Confusion pushed her eyebrows into a frown. What did that have to do with the question she had asked? It was no answer at all, just an evasion of one. Before she could persist, as if sensing that she might, Dominic got up and dusted himself off.
“I believe it is going to rain. We should return to the house before it begins.”
He offered his hand to help her up and she hurried to put her gloves back on, realizing with a shock that she had touched him with her bare hand earlier, when she had moved to stop him from halting Harriet.
With everything I teach that girl, I seem to be losing manners and courtesies of my own.
Mortified that she had done such a thing without realizing or apologizing, she jumped to her feet without his help, blushing furiously. He did not offer his assistance again as he began towalk toward the manor, with the expectation, no doubt, that she would follow.
After all, she was not going to sit and enjoy a picnic by herself.
They did not speak as they wended through the gardens, Dominic a polite few paces ahead, but as they reached the manor and silently parted ways, Frances paused to look back.
“What rain?” she whispered, for the sky was perfectly blue, the sun shining so brightly.
Evidently, he had been so eager to avoid her question that he had fabricated bad weather. Either that, or the dark clouds had been of the metaphorical kind.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Dominic stood by his study window with a cup of tea in hand, fine rain misting against the pane. He had a feeling that Frances had not believed him, but he had scented the change of weather on the breeze, his years of solitude and involving himself in the running of the estate and the attached farms imparting the gift that all farmers seemed to possess: the ability to sense bad weather, even on the finest of days.
She must have thought I did not want to answer her questions.
A dark laugh rippled the tea in his cup as he lifted it to his lips. If she thought that, she was not entirely wrong. He had said too much at the end of that picnic, and he could not fathom why. Even now, it made him uneasy to think of everything he had wanted to say, things he did not like to talk about. And he had skirted far too close to speaking of Althea.
He swallowed his tea too quickly, the hot liquid burning the back of his throat, as a knock at the door snapped his attention from the rain.
“Who is it?” he called out.
Is it Frances?
He thought of what had almost happened the last time she was in this study with him, alone. That, in turn, conjured a chain of visions: her surprised face when he had taken the cherry blossom from her hair; her beautiful eyes and rosy cheeks as they had danced together; the feel of her soft hand gripping his rough one with admirable determination; how alarmingly nice it had felt to hold her for just a moment, to be that close to her, in this very room.
“It is me,” a different voice replied, whipping such memories straight out of his mind.
He could not let his daughter see him daydreaming like a schoolboy.
“Come in,” he said sternly.
The door creaked open and Harriet shuffled in like a nun on her way to Vespers, the very picture of contrition. Although, ‘affectation’ might have been more accurate, putting on a show of regret that she did not necessarily feel.
“I am sorry for walking away from the picnic,” she said, her head down. “I am sorry that I ruined such a lovely occasion.”
Dominic leaned back against the windowsill. “It was not ruined, but I accept your apology.” He paused. “No one was trying to upset you, Harriet. I only want what is best for you, as does Frances.”
“I know.” Harriet raised her head, her eyes so dramatically forlorn that Dominic had to bite back a laugh. “I have been reading some more of the books that Frances gave me. They were not all as atrociously dull as the first few. And there was a pamphlet in there, written more recently by an anonymous lady of theton. Her account of society’s scrutiny, along with Frances’, made me realize how foolish I was.”
Dominic set down his teacup. “It is not foolish to want to be yourself, Harriet, but itisfoolish to think you can overthrow an institution with a few acts of defiance.”
“I do not even want to overthrow it,” Harriet admitted with a wry laugh, as she perched on the armrest of the comfortable chair by the fire. “I just want to be part of it. There is just… so much that I do not know, and I was frustrated, and I suppose I thought that I could get away with that lack of knowledge if I just did things differently.”
It is my fault.He wanted to confess it, but the words would not come. Besides, it was nothing she did not already know. She was so far behind the rest of society’s debutantes because he had not thought it important, because he had not had the means to knowwhat to do with her, because he had kept his distance from her for far too long.
It had been easier that way, for the both of them, until it was not. At least, he had thought it was easier for them both, but he had been doubting that long before Frances arrived to be the someone that his daughter had clearly needed.
“Frances says you are doing very well,” he said instead. “She seems pleased with your progress, and… I am pleased too.”
Harriet’s face brightened, some of the contrite façade slipping. “Seeing as I have been doing so well, then, do you think you might facilitate another lesson for Frances and me?” She kicked out her legs with barely concealed excitement. “It cannot be done without your assistance.”
