If looks could kill, he’d have been smote by the furious stares trained on him by the three most terrifying matrons of Polite Society.
He’d never seen it before this instant. He’d always been the favored one, the son born to their dearest friend. That was, until now. Now, he had a taste of how the rest of the ton felt around such a terrifying presence.
“Are you quite done throwing your tantrum, Harris?” the duchess asked in her perfectly crisp, duchess tones, those she reserved for the ones who’d displeased her.
His tantrum?
Of course, the safer answer would be a decided and prompt yes.
Even when thoroughly insulted, as he’d just been by Lady Hawthorne.
Only, the duchess—and Ladies Cowpen and Cavendish—however, had been like mothers to him. And as such, he’d face their displeasure and confront it head on before he conceded this. Even so, when he spoke next, he did so with more measured tones, attempting to break through whatever madness gripped the three ladies. “She is… an impostor,” he said quietly. “She lied to you.” To me. To all of us. “And you want to welcome her into your household to stay on as a guest for… for…?”
“As long as she wishes to remain,” his godmother said coolly. “I’ve already initiated talks with my solicitor. If she’ll agree, I’m adopting her.”
How was he the villain in this? “Indefinitely, then.”
She raised her dainty floral porcelain teacup and took a small sip.
“You aren’t thinking logically—”
“Have a care, Harris. I may be your godmother, and I may love you dearly, but I am not a woman who will take to having my logic insulted and my decisions questioned.”
He remained motionless, and then, with a silent curse, he surged to his feet and began to pace again.
She is a dupe.
A liar.
Just as he’d suspected.
His strides grew increasingly frantic.
He thought of her at the park, at the edge of that damned Serpentine, looking oh-so-very-bereft, filling his head with lies about her inability to believe in magic and wishes. All the while, she’d been deceiving the duchess… and him. And now, in just a couple of days’ time, she’d turned Harris into a villain before these women he loved.
“He’s at it again,” Lady Cowpen lamented.
“Will you sit?” the lady’s twin asked on an exaggerated sigh.
The hell he would.
The hell he could.
Harris continued to frantically pace. “I’ll not,” he seethed.
Lady Cowpen brought her cane down across the next place he would have stepped, a lily embroidered upon the Aubusson carpet. “Sit.”
“This isn’t your decision, Harris.” The Countess of Cavendish, who’d always been the easiest to charm, proved as recalcitrant as the other ladies in the room. “We want her to stay.”
“You want her to stay,” he repeated incredulously.
The three friends nodded in perfect unison.
“The hell she will.” Growling, he attempted to make his way around Lady Cowpen’s cane, only to find his feet dueling with that carved cane, dancing sideways and back again.
“Well, good thing for your godmother that this is not your household to make that decision,” Lady Crowley snapped.
“Enough.” The duchess commanded greater with that quiet utterance than most military generals did an entire army behind them. Looking to the seat he’d vacated, she conveyed without words her expectations.
He stiffened and reclaimed the seat, throwing himself down into the folds. Resting his hands upon the arms of the chair, he drummed his fingertips.
“Now,” she continued, “I understand you do not trust women, since you were trapped by your late wife—”
“This has nothing to do with Clarisse.” The denial exploded from him.
She fixed a gaze on him, and he slouched back in his seat.
“You think all women are liars.”
“And Julia is.”
“But sometimes people lie out of necessity, Harris. And ultimately? Julia confessed. She told us.”
That knocked him back in his seat. “She did?”
His godmother nodded. “She did. We’ve already said as much. Do keep up, Harris. Stop repeating everything I say.”
That gave him pause, and he sat in silence with that revelation. Why had she revealed herself to the duchess? Why, when the duchess had given every indication that she believed Julia was her long-lost niece?
Liars lied, and yet, Julia had shared the truth with his godmother. What were her reasons for doing so? Had she felt… guilt for the decision she’d made to deceive them? And if so, what had driven her to the point that she’d felt the need to dec—
He caught himself. What in hell was he doing? What in hell was he thinking? He was going to find himself as weak as the trio before him.
Stop finding defenses the woman does not deserve.
Harris set his jaw. “She undoubtedly did it because she identified that you’d respond just how you have.”
“Well, that is the silliest argument I’ve ever heard,” Lady Cowpen mumbled around another mouthful of pastry.
“It’s all so very disappointing, you know.” Her twin dabbed at the corner of her right eye. “He’s usually such a clever boy.”
“I’m unclever? This from a group who has not considered that you now have a stranger, who we know not at all, in this household. You’re all but inviting her to fleece the duchess.”
“Are you suggesting Madeira is unclever?” Lady Cowpen demanded.
A hot flush suffused his cheeks once more. “I would never.” Rather, he’d been suggesting the three of them collectively had suffered some kind of blow to their ability to reason. “That was not my intention—”
“Because I’ll not have you insulting my twin. Only I am permitted to do that, Harris.”
His godmother set her teacup and saucer on the rose-inlaid table between them. “That is
