Reforming Harriet

by Eileen Putman

  Harriet eyed the missive lying in her friend’s lap. “What does Cedric have to say?”

  “He implores me to try to persuade you to sell the mill.” She paused. “And he allows that the country is very thin of company. I think he misses you.”

  “Me?” Harriet laughed. “Not likely.”

  “He wanted to marry you, Harriet.”

  “He wanted to possess my mill,” Harriet corrected. “In Cedric’s universe, marriage is the only way to bend a recalcitrant female to his will. It is a very masculine way of looking at things.”

  “Clearly he has abandoned that strategy, since he believes you betrothed to Lord Westwood. But you are too hard on him. He needs a mother for all those children.” Monica shook her head. “Poor things.”

  Harriet slanted an assessing gaze at her friend. “I have thought about employing Cedric to oversee the mill and the crops. He knows the mill better than anyone, but I do not know whether his pride would let him accept the job, and on my terms, by which I mean a fair price, or no price at all for those who cannot afford it.”

  “He is a proud man,” Monica conceded. “The children are driving him to distraction, and he sometimes drowns his troubles in drink. But beneath it all, Mr. Gibbs is a worthy man. I do believe he is honest.”

  “His temper —”

  “All men have a temper, dear. It is because they wish to control things and cannot.”

  “Dear me, Monica. How did you come by such a view?” Harriet asked.

  “Life, dearest.” Monica sighed.

  Harriet regarded her friend closely. Monica’s life had been lonely after her husband’s abandonment, and she had filled it with devotion to Eustace. Her friend was never happier than when nurturing someone who needed her. Unfortunately, her efforts were not paid back in kind. Her husband had run off, and her son had grown up.

  “If only I could be certain that Cedric would abide by my wishes,” Harriet said. “I will not have him forcing prices up again. The mill is for everyone, regardless of their ability to pay.”

  “His family ran the mill for generations,” Monica pointed out. “Perhaps he is not to be blamed for expecting things to continue in the same fashion.”

  “Do I gather that you have been corresponding frequently with Cedric?”

  Monica flushed. “I do not think he writes me for any reason other than he knows I have your ear.”

  “There is one way to find out.” Abruptly, Harriet sat down at her writing table and began to compose a letter.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I am writing to offer him the position we discussed. I will ask him to visit me in London to discuss my proposal. I shall invite him to stay here. Should you mind?”

  Monica looked startled. “Why should I mind?”

  “No reason.” Harriet smiled.

  “Eustace will be pleased,” Monica quickly added. “He enjoys Mr. Gibbs’s company.”

  Harriet tactfully refrained from pointing out Eustace and Cedric had never had two words to say to each other. But if it pleased her friend to construct such a fantasy, it was none of her concern.

  ***

  “This is a list of rabble-rousers and ne’er-do-wells.” Lord Westwood regarded the guest list in disapproval.

  “Mr. Wilberforce is not a ne’er-do-well,” Harriet said. “Or do you hold with slavery, my lord? I imagine those plantations of yours are worked —”

  “By paid laborers. I abolished slavery on all of my properties.”

  That surprised her, but Harriet pressed on. “And pray, into which category does Lord Castlereagh fall, rabble-rouser or ne’er-do-well?”

  He shrugged. “A statesman or two does not mask the fact that they will sit cheek and jowl with radicals and bedlamites.”

  “Mr. Hazlitt is a very respected critic,” Harriet said, “and Mr. Shelley —”

  “Is a radical thinker who fancies himself a poet.”

  “There is nothing wrong with that.”

  “More to the point,” he said, “how can you think of having Hunt here after the scene he caused on the last occasion?”

  Harriet regarded him. “It’s Mr. Hunt who is the root of your difficulty, isn’t it, my lord? You did not like the way he challenged you.”

  “Nonsense. I simply dislike how you turn your house over to him —”

  “You think to bully me into acquiescing, sir.” Harriet ignored his darkening expression. “But I shall not rescind my invitations simply because you do not wish to submit yourself to an evening of lively discourse.”

  “More like the rantings of lunatics.”

  Harriet sighed. Lord Westwood had sent her a note this morning announcing that he would present himself at two o’clock to review the list for tomorrow night’s salon — a privilege she did not intend to grant him. Nevertheless, he had appeared precisely at that hour, and they had spent the better part of the time since arguing over the guest list.

  “My lord, I wish to disabuse you of the notion that your critique of my guest list is at all helpful,” Harriet said finally. “Although you may not agree with all that is said during my salons, the free exchange of views is precisely the object. How would it be if everyone agreed with everyone else? Change would never occur, and we would all be the poorer for it.”

  He regarded her. “So it is change you desire. Tell me, madam: Does that apply to your own life as well? For it seems to me that you have constructed a very narrow box for yourself that permits no alteration.”

  Harriet stared at him. “Whatever do you mean?”

  “You are determined to get on with your life — a commendable goal, to be sure — but you intend it to be exactly the same life you have always known.”

  “The life I knew included a husband,” she said tartly.

  “Granted. But in picking up the pieces of what previously defined you, perhaps it is wise to ask yourself whether they still fit.”

  Harriet stared at him. There it was again, that strange disquiet, portending something she did not care to examine, a crack in her carefully ordered world. But she was content with the life she had constructed for herself. Who was he to try to change it?

  “You are free to go elsewhere tomorrow night,” she said crossly, “although in that event I will assume you do not want your shares badly enough to continue the masquerade.”

  He stared at her. “I find you impossible, madam.”

  “Likewise, my lord.”

  Suddenly, he caught her hand and pulled her to her feet.

  “My lord?” Harriet eyed him in confusion.

  “Come,” he said. “I fancy a drive.”

  “I — where?” she stammered. “Now?”

  Though he provided no answer, that was clearly his intent, for he took her arm and propelled her to the door, his hand a firm presence at her back.

  And before Harriet could recover her astonishment, Lord Westwood swept her down the front steps to his waiting curricle. He handed her onto the seat, then jumped up beside her. With a crack of his whip, the horses shot out of the drive.

  ***

  What sort of persuasion worked with a woman as stubborn as Lady Harriet? Perhaps he should have asked himself that question before he decided to make off with her in an open curricle ill-suited for such a purpose, but Elias had run out of patience in the exact moment she told him he was free to go elsewhere. Elsewhere was where he suddenly wanted to be — beyond the confines of Lady Harriet’s parlor and her intractable notions about those dashed salons.

  The clip-clop of the horses’ hooves set the rhythm as he drove them past Grosvenor Square, up to Oxford and then west, past the street traders, over remnants of stones laid by Romans. His passenger made no objection but was scarcely in a position to do so, as she sat with her hands clutching the edge of her seat, her hair flying loose from its pins. And so he drove on.

  It was a lovely day, Elias thought, drinking in the sunshine and the wind on his face. Sometimes a man simply had to head to the country. It had been
too long since he’d worked outdoors in Jamaica with the sun beating down on his shoulders, warming him in a way London never could. As much as he had tried to bring bits and pieces of the island back to London, they mostly served to remind him of what he was missing. The dasheen bushes he’d planted behind his townhouse were but shadows of their Caribbean cousins.

  His nose picked up the heady scent of wildflowers as brick and stone gave way to oak and heather. They must be halfway to Uxbridge by now, he realized. Elias glanced at Lady Harriet, who had given up trying to shield her hair from the wind. Their swift departure had not permitted her the luxury of fetching a hat, and now her hair was a tangled mess. She had not even taken her shawl, and her arms were bare up to the point of the small pieces of fabric that served as the sleeves of her frock and which could not possibly have provided any warmth. He had once found such unkemptness off-putting. Now he eyed that tangled auburn hair and found himself thinking that it would look just that way were she lying in bed gazing up at...well, someone.

  Certainly not him.

  Elias reflected on that. Had Freddy not corked up his toes, saddling him with a spendthrift business partner, he and Lady Harriet never would have inhabited the same universe. They had little in common, and while he could imagine her locked in a lover’s embrace — that tousled hair falling over her naked shoulders, the cool expanse of bare skin slowly warming to white-hot heat — he was not meant to be that man. Theirs was a contrived arrangement. He would do well to remember that.

  Pulling back on the reins, Elias directed his pair into a clearing just off the road. What had he been thinking to embark on this mad, impulsive dash out of town? He took a deep breath, trying to regain his equilibrium, as the curricle rolled to a stop under the shade of a stout oak tree. A meadow stretched out before them, filled with cornflowers and marigold, their purple and yellow hues vibrant against the plum and pear trees that rose in silhouette in the distance.

  Elias stepped down from the curricle and secured the reins. He glanced at Lady Harriet. She had begun to smooth her hair into place, though she still appeared somewhat stunned — justifiably, to be sure. He had given no thought to her comfort and safety, merely sent them galloping west in pursuit of something that did not reek of city rabble-rousers and intellectual pretense. She had doubtless been frightened half to death.

  “I should apologize,” he said, unable to muster much enthusiasm for that task as he drank in the pastoral scene and inhaled the scents around him with a pleasure that went bone-deep. Here was air and land untouched by the bustle and crudeness of town.

  “Pray, do not, my lord,” she replied easily. “That would spoil things.” She caught the hem of her frock, draped it over her arm, and eased herself over the leather seat — brushing aside Elias’s quickly extended hand. Placing her free hand on the dasher, she disembarked, albeit unsteadily. As her foot touched the ground, she shot him a triumphant glance.

  “There! You thought to save me from a tumble, did you not? But I did not need —” She stumbled then, but caught herself at the last moment. “Oh, dear! Pride does indeed goeth before a fall. Or is that before destruction? Either way, I am well-paid for my conceit.” She laughed merrily.

  That laugh — wholehearted, unabashed, infectious — struck Elias like a mortal blow.

  It was as if he had not seen her clearly until this moment. Her windswept hair fell free over her shoulders; the corners of her eyes crinkled in mirth. Their blue sparkle dazzled like Caribbean seas under the blazing sun. And her mouth — no half-measures there, no modest upturn that signaled restrained, ladylike amusement. No, her lips parted in a full-on laugh at her own vanity that was perhaps the most wonderful sound Elias had ever heard.

  And then he picked up the heady scent of primrose. She had worn it again.

  Elias took a steadying breath. “You did not object to the drive?” he heard himself say.

  “Oh, goodness, no,” she said. “Well, I did wonder where you meant to take us, but after a bit I stopped caring. It was most stimulating.”

  She did, indeed, look most stimulated. Her lips curved upward, their dusky pink reminiscent of a shade of orchid that grew wild on trees in Jamaica. “You do not mind the country, then?” he asked.

  She hesitated. “That is a more complicated question. I grew up in Cornwall. The cliffs and the moors were cold and forbidding — desolate, really. Sometimes I despaired of anything growing there, least of all me.” She looked around, her eyes taking in the fields of wildflowers and, in the distance, a windmill. “This, however, is quite lovely.”

  Elias offered his arm and this time, with perfect charity, she took it and allowed him to lead her away from the curricle. “I sense that you do not much like London,” she said.

  He slanted her a gaze. “I find there is much artificiality in town.”

  “That is why you do not like my salons.” When he made no response, she pressed his arm. “That night in my kitchen, you mentioned your father. Tell me about him.”

  Elias shook his head. “That’s in the past.”

  “Everything before this moment is in the past, so that is no excuse.” She smiled. “I fear I must insist.”

  He found that he was powerless to refuse her. “There is little to tell. I was raised in the manner of the heir to an earldom — Eton, Oxford. Latin, boxing, fencing, the like. They did not hold my interest. Then my father sent me to the West Indies to learn my way around his properties there.” He hesitated. “It was a revelation.”

  “In what way?”

  “In every way. I discovered the pleasure of working the land — and discovered spices. There was nothing for it after that.” He smiled a bit sheepishly.

  Her answering smile ignited a warmth inside him. What the devil was wrong with him? Elias wondered.

  “My father had other ideas,” he continued. “He wanted me to learn to be a proper gentleman, whereas I preferred to explore my new interests. We were not able to discuss those differences without mutual anger. I have come to regret that.”

  “I am sorry,” she said.

  “After he died, I discovered that the West Indies property had been sold to pay his debts,” Elias said. “There was little left in the estate. He had never disclosed his financial difficulties to me. Had I known, perhaps I would have made different choices.”

  “Such as?”

  Elias regarded her. “This is a very odd conversation. I cannot think you wish to hear about my regrets.”

  She pressed his arm again, her gaze troubled. “My wish to hear about them is clearly exceeded by your reluctance to speak of them. I did not intend to embarrass you. My inquisitiveness was unpardonably rude.”

  “Not unpardonable, surely.” Elias found he could not take his eyes from hers. “’Tis only that regret is an odd business. It has led me around to the view that while honesty must always be honored, candor need not be.”

  Her sudden, answering smile nearly took his breath away. “And yet, you have been quite candid with me, sir, in stating your case against my use of those shares.”

  “Some truths must be stated.” Elias left it at that. He found he had no wish to introduce acrimony.

  Neither, apparently, did she, for she took his arm again quite companionably. She was nearly a head shorter than he, but her pace matched his and Elias found he quite liked the way her hand nestled into the crook of his elbow. In this manner they resumed their walk toward the meadow.

  “I suppose,” she ventured after a moment, “that it would be intrusive to ask what you did after discovering your estate had no funds. Do forgive me, sir, but I own that I am curious as to how you brought all to right again.”

  “I joined the military,” he responded. “There was no money to buy my colors, but I was strangely happy as a penniless soldier. Afterward, I ran into Freddy, and our business was born.”

  Lady Harriet pondered this. “It would seem that Freddy was perhaps the making of both of us.”

  “I cannot agree.”

&
nbsp; “Why not?” She eyed him curiously.

  He hesitated. “It does not seem that your marriage was a happy one, whereas I have been supremely happy in my business.”

  She looked away. “Assessment of one’s happiness is a subjective matter, I suppose. I find that I am not eager to dwell on it. And now I find myself in sympathy with you, my lord, for I agree that this discussion suddenly seems rather intimate.”

  “Perhaps not for two people who are betrothed,” he replied lightly.

  She stopped and looked up at him. “We are not well-suited, are we, my lord? And yet despite your dislike of our arrangement, you have been quite sporting.”

  “I find it less onerous by the day,” Elias said.

  Lady Harriet looked startled. “But we were at such loggerheads earlier.”

  “And will be again, no doubt.”

  Her gaze searched his. “No doubt.”

  “Should you like to walk for a bit more?”

  She nodded, her eyes not leaving his face as she took his arm once more. Elias led her into the field of wildflowers. He spotted some primroses, and reached down and plucked one. The flower was banded in pink, its bright yellow center giving way to cream. Its scent was reminiscent of sweet olive, and Elias instantly associated it with her and the night he kissed her. Not really a kiss, he mentally corrected, only a fleeting brush of lips in her foyer as she battled a headache. Quite inadequate, now that he thought on it.

  He held the flower out for her inspection.

  “That does not look like the specimen Celestial grows,” Lady Harriet said. “She uses it to make a potion to treat some illness. I cannot remember what.”

  “There are many varieties,” Elias responded. But floral specimens were not uppermost in his mind. Instead, he —

  “Why is it that Caroline Forth can capture a man’s fancy with merely a look?” she asked suddenly.

  Elias stared at her, stunned by her abrupt change of subject.

  “I will grant that she is lovely,” she added, “but I confess I do not understand her appeal.”