He ran a weary hand over his face, scrubbing the last of his ill temper from his expression.
“Harriet, I must be off for a while.” The abruptness of his tone startled his companions, who both looked at him with questioning eyes. “I need to finish the preparations for the Blessing of the Wells.”
“Of course.” Harriet jumped up from her chair. “I’ve taken up too much of your time.” She scurried to the desk and began stuffing the paper back in a pile, spilling half of it in her haste. Brookes’s eyebrows drew together. Barking at an innocent young lady was certainly an unappealing trait in a man. His defensiveness about his lack of faith made him too snappish. A twinge of guilt assailed him.
“I can show you the well, if you like,” he replied with an elaborately casual air, remembering his earlier promise.
“I would love to see it, but I must return home. Sophie and I need to get ready for the Blessing service and the tea, and I must look in on Mama.”
Stoames helped her, neatly tying the sheets of foolscap with a piece of red twine. He then leaned over and whispered something in Harriet’s ear, which Brookes could not hear. Harriet looked up at Stoames, her features softening, and gave him a radiant smile. A terrible tenseness grabbed at Brookes, and he glowered at his batman. Stoames gazed back at him, an expression of innocence on his roughened face.
Unreasonable jealously tugged at his insides. Brookes’s jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed.
Stoames can’t be in love with her. I won’t allow it.
Chapter Six
“What was that all about?” Brookes spat out the words and turned to his batman. “What did you say to Miss Harriet?”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” Stoames gazed up at the ceiling, his features schooled to blankness.
“When you were helping Miss Harriet, you whispered something in her ear. Something that, judging by the beatific smile she gave you, made her excessively happy. I must know, what did you say to her?” He clenched his fists, flexing them, balling them up at his sides.
“Begging your pardon, Captain Sir, I don’t want to tell you. It’s a private matter and I don’t wish to provoke your anger.” Stoames clasped his hands behind his back but his shoulders hunched forward defensively.
“Tell me at once or I may lose my temper and plant you a facer. I may be getting older, and I may be lame, but I can still fight with the best of them.” Heat flooded his face, but he refused to recognize the overpowering emotion as jealousy. There was no possible reason to be envious of Stoames’s attention to Harriet. After all, Sophie was his future bride.
Stoames stared squarely at Brookes. “I told the lady not to lose heart. I told her that you would, in time, come around to talking about the war. You may not realize it, sir, but your behavior was almost uncivil. If Miss Harriet is to write her book, she needs your assistance, and she needs you to give it willingly.”
The fire inside Brookes extinguished. He slumped into the chair behind his desk, dropping his hands. Utterly defeated, he gazed at Stoames in discomfort. “I was uncivil, was I not?”
“I only said almost uncivil, Captain.”
Brookes leaned forward, resting his elbows on the mahogany wood. He toyed with the blotter, creasing it with his thumbnail. The paper crackled against his skin. “Next time, I promise to be kinder.”
Stoames sat in the chair across the desk, gazing at his master eye to eye. “You’ll have to face it, you know. You must make up your own mind about which young lady you want. It won’t do to keep taking your confusion out on Miss Harriet.”
Brookes’s thumb stilled, and ice replaced the fire in his veins. Had he tipped his hand? “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“I’ve seen the way you look at Miss Harriet. You’re besotted. Admit it, man. Your unkindness to her this morning is nothing more than vain attempt to cover it. But I’ve known you for years. And I never saw you look at Miss Sophie the way you looked at Miss Harriet when she served the tea.”
A suffocating tightness seized Brookes’s chest. “You’re mighty blunt about it, anyway.”
“You know me, Captain. I speak as I find.”
Turning his chair away from his batman and closer to the window, Brookes faced the watery sunlight streaming in. The soft, insipid rays did nothing to warm his chilled skin. He took a few deep breaths, ordering himself to remain calm. “I snapped at Miss Harriet because she brought the conversation around to religion, a subject I don’t care to speak of.” He swallowed, measuring his words with precision. “Though I find Miss Harriet’s society pleasant, I am honor bound to propose to Miss Sophie.”
“Balderdash.”
Brookes swiveled back, regarding his batman with a critical squint. “You would have me go back on my word of honor?”
“You know I would never say that. But I believe no engagement existed between you and Miss Sophie.” Stoames tapped his forefinger on the desk for emphasis. “If you don’t have a formal arrangement, and if Miss Sophie finds you too altered, then why stick so stubbornly to her?”
“Our understanding was formal enough for both of us to comprehend. Neither of us sought another in the three years I fought with Wellington.” The blood pounded in his temples. “I cannot, in good conscience, back out of the understanding now.”
“You were at war. When would you have time to find someone else?” Stoames leaned back in his chair with a weary air.
“You and I both know more than one soldier who broke from his sweetheart as soon as they found a nice Belgian chit. But I stayed constant, and so did she. Sophie stayed here and waited for me when others could have taken my place. Even if she finds me repulsive now, I must work to win her over. To break from her now—especially with her family in desperate financial straits—would be most unfair.” He crossed his arms over his chest, daring Stoames to keep needling him.
“Then how will you control your feelings for Miss Harriet?”
“I don’t have feelings for Miss Harriet.” He swallowed the lie neatly. “I am helping her write a book. She wants to support her family, which shows a great deal of pluck. I admire her for it. I don’t think she cares for me anyhow.” He broke off and stared down at his hands for a moment.
Stoames heaved a forceful sigh that seemed to originate in his boots. “Yet you all but threatened me with pistols at ten paces for whispering in her ear.”
Stoames and his intuition. Brookes covered his embarrassment by shrugging nonchalantly. “I know you, you old dog. I merely tried to protect her honor.” Ridiculous excuse. He remembered Harriet pouring out tea with graceful hands, meeting his barbed words with graciousness. He recalled her fine brows, the straight bridge of her nose, and the tender curve of her mouth, her profile as pure as a cameo, a little bit of ivory transformed into vibrant flesh and blood. Her hair was dark and glossy. He imagined how the strands might feel, slipping through his fingers. He shook his head, his mouth twisting into a cynical smile.
Stoames raised a hand in defeat. “Well, then, what are your plans?”
“I’ve found my mother’s jewelry in the safe. I will propose to Miss Sophie after the dance in the village hall.”
“And Miss Harriet?” A challenge, rather than a simple question.
“I’ll keep helping her to write her book. I will endeavor to give her everything she needs to make a success of it.” But if she brought the subject around to God again, he had every right to leave off.
Harriet trudged home, her feet heavy and her mind clouded with self-doubt. Stoames assured her to keep trying, but she couldn’t fathom the bitter look on Captain Brookes’s striking face. His eyes turned from stormy green to