When Harry Met Molly

His chest hairs were curling rudely from the gaping vee at his neck, and when he yawned quite loud enough to wake the dead, his overly tanned neck corded from the effort.

“Goodness,” she admonished him from under her breath.

Harry grinned at her, exposing brilliant white teeth, but his eyes were rather slitted, as if he were cursing her at the same time. “I had rather too much fun last night,” he said in an offhand manner and stretched out his legs.

Too much fun?

Molly glared at him, not one bit surprised at his audacity.

The crowd at the large table exited the taproom. The only people left were Molly, Harry, and two old men at the bar. And of course, the innkeeper and the flirtatious barmaid. They’d done a booming business today.

Molly sighed. “Well, I shall go meet my intended outside.”

“And I shall meet my beautiful companion.” Harry pushed back from the table, threw some coins down, and stood, looming above Molly.

“You mean your lightskirt,” she said.

“Yes,” Harry replied. “And thank God I don’t have to take her to Gretna. I can simply take my pleasure with her and be on my way.”

“You—” Molly breathed.

“No, you,” Harry said back.

She stood, skewered him with a look, and stepped smartly around him, quite as if he were nothing more than a chair, or a bucket, or a broom. She strode toward the inn door. Harry moved in that direction, as well. Each went by different paths, through different tables. Molly started to walk faster, but to her dismay, Harry did, too.

And then it was a race—who would get to the door first? Of course Harry won, with his longer legs, a fact which annoyed Molly no end. When he stopped at the threshold, she pushed under his arm and emerged first in the stableyard.

But Harry didn’t seem to notice. He was staring at a carriage moving at a smart pace out of the yard onto the road. A flash of pink could be seen inside its window.

Harry’s lightskirt had been wearing pink!

“Oh, my,” Molly said, and couldn’t help the note of triumph in her voice. Wouldn’t it be splendid if the beautiful Aphrodite had left Harry for another man?

“What the hell?” Harry snarled. He obviously didn’t care that Molly saw his rage. She was as nothing to him, as he was to her.

He took off at a run.

Molly gazed down the road, too, at the carriage, at Harry running toward it. The coachman whipped the horses into a frenzy of speed, and Molly couldn’t help but enjoy seeing Harry fall well behind its wheels.

And then she recognized something. The back of Cedric’s carriage. It had gotten a mighty scratch on it from the time he’d chained a naked statue to the roof and wrapped the chain around the carriage body.

Harry’s lightskirt was inside Cedric’s carriage.

“Cedric,” she whispered, and she began to run, too. She lifted her skirts with her left hand and followed Harry onto the road, her boots flying.

“Cedric!” she cried, and waved her shuttered parasol above her head. “Please don’t leave me!”

But the coachman flashed his whip again. The horses strained at their bits and galloped even faster, seemingly anxious to leave the inn and its stableyard far behind them.

Chapter 4

Molly stood on the road beside Harry and watched the vehicle carrying Cedric and his Aphrodite disappear around a bend in the road. Her ears began to buzz. In the distance, the chickens, the oak tree, the woman and child climbing into a wagon in the stableyard—all became wavy, like ribbons of taffy.

God, no. This couldn’t be happening to her. Everything, everything…was wrong, upside down.

She blinked slowly, several times, to make the waves go away. When they did, she found her feet again, one of which she promptly stomped at Harry.

“Now see what you’ve done,” she said. “I’m stranded here because your fit of temper caused your lightskirt to throw herself into the arms of my intended!”

Harry brought his face a mere few inches from her own. “And your intended obviously had had enough of your bossiness. So much so that he took off with my lightskirt!”

“You shouldn’t have a lightskirt,” said Molly. “What would your mother say?”

“And you shouldn’t be running off to Gretna Green with a spineless fop.”

Molly refused to blink. “He wasn’t spineless. Simply…sensitive.”

Although she had no idea why she was defending Cedric. It was Harry’s fault, of course. He always brought out the irrational in her.

Harry scoffed. “Alliston sensitive? He is about as sensitive as a tree stump.”

She crossed her arms. “And your lightskirt is about as intelligent as…as an insect.”

Harry’s smile was wicked. “She doesn’t require intelligence for what I need her for.”

If he intended to make her blush, Molly wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. She turned her back and put up her parasol.

Never in a million years would she ask Harry’s help.

But help was what she needed. She was stranded at a remote hostelry in the middle of England, unchaperoned and without even the excuse of going to Gretna Green with her intended to protect her reputation.

If anyone back home found out what was happening to her, she was a fallen woman.

Harry watched Molly march onto the dusty road, the silliest of striped parasols open above her head. She stared down both ways with a wrinkle on her brow. He recalled that there were no farm houses or places to stop for at least ten miles southward, but the north road led her even farther from home.

“Here now!” he called to her.

She turned around. “I’ve nothing to say to you.” She put her chin in the air and headed south.

Harry trotted after her, grabbed her elbow, and swung her around. “You’re not going to disappear and leave me in an awkward situation.”

Her cheeks were spotted pink. “Oh, and I’m not in one myself? Any gentleman would have noticed I am! But no, you’re no gentleman. The whole world knows that.”

She hit him on the chest with her reticule. It felt empty, except for maybe a coin.

He sighed. “That doesn’t help anything.”

She inhaled through her nose and let her breath out in a gusty sigh. “I’m sorry. A lady doesn’t hit people. Even though you deserve it, cavorting with a woman who’s no lady at all, running off with any man she sees!”

He scoffed. “Are you telling me you’re a lady? You put a thistle in my seat and a rock in my wine goblet last time I dined at Marble Hill.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“It was at Penelope and Roderick’s bon voyage celebration before they took the girls to Italy. Barely four months ago.”

“Yes, but how is that worse than pulling someone’s chair out a little too far? You did it the very evening after your dear aunt Cora expired! I almost fell on my bottom at supper, in front of all your grieving family, thanks to you.”

“I did it for Aunt Cora,” he said. “She liked practical jokes.”

“A poor excuse,” Molly replied.

They glared at each other. Neither one spoke for a minute, and then she said, rather thickly, “We’re both in