If Wishes Were Earls (4 page)

Oh, pish! Was there ever a girl more overly blessed with bothersome and meddlesome brothers than she?

And Chaunce, her second oldest sibling, had that look of unrelenting determination about him.

All the Hathaways were determined, but Chaunce’s tenacity came with all the solid warmth of a brick wall.

In December.

“Harry,” he said, bussing her warmly on the cheek. “There you are. Mother wrote that she thought you would arrive in time to attend tonight.”

Harriet was not deceived. He hardly looked thrilled to be attending Lady Knolles’s soirée, rather more like the bearer of bad tidings.

Couldn’t Chaunce, just once, leave well enough alone and just enjoy the world?

Just as Harriet meant to once she was reunited with her beloved Roxley.

“And so I have,” she told her brother. “But I must—”

Chaunce glanced over his shoulder and spied the direction of her determination. If anything, his grim smile now turned into a hard line. “That won’t do, Harry. You can’t just run after him. Not now—”

Freeing herself from him, she patted her brother on the arm and circled around him, dodging his grasp. “You’ve become as stodgy as George,” she chided. “Roxley is our dear friend. I am merely greeting him. He’ll be delighted to see me.”

He’d better be . . .

“Harry—” Chaunce continued as she slipped again into the crowd before he could stop her.

“No, Harriet! Don’t. Not just yet,” Tabitha called after her, having finally caught up.

But there was no stopping Harriet now.

Mr. Chauncy Hathaway turned around and frowned at his sister’s friends. “You didn’t tell her?”

“We hadn’t the time,” Daphne replied.

Chaunce groaned, raking a hand through his dark, tousled hair. “How long does it take to tell someone that the man she loves is marrying another?”

Chapter 2

. . . and woman.

Miss Darby in reply to Lt. Throckmorten

from Miss Darby’s Reckless Bargain

I
t had been a fortnight since his meeting with Mr. Murray and in that time, and much to his chagrin, Roxley had managed to make the man’s daughter society’s newest Original.

All over the
ton
, from drawing rooms to ballrooms, the same refrain was heard.

Whoever is this Miss Murray?
For if Roxley was courting her—poor dear Roxley, so down on his luck—she must be
someone
.

And so, they all rushed to claim an acquaintance with her.

For his part, Roxley had high hopes some bounder would come along and sweep her off her feet, stealing his march, but unfortunately, the gel came with a grim-faced chaperone in tow, Miss Watson, a dragon of a spinster, whose beady gaze was enough to turn away even the most determined fortune hunter.

Worse, Miss Murray’s schoolmate from Mrs. Plumley’s in Bath, the former Miss Edith Nashe, who had used her heiress status to move up the social ladder and was now the Countess of Kipps, had latched on to her “dearest friend” to ensure that as long as the girl was in the spotlight of society’s notice, she was right there to “help.”

As the countess was this evening, having dispatched Miss Watson to the wallflower section and taken up the role of Miss Murray’s dutiful chaperone.

At least Lady Kipps took some of the burden off his shoulders, leaving him a moment or two to ponder his investigations. So far he’d managed to stave off Mr. Murray’s demands for the last fortnight, but his time was nearly up. He’d spent every waking moment he could salvage to determine who was behind this meticulously plotted ruin.

And yet every time he thought he’d discovered something, every time he pressed a lead or a hint at some deception, the answer eluded him like a whiff of smoke.

One moment it was there for him to grasp and the next it was gone.

But what wasn’t gone was the never-ending sense of foreboding, a madness of sorts that haunted him wherever he went.

Why? The question hammered his every thought. Why?

The old Roxley would have made a ribald quip about the entire situation and suggested a séance with Madame Sybille to solve the problem.

He was getting to the point where even that might be in order.

So for the hundredth time this night, he made yet another sweep of the crowded room. And this time as the press of people shifted, his gaze fell on a tall, dark-headed figure on the opposite side of the room.

Harry? His heart wrenched.

He shook his head and looked again, but whoever he’d spied had once again been swallowed up in the crowd.

Harriet Hathaway, indeed! He was going mad.

“You were telling Miss Murray about your parents, my lord,” Lady Kipps said, nudging him out of his reverie. “I must say I find their story ever so tragic.” She smiled at Miss Murray. “His dear parents . . . so very young, so very much in love. Coming home from the Continent . . . when their carriage overturned.” Her handkerchief rose to her dry eyes, though it was a touching attempt at sympathy. “Isn’t that so, my lord?”

“Yes, they died in the accident,” he replied, still distracted by that brief moment when he’d thought he’d seen Harry.

“They were killed?” Miss Murray gasped, her white-gloved fingers coming to rest on his sleeve. “How terrible for you, my lord!”

Once again she looked up into his eyes as if expecting something from him.

As if he didn’t know what she expected. Her father had made it abundantly clear in the note he’d sent around this evening.

Make your proposal tonight, my lord, or else.

And yet as Roxley forced himself to look down at the lady by his side, his heart prodded him to scan the room one more time.

No, that was the last thing he needed. Harry connected in any fashion to this mystery.

“My lord?” Miss Murray prodded.

“Oh, yes, my parents. I was ever so young to have lost them. Both of them. Gone.” Roxley did his best to appear brokenhearted and in need of comforting.

“Terrible,” she agreed.

“It brings to mind my family motto,” he said a bit wistfully. He leaned back and looked off into the distance, across the expanse of Lady Knolles’s crowded ballroom, as if he was seeing something lost in time.

And not as if he was looking for Harriet.

Which was impossible, he reminded himself. She was safely ensconced back in Kempton. Where she belonged. Far from his ruin.

“Your family motto?” Miss Murray repeated.

“
Ad usque fidelis
,” he confided.

Miss Murray blinked and tried to look like she understood every word.

“
Ad usque fidelis
,” a lady off to one side repeated, her Latin impeccable. “Unto fidelity. And here I’d always been led to believe, Roxley, your motto meant ‘Marry well and cheat often.’ ”

Trying to breathe and not look, Roxley stilled his quaking heart—for he knew exactly what he’d see once he did look—a tall, willowy wisp of a lady, with her coal black hair, and those eyes—those demmed green eyes that could look right through a fellow. Grab his heart and never let go.

Harry!

Roxley, who had flinched the moment he’d heard her dulcet tones, recovered enough composure to turn to his right, where his great-aunt’s always meddlesome prodigy stood, picking absently at the blades of her fan, the toe of her slipper digging at the dance floor as if seeking out a stone to kick.

She looked up, her expression a mirror of surprise, as if she’d just noticed him there.

As. If.

It struck the earl that Harriet Hathaway’s sole purpose in life was to drive him mad. Had been since the first day they’d met all those years ago.

And speaking of driving him mad—he glanced around the room, and yes, there she was. Aunt Essex.

Of course.

In the meantime, Lady Kipps, taking to heart her self-appointed role as the guardian of Miss Murray, eyed Harriet with all the feral delight of a cat who’d just discovered a pack of lame mice at her dish.

Oh, Lady Kipps
, Roxley mused, sensing an impending disaster,
when will you learn?

Roxley knew all too well it would take more than Lady Kipps’s haughty and murderous disdain to dent Harriet’s pluck.

He straightened, knowing what must be done and hating himself all the more for having to do it. “Harry, my aunt appears to be looking for you.” He nodded in the lady’s direction—well across the ballroom.

Her wrinkled nose said she hardly appreciated his use of her family nickname, the one she always shed the moment she set foot in London. Well, she’d always be Harry to him, no matter how hard she tried to appear the perfect miss. “No, she isn’t,” she replied without looking, and continued on. “As we were discussing, isn’t that how the Marshoms translate their family motto, ‘Marry well and cheat often’?” She smiled. “I did get that right, didn’t I, Roxley?”

“What is this about cheating and marriage?” Lady Kipps demanded, first of Roxley and then of Harriet, whom she had never liked. “Better still, what do you know of these things, Miss Hathaway?” The sneer in her address held every doubt of Harriet’s place in good society.

Roxley flinched again, for heaven help him, he couldn’t imagine what Harry was going to say next.

And if he’d known, he would have wisely sought refuge behind the punch bowl.

“Of cheating and marriage, you ask? Enough, I suppose,” Harriet replied with all the aplomb of a woman with a noble bloodline that ran back for ages. Oh, her father might be only a knight, but the Hathaways had been raised up by Henry V. She tapped her fan onto the palm of her hand, as one might have brandished a halberd, and she turned to face down her adversary as her forebear had most likely faced the French at Agincourt, with a slight smile on her lips and bloody resolve in her heart—the same resolve that had caught the king’s eye and gratitude. “Though from what I hear, not as much as you, Lady Kipps.”

Gratitude
was not the word Roxley would use at this moment.
She hadn’t just said—

Oh, yes, she had. If this were Gentleman Jim’s boxing ring instead of Lady Knolles’s annual soirée, round one—bloody hell, the entire match—would be awarded to Harriet.

Which, Roxley had to imagine, was the direct result of the minx spending way too much time in his great-aunt’s company. She had managed to capture Lady Essex’s interfering tones and insulting turn of phrase precisely.

He shook his head. As if Harriet needed any help with perfecting her skills of butting her nose into matters that were none of her business.

But you made your business hers when you ruined her . . . all but promised her . . .

Yes, well, there was that.

For her part, Lady Kipps looked as if she’d swallowed a bucket of coals. The countess drew in a deep, furious breath, which did nothing to cool the fire in her belly, rather it made her brows knit together in indignation, and her eyes narrowed.

“Lord Roxley, do you know this
person
?” Miss Murray asked, her hands fluttering in Harriet’s direction like one might ask a footman to take away a plate of kippers that had gone off.

Harriet’s gaze narrowed, looking from him to Miss Murray—more specifically, Miss Murray’s gloved hand atop his sleeve—and then back at him. Her eyes widened as she obviously came to the conclusion that he’d been too cowardly to tell her.

Written to her. Gone to her and begged her forgiveness. If he thought he’d done the right thing, hoping to spare her from having to watch his fall and then his marriage to another, he was wrong.

The hurt and anger in her eyes was enough to cut him in two.

“Roxley?” Miss Murray’s jaw set with a determined line. “Do you know her?”

“Of course he does,” Harriet supplied, before she leaned in and explained, “We were betrothed for a night.”

“Harriet!” Roxley shot back, before he turned to the lady at his side. “Miss Murray, let me explain—”

Lady Kipps stepped in to do it for him. “I fear Lord Roxley’s previous inclinations toward these country sorts is showing. How you once preferred a lady who is not a fair blossom, but more like a common cornstalk, I cannot see, my lord.”

True enough. Miss Murray was a petite June bell compared to Harriet’s lofty reach.

“Perhaps my father was misinformed about your intentions—” Miss Murray began.

“No, no, no!” he rushed to assure her. “I fear Miss Hathaway is a bit of a . . .”

All three of the ladies glared at him as they awaited his answer.

Oh, how the devil had he ended up in this spot?

He caught Miss Murray by the arm and turned her so her back was toward Harriet. “I fear Miss Hathaway is a matter of honor—”

The lady’s brows arched slightly.

Damn, that had hardly come out right.

“Not that sort of honor,” he corrected. “It has to do with her brother—”

The brows rose higher.

Now that had
definitely
not come out correctly.

“No, no,” he raced to explain. “The Hathaways are old friends. Nearly family. She is rather like a sister to me. I promised her brothers—”

Harriet leaned between them. “I’ve never known a brother to kiss me like you did, Roxley.”

The earl held his ground. As he should have done that reckless night last summer instead of . . .

Oh, demmit! Now was not the time for recriminations or regrets. Besides, he reminded himself, strangling her in public would only cause a scandal.

Just as ruining her that night should have.

He notched up his chin and ignored Harry, focusing what was left of his tattered charms and grasp on the heiress’s attentions. And mostly reminding himself what he must do—if only to keep Harriet safe. “She’s a trifling, really. A bothersome little—”

“A trifling?” Harriet interjected, this time wedging herself between Roxley and his soon-to-be-or-else bride.

A petite specimen, Miss Murray was now completely overshadowed by Harriet’s height. A hollyhock rising grandly over the faded spring blossoms which preceded it.

“Harry, don’t you need to rejoin my aunt?” Roxley glanced over her shoulder at the crowd beyond. “Help Miss Manx with some errand or other?”

Wasn’t someone going to come fetch her away? Even the Duchess of Preston or Lady Henry would do nicely about now.

Of course, so would Bow Street.

“Your aunt? Would you like to introduce her to Miss Murray?” Harriet’s nose wrinkled and she leaned in close. “I don’t think she would approve. But now that you mention her, it was about Lady Essex that I sought you out.”

About his aunt? Roxley ground his teeth together. Of all the flimsy, unlikely excuses. He leaned in close and whispered at her, “Leave me be, Harry. Please. I’ll explain everything later.”

“No,” she replied, standing her ground.

She would.

“I came over so you could attend to your aunt immediately. The situation is desperate.”

Desperate? “Is she ill?” the earl asked.