“And me,” she said. “Marrying?”
“You are twenty-five years old and unmarried,” he said. “That, too, affects…”
“I am perfectly content,” she said.
“Nevertheless….”
“I don’t want a husband.” She said it clearly. “I have never wanted a husband. It is my choice, and it has always been my choice, and I see no reason why…”
He cut her off again, and she realized that he seemed to have made a habit of doing that.
“It is no longer your choice,” he said.
Temperance looked at the Duke of Sedgewick, appalled at the audacity.
His tone had brought back some unwanted memories for her.
She thought of the nunnery. Of being told, every day, in a hundred different ways large and small, what she was permittedto do and who she was permitted to be and how far she was permitted to go.
“I beg your pardon?” she said, now suddenly calm but her anger was simmering inside of her.
“You are a young woman of no independent income, living in a house that belongs to my estate,” he said. “A suitable marriage would provide you with security, with independence, and with a household of your own. It would also resolve the question of your future without placing it indefinitely at the mercy of my generosity, which is, I imagine, not an arrangement that appeals to you.”
She stared at him.
As annoying as he was being, she could not deny that he was right.
That was the worst of it and she hated it.
“The animals,” she said, after a moment, “are staying in the house.”
“They are not and I am not interested in negotiating with you.”
“They have lived in this house for two years.”
“Miss Hosmer, the animals will be housed in the stables. That is not a negotiation.”
“You cannot simply arrive in someone’s home after two years of absence and begin rearranging it according to your preferences,” she said, letting some of her anger show finally.
“This is not someone’s home,” he said. “It is my estate. And I have not been absent. Mind you. I have been managing the affairs of my title and preparing for the considerable task of bringing this estate into order.” He looked at her steadily.
“I understand this is an adjustment and I am prepared to be patient. But I will not be argued out of what is necessary.”
Temperance could hardly believe what she was hearing.
She had always expected an heir to arrive, but never had she assumed that he would be this demanding.
She looked at Joseph, who caught her eye and looked away immediately, in the manner of a child who had been very well taught that it was not his place to be caught looking.
She thought of the boy in the garden the night before, and how different those two versions of the same child were, and something in her chest contracted quietly.
She looked back at Harper, as though she was suddenly privy to some important fact of his personality.
“You are very certain,” she said, “that you know what is necessary.”
“In matters of this kind,” he said, “yes.”
“In matters of this kind,” she repeated. “Huh.”
