“Come, Captain. You may ogle Harriet tomorrow while we’re gathering the sheep.” Stephen grinned and then retrieved his crutches.

The captain released Harriet’s hand. “Good evening, Miss Ward.” He bowed to the other women at the table. “Mrs. Ward. Miss Sophia. Miss Ophelia.”

The second the door closed behind him, Sophia slumped in her chair. “Harriet! What a delightful man! You are so lucky. Mother, are you certain we cannot pretend that I am the one Captain Frakenham is engaged to—”

“Sophia, if you suggest that one more time, I will have you clean every rug in the house.” Mrs. Ward stood, her face pink-tinged. “Harriet, when this all came about, I had not thought—that is to say, I hope you do not allow the captain to take advantage of you in any way.”

“Mother!” Harriet frowned. “I am not a green girl of sixteen. I can handle Captain Frakenham.”

Mother didn’t look too certain. “I hope so. He seems dreadfully decisive. But it’s only two weeks. And then he’ll be gone.”

For some reason, the words did nothing to calm Harriet’s riotous heart. Two weeks was not that long a time. But then again…Catching her mother’s anxious gaze, she managed a fairly firm smile. “Two weeks. And then we’ll be free of him and the bank.”

Chapter 14

It is not that I do not know how to manage my money. It’s that my money does not know how to manage me.

Miss Lily Treventhal to her brother, Viscount Rose, while trying to explain why her accounts did not balance—yet again

Harry Annesley turned, the gentle breeze ruffling his cloak and stirring the fetid scents that wafted down the street. “I beg your pardon?”

The man facing him wrung his felt hat even harder, his thin hands trembling. “Sorry to bother ye, guv’nor, but can ye spare a pence fer a bloke as is down on his luck?”

Harry stared at the man, noting the grime and filth that crusted his collar, chilblains marring red and gnarled hands. Harry pulled his own sumptuous cloak about him, careful that the edges didn’t flutter out and touch any part of the filthy steps upon which he stood. “What I have, I’ve made myself, and I’ll be damned if I’ll share it with the likes of you—”

He stopped, aware that a faint hint of his former accent was creeping into his voice, into his mind. Damn it, he was no longer a member of the swill that lived in the East Side. Not any more.

Harry directed his irritation at the contemptible stick of humanity that stood before him. “Be gone. I have nothing to give you.”

The man’s eyes blazed. He darted a quick look at the coach that sat across the street, then spat. “Full o’ yerself, ain’t ye? Yer pretty little coachman ain’t close enough to help ye if oiye decides to take what oiye wants.”

Harry’s thin hold on civility cracked, slipped, shattered to the ground. He grabbed the man by the throat and hauled him forward, a dangerously thin knife appearing from the depths of his cloak. “See this ’ere pike?” Harry snarled. “One more word outta ye, and oiye’ll split yer gullet here ’n’ now.”