Chapter 19
“You did what?” Eglantine’s eyes fairly bulged. “With whom?”
Harry clasped the decanter of claret that she had snuck from her brother’s study and poured a second glass for her friend.
After Eglantine’s arrival, having received Harry’s passionate plea for a visit, they had dashed upstairs. Knowing they would have no privacy at all if they occupied one of the family rooms, Harry had shut the door behind them, and moved a chair in front of it.
Adore her sisters as she did, she had no wish to be disturbed just now.
So, she had brought the pilfered cut crystal decanter of wine and glasses and poured ample amounts of the ruby-colored beverage.
“Do I truly need to repeat myself?” she asked before taking a formidable drink of the stuff. The rich notes of plum and spice covered her tongue. The wine was rich, heady, and absolutely delicious. Her head was already spinning.
Eglantine cupped her own glass. “I never should have let you wander off at the opera.”
Harriet lifted her glass in salute. “You could not have stopped me.”
Her friend frowned, and propped one hand on the counterpane on the high, canopied bed. “I suppose not, but I should have argued with more force.”
“The truth is, I don’t regret it.” Harriet smiled, thinking of being in Rob’s arms. “Not truly.”
“But he doesn’t wish to marry you!” she hissed.
Harry’s smile vanished, replaced with a grimace. “Need you remind me?”
“It seems a high price to pay for a few moments of bliss,” Eglantine replied. “After all, you shall have to spend a lifetime with a man who does not wish to spend it with you.”
Harry refused to accept defeat. It simply wasn’t in her nature. “Well, who says I will not be able to change his mind.”
At last, Eglantine smiled, a proud, amazed smile. “If anyone can, it is you.”
“I will not announce defeat before the battle has even begun.” She mulled over the situation. “He thinks he doesn’t wish to marry me. He seems to think he can’t make me happy. But I’ve always liked Rob. So, why shouldn’t he be able to?”
“He doesn’t seem a fanciful person,” Eglantine observed. “He must have a reason.”
“Hmmm.” For one brief moment, she thought about sharing his declaration that he did not desire children. But she was not quite prepared to discuss such a thing, even with her dear friend.
“Did you enjoy it,” Eglantine asked abruptly, blushing.
“Pardon?”
Eglantine rolled her eyes. “Come now. You know of what I speak. Did you enjoy it?”
Much to her embarrassment Harry also blushed. “I must confess I did.”
“I can scarce believe you did such a thing,” Eglantine declared. “In a coach, no less!”
“I assure you, I am just as astonished.” Harry wasn’t entirely sure what she felt. It certainly wasn’t shame. “But it was. . . unlike anything I have ever known. And I cannot wait to do it again.”
Eglantine leaned forward and whispered, “Do you think he shall wish to?”
Harry paused. “I had not even considered it. Men are supposed to quite like making love.”
“Oooh.” Eglantine let out a delicious, envious sigh. “How marvelous. Making love. You shall have to tell me everything.”
“Well, firstly, I don’t really know why it’s called making love, for I know Rob doesn’t love me.” She grinned and waggled her brows. “But it was so incredibly passionate.”
“Passion making then?” Eglantine teased as she took another sip of wine.
Harry sat beside her friend on the bed, thinking of his hands holding her tight. “Oh yes. I think that suits. It did hurt, but it was so. . . well, really I can’t describe it. But it was better than cake, or wine, or riding horses. Or climbing to the top of the tallest tree.”
“High praise, indeed. And I shall have to loathe you for knowing before me.”
Harry laughed. “I’m sure you will experience it soon enough.”
Eglantine groaned. “Knowing my luck, I shall marry a man who is not adept at all at passion making.”
Harry gave her friend a sympathetic smile. “Well, hopefully, your marriage shall not be as strange as mine.”
“You’re truly going to do it?” Eglantine asked, more seriously.
“Oh, yes.” She traced the cut crystal. “I think my brother would suffer apoplexy if I did not.”
“You will be a duchess then.”
“So I will.”
“But he doesn’t love you?” Eglantine asked, her brow furrowing as she obviously tried to make sense of the abrupt turn of her friend’s life. “Truly? Not even a bit?”
Harry shook her head. She thought back to the coach ride and the way in which he had made it clear that he doubted their marriage would be a happy one.
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell her friend Rob’s secret, but even she could not do such a thing with Eglantine.
Rob’s neck was far too valuable to her to chance a stray word. Still, how she wished she could tell Eglantine that she was marrying the man they had swooned over for many months.
It was difficult to believe that the man of her dreams and the man she was marrying were truly one and the same. For Rob seemed weighed down by the hardships of this life. She wondered where the reckless rider was, the one who had ridden to her rescue in the park.
Did he exist? Or was he an act?
More so, where had the carefree mischievous boy who had been her hero vanished to?
She supposed she had all the time in the world to find out.
Fleeing to parts unknown had been tempting. Hell, it was still tempting to turn his feet from Covenant Garden and his task at hand, and head somewhere, anywhere, far from London. The truth was, Rob’s life had gone so horribly wrong since the death of his father, he often wondered how the hell he’d lost himself. Once, he’d been so sure, so confident, so able to help others.
Giving his position up in the army had been difficult. He’d grown accustomed to charging into battle, protecting his men, and advocating for them as they marched into Egypt. Since then, he’d been able to help no one.
Not even himself.
Now, that would all change.
With his marriage to Harriet, his family’s fortune would completely turn. Mary could wed whoever she chose. His mother could cease her worrying.
If anything, he should have felt relieved. But he couldn’t.
He kept thinking about the girl he’d known. How wild and free she’d been as she’d chased him over the fields and streams, daring to do whatever the boys had done. How wild and free she truly still was. Her chasing him and cornering him in his coach was only evidence of her impulsive and brash love for life.
What would happen as the years passed? As he failed to give her the family she longed for?
She’d grow to hate him.
But there was nothing to be done about it. He’d have to find a way to make her happy without children. Surely, such a thing was possible.
He frowned. Harry would have made an excellent mother.
Shaking the thought away, he turned down a crooked street of Covenant Garden, passing several houses of prostitution. He stepped around the lolling bodies of workers who’d spent their wages on gin and who were now sleeping the night’s excesses off.
The stench was powerful, but he was accustomed to this part of town. He’d become good friends with it when he realized the depth of his situation and it was here that he had met Richard Heath, gambler, confidence man, and retired highwayman.
Richard Heath had opened up a club for well-heeled gentlemen not five years ago where people of Rob’s class went to drink, lose money, and escape the boredom of their lives for but a few hours.
And it was there that Heath had become one of the wealthiest men in London.
It was to Heath that his father had been indebted a mere thirty thousand pounds.
Rob had gone to the club owner personally and asked for his patience.
Heath had drawn out a knife and explained that the only reason he had yet to extract payment in one form or another was due to the fact that he was a duke and that his father was a duke.
It was then that he had learned that his father had had every intention of marrying Mary to Heath.
It had been Heath who’d rejected the idea. Apparently, the club owner didn’t believe in prostitution of any kind which was a rare thing in these parts.
Rob turned, spotted the towering facade of whitewashed, Corinthian columns which caused the club to stand out as a swan amongst crows.
There was no one sleeping in front of Heath’s.
Rob didn’t have to knock on the tall, red doors.
A doorman opened one of the double doors as soon as he stood before the granite threshold.
After passing into the dim corridor hung with the most expensive gold brocade, he quickly went to the back where he knew Heath would be tallying the night’s accounts. The retired thief didn’t trust anyone else to do it.
Several of his most trusted men stood about the club, a solid presence which would deter anyone who might think they could fleece the place.
The empty gambling hall had already been polished to perfection. It glowed like a golden sovereign which was no mean feat given the debauchery that had likely occurred but a few hours before.
Heath didn’t even look up. “Your Grace, to what do we owe the pleasure?”
The cultured, deep voice rolled across the room and, once again, Rob found himself wondering where the devil the man had grown up.
He’d never know and if he asked, he felt certain Heath would lie.
“I’m retiring,” Rob said.
Heath lowered his quill and looked up, exposing steel grey eyes beneath jet-black brows. “Indeed? That calls for celebration, I hope.”
Rob nodded. “It does.”
Heath leaned back, his powerful shoulders rolling under his fine coat. “And what has brought about such a life-extending thing?”
“I’m to be married.”
“Felicitations.” Heath snapped his fingers and one of the men at a long table slipped a bottle of champagne from a sideboard.
It was tempting to say it was too early, but turning Heath’s hospitality away would be the height of rudeness.
The champagne flowed into twin Venetian glasses and Heath stood, a good six feet tall with those shoulders that would terrify a bull.
While the man looked like he could knock another man’s head off, Rob had never seen him violent. In fact, Heath was a model of complete control.
“So, you’re to hang up the mask,” Heath said, holding the delicate glass with refined ease.
Rob gave a wry smile in response.
“I’m glad,” Heath said with little emotion. “You were wearing it too long. You have to know when to quit.”
“Like you?” Rob asked.
“Like me,” Heath agreed. “Most of my friends didn’t stop and, well, they paid the piper at Tyburn.”
“Speaking of your old friends,” Rob ventured, “I had an encounter with another highwayman.”
Heath smiled slowly.
“You already know.”
Heath laughed, a dark rolling sound. “There’s not much I don’t know. He wants your blood.”
“Should I be concerned?” Rob asked.
“Of course,” Heath said easily. “A man like that? He won’t be satisfied until his honor, whatever the hell that is, is satisfied.”
“All the better that I’m retiring then.”
“Yes,” Heath agreed without further comment.
“I’ll be able to pay the debt at the end of the week.”
Heath nodded, pleased. “Lady Harriet does have a fine settlement, does she not?”
Rob wiped a hand over his face. “Christ, you do know everything.”
“I’ve eyes and ears all over.” Heath cocked his head to the side, studying him. “And you are one of my concerns, after all.”
“So, we are of an accord?”
Heath nodded. “Yes. You watch out for your sister though, you hear me. That one has a strong sense of duty.”
Rob narrowed his eyes. He knew Heath had met her, but he’d never felt that he knew her well until now. “I will. You like her, don’t you?”
“Lady Mary?” Heath queried, his eyes shuttering. “Who wouldn’t? She’s a bit of a milksop at first glance, but she’s got backbone that one.”
Rob couldn’t hide his smile at Heath’s assessment of his sister. “Yes. She’s stronger than most.”
“She’s had to be,” Heath said factually.
“Unfortunately, yes.” He wished to hell it hadn’t been so. But he could not undo what had been done.
“So, we shall see you no more in the East End?”
“No. There’s no reason.” He took a drink of the bubbling liquid, ignoring the sting as it passed the cut inside his mouth. “It’s time for me to fix all that my family has broken.”
Heath stopped and cocked his head to the side. “Don’t try to fix it, Your Grace.”
“I beg your pardon?” he asked, stunned by the odd comment.
“You can’t,” Heath said flatly. “What’s broken is broken.”
“You suggest I abandon it all?”
Heath shook his dark head. “Make something new. Forget the past. The past will drag you down and strangle you in the dark. You’re born anew with your marriage. Never forget it. And don’t let the chance go. You won’t get it again.”
Heath swallowed the rest of his champagne and put the glass down on his portable desk. “Now, I’ve a pair of lords upstairs still gambling. Time to see if one of them is going to blow his brains out or if everyone is still in a decent humor. Stay as long as you like, Your Grace. My home is yours.”
It had been here where he’d first felt some freedom when the great yawning hell of his father and brother’s actions had hit him. It was here where Heath had treated him like a man and saw his dilemma and given him an option to stay afloat.
And it was here that he knew that, deep in his heart, he would never be like one of the men upstairs gambling everything away, risking it all for absolutely nothing. But he also felt hollow, a fake. He was never supposed to have been the duke and, in all truth, standing here, ready to hang up his highwayman’s mask and take up the mantle of a great man, he had no idea where to begin.
Worse still, it seemed it would all begin with the marriage to a young woman who deserved so much more than him.