Mismatched Couple

Chapter One: Gossip

Miss Harmony Barrett gazed longingly at the door.
She knew the precise location of Lord Darlington’s library, for she’d already stolen there several times to explore his impressive collection of books. She was certain he would not be angry if he caught her at it, but she still snuck in and out like a thief. Perhaps it was because the Darlingtons’ library felt so private. It felt like a hideaway, a shelter.
She wished she could hide away there right now.
Instead she was stuck with her silly set of young unmarried women, listening to an endless, cloying dissection of each and every gentleman guest at Danbury House. The Earl of So-and-So had the most handsome blond curls, and Lord Whomever was the most elegant dancer, didn’t everyone believe so? And had everyone heard that Sir Horrid Rake and Lady Poor Choices had stolen off behind the carriage house yesterday to be alone? That was the girls’ cue to dissolve en masse into giddy giggles. Oh, and didn’t the Honorable Mr. Barrett have the most beautiful eyes in the world?
Harmony cringed. Mr. Barrett was her scoundrel brother and he was to marry Lady Meredith Airleigh at the holidays. This did not prevent him from spending his summer fraternizing with all the ladies at the house party.
“Mr. Barrett is a cad,” Harmony said, “if you must know.”
“Oh, hush.” Lady Mirabel Godwin tapped Harmony’s head with her white lace fan. “Of course you’d think so, but I would forgive him anything for those eyes.”
“He is going to be married,” Harmony said stubbornly. “His eyes are betrothed to another.” She didn’t understand the girls’ obsession with her brother’s appearance. His eyes were a very plain shade of blue like hers, and his hair the same white-blond, and she was certainly not fawned over by any of the gentlemen.
Lady Mirabel sniffed and turned away from Harmony, edging her out of the group. “Do you know what I heard? His Grace the Duke of Courtland has finally arrived to the party, along with his mother and her companion. Perhaps we’ll see them at dinner, although I am not sure I shall be brave enough to speak to such a lofty person. If I am seated beside him I might faint into my soup.”
The idea of this sent the group off into more titters and swoons. A few older women came to join them now that His Grace was the topic. Harmony half-listened to their gossip about his wealth, his opulent estates, his appealing features. Another fine specimen for her contemporaries to prattle on about.
“Why do you suppose he has not married?” asked Miss Juliette Pettyfur.
“There are reasons.” Mrs. Castleton’s voice held a note of distaste. “I wouldn’t set your cap for that one.”
“All dukes must marry at some point,” Miss Viola Burress said, but then another woman said something about “uncomfortable habits,” and the older ladies shushed her and urged the younger women outdoors into the sunshine to take their tea.
It was there, with their heads bowed together, that the younger set of ladies whispered about what his “uncomfortable habits” might be.
“Well, if he is thirty years old and not married, that means he is a rake,” said Mirabel.
“It does not mean that at all,” Juliette retorted.
Lady Sybil looked around at the other girls with an expression of gravity. “I probably should not say this, but Papa has warned me against him.”
“There, you see,” said Mirabel. “He is a rake.”
“I believe he must be something worse than a rake.” Viola flushed. “Did you see the older ladies’ expressions when his name was brought up?”
Harmony wondered what could possibly be worse than a rake. From the silent, uneasy pall that fell over the group, she supposed she wasn’t the only one.
“Mrs. Castleton said there are reasons he hasn’t married. What could they possibly be?” Mirabel whispered.
“I do not know,” said Sybil, “but my brother spoke something of him to papa when he was considering the duke for my hand. Whatever he said, papa refused to repeat it to mama.”
This elicited horrified gasps from the entire company.
“Perhaps he has killed someone!” said one of the more fanciful girls. “A duke could get away with it.”
“I bet he has the most cold and sinister eyes,” another girl said.
“I’m frightened,” whimpered another. “Why would they invite him here among civilized people?”
“If he killed someone, why would the Darlingtons invite him into their home?” Mirabel asked. “A duke cannot run about killing people on a whim. Dukes are powerful, but not that powerful.”
“Yes,” agreed Juliette. “How silly to leap from ‘uncomfortable habits’ to ‘murderer.’ As for his cold and sinister eyes, I thought he was considered handsome.”
“I have seen him in town,” said Sybil. “He is uncommonly tall, with dark hair and attractive features. He is handsome. Dangerously so.” She raised a brow for emphasis.
Harmony was not sure how one could be dangerously handsome. Perhaps women fainted just from looking at him.
“He probably keeps dozens of mistresses,” Viola said.
“Maybe he cannot keep even one, because he is so awful to them,” said the fanciful girl. “Maybe he draws them in with his attractive features and then trods upon their hearts.”
“Or beats them,” suggested another. “Or kills them.”
Harmony sighed as the young women joined hands, promising to protect one another from the terrifying menace of his wiles.
“Perhaps it is only that he drinks too much at dinner,” Harmony drawled. “Or eats too much, and belches loudly and repeatedly. That would be an uncomfortable habit indeed.”
As usual, all the girls looked at her as though she were mad. Which she nearly was, after days of listening to them natter on about the stupidest subjects. She stared back at them until they all looked down at their plates.
“Well,” Sybil declared after a beat. “All I know is that I wouldn’t take him for a husband even if papa would let me, which he won’t. In fact, I am determined not to speak to him if we are introduced.”
One of the younger girls gasped. “Will you give the Duke of Courtland the cut direct? I should like to see you try it.”
The girls all began to giggle again, proclaiming they would also be bold enough to cut the duke, and wouldn’t it leave him red in the face?
Harmony doubted he would notice. If the duke was a rake and a bounder with armfuls of mistresses, he was unlikely to crumble at the disdain of a few young ladies. Thank goodness Harmony was not concerned with such nonsense. She was only here at this house party because her brother Stephen had ingratiated his way into an invitation. “It’s for you,” he had said. “For you to make a match. Any match. You aren’t getting any younger, and father and I shall not support you forever.” His pressure didn’t help matters. When this cursed party was at an end, perhaps they would resign themselves to her inevitable spinsterhood and allow her to study and bide alone to her heart’s content.
“Harmony?” Sybil’s strident voice interrupted her thoughts. “Would you?”
“Would I what?”
The ladies sighed and exchanged glances.
“Of course she would,” Sybil said under her breath. “Someone like her would not think twice about it.”
“I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about,” Harmony said with a pricked temper. “And I’m not sure I’ll answer since you used that mocking tone.”
“I am only teasing you.” She tapped Harmony’s arm with her fan. Harmony thought she would break the fan over top of Sybil’s head next time she was tapped, and enjoy doing so.
“Harmony!” Sybil said, breaking into her thoughts again. “I’m speaking of His Grace. Would you dance with the Duke of Courtland if he asked?”
“Tonight?”
Sybil threw up her hands in irritation. “Whenever. Yes. Tonight.”
“He won’t ask, so it’s rather a pointless question.”
Sybil looked at the others. “I told you. Yes, she would.”
“You are all unkind,” Harmony said. “Perhaps he is a fine gentleman. You haven’t even met him, only shared gossip which is probably untrue.”
“How earnest you are,” Mirabel sneered, looking around at the others. “She has shamed us, hasn’t she? Well, then, we shall leave his prodigious charms to you.” All the young ladies found that idea hilarious.
“I have had enough fresh air.” Harmony took to her feet, to the insincere protests and apologies of her friends. Of course they would want her to stay; she made such a pleasant target for their barbs. “The sun is too strong today. Have a fine afternoon.”
She ignored their whispers as she left the garden and made her way to the house. The gentlemen were out hunting and the older ladies still at tea. It was the perfect time for a stolen couple of hours in Lord Darlington’s library. She shed her bonnet in her room, then hurried down the main hallway to a staircase with a great carved banister that led to the main floor. With no footmen in sight, Harmony let herself into the library and closed the doors behind her. The room was tucked away in a corner of the manor, an intimate space with an ornate ceiling and tall, laden shelves. There were several chairs and a deep, tufted sofa near the fireplace, with a massive desk between the two windows, facing out into the room.
How Harmony would love a desk like that. After she scanned the shelves and selected a couple of titles, she crossed to the mahogany monstrosity, running her fingers over the carved edges. Why, the desktop was large enough to be a bed. She imagined lying across the top under a blanket, with a pillow cradling her head. Whenever she finished a book and wanted another, she would be right there in the library to fetch one. Bliss!
She moved to the chair, which was nearly as tall as she. With some effort she drew it back and sat down on its weathered seat. So this was how it felt to be lord of the manor. She planted her elbows on the armrests and snuggled back into the chair. If only she were lord of her own estate. Then she might do as she pleased without her brother telling her no, or that it wasn’t ladylike, or she must ask her father or some other nonsense.
Halfway through a vivid fantasy about telling her brother off, she heard a creak and the sound of the library doors swinging open. She slid from the chair into the recessed underside of the desk. Was it only a servant come to dust and organize the books? Was it Lord Darlington, home early from the hunt? Why had she hidden? Now she would have to spring out and shock the person, or risk being found crouched down in this hideyhole, skirts tangled around her legs. Perhaps she would just be very still and hope she wasn’t found. The person would have to leave eventually.
She made her ample figure as small as she could and inched a little farther against the back of the desk’s enclosure, gripping her books in her lap. Quiet. Quiet as a mouse.
*** *** ***
Court prowled the library shelves, relieved to be sprung from the confines of the ducal carriage, luxurious though it might be. It had taken an entire week to travel north from London to Harrogate, a week during which his mother and her companion’s chatter never ceased. Court had nearly recovered in the lazy baths of the spa town when he had to travel again with the elderly ladies to this house party in Sedgefield. Then there would be the lengthy journey back to London in a few weeks’ time.
He couldn’t think of that now. He would put it out of his mind and enjoy the comforts of the Darlingtons’ home. “Only the quality,” his mother had crowed on the journey. “Such elegant affairs, always. There will be grand dinners and fine conversation, and music and dancing every night for the young people. With such bright company, how could a hostess resist? Perhaps we shall even watch affection blossom between some lucky lady and gentleman.”
Mrs. Lyndon had grinned. “Oh, yes, madam. A country match and a winter wedding back in town.”
Both old women had then looked pointedly at Court.
God confound him. Until a few weeks ago the matter of his marriage had been settled, the proper alliance decided upon when he was a young boy. Ah, Gwen, with her sleek dark hair, her wide, serene eyes. They had grown up on neighboring estates in Hertfordshire, and from their earliest years had understood their intertwined destinies. While other boys teased and chased her skirts, Court treated her with the tender deference due a future wife. When he’d gone to London as a young man, he’d been discreet in his wilder adventures lest he shame her or cause her discomfort. Court, his parents, and everyone in society had assumed she would eventually become the mother of the Courtland heirs.
Until her father, Lord Tremayne, announced her betrothal to the Earl of Wembley, a man lesser to Court in every way. A love match, Tremayne explained in an attempt to preserve the long-standing bonds between the families.
But there was more to it than that. Gwen had looked at him differently once the gossip started to surface, sordid tales and half-truths exaggerating his use of spanking parlors and brothels. Oh, Court was bad, but he wasn’t that bad. Her worshipful gazes had become something more like fear. Didn’t she understand he never would have exposed her to that side of him? On pure rumor—so much of it untrue—his Gwendolyn, the future Duchess of Courtland, had passed on his great wealth and attributes to marry a silly country earl.
Court would never admit to nursing a broken heart, but perhaps he was.
His mother didn’t care about his hurt pride, his bruised feelings. She wanted him to choose a different duchess, the sooner the better, and produce a child. This foray north was a matchmaking caper, the house party a convenient aggregation of acceptable female blood. His mother ranted and railed on the topic of Gwen and assured him he could do ten times better if he applied himself. The problem was, after so many years, Court found it difficult to imagine marrying anyone else.
He put these maudlin thoughts aside to enjoy the ambiance of Darlington’s library. It smelled of leather and faintly of cigar smoke, and contained a quantity of interesting volumes. Occasionally he took down a book and leafed through it, looking for some history or novel with which to pass the afternoon, for he was not a man at ease in leisure and he was far from the places he felt at home. His clubs, his political offices, his house in St. James Square. His country estate was off limits, now that Gwen had set up house with her new husband just a few miles from what ought to have been her home at Courtland Manor.
Blast.
Tomorrow he could join the gentlemen at fishing and hunting, tromp through fields, get dirty and vulgar and shoot a grouse or two. He was good at such sport like any member of his set, though he was generally disinterested in killing things. Something about handing the carcasses over to the servants to be duly prepared and presented at dinner always smacked of wilting affluence to him. He would much rather shoot and prepare his own game over his own fire and eat it standing out in the woods like a savage.
Perhaps that was his problem. There was a savage inside him, trussed up in a waistcoat, coat, and starched neckcloth, gasping for air. Add a couple of elderly companions, a society house party, giggling young ladies, and the savage was smothered completely.
Court gave up on the bookshelves and moved to one of the windows to survey his host’s property. Lovely garden, lake, some outbuildings, and a glass house in the distance. It was very much like Wembley’s estate. Grand but livable. Large, but not so large that one felt dwarfed. In other words, nothing at all like his houses. He crossed to Darlington’s desk, a handsome wooden structure set between the two windows, and sprawled back in the chair. He slung one booted foot over the other and laced his hands behind his head. Ah, but it felt damn good to stretch his legs after so many hours in the coach’s cramped interior—
But then his foot contacted some soft, resistant surface that emitted a feminine squeak.
He leaned down to find a pair of wide blue eyes staring back at him, framed by mussed blonde curls. At first he thought a child had escaped the nursery, but a glance at her bodice dispelled that notion. She was a woman—a beautiful woman—inexplicably crouching at his feet. “What are you doing under there?” His voice sounded sharp. Since the shock of Gwen’s jilting, he’d come to abhor surprises.
“I’m hoping you will leave,” she said in an earnest whisper.
“I would rather not leave until I know why you’re hiding under Lord Darlington’s desk. Are you in some sort of danger?”
“I—I might be.” From the shadows beneath the desk he could see her shapely bosom rise and fall. She peered out at him, one long curl falling over an eye. “Are you, by any chance, going to leave directly?”
“No.”
“Oh. I wish you would.”
He could see a couple of books clutched in her hand. “What have you there? A pair of romantic novels?”
“No, sir. Not romantic novels exactly. Might I ask who you are?”
“I will tell you who I am if you will show me your books.” He didn’t know why he pestered her. Because it amused him. Because it had discomfited him so to find her hiding there, and he wanted to discomfit her also. She pursed her lips, then looked down to read from the spines.
“A History of English Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century.” She handed it up to him. “And Genghis Khan and the Great Mongol Empire.”
Not romantic novels. Not even close. Court placed the books on Lord Darlington’s desk, feeling unwelcome curiosity about the creature. “Will you come out so I may introduce myself properly?”
“I would rather not.”
“Because you prefer to read under there, or because you’re embarrassed?”
“I am deeply humiliated and wish you would forget this encounter completely.”
He frowned. “I doubt I shall manage that. However, since I am a gentleman and you have asked me twice to leave, I will comply with your wishes.”
As he stood to go, he heard a soft sound from beneath the desk. “Please…”
“Yes?”
“Will you give back the books?”
“Of course.” He passed them down, pressing them into the small hand that emerged. “I wish you good day.”
Court walked out, thinking the house party was not off to the most auspicious start, when one was obliged to converse with a strange woman huddled under the host’s desk. He walked the halls for a half hour or so, until he felt less rattled and more relaxed again. Back in his private parlor, he found his mother and Mrs. Lyndon returned from tea, trading captious gossip on the sofa.
“Did you find Lady Emberley’s bonnet quite out of fashion?” his mother appealed to Mrs. Lyndon. “I was shocked at how dilapidated it was. That rose silk—I daresay it was from two seasons ago.”
Mrs. Lyndon tut-tutted and agreed that she found it quite out of style for the wife of an earl, particularly the rose silk.
His mother looked up at him and indicated the chair to her right. “Come and sit with us, dear. Have you toured the house? Did you find it pleasing? And did you happen to glimpse Lady Emberley’s bonnet?”
“The house is exemplary. And no, I did not see this bonnet.” He strained to sound pleasant as he seated himself near the pair. “I’m sure, despite her bonnet’s dilapidation, that the lady herself is all that is proper and kind.”
His mother’s eyes widened at his subtle reprimand. “She would have been kinder had she worn a nicer bonnet. It hurt my eyes.”
“What of Mrs. Dawson’s hair?” Mrs. Lyndon asked. Both ladies tittered.
“Perhaps it is the style in Yorkshire,” said his mother. “But I found it so very…ugly. Yes, I cannot think of a milder word.”
“Hideous,” Mrs. Lyndon offered.
“Hideous is less mild,” the duchess chided her friend. “But called for in this case.”
Court sighed, almost wishing himself back in conversation with the chit beneath the desk. At least then he had been repeatedly asked to leave, whereas now, since he’d seated himself, he was stuck by courtesy for at least ten minutes.
“Honestly, Courtland, I wish you would not look so sour.” His mother leaned forward to tap at his knee. “You will have your hunting on the morrow, and many esteemed gentlemen to smoke and play cards with. And there are so many lovely ladies in attendance, all of them eager to meet a dashing and distinguished duke.”
“Are there?” he asked in a bored tone. “Too bad they are stuck with me.”
Her sharp hazel eyes snapped. “For Lady Darlington’s sake, you must make an effort to engage with her guests. Particularly the ladies. It is high time you settled on a bride.” His mother puffed up like a hen ruffling its feathers. “Perhaps gossip of your unfortunate proclivities will not have reached these remote moors.”
Court grimaced and considered, just for a moment, flinging himself from the nearby window. “Do not be offensive, mother.”
“Oh,” the duchess exclaimed. “Speaking of offensive, you will never guess who is here. Lord Morrow’s children! Do you remember the viscount? He was one of your father’s odder friends.”
“I never made his acquaintance.” He knew of him, although Viscount Morrow had retired from society in recent years. He remembered him as a studious, serious fellow, forthright in manners, which Court respected. His son, Mr. Barrett, was a few years younger than Court and not a member of his set.
His mother pounced on this lack of knowledge, eager to share what she’d learned. “Apparently Stephen Barrett is not the best sort. He is given to vice and leisure as are so many young men these days, and his sister is five seasons out now, poor dear. The ladies say she is woefully strange in manners. She must be tiresome to all the gentlemen,” she said in an aside to Mrs. Lyndon, who sighed appropriately.
Court arched a brow. “I thought Lady Darlington’s parties only had the quality.”
“Oh, you are very rude today.” His mother scowled and fluttered her fan. “Now, you see, Viscount Morrow was a particular friend of Lord Darlington in their younger days, and so they must be civil to his son and daughter. The son, at least, is engaged to the Earl of Needham’s daughter. Mr. Barrett must be dashing to win an earl’s daughter, or perhaps it’s the Morrow fortune.”
“What is left of it,” Mrs. Lyndon intoned.
“But you shall have to avoid the sister,” his mother said. “I heard at the Bettlemans’ ball in London last season, Lord Bettleman took pity on Miss Barrett and offered her a dance, and she spoke to him nearly the entire set on the topic of Mongol hordes.” His mother whispered the latter words as if they were not fit to utter aloud. “Can you imagine his chagrin?”
Mongol hordes? It could not be coincidence. Nothing in Court’s blasé expression revealed that he had already met this young woman—or that he had spent the last half hour trying to forget the image of her peering up from between his legs.
“And there was some debacle at Almack’s,” his mother continued, “so traumatizing to those in attendance that the ladies will not speak of it.”
The old women clucked at one another behind their fans. Miss Barrett seemed to have created significant mayhem across her five unsuccessful seasons, which wasn’t surprising considering what he knew of her thus far.
His mother’s lips went tight. “Suffice it to say, no one would associate with her after that. What a sorry situation for Lord Morrow,” she said to Mrs. Lyndon, who nodded in mournful agreement. “An odd daughter and a son who does not understand responsibility and couth. It is heartbreaking when sons disappoint, is it not, Mrs. Lyndon? Although, at least, Mr. Barrett has managed a fine match for himself.”
His mother gave him a speaking glance. Court ignored her and studied the floral pattern on the arm of his chair. “Perhaps Miss Barrett and I would make a good match. Perhaps I shall court her here in the north and bring home a bride. What do you think, mother? Might we suit?”
The duchess gasped and feigned a fit of vapors while Mrs. Lyndon shook her head, her loose chin skin wiggling like a turkey’s wattle.
“You will do no such thing, Benedict Thomas William Hawthorne,” his mother cried. “Imagine, the Duke of Courtland paying his addresses to the daughter of a viscount. A peculiar daughter at that!”
Court glanced out the window at the late-summer moors. “I might like a wife with whom I can discuss Mongol hordes.”
His mother gave a beleaguered sigh and whispered viciously to Mrs. Lyndon. In truth, she had nothing to fear. He hadn’t the heart to court any woman at Sedgefield, peculiar or not. He was for cards and a little hunting. Otherwise, he would make himself scarce.
He would survive this house party just as he survived all the others he was compelled to attend.

Chapter Two: Magic

Every night after dinner, the entire company retired to Lady Darlington’s largest drawing room to socialize and make merry, and every night Harmony lagged behind, dreading the proceedings. There were refreshments and punch, and pleasant music provided by the more talented guests. The gentlemen asked all the ladies to dance, except for Harmony, who had not yet been invited to dance by anyone. She hid within the protective circle of her acquaintances, perfectly happy not to reveal her two left feet.
At least Stephen was having fun mucking about with Lady Smythe-Dorsey and Mrs. Waring every chance he got. When Harmony had confronted him about being unfaithful to his fiancée, he’d laughed at her. “You don’t understand the ways of society. These flirtations are perfectly acceptable. In fact, they’re expected at parties like these. It is better to be a jovial, sociable guest than a prim stuck-up like you.”
A prim stuck-up. Apparently this was the gentlemen’s assessment of her, along with the other usual descriptors, “strange” and “odd.” At least there was no gossip of her hiding under desks in libraries, even though three days had passed since her encounter with the Duke of Courtland. Something so horrifically embarrassing could only happen to her. She wondered why he did not tell tales about their meeting when he could so easily amuse his friends.
As for her friends’ staunch intentions to snub His Grace—every topic of conversation now revolved around him.
The duke did not appear anything like the villain they’d expected. His teeth were white and straight and his eyes intelligent, set off by dark eyebrows. His face was neither broad nor narrow, but just right, with a masculine nose and fine, well-shaped lips. His chin was strong without seeming pointy or prominent. Taken together, the duke was indeed dangerously handsome, though not in a classical sense. It was more that when one looked at the Duke of Courtland, one wished to keep looking.
But Harmony dared not. The duke had noticed her at dinner the very first night, his eyes glinting in wary recognition. His arch expression left no doubt he remembered how they’d met. Since then, she had kept her gaze on her lap or the carpet, leaving her friends to comment upon his every expression and movement from the corner where they spied on him.
“He is so tall,” Viola said breathlessly. “Each time I see him I am shocked by his height.”
Mirabel fingered her fan. “Look how he stares about at everyone without smiling. He is too severe.”
“His hair is disordered,” said another girl.
“I thought he would look older,” said Juliette. “He is old, is he not?”
“He does not dance with anyone,” sniffed Sybil. “How rude. He probably doesn’t know how.”
They fell silent, peeking at him from behind their fans. Harmony allowed herself a long look too, now that he was occupied talking to his friends. The duke was in evening black with a neatly tied cravat and elegant jewelry glittering at his neck and hands. Nothing too ostentatious. No, the ostentatious thing was the air of power and hauteur he wore as easily as his fine clothes. His expression was carefully neutral, yes, almost severe. His handsome features were framed by dark hair worn slightly longer than was the fashion. He did not smile, not even once, in the course of his conversations.
“I believe he can dance very well.” Mirabel’s voice sounded slow, almost predatory. She looked over her shoulder at Harmony. “You are the one who was willing to dance with him. Go stand near him and see if he’ll ask you.”
The girls tittered. Harmony set her chin. “I never said I was willing. I dislike dancing.”
Sybil’s lips curled. “I can’t imagine why. Come, ladies, let us rejoin the company of our young gentlemen. As for the Duke of Courtland, he may stand and glower all he likes but he shall not impress me.”
Harmony stayed behind, as they doubtless intended her to. The girls massed in the center of the drawing room, arranging themselves with their favored beaux for the next set as an old matron plinked doggedly at the piano. Harmony shouldn’t be jealous that her friends had such fun, that they enjoyed flirtation and the attentions of their suitors. She wished she wasn’t jealous, but in quiet, weak moments, she desperately wanted to be like them. She wanted gentlemen to shoulder each other out of the way for her attention, to hang on her every word, however vapid those words would have to be. She wished a gentleman, just one gentleman, would notice her.
But then she remembered that she didn’t like to be vapid, and she didn’t wish her entire life to revolve around the attention of men.
There was only one man among the guests who interested her anyway, and that was the mysterious, worse-than-a-rake duke. What were his uncomfortable habits? How many mistresses did he have and what awful things did he do to them, that Lady Sybil’s papa must strike the duke from his list of acceptable candidates for her hand? The duke did not seem at all perverse in his manners. In fact, he had been quite civil to her when she’d surprised him under Lord Darlington’s desk.
Harmony watched as the wealthy peer drifted into the card room and out again, then went to the punch bowl for a drink. His hair was slightly unconventional, perhaps due to a mild case of curls. One dubious aspect of an otherwise very sedate person. Harmony dropped her gaze from his hair and stared at his gloved hands. Even across the room she could tell the duke’s gloves were impeccably fitted, of utmost quality. Everything about him screamed quality and propriety, and nothing uncomfortable at all. She rubbed her eyebrows and forced herself to stop staring. She was no better than her friends, speculating endlessly about him.
“Miss Barrett. Must you hide your beauty back here in this corner? It is not fair.” The booming voice of elderly Lord Monmouth startled her, along with the noisy creaking of his stays. Behind him, her brother gave her an urgent look. “Might I have the next dance, madam?” the old earl asked.
Harmony schooled her face to careful blankness even though she was quailing inside. Lord Monmouth was a kind man but his teeth were decaying and his figure was very…round. She forgot all about the sleek dark duke as she stared in horror at the earl’s extended arm.
“Lord Monmouth, forgive me, but I’m not feeling my best at the moment. I’m really too…”
Her brother caught her eye and glared a threat at her.
“I’m really too…bloated from dinner to…dance yet…” she finished weakly, eyeing Lord Monmouth’s rotund belly straining above his breeches.
“I am sorry to hear it,” Lord Monmouth grunted, his expression hardening. “I pray you feel better soon. Good evening to you.” Without further ado, he stalked past her brother and disappeared into the adjoining salon to join the other gentlemen at cards.
“Harmony!” Her brother vibrated with frustration. “Lord Monmouth is a widower. A rich widower, you twit. What of finding a match?”
“You cannot think I’d wish to marry that ancient gentleman?”
“What do your wishes have to do with anything?” Stephen pulled her up, wrenching her arm in the process. “I had to play nice with the man for nearly an hour, regaling him with tales of how sweet and misunderstood you are only to get him to come over here. And you—” He pinched her elbow painfully. “You tell him you are too bloated to dance with him? I am sure he’s even now sharing that entertaining tidbit with his card partners, and they are all having a great laugh at your expense.”
“Let go of me.” If they pulled at each other any harder, they would draw attention to themselves. “Release me,” she hissed. “You are hurting me.”
“It’s what you deserve. And if you are feeling so bloated, you can very well retire to your room for the evening. It embarrasses me, the way you skulk about. You won’t be happy until we’re both utter laughingstocks.”
He grasped her arm and forced her forward so she had no choice but to trip across the room under his simmering control. They were nearly to the door when a sudden hush descended on the company. The Duke of Courtland stepped right in front of them, his face a polite but rigid mask. He nodded to her brother and then waited for Harmony to acknowledge him—which she did with a shocked stare. He bowed slightly.
“Madam, I am sorry to have not made your acquaintance before now.”
*** *** ***
Court wondered what had come over him.
Well, any polite guest owed it to the hostess to participate at least marginally in the entertainments. Or become one, if circumstances called for it. He wasn’t about to let Barrett drag off his sister before the whole group. The unfortunate young miss gawked at him. An offer of her hand would have been the appropriate way to proceed, but her brother still had her by the arm. Court glared at him so fiercely he released her and took a step back.
“Your Grace, I am d—deeply honored to introduce my sister, Miss Harmony Barrett.”
Court nearly lost his composure over her name. Harmony? “Chaos” would have been more fitting. “Miss Barrett,” he said, taking her now-proffered hand and raising it to his lips. “The honor is mine. Would you care to dance the next set?” He looked back at the massing couples, all of whom were staring at them. “It begins shortly.”
Her pale blue eyes widened as her fingertips fluttered in his grasp. “Dance it…with you?”
He looked around. “Who else?”
She closed and opened her mouth again. “I— I—”
If she refused him it would be hilarious. It would be talked about in drawing rooms and ballrooms for years. He held her gaze, willing her to do as she wished, to refuse him if she wanted to. Blue, so very blue. Her eyes were a pale, clear blue and her features so delicately pretty.
“If you wish, Your Grace,” she finally managed, nodding her head and bobbing an awkward curtsy. He held her hand tighter and led her to the center of the room as her gaping brother looked on.
The set began just as they arrived, as if the other dancers had been waiting for them. Miss Barrett grimaced, flubbing very badly the first pair of turns. “I’m afraid I don’t dance well,” she said.
“You dance wonderfully.” He gave her a nudge through the next step so she didn’t turn the wrong way. She shot him a harried look that rather amused him. He caught a glimpse of his mother seated on the periphery with Mrs. Lyndon, all color drained from her face.
He grinned at Miss Barrett simply to goad his mother as they moved through the formations of the country dance. Over, under, turn left, turn right. He found dancing extremely boring, but partnering Miss Barrett livened up the proceedings. There were always stray arms to grab and adjustments in balance to keep him alert. His partner was grim-faced and silent, not once engaging him in a conversation about Mongol hordes, or Viking or Pictish hordes, or any other type of horde. For his part, he murmured encouragements when he wasn’t managing her unruly arms and dodging the trods of her feet.
In addition to her lack of natural coordination, they were confounded by a marked difference in size. Until now he’d only seen her under a desk, or across the room where perspective was harder to judge. He was tall like his father and used to peering down at women, but Miss Barrett was shorter than most. Her chin barely reached the height of his chest and her hands were like little hummingbirds in his oversized grasp. She must find his hands monstrous; she eyed them frequently while they danced. At one point she turned the wrong way and collided with him. He righted her and she stopped short in the middle of a promenade.
“I am the very worst dancer,” she said.
“Nonsense. You move with rare eloquence.” She rejected this lie with a thunderous frown. “Perhaps we should take some refreshments instead,” he suggested.
Miss Barrett agreed emphatically with that idea. He had the feeling she would have fled the drawing room if he hadn’t tucked her hand in the crook of his arm. He led her to the punch bowl, nodding in response to Lady Darlington’s smile, and got Miss Barrett a glass of punch she appeared too overwrought to consume. People pretended not to watch them but they watched nonetheless, and Miss Barrett clearly yearned for escape. He might have let her go at that point with a bow and a polite “good evening.” He wondered why on earth he did not.
Instead he asked, “How are you enjoying your books?”
A flush bloomed on her cheeks. “I— Well—about that, Your Grace…thank you for not gossiping.”
“I abhor gossip.”
“I do, too.” Her pleased look warmed him. “To answer your question, as a student of history I found the books fascinating.”
“A student of history? I am glad to hear it. You’ve finished them already?”
“Yesterday,” she admitted.
“And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, that one small head could carry all she knew,” he quoted in a fit of whimsy.
Miss Barrett looked alarmed. “I am not that intelligent.”
It was a lie every bit as false as his lie about her dancing. She clamped her mouth shut, as if some monologue on the origins and habits of Mongol hordes might otherwise escape her. She was, as his mother had warned, woefully strange in manners, which disquieted and fascinated him at the same time. He took her cup and placed it on a nearby table.
“Miss Barrett, did you know our hosts own several paintings of historical interest? May I escort you to see them?”
She stared up at him. He felt a twitch at his lips, a smile not called up from some sense of politeness or propriety, but a true smile. She smiled back, then her face clouded.
“Is it entirely proper?”
“To view your hosts’ paintings? Of course. They are just down the hall outside this room.”
“Then yes, please. I would love to see them.”
He offered his arm and she took it, holding herself stiffly beside him. She was worried about propriety, was she? His days of seducing young women in secluded galleries were long over, although he did imagine for a moment what it might be like to pull Miss Barrett into a dark corner and surprise her with a kiss. Would she react with a slap? A swoon? Not Miss Barrett of the Mongol hordes. She would more likely glower at him until he stopped.
He looked down and patted her gloved hand, trying to communicate her safety in his care. They left the brightly lit drawing room and entered the wide hallway. It was darker there, but adequately illuminated with lamps. The flickering light reflected off her disarranged hair. His fingers ached to set a couple of errant curls to rights, but it was not something a gentleman would do with any lady other than his wife or mistress.
“Here, Miss Barrett,” he said, stopping at the first one. “A portrait depicting St. Joan of Arc.”
She regarded the painting critically. “It is not how I would imagine her.”
“Oh?” He had viewed this rendition of Jeanne d’Arc before and found her stark, severe expression moving. “She was not like an English lady,” he explained. “She would not have a silk gown and her hair done up in curls. She lived long ago in France.”
“It’s not that I think she should look like the ladies back in the drawing room,” sniffed Miss Barrett. “I am not an idiot.”
Court felt laughter bubble up in his throat. He grunted to disguise it, rocking back on his heels. “I did not mean to insinuate—”
“I think the artist made her too pretty.” She stepped closer, her arms at her sides, still staring at the painting. “Joan of Arc was a fierce warrior. I often wonder how she did it.”
“Did what?”
“Convinced all those men to follow her, to fight and give their lives under her command. She commanded armies of men,” she said, turning to him. “I wonder how.”
A thought lodged in his brain at that moment: it was most certainly a blessing Miss Barrett did not know how.
As it turned out, her knowledge of Joan of Arc put his to shame. She told him all she knew of the woman’s birth, childhood, political machinations, and eventual burning at the stake, while he occasionally contributed a polite “Imagine that,” or “Fascinating.” At last Miss Barrett lost interest and he led her to the next painting.
The work depicted a Persian prince surrounded by a harem of voluptuous slaves. Nude voluptuous slaves. The women sprawled on cushions and caressed one another while the prince surveyed them all, master of his domain. Court enjoyed the painting’s sensual overtones, but in the company of Miss Barrett it created an awkward situation, not least because his lewd mind found her robust figure not unlike those of the prince’s lush concubines, and Court momentarily pictured her there among them.
“What do you think of this work, Miss Barrett?” He cleared his throat as she studied it, adding, “It is composed in an appealing baroque style.”
She considered it for a long moment. “Yes.” Tentatively. Then, “Yes, it is very moving,” with an ardent nod of her head. “I should very much like to lie around all day on pillows like those women. Although it might grow tedious after a week or two.”
Court stifled a smile. “Tedious indeed,” he said. “You prefer to stay busy?”
“I do prefer it. Although idleness can be pleasant enough in the right circumstances. And with the right company,” she added, pointing out two embracing women. “They appear to be particular friends.”
Court’s lips twitched. “Shall we move on?”
They lingered next over a series of expertly crafted landscapes, which did not seem to interest Miss Barrett very much. Then they came to the large canvas at the end of the hall, a rendering of Camelot, King Arthur, Lancelot and his knights. She made an ecstatic sound.
“Do you enjoy the Arthurian legends?” he asked.
“I love them. I’ve read all the books I could find about King Arthur and Guinevere and the druids and priestesses and all those myths and legends.” Her excitement delighted him, although no gently-reared lady would ever admit to being so well read. She studied the detailed painting while he stood silent, reluctant to interrupt her thoughts. Finally she turned back to him. “Do you think they really happened? The things that are written in those legends?”
She sounded wistful, as if she hoped they had. “I suppose some of the events really happened,” he said, “while other parts were embellished or contrived. The magic parts, for instance.”
“You don’t believe in magic, Your Grace?”
“No,” he told her truthfully. “Do you?”
She turned back to the painting. “I suppose not, although I wish I did. It is so pleasant a fantasy, that there is magic and mysticism all around us. But I haven’t found it to be so. I suppose I lean more toward belief in fate, and chance.”
“Fate and chance?” Court raised a brow. “Are they not in opposition to one another?”
She pondered this, a small wrinkle forming between her brows. “I think we all have fates to which we must submit ourselves,” she said. “But we can also grasp at chances when they come to us.”
“And perhaps change our fates?”
“We must try, mustn’t we?” She regarded him as if he held the answers, but in truth, he’d never given much thought to any of this. He had been born to a fate of course, that of the Duke of Courtland. She had been born the daughter of a lesser—and peculiar—viscount. Her fate, his fate.
“You are very profound, Miss Barrett,” said Court. “I have never conversed with any lady quite the same as you.”
He meant it as praise, but frustration flitted across her face. “People always say that. That I’m strange.”
“I did not say you were strange,” he corrected her. “I said you were profound. Whenever I ponder magic, fate, and chance hereafter, I shall recall this fascinating conversation.”
She tilted her head as if questioning whether he mocked her. He did not mock. In fact, he did not feel ready to return her to the greater company as he should. “Come, there is a striking painting in the ballroom. I believe you would appreciate it very much.”
He drew her hand over his arm and she followed a little hesitantly. If odd Miss Barrett hesitated, Court should certainly know better. Why was he doing this? Perhaps because he’d had so little excitement in his life of late. As they walked at a leisurely pace around the corner and down another wide hallway, she did not prattle on as a typical young lady would, and he did not feel compelled to fill the silence. He enjoyed the novelty of strolling beside her lost in his thoughts…too many of which centered on her voluptuous attributes and that damned harem painting.
When they arrived at the Darlington ballroom, there was little light with which to see the painting. He walked in anyway, turning in the expansive, tastefully decorated chamber. When it was lit for a grand ball, as it would be at the conclusion of the house party, a thousand candles would illuminate the space, but at the moment only a single lamp cast shadows for any guest or servant passing through.
He turned to Miss Barrett, who waited by the door. “Are you afraid of the dark?”
She shook her head. “No, Your Grace. I am afraid of ballrooms.”
He laughed at her jest—or perhaps it wasn’t a jest—and beckoned her to join him. They would be here only a short time. Not that he believed Miss Barrett would try to entrap him in marriage, but her brother would in a heartbeat. He pushed that thought from his mind and crossed to pick up the lamp.
“Come.” He led Miss Barrett to a large painting in the center of the far wall and held up the light so she might see it.
She recognized the subject at once. “It is Caesar in the Roman Senate.”
“Yes.”
“It’s one of the few paintings I’ve seen of Caesar when he’s not being stabbed to death,” she said. “There is much more to his story than his assassination.”
“I agree. I find Roman history interesting. What I know of it, anyway.”
“Did you know there is an old Roman wall here?” She turned to him, eyes shining in the lamplight. “Well, not here, but north of here? It is very ancient. Thousands of years old.”
“I did know. Have you been to see it?”
Her face fell. “No, not yet. My brother will not take me.”
Court would have escorted her there if she’d asked him, taken an entire day to arrange the outing only to assuage her disappointment. Fortunately, she did not ask him. She was engrossed in the painting, her thoughts someplace far away. How novel, a young woman with such concentration, such intelligence to animate her.
He moved away from her because he had to. He prowled the shadowed perimeter of the ballroom, pretending to study the decorative wainscoting, the plentiful sconces affixed to the walls. When he was the length of the room away from her, he turned to discover the full force of her open gaze. It was enough to give a man thoughts, the way she stared at him across the darkness. In his peripheral vision he saw a footman enter and then back out again.
“Leave it,” he said when the bewigged man moved to close the doors. With a bow, the servant fled.
Miss Barrett stared at the door, at the retreating servant. “We should probably return to the company.”
Something guarded in her expression helped him regain his wits, or at least his sense of propriety. He carried the lamp back to its table near the wall.
“In truth, we’ve been gone too long.” He straightened his waistcoat and coat before he turned back to her. “I shall escort you back to the drawing room.”
“Thank you. And thank you for showing me the paintings.”
“It was my pleasure.”
He walked back with her down the hall, aware of her warmth, her closeness. Her fingertips tightened on his arm almost imperceptibly as they passed the harem painting, or perhaps he imagined it. She helped herself to another long glance. He enjoyed her freshness and curiosity. In fact, he had deeply enjoyed her company, but for appearance’s sake, they needed to part ways—quickly. Publicly. When she told him at the door she would rather retire for the evening, he urged her back into the drawing room so everyone could see them, and delivered her back to her brother’s side.
Court hoped it would be enough to hold the gossips at bay. They had been away from the group far longer than was appropriate. It was rare he behaved so clumsily, so foolishly, especially at a large party such as this. He decided from then on he would avoid her as much as possible. He really had to.
For her sake and his.

Chapter Three: Wish

Harmony thought the Darlingtons’ garden would be pleasant indeed if she could explore its charms in solitude, but instead she sat with the ladies, taking the sun and awaiting the gentlemen’s return from the hunt. Nearby a lake glistened, surrounded by woods to the edge of the property. Flowers bloomed in a landscaped border and paper lanterns twisted in the breeze. It was very picturesque, all of it, but Harmony’s peace was shattered by the constant badgering of her friends.
“You cannot tell us anything else?” Juliette pouted. “He did not act the rake in the slightest? No rude comments? No lurid glances?”
“No,” Harmony said. “He was not lurid at all.”
“Are you sure you’re not leaving anything out?” Viola leaned closer. “We won’t tell.”
“I have told you all I can remember, many times over.”
The Duke of Courtland this, the Duke of Courtland that. For a group of ladies so repulsed by the Duke of Courtland, they were obsessed with every aspect of the man.
“Are his eyes really green and blue?” Mirabel asked. “I wish I could see them close up.”
“He has beautiful eyes,” Harmony said quietly. “Very kind eyes.”
“Kind?” Sybil huffed. “If he was kind he would be civil to the other guests.”
“You mean civil to you,” said Juliette. “He is civil to his gentleman friends, and the Darlingtons.”
“He was civil to Harmony,” Mirabel laughed.
“He should be civil to everyone.” Sybil flushed a hot pink and fanned herself. “I don’t believe he is kind or polite. In fact, I know he is not,” she added, raising an eyebrow.
Juliette snickered. “You are only jealous he did not ask you to dance.”
“I most certainly am not. If he had asked me to dance, I would have said no.”
“Jealous, jealous, jealous,” Juliette taunted under her breath.
This tedious banter had gone on unchecked for a week, ever since His Grace had introduced himself and asked her to dance. She had gone from the least respected member of her social group to the most admired, although in her opinion she was being admired for a very silly thing.
And since that day nearly a week ago, he had not so much as spoken to her, nor looked at her, nor smiled in her direction. He went out with the men to hunt and fish in the day time, and kept to cards and the smoking room at night. From time to time he’d make an appearance in Lady Darlington’s drawing room to watch the dancing, but he did not ask her or any other lady to dance, even the older women who openly flirted with him. After a time, too short a time, he’d disappear back into the side rooms and the young ladies would wink at one another and whisper behind their fans about his showy clothes and his too-long hair, and his big hands.
Harmony did not agree that his clothing was showy. He actually dressed in a rather conservative style. His clothing only appeared showy for being so expertly fitted to His Grace’s compelling physique. The ladies talked about that too, until Harmony’s head would burst from it. His Grace’s broad shoulders, His Grace’s stern features, His Grace’s fine legs revealed in alluring detail by his tight-fitting trousers. And yes, his shoulders were broad, his features were stern, his legs were fine, and his hands were…obscenely large.
“I believe he wanted to kiss you.” Viola made a gleeful sound. “Do you think he meant to kiss you when he took you off to walk alone?”
“We only went down the hall to see some paintings. There were footmen everywhere.”
Sybil tsked. “As if a footman would intervene with a duke. Fortunately His Grace did not choose to take advantage of you.” It was an insult, sweetly spoken. Sybil had been the one most anxious to cut him, and now had become the one most jealous of Harmony’s connection to him.
“The duke only invited me to dance to save me from a scolding,” Harmony explained for the twentieth time. “It was very embarrassing, as I told you. Nothing romantic happened, not the entire time we stepped away.”
She had not told them everything. She had not told them about the pleasant, relaxed way he conversed, or the way he listened when she talked. She let them believe he was what they thought: a highborn, stuffy gentleman, guilty of great perversions. The rest of it she kept in her heart, her special secret she refused to reveal. If they knew how much she thought about him they would never stop teasing her. If they knew the silly fantasies she harbored when her eyes lingered on him…
“Why do you blush every time you speak of him?” asked Mirabel. “If nothing romantic happened?”
“I know what happened,” said Juliette, eyes dancing. “He dragged her into a corner and subjected her to his uncomfortable habits!”
“Oh, yes,” Mirabel giggled. “He took unforgivable liberties, didn’t he? Perhaps he wishes Harmony would be his mistress.”
“What a terrible thing to say,” Viola gasped.
“Goodness, how sensitive you are.” Mirabel dressed Viola down with a sneer and excluded Harmony from the rest of the conversation.
She didn’t care. She wasn’t here in the garden to simper and chat, but to see the duke return from the hunt. He seemed particularly strong and manly coming in from the fields, in a way that very much affected her, even if he never had a word or glance for her.
It wasn’t long before the hunting party appeared with their attendants and bags full of game. There was much silly flirting and mucking about as the men showed off for the ladies, but it was not the duke’s habit to partake. His Grace ignored her friends when they crossed to his group and contrived to crowd nearby. It gave Harmony a certain sour pleasure that their fluttering and preening was for nothing, especially since they pretended to despise him.
Harmony drifted away from the milling guests to a quieter corner of the garden. She had enjoyed her glimpse of the duke, but she would not crowd about him with the other girls. Instead, she sat on a bench near a clump of flowers, inhaling their sweet scent. She wished she could turn her head and stare at him without inviting mockery. She wished to stare at him all the time, but she couldn’t, which annoyed her. He had looked so earthy and capable in his hunting coat and trousers as he sauntered about the clearing, his shotgun slung over his arm.
Oh, he really had looked so dashing. She decided she would allow herself one more peek. Only one, and a short one at that. She turned to find him in the center of a crowd, talking to his friends as the footmen bore off the gentlemen’s guns for cleaning and storage. Her short peek turned into an extended stare. She could see the ladies giggle behind their hands as his regard passed over them. Silly hens. She was glad now she had left them. She would rather hide here and—
“Ah, if it isn’t the lovely Miss Barrett, fellows.” A strident voice interrupted her solitude as a group of young fops descended on her. She recognized the one who addressed her as Lord Sheffield. She hadn’t made the acquaintance of the others. They smiled at her but they didn’t look like real smiles. She drew herself up, instantly on guard.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen. How was your hunting?”
“It was fine hunting. The Duke of Courtland snared a rare grouse, or so I heard.”
“Eh, Sheffield, was it a Red Grouse?” one of the young men called.
“No, sir. It was a Blonde Grouse.”
Harmony lifted her chin, turning her face away. “If you are making a joke, it is not particularly funny.”
“Aww, Miss Barrett, we won’t tell him you were hiding over here staring til your eyes popped out. Don’t pout now. It’s a lovely day.”
“Not as lovely as you,” one of them cried in a mocking voice. Lord Sheffield elbowed him and turned back to her.
“Don’t be cross, miss. Me and my friends were just saying how majestic you looked sitting over here among the flowers. Like some pretty picture in a museum. I bet the duke likes you a lot. He asked you to dance, after all.”
Harmony picked at a tiny snag in the fabric of her gown. “I do not care if he likes me or not.”
“Don’t you?” Lord Sheffield shifted and looked back at his friends. “You’d be a perfect match, you and that one.” A couple of the young men burst into laughter and reeled away. Harmony stood and began to walk farther from the garden, leaving them to their stupidity, but Lord Sheffield and a few stragglers dogged her heels.
“Do you think he’ll ask you to dance again?” Lord Sheffield’s mouth curved in a grin she very much wished to slap off his face.
“I should think not,” Harmony replied shortly.
“You ought to ask him. He seems so lonely without you.”
Harmony seethed with irritation. Why could he not leave her in peace? No matter where she walked, he followed, and when she paused to face him he stared openly at her bodice, the nasty rat. She tugged up at it a little, and then he laughed, and she decided she had tolerated quite enough. She drew back her hand to give him a sound box across the ear—but then her fist was trapped in a firm grasp. She turned and locked eyes with the Duke of Courtland.
His gaze left her to settle on Lord Sheffield. “It is not at all the thing to pester a lady.”
A low chuckle issued from one of Sheffield’s friends. The duke silenced it with a cool stare.
That accomplished, he turned back to her. She’d forgotten how large he was up close. Intimidating. She took in his stern, chiseled face, his dark hair and the eyes of a color she still couldn’t place. Green or blue? Dark greenish-blue. She did not know how to describe them, only knew that when he turned them on her she rather lost her ability to think.
“Miss Barrett,” he said, placing her hand over his arm. “Will you walk with me around the lake before tea?”
He couched it as a question but it was a command. She knew she ought to reply with some fluttery thing—Certainly, Your Grace. I would be honored, Your Grace—but she could not summon a word in her disarrayed mood. He sent a withering glance over his shoulder at her tormentors as he turned her toward the path. “If you will excuse us, gentlemen.”
His acerbic tone implied they were anything but. The men shrank away like beaten dogs, slinking toward the house. Why couldn’t she command that type of respect? She hoped His Grace had not heard too much of their mockery, especially the part about her mooning after him. Of course, he probably heard worse things about her, wherever the men gathered and talked about the ladies. Her brother, who ought to stick up for her, probably spoke of her worst of all. Only this man, this near-stranger, had seen fit to come to her rescue—for the second time.
It was both wonderful and infuriating. And embarrassing beyond belief.
She looked away, at tree tops and blue sky, as a whirlwind of emotions assailed her. She didn’t realize until now how much she’d craved his notice, but why did it have to come at a time like this, when she felt so irritable and bleak? She scratched her cheek and fussed with her bonnet’s brim. “You needn’t stay and walk with me,” she said. “But thank you for sending those gentlemen away.”
“I felt obliged to interfere.” He helped her cross from the lawn to a narrow walking path beside the lake. “You might have knocked out Lord Sheffield if I hadn’t.” His deep, sonorous voice held a note of reproach.
“I did not— I would never—”
“Plant a facer aside Sheffield’s crooked nose?” He patted her hand where it rested on his arm. “That’s a lie. I think you tell a lot of lies, Miss Barrett.”
She gawked. “I most certainly do not.”
“You do. Out of necessity, I’m sure, but you needn’t lie to me.”
She stopped still and faced him. Beneath his handsome exterior, behind his intent gaze, she saw some spark of mayhem that unsettled her. She wasn’t sure anymore if he’d rescued her or only wished to toy with her in private. When she spoke, her voice trembled. “I am too stupid sometimes to tell lies from truth. To tell sincerity from cruelty.”
“Are you too stupid to realize when a friend stands before you?”
She had used the word stupid first. He said it with a touch of frustration that made it sound nastier perhaps than he meant. She glared at the burnished gold buttons of his waistcoat. “I can be eminently stupid, Your Grace.”
He made a low, impatient sound. “Come, let us walk.” He guided her forward at the same desultory pace with which he did everything. “If you do not care to continue as an object of gossip and teasing, you must refrain from throwing punches at gentlemen. You are becoming the party’s entertainment and I doubt you wish to be.”
She flushed hot at his words and tugged her bonnet again. “Are you trying to be gallant or to humiliate me?”
“Humiliate you? What an outrageous thing to say.” His eyes were fixed on some distant point, his lips drawn down in what might have been a frown, except that he didn’t look angry. “Why did you not dismiss the gentlemen when they began to tease you?”
“Dismiss them how?”
“A glare, some sharp words. Ignore them if you must. Those young bucks are nobodies, annoying gnats. If you swat at them enough, they will go away.”
On the heels of the gentlemen’s mockery, she must now endure this dressing down? Her throat worked with the effort of mastering her emotions. “The scene you witnessed was not the first nor the last time I shall be mocked,” she said. “I do not suppose you know the feeling of being made fun of, but it is not a very nice one. I cannot come up with the correct words to say in friendly company, much less when I feel attacked.” She stared at some point just above the wrist of his coat, then lifted her face to meet his gaze.
She oughtn’t have. Her humiliation was complete, for he was looking at her with pity. His deep, rich green-blue eyes held hers and softened as if they shared her pain. But she mustn’t be fooled by his beauty, his seeming tenderness. He belonged to the part of the world that ruled and controlled, socially and in every other way. He belonged to the circle that shunned her every chance it got.
“Please go,” she said, turning her face from him. “I wish to be alone.”
He did not go, which she supposed was a duke’s prerogative. She tried to pull away from him, but his hand tightened over hers. “I walked you this far. Let us walk the rest of the way.”
“I had rather go and sit—sit over there,” she said, gesturing toward a remote glade.
“Miss Barrett, are you cross with me?”
Yes, she was cross with him, with his wealth and prestige, his easy manners. He might always do as he wished and look casual and confident about it, as opposed to her with her awkwardness and muddling. She tried to be like him, ruffled by nothing, her chin set high against the world, but it was only a charade. It was the role she played of necessity, when inside she felt lonely and hopeless, and so desperate for just one person to accept her. But she was hopeless. Again, she moved to pull away.
“No,” he said, drawing her back. “Continue to walk with me. For a few moments only, until you gather yourself.”
“Gather myself? I am perfectly gathered, thank you,” she said in a strained voice.
They grappled there beside the lake, Harmony trying to retrieve her hand while he trapped it ever more stubbornly.
“Miss Barrett,” he said as they struggled, “forgive me if I offended you. I only meant to help.”
“I do not require your help.” Harmony laughed bitterly at herself, at this entire situation. “I assure you, I am beyond help. Everyone believes so.”
“I don’t.”
She went still at his staunchly spoken words. “You don’t?”
“I don’t,” he repeated. “Now please, calm yourself and paste a pleasant smile on your face. At the very least, something besides that frown. They watch, you know. Always.”
They watched, yes, all of them believing her beyond help—except him. She wondered if his words were true or only a gentleman’s polite response. She wondered why she cared, since she’d given herself up for lost a long time ago.
Harmony relaxed her arm—and her expression—and allowed him to draw her back onto the path.
*** *** ***
Damn and blast, Court thought. What a confounded situation. This was what came of meddling in young women’s affairs. What had come over him, to barge in again like a white knight on horseback to rescue her from the likes of Sheffield? Or more accurately, rescue Sheffield from her?
He watched his companion master her emotions, take in air and square her shoulders. Her misery-pinched face relaxed by slow degrees into a shuttered mask that disturbed him almost as much as her glares and frowns. “I am better now,” she said. “I am sorry I cut up at you when I was annoyed by someone else.”
Court was sorry too. Sorry to know how sad and tormented this creature was beneath her false, forced veneer. He didn’t want the burden of her woes, not on top of his own responsibilities. “It is no matter,” he said in a brisk tone. “Let us forget this episode ever occurred.” He led her nearer to the lake, being careful to not to trod the hem of her sage-sprigged dress. “We will have some light conversation until you are feeling completely yourself again. What shall we talk about?”
She thought for a moment. “Did you kill anything today?
A bloodthirsty topic, but she was not known for her girlish repartee. “Yes, I did,” he said aloud. “A hare and several pheasants.”
She shuddered. “I hope the hare did not have babies. They will be crying now, wondering where their mama is.”
“It was a male hare,” he lied.
This did not placate her. “I’m sure other mamas were killed today, and on every other day you and the gentlemen go out to hunt. Is it necessary to kill helpless creatures?”
He gazed down at her, thinking how desperately the contrary young woman needed to be spanked. “Are you one of those crusaders who oppose blood sport, Miss Barrett?”
“I find it distasteful to kill things. To want to kill things,” she added, giving him an affronted look, as if it was her own mama hare he’d shot.
“You feel strongly about things, don’t you? Yes.” He answered his own question. “But in this case you need more information.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you know about the benefits of culling? Reducing the herd? Hares are pests to the farmers and villagers, and with the rate at which they reproduce, they might soon overrun all the crops in England. What would be done then?”
They walked a few steps in silence as she bit her lip. “Oh.”
“Counting out the inconvenience of not having enough bread or produce on your table, what would become of the hares—and the hares’ babies—when their own sources of food became scarce through overpopulation?”
It was not a conversation he would have had with a typical lady, but he rather enjoyed watching Miss Barrett work through it in her agile mind.
“I had never thought of it like that. It would be quite disastrous, wouldn’t it? Still…it seems cruel. Killing.”
“It is cruel in a way, but kinder to shoot a hare or stag or fox than have them overrunning the countryside, forming packs and slowly starving for lack of food.”
She would not meet his eyes. He was not forgiven yet for his gentlemanly crime of hunting. Perhaps he never would be. Young ladies’ hearts were so capricious, which was why he avoided having anything to do with them. Usually. Until now.
They walked in silence for a few moments until they rounded the other side of the lake and headed back toward the manor. Her gaze fixed on the distant house guests. He detected a subtle stiffening of her spine. “Aren’t you glad now you did not attack him in front of everyone?” he asked.
“He deserved a drubbing.”
Do not laugh. Do not encourage her. “You must behave in a mannerly fashion, Miss Barrett. Without manners, we are…savages.”
“I should like to leave,” she burst out. “This instant, I should very much like to leave this house party and return to London.”
“Shall I escort you to Sedgefield so you might hire a carriage and be on your way?”
She bristled at his mocking tone. “I wish you would. I’m sure my brother and our hostess would both find themselves well rid of an inconvenient guest.”
“You are not inconvenient. Merely unconventional. And undisciplined,” he added for his own private titillation.
She gasped, her eyes going wide. “I don’t think it is very polite to call ladies ‘undisciplined.’”
“I don’t normally do so. But in this case…”
Her blue eyes snapped in irritation, for he was not being a gentleman. He did not feel, at present, very much like a gentleman. He felt the strongest urge to tumble her back on the grass and kiss her outrage away—after he disciplined her, of course. He settled for a much-more-appropriate shrug of his shoulders. “It is not that difficult a thing to use manners. For instance, in turning down a dance with creaky old Monmouth, you might more delicately plead the headache than profess yourself bloated.”
Miss Barrett sputtered. “Did you— Who said—?”
“I fear nearly everything you say is repeated. If I were you I would use it to my advantage. Say some horrid things about that bounder Lord Sheffield, for example. They needn’t be true.”
“Your Grace.” She tried hard to look shocked as she ought, but a smile played around the corners of her lips. “I was not bloated, by the way.”
“Of course not.”
“I simply didn’t want to dance with him. I do not enjoy dancing.”
“I don’t either. Not these country dances anyway. In London, they waltz.” He gave her a look he feared contained some longing. “Have you danced the waltz, Miss Barrett? In the ballrooms of London?”
She looked stricken. “I am not permitted to waltz.”
“Not permitted? By whom?”
“By the patronesses at Almack’s.” She paused. “Rather, they revoked my permission. I am mortified to say why.”
Ah, the Almack’s debacle. Beautiful Miss Barrett, strewing chaos wherever she went. He could not laugh at the poor thing, not to her face, but his mind swam with comical images of what a young lady might do to have her dancing permissions revoked. He disguised his laughter in a ponderous frown. “I do not know the circumstances,” he said, “but you ought not to have lost your waltzing privileges. It’s criminal. A miscarriage of justice, I’m sure.”
“Perhaps you can introduce a bill on my behalf into the House of Lords, Your Grace.”
He nodded, enjoying her cleverness. “All young ladies should be free to waltz. Particularly you, Miss Barrett. Yes, it would make a fine bill, and take some of the wind out of those stuffy patronesses.”
She sobered and gave a sad little shrug. “I do not care, anyway.”
Court wished he might slip an arm around her waist and draw her close. He wished he might secure her little hummingbird hand fluttering at her throat and trap it in his own and waltz her around the lake until her sullen mood brightened. His hands flexed into fists, fighting the folly of his will. She stirred him. Her ample breasts, her delicate hands. Her full, pouting lips.
My God, he was developing a tendre for Miss Chaos. He took a deep breath to clear his head and let it out again. “You should not care,” he said. “Almack’s is a crashing bore.”
“But those balls are only a few hours of torture. This house party drags on and on. All anyone does here is gossip, eat, dance, and kill things.”
Court nodded at her accurate assessment. “So what are we to do with you? You dislike three of those four activities, and you cannot eat every hour of the day.”
“Your Grace!” She halted him, eyes wide. “Be absolutely still.”
She stepped forward, practically against him, and darted one gloved hand at his face. Before he could step away, her fingertip slid beneath his left eye, a fleeting touch. She drew her finger back and held it up to him. “You had an eyelash. Now you can make a wish.”
He looked down at her finger, his dark lash perched at its tip. Everyone in the garden was surely watching this young woman plastered against his front. “Quickly,” she said, “or it will blow away on the wind.” She was so close to him now he might have kissed her.
“Quickly what?” he asked, befuddled.
Her blue eyes sparkled at him. “You must blow your eyelash away, Your Grace, and make a wish as you do.”
There was no way he was going to blow his eyelash from her fingertip. Dukes of the realm did not do those sorts of things. He saw the moment she realized he would not do it, for her mood dimmed again.
“Why don’t you take my wish?” he suggested, easing her away from him. “Wish for something marvelous.”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“Doesn’t it? Why not?”
“It just doesn’t.” She rubbed her thumb over the finger and his eyelash flittered away, perhaps into the lake, the wishful opportunity squandered. She backed away from him, straightening her skirt and tugging at her bonnet. “I wonder if it’s time yet for tea? I am feeling so much better now.” She gave a decisive nod. “Completely better. I’m sorry to have drawn you away from your friends for so long.”
“It is no matter. Let us return to the group or the gossip will be tedious.”
Too late, Courtland. Far too late for that.
“I don’t care about gossip,” she said, staring out at the lake again. “But I regret for your sake that your name has become linked with mine.”
“It is not a matter of our names being linked. Gossip can have dangerous results to a lady’s reputation.”
She gave him a weary look. “I am nearly twenty-three. I will not have another season and I will not marry. My reputation is no longer of any consequence.”
He felt unaccountable anger that this young creature, however brazen, should feel her life over at such a tender age. Although, perhaps, her resignation was for the best. “Miss Barrett, I am sorry to hear you feel this way, but I hope you discover more enjoyment at Danbury House than you have had thus far. Why, have you been to see the artwork in the Darlingtons’ East Salon? There is a gallery of notable family portraits there, if you should find yourself bored and restless.” As he said it, he had inappropriate thoughts of another activity one might do while bored and restless. A considerably more carnal activity. Dukes could do almost anything, but there were a few things they couldn’t do…
For instance, Court could not put his hand at Miss Barrett’s back and guide her up the grand staircase of Danbury House to his guest bedchamber above the Great Hall. He could not, once there, remove her clothing and admire her voluptuous, feminine figure, run his hands over every curve and valley of her person as he clasped her against his front. He could not suck on the curve of her shoulder or fill his hands with the bounty of her tempting breasts. He could not push her back on his bed and tease and pleasure her until every hint of anxiety was erased from her pretty face. He could not drive inside her until his own sordid, restless cravings were expended again…and again…and again…
No. He could not do that. He should not even imagine it, not now, with sad, conflicted Miss Barrett leaning on his arm. Curse civilization and blasted manners.
They began to walk more slowly as they neared their company. The crowd in the garden had not dissipated in the slightest. If anything, the audience had grown. Court knew with some pain that the universal topic of discussion was them. He delivered her to the younger group of women, greeting the fluttering circle with a tight smile before bowing over his companion’s hand.
“I wish you a pleasant evening, Miss Barrett.”
I wish you were beneath me all this pleasant evening. But that is only because, deep down inside, I am even more uncouth and mannerless than you.
She inclined her head to him and muttered something he couldn’t make out. Perhaps she said, “I wish it for you too.” He heard, I wish for you too.
He thought of his eyelash, and her body sliding against his. Make a wish. Quickly, or it will blow away on the wind.

Chapter Four: Escape

For three more days, Court managed to avoid contact with Miss Barrett. He turned his attention to cards and male conversation, and hunting, and more cards. And more male conversation, sprinkled with the squawking of his mother and Mrs. Lyndon, who’d heard the whispers about he and Miss Barrett. She ripped up at him the day after their lakeside stroll, berating him in their private parlor as the ladies took tea.
“She is so much worse than I expected,” said his mother. “She lacks the most basic of manners. Why, she is practically a savage. It is unkind but it must be said.”
“Her mother died too young,” Mrs. Lyndon agreed. “She has no social graces.”
“And now she has abandoned her set completely and taken to keeping company with Lord Darlington’s books.”
“I believe he granted her permission to do so.” Court knew it, in fact, since he was the one who had quietly arranged it.
“She spends hours in there, reading!”
“Horrifying,” he murmured. “If she does not take care, she may learn something.”
In unison, his mother and Mrs. Lyndon puffed out their cheeks.
“You must avoid her, Courtland.” Her eyes widened in horror, as if the savage Miss Barrett might rip out his throat. “I can’t understand how Lady Darlington tolerates that girl and her brother under her roof. And to have her name linked to yours! You cannot imagine how humiliated I was when Lady Myra whispered you’d stolen off to the ballroom with her. Can it be true, my son?”
His lips drew into a tight line. “I was showing her a painting. Not that I must give an accounting to you, or to any of the gossips in this house.”
His mother rapped her fan on the table at her side. “Ah, you will turn into that Barrett girl now, disregarding basic manners and acting like an impulsive child.”
He believed he might. He felt the most impulsive urge to upend his mother’s tea cup over her head, an urge he subdued with an iron will. He was glad “that Barrett girl” was likely engrossed in some book, blissfully unaware of the talk about the two of them. He was pleased for her to have that respite.
But for him, the house party lost much of its glow. Above and beyond his mother’s fretting, the daily repetition of activities began to chafe. One could only shoot so much game before one grew bloody tired of the sport. One could only hash over so many political arguments and play so many hands of cards before one nearly lost one’s mind. So when the other gentlemen amassed for their daily foray the fourth day after Miss Barrett’s retirement to the library, Court begged off and donned his town clothes and walking boots instead.
He wasn’t sure where he planned to go. Away. Away from the temptation of visiting her in the library. Away from salons and crowded halls and servants who spied. He wanted to go where he might be a solitary, anonymous man taking the fresh northern air. He strolled down the road from Danbury House into the outskirts of Sedgefield proper, realizing he should have dressed down if he’d sought anonymity. No one bothered him, but some of the children stopped to stare at the well-turned-out gentleman in their midst.
Court decided he would amble about Sedgefield until tea time, perhaps even longer. Perhaps he wouldn’t return to Danbury House until dinner, until he had two great lungs full of fresh air to sustain him through another evening cooped up with irritating ladies and obsequious men. At least he would not have to contend with his mother; she’d set off that morning with Mrs. Lyndon to a nearby manor to visit a friend. With any luck, she would remain there a week or more. Not that he didn’t love his mother—he just preferred her in small doses.
He walked past an inn and down the main thoroughfare of town. Though narrow, it was lined with thriving shops. He glanced in the window of a bookseller’s and thought instantly of Miss Barrett, of her lopsided hats and bookish ways and large blue eyes. He thought of her curled up in one of Darlington’s deep library chairs, her slippered feet drawn up beneath her as she devoured some volume of the Royal Historical Society. He thought of her too much.
Make a wish…
He had made no wish, though. He didn’t believe in them. But he could still picture her dainty gloved fingertip in his mind, his curved lash at the end of it like some treasure she’d found. Make a wish. A wish…
He turned at the end of the street, surprised to see the figure of a well-born lady in the setting of an outdoor marketplace. Pretty dress, lopsided bonnet, fingers twisting in her skirts.
Bloody hell. “Miss Barrett?”
She turned and took a step back, looking as surprised as he. She stood by a rickety wagon, engaged in conversation with some village man. A farmer or tradesman perhaps, none too genteel or clean.
“What on earth are you about?” he asked. “I was only jesting about hiring passage back to London. Where is your brother? Your lady’s maid?”
“My brother is out with the gentlemen, and the lady’s maid from Danbury House would not come into this part of town.”
“Wisely so.” He cast a withering look at the man by the wagon. “It is not the thing for a woman of quality to tarry here. Particularly alone.”
She released a stream of garbled explanation. Perhaps it only sounded garbled to him because he’d never had the experience of being talked back to by anyone, much less this slip of a woman who barely approached the height of his shoulder. He held up a hand and finally succeeded in silencing her.
“Miss Barrett, I must insist for propriety’s sake that I escort you back to Danbury House at once.”
She shook her head. “I am sick unto death of Danbury House. And this could be my one and only chance to go to the old Roman wall.”
“Go to the old Roman wall? Now? With whom?”
She’d already turned from him, sweeping toward the wagon and its sagging horse. He moved to grab her arm.
“Miss Barrett—”
She tugged away, freezing his words with her glare. “The driver will leave without me if you do not let me go. I had to bargain for some time to gain passage on his wagon.”
Court gaped. “Don’t tell me you have hired a ride north with that man? Miss Barrett—surely—you cannot mean to—”
“I’ve always wanted to see the old Roman wall,” she said slowly, as if she were explaining to a child. “My whole life, ever since I learned of it in geography and history books. When you joked about hiring a carriage in Sedgefield, I realized I actually might if I wished.”
Good God, so this was his fault. The tradesman shifted from foot to foot, clearly growing uncomfortable with the situation. It would suit Court fine if he would just run off. Otherwise he might need to resort to force to dissuade Miss Barrett from setting off on this journey. There would be struggling and drama, a full scene right here in the heart of town. The idea appalled him, but to step away and let her go was not an option. He would not have her ruination on his hands.
He made one last attempt at reason. “Surely, madam, you are not considering taking an hours-long journey north, unchaperoned, with a perfect stranger. A man,” he added with emphasis. “He is not a gentleman, and you’ve no lady to accompany you at any rate.”
“Your Grace, you must understand—”
“I understand one thing only. You are about to do a dangerous thing.”
She threw up her hands, then clasped them at her waist. “I have no choice, you see. I’ve asked Stephen to take me nearly every day since we arrived, but he is preoccupied with hunting and women. He has no care for history, for exploring the world.”
“Exploring the world? Dear girl, your place is back in the drawing room, beside the fire. Leave exploring to those who are suited to it.”
“I am suited to it,” she cried.
He drew himself up, fixing her with his most intimidating stare. “I will not allow this caper to proceed. I cannot.”
“You have no right to stop me. You have no power over me, Your Grace,” she added for good measure. That was twice in five minutes she had mouthed back to him. Preposterous.
“It’s unfortunate I don’t have any power over you,” he said when he recovered himself. “If I did, I could give you the sound spanking you so richly need and deserve.”
The words were out before he could stop them. She looked appropriately scandalized and turned away, toward the shifty man and his rickety cart. He had to grasp her hand to stop her. Grabbing at someone else’s person—him, the Duke of Courtland. He hadn’t done such a thing since his childhood, and he’d done it twice with Miss Barrett now.
“The wall you speak of is at least six hours’ journey from here,” he said. “Perhaps more.”
“But it’s days from London, and Stephen says we are going home this weekend. Which is why I must leave now. I can be there tonight and take the mail coach back tomorrow, and my brother will never know. When he is at cards and women, he stays out all night and never wakes before two the next afternoon.”
She was leaving. In three days. The thought upset him almost as much as her reckless plans. She yanked at his hand until he released her. “Why is it so important to see it?” he asked. “Will you risk your good name, your reputation?”
“I told you before, those things are meaningless to me now. I do not care.”
“You ought to. You ought to have a care for the safety of your person at least.” He shot a look at the driver, or tradesman or farmer, or whatever he was. “That man could take you somewhere and ra—” He bit off the word before he uttered it. “Bedevil you. How do you know he’s an honest person? Not only that, but his wagon and horse are both dilapidated.” He looked around at the curious townspeople beginning to gather. She was turning him from a refined peer to a public scold, damn her. “Miss Barrett, if you must continue on this ill-advised course, permit me to engage a more fitting conveyance for your trip, and hire a proper chaperone to ride along with you.”
She seemed, finally, ready to listen to reason. “Will you? How long will that take?” she asked, watching him carefully.
Long enough for you to regain your senses. Or at least long enough for me to force you into a carriage and get you home. “It will not take long,” he assured her.
Court offered her his arm, which she refused, but she followed. “I would lend you my coach but my mother is using it to call on acquaintances,” he said. “I’ll hire one at the inn.”
“What if you can’t?” came her small voice.
“There are very few things I can’t do.”
His tone of authoritative control worked to silence her. He walked quickly along Sedgefield’s narrow streets in the mid-afternoon sun. He was angry, yet he felt some sympathy for her, some grudging admiration. Miss Chaos was willing to risk her life to visit Hadrian’s ancient pile of rocks—it was not merely some passing fancy to her. Any other woman of her set would see the wall as nothing more than a background to pose against and look pretty, but Miss Barrett was not of that ilk. She refused to languish in the drawing room, even though, as a woman, that was her fate.
Ah, but he could not entertain sympathetic feelings for her. His pace quickened along with his temper, and he left it to her to keep up. After all, this was her fault. If he had not come across her by chance, what might have become of her? What would her brother do when he found out about her attempted flight north? Court remembered with some distaste Barrett’s rough handling when she’d refused to dance with Lord Monmouth, and this was a considerably worse offense.
Well, it wasn’t his concern to put down sibling squabbles, but to get her safely home. As soon as they arrived at the inn, he’d put her into the first carriage he saw, along with a maid, and send her back to Danbury House. What a load of trouble to take up his afternoon.
“The innkeeper surely has a lady’s maid to spare,” he lied over his shoulder. “It should be no great thing to hire a girl to take a couple days away. This is not, after all, a busy town like Harrogate. But Miss Barrett, it would be better to abandon this adventure entirely if you can bring yourself to do it. There are Roman antiquities to see in London.” He paused and thought a moment. “I will take you to visit them someday, perhaps, with your brother’s permission. And a chaperone, of course.”
He turned to receive her response, only to find a village girl stepping along behind him with a covered basket. With great anger, he realized Miss Barrett had not been following at all, but stolen away at some point, probably while he was still going on about the carriage. The girl passed by him, dropping a curtsy. She must have thought him daft, prattling on to himself. Cold fury washed over him, and something else. Shock. No one, no mortal being of his acquaintance had ever made him feel hapless and furious and powerless like this. He stood for long moments, fists clenched, face flushed with anger, and considered his choices.
He could wash his hands of the whole affair, let Miss Barrett journey to the Roman wall alone, unprotected, across the moors. No, that was out of the question.
He could go in search of her brother. He might catch the gentlemen on their hunt, but he might not. He could wait at Danbury House for her brother to return and then notify him of his sister’s situation, but by that time, Miss Barrett could be in some peril. The thought of that peril, the dangers a lady like Miss Barrett faced alone in the world, was what finally made him turn and continue to walk with great frustration toward the inn.
He would have to go after her himself. It was as reckless and dangerous a choice as Miss Barrett’s, but what alternative did he have? By the time he found her and fetched her home, they would have been out and about together for some hours without a chaperone. Disaster.
Perhaps he could still catch her in time to return with her to Danbury House unnoticed. They could part at the gate. She could lie and say she’d been out walking and gotten lost, while he slipped in some back door unnoticed. Dissemblance never sat well with him, but the alternative…
He could not consider that now, or he would become too paralyzed to act.
It seemed an eternity before he reached the inn. He hired the most comfortable coach they had and waited impatiently for it to be prepared. By the time they were on the road to Newcastle, he’d lost almost two hours in his pursuit. He sat forward on the cushions, his gaze fixed on the way before them. The smartly-turned-out driver assured him this was the most traveled route to the wall, and Court had no choice but to believe him. He watched expectantly for an hour and a half or so, and then he began to worry.
If he found Miss Barrett, she was going to endure the full wrath of his temper. Here he was riding north, no valet, no clothes to change into should he become dusty or dampened. He hadn’t eaten in hours, bringing a headache to go with the great storm of worry roiling around in his brain. They ought to have caught the wagon by now. What if she hadn’t gone back to the driver she’d hired? What if she’d returned to Danbury House? Or hired a different driver? What if the driver had pulled off the road and was even now doing unspeakable things to Miss Barrett with rough, grasping hands?
For another half hour Court stared out of the carriage, stomach clenching with anxiety. Miss Barrett could be in great distress at this moment due to his ineptitude at controlling her. But people behaved around him, deuce take it. From the age of fourteen, since he’d inherited his dukedom, people had deferred to him, respected him. They had not argued or shouted, or pulled away or disappeared without permission from his side. Even before then he’d been a marquess, first son of a powerful man, and people had treated him with proper deference. He had lived an ordered life, observing conventions and doing those duties his title required, earning, in effect, the respect that most people showed him.
Most people, but not her.
He scrubbed a hand over his face and growled. Why was the esteemed Duke of Courtland crossing the moors of northern England to fetch an ill-behaved woman who was not his kin or even his social equal? Again his mind turned to thoughts of retribution. When he got his hands on Miss Barrett, he’d give her a tongue lashing she’d remember for the rest of her life. He’d give her that spanking he’d told her she deserved. She did deserve it. He’d punish her until she begged forgiveness for her behavior, her manners, her strangeness which had no place in polite society. And then— And then—
And then, out the window, he saw her pale gray frock, her bonnet perched atop her blonde curls as she stomped down the side of the road, and all he could think was, thank you. Dear God, thank you.
“Stop!” he called to the driver. Court was out of the door before the vehicle completely slowed. Once he assured himself it really was her, it penetrated his brain that she was crying. Not just crying—she was choking with sobs. “What happened?” he asked. “What has befallen you?” He took her shoulders and searched her person in a panic, fearing the worst. But it was not terror in those tears. She was whole and well. It was anger.
“He left me,” she cried. “He promised to take me the whole way, but when we reached the crossroads a while back he said he must be off to some other place. He shrugged and said I must get down. I reminded him that I paid him for his services, but he claimed he only promised to take me this far!”
She appeared so injured, so distraught, that Court couldn’t find the words to scold her. To say, you should have known better. This is what you deserve. He thought wildly of finding that man, of combing the countryside all around and bringing him before the law, but it would only delay him in fetching her back. “Miss Barrett,” he sputtered instead. “Hell and the bloody devil. You frightened me.”
She gave him a sideways glance as he fished in a pocket for his handkerchief. Once he handed it over, she ripped off her bonnet and swabbed at her tears. For a moment she seemed to him some unworldly thing, some mythological goddess who might shoot lightning from her fingertips or turn men to stone with her gaze. “Do not look at me that way!” she shrilled in a breaking voice.
Court blinked and spread his hands. “What way?”
“With that reproach and…and pity. I know you think I’m awful, that my behavior is impetuous and foolish, but I truly wished to see the wall, to see where the Romans walked so many centuries ago. If you do not enjoy history, you cannot understand! You cannot understand the way I feel right now.” She wept still, even through her fervent speech. Not the pretty, polite tears of a well-reared young lady, but torrents of sorrow.
Court stepped closer as she mopped at her face. “Nor do you seem capable of understanding how I feel,” he said. “If I had not found you— For God’s sake—”
“That driver promised to take me. He lied.” More heartrending, bitter tears. “He is probably somewhere now laughing at me. This is my life’s work, I suppose—amusing others. I am sick of it. You cannot understand.”
Court studied her, his anger tempered by alarm. He’d thought her manners at Danbury House outlandish, but they were nothing compared to this fit of passion. It could be called nothing else but a fit. “Miss Barrett,” he said. “Was it his lie that has distressed you so, or your disappointment in not getting to see the Roman wall?”
“I am going to see it,” she bawled. “I am going to walk.”
Court rubbed his upper lip, finding his own emotions in surprising upheaval. Before he could think what to say she was off again, trudging down the road in her dusty gown, her bonnet dangling from one hand.
“You must return home and give this up,” he pleaded. “It grows late.”
“I do not care.”
“You cannot walk all that way,” he said to her back. “It is not possible for a lady of your constitution. Even I could not do it.”
She half-turned, her quavery voice propped up with an underlying note of conviction. “That is because you are not as determined as me.”
For a long, dreadful moment he watched her stride away from him, her back squared and stiff. He stared, he struggled, his future unfolding before his eyes. What might have been with Gwen…and what increasingly seemed likely as Miss Barrett soldiered down the road.
He counted very slowly and deliberately to ten. Then a stream of profound vulgarities sounded in his head, accompanying the realization that he was going to take her. Take her to the wall, take her on a journey, unchaperoned, that would require a stay overnight at an inn. Perhaps she did not realize the repercussions of such, with her single-minded unconventionality, but he did. He would be saddled with her then, this hopeless, passionate creature.
Damn him. Damn him a hundred thousand times.
“Miss Barrett.” He sighed momentously. “I must insist you get into the carriage.” She spun to face him. Before she could refuse, he held up a quelling hand. “I will take you to view your pile of Roman rocks, although I believe we will both come to regret it.”
She stared at him as the coachman inched up the road, following them. The entire tableau was comical, as ridiculous as the woman standing in her bedraggled dress before him. All of it, farcical. He swung an arm in the direction of the coach. “Get in.”
“Do you promise, Your Grace? You will not have your man start back to Danbury House the moment I embark?”
The prospect was tempting. He took a deep breath and let it out, praying for sanity.
“I swear on the graves of every Courtland duke before me.” He turned to the coachman, who was doing an excellent job of keeping a straight face. “Will you kindly convey us to the Roman wall at Newcastle and back to Sedgefield on the morrow? You will be well paid for your time and trouble.”
The man touched his cap and nodded. Court turned back to Miss Barrett with a scowl. “I will give you exactly one minute’s time to board the carriage before I lose my temper and do something we shall both regret.”
For a moment, she looked like she might reply, but then she wisely bit her tongue and let Court assist her up the steps and into the traveling coach.

There are limited chapters to put here, click the button below to continue reading "Mismatched Couple"

(It will automatically jump to the book when you open the app).

❤️Click to read more exciting content❤️

Click to read more exciting content