He turned and walked back toward the fountain, and Temperance watched him go, and then turned to find Charity and Alethea already looking at her.
“Well,” Charity said.
“Don’t,” Temperance said.
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You were about to.”
They both looked at Temperance.
“Is he always like that?” Charity asked.
“Like what?”
“Like… you know,” Charity gestured vaguely in the direction Harper had gone. “That. He threatened a man in the middle of the park in front of at least twelve people, and it did not even look like he had the slightest bit of concern of who might be watching.”
“He was being protective,” Temperance said. “He feels responsible for my situation. That is all.”
“Oh, that would be oversimplifying thing, what we just witnessed was not that.”
“He got very angry,” Alethea said, quietly. “I was watching his face. Something changed in him entirely, and it was like he was a man possessed.”
“He has a temper,” Temperance said. “I have seen it before.”
“It looked far more personal than just a temper, I am telling you.”
“It was not personal,” Temperance said. “I am under his care and Whitfield was…..”
“He was possessive,” Charity said simply. “I am sorry but he was. The way he put himself between you and that man was not the movement of a guardian managing an obligation. It was something else entirely and I think you know that.”
Temperance said nothing, her friends were playing a dangerous game here and giving her hope when she should have none.
“And,” Alethea said, very gently, “I think he has feelings for you.”
“You are both being very silly,” she said. “You are reading things into a situation that are not there because you want them to be there, which is very kind of you but not helpful.”
“Temperance,” Alethea said. “You are still flushed.”
“It was a stressful situation.”
“You do not flush in stressful situations,” Alethea said. “I have known you for twenty years. I watched you face the Sisters at the nunnery at their absolute worst without so much as a change in color. This is not one sided, Temperance. Whatever you are telling yourself about it, it is not one sided.”
Temperance looked at her friends, and felt something in her chest press against something she had been keeping firmly in place for a very long time.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, and her voice came out quieter than she intended.
“Of course it matters,” Charity said, softly.
“It doesn’t,” Temperance said, “because nothing can come of it. Because I need to marry someone who can give my mother and me a stable life, and Harper is not… is not that. Whatever he feels or doesn’t feel, he is not that. And I cannot afford to let it matter.”
Neither of them said anything.
“So please,” she said, “can we just walk to the fountain.”
Charity took her arm without a word. Alethea fell into step on her other side. They walked toward the fountain, and Temperance looked straight ahead.
Her feelings were more serious than she had ever expected them to be.
