by Bliss Bennet
She giggled as he kissed his way up her chest and traced the valleys of her collarbones with his tongue. Is this what she felt like when she extended her hand to help another? Fizzing with happiness, not just for herself, but because she’d brought happiness to another?
Marriage to him might just be worth her while if he could give her this, a lightening of her burdens, a burst of occasional joy. And he could give her the protection of his name, even if she had to take his less than perfect self as part of the bargain. In spite of all the troubles that had led to it, everything about marrying her felt right, deep inside him.
“Say yes, Harry,” he whispered in the shell of her ear.
“But there is still so much to discuss, to plan—oh!” She started as he took a lobe between his teeth and nipped.
“To hell with planning and discussing. I—”
A loud knock on the cottage door sent them springing apart. She stared at him, her eyes wide, then jumped off the bed and began to gather her scattered garments.
“My lord? Miss Atherton? Are you here?”
Theo pulled on his shirt before shoving his head out the open window. A boy—young Dawber?—stood below. “My lord?”
“Just a moment. I’ll be down directly.”
After scrambling into the rest of his clothing and his boots, Theo gave Harry a kiss of reassurance, then rushed down the stairs. Raking a hand over his hair as he yanked on the door, he was met by the sight of Laban Dawber and his dog. The boy’s eyes narrowed as he took in the disheveled state of Theo’s garments.
“Lord Saybrook, Randall sent me for Miss Atherton. Her father’s been asking for her, he says.” Laban frowned, then shook his head, clearly disappointed in his former hero’s less than ideal behavior. Race, the sheepdog, gave a short, sharp concurring bark.
How lowering, to be put to shame by a twelve-year-old. Theo struggled to wind his rumpled cravat into some semblance of a knot.
“You needn’t look so disapproving, Laban. Miss Atherton and I are to be married. And you may be the first to wish us joy.”
Theo’s declaration sent the boy’s eyes wide. “You? And Miss Atherton? Ooh, can I tell them all up at the house?”
“I’ll thank you to leave that pleasure to me and my betrothed, if you please.”
“Yes, my lord. But you’d best hurry, for I’m not much good at keeping secrets. And Miss Pennington—that is, Miss Pennington that was, I mean—she can always tell when I’m fit to burst with news.”
“Sibilla? What, do you plan to write my sister a letter?”
Laban’s brow wrinkled. “No need of letter-writing when she’s right up at the house. Did you not know she’s come?”
Theo yanked on his half-tied cravat. He should have known his impulsive sister would ignore all his commands to remain in London until closer to the election. Especially now that the election might be contested.
“Four big coaches there were! One for your sister and her friends, another for their servants, and two more for all their baggage. Parsons seemed likely to faint away bringing in all those boxes and bags! One of the gentleman was awful particular about how they must be carried. Upset Mr. Benedict something awful, that other gentleman. But your sister says to never mind their squabbling, for we’re to spend the next month busy canvassing the voters for the election!”
Laban and his dog rushed off back toward Saybrook House before Theo’s groan of dismay could throw a pall over his high spirits.
Theo raked two hands through his already disheveled hair. As if organizing a village fete and a birthday celebration were not enough, now he had to start attending—and paying for—social events to woo voters to his brother-in-law’s side.
Not to mention a wedding.
If only he could persuade Harry to chuck it all and run off with him to Gretna Green . . .
Harry took a deep breath as she reached the bottom of the Saybrook house staircase. She had told Theo after he returned from speaking with Laban that she could not respond to his proposal without first consulting with her father. He’d accepted her decision with grace, though she had seen from his expression how little in the way of sensible guidance he expected her to receive from his steward. Yes, perhaps it was foolish given all they had discovered about her father’s condition to think he would talk to her about her future. Still, she could not help but hope.
But this afternoon father had not been worse, not better. And her halting words of marriage and money only seemed to confuse, then agitate him. If he continued in such a state, she would have to make this life-altering decision all on her own.
After taking an early dinner on a tray in his room, her father had finally settled to sleep. She had left him there just a few moments ago, dozing under the watchful eye of Sissy Parsons, a housemaid who showed skill in nursing. If he did not come back to his sense of self soon, she would ask Theo to allow the young woman to give over her other tasks and devote herself to caring for Mr. Atherton. At least during the hours when Harry could not be with him herself.
As now, when she had been called down to dine with Theo and his unexpected guests. Guests who might one day be not only his family, but hers, too.
No, the mere thought would not send her fleeing back to her father’s bedchamber, no matter how madly her stomach roiled.
With a determined tilt of her chin, she nodded to Parsons, who was acting footman this evening, to open the library door.
Though the room was crowded, her eyes were immediately drawn to her almost-betrothed. Theo was not the most handsome man here, nor the most stylishly dressed, but something about the warm smile that burst forth whenever he caught sight of her made her feel as if her world would never entirely bleak as long as he were in it, too.
He raised his eyebrows in question, asking without words how her conversation with her father had gone. She grimaced, then gave an infinitesimal shake of her head. Now was not the time to inform his family and friends of their tentative agreement, no matter how eager he was to share the news.
He kept his mischievous tongue in check, but the smoldering look he shot her from across the room was almost as betraying. Happily for her, he stood out of sight, behind the knot of people gathered around the large desk—Theo’s brother and sister, and another dark-haired gentleman she did not recognize—who were all too absorbed in the papers scattered over it to note how fixedly, and with such a wicked grin, Lord Saybrook stared at the new arrival. Goodness, could everyone tell how she and he had spent the afternoon, just by the blush racing over her face?
“Miss Atherton,” Parsons announced.
Theo’s sister rose from her chair, crossing the room with hands extended. “Harriot Atherton, what a pleasure to be with you again. And I am so sorry to hear of your father’s accident. I am certain he will soon recover.”
Harry smiled to see Sibilla Pennington—Lady Sibilla Sayre, now—with such an animated expression. When Harry had first returned to Lincolnshire, the vibrant, active girl of her memory had been a somber, angry young lady, so caught up in her grief for her departed father she’d had little time for an old childhood friend. But now, Theo’s sister looked far more like the energetic young woman Harry remembered. Was it the prospect of the upcoming election, or a happy marriage, that so agreed with her?
Harry allowed the young woman to scoop up her hands and give them a squeeze before she lowered into a decorous curtsey. “Thank you, Lady Sayre. I trust you and your party had a pleasant journey from town?”
“Yes, indeed.” Sibilla chuckled. “Although Theo might have warned us we were likely to be delayed by misguided sheep who far too often mistake the roadway for a field.”
“What, you expect intelligence from creatures that believe oil-cake and sow-thistle the height of cuisine?” opined an exquisitely dressed dandy standing by the window. The gentleman’s burnished curls shone almost as brightly as the golden embroidery twining about his waistcoat. And with such high shirt points, could he even turn his head? Heavens, surely Theo w
ould never have allowed his sister to wed such a fop, let alone offered him a seat in Parliament.
She glanced at Theo in surprise. But he only raised one amused eyebrow.
Lady Sayre, oblivious to their byplay, smiled with indulgence at the pretty fellow. But then, to Harry’s relief, she gestured toward the far more soberly dressed dark-haired man standing by Benedict Pennington’s side. “May I introduce my husband, Sir Peregrine Sayre? And there, grumbling over by the window, is our friend, Viscount Dulcie.”
She shot Theo a chiding glance. He, however, only grinned, making the corners of her own lips tug up in return. But no, she would not allow his crinkling eyes and wicked grin to distract her from her manners.
“Your Lordship. Sir Peregrine. Welcome to Lincolnshire,” she said with a curtsey to both. “Lord Saybrook tells us that you are to stand for Parliament.”
“Yes, if the electors will have me,” Sir Peregrine said.
Even if she had not felt the least bit of guilt about her father’s misplacement of the monies intended to fund the gentleman’s campaign, Harry could not help but be engaged by Sir Peregrine’s diffident smile.
“Certainly they will have you, Per,” his wife answered, twining her hand about his arm and giving it a squeeze.
Sibilla Pennington’s was a marriage of affection, then, as well as one of shared interests. If Harry married Theo, would hers be, as well?
Sir Peregrine glanced down at his wife with a frown. “But what if the Tories succeed in convincing Mr. Norton’s son to run?”
“Even so,” Benedict Pennington offered. “No one respects a turncoat, particularly one of the political persuasion.”
“I did not realize that Sir Peregrine’s seat might be contested.” Harry frowned. How could Theo think to announce his engagement to a penniless nobody at a time when he would need all his social capital to ensure his brother-in-law’s election?
But Theo did not appear at all worried as he moved to join their circle. “Besides, they’d never throw out all their orange buntings, and sew new ones of blue.”
Harry tried not to react as his sleeve brushed up against her own as he took up a stance beside her.
“Theo, must you make everything into a joke?” his sister chided. “I hardly think it helpful.”
Viscount Dulcie strutted across the room, distracting Sibilla Sayre’s attention. But Harry could not help but notice how Theo’s once broad smile faded at his sister’s rebuke.
“I for one am saddened, Saybrook,” Dulcie said. “I look so terrible in orange.”
“Remind me again why you brought along Lord Foppinton here?” Benedict asked with a scowl.
“Because he offered to help with the election canvassing,” his sister answered.
“Dulcie?” Benedict snorted. “Far more likely to be hindrance than help.”
“And what aid have you offered, sir?” The dandy turned to Theo’s brother with both quizzing glass and eyebrow raised. “That portrait you attempted to paint of Sir Peregrine? Far more likely to scare off electors than to win them to his side if I am any judge.”
Did Theo know the reason for the animosity between his brother and his brother-in-law’s friend? If he did, his expression did nothing to reveal it. But he had enough troubles without his guests’ squabbling over trifles.
“Have you visited Saybrook House before?” she asked Lord Dulcie, glad to find a way to be of help. “The gallery here includes works by several artists of note, including a fine portrait of Lord Saybrook’s mother.”
The dandy’s eyes sparkled with interest. “Done by Lawrence, was it not?”
“Oh, no, Dulcie, do not distract Miss Atherton with talk of art,” Sibilla interrupted, placing a hand on Harry’s arm and pulling her toward the paper-littered desk. “We need her advice to help check this poll list the election agent gave us. If there is even a chance this contest might be contested, we must begin our efforts in earnest.”
“But Miss Atherton is already occupied, not only with her father, but planning for the fete. Not to mention this damned birthday celebration Sir John Mather has foisted upon us,” Theo interrupted, placing a warm hand in the small of her back. “I won’t have you running her ragged, Sibilla, not even for an election.”
“Birthday celebration? Why should Miss Atherton be involved in planning a party for Sir John?” his sister asked with a frown.
“Not for Sir John. For Lord Saybrook.” Harry’s brow furrowed at the ring of puzzled faces staring back at her. “The coming of age celebration we are to have? To formally introduce your brother to his tenantry?”
“Coming of age celebration? But Theo is far too old for any such thing,” Sibilla said.
“Perhaps.” She frowned at Theo. Why had he not told his family about the celebration? “But my father and Sir John think it wise, even at this late day, to host a formal event recognizing your brother’s ascension to the title. It will signal to the tenants that Lord Saybrook is ready to take on his proper role as master and protector of the estate.”
“Saybrook, accepting the fealty of the peasantry like a medieval lord and his vassals?” Dulcie drawled. “How very droll. Shall I break out my copy of Ivanhoe?”
It wasn’t Lord Dulcie’s snide remark, but the look of doubt on Sibilla Sayre’s face, that set Harry’s hackles rising. Should not a sister show more respect for her brother, the head of her family? Especially a brother struggling with as many burdens as was Theo?
“Lord Saybrook has done admirable work these past weeks with the tenants and the sheep, Lady Sayre, especially after my father’s accident,” she said with no little asperity. “And we are all particularly grateful for his willingness to speak on behalf of the village fete, which Reverend Strickland and others would have done away with entirely in their ridiculous, reactionary fears of revolutionaries and rioters. The Saybrook estate is lucky to have a man of such spirit and sensibility at its head.”
After a long, weighted pause, Sir Peregrine finally nodded. “Indeed. No one intended to suggest otherwise. Nor did we intend to place any unwelcome burdens on you, either, Miss Atherton.” He gave his wife’s shoulders a squeeze.
“No, of course we do not,” she echoed, her puzzled gaze fixed on her eldest brother as if she had never seen him before. Had even his sister been fooled by his dissipated air, unable to see the true worth of the man beneath it?
“Very good, then,” Harry said, clapping her hands together to dismiss the moment of unpleasantness. “And I will be happy to lend any aid I may to your election efforts, when I am not otherwise occupied. Shall we discuss your plans over dinner?”
All the rules of precedence called for the lord of the manor to lead his sister, the wife of a baronet, in to the dining room rather than her, the daughter of a mere gentleman. But Theo winged an arm out to Harry in invitation, his eyes brimming with equal parts gratitude and challenge.
Harry took a deep breath, then placed her hand atop his.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Not so good today, sweet?”
Harry shut the door to Mr. Atherton’s bedchamber before raising her eyes to Theo’s sympathetic gaze. During the warm summer weeks that had followed the arrival of his family in Lincolnshire, the comfortingly familiar pattern of Harry’s life had undergone an entire revolution. Rather than spend quiet days tending her father’s cottage and visiting among the villagers of Oldfield, she had taken up residence at Saybrook House, enmeshed in the tumult of electioneering and planning for the fete. And caring for her father, too. Every morning after breaking her fast, she would tend to him, reading, singing, or simply talking to him in a soothing voice, praying for the reappearance of his former, even-tempered self.
His occasional lucid periods would send her hopes soaring, only to dash them with the sudden, inexplicable return of anger and recalcitrance.
Some mornings, he barely seemed to recognize her at all.
To her shock, Theo had been waiting for her in the passageway that first morning, eager t
o hear how her father fared, and to offer whatever she thought needful for the older man’s comfort. A pillow, a tisane, the opinion of a doctor reputed for curing the mad. As if the fact that Mr. Atherton had been responsible for the loss of hundreds and thousands of pounds of the Saybrook estate’s money mattered not a jot.
And it had not just been that first morning, either. No, each and every day, for nearly six weeks now, she’d found him waiting, ready with a smile or a joke. Or a solid, comforting shoulder when her grief could simply not be contained, after each physician who visited offered less and less hope of her father’s ever recovering his wits.
As if Theo already thought of himself as her mate, her helpmeet in shared adversity.
She’d hardly expected such constancy from the lighthearted Lord Saybrook. Especially after listening to the words his siblings and friends so often used to dismiss him. Distractible. Unwilling to persevere. Eager to please, but not as steady as one might wish. Each said with kindness, and clear affection, too, but with a certainty she could not understand, so different were her own opinions of the man his family held in such low esteem.
“No, not so good,” she whispered, moving closer to Theo’s comforting bulk. “He swore that his porridge was too cold, then threw the entire bowl of it at the wall, just missed hitting Parsons in the head. Although I fear poor Parsons’ livery is a more than a little worse for the encounter. I hope you give your footmen more than one set, or we are likely to shock Lord Dulcie’s sartorial sensibilities to no end.”
Despite the weakness of her sally, Theo hummed in sympathy. “Dulcie already thinks the Saybrook livery shockingly ugly, so what’s a bit of porridge added to the mix?” he asked as he laid a comforting hand against her back.
Harry’s body seemed to melt into his touch. Both her father and her great aunt had always told her to control her feelings, and to eschew the company of others until she could recollect herself and restrain any unsightly displays. But Theo never made her ashamed of her painful emotions, even as he strove to cheer her with his silly jokes and winsome smile.