“We have much to discuss,” Hunt said in a low tone.
“Perhaps later.” She flushed.
If his ears were not mistaken, Oliver Hunt had just set the stage for an assignation with his fiancée. Hunt nodded at Elias by way of greeting and quickly moved away.
Throughout the evening, Elias watched the man and grew certain he was up to something. Hunt held forth in small groups with his usual arrogance, but his gaze often strayed to Lady Harriet.
Young Eustace was among those hanging onto Hunt’s every word. Elias tried to recall whether he had gone through such a worshipful phase in his youth but was quite certain he had not. Indeed, at Eustace’s age, Elias had already worked the fields of his father’s Jamaica property and seen battle on the Continent. In neither case had there been time for idle pursuits such as hero worship. Then again, Elias had a dim memory of following one of his commanders around like a shadow, drinking in his every utterance on the strategies of war. Perhaps he had not behaved so very differently after all.
Belatedly, Elias noticed that something of a dispute had broken out in one corner of the parlor between Hunt and another man — William Hazlitt, if he did not miss his guess. Elias knew him only by reputation as a bit of a gadfly, with strong beliefs and opinions about a variety of literary and political topics. It appeared that Hazlitt had taken offense at something Hunt said. Elias drew nearer, determined to keep abreast of Mr. Hunt’s every activity this night.
“I live to my own self, sir,” Hazlitt was saying. “I take a thoughtful interest in what is passing in the world, but I do not feel the slightest inclination to meddle in it. If any man be influenced by my essays, that is perhaps to the good, but it is not a result that I seek.”
“A man with your credentials would do better to turn your acclaim to good use,” Hunt admonished. “How sad it is to see a man who wastes his celebrity in the cause of no one but himself when he could, if he wished, serve the public good. As I do.”
“Rubbish!” Hazlitt retorted. “There is not a more mean, stupid, dastardly, pitiful, selfish, spiteful, envious, ungrateful animal than the public. It is the greatest of cowards, for it is afraid of itself.”
By now, the other conversations had stopped. Everyone gathered around the two men, one an acclaimed man of letters, the other noted for his revolutionary zeal. Wilberforce, the man Elias had seen conversing with Lady Harriet at Lady Symington’s ball, spoke up.
“It is true that people are customarily afraid of change,” Wilberforce said in a conciliatory tone. “And not all change is for the best, of course. But sometimes the public must be led to change because it will result in the greater happiness of others.”
Hazlitt scoffed. “How little security we have when we trust our happiness to others!”
“My point exactly,” Hunt snapped. “Many people have no security at all. Are you so blind, man, that you do not see? They must be taught to see their future and seize it.”
Studying Hunt’s florid features, Elias found it hard to believe that this was the man who had so calmly skewered him the other night for his loyalty to the Crown. Tonight Hunt lacked the patience for effective debate. He seemed agitated, almost preoccupied, and his attacks were more curt than considered.
“I see well enough that you, Hunt, have a love of power,” Hazlitt replied disdainfully, “and therefore a love of yourself that will always take precedence over any charity you profess for that mewling public of yours.”
Hunt rounded on Hazlitt, closing to within a whisker’s breadth of the man. “You, sir, are an ass!”
“Better an ass than a fraud,” Hazlitt spat out.
At Hunt’s swift intake of breath, Elias heard fast bets being placed as to whether the two would come to fisticuffs. Ever the peacemaker, Wilberforce tried to intervene, but the two men simply ignored him. They glared at each other like two belligerent bulls.
“Do have a Napoleon, gentlemen!” Lady Harriet darted between Hunt and Hazlitt with a plate.
From his vantage point several feet away, Elias could just make out the plump, enticing pastries. They looked to be made of several layers. He had not seen their like before. He edged closer, but everyone else had the same idea. By the time he reached the platter, nary a one remained.
The argument was quickly forgotten. Everyone to a man was engaged in the act of polishing off the confections, which looked to have a brittle exterior interspersed with a cream filling.
Brittle on the outside, soft where it mattered. Like Lady Harriet.
Or perhaps not. Perhaps what happened between them yesterday was an aberration. Perhaps she did not harbor any real desire for him, or any man. Perhaps all the attention she lavished on every damned thing that came out of her kitchen was the only real passion that moved her.
And perhaps, Elias thought darkly, she had no idea that she was capable of sending a man to the very limits of his control.
***
“Mr. Hunt?” Harriet’s uncertain gaze swept the shadows of the terrace. Instantly, a figure stepped out of the darkness.
“Harriet,” he acknowledged in a velvet voice. “You do not mind that I call you Harriet, I hope?”
Harriet eyed him uneasily. She had been taken aback at receiving his short note a quarter hour ago to meet her here. “What did you wish to see me about, sir?”
“I have thought of nothing else but our tête-à-tête since today, when I received your letter.” He took her hand. “When you asked me for advice about your late husband’s business concerns last fall, I had dared to hope you would turn to me for more counsel, perhaps for companionship. I am not normally a patient man, but now I see that patience does indeed have its reward. I am touched and overwhelmed by your declaration.”
“Letter?” Harriet was bewildered. Last fall, when she had decided to sell some of Freddy’s shares of Westwood Imports, her solicitor suggested that she mention the fact to her friends and acquaintances to see if they were interested in purchasing them. That did not strike her as seemly, so she ultimately abandoned that course. Perhaps she had said something to Mr. Hunt at the time, though she could not recall. But she was quite certain she had written no letter to him — then or now.
“You write like an angel,” Mr. Hunt said, pulling a piece of paper from his pocket, though in truth he had been rather surprised at her faulty grammar. “I shall treasure this missive until the day I die.”
“I should very much like to see that paper, sir. I warrant that I sent you no such letter.” Harriet reached for it, but he jerked it away and instead caught her about the waist.
“So coy, so playful,” he murmured, crushing her against his chest. “So delightful!”
Harriet tried to pull away. “Pray do not, Mr. Hunt! Indeed, you do not appear to be yourself tonight. I daresay you have not been getting your rest, what with all your, er, important activities.” To her dismay, his arms locked around her.
“It is true that I have been engaged in important work.” His sonorous voice deepened. “Revolutionary fervor can be unpredictable. Riots all over the country have demanded my attention.”
“I can well imagine.” Harriet tried to pry his fingers from her waist. “It must be a great deal of work to channel the people’s zeal to other areas.”
“Oh, I am perfectly happy with their efforts,” he said. “Rioting is the only way to get a recalcitrant government’s attention. Only by creating mayhem can we accomplish anything. But it must be organized mayhem. It does no good to destroy something insignificant.”
“I see,” Harriet responded, contemplating whether it would be a breach of etiquette to dig her nails into the man’s loathsome fingers. “What do you consider significant?”
“Factories, storehouses, and the like,” he said. “It is the only way to get the attention of the rich and put pressure on the government.”
Such was Harriet’s astonishment that she momentarily forgot about her predicament. “You condone such destruction?”
“I condone anythi
ng that leads to change. And I am delighted to have found a perfect helpmeet.” He brought his lips to hers.
“Mr. Hunt, you have formed entirely the wrong impress —” But her words were cut off by his kiss.
***
“Lord Westwood.”
Elias turned. He had been watching the door to the kitchen, wondering where Lady Harriet had gone to. Perhaps she was fetching more pastries, he thought hopefully. “Eustace,” he acknowledged politely. “I trust you are well.”
“Well enough, my lord. Only —” Eustace halted, then stared down at his feet.
Elias almost felt sorry for the lad. He had not missed the troubled look in Eustace’s eyes during Hunt’s heated dispute with Hazlitt. Though a relentless iconoclast, Hazlitt had held his composure rather more than Hunt, who in Elias’s view had revealed himself to be an abusive, irrational bully.
Eustace looked downcast indeed. Had the bloom faded from that particular rose? All to the good, Elias thought. Hunt was not worthy of Eustace’s youthful adoration.
“Do not take it so hard, Eustace. A true man does not need to belittle others to prove himself a man.”
“Yes, sir. That is, I —” Eustace broke off in obvious discomfiture.
Elias eyed him in alarm. He fervently hoped that Eustace was not about to cry. “Why do we not go out to the terrace?” he said quickly. Lady Harriet’s pastries could wait.
“Yes, the terrace.” Eustace nodded vigorously and with apparent relief. “That is just where we should go. I think it is best if you see for yourself.” To Elias’s surprise, Eustace flushed a deep red.
“What the devil are you talking about?” Elias demanded, as Eustace pulled him through the parlor toward the terrace.
“Shhh!” Eustace admonished. “It would not do to attract attention. Come, my lord. Please hurry, or I fear it will be too late.”
“Too late? For what?”
“Just hurry.”
When they reached the terrace doors, Eustace fairly pushed him out into the night air.
At first, Elias thought they were alone. Then he picked out a muffled conversation in the vicinity of what he assumed was a normally silent bush.
“My dear, I will treasure this moment until I die,” said a familiar baritone.
“And that moment, sirrah, is now!” Eustace shouted triumphantly in the direction of the tall shrubbery. He looked expectantly at Elias.
A figure — Hunt, if Elias did not miss his guess — peered from around the bush, followed by another figure — that of his fiancée.
“Eustace! Lord Westwood!” Lady Harriet’s eyes were wide.
Elias registered her rather disheveled appearance and Hunt’s proprietary air. Then he glanced at Eustace.
“This is what I was trying to tell you, sir,” Eustace replied, regarding Hunt with the look of a vengeful angel. “Do you wish to kill him now, or shall I have the honor of acting as your second?”
Elias’s gaze returned to Hunt and Lady Harriet, who was smoothing the fabric of her gown and looking anywhere but at him. Hunt, to his amazement, began to laugh.
“Go away, Eustace. You are bothering me. Rather like a pesky fly on the corn pudding. This is a matter between two men, not a mere pup.”
“Yes, do leave us, Eustace.” Lady Harriet said in a wobbly voice. “I do not think you too young, but you must see that this is most embarrassing for me —”
“Embarrassing?” Hunt frowned. “My dear —”
“I am not your dear,” Lady Harriet interjected. “Not in the slightest. If you could see past your inflated self-regard, you would have realized that instantly. I had no wish for such fondness between us. Indeed, rather the opposite.”
“Now, Harriet, why deny what is perfectly plain to me, as it must be to this fellow here,” Hunt demanded.
“This ‘fellow’,” Elias said evenly, “is engaged to the lady whom you have, by her own admission, embarrassed.” He took a measure of pride in the fact that he had not lost his composure — though even as that thought formed, his fists curled at his sides.
Hunt laughed. “That is rich! Can you not see that I am everything you are not? Learned, compelling, a galvanizer of men —”
“No!” Eustace said suddenly. “That is not true.”
Hunt merely shrugged. “Why should I care for the opinion of a green youth?”
“Eustace is correct.” Lady Harriet stepped forward, eyes flashing. “You are quite the fraud. This past quarter-hour in your company has persuaded me of that. I must ask you to leave, Mr. Hunt.”
“Nonsense, madam. There are a dozen men inside who will hang on my every word. I cannot disappoint them.”
“Then perhaps they will follow you outside,” she responded coolly.
Hunt scowled at her. “Nonsense. You wrote me a letter. You led me to believe that my attention was more than welcome — indeed, warmly sought.”
Lady Harriet flushed. “I did no such thing!”
“What sort of tease is this?” Hunt demanded.
Lady Harriet looked stricken. “Mr. Hunt,” she protested, “I did not —”
“You lie, madam!”
And that is when Elias’s fist connected with Hunt’s jaw. In the next instant, Hunt lay prone at her feet.
“Oh, my!” Lady Harriet cried. “Was that necessary, my lord?”
Elias regarded her for a long moment, then turned away. He had not been able to control his temper after all. That was disappointing, though not quite as disappointing as Lady Harriet’s behavior. Indeed, he did not know what to believe.
He thought it best to leave. Eustace was more than capable of showing Mr. Hunt to the door, especially now that Lady Harriet’s butler had arrived on the terrace, looking quite appalled at the scene before him.
Elias sighed heavily. He had not gotten even one of those pastries. But that was not the problem. No, it was very much worse than that. He regarded his fiancée. She still looked lovely in that green gown, though its bodice was scandalously awry. Her eyes held dismay — that much was clear — but there was something else there as well. Something, his brain told him, very like perfidy.
In the last twenty-four hours, he had learned a great deal about her. Now, he knew something else: That she was as counterfeit as their betrothal.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“You cannot go to his house!” Monica looked horrified.
“I must.” Harriet picked up her reticule and walked past Horace, who had finally abandoned his effort to appear uninterested in matters involving his employer and Lord Westwood. “I cannot allow him to think I threw myself at Mr. Hunt.”
“Mr. Hunt has apologized — quite prettily, I thought.” Monica had rather enjoyed the spectacle of the proud Mr. Hunt groveling before them in the parlor this morning.
“Perhaps he will even muster the courage to apologize to Lord Westwood, although I doubt it,” Harriet said. “The man seems to have little in the way of honor.”
Monica shook her head. “What does it matter, anyway? The betrothal is a sham. Why not let things be?”
“A sham?” Horace stared at them. No sooner were the words out than he clapped his hand over his mouth in mortification. “I beg your pardon, madam,” he said, his face red. “I should not have spoken. I do not know what has come over me lately.”
Harriet frowned. The normally reticent Horace had been turned inside out trying to satisfy Celestial’s thirst for information. “Your concern — everyone’s concern — is gratifying,” she said crisply, “but I am leaving now.”
Before Monica could protest further, Harriet swept out the door. Determination gave her courage, but truth be told, she was as nervous as a cat. Lord Westwood had not responded to her note. He had not come round to escort her to the party they had been engaged to attend last night. Harriet could not abide his silence. Disapproval, perhaps. Even his anger. But not his silence.
Silence meant that she did not exist.
She and Freddy had had too much silence between them, an
d it had created an even greater gulf. Harriet had never broached the subject of their marriage to him; likely he would have been surprised to learn that she felt solitary and isolated. She was certain that Freddy had never felt isolated or alone. He led an unencumbered life, and emotions were not part of it. Diversion, not reflection, was his way.
Harriet had prided herself on being neither a cloying nor a demanding wife. Then again, she had only a vague notion of what a marriage should be. As her mother had died birthing her, Harriet had no opportunity to witness her parents together. Her father had been remote and cold. Harriet knew he blamed her for her mother’s death.
Knowing nothing about marriage, Harriet had nevertheless assumed that she and Freddy would find their own way. But something was missing. Harriet had not known how to articulate what that was. Sometimes she thought the problem existed only in her own mind. Why was she not satisfied with a state that other women enjoyed? Was there something wrong with her? The longer she and Freddy lived as two islands in the same household, the more confused she had become.
Marriage to a man incapable of fidelity proved a trap: Always, she hoped that things between them would improve, but each day presented new opportunities for realizing that they would not. Her disappointment had turned inward, making her doubt her worth. And so she tried to find a path through the world on her own terms. Her salons and her cooking brought her a measure of fulfillment. And independence, of course.
But what was independence, anyway? The freedom she had in her marriage proved an empty consolation. Freedom did not make up for the sense of failure that haunted her.
Still, if she had learned anything from her time with Freddy, it was that silence did not erase problems; it only made them worse. Perhaps if she had found her voice, Freddy would not have strayed.
Lord Westwood was not Freddy. He was not even her fiancé. But his silence wounded her in a way that was profoundly disturbing. And she meant to deal with it forthrightly. She resolved to be silent no more.
Harriet had never visited a gentleman at his house. It was not done, even by independent women, unless one wished to be taken for a lightskirt. Harriet did not care about her reputation. She only knew she was finished with silence.
Reforming Harriet Page 15