Page 7 of Their Wildest Dreams

“My sister and I would both be ruined. Any chance or marriage at all, much less marriage of our own choosing, would be forfeit.”

“Perhaps… you are both quite lovely with many fine qualities to recommend you. Not every match must be advantageous.”

“This one is not… not for you. I bring nothing but debt and a bad temper.”

He dipped his head, his lips quirking with amusement that he dared not show. It was not the time. “You do not bring ‘nothing’, as you term it. You bring yourself. You bring a stronger foothold to the prosperity of Denham Park. If Selby seizes those lands, water rights will be challenged. Tenants will be evicted. And life as everyone in this county knows it will alter entirely.”

“And you call that a choice?”

He sighed. Weary for them both, he replied honestly, “No. My mother does. Your father wishes to. I do not.”

It was clear from her stunned expression that Harriet had expected persuasion. His refusal to offer it obviously unsettled her. “Then why are you here?”

“Because you asked to see me.”

“And before I asked?”

“I meant to bring you the proposed terms and answer whatever questions you had.”

“How considerate.”

He let the insult pass. “The eastern land would be settled upon you and any children from the marriage. Your father could not borrow against it again. Neither could I. You would receive the income from it and participate in its management.”

“Participate.”

“Manage it, then.”

She studied his face. “You would allow that?”

“It would be yours.”

“A married woman owns very little that her husband cannot claim.”

“Which is why the settlement must be written carefully.” Benedict came closer, his voice still quiet. “I know you understand the farms. I also know your father has not made sufficient use of that understanding. I do not intend to repeat his mistake.”

It was the right thing to say. Harriet resented him for knowing it.

“And what do you expect from me?”

“Honesty.”

“Nothing else?” She uttered the query with incredulity.

With a pragmatism born from decades of acquaintance, Benedict answered, “You are unlikely to obey me, and I have never known you to be agreeable for more than five consecutive minutes. It would be foolish to make either a condition… but your honesty, Harriet, can always be counted upon. Even when it is painful to hear.”

Harriet almost smiled. At the last second, she schooled her features into a mask of impassivity. But he saw it. He saw it and he saw her. It wasn’t the first time he’d taken note of the fact that she’d become a beautiful woman. Whether that was in spite of or because of her hoydenish ways he could not say. But it was the first time he’d looked at her not as an acquaintance of long standing but as a man. He was seeing not Harriet the girl he’d known for the entirety of her life, but Harriet the woman—whose curvaceous figure and upswept dark hair turned heads whenever she entered a room.

He stepped nearer to her, close enough that he could see the gold flecks hidden in the depths of her brown eyes. Her eyes widened in surprise, but also in something that might have been unease. And he liked that he unsettled her in that moment, that his nearness to her prompted some response from her even if it was one of quiet uncertainty. He didn’t stop until he was close enough that, had he wished to do so, he could have taken her in his arms. But he did nothing, merely stood there, allowing a new awareness to develop between them. Some things required patient cultivation, after all.

Harriet stepped away. “You have not answered me.”

“I expect you to live at Denham and permit the world to believe we do not hate one another. Beyond that, we may decide matters between us.”

“Separate rooms?”

His gaze held hers. “If that is what you want.” His voice emerged rougher than it ought to have, graveled and deepened by things he had not expected to feel.

“You do not wish to marry me,” she said.