Reforming Harriet Read online

  Lord Westwood looked puzzled.

  In spite of herself, Harriet smiled. “Is the word foreign to you, my lord? I assure you, it is not to me. Or to those I entertain in my salon in town.”

  “Ah. A salon. You are one of those women.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Lord Westwood’s gaze slid to the mantel clock. “Never mind. It is far too early in the day to discuss politics.”

  “It is never too early to discuss politics,” she said. “I did not know that you enjoyed political discourse, my lord. How delightful! We could —”

  “No, we could not.” His voice held a note of finality. “If you will excuse me, madam, I will take my leave.”

  His gaze drifted to the table and the remnants of the meal. “I hope you will reconsider my offer,” he said. “You’ll not find a better one.”

  “It matters not,” Harriet rejoined. “I shall not sell.”

  He sighed. “Thank you for breakfast,” he said. “It is no overstatement to say I have not seen its equal.”

  And with that, he was gone.

  ***

  Elias could not fault Lady Harriet’s passions. He himself had long since given up any hope of taming his own passion — his highly developed olfactory sense. Indeed, it had been the inspiration for his business, which had begun as a diversion and quickly blossomed into his lodestar.

  As his father’s only heir, he’d been discouraged from dabbling in unsuitable matters — the kitchen was the province of his father’s London-trained chef and female minions; the herbal garden and vegetable fields were tended by workers his father considered beneath his notice. Elias had been schooled instead in the manly arts of boxing and swordplay, the scholarly texts of Latin and Greek, and the gambling and raffish behavior that was de rigueur among his class but, to Elias, utterly boring.

  Finally, his father — despairing of any other way to engage his son in preparing to shoulder the weight of an earldom — sent him to the family properties in the West Indies in the hope of impressing upon him how far-flung were his responsibilities. Only then did Elias find what it seemed he had been searching for the whole of his entirely useless boyhood.

  Ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, thyme, dasheen, chilies of every color and heat, chutneys, curries — there was no end to the surprising aromas and culinary creations permeating the air in the islands that sat like tiny jewels in the crown of the Caribbean. On Jamaica Elias discovered the pimento tree, whose berries and wood were central ingredients in a pungent paste used to slow-cure dried meat to an unforgettable balance of fire and sweet. Beet sugar, cloves, coriander, mango, coconut, hot sauce made from peppers in a rainbow of colors — the islands were a veritable heaven of flavors and seemingly endless possibilities.

  Still a youth with scarcely twenty years on his plate, Elias was already spinning a future in which he ran the family plantation when word came that his father had died. It was perhaps to his everlasting shame that Elias’s grief was less for the man he scarcely knew than for the fact he was forced to leave the island behind, knowing that his duties now would be very different from those in which he had so happily immersed himself.

  Impatient to return to the only place that had set him afire, Elias paid little attention during the reading of his father’s will, and even less to the bothersome title that became appended to his name. Only later, meeting with his father’s solicitors, did he discover how badly in debt his father had been and how, even as Elias had been exploring those island properties, his father had been forced to deed them over to his creditors.

  And so it was gone, all of it, before Elias could make his dream a reality. A great portion of his father’s estate was encumbered or to let, and when all was said and done, Elias could not have purchased one pimento tree in Jamaica had his life depended upon it. The military had seemed the only option, and he took it. Indeed, it was the closest thing to a family he had ever known, his mother having died early in his childhood.

  Afterward, he’d met Freddy. A scapegrace, to be sure, but a thoroughly charming one. They’d shared a bottle at White’s, which cared less for a man’s financial circumstance than his pedigree. Freddy was flush with his winnings at a local hellhole and eager to invest in an exotic business venture. One thing led to another, and before the evening was done, Elias and Freddy had become business partners. Money from Freddy’s gambling wins was sufficient to purchase the property in the Caribbean that would become the foundation of their business.

  Elias’s nose unerringly directed him to the spices that most appealed to the English palate, like ginger and nutmeg, heretofore available only in the East. To those he added pimento, the magical berry that combined the taste and aroma of those spices as well as pepper, cloves, and cinnamon.

  Before long, their modest import business showed promise of providing them a comfortable existence. Moreover, it kept Elias — happily, in his view — far from home. They might have continued profitably for years, but Freddy was not one to hold on his funds. His taste for gaming hells ensured that money slipped through his fingers like sand. Even though the business had begun to turn a profit, there was little available for the investment needed to expand and thrive. But Freddy had become enamored with a duke’s daughter, and his attention to business details, never meticulous, evaporated altogether as he rushed headlong into the wedded state. Marriage gave Freddy less time to gamble, and soon Westwood Imports had the cash it needed and was flourishing beyond Elias’s expectations. Then Freddy had met an untimely end, and Elias found himself saddled with an unreliable partner once more.

  Alas, the longer he spent in Lady Harriet’s presence, the more he realized that persuading her to sell her shares was perhaps his greatest challenge to date. Thus he was surprised at the Boar’s Head Inn some hours later to receive a missive in a neatly scripted hand suggesting they could perhaps resolve their business matter over tea later that very day and, assuming all went well, at dinner that night.

  It was an overture he readily accepted, knowing that he would be better prepared this time. She had her passion, and he had his. All he had to do was figure out how the two might align.

  ***

  Tea proved something of an ordeal. Oh, there were the light-as-air tea biscuits, confections that by now Elias had come to expect from the supremely talented Lady Harriet. Were it not for the fact that Elias was focused single-mindedly on his mission of buying her out, he might have enjoyed them more. He willed his thoughts away from the biscuits’ mesmerizing combination of sweet and savory — vanilla and thyme, if he did not miss his guess — and to the matter at hand.

  Lady Harriet, he was somewhat gratified to see, had abandoned her dreadful black of yesterday and wore a sprigged muslin frock that, while perhaps too pale and insipid for her coloring, at least did not assault one with the grim purpose of that unrelenting bombazine. The lady herself was rather quiet. He took that as an invitation to resume their business discussion.

  “I recognize,” he began, careful to keep his tone conciliatory, “that my appearing here in the country may have come as something of a shock, notwithstanding my many previous written communications to you.”

  “Shock?” She studied him. “Do you think me fragile, my lord?”

  Elias all but stifled a groan. Though he had become accustomed to this woman challenging him at every turn, it still annoyed him. He schooled himself to patience.

  “Unprepared as you must have been to face a tangible reminder of your late husband in the form of his business partner,” he continued, ignoring the mutinous spark in her eye, “you must have recoiled, as anyone would, from a course that would permanently separate you from the last connection you have with him.”

  She frowned.

  “Yet I imagine that the details of the business must be a nuisance — a trial — for one such as yourself,” he went on. “It can only be a relief to know that I am willing to take on the entire burden of the business myself.”

  She set her teacup on the tray,
forcefully enough that it rattled the saucer.

  “In short, I deeply regret if my previous business proposition was insensitive,” he added, striking what he hoped was a mixture of concern and remorse. “I have always been one for plain-speaking, and —”

  “Nonsense.”

  He blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  Her amused gaze met his. “You suggest that I am too overwrought to consider a business proposal. That is subterfuge, as you can see with your own eyes that I am not in the least overset. Therefore, your statement qualifies not as plain-speaking, but rather as a negotiating ploy.”

  He stared at her.

  “I have made my peace with Freddy’s death,” she continued. “That does not mean, however, that I wish to relinquish my shares.”

  She leaned forward in her chair. “I do not know why you persist in the belief that I am a fragile female lacking the wherewithal to continue living my life in the solitary state.”

  What in blazes had Freddy seen in this singularly confounding woman? Elias wondered darkly.

  “Come now, Lord Westwood.” Her mouth twitched. “Have you never encountered an independent woman?”

  For that, it seemed, there was no answer. Nor did she seem to expect one. One thing was certain: Harriet Worthington was the most irritating woman he had ever encountered. She kept him off-balance — undoubtedly her intent. But Elias did not intend to dance to her tune.

  “Certainly not one so strident,” he replied. “Nor one so obsessed, apparently, with pointing out her independence at every turn. I assure you, madam, once would suffice. I have lost count, but it is surely a half-dozen times, perhaps more.”

  She looked taken aback.

  Elias rose. “You led me to believe we might resolve this matter over tea. Instead, I am treated to a polemic.”

  “But we have resolved it, have we not?” she responded. “I considered your offer. I have rejected it. It is decided.”

  So they were quit. That signified only insofar as it was now necessary for him to pursue other options. He should have known better than to put faith in his powers to persuade a member of the opposite sex to see things his way. That question had been painfully answered in the negative years before. Yes, he definitely should have known better. He moved to the door.

  “Never say you will be going,” she protested. “Why, there are biscuits left on the tray.” There was the hint of a self-satisfied smile on her face, which was all it took to blacken his mood further. It was a moment or two before he could trust himself to speak.

  “It may please you to play Lady Bountiful,” he said finally, “to gift your neighbors with cows and mills and the like. Undoubtedly, they revere the grand lady who makes a show of her workaday labor, of rising early to bake bread without a care as to the quantities of flour on her clothes or person, and who returns to this well-appointed house atop the hill, where her every wish is attended to.”

  Elias heard her sharp intake of breath, but he was not yet done. He fixed her with a dead gaze. “You are aware, are you not, that you are merely pretending to be one of them? Perhaps no one taught you that one person’s amusement is another’s livelihood.”

  He turned away from her, knowing he had let his temper get the best of him. But pretending to be something one was not in the spirit of false egalitarianism had always struck him as a rather corrupt form of noblesse oblige. What drove Lady Harriet’s behavior he neither knew nor cared. His father had practiced the same sort of condescension, and thought it a great joke when Elias said he had worked on the island property alongside the laborers.

  He had wasted quite enough time on this futile errand. The woman had her head in the clouds, doubtless filled with images of herself handing out bread to her grateful tenants, while word of her generosity spread far and wide.

  Now, at least, his course was set. He would direct his solicitor to take legal steps to dissolve their partnership on grounds that she was an inferior business partner — indeed, a destructive one, whose improvident spending was destroying a heretofore thriving business. That would delay things considerably; the matter was likely to end up in court and in the meantime Lady Harriet would have spent down his shares further. Still, it appeared to be the only way he could regain control of his business.

  Behind him, Elias heard her quickening steps. He felt a hand on his arm. He turned, just as she collided rather forcefully into him.

  “I beg your pardon,” she said, and hastily took a step backward — which would have been possible had not Elias instinctively reached out to prevent her from falling and in so doing trapped her within his arms. And so they stood there awkwardly, inhabiting a physical space rather too small for people who were not more intimately acquainted — and who were at point non plus, besides.

  Instantly, Elias released her.

  She wasn’t prepared for that and teetered briefly — until she placed her hands flat against his chest for balance. Elias’s gaze slid to her hands, and he briefly registered the fact that the long, graceful fingers pressed against him bore calluses, underscoring, perhaps, the unjustness of his accusations.

  Flushing deeply, she took another step away from him. She looked chastened, uncertain.

  “Let us not prolong this ordeal between us,” Elias said, not unkindly. “My words were ill-considered and mean-spirited, but perhaps they serve to demonstrate how wrongheaded my trip here was.”

  “I only mean to tell you that you have misread my character,” she said quietly.

  Had he? He doubted that. It did not matter in any case. They were quits, and tomorrow he would see his solicitor.

  “Whatever you think of me,” she continued, “and I understand that it is not flattering in the least, I ask you to believe that I do not seek my neighbors’ approval out of any vainglorious attempt to persuade them to think well of me. For that matter, I do not seek your approval either, which is fortunate since clearly I do not have it.”

  Elias regarded her. “And yet you are at pains to correct my misimpression.”

  “Only of my motives. I am no Lady Bountiful, sir.”

  Hearing his characterization of her repeated, Elias winced. “I meant no offense.” He paused. “No, that is untrue. I let anger rule, and I can say with some conviction that my intentions were as base and offensive as you took them to be. I think we will both agree that our talks have been futile and we will both be better for abandoning them.”

  “I wish to explain.”

  He eyed the door wistfully. “That is not necessary. Now, if you will pardon me, I will take my leave.”

  She stepped between him and the door.

  Elias stopped himself — just barely — from reaching out and setting her from him. Indeed, their proximity was muddling things again. Suppressing a sigh, he waited. Obviously, she intended for him to hear her out.

  So it surprised him when he saw the shimmering in her eyes, the slight trembling about her lips. To be sure, he’d been unnecessarily judgmental. But why the devil were women so sensitive? “Lady Harriet —” he began.

  “I do not expect you to approve of me,” she said. “But the truth is that I am endeavoring to do right by this inheritance. I mean to use it for good.” She hesitated. “You see, I am responsible for Freddy’s death.”

  Elias stilled.

  “That is why I intend to set things right, to put that money toward good. I am not trying to impress anyone with my charity. It is what I must do.” Her voice wobbled on the last. A tear threatened to spill over onto her cheek.

  “According to the account provided to my solicitor,” Elias said carefully, “Freddy’s heart simply gave out. There is nothing you could have done.”

  “I will never know. He was not at home that night. He was with another woman.”

  Egad. That was a detail he had no wish to hear. To be sure, Freddy had always been one for the ladies. Still, to learn such a thing from his widow, to be confronted with her pain — Elias could think of no response. So he did the only thin
g he could, which was to search his pockets for a handkerchief and, that failing to produce anything suitable, untie his neckcloth and offer it to her to dry her eyes.

  She looked surprised, but accepted it silently.

  Elias hesitated, uncertain whether it was fitting to wade into such murky waters. But she had broached the subject, so perhaps she wished to discuss it. “If Freddy was with someone else,” he said at last, “I fail to see how his death could have been your fault.”

  Lady Harriet shook her head. “Please understand: I did not object to his liaisons. Indeed, I tolerated them, a fact I still do not regret. Freddy deserved to be happy, and I was unable to give him that. I drove him to the very excesses that led to his death.”

  “Nonsense,” Elias said sharply. “Freddy Worthington was incapable of fidelity.”

  She eyed him in surprise. “So you knew of Freddy’s...proclivities. I suppose the whole world knew. No matter. He would have been true to the right woman.”

  “Again, madam: utter nonsense.”

  “He would not have spent his days wrecking his health with drink and other…pursuits had I been able to please him,” she persisted.

  Elias heartily wished to be anywhere else but here, listening to this too-intimate confession. He also wanted to shake some sense into her. “You are not responsible.”

  “I am,” she said softly. “He went elsewhere because I could not please him. Not in the way a woman is able to please a man.”

  That sentence hung there, in the space between them, as if she had shouted it to the skies, when in reality she’d spoken in a quiet, pensive voice.

  “Freddy had a defective heart,” Elias said. “It is useless to blame yourself.”

  But she would not be swayed. “You cannot know how it embarrasses me to confess such an inadequacy. But it is the truth.”

  If only it were possible to look away from those shimmering blue eyes. Now a tear did spill over, and without thinking he reached out and brushed it away with his thumb, a shocking intimacy, he belatedly realized. But she scarcely seemed to notice.