“Where are you going?” she asked. “In three weeks?”
“I’ve a place on a merchant vessel; we’re headed to America.”
Her eyes went wide. “America!” A world away. “I would not have thought we’d be very welcome there.”
“They’re not so bad, now that the war is over and there is a need for trade on the wind,” he said.
“It’s a long journey.” Long enough that he’d forget her.
“It’s a good one for men like me, looking to buy my own vessel and make my own fortune.”
“Well,” she said, the wistfulness returned. “Sounds like you’re headed for an adventure. I hope someday it brings you back to Highbury.”
He watched her carefully. “Do you?”
“Though, if I may,” she forced a teasing tone she did not feel, “I recommend doing away with this habit of lurking on balconies and startling unsuspecting ladies.”
“It’s been a successful habit tonight, Miss Bates.”
She laughed. “Don’t fret, Mr. Harris. I imagine you’ll have no difficulty whatsoever getting American ladies to speak to you.” She cast a glance back at the ballroom, the windows bright with golden light, revealing Mrs. Bates searching the crowd—for Hetty, no doubt. “In fact, I’m afraid if I speak any more to you tonight, your adventure will be cut very short, as my parents will think us more than passing strangers.”
“Nonsense,” he retorted. “We haven’t even been introduced.”
“My point exactly,” she quipped, knowing she had to leave, because she was enjoying this too much. Enjoyinghimtoo much. Turning for the ballroom, she whispered, “It was very nice not to meet you, Mr. Harris.”
Hetty made it only a few steps before he called after her. “Miss Bates.”
She knew she shouldn’t stop. Shouldn’t look. But he was so tall and handsome and alive, and she couldn’t resist.
When she did, it was to find his gaze on hers, steady and dark. “As I did not have a chance to secure a dance tonight…”
Her heart stuttered in her chest. “Yes?”
“… perhaps you would let me call on you?”
“You’re leaving,” she said, without thinking. Too eager for thinking. “You said three weeks.”
Bright white teeth flashed in the light, dangerous and tempting. “Much can happen in three weeks, Miss Bates.”
Too much, Hetty thought. She should say no. She should forget about this beautiful young man and his beautiful smile and all the promises she already wished he’d make to her.
She was to marry by summer, and he’d be on a boat then, headed across the ocean, to the other side of the world.
But much could happen in three weeks.
And the promise of that was suddenly enough.
“You may call on me,” she said, delighting in the way his lips curved, pure satisfaction. And then she added, “If you can secure a proper introduction.”
Edward did secure a proper introduction, arriving at the vicarage the next morning with Mr. Weston in tow, having no doubt been coerced into fabricating a necessary conversation about the needs of the Highbury church, and adding, “Oh, and may I introduce my wife’s godson, Mr. Harris?”
Reverend Bates was more than happy for the introduction, as were his wife and daughters, the youngest immediately sensing a game afoot and doing what sisters have done for eternity—providing welcome parental distraction while their sibling found reason to head into the gardens with a newly introduced gentleman.
After that afternoon, Edward found his way to the vicarage daily, always with a fresh reason for it. He offered help in the churchyard, to oil the gears of the bell tower, and at one point even arrived with a parcel of lamb (he’d somehow convinced the butcher that the vicarage was on his way). But it did not take long for everyone in the Bates family to see that Edward’s motiveswere not altogether pure. Indeed, as Jane pointed out one evening while drying a piece of crockery, his motives were Hetty.
Not that the Bateses seemed to mind such a thing. It was Hetty who had to remind them again and again that Edward wasn’t forever. He was leaving in three weeks, and then two weeks, and then one week, and his motives were irrelevant. He would soon be on a ship, across an ocean, around the world. And Hetty was not invited.
It did not matter that her family had decided to like him.
