Page 169 of The Ladies Least Likely

Harriette saw her future, and it was not kind. Franz Karl was clearly allied with the Prussians and would spend his days seeking favors at court. Meanwhile the people of Lowenburg, who still considered themselves Silesian, would be ignored by the man who held their fates. As would she.

“Do you even speak my language?” she asked Franz Karl in Silesian.

“You will not speak that peasants’ tongue in my house,” he responded sharply in German. “The Prussians won the war and Silesia is ours now, and if the people wish to become anything more than poor backward farmers, they will accept this.”

Harriette stood. “I must go. I—I need to make some calls.”

Franz Karl saw right through her. She wondered if it was because they were related—horrible thought, that she shared blood with this supercilious, pompous, self-indulgent, arrogant man—or because he had a mind more devious than hers.

“I have already sent my challenge to his house, and if he is a gentleman, he will accept,” he said smugly. “There is nothing you can do at this point, M?uschen .”

“Do not call me your little mouse,” Harriette retorted. “I am the Duchess of Lowenburg.” She tried to recall how dukes were addressed in German countries and was struck with inspiration. “You may address me as Your Serene Highness, or simply Highness will do.”

Her aunt’s amused smile, hidden behind her cup of tea, almost made Harriette crack open with laughter, save that her errand was of the utmost importance.

Abassi stood waiting in the foyer with the black velvet coat she’d shed upon entering the house. “Me not liking that man,” he whispered as he settled the garment around Harriette’s shoulders.

“Me neither.” It left Harriette’s middle feeling hollow to think she was promised to marry Franz Karl. She could see not a single point upon which their minds and temperaments were in accord. Worse, she could not imagine allowing him to touch her in the intimate ways that would produce heirs.

But she would worry about that after. First she had to save Ren.

Princess waited in the street with the cabriolet, a fur tucked over her knees. Jock sat atop Hyperion, and Beater, after helping Harriette ascend the high step, leapt to his platform in the back.

“We are going to Renwick House, I hope?” Harriette asked.

“You are.” Princess flicked the ribbons and Jock nudged the horse into motion.

“I am paying a call on a certain spurned gentleman to encourage him to cease and desist with his threats against the Catherine Club. Jock and Beater,” she added, “are thinking up ways that Fritz’s drowned body might show up in the Serpentine, or better yet the Thames. ”

“That can’t be the man as marries and takes ye away from us, Lady H,” Beater said. “’E’s a molly.”

“A what?”

“Gentleman of the back door,” Jock clarified. “An indorser. Navigates by the windward passage. ‘E goes in for men,” he said shortly, when none of these provided illumination.

Harriette swiveled between them. “You can’t know that by looking at a man.”

“You can when you send inquiries to the inn where he is staying,” Princess said. “The boys went over as soon as we heard Fritz was in town.” Her lips pursed. “You’ll not have a happy marriage with him, Liebelein .”

Harriette slumped in the seat. “Believe me, I strongly agree. But I see no way out of this other than to stop him from challenging Ren to a duel. I’ll try to make Franz Karl leave London as soon as possible, and…”

And then her life would be over. Or any hope she’d had of a happy life, that is.

“Men fall inta the Thames every day,” Beater rumbled. “Shame, that.”

“I don’t want him dead,” Harriette protested. “I just want him to go away.”

“What if Renwick wins the duel, Liebelein ?” Princess said softly as the carriage rolled into Berkeley Square and passersby paused to stare at them. “What then?”

Harriette’s breath caught. If Franz Karl’s impetuous demand brought him to the end that he fully deserved, she wouldn’t have to marry him.

She’d be free to marry Ren.

“Renwick would have to flee to the Continent or be called to account for murder in an illegal duel,” she said with a sigh. “I’m afraid that won’t do. He’s needed here.”

Dunstan, the butler at Renwick House, opened the door before Harriette could knock and nearly touched his nose to his feet. “Duchess. May I extend my condolences on behalf of the household for your recent loss.”

Harriette paused. “Thank you, Dunstan.” His changed attitude made her errand more possible, but also more improper.

“I do not suppose you have seen any, er, missives for his lordship that came from a man named Franz Karl? Who might be styling himself the Duke of Lowenburg, without cause, I might add?”

Dunstan gave her a surprised look. “I did indeed, in his lordship’s mail, see a German personage addressing him.”

Prussian, Harriette would have replied had a sharp sensation not taken over her chest. The challenge had been delivered. She was too late.

“And you will be the cause of my son’s death.

” The Countess of Renwick swept out of the formal saloon, her back stiff and her face taut with anger.

“It is not enough that you have slandered his reputation and ruined him for a decent marriage. No, you had to go all the way to putting a bullet in his heart.”

Harriette’s heart cracked under the woman’s accusing stare. “I—no, I never meant?—”

“There will be no duel, Mother.” Amalie emerged from the drawing room behind her mother. She wore a lovely robe of pale violet satin and the usual length of lace at her cuffs. She made no move to hide her empty sleeve but rather stepped forward to embrace Harriette, kissing her on the cheek.

Harriette returned the welcome, pausing to study the girl’s face. “You look well. Is the new paint working?”

“Very well.” Amalie beamed. “I know it’s only been a week, but I vow I feel differently.

My appetite is returning, and my gums have stopped bleeding.

See?” She bared her teeth, and Harriette noticed that the grey line between her teeth and gums had grown lighter.

It would take a long time for all the lead to pass out of her body, but every day was a step toward health.

“I am so glad. So glad.” Harriette held her close. “Oh dear, I’m not smudging you, am I?” she asked as Amalie laid a trusting head on her shoulder.

“Not at all. You wouldn’t believe how well this works!” Amalie touched her cheek. “We went to the theater two nights ago and the candles were so bright they were melting the face paint of everyone who visited our box.” Amalie giggled. “But not mine.”

“You went out to the theater? But that’s wonderful!”

“Your Princess had a suitor who provided his box,” Amalie confided.

“Melike and Natalya came along. I was hardly a curiosity next to them! Everyone wanted to see a real live Muhammadan and a famed Russian courtesan. I could have put my muff aside and I doubt anyone would have even looked at my arm.”

Harriette pulled the girl close for another squeeze. How she wished she could stay and see Amalie flower into the young woman she was meant to be, once freed of her mother’s clutches.

“He’s upstairs,” Amalie whispered as she drew away.

Harriette nodded, her heart in her throat. Amalie moved past her to join Jock, who stood on his crutches in the foyer behind her.

“You’ll walk in the garden with me?” Amalie asked him with a shy smile. “There is that herb I told you about. The one for the Countess of Calenberg.”

Her tone was a shade too bright, her casualness studied, and Harriette paused to watch them move down the hall toward the doors to the garden.

Amalie matched her steps to Jock’s swinging gait, eagerness etched in her manner, and it was clear from Jock’s expression that he would follow wherever the lady took him, if she led him to the gates of Hell.

Harriette shook her head to clear it. Jock and Amalie? No good could come of an attachment there, a mangled former jockey and an earl’s daughter. It was as likely as the ragamuffin daughter of a fugitive foreign noblewoman winning the heart of an English earl.

She bounded up the steps of Renwick House, heedless of propriety.

Ren was in his dressing room, pacing, just as when she’d first seen him—was it mere weeks ago?

Her world had changed in that moment, shifted, and he had become the center.

He paused and met her eyes, and she stared at him for a long, wordless moment.

Then she launched herself across the room into his arms.

He caught her with one arm and reached out to brace the other hand on a nearby chair. “Rhette,” he murmured huskily, turning his face into her hair and breathing her in.

She buried her face in the silk of his morning coat. He’d bathed and changed and he smelled divine. She clutched his arms as if she could keep him on this earth by the sheer power of her will.

“You can’t meet him, Ren. You could die, and what would I do?”

“I can’t turn down the challenge, my love. It’s not groundless, you know.”

She thrilled at my love . Just an endearment, but still. “You can flee. Leave for the Continent tonight. You can get papers to Calais, and?—”

“I cannot leave my mother and sister. They depend on me.”

They did fine the years you were abroad , Harriette wanted to cry. Instead she turned her face into his neck and spoke what was on her heart. “He could kill you, and it would be my fault.”

“I chose pistols, since I am not very handy with a sword. We have set the place. It will happen tomorrow morning, and it will be over soon. I intend to delope into the air, and I’ll take whatever he deals out and hope I survive it.”

She moaned and nestled closer. His skin was warm, his muscles firm and his skin so soft. She’d explored every inch of his beautiful body in the past days. She couldn’t bear for a hair of it to be hurt.

“Who is your second? You haven’t been back long enough to know anyone in town yet.” She was groping now for anything that could delay the inevitable.

“The man who supplies the fabric for my suits, believe it or not. His name is Jeremiah Falstead. He’s grandson to a marquess, so a gentleman, for all that he’s a draper.”

A stranger. Someone she didn’t know would be watching over Ren, ensuring the pistols were functional, the correct number of paces counted off, the efforts at apology or reparations had been made and spurned. Harriette dug her fingers into his arms. “Is there no way to stop this?”

“I cannot claim you are untouched and I never sullied your virtue.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t think I could lie about it even if honor didn’t demand I be honest. These past d-days have been the best—the best of my life, Rhette.”

His slight stammer pierced her heart. She couldn’t breathe with the pain in her chest. To let him go now, when she knew what she had?—

“Ren wick !” His mother’s piercing shriek carried up the stairs. “That very unpleasant Prussian man is here and demanding to see you! Dunstan?—”

Her ladyship’s efforts to command the butler were drowned out by some very rude comments in German. Harriette shuddered.

“He can’t find me here. He might shoot you on the spot. Ren?—”

She turned up her face and he gave her a brief, hard kiss. Their last kiss. Harriette anchored her hands on either side of his face and devoured him as if she meant to draw him inside of her, where he would be safe. Lord love her, she didn’t have the strength to step away.

But he did. He took her hands and pushed them gently towards her. “You can take the servants’ stair,” he whispered. “Go, darling. I shall call on you tomorrow when it’s over.”

A heavy tread mounted the stair, with more shouting in German. Franz Karl was furious. “Harriette, you wretched harlot! You unfathomably lecherous whore ! You went straight to your lover, didn’t you? I ought to run you through as I intend to run him?—”

Harriette leapt for the window and squeezed herself and her skirts through it before Ren could reach the inside door to his dressing room.

She wriggled across the balcony to the alder tree she’d climbed mere weeks ago.

It was an easier job climbing down it than it had been climbing up, though she had to pause with every step and tear her skirts free of the clinging branches.

Fortunately, she didn’t think she had left any rents that could not be repaired.

If tomorrow morning didn’t go as planned, she would have double reason to wear mourning, either for her beloved or her betrothed.

What else could she do? The situation was intolerable.

Franz Karl was intolerable. If only there were a way she could simply make him go away.

She dropped to the ground and brushed her gloves to free them of leaves and debris.

Amalie and Jock’s voices drifted from the back of the garden in quiet conversation, and as she turned toward them, an enormous, unknown man stepped out from the garden wall toward her.

She opened her mouth to shriek, but he held up a hand to beg silence.

He wore a livery she didn’t recognize, with bright copper buttons, and he was at least twice her size.

“Your Serene Highness?” he whispered. “Harriette, Duchess of Lowenburg?”

He spoke in German as well. Franz Karl had a henchman! “Who are?—?”

She got no further as he clamped a hand over her mouth. She bit into the leather glove, but he didn’t let go. The arm that came around her back was as large as the trunk of the tree she’d just climbed down, and as strong.

“ Es tut mir sehr leid , Highness. I’m very sorry,” he whispered, pressing the fingers of his other hand against her windpipe.

Harriette fought like the devil—like her life depended on it, and Ren’s—but it was no use. She couldn’t draw breath to scream, and in moments she couldn’t draw breath at all. Her lungs burned like fire for want of air, and the world went black.