"When must you answer?" Eveline asked finally.
"My aunt expects my gratitude by week's end. Mr. Malbrooke wishes to announce the betrothal at his Christmas ball—apparently I'm to be something of a gift to myself." The bitterness in Harriet's voice could have etched glass. "He's already shown my aunt fabric samples for my wedding clothes. Silver gray and dove. Appropriate for a third wife, neither too youthful nor presuming to the grandeur of a first bride."
"This is wrong. You know this is wrong."
"Is it?" Harriet rose abruptly, moving to examine Eveline's scattered contracts with forced interest. "A month ago, I would have said yes. It's a good match by any practical measure. Security, respectability, a household to run. Everything a woman of modest means should gratefully accept."
"But?"
"But then I watched you." Harriet turned, and Eveline was shocked to seetears in her usually composed friend's eyes. "I watched you turn down Theodore Browne, who offered everything a ruined woman should want. I watched you face down society's censure rather than diminish yourself. I watched you refuse to be grateful for scraps when you deserve feasts."
"That's different."
"How? How is it different?" Harriet's control shattered completely. "Because you're brilliant and I'm merely adequate? Because you have Latin and Greek while I have only watercolors and middling French? We're both women trying to survive in a world that measures our worth by our marriageability, and we're both being asked to be grateful for cages!"
"You're not merely adequate," Eveline said fiercely. "You're clever and kind and loyal beyond measure. You deserve better than a man who sees you as convenient household management."
"And you deserve better than darning stockings for Granger-Ashton's insipid daughters." Harriet sank back into her chair, suddenly looking exhausted. "Do you know what the worst part is? A piece of me, a terrible, practical piece, is tempted. To never worry about money again, to have my own household, to help my sisters... It would be so easy to say yes."
"But you won't."
"Won't I?" Harriet pulled out her handkerchief, dabbing at her eyes with sharp, angry movements. "You at least have options now. These positions Adrian has arranged...they offer you a real future. What do I have? The slowly dwindling prospect of finding love before my pittance runs out entirely?"
Eveline moved to kneel beside her friend's chair, taking her hands. "You have the knowledge that settling for Malbrooke would kill something vital in you. I've watched you these past weeks, Harriet. You're different—more alive, more yourself. That's worth more than all the security his shipping fortune could provide."
"Easy to say when one has a duke arranging publishing contracts and museum positions."
"Adrian didn't arrange my worth, he simply refused to let others ignore it. There's a difference."
"A difference that results in two hundred pounds per annum versus twenty." Harriet squeezed her hands before pulling away. "I'm sorry. That was unkind. I'm just..."
"Frightened. I know. So am I."
They sat quietly again, each lost in their own calculations of courage versus comfort. The morning post had brought them both face to face with futures they didn't want but might have to accept. The difference was that Eveline had alternatives, while Harriet faced only varying degrees of surrender.
"What will you do?" Harriet asked finally. "About all of this?" She gestured at the contracts still spread across the desk.
"I need to visit the British Museum, speak with Thornbury directly. Adrian arranged the introduction, but I need to negotiate my own terms." Eveline returnedto her desk, organizing the papers with hands that needed occupation. "Will you come with me? I could use the moral support, and you need distraction from Malbrooke's romantic fabric samples."
"Silver gray," Harriet said with a weak smile. "To match his silverware, no doubt. Yes, I'll come. Perhaps exposure to your negotiations will teach me something about refusing to accept the first offer presented."
They prepared to leave, Eveline gathering her translation samples while Harriet repaired the damage tears had done to her complexion. As they descended to the street, Eveline caught her friend's arm.
"You won't accept him. Promise me you won't accept Malbrooke."
"I promise to try not to be practical," Harriet said carefully. "That's the best I can offer right now."
It would have to be enough.
The British Museum loomed before them like a temple to human knowledge, its classical columns suggesting that what lay within was worth such grandiose protection. Eveline had visited before, of course, but never as someone who might belong there professionally rather than as a mere observer.
"Nervous?" Harriet asked as they climbed the steps.
"Terrified. What if Thornbury takes one look at me and rescinds the offer? What if Adrian exaggerated my abilities? What if..."
"What if you're brilliant and everyone except you knows it?" Harriet interrupted. "Come now, this isn't like you. Where's the woman who corrected Archbishop Hastings's Latin at a dinner gathering?"
"She's been replaced by one who understands the weight of consequence." But Eveline straightened her spine nonetheless, presenting herself to the porter with as much confidence as she could muster.
