Page 50 of Lady Like
F ive days!
Five luxurious, languid, improbable days of nothing but swanning around together, mostly naked and almost always in bed, until the sheets smell briny and the windows are steamed.
The only communication they have with the world outside their doors is the card Emily sends to her cousin that their quarrel is mended and she has fallen into Harry’s bed.
Though perhaps not stated so bluntly. Emily had read it aloud for Harry’s appraisal of its tact, but she had been wearing nothing, sitting at the desk in Harry’s room with a leg pulled up beneath her, and Harry hadn’t been able to focus.
Five days, and Harry cannot remember a longer stretch of uninterrupted happiness in her entire life.
Emily sleeps late and makes tea and teaches Havoc to sit in exchange for bits of ham.
She reads books, beats Harry at cards, folds Harry’s shirts, wears Harry’s shirts, and lets Harry take those shirts off her.
They go to bed early. They rise late. They walk Havoc and go out for bread in the morning and little else.
Harry had not known how happy she could be to do nothing with someone.
To speak gently. Share confidence. Life, it would seem, can be quiet and Harry can be content with that.
As long as it is Emily here with her. All the things she had not let herself notice in Emily, let alone admire, for she knew how quickly she would tip over into obsession, suddenly overwhelm her.
The angle of Emily’s chin when she reads.
The way she sips her tea, holds her hat, talks with exuberant gestures when she tells Harry about her strange dreams in the morning.
The first night they slept together, Harry had found herself lying awake, considering what would happen if she refused the prince’s offer and stayed instead with Emily.
By the end of their delirious stretch holed up together, she’s decided.
She does not want to be a dog on the prince’s lead for her whole life.
She cannot live beholden like that, her existence dependent on the whims of the monarchy.
Now that Harry has Emily, she has a reason to say no. She’ll never even have to tell Emily what she gave up, lest Emily feel conflicted or guilty or angry or anything other than blissfully, completely, unquestioningly in love with Harry.
But something stays her hand each time she considers putting pen to paper to inform her father of her intentions.
She had hoped to voice the plan to Collin first—not because she requires his approval, but because she wants to hear herself say it aloud, and watch his face as she does.
Perhaps he may even have advice worth hearing, as the only other person she knows who is living in this same—albeit less restrictive—shadow.
Though his even hand typically aggravates her, she finds herself suddenly craving it.
But in their five days of seclusion, she has not seen any evidence of his presence in the house.
She would assume he returns late and departs early to avoid the carnal utopia fomenting in his upstairs guest bedroom, but he never seems to eat anything she leaves out in the kitchen, nor his coat on the rack or shoes by the door.
In the wee hours of one morning, she half wakes in the dark, certain she’s heard him come home, only to realize the sound is Havoc ramming his head against the bedroom door to be let in.
Harry tells herself she’s grateful he’s made himself scarce, no matter the reason, but she’s starting to grow concerned.
Then, just as quickly, feels silly for that.
Collin can take care of himself—hasn’t he spent years cold-shouldering her specifically to prove that?
Besides, as long as he’s gone, Emily will keep walking around wearing Harry’s dressing gowns with nothing underneath, eating eggs on toast that Harry makes for her, and keeping hair unpinned so it falls in ringlets over Harry’s knees when Emily nestles her head between them.
Harry will not let errant preoccupations over her brother’s whereabouts wake her from this dream.
Though Collin, as it happens, is not the first horseman of Harry’s apocalypse. It instead arrives on the doorstep in the form of the Duke of Edgewood’s boy assassin.
He is armed this time not with a pie, but a gift box tied with a blue ribbon like a fancy hat delivered from a milliner. When Harry opens the door he clutches the box against him like he might use it as a shield.
“Well.” Harry leans against the doorframe, surveying him. “We meet again.”
The boy holds out the box.
“Let me guess,” Harry says without taking it. “The Duke of Edgewood sends his regards.”
“I didn’t know what would happen,” the boy says, his voice quavering. “I’m so very sorry.”
“You hit me with a pie; there are only so many possible outcomes.”
“Not that.” He shoves the box at her again. “Please take it.” His gaze glances across her face, not meeting her eye but taking in her faded bruises and flat nose.
Harry’s stomach drops. She takes the box.
“Who was that?” Emily calls when Harry carries the box into the living room and sets it on the sofa.
“Remember that boy who hit me with a pie?”
Emily comes to stand beside her, Havoc hot on her heels, keen to explore any deliveries first with his nose, then possibly his tongue. “Is this from the duke?” Emily asks, blocking Havoc with her knee. “The one you dueled?”
“The very same.” Emily reaches for the lid but Harry snatches her hand. “Hold on there.”
Emily shoots Harry a raised eyebrow. “What exactly do you think is inside?”
“I dunno. Something bad. A snake?”
Emily reaches out and shakes the box. It rattles in a distinctly unsnakelike way. “If you’re afraid—” Emily starts, but Harry brushes her off.
“No, no, it’s my death threat. I’ll do it.” Harry undoes the ribbon on the top. “Cry ‘God for Harry, England, and St. George,’?” she says, and pops the lid off.
When nothing inside moves, Harry, Emily, and Havoc all lean over the box to better see the contents. A thread of drool from Havoc’s lip catches on the corner and stretches like a kite string.
“What is it?” Emily asks.
The object inside is perplexingly snake shaped, but far too limp and flat to be a serpent, unless it was first smashed by a dictionary. Emily shifts the paper, revealing the silver buckles on one end, and suddenly Harry realizes what it is.
She picks up the leather strap and lets it hang over her hands like a sash.
“That son of a bitch,” Harry mutters.
“What is it?” Emily asks.
“The girth from my Derby saddle,” Harry says, showing Emily the spot where it’s been cut, cleanly until the very edge, where it was left to snap on its own.
“The bastard cut it—or his man did, because he’s far too much of a milksop to get his own hands dirty.
That’s why my saddle tipped. It’s why I fell.
Damn!” Harry throws the girth into the chair.
Havoc quietly retrieves it and begins to gnaw upon it.
“You need to tell the authorities,” Emily says.
“I need to tell Alexander,” Harry says. “It was his horse—he’d be the one to press charges. And Collin. Good lord, where is Collin?”
“I thought you said he was working,” Emily says. “What is it he does, exactly?”
“Unclear, but I suspect it doesn’t keep him away from home for a full bloody week.
God, what if something’s happened to him?
If Edgewood is trying to ruin me completely, he may come for my brother as well.
” And why hasn’t she been more concerned?
What sort of carnal drunkenness of five whole days in bed with Emily Sergeant had made her forget that she was in the wake of a disrupted horse race, with her brother possibly missing, and her in need of a husband?
She wants to slap herself across the face.
“Do not fret yet. Not until we know more things with certainty.” Emily takes Harry’s hands in hers, their palms together and fingers interlaced. “Shall we go to Collin’s office?”
“I have no idea where his office is!” Harry says, panic rising in her voice. “Why did I never ask him where his office is?”
“Because you are only recently reacquainted, and your relationship is complex.” Emily rubs her hands down Harry’s forearms. “If not Collin, then let’s go to the duke and see if he might help us.”
“Yes,” Harry says. “Yes, of course. God, what would I do without you?”
“You’d have worked it out on your own,” Emily says, then adds, “eventually.”
Harry kisses Emily on the cheek, then reaches down to pry the girth from Havoc’s maw.
Best not to eat the evidence.