Page 13 of A Naughty Proposal for His Winter Countess
But I’m going to hold to my promise; I won’t listen to gossip.
Tilting her head to the sky, Harriet felt the tickle of her unfettered hair on the nape of her neck, and she smiled. A memory sprang to her mind about the horrible teasing she had once gained for it, back in the dorms at the Missus Cottenham School for Girls.
“We’re supposed to create a hideous mask and costume for the play,” Antoinette deLuc said slyly. “But I have nothing to base it on.”
“Don’t fret, we have a template,” Temperance Nottingham said, “Just splatter it with Harriet’s freckles; that will disgust anyone. And add wild tufts of bright red yarn for hair.”
“And paint two dots as her bosom,” Antoinette deLuc drawled while paging through an issue of La Belle Assembleé, “The ones who you have to use your lorgnette to see.”
“Perhaps if she watered them, they would grow,” Temperance said, shooting a look to her. “But I doubt it. No sensible Lord would marry such a strapped chit.”
If only those girls could see her now—they would have to eat their words. Not only had her hair darkened with age, but her bosom was the perfect size to draw a man’s eye.
The chances were that she probably would see both as the Baron of Carrington was slated to host one of the ton’s grander balls later that month, and as far as she knew, neither of them was married.
Harriet knew she was not going to get married either—but neither of those women was going to know that.
She entered the home, and took off her cloak, groaning under her breath that the tails were wet and muddy, and so were her dress and petticoats.
Martha is going to rake me over the coals for this.
“Miss,” the footman said, with a bow, “Mister Bradford and Lord Barkley are waiting for you in the visitors' drawing room.”
“Oh,” she exclaimed, unaware that her brother and the Earl had come that day, “I—”
“Good Lord, Harriet,” Benjamin exclaimed from the foot of the stairs. “What happened? Did you go through a maelstrom?”
Turning, Harriet shook her head, “No, you just found me at the wrong time. I’d walked to town, you see and—”
“And what had I told you about that?”
Harriet rolled her eyes, “I had gone to buy more sweets, Brother. The walk is less than a half-mile, both ways, and there are constables there in case I needed help.”
“That does not count on the lonely road here,” Benjamin said strictly. “You know Lord Carrington is prominent enough to garner enemies. Who knows if one of them could have taken you?”
Letting out a long, frustrated, breath, Harriet twisted her head. She held back from muttering,who would even try,and faced her brother. “It won’t happen again.”
Ben looked placated, “Good, please change out of those wet clothes and meet Lord Barkley and me in the visitors' drawing room. I’ll have some tea sent up, so you don’t catch your death.”
Nodding, Harriet looked past her brother to see Lord Barkley standing at the top of the stairs before turning away. Hurrying up to her room, Harriet did away with her stained dress, washed her face quickly, changed into a green dress, and brushed her hair into order.
Hurrying to the drawing room, Harriet took a moment at the door to compose herself. This would be her first time seeing the Earl away from the ball, and decided to make a better impression of herself.
Entering the room, she smiled, “Did I make you wait long?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Lord Barkley said calmly from the window. “Do you regularly go on jaunts by yourself?”
Instead of feeling irked, Harriet thought that he was inquisitive, and not accusative. “I grew up a clergyman’s daughter, My Lord. We went to church four days out of seven for most of my childhood days until I was sent to school. We walked most of the way, and it became a habit.”
Taking a seat, at the table where the teapot and cups were, she poured some out and spooned in some honey. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Benjamin rolling his eyes, and just as he was about to interrupt her, Lord Barkley, or should she say, Daniel, stopped him with a cutting flash of his hand—Harriet pretended she didn’t see it.
She lifted her head with a wry smile, and with a simple shrug of slim shoulders, she added milk and sugar, “I suppose old habits are hard to break.”
The Earl held a glass of brandy in his hand, while leaning on the wall with a contemplative expression. Ben cleared his throat and came forward with some papers in his hands.
“For your safety, I implore you to break it,” Ben said as he took the seat across from her and laid the papers before her. “Lord Barkley has made his proposal, but he wrote in that you have the power to break the courtship whenever you chose. I told him that it was—”
“You did that?” Harriet exclaimed with her head snapping to the Earl. He only lifted his glass, and Harriet turned back to her brother. “Why is that a problem?”
