Page 58 of A Virgin for the Rakish Duke
He was never mine. I allowed myself to begin to hope that it was so. I gave myself to him. But this is what becomes of giving yourself to a rogue. I was a fool, and he was probably laughing at me with his French lady.
By the time the sun was almost directly overhead and Harriet judged it to be midday, she had not seen the river that she was supposed to be following for some time. What she had thought would be a simple journey was now anything but, and she was only growing hopelessly lost.
Walking back in the direction of Woodham Walter was out of the question, even if she could be sure of the right way. There was too much chance of running into Jeremy or his beau. Instead, she set out in what she hoped was the right direction.
Eventually, she stood, exhausted, hungry, and thirsty, in a dell surrounded by trees. The road wound up the far side, visible in breaks in the woodland, and Harriet could not face the climb. She sat for a time on a stone wall beside the road until it became too uncomfortable. Climbing the wall, she walked through the woods, over mossy, stony ground ribbed by tree roots, until she reached a small, babbling stream. She decided to rest there, nestled in a comfortable bower made up of a curve of ancient roots which drooped over the shallow but clear stream.
Perhaps a little rest and time to reorient myself is what I need.
Stripping off her shoes and stockings, she dabbled her feet in the cool water and even sipped a little to quench her thirst. It was so unlike anything that Ralph would ever have permitted, so unorthodox and so… free. True freedom. She forgot about feeling tired or lost for a while.
She could remain here as long as she wished, and she would for no reason other than she wanted to. That she could.
With the water cool over her bare feet and the air about her warm, drowsiness soon overcame Harriet. She settled back against the tree, letting her eyes grow heavy, until she slipped into a slumber.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Jeremy's eyes felt as though they were full of sand. Every blink was rough. He kept his head high through the sheer effort of will. His horse's head, too, drooped with the fatigue of a night spent without sleep.
His coat was still in the lych-gate of Woodham Walter's parish church after he had torn a sleeve on jagged wood. His wrist was bruised and cut. He hoped that Edmund Hamilton did not find out that the broken post in the lych-gate was his handiwork, smashed clean through by repeated kicks in order to remove the manacle that was fastened to it.
When he finally approached Oaksgrove with a sense of defeat, Harriet was nowhere to be found. Somewhere between Woodham Walter and Oaksgrove, she had gotten lost. There was no sign of her on the roads or woods, or fields. No word of her in any farm or roadside inn. She had simply… vanished.
By midday, the sun beat down, and weariness tugged at Jeremy’s limbs. His horse flagged beneath him, lathered and spent. Afteranother several hours of searching, he turned back toward Oaksgrove, telling himself it was for the animal’s sake—that it needed rest, and he a fresh mount. Food would not go amiss, either, before he rode out again.
At the house, he made for the nearest sitting room, and upon arriving, he tugged a bellpull to summon a servant, not seeing who was already in the room.
“Your Grace, thank goodness you have returned,” Agnes Tisdale said from a seat next to the fire, “look who has appeared.”
Jeremy rubbed at his eyes and then stopped, standing stock still. Harriet sat barefoot and dirt-stained on the chaise, a basin of water on the floor beside her. She was washing her feet in the basin.
“Harriet…?” Jeremy gaped, stupefied.
“Your Grace,” Harriet replied distractedly, “you will forgive me if I do not stand.”
“Hang that, where have you been? I have been all over the district, all night!” he exclaimed, striding into the room to stand before her. She continued to wash her feet in the bowl.
“I got lost,” she said simply.
“All night?” he demanded.
“I have explained myself to my grandmother, to whom Idoowe an explanation. I do not feel I owe one to you, Your Grace.”
“The hell you do! I have been worried sick, searching for you all night!” he roared.
The relief at seeing her alive and well was warring with his anger at her frosty attitude. He expected some contrition. It seemed ludicrous to him that someone could become so lost in Essex. This was England, not the interior of the African continent or the Russian steppes. She appeared exhausted and had a leaf in her hair, dirt and green stains on her skirt, and a smudge across her nose.
“I expected you to return to Penhaligon with Mademoiselle de Rouvroy,” she murmured, dropping the washcloth into the bowl and holding it up for a servant to take away.
“I gave her short shrift. She tricked me, and... played a practical joke on me.”
“Ah, as you once did on me?” she responded with a brittle smile and a sharp eye.
“That was mistaken identity.”
“Did Eloise de Rouvroy mistake you for another?”
“Harriet, that is no way to speak to a Duke. He is a peer of the realm!” the Dowager chided.