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Gee nodded. ‘Sadly, I think her understanding might have been different to yours.’

‘So it would seem. We danced three times last evening, and I told her I would call. I don’t think she can be labouring under any misapprehension as to the purpose of my call.’

Gee fiddled with a handkerchief. ‘No. I don’t think she was.’

‘I see.’ Granville placed his hands on his thighs, sighed, and heaved himself out of the chair. ‘Thank you for your frankness. I shall trouble you no further.’

He walked from the room, from the house, and headed directly for his club. He needed a drink. If he spoke in anger, he would likely say things he would later regret.

When she heard the outer door close, Harriet hurried to the parlour and peered around the door.

‘Has he gone?’

Gee rolled her eyes. ‘Of course he has gone.’

‘Well, you never can tell with Granville. He’s wily.’ She settled herself beside Hart on the sofa. ‘How did he take my absence?’

‘With good grace. He did, however, make it abundantly clear that he knew you were avoiding his proposal.’

Harriet groaned. ‘So, he was definitely going to propose?’

‘Of course he was!’ Gee screeched. ‘And next time you have a thoroughly decent man wanting to marry you, do your own dirty work. Lying to him was truly awful.’

Harriet’s already substantial sense of guilt grew a little deeper. ‘Gee, I’m sorry, but it was beyond me.’

Hart took hold of her hand. ‘Haryo, why don’t you want to marry Granville?’

‘You mean apart from the obvious?’

Hart frowned.

‘He is in love with Aunt Bess. Would you marry someone that you knew, categorically, was in love with someone else? How can that be a recipe for a good marriage?’

Saying the words aloud hurt. She wished she could make them understand. Wished things were different, but they were not.

‘Darling,’ Gee said in her maternal tone. ‘His relationship with Aunt Bess was years ago. They are nothing more than friends now and have been for some time. If you paid any attention, you would see that. He loves Bess as a friend, not a lover. He adores you. He wants you.’

‘But he doesn’t love me.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Harriet. You, of all people, mooning about looking for love? Where is my fiery, intelligent sister who gobbles men up for breakfast? What is wrong with you?’

Anger rippled through her, surprising her, making her sharp. ‘There is nothing wrong with me. I’ve simply never been the one that people loved. You were the firstborn, Gee. Everyone loved you. Hart, you were the first-born son, and a beautiful baby too, so of course everyone loved you. I’m just me. Simply plain old Harriet. Stuck in the middle. Everyone was disappointed I was not a boy, added to that, I’m not slender and beautiful, I’m too clever for my own good, and I have little eyes. I know this because Miss Trimmer said so.’ She paused to draw breath and took in the shocked look on her siblings’ faces. She lifted her chin and continued. ‘I’m tired of not being loved, so I can state with absolute certainty that if and when I marry, it will be to someone who loves me.’ She pressed a hand to her chest. ‘Just me. No-one else.’

She stopped as tears were threatening, and her siblings were looking at her as though they too may weep. They stared at each other in shocked silence.

‘Well, you asked,’ she muttered and exited the room before she made an even bigger fool of herself.

Harriet arrived at Portland House. She hadn’t really intended to pay a call, but she could not think of anywhere else to go where she wouldn’t be required to dissemble.

Eliza looked delighted to see her and came to take both her hands. ‘Dearest Haryo. How lovely to see you! Do come in.’

The drawing room was unexpectedly busy, but then Harriet realised Eliza would have had a lot of callers after the ball. There were enough expensive blooms about the place to suggest Eliza had been quite a hit.

‘I take it you have had callers aplenty?’

She laughed and nodded. ‘And what about you? Have you had a caller?’

Lord. Even Eliza was expecting her to have accepted an offer from Granville. ‘I have, but I hid in the library and made Gee and Hart lie and say I had gone for a walk.’