“Then your family will not allow it?”
“It is not their choice, but mine,” she replied, a half-truth, better than nothing.
Blood rushed in her ears, drowning out the man’s retreat, the creak upon the floorboards. She could call out, call him back, tell him everything and hope he would understand. If there was ever a chance, it was now. He was a soldier, yes, he was a killer – but he was a gentleman too and by all accounts a fair one. Surely he would have mercy?
“Major Roberts, I…”
“Yes?”
Harriet’s voice faltered – so did her courage. “Give my apologies to the others downstairs, would you?”
Edward’s footfalls paused. “You will be missed.”
Harriet risked a glance up at him, peering through the lamp’s soft glow. She asked a question she regretted in an instant. “By anyone in particular?”
“You will be missed,” he repeated, before his silhouette left the doorway.
Legs shaky, Harriet gripped one of the bedposts, nails digging into the wood. Giddeon’s low snores grounded her – her mind racing, pulse pounding. She was a thief and he was the soldier set out to capture her. Whatever primal, desperate, needy thoughts he conjured in her, she would not succumb.
Mary came in not long after, apple sauce staining her pinafore. “They’re going after the Green Highwayman, miss, and you didn’t tell me?” She closed the door, casting a quick glance at Giddeon, who was out cold. “They’re going after you?”
Harriet nodded slowly in the dark room, her vision unfocused. “I should have told you earlier, I know, only I did not want to worry you,” she confessed, chancing a look at her maidservant and finding only understanding there. “I don’t know what to do. I keep trying to find a solution; I can’t.”
“Who was that man, the one you were sat next to, the one I saw on the landing?”
“Major Edward Roberts.”
Harriet’s eyes were burning, skin hot, veins wrapped around hot coals. She only felt this way when on horseback, darting through the night, saddlebag filled to the brim with jewels and money that was not her own.
“He’s – he’s – this will sound ridiculous, but I cannot bring myself to lie to him, to his face. I don’t trust myself around him.”
“But you must. He’s a danger to you – to us both.”
“I know, I know.” It was all that Harriet had told herself, warned herself against. “It is as though he can read all my secrets with the merest glance.”
“It’s a little stirring in you, a brief fancy, that’s all.” Mary’s fingers tucked a stray curl behind Harriet’s ear and cupped her cheek. “You’re young, it happens, but it doesn’t mean anything.”
Harriet nodded, calmer, hand pressed against her stomach. “I know, it will pass. It has to.”
“Go back downstairs, Miss Groves,” urged Mary. “Go make nice with him and he won’t suspect a thing. Men never do. I will take over here.”
“No, I can manage here by myself,” she said. “The more I stay out of temptation’s way…”
Is that what he was? The uttered word was a slip she had not intended, but it was the truth. This was not simply a desire to spill her secrets or to appeal to his mercy. If he had asked, if she were freer, she would have given him far more.
“I will be fine here, Mary,” she said again, hoping that if she repeated it enough, it would be true. “I can’t see him again, not yet, for I don’t know what I’d do.”
Harriet slept like the dead. For a moment her mind was a peaceful, blank slate. Sunlight probed through the curtains in thick bars, stirring her into a wakefulness that brought back last night in an exhausting surge. Crumpled against her pillows, Harriet could still feel the brush of Edward against her and heat coiled in her belly at the thought. She didn’t want to get up today. She didn’t want today to exist; she would hide from it. In a month or so he would be gone, unsuccessful. Harriet would continue her work.
If only she could stay in bed that entire time, pull up the covers, hibernate, until the danger was past.
The bed soon lost its appeal, either too hot or too cold, too hard or too soft. Harriet washed, dressed and tidied her hair, though she stared a little too long at her reflection in the looking glass, not knowing who looked back at her, before finally seeking out company.
Giddeon was a hung-over wreck in the conservatory, glowering at the sun’s warm glow that streamed inside, head bowed over a newspaper.
“I am low on funds,” he said the moment his sister appeared. His head was propped up by one hand, his hair – the same soft-yellow colour as hers – a ruffled mass.
“You are meant to be at Oxford,” she informed him, her tone frosty after the stunt he had pulled only hours before.
“I was expelled.”
Harriet sank down onto the patio chair opposite him, a weight dragging at her shoulders. A wren called from the narrow garden beyond. Vines shone with greenery, albeit chewed and moth-eaten due to the late season. It seemed unfair that the morning should be so peaceful and bright when her life was anything but. “Do I want to know why?”
“Probably not.” Giddeon grinned into his tea, though the reaction seemed forced. “It’s far too dastardly for your feminine ears.”
The young man had grown up in body and yet not in mind, too impulsive and determined to waste his life on the worst that society could offer. Harriet still remembered fondly back to when they were children and he would scrape his knee and turn to her for help. They had been close once, though that had changed when their mother fell ill and Father seemed to become ancient overnight. Now Giddeon pushed her away, seeking a destructive path she tried in vain to pull him from. The only help he sought from her now was financial and she would offer it where she could, even if she damned herself in the process.
“That was quite the performance last night.”
“Aunt Georgia hasn’t said a word to me all morning because of it.” Again, Giddeon seemed pleased with himself, though he winced from time to time due to a piercing headache that Harriet was sure he deserved. “Once I have what I need, I’ll be gone from here.”
“There is no more money to give, Giddeon.”
“Damn it, Harriet,” he said suddenly, knocking the table, a teacup clattering in its saucer. “Just stop paying those blasted old dependents – the ones who’ve retired. They can’t keep claiming off the estate if they don’t bloody work on it.”
It was a discussion they’d had before and Harriet would not budge and neither would her father. But her father, they both knew, would not live for ever. Then Giddeon would be in charge.
“Those are families who have worked for us their entire lives,” said Harriet. “We cannot abandon them because they are old and infirm. It would not be right nor decent.”
A hollow, half-laugh left the young man. “Who cares about right so long as we’re happy?”
“Are you happy, Giddeon?” Both knew the answer; her brother’s lost, haunted eyes held neither triumph nor joy. They had not for a long time and yet Harriet knew – for all her attempts – she could not help someone who would not first help themselves. “You will have to take responsibility for your own well-being one day. Father’s health is ailing and I can only do so much.”
“I am not the right man for that,” he said softly, facing the garden beyond, rather than look at her. His moods