to behave with decorum.’ The impetuous part of her felt trapped by those rules, while the greater part feared what would happen without those boundaries. ‘Unlike you, I do not have the luxury of abandoning my good reputation. I still have to find a husband.’ Not that she had really been looking. All her suitors thus far had failed to exceed her low expectations and all were fixated on the money she came with. It had made her jaded. Understandably so.
‘I wasn’t suggesting you become a scandal, Thea. Merely that you let your hair down once in a while. You used to be so bold and spontaneous—I wish you’d let all those scintillating aspects of your character shine again rather than tempering them. You would have such fun! I want you to have some excitement in your life before you settle down—if you ever deign to allow a gentleman to get past your iron-clad defences, of course. Believe me, the years fly past so quickly and I would hate for you to regret your wasted youth. It worries me that you rarely leave your uncle’s grounds unless I drag you.’
‘You know that Uncle Edward is unwell.’ And her aunt abandoned the house for days on end visiting friends or shopping. Polite excuses for not wanting to be in her husband’s hostile or uninterested company. Their marriage had been strained before his illness and, despite her aunt’s utter despair at the thought of losing her husband in those grim days after his collapse, it was practically non-existent after. Both were always happier when at least ten miles of road separated them.
‘I also know dear Edward is as desperate to see you happy as I am. He’s repeatedly offered you a Season and I have repeatedly offered to be your chaperon in London—yet soon you will celebrate your twenty-fourth birthday and you haven’t set one foot out of Suffolk in for ever. I can barely get to you attend even the local assembly any more. What are you afraid of?’
She wasn’t afraid. Not exactly. Reluctant, more like. When one had the amount of money in the bank that she had, the vultures tended to circle. At least here, close to home, she knew all of them, had repelled most of them and didn’t have to waste valuable time trying to identify them as vultures in the first place. London was the great unknown, stuffed to the rafters with wholly unsuitable men who had no scruples and who would move heaven and earth to get their hands on her fortune. Winnowing out the wheat from the chaff did not appeal. Especially when Impetuous Thea had such poor taste in men.
‘I need to be close in case something happens.’ That was at least a reasonable excuse. With a sham for a marriage, no children and a largely absentee wife, Uncle Edward was alone. If Thea wasn’t there, then he would have nobody but his manservant, Bertie, to keep him company from one week to the next. She couldn’t allow him to live like that. Not when he had taken her in after she had been orphaned, loved her unconditionally and been both mother and father to her for over half of her life.
So much so, he had transferred the bulk of his unentailed fortune to her while she had still been a child. Tens of thousands of pounds, cannily invested, continually multiplying and held in trust until she had reached her majority. He still managed her fortune for her and every year it grew bigger still, ever multiplying like the venomous heads of the mythical Hydra and twice as frightening. Not that she would admit such a thing to anyone, least of all her beloved uncle. He had gifted her a lifetime of financial independence and had never asked for anything in return. It seemed horribly ungrateful to loathe the generous gift he had saddled her with.
‘Very noble—but exactly how many more years are you prepared to wait for the worst to happen? It has already been three.’ Which coincidentally was the last time she and her uncle had really argued, when Thea had defied him to sneak out of the house past midnight to kiss the handsome officer who she had met at the assembly rooms the week before. With hindsight her uncle had been entirely correct in his censure. The man had been too old, too worldly and wholly focused on her fortune. He was taking flagrant advantage of her youth, her rebellious nature and her inexperience to further his own ends.
Unfortunately, at the time she had been too outraged at being forbidden to see him and too wilful to accept the edict. While Impetuous Thea was out, the worst had happened. If Bertie hadn’t been there to save him, her uncle would now be as dead as her father.
‘Edward’s condition has neither deteriorated nor improved. You need to face facts, Thea. While you sit around waiting, being the overly dutiful niece and the devoted daughter Edward never had, your own life is passing you by. Mr Hargreaves notwithstanding, you could be married already, living close by and still being the dutiful niece who visits daily, yet you have thwarted every potential suitor who has shown an interest.’
‘None of them was suitable. They all just wanted my money.’ She didn’t want to end up shackled to a vulture. ‘With great wealth comes great responsibility. I have to be sure I entrust it to someone worthy.’
‘Or perhaps your exacting standards are too high on purpose? You are the most suspicious person I know.’
That stung. ‘I’m an heiress! I have to be suspicious! Every fortune hunter, ne’er-do-well and chancer who ventures into Suffolk automatically seeks me out and plights his troth, keen to get his greedy hands on all that money. I have to be cautious.’
‘Cautious, yes. Not overcautious and determined to denounce them all as villains. Lord Selwyn, for instance, didn’t turn out to be a swindler as you suspected.’
‘But he was a fortune hunter.’
‘And Mr Taylor, the young widower, was in fact a widower and not a bigamist either.’
Thea threw her hands up in the air in exasperation. ‘Yet he was in debt up to his eyeballs and hopelessly in love with my fortune, too.’
‘Yes, granted, both saw the money before you, but Captain Fairway had his own fortune.’
‘And three illegitimate children by two separate mistresses. I knew he was a philanderer!’
‘There is always something wrong with them—fortune hunter, philanderer, scoundrel...what was the name of the chap you thought was a highwayman?’
‘Chisholm Hunter? I’m still not entirely convinced that he wasn’t. There was something very shifty about that man.’
Harriet glanced heavenwards and briefly closed her eyes before continuing in an uncharacteristically measured tone. ‘Your overly suspicious nature has given you an imagination as vivid as your hair, darling. In the absence of any real reasons to discount them you now have a tendency to make things up.’
‘You think I should have settled? For a man I have no faith in nor any true affection for? Leap first into marriage without any forethought or rigorous contemplation? Like my uncle did with Aunt Caro? Look how miserable that hasty decision has made them! Might I remind you, you also found fault with all those gentlemen, too, as I recall.’
Harriet rolled her eyes again. ‘Only because you continually hammered home their faults and I am a good friend and want to please you. However, while you continue to repel each and every gentleman who glances your way, the clock is ticking. In two more years you’ll be well on the way to being considered an old maid. And I don’t want you to leap into marriage. I want you to risk the leap of faith. It’s the most splendid feeling in the world, darling. You stand on the precipice, not ever truly knowing what is the right course of action, but you take that chance. You abandon your fears and leap.’ She sighed romantically. ‘I adore leaping. It’s the ultimate grand gesture. The test of true love is the grand gesture.’
‘So I should abandon all hope of finding a decent, upstanding, genuine man to love, and simply settle?’
‘Leaping isn’t settling,
