Richmore laughed at him. “You don’t want to impose on your friends, but you’ll marry someone you clearly don’t love to save a title that you didn’t want to inherit?”
Thinking over his friend’s words, Harrison tilted his head to the side. “That sounds a little pathetic when you put it that way.” Harrison settled back in his chair. “What do you expect me to do? The only woman I’ve ever loved refuses to marry me. Therefore, I have no choice but to move on and be gloriously unhappy without her.”
He kneaded his fingers across his forehead. His head was pounding from staring at numbers for hours. Harrison found it rather difficult to decipher the dancing numbers in his own ledgers. It had been a grueling sennight for him. He hadn’t spoken to Kat since he’d rushed out of her study seven nights earlier, broken-hearted and defeated.
“Perhaps you should confess your undying love to Madame Delcour?—”
“I’ve done that,” Harrison said, cutting his friend off.
He’d confessed his love to Kat a thousand times and not once did she ever believe him. The hard truth that Harrison was suddenly realizing was that perhaps she never loved him at all.
“Very well.” Richmore pointed a thick finger at him. “Perhaps you should tell her that you do not plan to strip away her independence and that you respect her. I find that women like her and my wife appreciate that bit of information,” Richmore suggested.
Groaning, Harrison peered over at his friend. “Really, what do you take me for?” he asked. “Some green boy who’s never been with a woman?”
He didn’t need his friends' advice on how to court the woman he loved. What Harrison needed was funds, and to wallow in his own heartbreak for as long as humanly possible.
“I take you for a man who would not turn away from the woman he claims to love more than anything on this earth.” Richmore sat down in one of the wooden armchairs in front of Harrison’s desk. “Obviously, there is more going on than her unwillingness to relinquish her freedom.”
Harrison pulled himself forward, leaning his forearms on the desk. “Has Winnie said something?”
He couldn’t comprehend another reason that Kat would have not to marry him. He was astutely aware that she valued her independence. How could she not? At a time where women weren’t allowed many liberties, she was a woman in charge of her own finances and freedom.
Kat was unlike any woman of the ton. She was fiercely independent and had a sharper mind for business than any gentlemen Harrison had ever met. The woman wasn’t afraid of anything, a simple fact proven by how she’d turned her entire life around after her family disowned her.
After the nature of Harrison and Kat’s relationship was revealed to their perspective families, each father took liberties to protect themselves and not their children.
Richmore shook his head. “My wife has not informed me of anything,” he said. “I simply believe that if the two of you were as attached as you have made me believe, your dear Madame Delcour would grasp the opportunity to marry you.”
Harrison allowed his friend’s words to permeate his mind, wondering if Richmore was right and that Kitty was hiding something from him.
Tired of speaking about his abysmal relationship with Kat, Harrison picked up one of the ledgers and placed it in front of Richmore. “Can anything be done?”
His friend released a long sigh that told Harrison everything he needed to know about the state of his affairs. “I only see two options available to you. Allow your friends to help you, or marry, but perhaps your solicitor could give you better advice than I.” Richmore stood, stretching his large frame. “Whatever you do, just promise me that you will not do something ridiculous like marry Lady Selena.” Richmore shook his body, faking a shiver.
He couldn’t help but to laugh at his friend’s reaction to Lady Selena. It was comical to think that his mother would think he would actually marry the woman.
A knock on the door interrupted their laughter. His butler, Wilson, entered.
“My lord, Lady Selena Davenport is requesting an audience,” Wilson said, his gray brows raised high in question.
“Here?” He snapped up abruptly, nearly falling out of his chair. “Lady Selena is here?” Harrison asked, not quite understanding why the woman would risk her reputation—what little she had remaining—to pay him a visit. He could not fathom it.
It was a strange turn of events, especially with his mother finally away from London. Now the woman she wanted him to marry was waiting in his parlor.
Wonderful.
Harrison stepped from behind his desk, suddenly feeling like he should flee his own home. Perhaps that was exactly what being married to Lady Selena would be like for him. Constantly running from his own home to avoid his mother and wife.
He’d dreamed of a different life for himself, one without a title and with Kat by his side. A life filled with love, and four or five children, with their mother’s hazel eyes and their father’s red hair.
“While you speak with your visitor, I must go and retrieve my wife and son from Pleasure House,” Richmore said, walking toward the open study door. “Don’t do anything rash while I’m in Sussex. If you change your mind about Aberdeen, write to him immediately.”
Harrison followed his friend out of his study, wishing that he could accept help, but this was his fault. He’d ignored his responsibility for far too long. This was something he had to figure out for himself. If Harrison had to marry a woman he did not love, then so be it.
“Have a happy Christmas,” he said, patting Richmore on the back. “Allow my godson some Christmas pudding.”
Richmore threw his large blonde head back and laughed. “He has acquired a fondness for pudding. I blame Winnie’s aunt and mother.
