by Merry Farmer
Bea wanted to call after him not to go, but considering she’d invited him there without her father’s knowledge or permission, and relatively certain she was about to be told off for doing so, she didn’t try to stop him. But one, shining bit of hope remained with her, even after Harrison was gone. If her father didn’t believe her lie, if he was intent on speaking with Harrison soon, then perhaps a proposal would come out of the whole thing after all.
Chapter 4
“It was mortifying,” Bea whispered to Diana and Phoebe Long as they cut squares of wrapping paper for the gifts that had been donated to give to the mountain of orphans that would be at the Christmas Eve party. “Papa walked in, and there Harrison and I were. Kissing.”
“I don’t know what I would have done,” Phoebe said, her eyes round. “It’s bad enough that my mother has stumbled across Danny and I kissing once or twice since we’ve been married, but to have one’s father interrupt a kiss with a beau?” She made a horrified sound as if to prove how alarming that would be.
“The worst part of it all was that it was my very first kiss,” Bea said with a wistful sigh. She would remember that kiss—before her father interrupted them—for the rest of her life. It was everything she’d dreamed a kiss would be—tender, passionate, and overwhelming in the happiest of ways. There was no telling how long it would have gone on or where it would have led if it hadn’t been interrupted.
“You and Lord Landsbury truly hadn’t kissed before that?” Phoebe asked carefully.
Bea didn’t know Phoebe as well as her other friends. She was a relatively late admission to their friend circle. She’d just married Danny Long, who was a friend of the male part of their group. In spite of having been born working class, Mr. Long was a property developer and currently one of the wealthiest men in London. The London papers were all calling it a coup of the highest order that he had snagged the daughter of a marquess for his bride, and lauding Phoebe as a genius for marrying a diamond in the rough. From what Bea had heard, theirs was actually a love match, something she aspired to.
“We’d never kissed, no,” Bea confessed, inwardly calling herself a ninny for being so bashful about something she hadn’t done. “I suppose we had never found ourselves in a situation where such a thing would have been possible until last night.”
“And Bianca encouraged you to seduce Harrison,” Diana said with a snorting laugh.
Phoebe’s eyes went wide as she glanced from Diana to Bea. “Was that your plan?”
“It was,” Bea admitted, her face and neck heating. She shook her head. “Though looking back at the way things turned out, that whole plan represented gross overconfidence on my part.”
“How so?” Phoebe asked with a look of curiosity as she wrapped a rag doll in bright pink paper printed with holly.
“I’m not that sort of woman,” Bea admitted.
A mysterious grin flittered across Phoebe’s beautiful face. “I didn’t think I was that sort of woman either,” she said with a mischievous lift of her brow.
Bea giggled before she could stop to think whether it was appropriate. Diana laughed much more freely than her.
“You’d never catch me seducing a man or letting myself be seduced,” she said.
“Oh, really?” Bianca walked up to check on their work at just that moment. She sent Diana a sardonic grin as she overheard the comment.
Diana stiffened her back proudly. “I choose to imitate my namesake,” she said. “No man will win my favors without a good fight.”
“I’ll tell Lord John you said that,” Bianca said with a smirk, then glanced over their shoulders to take a look at their work. “I’ve never seen so many toys in need of wrapping in my life,” she said. “But you’re all doing a fine job.”
“Your orphans will be overjoyed by their good fortune,” Bea said, reaching for a wooden boat to wrap in blue paper. “I’m certain the men and women who run each and every one of the orphanages that will be receiving your charity are eternally grateful.”
“I certainly hope they are,” Bianca said with a sudden sigh. When Bea glanced curiously at her, Bianca went on with, “There was another incident at an orphanage yesterday.”
“Oh?” Phoebe asked.
All three of them stopped what they were doing to turn to Bianca.
“As if the incident with the treacle destroying a bunch of books at St. Joseph’s wasn’t bad enough, someone replaced all of the sugar at Hope Orphanage with salt,” Bianca said.
A strange tightness gripped Bea’s gut. “Hope Orphanage?” she asked. She was certain that was the name of the place Harrison said he’d been before receiving her invitation to supper and joining her.
“Yes,” Bianca said. “It’s in Hackney. And it’s one of the hardest cases of any that we’re working with.”
“Oh, my,” Phoebe said, pressing a hand to her stomach. “And sugar is such a dear commodity.”
“One that children seem to go through faster than anyone else,” Diana said, though there was far more suspicion in her frown than the thought of children and sugar warranted.
“If Hope Orphanage needs its sugar replaced,” Phoebe started, “indeed, if they need more, if they need sweets or treats of any sort, I know that Danny and I would be more than willing to donate to the cause.”
“I’m certain the children and the proprietors of Hope Orphanage would be more than happy for your offer,” Bianca said. She frowned and reached for a sheet of colorful paper and one of the toys in need of wrapping. “Two pranks at two orphanages in two days,” she said as she set to work. “I know that it’s Christmastime and everyone is in high spirits, but it seems a bit cruel to play jokes when so much else is going on.”
“It sounds like precisely the sort of thing that men who don’t care what others think would do,” Diana said, narrowing her eyes with the look she only wore when speaking or thinking about John.
“It sounds like the sort of thing children would do,” Bea attempted to correct where she was certain Diana’s thoughts were heading.
Diana didn’t answer her, either to refute or agree with Bea’s assessment. That left an opening for Bianca to turn to Bea and ask, “And how did your evening go, Lady Beatrice?”
The heat of embarrassment flooded Bea’s face all over again. “It didn’t go,” she confessed in a quiet voice. “At least, not the way you would have wanted it to.”
“No seduction, then?” Bianca asked in a carelessly loud voice. “No proposal?”
Bea wanted to shush her. She glanced around desperately, praying that no one was listening in. “No,” she whispered. “But there was a kiss.”
“Oh?” Bianca burst into a saucy smile. “A good one, I hope.”
“Very good.” The memory of it swirled through Bea, tickling her heart. “But Papa interrupted it.”
“I thought your father was supposed to be out for the evening,” Bianca said.
“He was, but he and my sister returned home early.”
“How early? I thought Harrison was supposed to be at your house shortly after they departed,” Bianca pushed the matter.
“Harrison was delayed,” Bea said. She glanced to Diana, dreading what she was about to say because she knew exactly what her friend would do with the information. “He and John were on some sort of mission to search for something at Hope Orphanage.”
Sure enough, Diana gasped and dropped the gift she was wrapping. “He was at Hope Orphanage?” she asked, predictably. There was no possible way to think that by “he” Diana meant Harrison.
“Yes,” Bea said, raising a hand to caution her friend, “But I doubt there’s any correlation.”
“I knew it,” Diana said all the same. “That’s just the sort of nefarious deed John would get up to. Only a man of his low character would play pranks on orphanages at Christmas.”
“You think John and Harrison are responsible?” Bianca asked, amusement sharp in her eyes.
“I know it,” Diana said. “Just wait. I bet they’l
l tip their hands and expose themselves before the day is done.”
“I think you must be mistaken,” Bea said, then quickly rushed on with, “I’m just going to take these wrapped gifts over to the tree so Mrs. Coldwell can arrange them.”
Anything to get away from Diana and her mad vendetta against John. Although Bea did find the ferocity of Diana’s feelings toward John to be good fun. At least, she did when she wasn’t too busy mired in her own problems. She heaved a wistful sigh as she carried a basket of wrapped dolls, toy soldiers, wooden vehicles, and soft animals across the room to one of the row of Christmas trees that had been erected on either side of the room’s largest fireplace. She heartily approved of the relatively new tradition of bringing pine trees indoors and decorating them. She handed the basket of toys off to the no-nonsense Mrs. Coldwell, who was organizing the middle-class women who had come to help, then took a step back to admire the trees.
Her backward step sent her crashing right into a solid body. She yelped and whipped around in surprise, only to find herself face-to-face with Harrison. He still wore his wool coat and hat, and his face was pink, as though he’d walked through the bitter cold of the London streets to reach the hall.
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” Bea said, her gaze fluttering down even as heat rose within her. She couldn’t quite bring herself to look into Harrison’s eyes. Not after the way things had gone between the two of them the night before, not with his kiss still tingling on her lips.
“It was my fault, I’m sure,” Harrison said, his eyes bright with a smile as he stared at her. “I should have watched where I was going.” His gaze settled on her lips, and his smile grew.
“I’ve been such a ninny today,” Bea prattled on. “So distracted and….” She realized too late that she’d raised a hand to touch her lips as Harrison stared at them.
“Yes, I know,” he said with a far-off softness in his voice. A moment later, he sucked in a breath and shook himself. “I mean…that is to say…the fault is all mine, I’m sure.”
For a moment, they just stood there, staring at each other. Part of Bea was perfectly content just to be in Harrison’s presence. The rest of her felt beyond awkward, as if she’d created the awkward situation but didn’t have the first clue what to do about it.
Harrison’s mind had gone completely blank except for the single thought, “Do something, you twat.”
All he could think about as he gazed at Bea’s beautiful, innocent face was that he had better find his great-grandmother’s ring before the moment when he had to face Bea’s father so that he could prove to the man that marriage had been his intention all along. It had been mortifying to be caught compromising Bea. He would rather have died than do anything to her that might damage her reputation. In a way, it was a blessing that his momentary lapse of reason had come in the privacy of Bea’s own home—although he’d been fairly certain the servants had been spying on them—so that she was spared public humiliation. But in another way, it was so much worse that they had been caught by her father.
Those thoughts were eclipsed by the realization that he was standing in the middle of a public hall filled with people, staring dumbly at the woman he loved but couldn’t seem to do right by.
“I came looking for John,” he blurted at last. “Have you seen him?”
Bea blinked and shook herself, peeking around at the room filled mostly with women. “No, not yet.” She paused and the most charming grin passed over her lips as she went on with, “I’m sure Diana would have alerted me to his presence if he were here.”
Harrison caught her grin and returned it. “They are ridiculous, aren’t they?”
“Very.” Bea giggled, clapping a hand over her mouth.
For one, wild moment, Harrison wished he were that hand. It would have been heaven to touch her lips again, to kiss her with all the passion that had been interrupted the night before. With any luck, as soon as he found the ring and proposed in a way that Bea deserved, they would have their rest of their lives to kiss each other.
Another moment passed, and Bea lowered her hand, smiling at something past Harrison’s shoulder. “There he is now,” she said, nodding in the direction of the door.
Sure enough, John had arrived. He spotted Harrison and nodded as he walked toward him. He also glanced across the room and winked at Diana when she looked up from her work. The color that came to Diana’s face and the fury in her eyes was enough to set Harrison laughing. There was a very fine line between love and hate.
“Morning, Harrison,” John said when he arrived. He turned to Bea. “You’re looking lovely today, Bea.”
“Thank you, John.” Bea smiled under the compliment, glanced to Harrison, then said, “I’d better get back to work.”
She dashed off before Harrison could say a proper goodbye, before he could tell her any of the things he wanted to, like how sorry he was for putting her in an awkward position with her father or how desperately he loved her.
“Ah, the lovesick puppy look,” John chuckled, slapping Harrison’s shoulder and snapping him out of his reverie. “Did you decide to go ahead and propose last night without the ring?”
Harrison turned to his friend, nodding toward the door. They headed out of the hall. John had been with Harrison the evening before when he’d received Bea’s note that she needed him, so he knew the beginnings of the story.
“She invited me to supper,” he filled John in on the rest of it as they left the building.
“That was the emergency?” John laughed. “Supper?”
Harrison sent him a flat, sideways look. “I suspect the emergency was an invention. Her father and sister were out for the evening.”
“Oh?” John’s brow shot all the way up and he laughed. “What a cunning little minx you have on your hands.”
Their conversation was halted as Burt leapt up from the front stairs of the hall and bounded over to meet them. “My lords,” he said, doffing his cap. “I’m ready to lead you on to the second orphanage.”
“Good lad,” John said, taking a coin from his pocket and flicking it toward Burt. It made a satisfying sound as John’s nail hit it, and Burt caught it with a grin.
“You won’t be disappointed,” Burt said. “I’m sure whatever you’re looking for is at Mr. Stephen Siddel’s place in Limehouse. Follow me. It’ll be easier to hail a cab at the end of the street.” The lad looked beyond happy at the prospect of riding in a cab to Limehouse instead of having to walk.
“Bea’s plan for an evening alone would have been perfectly delightful,” Harrison continued as he and John strolled after Burt, “had her father and sister not returned home early and caught us with our lips locked together.”
John laughed outright. “And how did you wheedle out of that situation without ending up engaged on the spot?”
“I’m not sure I did,” Harrison said, his embarrassment from the night before making a pointed return. “Lord Lichfield wants to speak with me as soon as possible. But what an ignominious way to get precisely what I want. Forced into it by Bea’s father.”
“It would hardly be forcing anything, if you ask me,” John said, nodding to Burt, who had caught the attention of a cab once they reached the curb. “You’ve wanted to marry Bea for almost as long as you’ve known her.”
“Yes, but being cornered into it because of a momentary lapse of judgement is hardly the most romantic way to go about the thing.”
“True,” John agreed.
“There’s nothing for it but to find my great-grandmother’s ring as quickly as possible so that I can propose to Bea properly,” Harrison said as the carriage pulled up to the curb in front of them. “Otherwise, I run the risk of Bea forever wondering whether marrying her was my idea or her father’s.”
“Here you go, my lords,” Burt said, grabbing the carriage’s door and holding it open for them, as if he had aspirations of being a doorman at a grand hotel someday.
“Surely she knows you love her,” John said, giving Burt a wi
nk and rubbing his head, then hopping into the carriage.
“I hope so,” Harrison said, climbing in behind John. Burt leapt in with them and shut the door, looking as happy as a clam to be riding in a carriage with two gentlemen. “Either way, it all comes down to time and the ring. We have to find it so I can give Bea what she deserves.”
Chapter 5
“Oh! Did you see that?” Diana hissed, glaring at the doorway Harrison and John had just rushed out through and stomping her foot. “Why, I’ve never been so insulted in my life.”
Bea blinked up from the gift she was wrapping and glanced from the doorway to Diana. She did her best to keep her sly grin from growing too big, but one covert glance to Bianca and her efforts failed. She and Bianca were giggling before they knew it.
“Did I miss something?” Phoebe asked, the only one of them who looked confused by the turn of events. “What has happened to insult you?”
“John swans into the hall, as if he hasn’t a care in the world, winks at me, and doesn’t have the decency to come over here to address me face to face,” Diana sniffed, tilting her chin up.
“It looked as though he and Harrison were merely meeting here, but that they have business elsewhere,” Bea said.
The thought switched her from laughing at Diana to furrowing her brow in thought. What sort of business could Harrison and John have so close to Christmas? Could it be possible that after the debacle of the evening before, he was planning the proposal she’d waited so long for? But no, he’d informed her father that he already had business to attend to, business he had contracted before the kiss the night before ever happened, which was why he was unavailable to meet with her father. She was struck with sudden worry about what that business could be.
“Still,” Diana went on, “it was unforgivably rude for him not to at least say hello.”
Bianca laughed so hard she snorted, which had Bea breaking into a smile again.