Page 5 of Their Wildest Dreams

Her father looked at the key still in the lock. “How long have you been able to get into this room?”

“Since I was twelve.”

“I suppose I ought to be angry.”

“I rather suspect we both should be. But it wouldn’t be helpful for either one of us, would it?”

He shook his head and closed the door. In daylight, the exhaustion she had glimpsed the previous evening was more evident. Harriet wanted to be angry with him. She was angry, but it did not prevent her from loving him or from seeing how frightened he was.

“You heard the conversation between Selby and I,” he said.

“Yes.”

“I am sorry.”

Harriet looked down at the ledger beneath her hands. “For the debt or for my hearing of it?”

“Both.” Her father came farther into the room. “I believed I could repair matters before any of you needed to know. Every solution required time, and I continued to believe I had more of it than I did.”

She laughed bitterly. “Selby meant you to believe that. He did not acquire the notes because he wanted repayment. He acquired them because he wants Alderley.”

“No. He wants the eastern land.”

“Only as a start,” she corrected. “It’s the way in, isn’t it? Seize the one portion of the estate that is profitable and let the rest of it sink into such ruin and decay it can be obtained for a song!”

“I am not a fool, Harriet. I will not be spoken to as one!”

Her own temper flared to life then. “And I am not a fool either! I have studied every possible measure to make Alderley more efficient and more profitable and have been dismissed outright! Yet, when Benedict brought my ideas to you as his own, you accepted each one. Do you despise me because I am a woman or because I am the daughter you wish would have been a son?”

He appeared stricken at the very thought. “Neither. I do not despise you, but these matters are not for you to tend to! They are the purveyance of men!”

Men who had done nothing but fail at every turn. There was no point revisiting every decision that had brought them to that pivotal moment or the prejudices that had steered them. Harriet had done so all morning and had found no path back through them. “What happens now?”

Her father sat across from her. “The Denhams may be willing to discharge the debt.”

She ought to have felt relief. Instead, humiliation rose so swiftly that it nearly choked her. Benedict would know everything. He would know that while she lectured him about the south meadow, her father lacked the funds to dig a ditch in it.

“On what terms?” she asked.

“The land must be protected from further borrowing. Denham also requires a permanent interest in the road and water rights.”

“Then he will purchase it.”

“No.” Her father paused, and Harriet knew the worst had not yet been said. “The families would be joined.”

She stared at him. “How?”

“By your marriage to Benedict.”

For a moment, Harriet could not form a reply. Of all the humiliations she had imagined, this had not been among them.

“Whose suggestion was that?”

“Lady Denham’s.”

That answer surprised her. Lady Denham had always been kind to Harriet, but kindness did not make this less of a bargain. “And Benedict has agreed?”

“He has agreed, if you will have him… his condition being that you must be informed of all aspects of the arrangement and not be compelled to accept it in any way.”