“Thank you, Harrison.” The tenderness in Bea’s eyes was all the gift Harrison needed that Christmas.
“Lady Diana, I would have expected you to take better care of your friend,” John told Diana in a mock scolding voice.
“Oh, you would, would you?” Diana crossed her arms and glared at John. “And I suppose you would have done a better job of hanging bows?”
“I do a better job of just about everything than you do, pet,” John said, deliberately antagonizing her.
Diana let out an outraged huff and stomped her foot before marching back to the table where supplies for making bows were scattered.
Harrison exchanged a knowing look with Bea as she stepped onto the stool to hand her bows. The moment of connection was priceless.
“They’ll be the death of each other someday,” he said, adding a wink.
“I’m certain they will be,” Bea replied in an intimate voice.
Maybe John was right and he was a sap after all, but Harrison couldn’t help but be thrilled at the brief exchange. It was as though the rest of the world had disappeared, leaving just the two of them and the need that pulsed between them. He could have stayed by Bea’s side all day, helping her with whatever task she needed help with, being her devoted servant. He assisted her with hanging bows for as long as he could, but all too soon, she needed to return to her table to craft a few more.
“Thank you again for your help,” she said as Harrison moved around the table and worked up his will to leave her side.
“Anything you need from me,” he said, hovering on the other side of the table from her for a moment. At last, he let out a sigh and turned to head back across the room to the other set of tables. He’d collect his great-grandmother’s ring, pry John away from Lady Diana long enough to head out for a spot of coffee, and figure out exactly how to orchestrate the perfect proposal, and then—
He stopped dead, his heart sinking into his stomach as he glanced across the room only to find the table where he’d put the ring completely empty. Dread filled him as he strode across the room, careful not to arouse Bea’s suspicions—he still wanted the proposal to come as a surprise, after all, and if she had reason to ask why he was running across the room all of a sudden, he’d have to explain the ring—hoping that his eyes deceived him.
But no, the donations table was completely empty, not a scrap of anything that had once been there in sight.
Chapter 2
Panic hit Harrison like a cannonball in the gut. He picked up his pace, reaching the empty table at the far end of the room and staring at it as though everything that had been there just moments before would return. He walked around the table, bent to search underneath, and twisted this way and that, perplexed about where everything had gone and how it had disappeared so fast.
“Something wrong, my lord?” one of the women who was volunteering along with the May Flowers asked as she carried a wide basket filled with toys to another table.
“Um, er, no. That is to say…nothing’s wrong,” Harrison stammered.
He didn’t know why he was so reticent about telling the woman he’d put a ring on the table and lost it. She seemed to be a good enough sort, although from what he understood, several of the younger, rougher women helping out with preparations for the party were actually whores. Bianca had a habit of befriending all sorts, whether they were bent on reformation or not, and it wouldn’t have surprised Harrison if some of the women in the room had customers waiting for them once they were finished volunteering. He didn’t want to give anyone, least of all Bea, even a fleeting suspicion that he would ever entertain the notion of paying that sort of woman a visit.
The woman in question furrowed her brow at him for a moment, as though she thought he were barmy, before walking on. He probably was barmy. Only a first-rate fool would abandon a priceless family heirloom on a table in the middle of a crowded room.
He turned back to the table once the woman had moved on, running his hands over the table’s surface as if by some miracle the ring had fallen into a crack or sunk into a portal to another world. The idea was ridiculous, but far less painful than the notion that he’d lost it.
“What on earth are you doing, man?” John asked, striding up to Harrison with a bemused look on his face.
“Did you see what happened to the things that were on this table?” Harrison whispered, glancing around as though everyone would overhear and know how big of a fool he was.
“No.” John shrugged. “What happened to them?” he asked, as though Harrison had asked some sort of riddle.
“I don’t know,” Harrison hissed. “I was hoping you saw where they went.”
John flushed slightly. “I’m afraid I was too engaged with the lovely and irascible Lady Diana to notice much of anything, let alone what happened to a pile of old rubbish.”
“It wasn’t rubbish, it was donations for the local orphanages,” Harrison said, continuing to look around. He edged his way to the next table, picking through its contents to see if the ring box had been moved there. But all that table contained was more of the same clothing, toys, and sundries that people were bringing in.
“I know you’re of a charitable mindset,” John said, grinning as he followed Harrison from table to table, “but this concern is a bit daft, don’t you think?”
Harrison stopped his frantic search and turned to his friend. “My great-grandmother’s ring was on that table.”
John lost his smug look, his eyes suddenly going wide. “You put the ring on the table?” When Harrison nodded sheepishly, John laughed and shook his head. “Why didn’t you put it back in your jacket where it came from?”
“Bea needed me,” Harrison explained, his face heating even more. “I didn’t think about where I was putting the ring. I didn’t think about anything but rushing to help her.”
“Of course, you didn’t,” John said with a smirk. “I think the entire building could be burning and you wouldn’t think about anything but shielding Bea’s pretty little head from all the ash raining down.”
“You’re right, of course,” Harrison said, continuing his search of the tables nearest the one that had been cleared. “Even though I know you’re being an arse. But there isn’t time for that. Help me find what happened to the ring.”
John heaved a long-suffering sigh and set to work, moving through the tables with Harrison and scanning their contents. Everything looked the same—so much so that for a few, fleeting moments of hope, Harrison thought that he hadn’t set the ring on the table that had been cleared after all, but had set it on another table. A few more minutes of searching and picking through things proved that to be a false hope, though.
“It’s gone,” Harrison said at last, once he and John had circled back to the empty table. “Grandmama is going to murder me. And as for Bea—”
He glanced wistfully to the other side of the room, where Bea was deep in conversation with Diana as the two of them constructed more bows. Bea glanced up and met his gaze, her cheeks flushing in a way that was so beautiful it made Harrison’s trousers tight. But there was no time for any of that.