Page 252 of The Ladies Least Likely
“I wonder what it will do to your factory if you don’t modernize.” Harriette linked her arm with Ren’s on his good side as they walked along the street with its line of cloth factories. Passersby who were out to survey the damage nodded and lifted their caps as they passed. Work was already being done to repair broken storefronts, remove debris from the street, and resume business. A riot, a bloody explosion of long-simmering anger, and then life went on much as it had—save for the two men who died, and the families left without them.
“Fripp says many of the owners are like to cave to the demands of the mob and not install the spinning jenny,” Ren commented. “I won’t be the only one.”
“So Shepton Mallet may stay as it is,” Harriette said, looking at the row of factories that lined the river. “But meanwhile other places may adopt the new machinery and make rivals for us. It’s a dilemma, isn’t it? Adopt the new machines and put men out of work to make the factory prosper, or lose the factory to competitors and put everyone out of work.”
“I don’t fear losing it any time soon,” Ren said, doffing his cap to a constable who trundled by, frowning. “But I don’t see another choice.”
“Find a way to install the machines and keep the men employed,” Harriette said, wondering about the women and children as well. It seemed cruel to require hard labor of children. “But I don’t know how to make that work with men like Bram Wright and Gil Roper.” She squeezed his arm. “They’ll never admit they were cruel to you, will they? They’ll neverapologize. In fact, I wonder if, to them, it was even cruelty. Or simply the way of the world as they know it. How does it feel knowing you govern the fate of these boys who once taunted you?”
“How does it feel looking Gil Roper in the eye when you gave him a blinker that one time they surprised us on the Fosse Way?” Ren asked in return, smiling. “You could have unmanned Bram Wright if you’d aimed differently that day by the river, the day we met. I imagine they both have families now who depend on them, wives and?—”
He stopped in the street, hauling Harriette up short. “Rhette,” he said, and she recognized that strangled quality to his voice.
“What?” she asked in alarm.
“Babes,” he managed after a moment of working his lips fruitlessly. He stared at her, oblivious to the busy traffic about them, the flowing river, the slate grey of the cloudy sky, the relentless churning of the mills powering the great looms. “Did you—we might…” He groped for words while she waited, wide-eyed. “I never had to th-think about it,” he said finally, his voice rough. “The women I paid took care of it.”
“And so did I.” She tried to keep her voice light as she tugged him onward. “Princess taught me one or two of her courtesan’s tricks. I thought ahead,” she assured him.
“So there is no…” He limped into step with her, recovering himself.
“Such things are never guaranteed, but I do not care to bear an illegitimate child,” Harriette said. “Or bring another man’s child into my marriage.”
He said nothing, though his labored breath told her he wanted to. For her part, Harriette clamped down on a sudden inward pang of loss. She’d said again and again she didn’t want children. So why did the thought of bearing a child with Renfill her with such sudden, visceral longing? To think that the exquisite pleasure they’d shared might result in new life, a child they could both love and wonder at, teach and watch and care for?—
She felt as if her insides had been temporarily removed. She knew she would have to bear children to Franz Karl, to produce heirs for the duchy. But she didn’t want children with any man but Ren.
Harriette held silent as they returned to the Demant house, with its black wreath on the door and black ribbons still at the windows, though now the drapes were pulled back to admit light into the once darkened rooms. Harriette was grateful for Ren’s company, for his advice on what must come next. She had no idea what her mother had left behind, what she would be expected to take care of, what debts she would be demanded to discharge, what directives her mother had left. There was so much to think about, and?—
Mrs. Demant met them at the door, flinging it open and giving them both an accusatory stare. Harriette felt flattened, sure that the other woman could see on her face how she had spent the evening, and it was not in quiet prayer or the contemplation of grief.
“This came for you,” she snapped, thrusting a letter with a wax seal in Harriette’s direction. She held one corner as if the paper might carry the plague. “Express from London. Your aunt wants something, I suppose.”
Harriette broke the seal and opened it at once. All of the questions that had just been filling her head—and all of the sweet, unspoken fancies about more time with Ren, meals with Ren, bed with Ren—swirled up into the air and away as if caught by the wind. It was her aunt’s handwriting, scrawled in haste with her usual dramatic flourishes.
Franz Karl here in London. Come at once. If you care for Renwick at all send him to the Continent in fear for his life, for my great-nephew has promised to kill him.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Ren refused to flee. He insisted on returning to London with Harriette as soon as possible, and went off in search of the nearest posting inn to hire a chaise. While he checked on the Manor House and ensured Mrs. Oram had enough to get by, and stopped by his solicitor to give Mr. Golledge instructions, Harriette frantically gathered all of her mother’s belongings that Mrs. Demant didn’t want.
She just as frantically attempted to urge Ren to heed her aunt’s advice and prepare a tour of the Continent, but to no avail. He insisted on escorting her to London, paying for the post chaise, and arranging for sets of rooms at the inns where they stayed for the night, for it was folly to think of driving through the night on treacherous, unlit roads.
Both nights, when he knocked on her door holding a candle, his eyes full of desire, Harriette let him in. She had sworn to herself that one night must be enough. Her cousin already wanted to kill him, who knew why. But with his tall frame before her, his beautiful face full of longing for her, his musky scent teasing her nose and the new knowledge of the pleasure he brought her stirring her arousal to instant life, she did whatweak, carnal women have done since the dawn of time and pulled Renwick into her room.
When she helped him dress in the morning, cramming his twisted foot into the custom-made boot, tying his neckcloth and buttoning his coats while his hands played at her breast or pulled up her skirt for one last hurried swive against the wall, helpless to deny him or her eager, greedy body before he fastened his breeches and snuck back to his own room, she feared that might be the last time she held him and felt his strong, beloved body pressing against her, filling her.
And when he dropped her in Charles Street before departing to Renwick House to check on his mother and sister, she kissed him long and deeply behind the drawn shade of the chaise, and she couldn’t stop a traitorous tear from sliding down her face to their joined lips.
“What if he kills you? Ren, I couldn’t bear it. If you died…”
She couldn’t live if something happened to him. She had sworn to herself she was not the heroine of a great tragedy nor the fragile damsel of a romance, but she feared her heart would burst from despair if his life were taken because of her.
“Shh. Rhette. Nothing is going to happen to me.” He traced the curve of her cheek with a warm finger. “If he has concerns, we will talk them through like gentlemen. You forget you are a duchess—you answer to no one. And I am sure your aunt will have some influence with him as well.”
She kissed him as long as she dared, fiercely burning him into her heart, and then she shook out the black skirt of her mother’s old riding habit and strode into the Catherine Club.
It was mid-morning, and the women were gathered in the library, which also served as Melike’s work room. Harriette paused in the doorway of the gracious chamber, savoring for a moment the buttery paper lit to gold and set off with the crispwhite trim, the paintings—her paintings—along the wall giving the space a cozy yet elegant feel.
