Phillip longed to be a gentleman in the eyes of the world, to have the panache and presence of a Cousin Johnny. Instead, he had a good pair of ears and the burning conviction that the fellow was up to no good.
Phillip found a comfortable rock amid the ferns and bracken and settled down to do more than eavesdrop if necessary to safeguard Hecate’s wellbeing.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Hecate said, frustration flaring, “I will seek my bed.”
“Bide with me a moment,” Johnny replied. “Only a moment.”
Hecate weighed the price of delaying her slumbers another quarter hour against Johnny apparently feeling entitled to subject her to some sort of cousinly moment. Phillip had been fast asleep when Hecate had let herself into his bedroom, and she hadn’t had the heart to wake him.
Had Johnny followed her to the summer cottage? He was an accomplished woodsman, after all, and familiar with Nunnsuch’s grounds.
She settled on a bench and arranged her skirts. “If you have something to say, you’d best say it. The horse race tomorrow necessitates organizing a picnic buffet sufficient to feed half the shire. The whole neighborhood has been invited, and they will rejoice to learn of your return.”
“I rejoice to be returned,” Johnny said, taking the place directly beside her.
Hecate barely restrained herself from moving away. The Johnny who’d left had still had the lanky vestiges of youthful awkwardness. He’d known enough to regard his Canadian posting with both enthusiasm and caution. He’d been charming, but not like the Johnny who’d returned.
This fellow was confident and calculating. Hecate did not trust him and wasn’t sure she even liked him.
“Do you know why I went to Canada?” Johnny asked, stretching out his legs and crossing his feet at the ankles. “The wilderness is endless, the frontier far from civilized, and the winters… You cannot imagine the winters, Hecate. Snow in June and September isn’t unheard of out west, and yet, they claim to have a summer.”
If Canada was so beastly inhospitable, then perhaps Britain ought to leave it in peace. “I’m told it’s also beautiful beyond imagining.”
“It is, when it’s not trying to kill you. I bought my colors because I did not want to be yet another Brompton preying on your generous nature. I took Emeril with me because he was already hatching schemes to relieve you of your fortune.”
“To compromise me? Miss Blanchard would have foiled those plans. My companion was skeptical of bachelors generally and of Brompton bachelors most of all.”
“The truth is, I wanted to be worthy of your esteem.”
Oh no. Not this and not now, when Hecate was exhausted, and wishing herself in Phillip’s arms, and ready to be done with house parties forever more.
“You have my esteem,” she said, scooting forward. “Anybody who escapes the pull of the Brompton tendency to mischief and insolvency deserves endless esteem, but right now, I deserve to find my bed.”
When she would have risen, Johnny seized her wrist. His grip didn’t hurt, but Hecate’s urge to leave edged closer to anger.
“We’re engaged, you know,” Johnny said quietly. “You and I. Isaac hatched up the notion when he learned I was thinking of joining up. I was losing hope that the solicitors would approve the funds for my commission, so I signed the settlement agreements at Isaac’s urging. A contingency plan, he said, but I signed them in good faith.”
Engaged? Hecate nearly laughed with relief, except Johnny was for once serious. “Isaac excels at hatching schemes that come to nothing. We are not engaged.”
“He says you signed the papers too.” Johnny’s grip shifted so his fingers were laced with Hecate’s. “Said he slipped them in among all the documents and whatnot the solicitors were always having you sign. Managing a fortune apparently necessitates mountains of correspondence, bank drafts, and so forth.”
“It doesn’t matter what I signed,” Hecate said, trying to keep her tone civil. “I was not yet of age. Having long since reached my legal majority, I can repudiate any contract I made when I was a minor.” The rule had exceptions. Her new solicitors would know them, but the concept held true in the general case.
“You’d do that to me?” Gone was the swaggering prodigal. In his place was a good man humbled by looming and undeserved defeat. The transition was a little too smooth for credibility, but Hecate couldn’t ignore the real bewilderment in Johnny’s tone.
She marshaled her patience and kept her voice down. “You expect me to marry a man I haven’t seen in ten years? A man who never once wrote to me or asked to be remembered to me—in ten years?”
“A bachelor doesn’t correspond with an unattached young lady.”
Utter balderdash. “We are cousins of some sort, which makes us family—family enough that I provided the funds to purchase the commission you hoped for so desperately. You could have sent regards to me by name in any of your rare general dispatches, but you did not. Not regards, not fond regards, not the kind of letters any man is allowed to exchange with his prospective bride.”
“But my dearest—”
Hecate held up a hand. “We would not suit. I will not marry you, and you’d best be careful lest Portia get herself locked into a pantry with you.”
“Portia was a scheming little girl ten years ago, and she’s only grown into her potential. I’ll not be locked into any pantries with her. I will be too busy courting you.”
“Your suit is doomed, and you undertake it against my wishes.” Exhaustion was making Hecate daft, because the idea that Johnny insisted on courting her struck her as laughable. This handsome, charming, golden adventurer would have at one time been her dream come true.
He was annoying when a lady was short of sleep and missing her true love.
“I am exceedingly tired,” she said, shaking her hand free of Johnny’s grasp and pushing to her feet. “You are correct that the house party has been my chore to organize, subsidize, and manage, and I am nearly asleep on my feet. I bid you good night and will expect you to jettison any notions of courting me. Court Flavia. She’s sweet and overshadowed by Portia, though Flavie has a kind heart and better instincts than she knows.” I was like her once upon a time, long ago.
Johnny rose and once again possessed himself of Hecate’s hand.
Stop touching me. She bit back the words lest Johnny provoke some sort of scene that could be heard from the house—or the summer cottage.
“We are legally engaged,” Johnny said. “That hasn’t changed, and I intend to court you with every ounce of my considerable determination. All those years, Hecate, all those winters, I promised myself that someday I’d return to England and to you. I survived hardships and dangers you cannot imagine, and all the while, the thought of coming home to you kept me going.”
Rank, febrile nonsense, but such was the quiet conviction in Johnny’s words that Hecate hadn’t the heart to name it as such.
“Listen to me. Isaac had us sign those papers—if any I did sign—because he planned to see us married, and then he would have insisted I remain in England while you risked your life in the wilderness. With your consent as my husband, he’d doubtless have had himself appointed trustee of my fortune, and you would have returned to find yourself married to a pauper. Isaac might well have been betting that you would not return at all. Be grateful that we are not married and that we were never truly engaged.”