Read In Praise of Younger Men for Free Online Page B

it had been a blessing to him, not a curse, for it had brought him the gift of twelve years with his beloved wife.
    Sir High looked closely at Harriet. “You love Tristan. You have since you were a wee lassie.”
    Harriet stared at her father, dumbfounded that he should know something she’d thought only known to her.
    “You were devastated when he left Galloway, Harriet. A father can sense these things about his only daughter.”
    Actually, it had been Devorgilla who’d told him, but Harriet need not know any better. “But certainly a man born the same day as you should be safe enough.”
    “That is the same thing Tristan said, but what if it is not?” Harriet left the tea tray and crossed the room to the window, blowing on the brew in her cup to cool it as she watched the traffic pass by. “What if some misfortune were to befall him? We would never know until it is too late. And I would never forgive myself if Tristan came to harm because of me.”
    The baron nodded, unable to argue against his daughter’s unhappy logic. “She makes a good point.” He let go a sigh. “Chin up, my dear. I’m sure all will work out in the end. It always does.”
    Harriet, however, found little comfort in his words.
    After they shared a makeshift supper of cold ham and crusty bread, Geoffrey and the baron went off to the nearest pub for a celebratory tankard of ale. Devorgilla excused herself, claiming a headache from their journey, and retired above stairs for a nap. Harriet was thus left alone for the afternoon to sit and ponder how best to find herself a husband in less than a fortnight.
    Where on earth to begin?
    The knocker on the front door sounded at almost the same moment. Harriet went to the hall and opened the door onto the greeting smile of an older woman carrying the most enormous muff Harriet had ever seen. Only after Robbie began barking at the thing, and it hissed, did Harriet realize it was a cat.
    “Good day to you!” the lady’s melodious voice rang out. “I am Lady Harrington. Lord H and I hold the house there on the corner just across the square. We had despaired of meeting anyone new this season at all, but then I saw your coach, saw that you had baggage and meant to stay, and I knew I had to come right over to meet you.”
    She was like a swirl of new spring air, all floral and brisk and lively. Harriet invited the woman inside, cat and all, asked the kitchen maid to bring tea, and settled in for a visit. In truth, she was grateful for the diversion. All Harriet had been able to think about was the fact that Tristan was there, in that same city, possibly even on that same street, and she could not see him. In fact, as angry as he had been the last time she’d seen him, he likely would never want to see her again.
    For all her formidable figure, Lady Harrington was quite fashionable with her salt-and-pepper close-cut curls graced by a stylish bonnet. Lucinda, as she asked Harriet to call her, spent a pleasant hour chatting about the comings and goings of most every family in the neighborhood, how Lord and Lady So-and-so’s son had lost a fortune at the gaming tables the week before, or that the Earl of Whatever’s mistress lived in a flat in the small house off the lane. She seemed to know everyone’s business and Harriet soon found herself likening her to a vibrant butterfly, flitting about from flower to flower, making certain to stop at each one lest she should miss out on something important.
    “Have you children of your own?” Harriet asked when she finally managed to get in a word.
    “I have two daughters, Wilhelmina and Rosalind, now grown and moved away.” The viscountess sighed. “I devoted my life to seeing them both successfully wed, one to an earl, the other to a marquess, no less. They are my finest accomplishments.”
    It soon became apparent that now that her daughters were wed, Lady H was quite at loose ends with what to do with herself. As such, she was always on the lookout for