Page 18 of Lady Like

“Harry, I’m just trying…” He presses his face into the crook of his elbow and Harry can hear the vibrations of the silent scream he releases into it. Then he drops his arm and says, “If you take her riding, you can stay with me until the coronation.”

Harry perks up like a tulip in water. “Here? In your house?”

Collin grits his teeth. “Yes, here.”

“Havoc too? And you promise you won’t make me wash any dishes?”

Collin rolls his eyes. “You’re such a child.”

“If you let me stay here, I will invite Miss Sergeant to go riding with me,” Harry says. “It’s not my fault if she doesn’t accept.”

“Fine. Now go talk to her.” Collin claps her hard on the shoulder, steering her back toward the hall, then storms off to the kitchen, where Harry presumes he’ll put his head in the oven.

When Harry returns to the parlor, Emily’s cousin has vanished—presumably to find somewhere less chaotic to nap—and Havoc is trying to wedge himself under the couch to suck up an errant scone.

Miss Sergeant sits alone at the table, the teacups reset but empty.

She turns when Harry enters the room, and her face hardens.

“Would you go riding with me?” Harry asks with no inflection. “So Collin will be appeased?”

“Would I…” Emily turns back to the table and glares at the teapot. “Of course not.”

“Then why did you come here?”

“I would not, had I realized Mr. Lockhart was your brother.”

“Of course.”

She glares at Harry. “And of course I will not require your assistance in any matter, particularly those of courtship.”

Harry drops into the seat across from her. “Why not?”

“Shall we start with the fact that last night you tried to ruin my chances with the very man you are now purporting to help me court? Yes, I know you and Rochester are friends,” she snaps when Harry feigns surprise.

“I saw you giggling and playing the coquette. Are the two of you intimate acquaintances, I wonder?”

“I don’t see how that’s…” She trails off, unsure of how to finish. Relevant? Any of your business? Something Emily could have possibly guessed?

To which Emily replies, her tone feather light, “You can always tell by the set of a woman’s chin.”

And Harry, so surprised to have her own words thrown back in her face, laughs.

Emily scowls. “Is that not why you were jealous?”

“Jealous? Of you? Don’t be absurd.”

“Of his attention. And now your brother thinks you can help me fashion myself into a more desirable match? Don’t make me laugh.

” Emily snatches her bonnet from where it is resting on the arm of the sofa and jams it onto her head as she stands.

“I will win Rochester myself. You cannot stand in my way. Nothing can.”

“Except your personality, it seems,” Harry says, and Emily’s fingers slip on the ribbons of her bonnet. “Why him in particular?”

“He’s a duke,” Emily replies. “Need there be further reason? Now, have you seen my other glove?”

“You removed your gloves? How intimate. Were you planning to stay?”

“I removed my gloves,” Emily snaps, “because I thought I was about to eat scones with a kind new friend, not some sneering Amazon!”

“You think I’m an Amazon?”

“That is irrelevant!” Emily whips a pillow from the settee. “Come, neither of us want me here. Help me look so I can be on my way.”

Harry spots a white fingertip stuck to Havoc’s haunches and peels it off. She clears her throat, and Emily looks up from the cushions.

“Thank you.” Emily extends a hand, but Harry flicks the glove backward out of her reach.

“If you are so desperate to be married, why not seek out another man?”

“Please give me my glove.”

“A duke is a catch, to be certain, but a lady like you can’t be short suitors.”

Emily sucks in her cheeks, then says, “My parents have selected a fiancé for me who is not a good match. His only interest in me is for access to my family’s land.”

“As is the foundation of many marriages. What do you find so objectionable about this poor bloke? Is he short? A redhead? Or—God forbid—is he—” And here Harry drops her voice into a horrified whisper. “Poor?”

Emily stares at the glove in Harry’s hand, then says bluntly, “I fear he would do me harm.”

Harry feels the words like a cold bucket of water to the face.

Here she had thought Miss Sergeant shallow in her pursuit of a duke, but instead, there is real fear behind her words.

Emily Sergeant is afraid. And she is trying to do the only thing she can—the only thing any woman of good breeding can do to protect themselves: marry up.

Harry wishes suddenly she had not spoken so flippantly.

What reason had she to assume the worst of Emily Sergeant, other than the fact that she was pretty in a way that said she cared about her appearance, conventional and feminine in the manner of etiquette books, and exactly the sort of girl who had mocked Harry her whole life for being none of those things?

Emily turns away, and Harry can see the tension in the rise and fall of her shoulders as she takes several deep breaths.

“If I return home with a better prospect, my parents will have to reconsider the arrangement. I have studied the society pages, and I know Rochester is one of only a few men in London for the Season who is eligible, courting, and endowed with sufficient title and inheritance that my parents could not possibly object to my marrying him in place of Mr. Tweed. There. Now you know the truth. I hope you’re bloody pleased with yourself. ”

She starts toward the door but when Harry calls, “Miss Sergeant,” she turns.

Harry holds out the glove. Emily stares at it for a moment, as if determining whether this is an olive branch or yet another baited trap. She slowly reaches out to take it, but Harry doesn’t let go.

“Alexander rides most mornings at Regent’s Park,” she says, assuring herself there is no harm in sharing this.

Should Emily work up the nerve to visit the duke, her good breeding will likely overtake her senses, and when required to choose a side of the gulf between what men say they want and what they actually want in a wife, she will present the same dull girl Alexander met at the ball.

But at least Harry might sleep easier— and in Collin’s spare room, for she can tell him honestly that she tried.

“His is a dark horse with a white mane—easy to spot. You might catch him as he finishes, and walk with him as he cools down.”

Emily tugs the end of her glove, and this time, Harry lets it go. “And I am sorry,” Harry says. “For how I treated you last night. You are correct in your assessment that I was jealous over the attentions of my friend, and my emotions got the better of me. Please forgive me.”

Emily pulls her glove on slowly, only looking away from Harry’s face when her fingernail snags on the lace. “Thank you for the information about the duke,” is all she says before she goes looking for her cousin.

It is as close as Harry suspects she’ll get.