Temperance felt Charity and Alethea stiffen beside her. The way he placed himself between her and Whitfield was so deliberate, so unmistakably protective, that there could be no misunderstanding his intention.
This was not the subtle redirection of a courteous escort attempting to spare a lady embarrassment, it was something far more instinctive than that.
It was almost possessive.
Temperance had expected Harper to respond as he always did with polished restraint and civility. But this was nothing of the sort.
“Yet I arrive to find you speaking to a lady with deliberate cruelty, insulting her as though she ought to stand quietly and be grateful for your contempt. You will forgive me if I find your explanation insufficient.”
Whitfield’s composure weakened further, the color in his face deepening as the full force of Harper’s anger settled over him.
“I think,” Whitfield said, attempting a laugh, “that you are making this far more serious than it truly is.”
At that, something in Harper changed. Whitfield’s dismissive tone seemed to crack whatever little control he seemed to have left.
“More serious than it is?” Harper repeated with no civility left in his voice now, “You approached a woman under my protection, insulted her upbringing, insulted her family, implied that she should accept any offer made to her because she is somehow beneath the respect owed to every decent woman, and you believe I am overreacting?”
Whitfield glanced around uneasily, clearly aware now that nearby walkers had slowed. People were beginning to watch.
Ordinarily, Harper would have despised becoming the center of attention, Temperance knew this much about him. But at that moment, he seemed utterly indifferent to the eyes turning toward them.
“Surely,” he said, “this level of hostility is unnecessary. I was merely being candid.”
“Then allow me to be candid as well,” Harper let out a short breath that contained no humor at all.
Whitfield swallowed visibly.
“You will not address Miss Hosmer again,” Harper said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me,” Harper said, his tone unchanged but somehow even more dangerous for its steadiness. “You will not speak to her again, you will not approach her, and if I hear that you haveso much as uttered her name in the same tone you used today, then you will answer to me.”
Whitfield stared at him in disbelief.
The duke was threatening him in the middle of the park, and he did not seem to care in the slightest how improper it was.
“There is no need,” Whitfield said, though the bravado in his voice had begun to crumble, “for this sort of drama.”
‘You mistook her kindness for weakness, and her circumstances for permission to humiliate her. If I hear that you have ever so much about her again, in any company, in any form, I will consider it a personal matter and I will address it as one, and I will not feel any particular need to be subtle or measured about how I do that. Do you understand me?”
Whitfield looked at Harper for a long moment.
“Of course,” in a voice that had lost most of its prior confidence, and nodded once, and moved away with his companions, and the path was clear.
Harper stood where he was for a moment.
She watched him bring the composure back and watched the whole practiced architecture of his self-possession reassemble itself from the outside in. It took perhaps five seconds.
It was the most revealing thing she had ever seen him do.
“Are you all right?” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
He looked at her for a moment longer, in the way he had when he was checking something properly rather than just asking. Then he looked at Charity and Alethea, briefly, with the respectful acknowledgment he brought to people he considered worth acknowledging.
“I’ll be at the fountain,” he said to Temperance. “When you are ready.”
