Miss Harper’s arms did not stop flying, but she began to speak the words aloud too.
“—unnecessary and unfair,” she apparently motioned. “He’s heir to an even bigger stud farm in the City. He deals with Tattersall’s on a regular basis and is the supplier of choice to London’s elite. He doesn’t need our farm.”
Her father signed his reply.
When Miss Harper glared back at him stonily, he began the gestures anew, larger and more forcefully.
“‘But then you’ll have two, which means both of you benefit,’” she interpreted, and shook her head. “No. Then he’ll have two. Neither will be mine.”
Eli shifted uncomfortably. He moved slightly to see both their faces and hands.
She replied first using sign language, followed by interpreting aloud for Eli.
Her father was using signs again. “Keeping grudges leads to an early grave. This will heal the rift. Milbotham and I will see our offspring married before we die.”
“Neither you nor the marquess are at death’s door,” she shot back, once she’d repeated his comment aloud to Eli. “You’ve decades of life left. Can we discuss this when I’m fifty-four instead of twenty-four?”
“It will happen this week.” Mr. Harper turned toward Eli. “Did you bring it?”
“Bring what?” Miss Harper signed. Her voice strained with trepidation when she repeated the words verbally.
Eli nodded in assent to her father. He pulled the wet leather glove free from his numb right hand, and reached beneath the lapel of his coat to the warm, dry pocket hidden within. Slowly, he pulled out the folded square of parchment.
“Yes.” His voice sounded calm. Nary a crack. “I brought the license.”
Miss Harper looked like a sail in high wind. Pale and tattered and struggling to hold on. “A marriage license?”
Eli knew how unfair this was. The saving grace was that it would be over by tomorrow. Her father would say, you must do this, and she would acquiesce, even though she didn’t wish to, because children were obedient to their parents. Especially daughters, who had neither choice nor recourse.
It was not what Eli would have wished for her or for anyone. But here they were.
“No,” she stammered, her finger movements disjointed. “Absolutely not.”
“Take him to Nottingvale’s for this evening’s dance,” Mr. Harper suggested. “The duke will toast your betrothal as cheerfully as his sister’s.”
Her signs were as sharp as her voice. “Hell will freeze over before I introduce this knave to my friends as though he numbered among them.”
Eli returned the license to the safety of his pocket. “I will do whatever it takes—”
“Oh?” Her tight-lipped smile turned calculating. “Then win me.”
He blinked. “What?”
“If both of you want this betrothal to happen, then Weston must earn my acceptance.” She turned a mulish look to her father as she signed. “You cannot consign me to less.”
Of course he could. Mr. Harper was her father.
To Eli’s shock and horror, Mr. Harper lifted a shoulder as though this last-minute complication didn’t matter in the least. “Very well. Nottingvale’s Twelfth Night party will do just as nicely for announcing your betrothal.”
“Or making our goodbyes,” Miss Harper said pointedly, after she’d finished interpreting her father’s words.
“Twelfth Night?” Eli sputtered.
“I expect an effort of good faith while pursuing your suit,” Mr. Harper countered calmly. “You must spend every waking hour together between now and then.”
Miss Harper watched and responded before interpreting aloud, her jaw visibly clenched.
“But Father! Ten days with a rogue will ruin my reputation and no other gentleman will have me.”
“Then I suppose you ought to marry me and have done,” Eli said.
She slashed him with a sharp gaze as she interpreted. “That was sarcasm, Mr. Weston. You’re no gentleman. I have no suitors because I don’t want any.” She turned those cutting eyes to her father. “I’ll consider his suit in ten days’ time, on one condition.”
“What do you want?” he signed.
“I’ve no reason to trust this churl. And there’s only one creature whose trust is even harder to earn than mine.” A smirk flirted with the edges of her lips. “I’ll consider Mr. Weston’s proposal if he manages to convince Duke to let him ride him.”
Eli’s lungs froze. His blood raced with panic. This was a preposterous stipulation. An impossible stipulation. A ten-day courtship was farce enough. Eli wasn’t going anywhere near her stables.
“No changing the agreement,” he said to Mr. Harper. Miss Harper’s hands moved with speed, interpreting after Eli spoke. “According to my father—”
Miss Harper spun to Eli, her eyes fierce. “I don’t give a fig what your father said, Mr. Weston. My father said Twelfth Night, and that’s the best offer you’re going to get. Take it or leave now.”
Eli tried to think fast. It was impossible with the blood rushing in his ears and all his carefully laid plans disintegrating like snowflakes before a fire. Delaying the betrothal was the last thing he wanted to do. It would only draw out the torture for both of them.
But if this was the only path forward, he had no choice but to take it.
“As you please,” he growled, then adjusted his tone. She was not the enemy. “If those are your wishes, it will be my pleasure to fulfill them.”
Miss Harper’s brown eyes glittered mockingly. “I’ll see you in the stables.”
She’d turned the tables on him.
He had ten days to win the affection of a duke.
Chapter 3
The First Day
Eli glared at his valise in consternation.
A valise. He’d brought a valise. Not large traveling trunks for a long holiday. He’d expected to start the journey back to London within a day, two at the most, having unhappily complied with his father’s command.
Instead, he’d awoken to the first day of his “Win the Heart of a Duke” campaign.
He poked at the contents of his valise, as though the touch of his finger might transfigure them into something more appropriate for the change in his mission. It didn’t work.
Father had always mocked Eli for packing more books than apparel. The marquess would be delighted to know he’d been proven right.
The valise held a light traveling costume, for the return home. A frock coat and buckskin breeches for daywear. Formal knee breeches and sharp black coat, for a special occasion. Five notebooks, four botany texts, three brand new pencils, and two annotated journals containing his latest research plans, which Eli was supposed to deliver within a week.
None of which was at all helpful for clomping about a farm or mucking through stalls to sidle up to a horse.
Eli settled on the morning costume and prayed for divine intervention.
No clothing on earth could make him capable of taming wild stallions. Nor did he have time for dithering. The sooner Miss Harper agreed to the union, the sooner Eli could be back in London where he was needed and useful.