruined, yes,” she said softly, “but at least I still have all my integrity, Your Grace.”
“Look,” he said desperately, “are you going to marry me or not?”
She stepped forward and jabbed him in the chest. It hurt, but the pain was nothing to what she next said.
“I have waited years for you to ask me that,” Harry said in a low voice, her green eyes staring into his. “Years, Monty, and after all that time, I am going to say no. I can’t believe it myself.”
Monty stared. “N-No?”
Harry shook her head, her hair starting to come unpinned at the edges. “No.”
And in one swift movement, she had turned on her heels and walked to the coach. It rattled away, leaving Monty standing alone in the street.
Chapter Sixteen
Just another five minutes.
That was all it would take, Harry was sure. In fact, she was absolutely certain if she could ignore the knocking for another five minutes, it would eventually go away.
The bangs on her bedroom door continued for another ten minutes, but Harry did not even look around. She was quite content where she was, nestled in her bed under the largest eiderdown she had ever seen.
Fleetwood had been most obliging, fetching it from storage, and now that she was nicely tucked away, she saw no reason to open her bedroom door whatsoever.
No matter how many hours they would knock.
Why could Josiah not leave her alone? His shouting through the door a few hours ago had been most unnecessary, and Harry had covered her head with a pillow until he went away.
This was her home, too, and she did not think she could have made her desires more clear. After all, she had slammed her bedroom door, locked it, and refused to come out all day.
She did not want to think. She wanted to sleep, which she could do easily if not for this incessant knocking.
“Go away,” she shouted.
The knocking, previously steady and consistent, stopped.
The knocking started again.
Harry closed her eyes once more and pulled a pillow over her face.
“Go away!” she shouted.
After waiting for a full minute, Harry placed the pillow on the bed and rolled onto her side, tucking her knees in and hugging them.
Well, she had feared the worst, and the worst had happened. What could possibly occur now to give her more pain? At least that was some comfort; she could go through the world, knowing she would never have to experience pain worse than this again.
The fool. Monty had always been headstrong. It had been one of the things she had loved about him when they were young, entering society, stealing ices from the garden parties they attended, refusing to dance with anyone else save each other, and driving their parents to distraction for their discourtesy, riding their horses faster and faster until both they and their steeds were worn through.
But now that impetuous nature, that foolhardy ‘charge in and fix it later’ mentality had brought them here.
Proposing marriage to her, not because he loved her, or because he had seen their connection, or because living without his best friend would have made his life empty.
All perfectly good reasons, but no. He certainly did not love her. Not one word of how he felt about her had been uttered.
No, he wanted to rescue her reputation—and his own, of course. After the entire night and most of this morning to dwell on their conversation, unpick every detail, Harry had realized no other woman was likely to accept his hand with Harry waiting in the wings.
“Oh, Harry, you would be a fool to say no, now your reputation is ruined—’tis not like anyone else is going to make a counteroffer!”
She closed her eyes. She had successfully kept back the tears last night, fear outweighing grief.
Tears, hot and burning her face, now trickled from her eyes.
If only she could wake from his nightmare and find it was all a dream, her mind’s way of exploring what would happen if she and Monty attempted the impossible, to go from being best friends to lovers.
Or even better, if she could turn back the clock and decide not to climb up the old oak tree that stood outside Monty’s bedchamber, and not surprise him with her presence—and not allow her robe to fall and reveal herself to him.
She smiled through the tears. It was difficult to regret that night, even now, even knowing what it had cost her. She had experienced such pleasure, known such closeness with a man she could not stop thinking about.
Pleasure she would never know again.
“I am going to give you such pleasure, you will never want another man.”
But it was not to be.
A scraping noise made Harry’s eyes snap open as her locked door opened and slammed shut by a figure who had entered the room.
It was Honora. She leaned against the door and shook her head.
“B-But,” spluttered Harry, staring at her sister-in-law, “but I locked it!”
Honora’s sly smile deepened into a wicked one, and she stepped across the room to sit on the bed.
“When your brother wanted to marry me and thought I was lost to him forever,” Honora said in a matter-of-fact voice, “he came to my family seat and knocked on a door for over four hours. Did you know that?”
Harry blinked. “What?”
Honora nodded. “His argument afterward, I think, was that knocking once showed interest, knocking twice showed intent, but knocking several hundred times showed insistence.”
None of her words made any sense, and Harry stared. “How did you get in here?”
“Do you think Fleetwood does not have a spare key for every door in this place?” Honora shook her head. “Honestly, Harry, I am surprised at you.”
Harry grinned despite herself. “My brother could have married anyone. He was quite a sought-after partner at most engagements, and I am a fortunate sister that he decided to marry you, am I not?”
She nodded. “It could have been anyone, indeed, and yet I would argue I am the lucky one. Now. All these tears.”
At once, Harry felt bitterness and frustration rise. “I thought I was clear before. I want to be left alone, Honora, I…everyone needs to go away.”
She had been rude, but Honora did not look affronted. In fact, Harry’s words seemed to please her.
Smiling, Honora said softly, “I know the difference between the ‘go away I am with a gentleman’ moan and the ‘go away I hate the world’ moan.”
Harry leaned against the headboard and sighed deeply. She didn’t have a sister and had never wanted one. Her brother Josiah was more than enough to be getting on with, and while she had Letitia at almost every social occasion, she also had Monty.
But it was moments like this which reminded Harry that sisters, or the sisters you found for yourself, were necessary. You needed other women around you, and after losing her mother, she had experienced a dearth of women she could turn to.
There were few people in the world she could talk to about this, and even fewer she wanted to. But if there was one person who would actually understand her frustration with gentlemen, it was Honora.
Honora said in a businesslike tone, “Well, it does not matter if you do not want to talk about it. I think I have a fairly good handle on the situation—I have seen it before. You have fallen in love, and your affections are not reciprocated. Have I gone wrong anywhere?”
“Just in one detail. Monty offered for my hand last night.”
Honora laughed drily. “Let me make sure I understand this correctly. You are in love with him, and he has offered you marriage. And the problem is?”
Harry bit the corner of her lip. It all sounded so obvious when Honora said it like that, so simple—but their friendship, or whatever it was now, was far from simple.
“He only propose
d because of the gossip Mrs. Bryant is printing all over the place,” Harry said wretchedly. “He did not actually want to marry me, for he as good as said so. Something ridiculous about my reputation, about…about no one wanting to marry me anyway.”
Honora sighed and shook her head. “Gentlemen are not known for their delicacy, Harry, and from what I have seen of Monty, he is of the ‘speak now, think if you have time later’ breed.”
Harry snorted. “You have the measure of him rather quickly.”
Her sister-in-law smiled. “When you have been in the…the profession I have, a quick measure of a man could be the difference between riches and a rather boring time.”
Harry could not help herself. She laughed, then clapped her hands over her mouth in horror, her eyes wide.
“Honora, I did not mean to—I am sorry—”
“Please, do not trouble yourself,” her sister-in-law said gently. “You think I cannot look back on parts of it and laugh? Laughter is a great healer, and it has certainly helped me to look past what I was and become the person I am. The question is, why has becoming engaged to Monty made you so miserable?”
“I did not accept him.”
It was Honora’s turn to look confused. “But… you are in love with him.”
Harry’s temper flared, and it was all she could do to quell it. “Just because I am in love with a gentleman, that does not mean I should fall over backward to accept him when all he does is ask where my brother is and tell me no one else will ever want me! Honora, he proposed out of guilt.”
“And is that a problem?”
Harry stared open-mouthed at her sister-in-law, who laughed and tucked up her legs onto the bed to sit facing her.
“Oh, Harry, do not be fooled by the title I bear—or indeed, the title I had before,” Honora said lightly. “Between those times I was a courtesan, and I learned more about men than I thought anyone could absorb in a lifetime.”
Her voice was light and airy, but there was a darkness in her eyes Harry had not seen before. They had not spoken of this, beyond vague allusions. Josiah had told her not to ask questions. She was not one to pry.
Even though she was curious as sin to find out more.
“Men are confusing,” she said instead of the thousand and one questions she wanted to ask. “They have no rhyme nor reason, acting for themselves.”
But Honora shook her head. “Plenty of rhyme, though I would agree not that much reason. They have what I suppose I would call their internal, masculine logic, even if most of us ladies do not understand it. They operate on their own code, a code they share with no one except other men—and even then, not always. They think what they are doing makes sense, and so they do not bother to explain themselves.”
Harry sighed. “It is exhausting.”
“For them or for us?”
“For us, of course!” Harry exploded, her fiery anger finally spilling over. “God, Honora, we have to be quiet and bend and scrape, never do what we want, never go where we want, and—”
“You have more freedom than most women in this country,” interrupted Honora with a sharp look. “Do not lose yourself so deeply in your sorrow, Harry, that you forget you are titled and wealthy. You do not need to marry, and you do not need to work. You are free.”
A flicker of discomfort moved in Harry’s stomach.
“I do not mean… I know I am fortunate,” she said quietly. “I want to understand him, but it as though he has gone out of his way to hurt me. And I love him, but I cannot allow myself to be hurt again.”
“Even if most of us ladies do not understand it, men are quite simple. They are…they are like locks. Once you have the key,” and she waved her spare key to Harry’s bedroom door, “then it becomes easy to unlock them.”
Harry smiled sadly and stretched out her legs on the bed. “It does not matter whether I will ever understand Monty or not. He does not understand me, or he would not have offered like that. To think of being in a marriage in which one person has inadvertently—well, trapped the other.”
“Trapped?”
“You read the newspaper,” said Harry wretchedly. “I could not live with myself, forcing a man like that, a man I love, to be wed to a woman he does not care for. Am I to be his jailor?”
Honora smiled sadly, then frowned as a thought occurred to her. “Are you sure he does not care for you? Is he indifferent to you or love another?”
Harry swallowed and tried to think back. “He made no speeches of love, either for me or for any other.”
“I do not mean declarations,” Honora said swiftly. “I said, does he care for you?”
Harry opened her mouth to immediately respond in the negative before stopping herself. If she ignored the conversation last night, and she desperately wanted to, and thought back to the last two weeks, four weeks, four years, there were acres of conversations to consider.
She swallowed. In their lovemaking, he had been kind, gentle, restrained, and yet attentive. In their lives, they had joked together, ridden together, laughed together. He had taken her advice, sought her counsel, and given her his advice when she had needed it.
Even when she wanted to be alone, she could be with him.
At every turning point in her life, at every moment she felt alone, in every decision that meant something, Monty was there. Her one constant, other than her twin brother. Her one dependable, the gentleman she knew she could always speak to, always seek out.
And had she not done the same? Had he not sought her out, wanted her company?
Had he not kissed her passionately in the lane?
“Wouldn’t it be easier if…if you could just pick me?”
“Harriet.”
“That is…friendship,” Harry said slowly into the silence. “’Tis not the same as love. I do not want friendship alone from him, I want love.”
“Is not friendship a kind of love?”
Harry snorted. “Honora, you would not have married Josiah if you had just liked him!”
For an instant, Honora hesitated. “Probably not. But that does not mean it is wrong. I think you would be surprised how many couples, particularly in the nobility of England and Ireland, have made perfectly good marriages, and from friendship blossoms something I think even they would describe as love.”
Harry shook her head. “It would not be enough for me.”
Honora shrugged. “Only you can know your own mind, but if you ask me, gentlemen typically get all the opportunity to control things. Perhaps it is about time we took back control.”
Harry’s heart contracted painfully, not with agony, but with something close to excitement.
Could she do it? Was it even possible to consider marriage to Monty knowing he esteemed her only as a companion? Was it possible to do life side by side with a man you loved, knowing in your heart of hearts he saw you as naught but a best friend?
Harry looked up to see Honora smiling.
“If you want him, and he is offering himself to you, take him,” Honora said calmly. “He is your best friend, after all—that is what everyone tells me about the two of you. Either you will fall out of love with him, and you will still have a good time with your best friend, or,” and here Honora laughed, “you’ll stay in love with him, and you have won him from the snatching hands of all the other young ladies out there who want him.”
Harry stared, barely able to comprehend what she was saying. “You…you think I should accept him?”
Honora grinned mischievously. “It is much easier to fall in love with one’s wife than with a best friend. You will be the Duchess of Devonshire. You would be Montague Cavendish’s wife.”
Chapter Seventeen
Not a sound had disturbed him for hours. Not the footsteps in the hallway, not the clattering of a dropped plate, nor the scolding of the poor footman.
A log shifted in the grate, but still, he sat there, eyes open but his mind elsewhere.
When the clock chimed eleven times, Monty jumped and stared aro
und, unsure exactly how he had managed to get here.
Eleven—eleven o’clock! But it had felt like a few minutes since it was seven o’clock and he had come in here to think before dinner. Had he even had dinner?
His stomach rumbled in reply. No, he had not eaten, and by the looks of things, no one had been brave enough to remind the master of the house that his food was cooling in the dining room.
Monty shifted in his leather seat in the study and groaned. So, this was what a house was like without a butler or housekeeper.
How on earth had it come to this? Monty shook himself and sat upright.
After being so careful, after doing what he thought was the right thing, he had lost his best friend. Harry had walked away from him last night without looking back, without caring how he felt after she had spat those words at him.
The Chester carriage had been driven away, and with it, the only woman he had ever loved.
Loved. Monty’s face twisted in a painful smile. What did he know of love, really? He had thought he loved her.
Could he call it love if the words he spoke tore her apart with anger and bitterness? The pain on her face when he had offered for her hand had hurt him deeply.
With a heavy sigh, Monty leaned forward to screw back the link on his ink pot. It was drying out, sitting exposed to the open air for so many hours, and he was not going to get any more work done. That was certain.
He should put all the ledgers back into the safe and write off the day as a bad job. There was a bottle of brandy at the back of his drinks cabinet, which he could make out in the gloom. He could end the day feeling heat in his bones and call that contentedness if he could trick himself into believing such a lie.
Monty walked heavily across the room, each limb heavy as lead, but as he dropped into an armchair by the grate, it was impossible to lose himself completely in the amber liquid and forget all his troubles.
Not with such a commotion in the hall.
“Sir—sir, you simply cannot!” Mrs. Miller, the housekeeper his brother had lent him while he searched for a new one, was shrieking in the hallway.
Always the Best Friend (Never the Bride Book 4) Page 14
