"Oh, you"re allowed to. I just don"t believe that you"re const.i.tutionally able."
It was true that Sarah was not known to be a morning person.
"And you"re flushed," Harriet added.
Sarah resisted the urge to flick water on her sister"s face and instead splashed some on her own. She dried herself off with a small white towel, then said, "Perhaps it is because I have been forced to exert myself arguing with you."
"No, I don"t think that"s it," Harriet said, ignoring her sarcasm completely.
Sarah brushed past her. If her face hadn"t been flushed before, it certainly was now.
"Something is wrong with you," Harriet called, hurrying after her.
Sarah paused but did not turn around. "Are you following me to the chamber pot?"
There was a very satisfying beat of silence. Followed by: "Er, no."
Shoulders high, Sarah marched into the small bathing room and shut the door.
And locked it. Really, she wouldn"t put it past Harriet to count to ten, decide that Sarah had had more than enough time to complete her business, and barge right in.
The moment the door was safely barred from invasion, Sarah turned, leaned back against it, and let out a long sigh.
Oh dear heavens.
Oh dear heavens.
Was she really so fundamentally different after last night that her younger sister could see it on her face?
And if she looked that different after a night of stolen kisses, what would happen when . . .
Well, she supposed technically it was "if."
But her heart told her it would be "when." She was going to spend the rest of her life with Lord Hugh Prentice. There was simply no way she would allow anything else to come to pa.s.s.
By the time Sarah made it down to breakfast (Harriet hot on her heels and questioning every smile), it was clear that the weather had turned. The sun, which had spent the last week resting amiably in the sky, had retreated behind ominous pewter clouds, and the wind whistled with the threat of an oncoming storm.
The gentlemen"s excursion (a horseback journey south to the River Kennet) was canceled, and Whipple Hill buzzed with the unspent energy of bored aristocrats. Sarah had become used to having much of the house to herself during the day, and to her surprise, she found herself resentful of what felt like an intrusion.
To complicate matters, Harriet had apparently decided that her mission for the day was to shadow-and question-Sarah"s every move. Whipple Hill was large, but not large enough when one"s younger sister was curious, determined, and, perhaps most importantly, aware of every nook and cranny in the house.
Hugh had been at breakfast, like always, but it had been impossible for Sarah to speak with him without Harriet inserting herself in the conversation. When Sarah went to the little drawing room to read her novel (as she had casually mentioned she planned to do at breakfast), there was Harriet at the writing desk, the pages of her current work-in-progress spread before her.
"Sarah," Harriet said brightly, "fancy meeting you here."
"Fancy that," Sarah said, with no inflection whatsoever. Her sister had never been skilled in the art of subterfuge.
"Are you going to read?" Harriet inquired.
Sarah glanced down at the novel in her hand.
"You said you were going to read," Harriet reminded her. "At breakfast."
Sarah looked back toward the door, considering what her other options for the morning might be.
"Frances is looking for someone with whom to play Oranges and Unicorns," Harriet said.
That clinched it. Sarah sat right down on the sofa and opened Miss b.u.t.terworth. She flipped a few pages, looking for where she"d left off, then frowned. "Is that even a game?" she asked. "Oranges and Unicorns?"
"She says it"s a version of Oranges and Lemons," Harriet told her.
"How does one subst.i.tute unicorns for lemons?"
Harriet shrugged. "It"s not as if one needs actual lemons to play."
"Still, it does ruin the rhyme." Sarah shook her head, summoning the childhood poem from her memory. "Oranges and unicorns say the bells of St. . . ." She looked to Harriet for inspiration.
"Clunicorns?"
"Somehow I don"t think so."
"Moonicorns."
Sarah c.o.c.ked her head to the side. "Better," she judged.
"Spoonicorns? Zoomicorns."
And . . . that was enough. Sarah turned back to her book. "We"re done now, Harriet."
"Parunicorns."
Sarah couldn"t even imagine where that one had come from. But still, she found herself humming as she read.
Oranges and lemons say the bells of St. Clements.
Meanwhile, Harriet was muttering to herself at the desk. "Pontoonicorns xyloonicorns . . ."
You owe me five farthings say the bells of St. Martins.
"Oh, oh, oh, I have it! Hughnicorns!"
Sarah froze. This she could not ignore. With great deliberation, she placed her index finger in her book to mark her place and looked up. "What did you just say?"
"Hughnicorns," Harriet replied, as if nothing could have been more ordinary. She gave Sarah a sly look. "Named for Lord Hugh, of course. He does seem to be a frequent topic of conversation."
"Not for me," Sarah immediately said. Lord Hugh Prentice might currently occupy her every thought, but she could not recall even once initiating a discussion about him with her sister.
"Perhaps what I meant to say," Harriet wheedled, "is that he is a frequent subject of your conversations."
"Isn"t that the same thing?"
"He is a frequent partic.i.p.ant in your conversations," Harriet corrected without missing a beat.
"I enjoy talking with him," Sarah said, because no good could come of denying this. Harriet knew better.
"Indeed," Harriet said, eyes narrowed like a sleuth. "It leads one to wonder if he is also the source of your uncharacteristic good cheer."
Sarah gave a little huff. "I am beginning to take offense, Harriet. Since when have I been known for a lack of good cheer?"
"Every single morning of your life."
"That is quite unfair," Sarah said, since she was fairly certain that no good could come of denying this, either.
In general, it was never good to deny something that was indisputably true. Not with Harriet.
"I think you fancy Lord Hugh," Harriet declared.
And because Sarah was reading Miss b.u.t.terworth and the Mad Baron, in which barons (mad or otherwise) always appeared in doorways the moment someone uttered their name, she looked up.
Nothing.
"That"s a refreshing change," she muttered.
Harriet glanced her way. "Did you say something?"
"I was just marveling on the fact that Lord Hugh did not appear in the doorway the moment you said his name."
"You"re not that lucky," Harriet said with a smirk.
Sarah rolled her eyes.
"And just to be precise, I believe I said that you fancy Lord Hugh."
Sarah turned to the doorway. Because really, she would never be that lucky twice.
Still no Hugh.
Well. This was new and different.
She tapped her fingers against her book for a moment, then said under her breath, "Oh, how I wish I could find a gentleman who will look past my three vexing sisters and my"-why not?-"vestigial toe."
She looked to the doorway.
And there he was.
She grinned. But all things considered, she ought to stop with the vestigial toe business. It would be just her luck if she ended up giving birth to a baby with an extra digit.
"Am I interrupting?" Hugh asked.
"Of course not," Harriet said with great enthusiasm. "Sarah is reading, and I am writing."
"So I am interrupting."
"No," Harriet blurted out. She looked to Sarah for help, but Sarah saw no reason to intercede.
"I don"t need quiet to write," Harriet explained.
His brows rose in question. "Didn"t you ask your sisters not to chatter in the carriage?"
"Oh, that"s different." And then, before anyone might inquire how, Harriet turned to Hugh and asked, "Won"t you sit down and join us?"
He gave a polite nod and came into the room. Sarah watched as he made his way around a wingback chair. He was depending on his cane more heavily than usual; she could see it in his gait. She frowned, then remembered that he had rushed all the way down from his room the night before. Without his cane.
She waited until he took a seat at the other side of the sofa, then quietly asked, "Is your leg bothering you?"
"Just a little." He set his cane down and idly rubbed the muscle. Sarah wondered if he even noticed when he did that.
Harriet suddenly shot to her feet. "I just remembered something," she blurted out.
"What?" Sarah asked.
"It"s . . . ehrm . . . something about . . . Frances!"
"What about Frances?"
"Oh, nothing much, really, just . . ." She shuffled her papers together and grabbed the whole sheaf, folding a few sheets in the process.
"Careful there," Hugh warned.
Harriet looked at him blankly.
"You"re crumpling," he said, motioning to the paper.
"Oh! Right. All the more reason I should leave." She took a sideways step to the door, and then another. "So I"ll be on my way . . ."
Sarah and Hugh both turned to watch her depart, but despite all of her protestations, she seemed to be hovering by the door.
"Did you need to find Frances?" Sarah asked.
"Yes." Harriet rolled to her toes, came back down again, and said, "Right. Good-bye, then." And she finally left.
Sarah and Hugh looked at each other for several seconds before chuckling.
"What was that ab-," he started to say.
"Sorry!" Harriet called out, dashing back into the room. "I forgot one thing." She ran over to the desk, picked up absolutely nothing that Sarah could see (although to be fair, Sarah did not have a clean line of sight), and hurried out, closing the door behind her.
Sarah"s mouth fell open.