Page 194 of The Ladies Least Likely
“You are not a simpleton and you are not a cripple,” Harriette said sharply. “I haven’t heard you stammer once with me.”
“Because you don’t terrify me nearly as much as my mother,” Ren said. “Ready to throw yourself to the lions?”
Her smile mirrored his, more of a smirk. If only he knew how closely that thought echoed her own. But she was not the pure, noble Christian being thrown into the ring by a cruel Roman emperor to suffer torments that would lead to her sainthood. She was the furthest thing possible from a saint.
The countess had recognized her name. Most of the people in these overly ornamented drawing rooms would also.
And in all too short a time, Ren would know it, too—what she’d done to get where she was. He’d risen above his circumstances, and she had fallen.
She pressed his arm to her breast, needing his strength, his solid warmth. If she could overcome his deep dislike of exposure long enough to paint him, she would make a portrait so beautiful it could go a long way toward redeeming herself. Not enough to be worthy of him—she’d never be that. The thought plunged a knife through her heart.
He gave her a quizzical look, but she wasn’t ten anymore, with no secrets and not a single thought for her future. She saw now, all too well, how wide a chasm gaped between her and her childhood friend.
But he offered, for the moment, a place beside him, and she was weak enough to take advantage while she could.
The formal drawingroom of Renwick House occupied the front part of the first floor, positioned to best catch the light from the tall, narrow windows that faced the square. The last time Renwick had seen it, the room had been a heavy tomb of dark paneling and massive Jacobean furniture, reflecting the era when Renwick power and influence had been at its peak. His mother had redecorated in the neoclassical style, but without any sense of the restraint or harmonies that made that style work. Everything was heavily curved and a bold red or green or gold, and being currently thronged with people all dressed in outrageously bright costumes of varying colors, the room assaulted the eye as well as the nose.
Beside him, Harriette stiffened, and he wondered if she regretted her decision to come to his rescue yet again. He laid his free hand over the slim fingers curled about his arm, holding her in place.
“No bolting now,” he murmured. He steeled himself to endure the usual reactions of strangers with the discipline honed by the many new experiences of his tour. He would not show his aversion to notice and curious stares. He would pretend not to see the revulsion on the faces of the delicate. He would hide his annoyance at their pity and his irritation at those who would attempt to become too familiar because of that pity, or because he was the Earl of Renwick despite everything.
Normally, facing a room full of the cultured and elegant and well-born and rich, he felt suffused with dread at a long night of guarding his tongue, saying as little as possible so his stammer did not strangle him. Were he a common man, in a common trade, his disabilities would scarcely be a matter of note, when so many of the population were marked by injuries or illness or scars.
But in the nobility, among those born to power and rule, such afflictions were a curse. His father had taught him none of thethings other men learned from their fathers—how to hunt, how to shoot, how to gamble, how to make a fine leg—but the old Earl of Renwick had ferociously impressed upon his son all that his title and station demanded, and all the ways he failed.
The minute he’d lighted on English soil, his mother reminded Ren of his responsibility to bear an heir and perpetuate the line. His father had bragged that the earls of Renwick won their title and lands by helping Henry Tudor keep his throne, then looked around at his heir and complained that a line of strong, fierce warriors for cause and king had degenerated to weaklings. Didn’t his mother equally fear what madness and deformity might await further in the line? Ren did.
Yet the fear receded with Harriette at his side. Along with the alarm and desire her dress and exposed skin and delicious scent aroused in him, he felt the old, steadying calm in her presence, as if the world had fallen into perspective. He’d dreamed of this, in deepest night: of entering fancy parties armed with a gorgeously dressed Harriette who would whisper in his ear and make him feel the absurdity of it all, not the pain of inadequacy or fear of humiliation. His mother could throw fits later about his squiring Harriette about, but tonight, for now, she was here.
She glanced up at him, and the gold lights in her eyes warned of impending mischief. Her red lips curved in a smile that brought out tiny grooves at the corners of her mouth. She’d had that impish pucker as a girl, but on her woman’s face, it was a powerful enchantment.
“Who’s bolting?” She straightened him with a quick, light touch, smoothing his coat over his shoulders, flicking at his neckcloth to adjust the folds, and rubbing her thumb over a silver button to erase a smudge. Then she brushed her hand over his temple, tucking a lock of hair under his wig.
He stood struck to stone by her attention, every nerve ending fired alive at her touch. These were the simple attentions awoman paid a man she cared about, but he had never known them. He had never had a woman at his side who cared about anything more than the price she would be paid for a night of companionship.
He met Harriette’s eyes and felt trapped in the lift of her dark lashes, the steady inquiry of her gaze. If it were true that the eyes revealed the soul, then he saw all of Harriette Smythe, the girl she had been and the woman she’d become, and all that lay in between. His heart slammed against the silver button she’d just touched, as if trying to throw itself into her hands. The surge of blood in his head blocked out all the voices of the room, everything but her.
Harriette.
His pulse beat out a knowledge that dizzied him with its sudden surety. He felt unsteady, and he felt as if he’d just arrived at the fundamental truth of his life.
Harriette, at his side. That was all he needed. That was everything.
He stared at her lips, fighting back the blood pounding in his ear so he could hear her. “—future countess is here somewhere, Renwick. We’ll find her.”
She looked away, and the ground beneath him shifted. The rock of truth he stood on was his alone.
She didn’t want him.
She felt the old tenderness for him, that was clear, but she didn’twanthim the way a woman longed for a man.
Well, whoever had wanted him? Ren thought, sliding down the black hole toward the despair that was his oldest and most familiar companion. He followed like a block of wood as Harriette stepped forward, and because he wasn’t thinking about his foot, the cursed thing dragged along with him. Behind him he heard the butler announcing them, and every eye turned just in time to watch him lurch into the drawing room.
Harriette stopped at once, beaming a polite smile around the crowd, waiting to let him steady himself against her. But the damage was done. Everyone had seen his weakness. He had only to open his mouth to seal his doom.
He froze in humiliation, the terrified boy he’d always been, but Harriette gently tugged him forward. “Charlotte Stanhope,” she murmured. “Grand-niece to the late Lord Chesterfield. You’ve read hisLetters to his Son,I’m sure?”
“I heard they are full of im-im-immorality,” Ren stammered as the small knot of fashionably dressed women stared at their approach. This was an agony past bearing. He watched the youngest sweep her eyes down his form and fasten on the foot he dragged forward to meet the other. His moment of paralysis had stripped away every trick he’d mastered, every guise he’d learned to affect.
