Page 12 of When Hearts Are Wylde
Her mother sat across the room in one of the smaller armchairs, posture impeccable, a piece of embroidery in her lap. She was too polite to intrude, but Hermione could feel her mother’s attention sharpening with each passing second.
“I see,” Hermione said after a pause, her tone smooth and deliberately bland. She could not summon enthusiasm, but she could at least summon composure.
“I’ve given the matter some thought,” Baxter went on, entirely oblivious—or impervious—to the lack of warmth in her reception. “You’re a fine-looking woman and sensible, too. Not like all the flighty girls of the Season. Can’t abide silly, simpering chits. I prefer a woman with some maturity. And I think you’d make a good wife. Don’t require too much attention, I daresay.”
From her mother came a faint, strangled sound, something between a cough and a gasp, quickly disguised by the rustle of skirts. Hermione kept her gaze fixed on Baxter, though she could feel heat rising at the back of her neck.
He leaned forward slightly, one elbow braced on his knee in a manner far too casual for such a moment. “Of course, I’ll have to speak to your brother, make it formal-like. But I wanted to give you the honor of being the first to know. That’s the proper thing, isn’t it?”
“It is… very proper,” Hermione murmured. The words felt leaden on her tongue. Her pulse thudded in her ears, making it hard to think. Somewhere in the back of her mind she saw the folded handkerchief in the milliner’s shop, the precise handwriting, the order written there as if it were inevitable. The Witness had known. The Witness had planned this. And she—like some witless marionette—was performing her part exactly as expected.
“I am very flattered by your offer, Mr. Baxter,” she said softly. The syllables scraped her throat, dry and bitter, but she forced the next words out through lips dryer than sand. “I am most pleased to accept your proposal” Behind her, her mother let out a squeak of alarm, a most un-Elizabeth like sound.
He puffed up, pleased, his chest swelling like a bantam cock on parade. “Knew you’d be agreeable. At three and twenty it’snot like you exactly afford to play missish, can you? We’ll make the announcement soon, eh? My mother’s been after me to do the proper thing and get myself hitched. She’ll be pleased.”
“Yes. That will be fine.”
He settled back, launching into a detailed recitation of the new carriage he intended to purchase, his voice rising and falling in an almost sing-song cadence. Hermione let the words wash over her, nodding politely at the appropriate intervals. He spoke of a matched pair of bays he had long admired but considered impractical—until now, when he would have a wife to display beside them. The wedding would be well attended and it would be a fine thing for the guests to see them departing in a phaeton pulled by such fine beasts.
She wondered absently if she would be expected to match the horses’ coloring as well.
Then came mention of wedding itself, of which flowers he could and would tolerate, of where they might live after they wed, and then of the ring his mother had kept from her own marriage. A family piece, he called it with a note of reverence, but Hermione could only think that it was secondhand—like the man himself, and just as ill-suited to her.
When she dared a glance toward her mother, Elizabeth’s expression was polite but taut, her lips drawn in a fine line. For all her ambitions and her tireless campaign to see her daughter wed, even she seemed to recognize the insufferable self-satisfaction radiating from Baxter. Still, she made no move to intervene.
At last, Baxter rose, brushing a few crumbs from his coat sleeve and sending them sprinkling down onto the polished rose wood table, and reached for her hand. His grip was far too firm, his palm warm and slightly damp. Instead of raising her fingers to his lips, he gave her knuckles a single, awkward pat,the gesture more akin to congratulating a business partner than courting a future bride.
“I’ll speak to your brother this week. Get everything settled. Then we can begin making plans in earnest. I’ll have the banns read immediately, just in case. We don’t want any delays, eh?”
Hermione’s smile was mechanical. “Of course.”
He left whistling some tuneless fragment of a melody, and when the door shut behind him, the silence he left was almost deafening. Hermione felt the tight coil of her spine give way, her shoulders sinking back against the settee as though every muscle had been held rigid by sheer force of will.
Elizabeth crossed the room and sat beside her, the faint rustle of her gown loud in the stillness.
“Why?” Elizabeth finally summoned the courage to query.
Hermione shrugged. “Because he asked… and no one else would.”
“That’s a terrible reason to marry him.”
Hermione met her mother’s gaze and said baldly, “But it is a reason. What are my reasons for sliding into the oblivion of spinsterhood? Other than my own pride and vanity, of course.”
“Well,” her mother said at last, her tone carefully neutral. “That was dreadful. And I don’t look fore it to improve. Do you?
Hermione gave a shaky laugh that wavered dangerously toward a sob. She pressed a hand to her mouth, trying to steady herself. “I said yes, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did,” Elizabeth replied, studying her closely. “And I cannot condone your reason for it, but I will pray daily that you have no cause to regret it.”
Hermione turned her face away. She couldn’t answer—not now. Not when the trap was already closing, and the Witness, having guided her to this point, had fallen silent once more.
The gentlemen’s club was loud that evening, though the sound was of a genteel sort—low conversation, the occasional burst of laughter, the muffled chink of glass on glass. Perhaps it wasn’t the volume of the club at all and merely his own sore head that was at fault.
Regardless, Hartley claimed his preferred table, the one tucked into the farthest corner from the fire. There, the air was cooler, the window cracked just enough to admit a faint breeze tinged with the smell of wet cobblestones and rain. He preferred the damp freshness to the overheated, smoky fog that hung about the rest of the room.
The brandy in his hand was an old, mellow friend, its warmth seeping into his blood with a comfort that was equal parts pleasure and necessity. He was in no mood for company, least of all the kind that demanded effort or civility.
Which was why, when Phinneas Merrick slid into the chair opposite without so much as an invitation, Hartley’s first reaction was not surprise so much as irritation. He did not bother to mask it. He wanted to eat his luncheon and drink himself into a stupor without interruption. Once glance at the other man’s face was all that was required to know thathe knew. Somehow, he knew that he and Hermione had become lovers. And he was none too happy about it.
