Page 17 of Lady Like

The morning after the Majorbanks’s ball, Harry wakes in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar house with an unfamiliar shape atop the covers beside her.

It takes a few moments of blinking around at the puritanical lack of decoration before she remembers where she is—Collin’s spare room.

He had taken pity on her when she begged him not to make her go back to her apartment, where Mariah Swift was likely waiting to coerce her into some kind of debauchery that was unbecoming of new royalty. That, and she was well foxed.

The mass nestled beside her, she realizes, is Havoc, snoring gently.

Harry stretches with her hands above her.

Havoc does too, massive toes curling as he rolls onto his back.

His jowls flop over his eyes, exposing his pink gums and slack tongue.

Harry runs a hand over his belly, staring up at the ceiling.

Her head throbs. Too much wine drunk too wantonly the night before, particularly after dinner, when she had interrogated Alexander about every woman he had spoken to that night and he had played coy, not even mentioning Miss Sergeant.

Miss Emily Sergeant, whose hair can’t possibly have been as honey gold as Harry remembers.

Perhaps that was a trick of the light and the pollen and so many bees.

Emily Sergeant, with her turned-up nose and long neck and ridiculous slippers.

To think Harry had been concerned she was any kind of rival.

Harry drags herself out of bed, steps over her red dress puddled on the floor, and retrieves a set of breeches from the back of the writing desk.

Poor Miss Sergeant, Harry thinks as she dresses, then follows the smell of breakfast belowstairs. She’s likely somewhere having her bleeding feet amputated after all that dancing.

Which is when Harry enters the dining room and finds Collin at the table, breaking literal and figurative bread with the very same Miss Emily Sergeant.

“Oh good, Harry, you’re up.” Collin tosses his napkin onto the table as he stands. “We were just talking about you.”

Miss Sergeant turns as well. When she catches sight of Harry, she freezes.

Now what, Harry thinks, unable to stop the grin spreading across her face, are the chances?

Emily does not stand as Collin introduces them. Harry, for her part, remains in the doorway, leaning against the frame and smirking, two things at which she is obscenely talented. Miss Sergeant’s upturned nose tilts even more skyward as they regard each other.

If Emily indulged in any of the Majorbanks’s boozy lemonade, Harry would never know it.

She looks as perfectly coiffed as she had when she’d dropped her fan in front of Alexander like a goddamn exhibitionist. And yes, her hair is somehow truly so golden Midas would have coveted it.

Harry’s imagination had not exaggerated it.

Collin looks between them several times, then asks tentatively, “Are the pair of you acquainted?”

“We’ve met,” Emily and Harry say at the same time.

“Well then, this will be…easier?” He looks to Harry, eyebrows raised, as if to ask, Will it? “Would you sit down, Sister? Miss Sergeant, should you wake your cousin?”

“Let her sleep,” Emily says, and Harry notices for the first time a woman near Emily’s age, tipped over on the settee with her mouth open. “It was a late night, and she has a new baby.”

Harry feels a butt against her knees, and Havoc, lured from bed by the sound of company trots into the parlor and begins investigating the table with his nose.

Collin rescues the pitcher of cream before it tips. “Hal, control him, would you please?”

“Hello darling!” Emily holds out a hand to the dog. “May I?”

“He’s very vicious,” Harry replies, but Havoc has already collapsed onto the floor and offered Emily his pink belly to rub.

“I met Miss Sergeant last night,” Collin says. “She has her eye on a gentleman you might help her win over.”

“Oh has she now?” Harry asks.

Collin eyes her. “You’re being terribly odd.”

“Is she?” Emily asks primly. “I assumed that this ”—she waves a hand through the air, indicating Harry in her entirety—“was an act.”

Harry shrugs. “Bit of both.”

“What about the haircut?” Emily asks.

“What about it?”

“Who accosted you with shears between last night and this morning?”

“You flatter me with the particular attention you’ve paid my hair.”

“I’d have to be an imbecile not to notice it entirely gone.”

“The question of your intelligence had never occurred to me.”

“Whereas I wondered after yours several times last night.”

“Was that before or after you were considering my cow-like twatishness?”

“Should I go?” Collin interupts.

“No, I should.” Emily tries to stand, but Havoc rolls onto her feet. “I appreciate your offer, Mr. Lockhart, but I cannot see this arrangement progressing.”

“Sit down, Miss Sergeant,” Harry says.

Emily, held captive by Havoc lying on her feet, replies curtly, “I am.”

Harry takes the chair beside Collin and pours herself a cup of tea. “First, I have a very fine collection of wigs. A coiffure à la Titus is very fashionable in France, and it does exceptional things for my bone structure.”

“Is that French for an executioner’s dream ?” Emily asks.

It’s such a clever retort Harry has no choice but to ignore it. “Secondly, what possible assistance could I offer you in the courting of a gentleman?”

Emily glares at Harry, her jaw flexing though her mouth is closed, then glances at Collin, as though hoping he will supply the answer for her. “The gentleman in question,” she says after a moment, “told me I am beautiful and well mannered—”

“Of course he did,” Harry mutters.

Emily ignores her. “—but that he found me quite conventional and…dull.”

Had Harry been midsip of tea, she might have spit it out in surprise.

After her performance beneath the wisteria, dull is not the descriptor Harry would have imagined disqualifying Emily Sergeant from the marriage market.

The mask of demure gentility must not have slipped with Rochester as it had with Harry. “You? Dull?”

Miss Sergeant’s delicate nostrils flair.

“Your brother offered your companionship while I’m in London, in hopes that I might prove to this gentleman that I am a lady of class and breeding but also one of spontaneity and independent thought, who possesses a sense of humor and… ” Her eye twitches. “Fun.”

“My companionship?” Harry turns to Collin. “You want me to be the metaphorical hatchet she takes to her reputation?”

Collin glares at her. “That’s not quite what I—”

“Have you any paper?” Harry asks Collin. Then, turning to Miss Sergeant, she says, “We should write a list, I think, of the many ways to make you interesting. First, you’ll have to see a penis. You can always tell by the set of a woman’s chin if she’s seen a phallus in the flesh.”

Emily pales, and Collin mutters, “Harry, for God’s sake.”

“Isn’t this what you want?” she says. “This is why you invited her here. So I can ruin her.”

“I thought you could take her to the theater,” Collin says. “And introduce her to people. You two might be good companions for each other this Season, as you’re both…” His eyes glance off Harry. “New to these circles of London.”

“But Miss Lockhart seems so traditional and reserved,” Miss Sergeant says, her tone so salty it could have flavored soup. “I cannot imagine what she might teach me on the subject of becoming unconventional.”

“Harry might take you to a coffeehouse,” Collin goes on, seemingly determined to ignore them both. “Or Speakers’ Corner. You said your gentleman mentioned horses in particular—Hal, you could take Miss Sergeant riding!”

“We’ll have to start much simpler than that,” Harry says, then leans over to Emily and asks, “How are you with the alphabet? I hear learning is bad for a woman’s brain and I’d hate to make assumptions.”

“Maybe this is an ill-advised idea,” Miss Sergeant says.

“Maybe it is,” Harry says with a shrug.

“No, it’s a fine idea,” Collin says. “If you would both cooperate!”

He bangs his open hand upon the table, upsetting the tray of scones. Havoc makes a dive for them, taking the tablecloth with him. Emily manages to rescue the pot before it tips, but all four teacups fall to the rug, spilling their contents.

On the couch, Emily’s cousin sits up. “What’s happened?” she asks. “Emily, are you being ravaged?”

Collin stares at the table, his cheeks sucked in so tight his ears twitch. “Hal, can I have a word please?”

He doesn’t give her a chance to reply, just seizes her by an arm and press-gangs her from the room. Behind them, she hears Emily’s cousin ask, “Should someone get a cloth?”

In the entryway, Collin still doesn’t release her, so Harry slaps him with her free hand—not hard, and yes, it’s childish, but so was Collin tackling her into the hallway.

Collin yelps but doesn’t let go. “What has gotten into you?”

“Stop mauling me,” Harry whines. “I dipped far too deep last night and my stomach is not constant.”

Collin lets out a huff of disapproval, but releases her. He straightens his shirt where it has come untucked from his breeches in their scuffle, then casts a glance at the parlor before leaning into Harry and hissing, “Help her.”

“Help her do what?”

“Help her open up. She isn’t dull—she’s shy and lonely and far from home. She could use a friend. And so could you.”

“I have plenty of friends.”

“I think,” Collin says, “that you could be good for each other.”

Harry crosses her arms. “So you invited her here in hopes she might be a good influence upon me, and I might be a ruining one upon her in return?”

“Stop misunderstanding me on purpose,” Collin snaps. “You could help her come out of her shell. And yes, I did consider that she might help you integrate yourself into some more genteel circles.”

“Isn’t that your job?”