The Rogue’s Christmas Gift (Wicked Widows League #24)

Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

A weary Harrison ran his hand down his face. He never wanted to look at another damn number again. His account ledgers were spread out across his desk, he and Richmore on either side glaring at page after page. The numbers made absolutely no sense to Harrison at all, but he was thankful for his friend’s help.

Harrison did not want to be a burden to anyone—not even a wife for that matter—but staring at the state of his finances made Harrison want to accept any offer of assistance.

He had ignored his estate and his mother’s spending habits for so long that now he was in fear of losing everything that was not entailed.

“I really wish I could assist you, but with my other investments and our growing family …” Richmore peered up at him from across the large wooden desk.

“You’re helping me resolve my own negligence. There is no need for you to give me money. Besides, you’ve already assisted McCloud. I couldn’t accept your help.” Harrison shook his head before he fell down in his chair unceremoniously. “Focus on your growing family. You’ll have a new addition soon.” Harrison couldn’t stop the smile that spread across his lips.

Both Richmore and Winnie deserved happiness, and although he was a tad bit envious, another godchild did sound appealing.

Richmore had come to the aid of their friend Mac McCloud, who had been about to lose his abolitionist printer earlier that year. Harrison could not possibly ask his friend to aid him as well.

“At least write to Aberdeen. I know he would gladly lend you the blunt,” Richmore said, mentioning their other friend, the Marquess of Aberdeen.

Aberdeen was currently at his home in Wales with his wife and children. Harrison wouldn’t dare write to him and beg for money.

Harrison shook his head. “No. I cannot impose on my friends’ generosity. Besides, Aberdeen has more children than you.” He waved his fingers at Richmore. “Surely you have to be able to provide for those little people.”

Richmore laughed at him. “You don’t want to impose on your friends, but you’ll marry someone you clearly don’t love to save a title that you didn’t want to inherit?”

Thinking over his friend’s words, Harrison tilted his head to the side. “That sounds a little pathetic when you put it that way.” Harrison settled back in his chair. “What do you expect me to do? The only woman I’ve ever loved refuses to marry me. Therefore, I have no choice but to move on and be gloriously unhappy without her.”

He kneaded his fingers across his forehead. His head was pounding from staring at numbers for hours. Harrison found it rather difficult to decipher the dancing numbers in his own ledgers. It had been a grueling sennight for him. He hadn’t spoken to Kat since he’d rushed out of her study seven nights earlier, broken-hearted and defeated.

“Perhaps you should confess your undying love to Madame Delcour?—”

“I’ve done that,” Harrison said, cutting his friend off.

He’d confessed his love to Kat a thousand times and not once did she ever believe him. The hard truth that Harrison was suddenly realizing was that perhaps she never loved him at all.

“Very well.” Richmore pointed a thick finger at him. “Perhaps you should tell her that you do not plan to strip away her independence and that you respect her. I find that women like her and my wife appreciate that bit of information,” Richmore suggested.

Groaning, Harrison peered over at his friend. “Really, what do you take me for?” he asked. “Some green boy who’s never been with a woman?”

He didn’t need his friends' advice on how to court the woman he loved. What Harrison needed was funds, and to wallow in his own heartbreak for as long as humanly possible.

“I take you for a man who would not turn away from the woman he claims to love more than anything on this earth.” Richmore sat down in one of the wooden armchairs in front of Harrison’s desk. “Obviously, there is more going on than her unwillingness to relinquish her freedom.”

Harrison pulled himself forward, leaning his forearms on the desk. “Has Winnie said something?”

He couldn’t comprehend another reason that Kat would have not to marry him. He was astutely aware that she valued her independence. How could she not? At a time where women weren’t allowed many liberties, she was a woman in charge of her own finances and freedom.

Kat was unlike any woman of the ton. She was fiercely independent and had a sharper mind for business than any gentlemen Harrison had ever met. The woman wasn’t afraid of anything, a simple fact proven by how she’d turned her entire life around after her family disowned her.

After the nature of Harrison and Kat’s relationship was revealed to their perspective families, each father took liberties to protect themselves and not their children.

Richmore shook his head. “My wife has not informed me of anything,” he said. “I simply believe that if the two of you were as attached as you have made me believe, your dear Madame Delcour would grasp the opportunity to marry you.”

Harrison allowed his friend’s words to permeate his mind, wondering if Richmore was right and that Kitty was hiding something from him.

Tired of speaking about his abysmal relationship with Kat, Harrison picked up one of the ledgers and placed it in front of Richmore. “Can anything be done?”

His friend released a long sigh that told Harrison everything he needed to know about the state of his affairs. “I only see two options available to you. Allow your friends to help you, or marry, but perhaps your solicitor could give you better advice than I.” Richmore stood, stretching his large frame. “Whatever you do, just promise me that you will not do something ridiculous like marry Lady Selena.” Richmore shook his body, faking a shiver.

He couldn’t help but to laugh at his friend’s reaction to Lady Selena. It was comical to think that his mother would think he would actually marry the woman.

A knock on the door interrupted their laughter. His butler, Wilson, entered.

“My lord, Lady Selena Davenport is requesting an audience,” Wilson said, his gray brows raised high in question.

“Here?” He snapped up abruptly, nearly falling out of his chair. “Lady Selena is here?” Harrison asked, not quite understanding why the woman would risk her reputation—what little she had remaining—to pay him a visit. He could not fathom it.

It was a strange turn of events, especially with his mother finally away from London. Now the woman she wanted him to marry was waiting in his parlor.

Wonderful.

Harrison stepped from behind his desk, suddenly feeling like he should flee his own home. Perhaps that was exactly what being married to Lady Selena would be like for him. Constantly running from his own home to avoid his mother and wife.

He’d dreamed of a different life for himself, one without a title and with Kat by his side. A life filled with love, and four or five children, with their mother’s hazel eyes and their father’s red hair.

“While you speak with your visitor, I must go and retrieve my wife and son from Pleasure House,” Richmore said, walking toward the open study door. “Don’t do anything rash while I’m in Sussex. If you change your mind about Aberdeen, write to him immediately.”

Harrison followed his friend out of his study, wishing that he could accept help, but this was his fault. He’d ignored his responsibility for far too long. This was something he had to figure out for himself. If Harrison had to marry a woman he did not love, then so be it.

“Have a happy Christmas,” he said, patting Richmore on the back. “Allow my godson some Christmas pudding.”

Richmore threw his large blonde head back and laughed. “He has acquired a fondness for pudding. I blame Winnie’s aunt and mother.

“One should be allowed some indulgence at Christmas,” he said, parting ways as his friend retrieved his greatcoat, hat and cane from the butler.

As a boy, Harrison had loved everything about Christmas. There wasn’t one thing he disliked about that particular time of year. Snow, pudding, the small gifts his mother would give him and his sister, and Kat. All his best memories were with Kat at Christmas. Now they would never have another together.

Before Harrison’s family inherited the earldom, every Christmas was spent happily with Kat’s family, the Smiths. They spent hours visiting, cooking, or decorating. Kat would play the piano forte for hours, and he would sit by her side, turning the pages. They often sat by the fire telling stories of past Christmases or how his parents met in Scotland.

Once his father was elevated in station, everything changed. His father abandoned his business and demanded that Harrison end his connection with Kat. His mother started spending obsessively, intent on looking the part of a countess. Harrison’s sister abandoned her husband for a lover and sent her children away to school.

His once close, loving family transformed into prominent members of the ton right in front of Harrison’s eyes. It was heartbreaking.

He missed that version of his parents, of himself. Once he’d been a carefree boy on the verge of manhood with dreams of being a garden designer. His father was not pleased with his son's obsession for the outdoors and his need to design elaborate gardens for estates.

Harrison had loved to sit for hours sketching different designs and ideas in his sketchbook. That all changed after the family inherited. It had been nearly eleven years since he’d even thought about designing gardens again. Even with his own estate, he deliberately chose not to be involved.

His love for garden design was something that Kat had always encouraged in him, and once she was gone, he couldn’t bring himself to design anything again. Until he found her years later, and now he couldn’t stop himself from creating.

Reaching the parlor, Harrison took a moment to compose himself before he walked into the overly bright room. His mother had insisted on decorating the house in glistening colors, insisting that the previous Earl of Hendershot’s tastes were too dark and medieval for her. This room with its bright green furnishings and yellow drapes was his mother’s crowning achievement.

His gaze danced around until he found the elegant stature of Lady Selena standing by the bay windows. The long drapes were open, so sounds from passing carriages and people walking by wafted inside.

It was curious that she chose to stand openly in his window. Shouldn’t the woman try to protect her reputation? She would be ruined simply by being seen with him without a chaperone.

“You kept me waiting, something I hope you don’t plan on doing when we are wed,” she said, facing a stunned Harrison.

When they are wed?

He stared at Lady Selena in confusion. Surely, he would remember if he offered marriage to someone. Harrison was desperate, but he still didn’t believe he was in such peril that he would marry her.

Lady Selena Davenport was a highly disagreeable lady, one that knew just how beautiful she was and how to use that beauty for power. She was an ordinary heiress of the ton with raven hair, pale skin, blue eyes, and an air of superiority.

“I wasn’t aware that I had proposed,” Harrison said as he leaned against the Italian side table against the wall.

Perplexed, he folded his arms across his chest. It was difficult to ascertain if she was jesting or not. Lady Selena was not known for her sense of humor.

“You haven’t.” Walking over, she stood in front of him, a little too close in his opinion, with a wanton look on her face. “But you will after you hear my reasoning.” She ran her fingers down the lapel of his gray waistcoat.

Stopping her hand as it descended, Harrison removed it from his person and placed it beside her. Needing space between them, he walked past her. “Would you like some tea?” he asked, walking to stand in front of the sofa.

He waited for her to take a seat across from him in the matching green armchair before he sat down.

Lady Selena peered around the room with disdain. “No.” She waved a gloved hand in front of her. “Let’s be honest, Hendershot. I know about your financial problems. Your mother, like mine, cannot hold her tongue. I have a proposition for you.”

Clearing his throat, Harrison relaxed back against the sofa. Inside he was screaming. He knew his mother had a fondness for telling every detail of their lives to Selena’s mother, but he had hoped that once he rejected the suggestion of a marriage between them, that would be the end of it.

“If your mother spoke to mine, then you already know that I do not wish to marry you. I don’t believe we’d suit?—”

“I don’t care if we suit or not. I need a husband, and you need a wife with a sizeable dowry.” She spread her hands apart, a victorious grin on her face.

She needed a husband? That was a rather blunt phrase for a lady to declare. “Why do you need a husband?” He peered over at her, finally observing her for the first time since he entered the parlor.

Lady Selena was larger than he remembered, especially around her middle area and in her face. Harrison had witnessed both his sister and Winnie while they were with child, and it was always apparent to him the state of them.

Realization dawned on him as Lady Selena avoided eye contact with him.

“You’re with child?” he asked, just to be polite, but truly the stiffening of her body was all the proof he needed as blue eyes locked on him.

“It is becoming obvious, and I’m running out of options.” She shrugged her shoulder like marrying someone who was not the father of her child wasn’t an ordeal at all.

“Why not marry the father?” he rose his eyebrow in question.

Swallowing down the bile that was rising in his throat, Harrison tried not to consider her offer. Was he really that desperate, that eternally heartbroken that he would even consider accepting another man’s child?

“It is rather difficult to do since he is already married,” she said, her lips pierced in discomfort.

“But why marry me? You could easily go away to the continent and return after months.” He shook his head. “No one would be the wiser.”

The fact that she would be so reckless, not only to become with child by a married man, but that she would also have the audacity to proposition Harrison did not surprise him. What surprised him was that she was willing to marry at all.

“Father has refused me any funds to rectify the situation or to flee until I am married.” Lady Selena tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “Though some rumors are unavoidable, if I am your countess, no one will dare question the legitimacy of our child in front of us.”

Harrison stood, walking over to the sideboard. He was in desperate need of a drink if he was to continue their conversation.

Marry her, and all of his financial troubles would go away, but then he would lose Kat forever.

“And you expect me to accept another man’s child as well as a wife who would obviously still bed other men?” he asked before he turned to pour himself a hearty glass of brandy.

“It wouldn’t be a hardship. You would have my dowry. Once the child is born, I will continue with my activities and you can do as you wish.”

Harrison questioned if he could actually do such a thing as raise another man’s child as his own, and marry a woman who would willingly stray from the marital bed.

Hazel eyes pierced his mind, and he squeezed his eyes shut to rid himself of the image of Kat.

Pivoting to face her, he gulped down his brandy, welcoming the sting of the alcohol down his throat. “Is this what you want? A marriage of indifference? What about love and honesty?” He knew he sounded like a dandy, but he had spent his entire life loving Kat. He didn’t know if he could stop. Even if she never accepted him, the truth was, he’d always love her, no matter what.

“I’m not sentimental, but clearly you are.” She rose from her chair, walking to stand in front of him. “If this is about that ghastly Madame Delcour, you are welcome to keep her?—”

“Keep her? She’s not an object, and she doesn’t want to be kept by me or anyone.” The words were like acid on his tongue.

Kat valued her independence more than anything, and if he loved her, surely, he would honor her wishes.

With his decision made, Harrison tried to open his mouth and agree to Lady Selena’s terms, but his heart and mind would not allow him to move.

She sneered at him, throwing him a triumphant look. “Well, Belville informed me that soon she will have no choice but to be kept by someone.”

Harrison’s hand froze with his drink in the air. “What are you talking about?” he asked, a sinking feeling running down his spine.

“Your Madame Delcour is being evicted from her precious club. It seems that the Court of Chancery has ruled in favor of Pierre Delcour. I believe he is disposing of her as we speak?—”

Harrison dropped his glass on the floor and bolted toward the door. “See yourself out!” he shouted as his long legs led him through the foyer, out the front door, and into the cool December day.