The Major Meets His Match

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A reminiscent smile played about his lips. He’d really enjoyed the thrust and parry of the verbal fencing match they’d fought as they’d danced round the events of their first meeting. Right up to the end, that was, he thought, his smile fading, when she’d lashed out rather too cruelly.

Not that he could blame her, he supposed. He’d been unforgivably rude. Or so she must have thought. It was just that he’d thought he’d glimpsed the same sort of...hurt and rebellion, and desire to shock that he had lurking in his own heart, in her behaviour. Had thought he’d found a kindred soul. That she was doing what he was doing. Pretending to do as he’d been told, whilst making damn sure everyone thought he was completely ineligible.

He’d thought the way she dressed was due to a rebellion against what society expected of her. The way he’d rebelled when the lawyers had told him his best course of action would be to come to Town and find a respectable bride as quickly as he could, to ensure the succession. As if there was no worth in him apart from the blood which they wanted him to pass on to the next generation.

Instead of which, she’d admitted she just had no clue about fashion. Or taste.

He groaned as he thought of the sheen of tears he’d told himself he’d imagined, at one point during the evening. She’d made a swift recovery, but there was no doubt in his mind now that he’d hurt her. Rather badly, to judge from the way she’d lashed out at him towards the end.

He couldn’t blame her. Not when his own jibes must have seemed so cruel, to her.

Which left him no choice.

He was going to have to swallow his pride and tender an apology.

* * *

And so, the next day, he presented himself at Tarbrook House at the correct hour for paying visits, armed with a posy of spring flowers.

Though the room was full of visitors, Lady Harriet was sitting on her own, on a chair by the window, from which she was looking out on to whatever it was that was at the rear of the house. The other gentlemen who’d called were all clustering round another girl, who was wearing a gown almost identical to Lady Harriet’s. Only wearing it rather better. And the aunt, Lady Tarbrook, was keeping her beady eye on her own daughter’s visitors.

Lady Harriet gave a start when he stopped by her chair, so engrossed had she been by whatever she’d been watching through the window.

He craned his neck to follow her line of sight. But all he could see was a courtyard containing an ornamental fountain which sprayed water a few inches into the air.

So, she had been lost in thought, rather than admiring the view.

‘A penny for them? Your thoughts?’

‘They are not worth that much,’ she replied tartly. ‘And anyway—’

‘You would rather walk barefoot along Piccadilly than share them with me,’ he finished for her.

Her face turned a charming shade of pink.

Which was, to his way of thinking, the perfect moment to present her with the posy.

‘Oh,’ she said looking down at them with surprise. And then up at him with a touch of suspicion. And then, being the girl she was, she asked the question no other delicately nurtured female would ask.

‘Why have you brought me these? Why have you come at all, for that matter?’

‘Well,’ he said, reaching for a nearby chair and placing it closer to hers, ‘it is the done thing, you know, for a gentleman to pay a morning call upon a lady with whom he has danced the night before.’

‘Yes, I know that,’ she snapped.

‘But you did not think that I would pay any attention to the conventions,’ he said, flicking aside his coat tails as he sat down. ‘I can see why you might think that, given the way we have...dealt with each other up to now. But the truth is...’ He shifted, suddenly finding the chair rather hard and unforgiving.

‘Oh, yes, by all means, let us always speak the truth to one another,’ she said waspishly.

‘The truth is,’ he continued, leaning in closer, ‘that I owe you an apology.’

She couldn’t have looked more surprised if he’d leaned in and kissed her. Which he could easily do, since nobody was paying them any attention. The focus of the other visitors was all on the insipid, younger, paler copy of Lady Harriet.

‘I was rude and hurtful to you last night, about your—’ His eyes flicked to her gown. Back up to her hair.

‘But truthful,’ she said. ‘And completely correct.’

‘But it wasn’t kind of me to say so—’

‘No,’ she said, holding up one hand to stop him. ‘It made me see that I needed to do something, instead of wondering why Kitty always looks so much better than me. Your criticism made me go to my aunt and ask her, outright, what I was doing wrong. And why she hadn’t stopped me before. And it was...’ She paused and rolled her lips together as though trying hard to find the right words.

‘Yes, I did wonder why your sponsor would let you go about looking so...’ He trailed off. ‘If she really cared about you, that is.’

‘Oh, she does,’ said Lady Harriet with some vehemence. ‘More than anybody else. But since she brought me to London she has had to be so strict with me about so many other things that she had not the heart, she told me, to ruin the one pleasure I had left. That is, shopping. And anyway, she said that since I have rank and fortune on my side she didn’t think it would matter if I looked just a little eccentric in my own choice of clothes, just to start with. And besides...’

‘Besides,’ he urged her, when she appeared to realise that she ought not to be rattling on in such an indiscreet fashion with a man she hardly knew. ‘Go on, you might as well tell me the besides, now that I know the rest.’

‘I don’t suppose there is any harm in it,’ she admitted. ‘Since it’s only that my aunt was so touched that I was trying to model myself on Kitty, because I have always thought her so pretty and feminine, that she could never quite bring herself to stop me.’

‘She is not that pretty,’ he said, glancing just once at Lady Harriet’s cousin.

‘I thought you promised to be truthful,’ said Lady Harriet with a frown.

‘I am being truthful.’

‘No, you are not. Because Kitty is pretty. Even Papa notices and tells her so whenever she visits. When he has never said—’

She broke off, and looked down at the posy she was clutching tightly in her lap.

‘Well, he should have done,’ he said irritably. ‘Because you are much prettier than her.’

Her head flew up, her eyes widening in what might have been shock, which was swiftly changing to annoyance.

‘No, truthfully,’ he said, laying his hands just briefly over hers. ‘She is just... Whereas you are...’

‘Yes?’ She tilted her head on one side, her eyes narrowing in challenge.

‘That is, she looks to me the kind of girl who blushes and simpers and giggles when a man asks her to dance,’ he said with derision. ‘And you should not be trying to emulate either her looks, or her behaviour.’

‘That is your opinion, is it?’

‘Yes. You are...well, when I think of the way you looked in the park, bringing Lucifer under control, and then dashing to my side to see if I was hurt...that is how I wish you could look all the time. You ought to be wearing vibrant colours, to go with your vibrant character. And you should positively never crimp your lovely hair into silly curls that dangle round your face like this.’ He reached out and flicked one ringlet.

‘You are abominable.’

‘To tell you how to make the most of yourself? When nobody else will?’

‘I have already told you, Aunt Susan and I have had a little chat and, when next we go shopping, things are going to be different.’

‘No more dresses that belong on a frippery little schoolgirl, I hope. No more of those silly frills and flounces.’

‘For two pins,’ she said, her eyes flashing fire, ‘I would deck myself from head to toe in frills, just to annoy you.’

‘If only you didn’t have too much sense,’ he reminded her.

‘Well, yes, there is that. No sense in cutting off my nose to spite my face, is there?’

‘None whatever. It is far too charming a nose. And anyway, I’m really not worth it.’

A frown flitted across her face.

‘Oh, come now. Surely your aunt has already warned you not to set your sights on me.’

A rather mulish look came to her mouth.

‘Actually, she thinks you might do very well for me. Seeing as how I’m not likely to attract a man with higher standards.’

‘I thought you said she cared for you.’

‘Oh, she does. But then...’ She shrugged, as though the action was self-explanatory.

‘And you said your own father never once told you that you are pretty,’ he growled. ‘What is wrong with them all?’

Lady Harriet shrugged again. ‘My parents were content with the three sons they already had, I suppose. They didn’t really know what to do with a daughter.’

‘That’s family for you,’ he said with feeling. ‘My own father never had a good word to say about me, either.’

A stricken look came across her face. She reached out and touched his hand, just briefly, as though understanding, completely, what it felt like to be the runt of the litter.

For a moment, they sat there in silence. For some reason, he couldn’t take his eyes from her hand, though she had withdrawn it and tucked it underneath the posy now, as though she couldn’t believe she had lost control of it so far as to reach out and touch him.