He, a worldly man of eight and twenty, still couldn’t quite believe the turn of events. He had conversed with Harriet without breaking into a slew of stutters. He had kissed her. And he had been shocked to his core when she’d kissed him back. He had wanted to prove that he found her captivating, yet she had turned the tables on him and proved in turn that she would not be taken lightly.
Not that he’d been taking her lightly before, however his social reticence might have appeared to her. And it troubled him that Hatton hadn’t informed his daughter of the betrothal orthe wagers—that was bad—but Will still hadn’t expected such a vehement reaction against their union.
It stung his pride.
And she hadn’t been wrong. It had been a pain to secure another license. Damn embarrassing. Luckily, not as impossible as he had feared.
Will pinched the bridge of his nose.
Most would consider him a catch. Yet Lady Harriet considered him the worst of rogues. To say he’d been caught off guard was a deep understatement.
And all this because of his perceived connection to Cromby?
It seemed highly unlikely. Her mistrust of him must run deeper. But for the life of him, he couldn’t decipher why. He must be missing something. That or it boiled down to not being able to fathom the inner workings of the female mind, which no man had any hope to unlock.
Damn it.
He should not have lost his grip on his restraint in her chamber earlier. If anything, it had strengthened her defenses against him. Never mind. No matter what, Lady Harriet would be his wife after today. He had the rest of their lives to woo himself into her good graces.
However, the moment he entered the hall of the Hillstow residence, he knew something was wrong. He certainly had not expected the scene before him—the priest he’d procured cradling his distraught future mother-in-law. He could hear doors slamming in the distance, and two maids dashed up the stairs to the living quarters while two footmen whispered to each other in low, panic-stricken tones.
Alarm spread through him.
What the hell was going on? He would give his right leg that this current mayhem had something to do with the little spitfire who had raised hell with him today.
“Where is Lady Harriet?” Will asked the marchioness without beating around the bush. Given Lady Harriet’s lack of enthusiasm earlier, there was no telling what she might have done after he’d left.
“Oh, this is terrible!”
An icy shiver ran down his spine at the woman’s cry. “What happened?”
“Harriet has run away!”
God’s blood.Of course, she had. And why not? Nothing else had gone as planned today.
“Where is Hatton?”
“George is out searching for her,” the marchioness wailed while the priest dutifully patted her back.
Will swallowed a breath of frustration; the dramatics of his future mother-in-law brought an ache to his temples.
Did she leave a note?Will started to ask, but his tongue couldn’t roll past theD. He inhaled deeply, forcing air into his lungs, mentally repeating the question in his head five times before he finally asked, “Did she leave a note? Any indication of where she might have gone?”
She waved about a small piece of paper.
He strode toward the pair and snatched the note from her fingertips. The neat scrawl was short and to the point.
Tell Leeds he can rot in perdition.
Will shut his eyes to draw strength from within. He should have considered there was more to her motive for ripping up the license than simply causing him inconvenience or embarrassment. He should have... should have locked her in her chamber.
No. He could never do that.
Put guards on her? Have her shipped to his residence and held the wedding there?
It’s a moot point now.
In truth, as much as he blamed Hatton for not being forthright with his daughter, this was just as much his fault as it was Hatton’s. He should have made more of an effort with her. Should have danced with her at balls. Conversed with her. Perhaps then his offer for her hand would not have come as such an unwelcome shock. His desire to marry her would be clear and not be so suspect to her. At the very least he could have dealt with her opinion of him, showed her he was not the blackguard she claimed him to be.
