“‘A.Mallet, gentleman scholar of Cambridge.’”Anger flared again.“How dare he?How dare he make final arrangements without me?Only a man would violate a partnership in so odious a manner.I had the right to decide.I alone.”She chose to forget his message, forget that he said the final decision was hers to make.
She had no issue with him putting his name on it and leaving hers off or even with taking it to the printer, but he ought to have spoken with her first.The more she considered what he had done, the angrier she became.The beast.How dare he take it to a printer without consulting me!
Harley had left without waiting for a reply.She knew, without a doubt, that he was in league with the bounder.She sat to pen a reply anyway.
* * *
“She was there,all right.Fair put out she looked when I handed her the parcel.”
“Put out?Did she open it?”
“I put it in her hand like you said.You never said to watch her open it.She’s there.”Harley shifted a large crock and two smaller ones in his arms while he talked.“She has the package.Seemed to me like she expected a different messenger.”
A long and colorful string of Portuguese curses met Harley’s impudent remark.
“He has you there, I believe, Andrew.”Jamie didn’t pretend not to hear.He lifted an eyebrow helpfully and liberated one of Harley’s crocks.
Harley grinned at Andrew.“Haven’t heard that language in a while.Would make a sailor blush.One more thing, it looks like the lady is moving.”
“Moving?Where?”Andrew felt every sense go on alert.
“Don’t know.House stood empty.She opened the door herself.”Harley kept speaking, but he followed when Jamie gestured him back to the kitchen.“Boxes piled by the door—a fair number of them.”
She opened the door herself.“No servants?”Andrew was forced to follow.
“Looked like they all ran off.Bloody deserters.”Harley threw the words over his shoulder.
“Tell me, Harley,” Jamie asked, “what are these delicious smelling containers you brought back with you, and what tavern did you rescue them from?”
Andrew followed in silence, his face thunderous.Dinner did little to improve his expression.Jamie’s amusing stories did less and neither did the bottle of French wine Harley had miraculously produced.She was leaving.He would send her notes to her, of course he would, but that would be the end.
Jamie savored the last of the wine, and Andrew scowled into the dregs of his glass when a loud knock echoed through the house.
Andrew strode to the door himself and threw it open.
“Damn.Couldn’t come herself?”Georgiana wasn’t the only one who hoped for a different messenger.A startled and wary William handed him a message.She must have sent him hard on Harley’s heels.
“C’mon to th’kitchen.May as well be comfortable while he carries on.”Andrew ignored Harley’s impudent orders to the footman and Jamie’s avid curiosity, his attention riveted on the paper in his hands.
Mr.Mallet,
It isn’t for you to dissolve our partnership, particularly after the high-handed and completely unacceptable manner in which you appropriated my work.I will wait upon you tomorrow afternoon to resolve these matters.
Lady Georgiana Hayden
Andrew felta grin spread across his face and then fade.She was in a royal snit.
You’re very welcome for the anxious and tedious efforts I have made on your behalf, Your high-and-mighty Ladyship.
Wretched woman.The final disposition of the work rested with her decision.He was pretty sure he had told her that.
He figured he probably deserved her temper, though.He overstepped when he got the book printed.Glenaire was right about that.Still, he had hoped for a chance to explain.
He read and reread the final sentence.“I will wait upon you tomorrow.”She was in a snit, and she was coming to make war.Andrew spent eleven years learning how to make war.She would come to make war on his home ground.Joy rose in a mighty torrent—joy in the steely control of a man determined to have his way.
When he sat back down to his dinner, his eyes had a marshal gleam.
“Prepare the camp for battle, Harley.We shall have a visitor tomorrow.”Settle matters, we will.
