“My lord,” Harrison gulped. He cleared his throat and stood as straight as he could, tugging at the hem of his coat and doing everything in his power to look like the marquess he was. “Let me explain.”
“There is no need to explain,” Bea’s father said in an ominous voice. “When the cat is away for the evening, the mice play. Is that not right, my dear?” he asked Bea.
“I…I invited Harrison for supper because…because I did not want to eat alone,” Bea fumbled, knowing there was no chance her father would believe her. “He was…we were…I was choking on a piece of roast.” The lie fell clumsily from her lips, and she clapped a hand over her mouth once it was out.
The corner of her father’s mouth twitched. He sent a pointed glance to Harrison. “You’ve saved my daughter’s life this evening, then?”
Bea had the distinct impression her father was teasing them, but Harrison answered. “It would appear so.”
Her father hummed. “I see. Well, then, young man. I expect to see you in my office at your earliest possible convenience so that we can discuss a reward for you saving my dear Beatrice’s life.”
“Understood, my lord,” Harrison said with a sharp bow, looking more embarrassed than proud of his deeds. He flinched, then said, “I have a matter of great importance that I need to see to on the morrow, though.”
“Oh?” Bea’s father arched one eyebrow at him.
“Yes,” Harrison went on. “It is a matter that requires swift action before…before something is lost permanently. By your leave, may I come speak to you once the item I’ve been searching for is recovered?”
Bea’s father stared at him for a moment, then sighed and said, “As long as you don’t change your mind.”
“Never, sir,” Harrison said, sending Bea a sideways look. He cleared his throat. “Now, if you will excuse me, I’m afraid I’ve overstayed my welcome this evening.”
Bea wanted to call after him not to go, but considering she’d invited him there without her father’s knowledge or permission, and relatively certain she was about to be told off for doing so, she didn’t try to stop him. But one, shining bit of hope remained with her, even after Harrison was gone. If her father didn’t believe her lie, if he was intent on speaking with Harrison soon, then perhaps a proposal would come out of the whole thing after all.
Chapter 4
“It was mortifying,” Bea whispered to Diana and Phoebe Long as they cut squares of wrapping paper for the gifts that had been donated to give to the mountain of orphans that would be at the Christmas Eve party. “Papa walked in, and there Harrison and I were. Kissing.”
“I don’t know what I would have done,” Phoebe said, her eyes round. “It’s bad enough that my mother has stumbled across Danny and I kissing once or twice since we’ve been married, but to have one’s father interrupt a kiss with a beau?” She made a horrified sound as if to prove how alarming that would be.
“The worst part of it all was that it was my very first kiss,” Bea said with a wistful sigh. She would remember that kiss—before her father interrupted them—for the rest of her life. It was everything she’d dreamed a kiss would be—tender, passionate, and overwhelming in the happiest of ways. There was no telling how long it would have gone on or where it would have led if it hadn’t been interrupted.
“You and Lord Landsbury truly hadn’t kissed before that?” Phoebe asked carefully.
Bea didn’t know Phoebe as well as her other friends. She was a relatively late admission to their friend circle. She’d just married Danny Long, who was a friend of the male part of their group. In spite of having been born working class, Mr. Long was a property developer and currently one of the wealthiest men in London. The London papers were all calling it a coup of the highest order that he had snagged the daughter of a marquess for his bride, and lauding Phoebe as a genius for marrying a diamond in the rough. From what Bea had heard, theirs was actually a love match, something she aspired to.
“We’d never kissed, no,” Bea confessed, inwardly calling herself a ninny for being so bashful about something she hadn’t done. “I suppose we had never found ourselves in a situation where such a thing would have been possible until last night.”
“And Bianca encouraged you to seduce Harrison,” Diana said with a snorting laugh.
Phoebe’s eyes went wide as she glanced from Diana to Bea. “Was that your plan?”
“It was,” Bea admitted, her face and neck heating. She shook her head. “Though looking back at the way things turned out, that whole plan represented gross overconfidence on my part.”
“How so?” Phoebe asked with a look of curiosity as she wrapped a rag doll in bright pink paper printed with holly.
“I’m not that sort of woman,” Bea admitted.
A mysterious grin flittered across Phoebe’s beautiful face. “I didn’t think I was that sort of woman either,” she said with a mischievous lift of her brow.
Bea giggled before she could stop to think whether it was appropriate. Diana laughed much more freely than her.
“You’d never catch me seducing a man or letting myself be seduced,” she said.
“Oh, really?” Bianca walked up to check on their work at just that moment. She sent Diana a sardonic grin as she overheard the comment.
Diana stiffened her back proudly. “I choose to imitate my namesake,” she said. “No man will win my favors without a good fight.”
“I’ll tell Lord John you said that,” Bianca said with a smirk, then glanced over their shoulders to take a look at their work. “I’ve never seen so many toys in need of wrapping in my life,” she said. “But you’re all doing a fine job.”
“Your orphans will be overjoyed by their good fortune,” Bea said, reaching for a wooden boat to wrap in blue paper. “I’m certain the men and women who run each and every one of the orphanages that will be receiving your charity are eternally grateful.”
“I certainly hope they are,” Bianca said with a sudden sigh. When Bea glanced curiously at her, Bianca went on with, “There was another incident at an orphanage yesterday.”
“Oh?” Phoebe asked.
All three of them stopped what they were doing to turn to Bianca.
“As if the incident with the treacle destroying a bunch of books at St. Joseph’s wasn’t bad enough, someone replaced all of the sugar at Hope Orphanage with salt,” Bianca said.
A strange tightness gripped Bea’s gut. “Hope Orphanage?” she asked. She was certain that was the name of the place Harrison said he’d been before receiving her invitation to supper and joining her.
“Yes,” Bianca said. “It’s in Hackney. And it’s one of the hardest cases of any that we’re working with.”
“Oh, my,” Phoebe said, pressing a hand to her stomach. “And sugar is such a dear commodity.”
“One that children seem to go through faster than anyone else,” Diana said, though there was far more suspicion in her frown than the thought of children and sugar warranted.