I stopped myself from repeating her again even though I was still just as confused. Why in the world would Miss Blackwell want to meet with me privately? Even if she did, why would Harriet be the one arranging it?
“Do you know why she wants to meet with me?”
Her grin broadened. “I might.”
She did.
My mind raced. I must be missing a piece of this puzzle. Why would the woman I thought was waiting for me to return from war so we could marry want me to meet with another woman alone? “And you condone this meeting of ours?”
“Definitely.”
“What if someone were to come upon us?—”
Harriet tossed her hand to the side with a nonchalance that didn’t match the seriousness of the occasion. “You could say you were both looking for something to read.”
“And if it was Mrs. Wickerton?”
That at least gave Harriet pause. But after a moment’s hesitation, she shrugged. “What harm could she cause?”
I stepped forward. When Miss Blackwell had thought of me as a threat, she’d spent a week actively shielding Harriet from me. But now, when Miss Blackwell might need protection, this was how Harriet reacted? “She could spread the news like wildfire. Spreading gossip seems to be her sole mission in life. Nothing would give her more pleasure than forcing marriage between us if she found us there.”
She let out a long, slow breath as if she was the one who needed to recover from my outburst. “I think it very unlikely Mrs. Wickerton will visit the library late in the evening.” She raised a solitary eyebrow. “And even if she does, solid marriages have started off on worse footings.”
“But ... ” I didn’t know what to say. Harriet looked almost delighted at the prospect of me possibly being forced to wed her cousin. I kneaded my forehead. Exactly what kind of situation had I gotten myself into?
“Miss Pryor?”
“Yes,” she smiled sweetly at me. It was a smile I desperately hoped I’d been misreading all along.
I stepped back to put more space between us. “That summer we were together. When you left ... ” How could I word this? “Did you perhaps ... misplace a glove?”
She tipped her head to one side, eyebrows furrowing. “Misplace a glove? I don’t think so.”
“A kid glove. Tan leather.” I spoke clearly, as if the more carefully I used my words, the more certain I would be to understand her answer.
She stilled, her eyes widening. “I did!” She scrunched her nose. “Mama was livid. I dropped it somewhere, or perhaps my maid lost it when packing my trunks.” This time when our eyes met, hers were filled with a kind of nostalgic wonder. “What a funny memory. How did you even know of it?”
I focused on taking breaths in and out. I’d faced muskets and death, waged war and bound wounds, lived and nearly died with that glove giving me the courage to continue on. I’d relied on it, blessed it, and only recently come to resent the power it had over me.
And she had dropped it bymistake.
I pressed my lips together. A lightness in my chest was bubbling up toward my throat, and if I wasn’t careful it was going to escape as laughter.
“What?” she asked, wrinkles of concern forming at the sides of her eyes.
I chuckled. I couldn’t help it. I’d been so wrong. So very wrong. I covered my mouth with my hand and shook my head, needing a moment to let the absolute absurdity of the situation settle to a point where I could speak.
Miss Pryor—for I had no right to think of her as Harriet any longer. The Harriet I’d pinned all of my hopes and dreams on had never existed. I had conjured her from a broken heart and a misplaced glove.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t lose gloves often enough for it to be this amusing.”
I swallowed hard. “No, it isn’t you that is amusing. It is me. I simply ... ” What? My folly was my own and the last thing I wanted to do was burden her with it. But she’d been so instrumental in my life, or rather her glove had, that I needed to say something. “You were very kind to me that summer. I hope I thanked you then. But on the chance I was so buried in my own struggles and forgot, I want to thank you now. You were the first person to believe in me after my family left. And I needed that.”
She blushed softly, but I could read her better now than when I was twenty-five. She was happy she’d been able to help me, but her pleasure ran no deeper than that. “It’s been good to see you doing so much better. And I’m glad I have the chance to help you again. With Evelyn.”
Evelyn. Evelyn wanted to meet with me alone in the library.
“You won’t tell me why?”
