Page 38 of Their Wildest Dreams

Harriet almost argued from habit. She thought of Selby’s smile and did not. “Very well.”

Benedict nodded and turned toward the door. He took two steps, stopped and looked back. Something in his face warned her before he crossed the room.

He caught her about the waist and kissed her.

It was nothing like the careful beginning of the previous night. His mouth settled upon hers with certainty, taking the answer she had given him and making a promise of it. The kiss was brief only because the urgent message remained clenched in his hand. It was no less heated for its brevity.

Before Harriet could recover enough to clutch at his coat, he lifted his head.

“This afternoon,” he said. “We discuss the terms.”

Then he released her and left.

Harriet remained beside the sideboard, breathless and unable to recall why she had picked up a plate. The toast tongs lay where she had abandoned them. Her coffee had not yet been poured. None of it appeared to matter.

A slight movement at the door drew her attention.

Mrs. Mercer stood upon the threshold.

Harriet closed her eyes briefly. “How much of that did you see?”

“Enough.” Mrs. Mercer entered and shut the door behind her. “You have made your decision, then.”

“I have made one decision. I do not know that it answers every other question.”

“It rarely does.” Mrs. Mercer came nearer. The concern in her face surprised Harriet. “You are certain of him?”

“You told me only this morning that I should trust him.”

“With your body. That is not the same as trusting him with everything else.”

Harriet set down the empty plate. “I do not know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do.” Mrs. Mercer’s voice softened. “Be very certain before you give him your heart. It is one thing to be married to a man. That gives him the power to rule you if he is determined to exercise it. Loving him gives him the power to destroy you, and he need not be cruel to do it.”

The warning struck far more deeply than Harriet wished it to. “You speak as though I am in love with Benedict.”

“I speak as though the possibility for it exists.” Mrs. Mercer looked toward the door through which he had gone. “And as though you have not yet permitted yourself to consider what that would mean.”

Harriet had no answer. She had thought of desire, children and the marriage they might make if she abandoned the distance between them. She had not called any of it love.

But when Benedict left to attend his injured father, she had started toward the window to watch his departure before she had even realized she was moving. Missing a person before they were even gone was surely not a good sign of how well she had shielded her heart.

Chapter

Nineteen

Benedict spent the ride to Denham attempting not to think of Harriet waiting for him at Everton. He might as well have elected to simply stop breathing. The tasks would have been equally impossible.

Regardless that his father might have fallen arse over end in the stable yard, still Benedict could feel Harriet standing in the breakfast room, offering to release him from the vow which had kept them apart. He had imagined hearing those words often enough to know that his imagination had failed him. In none of those fantasies had she been uncertain. She had come to him knowing precisely what she wanted and spared him the fear that she might regret it afterward.

The real Harriet had offered no such comfort. She was uncertain and curious and determined to proceed despite both. While that prompted caution, it did not alter the course of his actions. He wasn’t certain anything short of her telling him she’d changed her mind yet again could keep him from her. He wanted nothing more than to turn his horse around, ride back to Everton and carry her upstairs before another messenger, another accident, natural disaster or family emergency could intervene.

By the time he reached Denham Park, impatience had sharpened his temper. He found his father in the library with one side of his face scraped, his right arm in a sling improvised from a silk scarf and a glass of whisky in his uninjured hand.

“Your wife—my mother— sent for me because you refuse to see the physician,” Benedict said.

The earl scowled. “Your mother sent for you because she has mistaken a tumble for impending death.”