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Harriet groped for words.
“What’s the point of having a fortune if you don’t do what you like with it? That’s what I say.”
“Lord Ferrington,” she began and stopped. “This just isn’t done.”
“In fact, it is done. I saw to that before I returned.”
“This isn’t a matter of wordplay!” Harriet cried. “It is outside the bounds of…”
“Polite society?” he interrupted.
“Exactly.”
“People who are interested in being accepted by polite society would be moved by that consideration,” he replied. “I’m not. Are you?”
“Not moved?” asked Harriet, bewildered.
“Not interested in being accepted.” He held her gaze. “You spoke once of running away to a different sort of life.”
It had felt like flying, Harriet remembered. “Then I found I could not abandon Mama.”
“Of course not. But if her future is settled, perhaps we could talk of…”
“Running away?” He could not mean that, yet Harriet’s heart beat faster at the idea.
“If you like,” he answered. “But before that—love.”
For the first time, her rogue earl looked anxious. Harriet went still.
“We talked and danced and even became engaged without mentioning it,” he continued. “I am sorry for that. I ought to have said long before now that I love you with all my heart.”
Harriet’s breath caught. She’d longed to hear those words. And to tell him she felt the same. Except. “You decided my mother’s future and went off to settle it without telling me or asking my opinion.”
“I didn’t think you would…”
“Would what?” she asked when he stopped. “Agree with you?”
“I thought if I eased your mother’s worries, we could…consider the future without impediments.”
“And so, you acted for Mama and me. In our best interests.”
Ferrington clearly caught her tone.
“Much as I did when I forced our engagement without including you,” Harriet continued. She nodded at his evident surprise when she acknowledged the similarity. “If I could build a different sort of family—as I, too, have dreamed of doing—it would require mutual decisions,” she continued.
The rogue earl nodded. He raised his right hand. “I solemnly promise that from this moment, we will always conspire together rather than separately.”
Harriet liked the sound of that. Even though he was presuming a bit.
“If that is, you consent to conspire with me.”
“I…believe that I do.”
Looking as if he didn’t quite dare to hope, he said, “To be perfectly clear, when we sayconspire, we mean as husband and wife.” He shifted. “Should I kneel?”
“You needn’t. And yes. That is what we mean.”
Ferrington’s smile was brilliant. “So, we have a deal?” He offered his hand, as he would have to seal a commercial bargain.
