Anita Mills (2 page)

“He will—I know it.”

Still holding her hand, Richard leaned over and brushed a brotherly kiss against her cheek. “You know, Harry, I always did think you were a very good sort of a girl.”

“What fustian!” she retorted, blushing to the roots of her soft brown hair. “You teased me unmercifully—and you know it. And you were forever getting me into your scrapes, too.” She pulled her hand away and stepped back self-consciously. “Yes, well … I shall give you a draft on my bank in London, if ’tis settled. And then you’d best be going before Papa suspects what I have done.”

Harriet drew her legs up under her skirts and held Richard’s letter closer to the faint winter’s light coming through the windowpane. Two Harry? She stopped and read the line again—he’d named their horse Two Harry, he said, to reflect their joint ownership. Two Harry for Harriet Rowe and Richard Henry Thomas Standen. She chuckled, delighted by that small recognition of her contribution, and wondered if the name would give her away. No, she decided, casting a surreptitious look at her father as he read his paper across the room. No, he lacked the imagination to ever see any connection.

Sir John Rowe looked up and frowned. “If you must display your unseemly levity, I would that you went somewhere else, Harriet.”

“Well, I for one cannot think what my nephew could possibly want to write to her,” Hannah Rowe murmured as she continued to stitch along the border of a table runner.

“Your nevvy? Here now, miss, I’ll not have you setting your cap for the likes of Sherborne—you hear me? The Standens may be plump in the pocket, but they’re a havey-cavey bunch. Besides, stands to reason he’d want better’n a baron’s daughter, anyway.”

“Papa!”

“Humph! As if she’d have the chance!” Hannah sniffed. “With his looks and fortune, he can expect an Incomparable.”

“And if half the stories I’ve heard are true, he’ll be in dun territory within a year! Rich as Croesus, but the blood’s bad!” He cast a quick look at his wife’s stiffening expression and hastened to add, “Not on your side, my dear—’twas the Standens I meant.” Then he turned his full attention on his daughter, demanding sternly, “Just what does Sherborne write?”

Caught by her father’s bushy-browed stare, Harriet cast about wildly in her mind for a plausible explanation, particularly since Richard was not in the habit of writing to her. At that moment the kitten in her lap reached playfully to bat at the paper she held. She looked down.

“Oh … uh … a kitten.”

Hannah Rowe’s eyebrow rose skeptically as she eyed her stepdaughter curiously. “What?”

“That is, he would like to have a kitten.”

“Nonsense! ’Tis plain as a pikestaff, Harriet, that you have inherited your own mama’s silliness,” Sir John complained. “A cat indeed!”

“If Richard writes that he wants a cat, it must surely be his notion of a jest.”

Thus attacked, Harriet felt compelled to stand her ground, however tenuous it might be. “Oh, no—he does.”

“Do you mean to tell me that Sherborne is actually asking for a
cat
? I cannot credit it, missy! What queer start is this?”

For a moment Harriet feared he was going to demand to read Richard’s letter for himself, but then Hannah nodded. “Well, I suppose that does explain it, after all—I knew he could not be attempting to fix his interest with her.”

“No, of course not,” Harriet agreed quickly. “If you will excuse me, I will write back that Athena had but two and therefore a kitten is out of the question.”

“You’ll do no such thing, miss! If Sherborne wants a cat he can have the lot of ’em! I have never liked ’em anyway! Dashed nuisances, always rubbing against a man’s leg, tripping him. Can’t think why a man like Sherborne would want one—I’d expect him to prefer a good hound. Cats is for silly females!”

She made good her escape, and lying on her bed within the safety of her room, she reread Richard’s entire letter. He’d had no difficulty cashing her draft, he told her, and he’d bought the horse almost beneath Lord Elmore’s nose, despite his rival’s offer of considerably more money. A bargain was a bargain, Hawleigh had insisted, honoring his arrangement with Richard. And then there was the explanation about the name. “It has occasioned more than a little comment,” he wrote, “for few know I bear the name Henry also, and everyone is casting about in search of its source. When I registered the change in the General Stud Book, I overheard Siddells speculate at the Jockey Club that ’twas in honor of my father and grandfather, actually.”

The small kitten jumped up on the bed beside her and stood on its hind legs to claw at the paper in her hand. “Not now, Abelard.” She scooped him up and nuzzled him, rubbing her cheek against the long black fur. “You know,” she mused aloud to the squirming creature, “I wish ’twere possible to see this horse I have bought. But,” she sighed regretfully, “Papa would never hear of it. Indeed, he must never know what I have done, else he will be unbearable.”

The kitten stopped wriggling and tucked its head under her chin, purring loudly. That was perhaps what she liked best about animals—they loved without judging, returning full measure the care she lavished on them.

Footsteps sounded in the hall, slowing to a stop outside her door. She sat up hastily and crumpled Sherborne’s letter into a ball before throwing it into the fire that burned in the small fireplace. It caught immediately, flaring briefly and sending bits of paper ash into the air.

“Well, miss, what nonsense is this?” Hannah Rowe demanded, stepping into the room. “A fire?” She sniffed. “How many times have I told you that when there’s fires downstairs, you will be pleased to sit at them and not waste wood foolishly?”

“Frequently,” Harriet muttered.

“What?”

“I said I am sorry for it.”

“Yes, well, and you should be. Bedchambers are for sleeping rather than sitting, anyway.”

Then she caught sight of the kitten and her frown deepened. “I thought I’d made it plain that you are not to keep animals in your room. I consider it unhealthy.” She moved closer, reaching for the black kitten. “Animals,” she pronounced firmly, “belong outside.”

“ ’Tis too cold and he is small,” Harriet protested, holding Abelard closer.

“Nonsense. ’Tis why God gave such things fur. Really, Harriet, but you are absurd in the extreme. One would think you prefer the dirty little things over your fellowman, if the truth were known.”

“Mayhap I find them kinder.”

“What a queer creature you are, to be sure. But then, I have never understood how it is that you have no wish for an establishment of your own.”

“Surely Papa must have told you that—”

“That nonsense about Bath?” The older woman’s eyebrows rose disdainfully. “My dear Harriet, it cannot be done—people would say that your papa was remiss if he allowed such a thing, and well you know it. Miss Plimly, however unexceptional she may be, is simply not of your class. No—I was referring to dear Mr. Thornton.” She stepped back, dropping her hand as Abelard hissed at her, and drew close to warm herself at the fire. Her mouth stretched into a thin smile as she turned again to her stepdaughter, and her voice became only slightly more conciliatory. “All is not lost in that quarter, you know. Only yesterday Mr. Thornton was asking your papa about you, and—”

“I have no wish to fix my interest with Mr. Thornton,” Harriet cut in tiredly. “We should not suit.”

“If you would but try, I am sure—”

“I do not wish to try.”

“Every female must want a husband… a home … children to call her own, Harriet, and Mr. Thornton—”

“But I don’t
like
Edwin Thornton.”

“And that is nothing to the point,” Hannah retorted in exasperation. “Passion is vastly overrated when it comes to actually living with a husband. While it may serve in those foolish novels you read—and do not think I do not know what it is that you order on subscription, for I do—anyway, as I was saying, you will find that a comfortable income is much more important than one’s feelings in the matter. And Mr. Thornton is reasonably well-circumstanced, after all. There, I have said it. Now—”

“I find Edwin Thornton to be overbearing, pompous, and dull, Mama. There, I have said that, Mama.” She looked up quickly to see the effect of that pronouncement, and then hastily looked down for fear Hannah would seek to punish her for her insolence.

“Your papa has given him leave to pay calls on you again, Harriet, and it is to be hoped this time that you are not so foolish. A twenty-four-year-old spinster cannot afford to be so—”

“Difficult to please?” Goaded by this unpleasant bit of news, Harriet risked defying her stepmama openly. “Alas, but I am, I fear. I’d far rather remain unwed all the days of my life, Mama, then take Mr. Thornton merely because he is the only man to offer for me.”

The smile vanished from Hannah Rowe’s face, replaced by a look bordering on dyspepsia. “Foolish girl! You cannot wish to hang on your papa’s purse forever! ’Tis time and past time that you were gone from this house, missy!”

“Then persuade Papa to let me live with Plimly and I will gladly go! As for hanging on Papa’s purse, there’s precious little of that I have seen!” Harriet’s eyes flashed now, betraying a rare spark of rebellion. “Look at this room, Mama—and look at my clothes! All I have is bought with my own mama’s portion!”

“Of all the ungrateful … the …” Words failed Lady Rowe for a moment, and then, before Harriet realized her intent, she snatched the kitten from Harriet’s shoulder. “I have tolerated you and these filthy little beasts far too long in my house! Aye, and your insolent tongue also!”

Carrying the frightened, clawing kitten as though it were a snake, Hannah marched from the room, slamming the door. Harriet stared after her with growing consternation, knowing she’d exceeded the bounds of what was acceptable to her stepmama. And years of living in the same household had taught her that Hannah’s retribution was swift and stern.

“Wait! Mama, wait!” She hurried down the hall after her, suddenly afraid again. “I did not mean—”

“John! John!”

Harriet’s father emerged from the front saloon, his paper still in his hand, as Hannah reached the bottom stair. And one look told him that his wife was angered with his daughter yet again. Before he could retreat to whence he had come, Hannah thrust the indignantly writhing kitten at him.

“You will drown the beast! I’ll not tolerate another cat in this house! Thomas! Thomas!”

“My lady?” The lower footman appeared from the back serving hall promptly.

“You will discover the mother cat and the other kitten immediately, and you will drown them!”

“I say …” Sir John protested feebly. “It’s dashed cold out, and—”

“Mama!” Harriet screeched.

“John!” Hannah reproached her husband.

He looked from one woman to the other and then back to the black kitten that clung to his coat. “Well, perhaps the stables or the—”

“John!”

“Yes, well, but—”

“Papa, I will keep them out of her way—I swear it!” Harriet pleaded, fighting against tears.

“Here, missy! How is it that you and your mama are always at daggers drawn, anyway? Seems to me …”

Harriet wanted to shout that Hannah Belford Rowe was not her mama, but she bit her tongue and tried to conciliate instead. Hanging her head, she murmured, “I suppose the fault was mine, Papa, but I had no wish to entertain Mr. Thornton’s suit.”

“Thornton’s suit? What in the deuce does that have to do with drowning cats, I ask you? And as for Thornton, you most certainly shall be all that is pleasant to him—I expect it! And when he dines here tonight, you will wear your best gown!”

“Yes, Papa,” she managed meekly, hiding the impotent rage and terror that warred within her heart. If she’d learned naught else in Hannah’s house, she knew tears were a weakness that availed her nothing. “If you will not harm the cats, I will be all that is polite to Mr. Thornton.”

“No, missy—’tis too late for such a mealy mouth now,” Hannah told her maliciously. “My mind is set—I’ll not have cats in my house!” Turning to her husband, she added firmly, “I shall expect you to get rid of them.”

“Papa, please!”

“Well, now …”

“John!”

“I suppose they could go to the barn,” he ventured, looking down on the huddling kitten.

“I want them drowned today.” Casting a triumphant glance at Harriet, Hannah added smugly, “As for you, missy, you may stay in your room until dinner and consider your manners to me.”

It didn’t matter then. Harriet gazed lovingly at the black kitten, her dark eyes bright and brimming. “Papa, if you kill an innocent creature at her whim, I will refuse to even so much as speak to Mr. Thornton,” she managed in a low whisper, despite the tight ache in her chest.

Sir John was in the position he liked least, caught between his wife and his daughter. For once, he did not immediately do Hannah’s bidding. Instead, he shook his head irritably and put them both off.

“We’ll see—after I have finished my paper.”

“There’s no room in one household for two mistresses, John,” Hannah warned direly, and then she turned on her heel, stalking stiffly toward the back of the house.

“You’d best get to your room, Harriet. I won’t live with my house at sixes and sevens between you, you hear me?”

“Say you’ll not kill them, Papa.”

“Can you not conciliate her? Must you always set yourself against her?” he demanded rhetorically. “No, I suppose you cannot.”

“Papa …” She wanted to shout that she’d tried, that she’d sought to please Hannah since she was but a small child, but that Hannah could not be pleased. Instead, her protest died on her lips. If she forced the matter now, she knew she’d lose her cats forever.

“Humph! We’ll see. As for you, missy, I’ll expect you to be more than merely civil to young Thornton, you hear? Aye, and I’d have you wear something decent this time! And for God’s sake, do something with that hair! I won’t have him thinking you are even older than you are!”

Having won a brief reprieve for her animals, Harriet fled to the haven of her room, throwing herself on her bed. She was four-and-twenty, and yet she might as well have been a small naughty child, the way they treated her. And she had no illusions that it would ever change, because Hannah would never be satisfied until she’d rid herself of an unwanted stepdaughter.

The cats were but one more pain to be borne, and Harriet had reached the point where she could no longer bear it. For a moment she even considered Edwin Thornton, but she knew in her heart that she’d be just as miserable as his wife—marrying Edwin would be like marrying a male Hannah. Tears of self-pity, too long stifled, rolled down her cheeks unchecked as she drew her coverlet about her and tried to keep warm. She was so enveloped in her own misery that she didn’t even hear the commotion in the lower hall.