It began tostorm sometime in the night.
Elias thought it somehow appropriate, as though the unresolved tension, the utter unbearable heat, had spiraled out into the universe and cracked above them in the way that it had not here on the earth.
Every rumble of thunder, every flash of light, hit him like vindication. It allowed him to eventually sleep. And he was pleased to hear it still raging when he woke again, in the hours that must have been morning, even without the sun.
“So, the choice really comes down to the day before or the day after the funeral,” Harcourt was saying to him, from his customary chair in the parlor, seemingly unbothered by his own wet boots or the flashing treachery outside. “It is an unseemly way to juxtapose a wedding, but here we are, anyhow.”
“Those are the only days available?” Elias responded, frowning.
“Unless you want to wait another week,” Mr. Harcourt replied, giving a dainty sip to his tea as the walls shook with the force of a thunderclap. “Do you?”
“I do not,” said Elias.
“Perhaps we ought to call for Miss French and ask her opinion?” Mr. Harcourt suggested, raising his brows. “She is the bride, after all.”
Elias lifted his own teacup, pressing it to his lips to hide his grin. “Harriet is indisposed this morning,” he said. “She is not feeling quite herself.”
In truth, she was sulking and had not come to breakfast, just like the morning after he’d shared port with her in her room. She was likely planning her revenge, her barbed reaction to his withholding of the pleasures they’d both wanted.
Why was that so unbelievably delightful to him?
He couldn’t wait to see what she’d come up with.
“Are you certain?” Harcourt asked, his eyes flashing an unsettling silver blue from the next ripple of light. “I thought I saw her this morning, out in the greenhouse.”
“What?” said Elias, frowning and dropping the teacup back to its saucer with a clatter. “The glass greenhouse? In this weather?”
“I might have been mistaken,” Harcourt said quickly. “My eyes have been playing tricks on me today. I also thought I saw a pig in the foyer when I came in.”
Elias sighed, pushing himself to his feet. “I will be right back.”
Evidently, there were two ladies he needed to wrangle back to safety today. He must have left the bedroom door open.
He didn’t think Peach was brave enough to scale the stairs on her own, small as she was, but evidently, he’d been mistaken. He thought he’d have to search for her and chase her down, like one of the fools at the harvest festival in the mud ring, but instead, the next boom of thunder sent her little, pink body barreling out of a shadowed corner and into his legs, her squealing voice ringing out in alarm.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” he muttered, leaning down to pick her up and holding her to his chest as he walked to the nearest window and peered out, frowning at the greenhouse while he stroked her head. “Is Hattie out there? Do you see her?”
Peach did not answer.
She did startle again, though, as the front doors slapped open, pushed to their limit by the gale of wind that followed them indoors and the duet of squealing feminine voices that followed.
Elias turned to see Ruby and Hattie, drenched to the very bone and flinging themselves against the wood in an effort to get the doors shut. He sighed, stepping forward to assist, only to watch them wrangle it in good order, using their backs in what appeared to be a choreographed two-step until the entryway was sealed again.
“The. Damned. Wind.” Ruby panted, giggling a bit and pushing dark strands of sodden hair out of her face. “I had forgotten!”
“I hadn’t,” Hattie said softly, her eyes on Elias.
Ruby followed her gaze, smirking at him standing there, holding his quarry. “You stole my pig,” she said, pushing away from the door and tossing her wet hair so that droplets showered both Elias and Peach, the latter of whom reveled in the speckling, waving her pink head back and forth as though in invitation for more. “I shan’t forget that. I’m off to find towels, Hattie, my love.”
“All right,” said Hattie, not moving from her place against the door, a position that Elias could not help but find all too familiar in the wake of the previous evening.
“Harriet,” he said softly, drawing a step closer as he took in the effect of her dress, plastered to her like a translucent second skin. “You should not have been outside in that.”
“You,” she managed, swallowing to clear the dryness in her throat, “are carrying a pig.”
He frowned, looking down at Peach, who looked back up to him, guileless. “Yes.”
Hattie was smiling when he returned to her gaze. Diamond-sharp droplets of water fell off the burnished copper of her wet hair, beading and gleaming down the column of her throat.
