Page 12 of A Naughty Proposal for His Winter Countess
Daniel’s gut twisted in shame as he knew he was deceiving his best friend, and if the truth came out, he probably would be ostracized from the one person he held dear.
Nothing will go wrong. Harriet and I will have the time she needs; then we will part ways amicably. I won’t lose Ben in the process.
Mustering an agreeable smile, Daniel said, “I hope you’re right.”
Ben moved over to his cupboards, “I got a lovely bottle of brandy. Let’s toast to the new union.”
Even with his stomach churning with guilt, Daniel had to remind himself that this was all for the best—Harriet would not make the worst decision of her life, and he would climb out of the hole he had dug himself. When all went well, he would still have Ben as his friend and possibly Harriet as well.
Taking a seat, Daniel took the glass of warm golden liquor and lifted it high, “To a lovely courtship and to having you as not only my brother in word alone.”
Ben smiled. “I will drink to that.”
After sharing the drink, Ben shut the bottle away, “We’ll have to speak with Harriet, since she has to agree to all this before anything happens.”
Already reaching for his coat, Daniel nodded, “I don’t mind.”
Coated and gloved, they stepped into the fluttering snow and toward Daniel’s coach. Ben looked a little worried about his sister’s reaction, but Daniel didn’t. He already knew how Harriet would take it, even though their agreement from the night before was still tenuous.
He kept a genial conversation with Ben, prodding him a little to tell him some of Harriet’s past, and learned that she was sent to boarding school and after Martha married well, finishing school as well. That her only friend in the world was Lily Matthews and that Harriet had a strange penchant for reading politics and riding astride.
Ben’s pointed look had Daniel’s brows arching. “What? You think her masculine traits would dissuade me?”
“Most would,” Ben snorted. “But then again, I shouldn’t lump you in with the others.”
“I’d thought you’d have known that by now,” Daniel replied dryly.
The drive to Canterbury, on wide country roads, passed quickly, but snow began fluttering down halfway there. It was Boxing Day, and as they passed quiet houses, Daniel suspected that the people inside were resting to see the Christmas Pantomime later that night at Drury Lane—another thing Daniel was going to avoid.
Carrington Manor was likewise quiet, and the footman that let them in, told them that the Lord and Lady were out in the town and Miss Bradford had gone on a walk.
“By herself?” Daniel asked, concernedly.
“That’s another thing you’d want to know about my sister,” Ben said as they were seated in a drawing room. “She goes where the wind takes her. If she gets a hint that she’d going to be confined, Harriet will react.”
A maid came in with glasses of warm mulled wine and they settled in to wait. After cocking an ankle over a knee, Ben said, “I still cannot believe you’re forgoing your sworn bachelorhood to marry.”
“Well, I am,” Daniel replied, “that is, if no has poisoned her against me already.”
“I doubt it,” Ben replied. “Harriet doesn’t listen to gossip. She prefers to wait and form decisions about people after getting to know them first. It’s a lesson she learned the hard way.”
Cocking a brow, Daniel added that note to the one before when Ben had hinted at Harriet’s past. Now, he was sure the lady had suffered horrible things—but what?
Nursing his drink, Daniel stood and moved to the window; below him were unbroken white swathes. Then, a figure, clad in blue, came into view from the background—and by the dark-red hair, windswept and tossed, it was Harriet.
The tails of her coat, and probably dress, were damp through and through, and she didn’t lift her dress as she walked like a prim miss would. Daniel knew a few women who have been utterly horrified at the clothes' condition—but not Harriet.
She is different from the rest. I don’t suppose gifts of jewelry or anything traditional will work with her. Then again, our arrangement is hardly traditional.
Then, as if she heard his thought, Harriet tilted her head to the sky to let the snow settle on her serene face, that oddly made his chest warm, and for the first time, Daniel wondered if, by his good intentions, he had gotten himself into trouble.
Chapter Four
There was something about Christmastide that Harriet loved; it was so peaceful and still. With Martha occupied and her husband away for most of the days, Harriet got to roam around the Manor, and the nearby town, without a chaperone.
Last night still felt strange to her—that Lord Barkley had offered such an inordinate arrangement, to teach her how to find good Lords—while he knew she wanted the wicked ones.
What puzzled Harriet was why the handsome Earl would take the trouble to help her—and even more, why had he dissuaded her from listening to gossip about him. From the other interactions she had with him, Harriet suspected that he had suffered a horrible past with a lady.
