Page 228 of The Ladies Least Likely
He didn’t want her. The shock was an icy splash that stunned her.
Ren was done with her.
Another rejection. Well, she was accustomed to that, wasn’t she?
“Of course.” She pushed at her skirts until they fell back into place. She tugged up the bodice of her gown that she hadn’t noticed until now had been shoved down by his hot, questing hands. She trembled with desire and humiliation.
“I-I—” His eyes flickered with misery and desperation.
“I know.” She wanted to turn and flee, howling, but she also wanted a proper goodbye. “I’m leaving. But—will you ever send me those letters?”
He shook his head. The shadow of the tree hid the expression that crossed his face, something she had never seen before, not for her. “Th-th-that’s over. P-p-past.”
He’d never stammered with her before. Now his stutter was here in full force, and he sucked air as if his lungs were empty. Harriette closed her eyes against the rush of pain.
She wasn’t special anymore. She was just another woman who terrified him. And why would he dally with her when he now knew he could aim as high as he wanted—when any woman he looked at would fall willingly into his arms? The future was opening up for the Earl of Renwick, while hers was closing to something dark and dreaded.
“I know,” she said again. She didn’t want him to see her bewilderment, the pain of his rejection. Her pride would sustain her to the end. “Goodbye, Ren.”
She turned and plunged through the garden gate to the mews and her coach waiting beyond, not waiting for his answer, unable to hear if he called after her. She was lying to herself. Nothing in her life had hurt more than leaving behind the man she loved and knowing she might never see him again.
She refused to look back. She didn’t need one last glimpse of him. George Matheson, the Earl of Renwick, was emblazoned into her brain for perpetuity.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
They could have made more a fuss about her leaving, Harriette thought glumly as she drove the cabriolet through the quiet, sleepy streets of London at dawn. She’d lived in her aunt’s household for three years and these women were deeply a part of her life, their lot and hers intimately entwined. They’d suffered her sketching and painting them again and again as she honed her skills. They’d rallied her when she was rebuffed by prospect after prospect, painting school after school.
They’d celebrated with her when Angelica Kaufman took Harriette under her wing. They’d coaxed her back into spirits when she was humiliated by the squire, when she parted with her soldier, when she found out the German margrave had been lying to her about marriage. They’d stood beside her when the gossip paragraphs identified her as the maker of the salacious sketches of the Graf von Hardenburg, and they’d hung on every detail of her interactions with Ren and his sister.
Now they had seen her off as cheerily as if she were making a casual visit to the edge of town, rather than leaving for the deathbed of her mother, and beyond that, marriage to a man she’d never met.
Natalya, who wept easily, had pressed her into a soft, scented embrace and then let her go without a tear. Melike had made her a beautiful icon to wear as a pendant, and Darci had sculpted her a tiny porcelain figure. Sorcha had packed her a basket full of delicious smelling pastries, and Abassi had shown her, with enthusiasm, how to disable and flee a male attacker, were she threatened on the road.
Princess had not even bothered to make an appearance; no doubt she was still abed with her lover, or hadn’t yet made it to bed since it was still early hours.
Her aunt alone had shown a sign of being affected by their parting. “Take this,” she’d instructed, handing Harriette a small decorative box inlaid with fine wood and painted paste that passed for jewels. Harriette peeked inside to find a lump of velvet wrapped in a ribbon. “They are trinkets that will prove who you are, if anyone has questions.”
Harriette nodded and slid the box into the valise she planned to carry with her, while her trunks would follow behind by a slower, less costly conveyance. She had never considered that Franz Karl would demand proof she was of the Löwenburg ruling family, that her mother’s word would not be token enough.
She had imagined she might have some command over him, invested as she was as the heir to the title, if not the lands. Suddenly she glimpsed a fraught, painful future where her husband doubted her birth and her worth, holding her captive to make good his claim to the duchy, but never according her the respect due her station.
Oh,whyhad she ever approached the rotted Graf von Hardenburg to ask him to find out about her family? Harriette chastised herself as she turned into the narrow, twisted streets of the City of London, with Jock on the Yorkshire guiding their way. Why couldn’t she have simply remained poor, plainHarriette Smythe, suspected of illegitimacy, relegated to the barest fringes of Polite Society? At least she would still have her studio and her determination to make something of herself. She didn’t even know if Franz Karl would allow her to paint.
Not that he could keep her from it, Harriette resolved as Jock won an argument with a sedan chair and the surly carriers moved aside to let them through. Her husband would not find her biddable or meek.
First she would resolve whatever was ailing her mother, which was no doubt another episode of spleen. If announcing she was the Duchess of Löwenburg had not been enough to make her mother a marvel among the lesser beings of Shepton Mallet, then she would resort to a wasting illness, as had been her ploy for as long as Harriette could remember.
Doubtless news that her nephew was coming to fetch them both back to the land of her birth would cure whatever ailed the duchess right enough. She’d spent Harriette’s entire childhood painting word pictures of the elegance and ease she’d left behind, making sure that Mrs. Demant knew how much the erstwhile Mrs. Smythe had lowered herself to live in a mere gentleman merchant’s home.
Ludgate Hill was thronged with traffic, coaches and people moving through the broad space where the medieval gate and its attached gaol had been torn down years before. A crowd lounged outside the London Coffee House, studying a series of prints tacked to the windows. Her sketch of Renwick, of course.
Harriette tore her eyes away and appreciated instead the depth and dimension of the street, the narrow buildings with their medieval overhangs, the gothic spires of St. Martin’s Church, the neoclassical majesty of St. Paul’s dome and portico looming behind a veil of morning smoke. How she would like to paint this scene, were she granted the time. How much there was of London that she still hadn’t seen, would never see.
Jock steered the cabriolet through the archway fronting the Belle Sauvage to the broad cobbled yard beyond. The inn in early days had also been a playhouse, and Harriette could imagine the audience crowding the balconies, riveted to the action below. The stagecoach was being loaded, men strapping luggage onto the box behind, while the four horses stood in harness, blinkered and quiet. The enclosed seats being more expensive, Harriette had a ticket for the perch atop. She hoped the driver was a sober sort who would not risk their lives with unadvisable speed and would not be persuaded to turn the horses over to some young spark who wanted to show he was a dab hand at the ribbons.
Jock paused to watch a stable boy lead a pair of spirited blacks to a bright yellow post chaise trimmed with fresh black paint. The near-side horse shied and stepped into a tall man standing nearby, his back to them, leaning on his cane as he conversed with the innkeeper. Harriette caught herself admiring his long frame, the way his leather greatcoat fell from broad shoulders, the deep cuffs with golden buttons indicating a man of means, as did the polish on his black top boots. His hair was hidden under a tricorn hat but his build suggested strength and command, and she was astonished to feel a flicker of attraction for a complete stranger. She was supposed to be heartbroken over leaving Ren. Was she that fickle?
When the horse nudged him, the man turned, and the breath left her body at the sight of his profile. It was Ren.
