Harper was openly threatening them now. It was not a skill that he particularly liked to boast about, but he was rather adept at it.
“It was nothing, Your Grace,” Alford said, trying his hardest to save face. “You are taking things to heart.”
“I would also encourage you,” Harper continued, “not to approach her again this evening. Or at any future occasion at which we might find ourselves in the same room.” He held Alford’s gaze for a moment longer than was comfortable.
“I trust I am being clear?”
Alford said nothing. His companion had already excused himself, and dashed away to the furthest corner of the room. Harper looked at him for one more moment.
“Y... yes... I... well, I am terribly sorry for misspeaking.”
Harper did not bother to stick around for the apology. Instead he turned and walked back across the room back to Albina.
She was where he had left her, beside the window, watching the room with an alert and interested expression. She looked at him when he returned, and something in his expression made her own become slightly more careful.
“Well,” she said.
“You were right,” he sighed.
Albina appeared to consider making something of this and decided to simply nod. “What did he say?”
“Enough.” Harper picked up his glass from the table where he had left it and drank from it without tasting it. “He will not be approaching her again.”
“What did you do?” the question was laced in curiosity.
Certainly, a few other guests had picked up on the tension and many eyes were on the two of them.
“Some men do not speak the language of politeness,” Harper replied. “You must remind them of their place, and their manners.”
Albina smiled at that, a Cheshire cat-like smile.
“Oh, my. Well, this is how a man ought to act,” she said with an obvious note of pride in her voice.
Then she looked across the room to where Temperance was standing with her friends, talking, her head bent slightly toward Charity. She was not looking their way but was laughing at something.
“She doesn’t know,” Albina said to which he shook his head, “You’re not going to tell her?”
Harper was quiet for a moment.
“There is nothing to tell,” Harper said. “I don’t particularly enjoy engaging in idle chatter. The matter is handled.”
“Ah, but I can read people rather well. You feel guilty,” she said.
“I feel,” Harper said, carefully, “that I made an error in judgement regarding Alford, and that the consequences of that error were borne by someone who deserved better than to be subjected to them.”
“That is a very thorough way of describing guilt, and you could just state it simply. There is nothing to be embarrassed about it.”
He said nothing, but he was beginning to learn that the woman had more wisdom than she put on.
Albina turned back to the room and across the ballroom, Temperance had accepted another glass from a footman and was gesturing with it as she said something that made her friend laugh.
“She will be all right,” Albina said, “my daughter is not so fragile as you expect. She has had a great deal of practice at that as well.”
Harper looked at Temperance across the room. She still had not glanced in his direction, and he found he did not particularly want her as it seemed like something that ought to be left alone.
“I know,” he said, without any of the certainty he usually carried, suggested that this was precisely what concerned him.
Albina said nothing. She sipped her champagne and watched the room and allowed the silence to sit where it was, which was, Harper was beginning to understand, one of the more useful things she did.
