To Wed A Rebel (32 page)

Harriet only pursed her lips further, though she could not keep the smile from fighting its way onto her face.

“She only wants to see you happy, see you married off to a wealthy man, see you
safe
.”

“I am happy here, looking after you, as I always have been.” The prospect of wedding a man who would watch her every move, police her thoughts and force her into a wifely role was a repugnant prospect. She was not an obedient dog to be chained up and made to obey. “I know where I belong – it’s here.”

“I will not last for ever, Harriet.”

He, like the once grand house, was failing. The roof leaked, one wing was shut, windows had been boarded up and the few staff they had retained had not been paid in months. They stayed out of loyalty, and because, naïvely, they hoped the Groves family fortunes would turn.

“Enough of that, Father. Now be good while I’m away,” she instructed him, pressing a kiss to his forehead and forcing a bright smile. “Try to leave the study once in a while and don’t let Ellen go to the river on her own; she always stays there far too long entertaining that little dog and she’ll catch a chill.”

Ellen only dropped her sister’s hand when she was promised a present from Bath (and one for Millie the dog too), releasing Harriet and prompting her to begin her journey. She knew, stomach turned to stone, that her father was reading a letter from her brother, Giddeon, who was deep in his studies at Oxford, and even deeper in debt. It would be a request for yet more money the Atworth estate did not have. Upon her return, Harriet would discuss it with her father. They would sell more land, she would take a further look at their finances, mortgage the property. It would be solved. She would fix this, for there seemed no one else capable or willing to face their difficulties. Her father’s health was fragile, her brother gambled incessantly and she feared her sister’s reputation would be affected should further word of their debts spread. If all this meant that she was forced to don the green mask more often, she would, regardless of the consequences. It was worth it, for them.

***

The carriage journey to Bath lasted mere seconds, for the very moment Harriet found herself in the monotonous cradle of movement, her eyes fell shut. Even with all the worries, anxiety and the towering figure in the woods who had shot at her, sleep took her kindly away. And if she dreamed at all while the rolling hills passed and the hamlets faded into villages and then into towns, she knew she dreamed of him.

It was only the gentle coaxing of her ageing footman, Barnes, with his thick West Country accent, which pulled her to wakefulness.

“We’ve arrived, Miss Groves.”

“Already?”

The day had worn on without her there to witness it. The late afternoon was already enshrouding Bath’s butterscotch-coloured stone and worn cobbles in a light, amber sheen. Before Harriet could come fully into consciousness, helped from the carriage and into a townhouse’s chequered hall, she was swept up into a firm embrace.

“I was worried sick! What kept you? Are you quite well? You’re lucky that rogue didn’t catch you.” The warm woman, Aunt Georgia, clad in pressed rustling silk and too many pearls, creaked as she released her niece. “Let me look at you!” Harriet was grasped firmly once more and surveyed by a round, open face. “Don’t you look pale? Have you been eating well? You’re far too skinny; we’ll never get you a husband. It’s that damnable country air. It’s not good for you – ”

Laughing at the barrage of questions, despite her weariness, Harriet’s mind was snared on one sentence the older woman had uttered. “Rogue?”

“The Green Highwayman! Now, I know they say he only attacks at night, but you can never be sure with these fiendish men. He’ll kill one day, mark my words. It’s high time something was done about him and if you ask me…” Conversing with Aunt Georgia was a lot like playing with a skipping rope as a child. One had to choose the exact moment to leap into the conversation, between the rope’s swooping arc, before the woman strayed off on another tangent.

“I am perfectly well,” interrupted Harriet, squeezing the woman’s hands. “Really, I am.”

“Of course you are, now that you’re here and you’re safe, you’re – you look awful, dear, truly dreadful,” insisted Aunt Georgia. “Let’s get you something to eat, shall we?”

“I am a little tired, that’s all.”

“Go change, come down for dinner and then to bed, I think? You must tell me what you’re wearing tomorrow night for the ball, though I took the liberty of purchasing a few simple things, mere trifles, honestly. Don’t be cross with me. I know you’re not in a position to get them yourself and I cannot have you looking like a vagabond in front of all our friends. Oh, I did write for your cousin, Alice, but her father sent back a terribly curt reply. I’m
sure
there’s a man involved. We’ll get one for you soon, as rich as a sultan, I swear it. And did you hear the Gilvrays bought out the entire stock of…”

She continued rambling, detailing the minute occurrences from every inch of their social circle, and all Harriet could do was nod.

“Yes, Aunt Georgia,” she said absently, offering a small wave as she shifted towards the staircase to her usual room, where her belongings would already have been unpacked. “Yes to all of it.”

***

The Bath Pump Rooms were unparalleled in their ability to host both the wealthiest and well-connected families in the country, along with all the best gossip. It was only a few hours into the ball and Harriet was aware that the Earl of Avesbury’s daughter had been rescued from an almost-elopement, the Duchess of Morsdown’s chandelier had come loose at a dinner party and narrowly missed crushing her husband, and there was to be an announcement tonight by Bath’s magistrate, Sir Charles Fielding, the gathering’s host.

The building was fairly new, constructed in the same sand-coloured stone as the rest of the city, and housed the warm springs that the Romans used to bathe in. Music filled the chambers, accompanied by laughter and incessant chatter. Men were in their finest garments, many in officers’ uniforms with polished buttons and swords at their hips. The women were draped in silks and jewels, hair coiled high atop their heads. Ostrich feathers were dyed to match dresses, shawls were draped precariously on shoulders and there was enough flesh revealed to barely remain tasteful.

“That’s her,” said one girl to her companions as Harriet passed by. “The one I was telling you about. She’ll be out on the streets in mere months.”

“There’s always work as a governess,” said a fellow to her right, though Harriet felt their piercing glares. “And she’s from a noble family.”

“Would
you
employ a creature like that, after knowing what her brother’s done? They’ve bad blood and poor form. They’ll drag down anyone who gets near to them, mark my words. The only reason she’s here is that aunt of hers and I bet they’ll bleed her dry…”

Harriet’s pale blue dress whispered along the tiled floor, as though the cruel words still followed. Her walk sped up, for she could hear no more. It was nothing new, though it still stung. Wine and humiliation had put colour in her cheeks and she found her own alcove, where stone pillars led off to other rooms and offered privacy. More than that, they gave her the opportunity to find refuge in her own thoughts – and escape curious eyes.

“You have not danced at all this evening,” said a deep voice, pulling her roughly from her reverie.

Alert, she turned to find the speaker, yet there was no man, only shadows. She spoke to them, lips pursed. “That’s because no one has asked me.”

And none would, with all the rumours that found her.

Before her was a stone pillar, fluted with shallow grooves she ran her fingers over it, and barely wide enough to hide someone behind it. It was cold to the touch as she circled it, hearing another set of footsteps matching her own, turning the other way. She changed direction, trying to catch him out. He did too.

“Then you have been watching me, sir?”

“I noticed you. There’s a difference.”

“Hardly.”

There was something strikingly familiar about his voice, though she could not place it. However, Harriet was known to many, had dined with numerous families in Bath and a few in London. Perhaps, somewhere down the line, she had met this stranger.

“Do you usually sneak up on unassuming women at parties, sir?”

“Only when ordered to.”

She turned quickly, expecting a flash of coat-tails and not the imposing, unreadable man who met her. Harriet let her hand drop. He had a tall frame with a lean strength, broad shoulders and stature all the more imposing for the army officer’s uniform he wore. Grey eyes, like the ocean during a violent tempest, studied her. Ruffled, sandy-brown hair fell across a high forehead and the sudden urge to run her fingers through it took her by surprise.

“I did not mean to frighten you,” he said, apologetic, though still imposing.

Harriet’s eyebrows rose, head inclined to the right. “What makes you think I am frightened, sir? Trust me, it will take far more than that.”

“Then I shall have to try harder.”

Harriet could not have managed to be demure if she tried, though a blush did find her cheeks – more to do with the wine than the gentleman before her. It was not the first time a man had unsuccessfully tried to woo her and it would not be the last. The poor soul had to be new to Bath’s society, for he would not have approached her otherwise.

Worse still, she almost liked him.

“Sir, I must ask – ”

“Forgive me, Miss Groves.” He bowed, a little on the stiff side. “I am Major Edward Roberts. Your aunt, a friend of my mother’s, was concerned for your welfare and sent me to enquire about your well-being.”

“Oh.” Harriet curtseyed slowly in return, finding disappointment swell within her. Yet again her aunt pulled the strings, playing matchmaker. A shame, she thought, he had almost seemed interesting. Now, he was merely another fool to be brushed aside. “You can tell her I am quite well, thank you,” replied Harriet, a little coldly. “It was nice to meet you, Major Roberts, now if you don’t mind – ”

“Humour me,” he said. “If we are both seen to converse for a short while longer, we’ll be free from any further commitments this night.”

She studied him, looking for a trick or catch in his words and only finding truth; he was as uneager to enter into mindless matches as she was. “Fine.”

“You have a good view from here.”

“I do,” she agreed. “It’s a nice distraction.”

The latest fashions, the handsome couples, the overheard snippets of conversation offering glimpses into other lives. She had already committed to memory all the beautiful gowns she knew her sister would like and who wore them.

“I have not seen you here before, Major Roberts,” she added, for politeness’ sake, vowing to have a few stern words with her aunt later. “Have king and country been keeping you from us?”

If only they’d kept you longer…

“Amongst other things.”

It was Harriet’s turn to talk and she groped around her skull for a subject. A minute or two more and they could part ways again. “It must be strange, having experienced war and battle and soldiering, to be here amongst all this?”

“I find it oddly normal,” the officer said. “It’s as though the rest happened to someone else, as though I read about it in a book.”

“Do you miss it – the soldiering?”

A wild, feral look claimed his features – a glimpse of the man who strode, sword in hand, fearless, into the worst that Hell and all its monsters could conjure. “I am good at it.”

His response only caught her off guard for a second and she recovered well. “I do not doubt that for a moment, Major Roberts.” There was a challenge in her next words. “Dancing or fighting, what are you best at?”

“If you would care to dance, I could let you be the judge.”

“Is that an invitation?”

“It is.”

“But without seeing you fight, sir, I would not be able to comment on the matter.” She smiled, receiving a barking laugh in return. “Although, I suppose one dance would keep our watchers happy, more so than a duel. Then they’d free us, surely, from any further commitments this evening?”

A stone’s throw away, across the ballroom, was Aunt Georgia and a willowy woman Harriet assumed to be Major Roberts’s mother.

“And we could go our separate ways,” he agreed, holding out a hand. “A worthy plan.”

She studied him for a short while longer, weighing up her options – and she would have gone along with their ruse, had not a thin man with a bureaucratic air interrupted them.

“Pardon the intrusion,” said the sallow pen-pusher, adjusting his ill-fitting wig and paying no mind to Harriet. “Sir Fielding wishes to make the announcement and requests your presence at once, Major Roberts.”

“Of course.” The soldier nodded and turned back to Harriet. “You’re free.”

“For now,” she said. “Though I doubt it will be for long, if I know my aunt.”

“Then I shall endeavour to liberate you later, perhaps?”

“I shall wait with bated breath,” she replied drily, though he took the reply in the good humour it was intended.

Major Roberts grinned, a flash of teeth and an amused, throaty noise, before he followed the other gentleman. If her eyes lingered too long on his fading form, there was no one else to know.

To her own annoyance, she liked him – and she’d made a promise to herself
never
to like anyone purposely selected by her relatives. It was true; Aunt Georgia was getting better at matching her up with possible suitors, though she did so hate to admit it. And she wasn’t inclined to entertain this one for long either, even if he was…different.

There was a gathering around the room’s main hall, curiosity palpable in the air. The music had ceased and Harriet found her way easily towards her aunt in the small crowd.

“I had hoped you would like our Major Roberts,” the older woman said softly, attempting to tease a response from Harriet.

“He is passable, I suppose.” Harriet caught sight of Aunt Georgia’s frown and found she enjoyed it far too much. Truthfully, the man was more than passable, which made a pleasant change from the usual boring fops that were thrust her way. That didn’t mean he’d last though.