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“Will you tell me what’s wrong?” asked Cecelia.
Harriet looked at her beautiful, concerned friend—the perfect duchess, with a perfect life.
“I want you to be happy,” Cecelia added. “I would like to help.”
As did Sarah and Charlotte and her mother as well, should Mama learn there was a threat to their settled future. Which must not happen! Harriet did not need another helper. She had a surfeit of those and a dearth of solutions. “I merely wanted to speak to Ferrington,” she said. “Will you tell him so?”
“Of course. I’m sure he’ll call on you as soon as he learns you wish it.”
But he did not.
Harriet returned to Winstead Hall. She chatted and strolled in the garden with her friends. She changed her dress and went down to dinner without having heard from the rogue earl. It seemed he was refusing to see her. Silently. So she didn’t know if he was angry or despondent or vengeful. Was he longing to be free of the engagement now? The uncertainty was driving her to distraction. Her friends were giving her concerned looks. Finally, although she tried to avoid conversation with her grandfather whenever possible, she had to ask him, “Did Ferrington call today?”
“Yes, he came to see me.”
“What did he…did you talk about?” Harriet asked, avoiding her mother’s worried glance.
Her grandfather dabbed gravy from his lips. “Settlements. Nothing that need concern you.”
Of course not. It was only her life, her future. Why should she be concerned aboutthat? Or why a man who did not answer her summons was talking to her grandfather about them? A familiar anger rose in Harriet.
“The fellow is clever,” added her grandfather. “He knows his own mind. Not that he’ll get the better of me.” His laugh grated.
Harriet couldn’t keep quiet, even though her mother obviously wished she would. “Clever about what?” she asked.
“There are to be no banns,” was the astonishing response. “It’s more fashionable to get a license from the registry. The duke said so.”
“The duke?” Grandfather didn’t chat with the duke. They’d barely exchanged three words when they’d last been in a room together.
“Well, he told Ferrington as much. The earl will procure the license, and then we can set the ceremony whenever we like, you see. No need to wait three weeks. The vicar is a fool. I’ve always said so.”
“No banns,” murmured Harriet. That meant she had no public announcement looming over her. But did it also signify the earl didn’t want to be pushed into marriage? She had to speak to him!
As soon as they rose from the table, Harriet sent a note over to Ferrington Hall, with orders for the messenger to await a reply. It came from Cecelia. The earl had gone away for a few days. She wasn’t certain where. James did not know either. Ferrington had left before Cecelia had an opportunity to pass along Harriet’s summons, as she had not been aware of his plan to go.
Harriet sat in the drawing room with the open page in her lap. Gone? Where had he gone?
Sarah and Charlotte came and dragged her over to the pianoforte, where they pretended to look over music they might play. “What has happened?” asked Charlotte “You look dreadful.”
“Thank you, Charlotte,” replied Harriet.
“You did seem shocked when you read that note,” said Sarah.
Harriet had always valued her observant friends. But in the past, they had not been observingher. “Ferrington has gone away.”
“Where?” wondered Sarah.
“Cecelia does not know. Nor the duke.”
“Perhaps he went to get the license your grandfather spoke of,” Sarah suggested.
“Cecelia said he had gone for a few days.”
“The license shouldn’t take that long,” said Charlotte.
“And why would he be procuring one when we are not…not to be wed?” Harriet stumbled over the phrase.
“That’s easy,” answered Charlotte. “To remove the threat of the banns.”
