“And had you in the audience at mine,” Harry continued.
This was her opportunity, and she could not help but fall back on what she knew best when talking to Harry—pointed sparring. “Where is Mrs. Stillman?”
“Lady Sabrina Stillman,” Harry said with a touch of pride in his voice, “is in London for the Season, which is why I am going, though I will only stay a few weeks.”
He went on to explain that his new wife had been hostess for her brother, heir to a dukedom, for several years and was helping teach the new duchess the ways of entertaining for a man of his rank.
“You did not go with her from the start? Has she already seen through you, then, and run off?” Hazel finished with a smirk, expecting him to banter back, but he held her eyes without even a smile, which caused her own expression to fall.
“I would very much like for you and me to have a different sort of relationship than we have had in the past, Hazel, but that will be impossible if we cannot speak kindly to one another.”
“Ah, so because you have decided we shall relate to one another differently, it will be so? Thank you for putting me on notice.”
He still did not rise to the bait and instead turned his head and let out an audible breath. Of resignation? Irritation?
Corinne came into the room, and Harry put his smile back on like a coat he’d only taken off for a few moments. He thanked her but did not flirt as he used to do with every woman he met. Hazel distracted herself with pouring the tea until Corinne had left, and they were alone again. She should apologize for her petty mood. She wouldn’t—this was still Harry, and she would keep up her guard—but she could be less acidic.
“How have you liked being back at Falconridge?” she asked without adding anything sharp to the question.
He told her about the improvements he’d made and the others he planned to do over the next few years. He’d hired a new steward last month; he’d been without one since letting the old one go in January. It was all so very . . . conversational.
“I am impressed, Harry,” she said, hating that the compliment was hard for her to say. She didn’t want to be petty, and yet this man had made significant impacts on her life due to his dissolute behavior in the past.
In the past.
Hazel was not who she had been either. Not who she’d been as an angry child brought home because the school would not keep her for the mandatory holidays. Not who she had been as a scared seventeen-year-old who had to prove herself capable of teaching students near her own age or else find herself with no means of support. Not who she had been seven months ago when Duncan had presented her an opportunity she had never imagined.
Was it so impossible to believe that Harry, too, could be changed by the circumstances of his life? Yet how changed was she if she insisted on reverting to childish behavior that had once kept her protected? What exactly did she believe she needed protection from?
“Thank you,” Harry said, holding her eyes. He’d always had an intense stare, and she usually returned it with equal determination. It felt different now, however. Softer. Wanting. He’d mentioned in his letter last year that he’d faced who he was and had determined to be better. It seemed he was proving that determination to be long-term, though it had not yet been even a year.
“I am impressed with you as well, Haze,” he said, using the pet name he’d given her when they were children. “How is this life suiting you? Are you finding yourself satisfied?”
“Very much so,” she said, then wished she hadn’t. In seven months, she would give up this life and take on the role of headmistress of her own school in King’s Lynn. When she made that transition, she would need to play out that this life was not all she’d hoped it would be as justification for why she was leaving it behind. She opened her mouth to make an amendment but could not find the words. Instead, she turned the conversation back to Harry. “And how about you? Are you enjoying the role of husband and landowner?”
“Very much so,” he said, echoing her words. “Though I’ve had more time to explore that of the latter role—we had little time together before she left for London.” He set down his empty cup, waving her away when she moved to fill it, and settled on the settee, stretching his arms across the back. “Sabrina is more than I could have wished for, even with the amount of time we’ve spent apart. We are making a fine life together.”
“It must be difficult having her so far away, then.” Hazel was proud of herself for not saying the same thing with different words: “I hear marriage is always easier when partners live a hundred miles apart” or “I shall have to hear this from Lady Sabrina to believe it.”
“It is horrible,” Harry said, shaking his head and then leaning back so he was staring at the ceiling. “She stayed at Falconridge the first few weeks of our marriage, then had to go on to London. I am excited to have a few weeks with her, but I dare not stay for long.”
Hazel laughed. “Afraid the estate will crumble without your supervision?”
He continued to stare at the ceiling. “Afraid London will swallow me again if I stay too long.”
Hazel looked into her cup. What was she to say to that?
He looked back at her, arms still spread along the back of the settee. It was not difficult to see what Lady Sabrina saw in him physically; he’d always been a fine specimen of the sex. “I have been without a drink for ten months now—I do not even keep liquor at the estate. I ride the perimeter every day and have even begun attending church.”
She wrinkled her nose at him. She had not been to church since the Christmas service. “You are funning me.”
Harry laughed and shook his head. “I am not.”
“Lady Sabrina requires church attendance, then?”
“No, I go of my own volition,” Harry said. “I will admit she did have to convince me when Sunday morning came, and I would prefer we stayed in bed longer, but I have been.”
Hazel looked into her teacup, refusing to let her thoughts follow his suggestive commentary about wanting to linger in bed with his new wife.
“I have found value in believing there is a God who believes in me. I have had a few particular experiences that have given me greater . . . propensity to believe. There is peace in finding purpose.”
“Purpose?” Hazel repeated.
“To life,” Harry said. “To the people in our lives. To the way we live each day.”
“Gracious, you sound like a philosopher.”
“Hardly,” he said, shaking his head. “I take it you and Duncan are not churchgoers then?”
“Actually,” Hazel said, shifting awkwardly in her chair. “He is very religious, which is frankly odd considering his analytical approach to everything else. Catherine enrolled Duncan in a school headed by the local vicar when he was young, and he began attending Sunday service at the vicar’s suggestion, though it was not required. He has attended ever since.”