“I’m not sure I can say yet.” She suddenly grinned at him. “But whatever my dreams and whatever my happiness, they are too big for one man to snuff out.”
“I am relieved.”
All Will had to do now was make his wife see that everything she hoped and dreamed for—everything she would ever desire—she already had it all within her grasp.
Chapter Seventeen
Harriet greeted twoladies as she passed them on the street while on her morning stroll the next day, and the distant notes of someone practicing the piano drifted through the air accompanied by a woman’s off-key singing. In the past, it had been her habit to wander through the neighborhood each day after breakfast, weather permitting. It was about time she got back into a familiar routine that she loved. Though this ritual paled into comparison with the new ones she’d developed with Leeds.
Nightcaps before bed.
Sleeping next to each otherinbed.
Waking up to find Leeds doing one thing or another. Like that first morning when she caught himpracticinghis smile. That still brought a smile to her face. She’d also caught him playing with her hair, writing notes, and just this morning, she’d woken up to him practicing what she presumed to be boxing jabs in his dressing gown.
He might as well have jabbed her in the heart for how striking he looked! And just why did the embarrassment that seemed to follow her bold behavior always seem to surface the next morning? Notwhileshe had sat on his lap, and not even after they’d arrived home. No, it was this morning. When she opened her eyes to find him punching air.
The man seemed to have taken her suggestion to entertain her in the mornings very much to heart.
You belong to me.
Harriet patted both her cheeks as heat rushed to her face.
Well, for better or worse, they were together. The little boy who stuttered and the shy little girl with the crab-red face.
Let’s just belong to each other.
A familiar figure exited a house further down the street. Harriet whirled, heart pounding, giving the person her back.
Had he seen her?
Please don’t see me, please don’t see me.
She glanced over her shoulder in time to glimpse the man enter his carriage. The last time she’d seen her father was when she’d stormed out of his study after she discovered he had betrothed her to Leeds.
The carriage jolted forward, and Harriet whipped her head back around, looking everywhere but the carriage as it passed her. She half expected the horses to draw to a halt and her father to leap out and... and what? Scold her? Apologize? Heaven forbid, embrace her?
She needn’t have worried.
The carriage didn’t stop. Her father didn’t jump out. And she would never know what might have happened if he had. She looked to the familiar bold green door of her old home. She hadn’t even realized she’d retraced much of her old route and circled back here instead of her new home.
Should she forgive him?
Leeds seemed to think so, though he hadn’t put it in so many words.
No. She wasn’t ready yet, wasn’t ready to pretend that what he had done didn’t matter. Even though marriage to Leeds was not as horrible as she first thought it would be and she found her husband more intriguing with each passing minute, the fact remained that her choices, her desires, had been utterly disregarded.
Ultimately, she’d never really blamed Leeds, however annoyed with him she’d been. He had asked her father for her hand, which was his right, courtship or not.
But her father could at the very, very least have told her Leeds had asked to marry herafterLeeds had done so. It would have taken two minutes of his time. Were his daughter’s wants not worth those two minutes? He had clearly known that Leeds planned to wed her by special license. Wagers or not, fortune-hunters or not, he could have demanded a normal wedding of Leeds or shared his fears with her. He could haveaskedher. But he hadn’t even done that much.
Did she mean that little to him?
No, Harriet still couldn’t forgive him.
With one last look at the door, she continued her stroll back to her real home. She would be better off focusing on her blush-inducing husband than on anything—anyone—else. He’d revealed to her his difficulties as a child, but he hadn’t confessed anything else. Certainly, Leeds had some affection toward her. That much was clear from his little notes and flustering admissions but that hardly constituted love.
Ah, but they feel a lot like love.
