by Joyce Alec
“It just all seems very strange to me,” Lord Terra said, tapping his fingers anxiously on his knees. “It is so unlike her, and according to you, Mr. Barnes, very unlike your son. We understand that he enjoys exploration, but to hide his plans is bizarre, correct?”
Mr. Barnes nodded his head solemnly. Lord Henry imagined he would have liked to be anywhere but here at that moment.
“I think we just need to wait,” Lord Henry said eventually.
“Yeah?” Lord Terra said, studying his face as he spoke.
Lord Henry nodded. “I think Madam Stewart was right. I think she will come around. We just need to…” he nearly choked on the last word. “Wait.”
Lord Pangborn groaned.
7
The Truth
It only took Charles and Harriette a few hours to reach their next destination. Harriette was incredibly grateful to Madam Stewart for helping them get a carriage. She couldn’t have imagined, nor had the strength, to walk all this way. Before they had left, she had asked Charles several times over where they were headed next, but he wouldn’t tell her. He continued to tell her it was a surprise, and what she found endearing and rather romantic the night before, she found frustrating and unnecessary.
He brought them to yet another inn in the middle of some small village that she had not been to, and she was very aware of the fact that they were progressively moving farther and farther east. Being this far from home was making her incredibly uneasy, and she wondered if she should say something to Charles.
“Lady Harriette,” he said that evening over dinner. She noticed just how handsome he was in the light from the candle between them, the shadows accentuating his jawline and brow. He looked much more mature than he had earlier that morning, and she believed once more that perhaps this wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
“Yes, my love?” she replied, and as the words passed through her lips, she found herself blushing furiously.
He smiled at her, and she felt her heart melting. “Are you all right? You seemed awfully sad in the carriage this morning.”
She smiled at him. “I am quite all right, but thank you for asking.”
“You are sure?”
She nodded. “I am. I suppose all of this is just so strange to me, so sudden. I think I am fighting myself about whether I am afraid or excited.”
He considered her for a few moments, looking directly into her eyes.
“Charles,” she said quietly, leaning closer to him across the table. “What made you want to ask me to run away with you?”
He cleared his throat and sat back in his chair, his warmth and openness seeming to disappear.
“Well, I…” he began. He ran his fingers through his hair and laughed, but it sounded duller than it normally did. “I suppose that I have thought about it for some time now.”
She continued to watch him. She found it quite charming when he was nervous, especially since he was always so confident and rambunctious. “Truly?”
He glanced briefly at her before looking down at the plate in front of himself. “Yes. And I knew I would have to ask you before you went to that big fancy ball in a few weeks.”
She sat back in her own chair a little. “Yes…the ball…”
“And I knew for sure that someone would ask you to marry them shortly after that, if not at the ball that very night!”
She stared at him. “What makes you think that anyone would want to marry me?”
“Oh come off it,” he said, crossing his arms. “You are stunning! How could a man resist you? And your family’s wealth is desirable as well.”
She saw his eyes grow wide and he snatched up his goblet full of wine and drained it in one long sip.
She could only stare at him. Had she heard him right? He thought…she was stunning? She had always thought herself very plain, and not nearly as handsome as her younger sister, who had beautiful golden hair.
“You…really think that about me?”
He seemed puzzled. “But, of course. Why on earth would any man think otherwise?”
“So, you wished to ensure that we would be together?” she asked, the romance of it all overcoming her once more. “You couldn’t stand the idea that someone else might have wished to marry me?”
“Yes,” he said, looking around. “I knew that your father would never allow it if I were to have asked him.”
“Oh, I do not know if that is true,” she replied, but as she considered it, she realized he was probably right. There was probably little chance that her father would have agreed to let her marry a man who had no social standing. But didn’t he know that it didn’t matter to her? Didn’t he know that it was her own life, and she should be able to marry whomever she chose? Besides, she knew that Charles was a hardworking young man who she had seen working with his father since he was a boy. She knew that he would do well by her and take care of her and any family they may have together.
Wouldn’t he?
“Oh, just think,” she said. “We could start a family and have a little house near my father’s estate so my governess could become the governess of our children. I’m sure my father will forgive us for this, certain that at least my mother will understand, and our children can be brought up in the proper way.”
He had become very pale, she noticed, as she finished her thought. “My dear, whatever is the matter?”
“N…nothing,” he replied. “I…need to get some fresh air.”
And without another word, he was up on his feet and walking toward the doors leading outside, leaving her there all alone in the tavern.
She simply stared at his empty seat. That had been awfully abrupt, and she wondered what she could have said to upset him. Hadn’t he thought of these very same things? Isn’t that a large part of wishing to marry someone?
She hesitated for a moment, but she realized very quickly that there was not a soul in the room that she knew, and it was not long before she, too, was outside beneath the quickly darkening sky.
Looking around, she pulled her traveling cloak more closely to herself, feeling the wind pick up, sweeping through the streets. She glanced up and down both sides of the street and felt a flicker of anxiety when she couldn’t immediately see Charles.
She walked down the road in the direction they had come, toward the long, cobblestone bridge that spanned the wide river she could hear from where she stood. She wasn’t sure why, but she assumed this was where he would end up being; perhaps his adventurous, spontaneous nature was not as unfamiliar as she had once believed.
She had been correct.
Charles leaned against the side of the bridge, gazing down into the river below, the wind sweeping the hair from his face. He looked so young standing in the fading sun, much more like a young boy than a man who was ready to become her husband.
The sight, she realized, made her very sad. She had found him in a very similar position when she had discovered that his mother had died. He looked vulnerable, exposed, and she wondered if she should approach him at all.
She remained where she was, beside the storefront before the bridge, and watched him. He continually bent down, grabbed what she assumed was a small stone, and pelted it over the side into the rushing water below.
Feeling a bit like a parent watching her child, Lady Harriette frowned. Is this what her life was to become? Would he act this way whenever they were to have some sort of disagreement? And did what they had in the tavern even count as a disagreement? She wasn’t sure, but it made her uneasy.
She straightened her shoulders and started off toward him once more, acknowledging to herself that if this was how they were to start off their life together, she wasn’t going to have it. He didn’t even hear her coming until she reached the bridge and her boots crunched on the gravel beneath her.
“Oh, it’s just you,” he said. He turned back to the river. “You startled me.”
“You startled me, Charles,” she replied, rather indignantly. It was incredible to her that she
could have felt so romantic just a short time ago, and now she felt irritated and upset. “You just left me in that tavern all alone. What if something had happened to your wife-to-be?”
He winced when she said those words. “Please, don’t…don’t call yourself that.”
“What?” she questioned. “Your wife-to-be? Why on earth should I not call myself that? Would you prefer fiancée? Or betrothed?”
He remained silent, his gaze fixed ahead.
“What has happened to you? Why won’t you tell me anything about what we are doing?”
“What do you mean? I have told you what we are doing. We are going to get married!”
“Then why were you far more excited about it the night you asked me to run away with you than you are now?” She watched the side of his face, and his jaw tightened. “We were both so happy just the other night! How is it that all of that has disappeared already?”
Once again, he was quiet, his lips pursed together.
“Where are we going, Charles?” she said finally, feeling exasperated. She wondered, not for the first time, if she was indeed making the right decision.
Standing out in the cold evening air with no home to return to left her feeling suddenly frightened. She had no idea where they were, or where they planned to go. She suddenly missed her home, her family, Lord Henry, her own bed.
She felt tears well up in her eyes.
“Charles, I have a right to know where we are and what is happening to me.”
He sighed heavily. “Please don’t get upset. We are in the village of Huntington.”
“Why?” she asked before he could say anything else.
“It’s just a stop on our way to get married,” he answered, shrugging his shoulders, but he wouldn’t make eye contact with her.
“Why didn’t we just get married in Fair Haven? Or in Greenwich, where we live?”
He kicked at some stones in the path in front of himself. His childish responses to her questions were causing her anger to flare even more.
“Would you look at me?” she asked, feeling more and more desperate by the second.
He slowly looked up into her face. She was surprised to see that he was as exasperated as she was.
“I guess there’s no point in hiding it anymore,” he began, and sighed heavily. “You would have discovered it at some point. There is no point trying to hide it from you forever.”
He looked up at her. “I never had the intention of marrying you,” he said rather flatly.
“Wh…what?” she breathed, feeling as if she had heard him incorrectly. Of course she heard him incorrectly…hadn’t she?
“Well, that’s not entirely true,” he said, turning to look over at the river once more. “I did intend to marry you. But it was for different reasons than what you think.”
She couldn’t even form words because she was so shocked. Harriette just stood there, on the cold, darkening bridge, staring at Charles in utter disbelief.
He looked at her, pleadingly, and began to pace back and forth. “You see, when my mother passed away, my father found it harder to work. I had to pick up a lot of the slack, which was fine, but I hated seeing him so discouraged all the time. I would watch you and your family, without a care in the world, not ever worrying about if you would be without a meal that week.”
She swallowed painfully, her fists clenched at her side.
“Then why did you never ask my father for help? Why didn’t your father?”
Charles shrugged his shoulders. “You would think that would be simple, wouldn’t you? But my father is a proud, proud man, and would never bring himself that low as to ask for help. Not from anyone.”
The bitterness in his voice was prominent.
“But one afternoon, after I had just come home from playing down by the creek with you and Lord Henry, my father mentioned something that has stuck with me until today. Do you know what that was?” he asked her.
She only glared at him.
“He said, ‘Son, all of our worries would end if you were to marry that Lady Harriette. You would be well taken care of, and she’s rather fond of you.’ And then he sighed, and shook his head. I’ll never forget the look on his face.”
Harriette just stared at him blankly. She could not believe what she was hearing. This had to be some sort of misunderstanding; she had to have missed something somewhere. There was no way that he simply wanted to marry her for…
“My money?” she asked, feeling her cheeks burning. “You are telling me that you asked me to run away with you so that you could have my money?”
“Well, it sounds quite a bit more devious when you say it like that, Harriette,” he replied, inclining his head to her.
“Did you ever care about me?” she asked, infuriated. “At all?”
He held up his hands, attempting to steady her. “Harriette, of course I did. I am not a man without feeling, of course.”
“But do you love me?” she asked, her eyes filling with tears. As she considered the question for herself, she wondered if she would be more disappointed about his lack of affection toward her, or the fact that he seemingly double-crossed her to marry her.
He stared into her face, and before he even uttered the words, she knew the truth.
“No,” he replied simply.
She turned away from him, wrapping her arms around herself. She felt betrayed, disgusted, and with no purpose.
“But that doesn’t mean that I couldn’t come to love you,” he said, taking a step toward her. “I am very fond of you, Harriette. We have been good friends for a long time, and I hoped that you would understand why I did this.”
“You have ruined me!” she shouted, turning back to him, her arms tight at her side, her hands clenched so tightly that her fingernails dug into her palms. “I am not even out in society yet, and you think it wise to betray me in such a way? Betray my family? After all that we have done for you; after all of the wonderful times we had together as children?”
She wasn’t crying because she was sad. She had surpassed that very quickly, and now all that was left was a seething rage.
“No,” she said, straightening the dress she wore, pulling herself together. “No, you have done nothing of the sort. The solution is easy. Yes. You just need to ensure my safe return home, and then all will go back to how it was before we left.”
“You must be joking,” he said, a hollow laugh playing at his lips.
“Of course I’m not joking!” she replied coolly. “We can make up some sorry excuse for why you took me away from home, and hope that my father does not skin you alive upon our return.”
Charles rolled his eyes and took a step toward her. He lowered his voice and spoke very fast.
“No one will take you now, don’t you see? They will assume that you are now—”
“What?” she said, rather hotly. “A harlot of some sort? You cannot be serious, Charles.”
“I am serious,” he replied. “Who would believe you?”
“Everyone who knows me would believe me!” She cried, feeling the anger rise in her throat. “Why would they ever assume that something like that had happened to me?”
“Would you be able to prove them otherwise?” he asked, crossing his arms across himself, leaning against the bridge’s wall.
She groaned out loud, looking at him, her vision narrowing. She felt a loud, painful thumping in her skull, and her knees felt as if they were no longer attached to her body.
“Perhaps I should tell my father that you kidnapped me,” she replied, and she was pleased to see the color leave his face rather rapidly. “And then you will have no choice but to spend the rest of your life in some cold, dark dungeon.”
“Now wait just a moment…” he said, holding up his hands in defense. “It was never my intention to tarnish your reputation.”
“Then what did you think would happen if you asked me to run away with you?”
“Well, it is just as much your fault as it is mine!” he cried
in reply. “You agreed to run away with me, knowing full well all of the risks that it involved.”
“I thought you wanted to marry me because you loved me! Had I known otherwise, I would have refused outright and sent out the servants to have you thrown in the creek.”
He sighed. “We cannot go back. Not until we are married.”
“I am not marrying you,” she answered. “I am going to find a way home, whether you like it or not.”
“No one will believe you without my word to back it up,” he replied.
“No one will believe you at all,” she retorted. “You ruined that chance when you told me the truth.”
“Would you rather have married me had you not known the truth?”
She paused, glowering at him. “No,” she replied eventually, some of the anger dissipating. “No.”
“I do still want to marry you,” he said. “I think that you would be the most incredible wife. And we have always had so much fun together, haven’t we?” he said, his voice quieter and more gentle.
She looked up at him. She could see genuineness in his eyes. She could see that he did care for her.
“I don’t know…” she replied. “How can you still ask me to marry you after everything you just told me?”
“Because I am doing what any man would do for his family,” he said gently, looking into her eyes. “But more importantly, I do care for you.”
She sighed heavily. Would she be able to marry him now knowing now what she did?
“Think of it this way,” he said, looking at the ground beneath his feet. “If you continue the path with me, and we get married, your reputation will remain intact. They will consider you foolish, but your father would not have the heart to disown you. Nor your mother.”
She bit on the inside of her lip.
“On the other hand, if you return home, unmarried, you’ll have a very difficult time finding a husband due to the fact that you ran away with a boy before you were out in society.”
She glared at him. He had put her in a very, very compromising position.