If Wishes Were Earls (21 page)

He’d abandoned her and she’d been left ruined.

He loves you not . . .

For if he did . . .

Harriet’s temper began to rise, now after all these months of anxious waiting and worried doubts. If he’d just claimed her last summer as he ought to have, none of this would be happening.

Not Miss Murray. Not his troubles. None of this.

But she knew this wasn’t true. She’d read the report, after all.

“I hardly think whatever you have to say is going to be proper,” she told him, shooting him the most missish expression she could muster.

“Of course it isn’t going to be proper, that’s why I’m asking you,” he huffed. “Proper! You barged your way into my affairs—”

“Barged?” Now it was Harriet’s turn to be a bit outraged.

“Barged!” he confirmed.

“Harrumph.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I merely volunteered.” Why couldn’t he see she just wanted to help?

What if he truly doesn’t want your help? Or your love?

Much to her chagrin, the earl used her own words to his advantage. “And why was that, Kitten?”

Her eyes fluttered open.
Kitten.
Dear God, when he called her that, she melted all over. Blast his bloody hide.

“
Kitten?
”

“Yes,” he shot back. “Kitten.” It hardly came out as an endearment this time. Nor was Roxley done. “You say you care not what I do, so why would you offer to help Miss Murray—and in turn, me?” He leaned closer. “That is, why on earth would you come along at all if you don’t—”

He stopped short of saying the words that had gone unsaid between them all this time.

. . .
if you don’t love me.

Instead he paused, looked at her and said, “—if you don’t want to do something improper.”

She bristled a bit—was that what he was asking?

Why, it was like when her brothers would choose her last for cricket. She was as good a batsman as any of them but none of them liked openly admitting that they really wanted her for their side.

Roxley wanted her, but not to marry.

“Roxley, you wretched, horrible—” She began to rise from her seat, caught between the unfamiliar heat of tears rising in her eyes, and the sheer mortification of how she could have mistaken him so.

“Good heavens, Harry, sit down,” he pleaded. “I’m making a muddle of this. I simply need you to let me into my aunt’s house tonight—all you have to do is leave the study window unlatched. Then once everyone has gone to bed, I can slip inside.”

Simply. Let. Him. In.

She’d point out the last time she’d “simply let him in” it had ended rather badly for both of them.

Well, mostly for her.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she told him. “If I am caught, I’ll be ruined.” She let that sink in a bit. “Besides, your aunt can’t keep you out of her house forever. You can call tomorrow and she will have no reason but to let you in.”

It was the sensible and proper reply, but in Harriet’s mind she saw herself in the shadows of the parlor with Roxley bounding through the opened window like a knight coming to claim her.

Whisk her away.

Ravish her.

Well, a girl could dream.

“Harry—” he continued, barging into her fantasy, “I can’t do what I need to do during the day with everyone about.”

“If by that you mean hunt around for the lost diamonds, I’ll have you know I’ve already—”

Well, perhaps she shouldn’t have sounded quite so smug, for the earl nearly exploded. “You nosy little termagant!” Roxley blustered. “How the devil did you—”

Then he paused and the answer came tumbling out as if the memories now gave him a different perspective. “Hotchkin! His valise. You little thief—”

So he had noticed when she’d returned the man’s bag at the inn.

She sat up a little straighter and smiled at him. “It was hardly theft,” she explained, “when one bag looks entirely identical to another.”

Roxley’s expression darkened. “Don’t think you can make excuses for stealing—”

“It isn’t stealing, as you so eloquently put it, when one is under the assumption that the bag is theirs.” Which was partially the truth. She had thought it was hers. For about two seconds. Happily those two seconds lent a scant bit of truth to her statement.

Not that Roxley was going to concede, even an iota. “Harriet Hathaway, you lying little minx. You knew that bag wasn’t yours and directed the lad to take it up to your room on purpose.”

“I didn’t direct anyone. I carried it myself.” When he continued to glare at her, she changed course and launched into a heartfelt defense, “If you had been a bit more forthcoming I wouldn’t have been forced—”

“Forced?” he shot back, raking his hand through his hair. “The only one doing the forcing is you, Harry. Why you reckless, foolish—”

But his warning was interrupted by a tall figure who filled the doorway of the box.

“My heart is reclaimed by the very sight of you, my dearest, my perfect Miss Hathaway!” The man made his way in and caught up Harriet’s hand, drawing her fingertips to his lips.

Harriet winced.
Fieldgate
. Oh, bother. She’d forgotten all about him.

Meanwhile, Roxley glowered at this unwanted interruption. “Fieldgate, what a surprise.” And not a happy one, given the sour note to the earl’s greeting.

“I don’t see why,” the viscount replied. “When you stole my fair Miss Hathaway away, there was nothing I could do but follow.” The two men glared at each other, and Harriet was in no mood for either of them.

“Roxley hardly stole me,” Harriet told the viscount, plucking her fingers free from his cloying grasp. “I volunteered. To come as Miss Murray’s companion. Nothing more.” She shot a challenging glance at Roxley.

“Volunteered to come to Bath? As Miss Murray’s companion? You are ever a surprise with your eccentricities, Miss Hathaway.” Fieldgate’s roguish charm was enough to illuminate the box.

“Harry? She’s full of eccentric surprises,” Roxley advised him.

“Who is eccentric?” Lady Eleanor’s question pulled all eyes to the door. There Roxley’s aunt stood, posed like a queen and smiling at the viscount with a wicked light in her eyes.

After a few moments, Lady Eleanor cocked a brow and stared at Roxley, silently reminding him to do the proper thing. Introduce her.

But given Roxley’s mood, Harriet imagined the only thing the earl wanted to introduce Fieldgate to was a hasty exit over the railing. Much like the one she’d considered for Miss Murray.

“You’ll have to excuse my nephew,” Lady Eleanor said, coming down the steps into the box with Lady Bindon and Miss Murray close behind. “I do believe he left his manners in London.”

“And I have left my wits there as well,” Fieldgate told her coming forward to meet her halfway, “for I cannot believe you are Roxley’s aunt. His sister perhaps . . . but aunt? Never!”

Behind her, Harriet could hear Roxley muttering, “Great-aunt, you pandering ape.”

Harriet laughed, and then covered her mouth.

And Lady Eleanor, true to her reputation for collecting cicisbeos, blushed and smiled. “You, sir, should never have left London.”

“Not left London?” Fieldgate sounded aghast. “Whyever not, dear lady?”

“I can hear the hearts breaking from here,” Lady Eleanor replied, her fan fluttering, while Fieldgate laughed merrily at her jest.

“There is only one lady whose heart matters, and now she is back within my reach,” he said, sending a smoldering glance at Harriet.

Not if I push you over the rail first
, she thought. She glanced over her shoulder at Roxley and found him grinning at her, as if he knew exactly what she’d been considering.

Make him leave
, she mouthed.

“Why should I?” he countered quietly. “He’s your beau.”

She shuddered at the very thought. “I don’t want him.”

And the words that should have followed,
I want you
, had to go unsaid.

They both paused for a moment, and for the first time in days, nay months, it was as if they were together again, entwined on that blanket in the meadow. Nothing but their hearts beating together and the stars lighting the way.

Oh, all around them people were retaking their seats, Lady Eleanor was giving Fieldgate her directions and inviting him to some sort of gathering in honor of Miss Murray, but to Harriet, the world around them blurred.

He was her Roxley, and she, his Kitten.

“If you find the diamonds—” she whispered.

This brought his gaze up to meet hers. “I can only hope to find them.”

“Hope is something,” she offered.

“Hope is that when I come to the window, it will be unlatched.”

“That isn’t hope,” she told him.

“It isn’t?”

She shook her head. “No. That’s a certainty.”

Chapter 9

I vow, upon my honor, my heart was never engaged by that woman.

Lt. Throckmorten to Miss Darby

from Miss Darby and the Counterfeit Bride

N
ot long after midnight, Roxley found the window unlatched just as Harriet had promised.

“Good girl, Harry,” he whispered under his breath as he climbed into his aunt’s house.

“About demmed time you showed up,” came the unwanted response. Rising from a chair in the shadows was Harriet wearing only a wrapper.

God, he hoped she had on a night-rail beneath it. As if that would make all this any less scandalous.

“What the devil are you doing here?” Roxley had to wonder how it was he was always finding himself alone with her—half dressed.

Demmed fine luck
,
that
, a wry voice nudged.

“What am I doing? Opening the window,” she replied, obviously unaware of the effect she was having on his senses. “As you asked me to.” She slanted a glance up at him through half-shuttered lashes.

No, make that perfectly aware of her effect.

He held up the glym—the lamp one of the London housebreakers had left behind—letting its light cast a narrow beam toward his unwanted assistant. Willowy and lithe, she stood before him, her hair now undone, falling in a long thick braid over one shoulder, looking all too ready for bed.

His bed.

Demmit, he had to stop thinking like that. Yes, he needed her help, but only so far as her assistance kept her out of harm’s way.

Which, he supposed, included himself.

Closing the window behind him, and then the curtain, he chided her. “Harry, you know demmed well that is not what I wanted. I merely asked you to leave that window unlatched.”

“And just let any thief into your aunt’s house? I think not.” She returned to her chair and sat down.

He wagged a finger at her. “Oh, no, you don’t. You’ve accomplished all you are going to, and now you can go.” Then he pointed toward the door.

“No.” If it was possible, she sank deeper into the chair.

“No?”

“No. As in decidedly not.” She crossed her arms over her chest. If he wanted her gone, he’d have to carry her out of the room.

Which would involve him having to put his arms around her.

Apparently this was a perfectly acceptable solution to Harriet. But not to him. For to touch her, to hold her . . . That was far more dangerous than mere housebreaking.

“Harry, leave.” He stood his ground.

So did she. Most stubbornly. “You cannot ask for my help and then tell me to leave. That just isn’t done, Roxley.”

He was quickly losing his patience. “I merely asked you to unlatch the window.”

She shook her head. “No. You said, and I quote, ‘Harry, I need your help.’ ” She smiled rather smugly. “Truer words, Roxley. Truer words. Though I do wish you’d leave off calling me Harry. I’m a lady now.”

“Not that much of one,” he shot back. “And as long as you continue to behave like an incorrigible brat, I shall call you Harry.”

She tipped her head slightly and let her lashes flutter in that utterly distracting way of hers. “I think you rather like that I’m incorrigible.”

“What I would like is for you to leave.”

“Not until you find the diamonds.”

He let out a deep huff of a breath. “Then you’d best get comfortable living in my aunt’s parlor, because I don’t even believe there are diamonds to be found.” He raked his hand through his hair and glanced about the shadowed room, feeling as if he were seeing it for the first time.

“Roxley, you are a terrible liar,” she whispered.

He glanced over at her. “I beg to differ. I am a Marshom. We are marvelous liars.” He opened a drawer in his aunt’s desk and sorted through the contents. He certainly didn’t think his aunt would keep a treasure trove of diamonds in her desk drawer, but he did hope Harry would grow bored and leave.

After a few moments, he found her watching him with that smug expression that said,
What now?

“You need to return to your bed,” he repeated.

“Can’t.”

“Whyever not?”

“Who would latch the window behind you?” she pointed out. “I couldn’t sleep knowing that the window wasn’t secured—why, any passing villain could climb in and murder us all in our beds.”

“You’ve been spending too much time with my Aunt Essex,” he pointed out.

She preened a bit. “Glad you finally noticed.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

She didn’t appear to care. “Where do we start?”

“
We
do not.” Roxley looked over her and saw so much. The fire in her eyes—the sort of light that left a person believing they were impervious to treachery.

Agents died under that misbegotten impression.

Roxley, on the other hand, had always been rather sensible of his own mortality, given that he’d learned very early in life how fragile one’s existence might be. “Harriet, these diamonds are dangerous. People have died—likely been murdered—for these demmed stones. You know that much—at least you should since you snooped through Hotchkin’s reports.” He heaved a sigh and nodded toward the door. “No, Harry, I won’t have you entangled in their curse.”

“Rather too late for that,” she said. “Besides, wouldn’t you admit that I’m uniquely qualified to deal with curses?”

“You?” Of all the utter rot. Roxley went back to searching the bookshelves. Of all his aunts, Eleanor was the most likely one to have custody of the diamonds—despite her penchant for aging Corinthians and card sharks, she was enough of a sharpster herself that no one would ever pull the wool over her eyes.

Not easily.

Meanwhile, Harriet was reciting her qualifications. “I was born and raised in Kempton, therefore I am cursed, and
further
—”

Of course, this was Harry. She would have a “further.”

“Further,” she repeated having most likely spotted the annoyance in his eyes, “my favorite book is
Miss Darby and the Curse of the Pharaoh’s Diamond.
”

Roxley closed his eyes and counted to ten.

Meanwhile, Harriet continued. “And despite the diamond being cursed, the story ended most happily.” She paused and bit her lip as if considering the matter. “Yes, well, if one doesn’t count the demise of Dr. Pierpont, Miss Agatha Bosworth, and the entire French legion tasked with guarding the pharaoh’s diamond, but otherwise, Miss Darby managed to persevere through it rather well.”

“Of all the foolish, most ridiculous notions—”

“Roxley, do stop blustering,” she told him. “You’ll wake the house.”

“I wouldn’t be blustering if you weren’t down here with your nobcock romance novel notions of danger.”

She rose and faced him. Harriet was tall, rising a good head taller than most other ladies. In only a plain white dressing gown, her hair simply done, she looked like an Amazon, and she spoke like one, in a voice laced with surety and conviction. “You cannot deny that I am made of rather stern stuff.”

“Well, yes,” he conceded, though he hated to. In the rough-and-tumble world of the Hathaways, Harriet had always held her own.

Much to her brothers’ chagrin and now his.

“Must I also remind you that I’m a demmed good shot.”

“Unfortunately,” he offered, wondering if the day would come when she realized she hardly needed her brothers to avenge her honor.

Harriet could handle the matter quite well on her own.

Then she added her last sally. Which, of course, was more piercing than a round from a pistol. “And then there is the fact that you ruined me—”

That was the last thing he’d expected her to cast up against him.

Still that didn’t mean he was above protesting. “I was hardly alone in that venture.” He arched his brows, challenging her to dispute the facts.

Follow me, Roxley. Follow me . . .

A deep blush rose on her cheeks. “Oh, of all the impudent, arrogant—”

As she blustered on, Roxley couldn’t help smiling.

They’d both been reckless that night, but honestly the fault was entirely his. He’d known better. At least he should have. But the moment her lips had touched his, her hands had cradled his face, her eyes had looked at him with such passionate abandon, he’d known—known from a place in his heart that he’d always thought lost—that she would be his from that day forth.

His. His beloved. His countess. His Kitten. So whatever he’d “ruined” that night, it was only what he desired to hold for the rest of his—nay—their lives.

And then he’d failed her.

When he glanced up at her, he found she was winding down her tirade.

“ . . . is this all because Miss Murray has a pistol hidden in a secret compartment in her trunk or because you love me and fear that you might lose me?”

Well, demmit, of course I’m terrified of losing you . . .

Then the rest of what she’d said stopped him cold. “A what?”

“A pistol. Miss Murray has a pistol hidden in a secret compartment in her trunk.” She stared at him and he knew she was challenging him to complain about her meddling ways now.

And he wasn’t going to even bother to ask how she’d discovered Miss Murray’s secret.

This was Harriet after all.

“She’s more dangerous than I thought,” he said, more to himself than to her as he added this to Hotchkin’s revelation earlier in the evening.

Murray never had a daughter.

So, who the devil was this chit?

“Hardly dangerous now,” Harriet said confidently. Too much so.

“Harry, you can’t cross her—we have no idea who she is,” Roxley warned. At least not yet.

“Well, she’s hardly going to shoot anyone now. I removed the flint—it shan’t spark.” She shook her head. “Really, an upstart mushroom with a pistol! And after having to endure hours of her going on and on about a proper Bath education.
Harrumph!
Roxley, this is exactly what happens when you start involving yourself with
cit
s and their daughters.”

“She’s not a
cit
,” he told her.

“Not a
cit
? Well, I could have guessed that. Some fishwife’s leftover mackerel—”

“No, Harry, you mistake the matter. She’s not Miss Murray.”

Harriet took a step back and eyed him. “Not Miss Murray? Whatever do you mean? Who else would she be?”

“I don’t know.” Roxley took a deep breath and plunged in. “Murray has no daughter. Never has.”

“No daughter? But if he hasn’t a daughter—” Harriet’s expression widened.

“Yes, exactly.” He could see her adding this to all the information she’d already purloined.

Truly, she nearly put the ingenuous Mr. Hotchkin to shame.

Harriet grinned. “Oh, that is excellent news. Now I don’t feel the least bit of guilt tampering with her pistol.”

Pistols . . . What other tricks did his faux betrothed have up her well-appointed sleeve? And whatever was she willing to do to play her part in this charade?

He looked at Harriet and suddenly his world tilted. No, not Harriet.

Demmit! The vision of her lost left his chest in knots, his very breath trapped, strangled upon a broken heart.

And here was Harriet blithely tampering with pistols! That was exactly why she shouldn’t be involved in any of this.

Roxley wagged a finger at her once again. “You see now why you cannot help me and why you are returning to London in the morning. We have no idea who she is or how dangerous she might be.”

If he thought such a sensible notion would work on Harriet, he was sadly mistaken.

“Return to London?” She shook her head. “Poppycock! Roxley, I am uniquely qualified to help. I am her companion. This allows me to stand right beside her and determine everything you need to know about her.” She smiled at him. “Rather like in
Miss Darby’s Daring Dilemma
when she had to uncover the secrets of Miss Overton’s nefarious guardian.”

Roxley cursed the day Miss Darby’s creator had ever been born.

“Demmit, Harry,” he sputtered, and caught her by the elbow and hauled her close. Only problem being, he brought her up right against him, so her hands splayed across his chest and she was pressed against him, ever so intimately.

Everything he wanted to avoid. And worse, everything he desired.

“Yes, Roxley?” she whispered, looking up at him with those glorious green eyes.

“Why are you always so vexatious?” he managed as his body came alive in rapturous recognition—his heated reaction as impossible to ignore as the lady he held.

H
arriet tried to breathe, tried to argue, but it was impossible. His words, the heat of his breath rustled against her ear, sending tendrils of desire uncoiling in her limbs.

Beneath her fingers, his heart beat with a steady thud—hard and strong.

She finally gathered together the courage to tip her head up and found him staring down at her, a mixture of dismay and if she wasn’t mistaken, longing.

The same sense of dangerous desire that had haunted her for months.

“Vexatious?” she whispered. “What utter nonsense. I am nothing of the sort.”