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Harriet did not take it. “I hate that word,” she said. “It is my grandfather’s word.”
He gestured as if warding off all such associations. “What do you prefer?”
She leaned closer. “This,” she said and kissed him.
His arms came around her and pulled her closer. This kiss was sweeter than any before it as they gave themselves up to the promise of the future. They were both breathless when it ended.
“A pact well sealed indeed,” said the rogue earl. “We shall make every agreement precisely so.”
Harriet laughed.
“But there is something you have not said,” he added.
She did not pretend to misunderstand. “I love you,” she answered. “I have loved you for a long time, since soon after I met Jack the Rogue.”
“And I fell head over heels for Miss Snoot. Perhaps we will name our children thus. Rogue and Snoot.”
“No, we won’t,” replied Harriet, flushing a little.
“As you wish, my love. Now and always.”
This required another kiss, which inspired several increasingly torrid embraces. It was quite some time before they reluctantly left the clearing.
“This place seems so empty now,” Harriet said of the Travelers’ field. So much of their history together had involved the camp and its environs. An ending and a beginning, the crushed grass seemed to say.
“They’ll be back. They found a safe haven on my land.”
He saidmy landquite naturally now. He was settling into his position as an unconventional earl. Could there also be a rogue countess? Harriet wondered. She didn’t see why not.
Seventeen
“You are keeping something from us,” Charlotte said to Harriet as the three friends went down to dinner at Winstead Hall that evening.
“I do not share every little detail of my day,” Harriet replied. She hadn’t told them about the note from Ferrington, not knowing how the meeting would go. How wonderfully it would turn out. She hugged that knowledge to her for now.
“You do seem especially cheerful,” said Sarah.
“Suspiciously cheerful,” said Charlotte.
“What can you mean by that?” Harriet couldn’t resist teasing Charlotte a little after the way her friend had twitted her during this visit.
“Something’s happened,” said Sarah.
“How was today’s solitary walk?” Charlotte asked.
They were on the scent. But they’d reached the dining room now, and Harriet was not required to answer.
As usual, Harriet’s grandfather dominated the dinner table conversation. He was full of the final plans for the ball, having crushed the vendor who’d sent the wilted greenery. “He will not palm off shoddy goods on anyone again,” he gloated. “Ha! Palm off potted palms.”
Harriet was in such a good mood that she laughed at his feeble jest.
Her grandfather swung around to look at her, looking more surprised than gratified. It was true that Harriet didn’t usually appreciate his witticisms. “Have the ball gowns arrived?” he asked.
“Yes, Grandfather.” He’d insisted all the young ladies have new dresses for his ball, ordered from the fashionable modiste who’d made Harriet’s clothes for the season, and that he pay for them.
“Yours must be the finest at the ball,” he’d told Harriet. He’d tried to dictate the design, urging Harriet to demand lavish decoration. It had taken all her efforts to persuade him the seamstress knew best about these things.
“They’re lovely,” said Harriet’s mother.
