The Bad Luck Bride (The Brides of St. Ives #1)(73)
“I’m off, Papa. We’ll talk later.” She nearly ran from his room, not even stopping when he called her name, but simply waving a hand as if she could wave away whatever it was he wanted to say. Closing the door firmly behind her, Alice breathed a sigh of relief and smiled.
*
It was Harriet’s turn to host their small gathering, a weekly meeting during which the girls pretended to knit but often simply talked. The Anderson house was Alice’s least favorite of the three homes she visited as part of their little knitting group. Harriet’s home was even more formal than hers, an oppressive place where the sound of laughter was infrequent, the staff dour, and the overall mood oppressive. At all the other homes, the four girls could gather informally and chat and laugh and gossip. But Mrs. Anderson would frequently step into the room on one excuse or another to check up on them, stifling whatever fun they could have. She was an omnipresent specter of unease, and behind Harriet’s back, for the other girls didn’t want to hurt Harriet’s feelings, they called her the Termagant.
Which was why Alice was surprised when Harriet herself opened the door when she rang. “My family is not here,” she said, full of lightness and air. Alice was taken aback, but laughed at her friend’s obvious happiness. “Eliza and Rebecca are already here. How is your father?”
They began walking toward the parlor at a more subdued pace, for the housekeeper appeared, coming from the opposite direction, and Harriet had always believed she was a spy for her mother. With a cold look at the woman as they passed her, Alice gave Harriet a small encouraging nudge. They’d been best friends for as long as Alice could remember and she could read her well. “That is why I was a bit late. I stopped into his room to see how he was faring, and he is doing well,” she said as they entered the parlor.
“I’m so relieved to hear he is doing better.”
“Much better, thank you. It was quite the fright, but the physician says with bed rest and fewer rich foods, Papa will be with us for a long time,” Alice said.
They all sat, their knitting by their sides, and it was clear very little actual knitting was going to be done that day. So much had happened since they’d met, and Alice’s stomach felt a bit jumbled by it all.
“Had your father been ill prior to the attack? I’m always lecturing my father to take better care of himself but he hardly listens to me. Perhaps your father’s scare will knock some sense into my own father,” Rebecca said.
Alice thought back and couldn’t find anything in her memory that would hint of any illness except for some minor heartburn he’d complained of a few times at breakfast, hardly anything to be concerned about. “Nothing.” She looked at each of her friends, knowing she could trust them with her deepest secrets. After all, she knew all of their secrets.
Still, she pressed her lips together, uncertain whether this was the time to tell her friends about Henderson. Darting a look at Harriet, Alice said, “I have something to tell you all and it must go no further than this room.” She gave them all a level look, and nearly smiled at the rabid anticipation she saw in their eyes. Nothing piqued her friends’ interest more than gossip, even if it was gossip about one of them. On her walk over, Alice had debated with herself whether she should divulge her secret love of Henderson, particularly given Harriet’s girlhood crush. If she’d thought Harriet was truly in love with Henderson, she would have told her separately, but she knew Harriet would have confided in her if her feelings were deep.
“I am to blame for my father’s attack.”
After a rush of protest from her friends, Alice raised a hand to silence them. “I am. And this is why. Please don’t think ill of me, I beg you.” She bit her lip, and her friends, who had been rather gleeful to hear a bit of gossip, now looked concerned.
“What is it, Alice? No matter what it is, we are your friends and you can tell us,” Harriet said.
Closing her eyes, for that made it somehow easier to say aloud, Alice said, “I was with a man on the terrace, kissing, and my father caught us.” At the collective gasp she heard, Alice’s eyes flew open. “And that’s not the worst of it.”
“It’s worse?” Eliza asked, her expression one of pure shock.
Alice nodded and couldn’t stop the grin from blooming on her face, much to her friends’ collective dismay. “It was Henderson.”
The silence that followed was, to say the least, complete.
“I love him,” she said, looking at Harriet, who suddenly found the floor fascinating. “And he loves me and we hope to marry.”
“Of course your parents are opposed.” This from Eliza, and Alice had to suppress a small amount of anger at the certainty in her words.
“Yes, they are. But I shall change their minds.”
The other three girls looked at each other, as if trying to gauge how to feel about this announcement.
“How long have you felt this way?” Harriet ask softly, still unable to look at Alice, and she realized she had hurt Harriet more than she could have guessed.
“When I was young, I felt foolish for liking my brother’s best friend.”
“And I was making such a cake of myself over him,” Harriet said, a small smile on her face.
“I didn’t want to discourage you or compete with you, so I didn’t say a word even though I fancied myself in love with him when I was younger. I thought it was a silly girlhood crush, but since his return, my love has only grown. It seems almost impossible to believe, but Henderson felt the same way, all this time. Neither of us knew how the other felt.” From the expressions on her friends’ faces, she might have told them all she was gravely ill. The silence told her more than words: they were not only shocked, but, worse, opposed.