SWNOVELS A Vixen for the Duke: Chapter 2
Harriet ran a hand over her frizzy brown hair, which was getting more voluminous with each passing moment that she exposed herself to the unbearable humidity outside. It felt like a storm was building, and the air was dense with the promise of heavy rain.
Harriet always liked storms. They made her feel butterflies in her chest, as if something incredible was about to happen. She never really knew why, but a dark, sodden grey sky like the one rolling outside the window of the carriage was building an excitement in her chest that she couldn’t explain.
“Can you please stop bobbing your leg like that? This carriage is only so large. We’re almost there. I am sure you can hold it for another twenty minutes,” Lucy grumbled, her eyes glued to the book in her lap.
This was perhaps the hundredth time Harriet had caught her reading Plato’s something-or-other. Harriet had really tried to express an interest in philosophy for her sister’s sake, but she could hardly muster much enthusiasm. The whole study was just an overcomplication of life and people. It was ridiculous.
“I don’t have to use the ladies’ room. I am just excited.”
“Excited?” Lucy sighed. “Sure, just try to contain yourself, please, because, as I said, this is a small carriage.” She looked back at her book.
Harriet sighed. “You know I cannot contain myself very well.”
“Mhm,” Lucy murmured, her eyes flickering back and forth over her book. “How much longer?” she asked Agnes, the maid, who sat opposite them as a chaperone. “Is that the estate there?” She gestured out the window.
“Oh!” Harriet looked out the window, her eyes widening when she saw a massive country estate in the Greek Revival style. “Look how beautiful!” she cried. “We could get lost in that house!”
“She must have a massive library,” Lucy whispered longingly as if she was staring at a plate of freshly-baked biscuits.
“And a beautiful garden out back with a fountain and horses and all manner of luxury!”
But the carriage never turned down the drive.
“Oh.” Lucy shrugged and looked back at her book.
“I’m sure her estate is just as nice,” Harriet said. “I heard she is the widow of a very wealthy viscount.”
“It must be this one,” Agnes said, pointing out the window.
Sure enough, the carriage turned down the drive.
It was a modestly-sized country estate. It was much smaller than the one she’d grown up in, and it seemed much cosier. It was made of grey stone. English ivy twisted up the walls and blanketed the stone partition that separated the front gardens from the driveway. The carriage took a turn, carefully rolling onto the uneven gravel drive before pulling around a simple stone fountain. It wasn’t the level of luxury that Harriet had hoped for, but once again, her expectations were lacking realism.
“This seems more realistic,” Lucy muttered.
“It’s still beautiful in a quaint sort of way! So homely!” Harriet gasped. “Can I live this well as a spinster, or do you think that I would need to be widowed for this level of lux—”
“Miss Harriet,” Agnes interrupted, her voice thin. “His Lordship expressed his dislike for such talk.”
“Yes, of course.” Harriet sighed. “According to Father, I’m going to have prospects once this scandal is forgotten. And I thought that he was the realistic one.”
“Miss Harriet, there is a difference between realism and hope. Sometimes we must be hopeful even in the face of the most realistic outcome,” Agnes explained with a gentle smile.
“I am hopeful,” Harriet said. “But I am also too scorned to allow myself any more childish fantasies. I have made a fool of myself all for Lord Northwick, and I wish nothing more than to set myself on a path that I can be proud of, whether I am accompanied by a handsome husband or not. I endeavour to become a renaissance woman,” Harriet announced with a flourish of her hands.
Lucy snorted. “Might help to know what the renaissance was first, don’t you think?”
“I know what the renaissance was!” Harriet huffed. “They were making, you know, all that art and such.”
“Who are they?”
“Leonardo Da… Da’Angelo…”
“My goodness!” Lucy breathed in sharply through her nostrils. “Really, I have nothing else to say. Nothing. Maybe the Viscount set off down the aisle in search of a better education?”
“Miss Lucy,” Agnes whispered sharply. “Too soon.”
“Fine!” Harriet huffed. “I will begin my journey with some reading.” She swallowed hard. “Some… some light… reading.”
“It is Leonardo Davinci and Michelangelo among many others. And it was more than just art, it was a cultural—”
“Fine, fine!” Harriet swatted at her sister like she was a nagging horsefly.
The door of the carriage opened, and the driver helped Harriet down. After so many hours of sitting, it felt great to get back on her legs again.
“Well, if it isn’t that little rabbit girl!”
Harriet looked up to see her aunt Bridget. The last time she’d seen her had roughly been ten years prior. She had come out to London to visit the family. Harriet didn’t remember much of the visit, but she recalled some tension between her parents and her aunt. At the time, she hadn’t understood why, but now over the years, she had come to realise that her father thought her eccentricities were a bad influence on his girls.
The last time Harriet had seen her aunt, she recalled her having smooth skin and silky black hair, but now she was much older. She had wrinkles on her forehead and her cheeks, and her hair had greyed with age. She was wrapped up tightly in a purple cloak to fend off the chilly spring air.
Harriet frowned. She was surprised her aunt knew the nickname her father had given her. “Ra—Rabbit?”
“Yes, dear, your nose has been all scrunched up like that since you were a baby. Rather sweet if you ask me,” Bridget said, her nose turned up in the air. She walked with a slight limp, but she was rather nimble.
“That is what Papa calls me.”
Bridget snorted like a piglet. “It is hardly an insult, my dear. I rather like rabbits. I have at least…” She scrunched up her nose and used her fingers to count. “Six of them? Rosie, Pippin, Ginger, Wiggles, Petunia and…” She paused. “Ah, yes, Edward.”
“Edward is a… rabbit?” Lucy asked.
Bridget laughed again. “Yes, dear. You don’t think I have a handsome man living in my backyard, do you?”
“Uhm…” Lucy grimaced at her aunt’s vivacity. “I am entitled to hope.”
“Oh, ho, ho, imagine if that Edward were to become a man. He’d just be… Oh, I think he would be the worst! I keep him in his pen these days. Bit of a Zeus type of character.”
“Oh my,” Lucy said.
“You girls look fantastic,” Bridget gushed. “Now, come along. We have much to see.”
Bridget was very commanding of the world around her, it seemed. Harriet was dashing off to keep up with her without another question. She even supposed that if her aunt snapped her fingers, the clouds would roll back into the sky and disappear at once. Already, Harriet admired that. She was taught to be very obedient while growing up, and although her father had advertised Bridget as having some masculine qualities, she wasn’t so sure that it was masculinity as much as it was just a general air of confidence. That was admirable, even if her aunt was a little strange.
“Now, this boy,” Bridget said, already sounding exasperated. At first, Harriet didn’t respond, unsure of which boy they were speaking about until Bridget clarified. “Your viscount, dear. Call him what you like, a man, or what have you, but to me, I shall call him a boy. Only boys are foolish with a woman’s heart. A man is much more careful.”
“He’s not my viscount. Not anymore.”
“Yes, that’s just as well, dear,” Bridget said, her voice somewhat akin to the cooing of a rather elegant bird. Even her nose was a little hooked and beak-like in appearance. “Finding a man is fortunate, but being stuck with a boy is a hell I would rather not stay in. Count yourself lucky.”
Harriet’s lips drew back at her aunt’s crude language. “I… I am afraid I cannot count myself as lucky. Lucky would have been not meeting him at all.”
“Goodness gracious!” Bridget shook her head and stopped in her tracks, tapping her hand against the stone fence that was covered with vines looking a bit like icing dripping down a cake. “Get a look at this ivy, then.”
Harriet blinked, swallowing hard before looking at the growth. “Yes, I see it.”
“I mean it! Come closer, take a good look. Sniff it if you must. Feel it. Think about it.”
Harriet’s mouth hung open, her bottom lip drawn back. Eccentric was maybe an understatement. She reached out tentatively, feeling the vines of ivy before her.
“What do you think this wall would look like if these vines weren’t here?”
“I do not know.” Harriet shrugged. “Like stone, I suppose.”
“Completely different,” Bridget corrected, stressing each word. “Is that what you want? Completely different? Are you unhappy with everything about your life, dear? Your friends, your family, your talents, your sense of self? Hmm?”
“Well… no.” Harriet frowned.
“Good. Then think of it as growth. Bad things happen. Good things happen. Be the ivy, dear. Grow wildly. It is good for us, even if stretching ourselves is uncomfortable.”
“That makes…” Harriet paused, smiling slightly. “Much sense.”
“Eh.” Lucy shrugged.
Bridget clicked her tongue and scowled at Lucy. “I forgot how challenging it can be to mould young minds.” She turned back around on her heels. “Keep up, then, girls. We must be seeing the rest of the estate.”
She took them inside the house, pointing out the best features of almost every room. There was a quaint dining room used for taking every meal. The living room was much smaller, and Bridget used the term “drawing room” interchangeably. She was a wealthy woman, Harriet’s father had said as much, but it seemed she preferred to live rather simply. The glint in her eyes seemed to suggest that she was flaunting her oddities in the face of properly bred Society and social conventions.
Out through the doors connected to the dining room, Bridget led both sisters to a beautiful garden, with two spacious rabbit enclosures and a range of some type a little farther out. She led the group over to her rabbits first. Harriet had partially expected them to be a joke, but there were indeed six of them. They look very soft and velvety, but their smell was an insult to her nose.
Bridget lightly kicked the wire enclosure in which a single rabbit was kept. “Edward! Stop making eyes at Petunia like that. You are only setting yourself up for frustration. Your masculine sensibilities really have a mind of their own.” She sighed. “This rabbit really is no good,” she muttered softly to herself. “Moving along!”
She pointed at a tiny hutch. “There’s the rabbit hutch. We keep the feed in there. Hay is in the chicken coop, and—” She paused. “Ah, yes, the chicken coop. That should be self-explanatory. Everything you need is right in there, and the egg basket is hanging in the kitchen.”
Harriet laughed, her mouth wavering between a smile and a frown. It certainly sounded like a joke, but her aunt hadn’t said it like a joke. “I will need some time to adapt to your dry sense of humour, Aunt Bridget,” she said.
“Humour?” Bridget asked. “No, I am afraid I was not jesting. You cannot expect to come to the country without getting a little chicken shit on your slippers.”
Harriet’s eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to object, but Lucy interrupted her with a snort. “You curse a lot, Aunt Bridget,” she said. “I like it.”
“As for you, Lucy, I urge you to go practice on the archery range. Your arms are as tenacious as overcooked asparagus.”
“Excuse me—”
“Come along, let’s go have our afternoon tea, girls.” And with that, Bridget was already on her way down the little garden path towards the doors that led into the dining room, leaving the two sisters to catch up.
“This is so unfair,” Harriet complained.
“She is testing you. I am sure she hardly expects you to do it. I am sure she has staff to do it.”
“Do you think so? Maybe she has control issues. I have hardly seen any staff at all.”
Lucy nodded. “I am positive. She cannot expect a proper Londoner to be working in a chicken coop. That is ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous…” Harriet grumbled. “She wants to make fun of me? I will show her, right now!” With that, Harriet stomped off towards the house.
“What are you doing?” Lucy called out.
Harriet turned around briefly, one hand on the door. “I am going to get the egg basket!”
With that, Harriet stomped into the house, past a quiet Bridget, who was enjoying her seat on the couch without any further questions. If she wanted to poke fun at Harriet on her first day away from home, then Harriet would prove her a fool. She’d already survived being jilted at the altar. What could a few chickens do?
In the kitchen, Harriet found the egg basket hanging by the sink. She picked it up and hooked it on her arm before going outside.
“You’ll need to put on a pair of boots. It is muddy out there. You’ll ruin your shoes!” Bridget called from the couch. “I have boots in the cupboard in the hall.”
Harriet scoffed. She didn’t need boots. She would do this all by herself and show her aunt so that she would just drop this ridiculous suggestion. She stomped past Lucy and out the back door. In the garden, the chicken coop was beside the bunny hutch. It smelled awful, and the green siding was covered with dirt and mud. Harriet cautiously stepped out into the mud and winced as her slippered foot sunk into the ground. That was her first mistake. She should have taken heed regarding the boots.
“Oh God, this is so disgusting,” she whispered sharply to herself.
With another step, both her feet were completely covered in mud and the hem of her skirts was equally dirty.
She trudged up the ramp and opened the door of the coop. Inside, the chickens squawked, each resting in their boxes as if they too could sense a storm was coming. Harriet walked up to a white chicken. “Move out of the way, please,” she said.
The chicken blinked before nestling down into its box and getting comfortable.
“Excuse me!”
The chicken remained seated. Harriet huffed, stomping her foot. What kind of loving aunt would send her niece into the den of animals without so much as an explanation of how to retrieve their eggs?
So disgusting.
After seeing this, Harriet wasn’t very interested in eating another egg during her lifetime. She looked around. The coop was dim and filled with resting chickens. On the floor were a few barrels. She pried the top off one to reveal some chicken feed. The birds began to rustle in the boxes.
“Perfect,” she whispered.
She reached into the box, grabbed a handful of feed and tossed it onto the floor. The chickens flew from their boxes and started pecking at the little crumbs on the floor.
Harriet hurried over, her face scrunching up when she realised the boxes were empty. “Where are the…” She sighed. There were no eggs. Bridget really sent her out here for no reason.
She stormed out of the coop and back onto the muddy ground. She stopped, mud sloshing around her feet when she heard footsteps. She turned to see a young girl of about ten or eleven approaching her. The child was certainly unique looking. Her hair was choppy and cut up to the nape of her neck, and she had on a long white dress with a blue ribbon tied to the waist. The dress was a little short, as if perhaps she was growing out of it. The little girl smiled, her brown eyes creasing, and waved.
“Oh! Hello,” Harriet said. “Are you lost?”
The girl merely shook her head.
“Do you… live around here?”
The girl nodded, stepping closer to Harriet.
Harriet smiled warmly, bending slightly on her knees so that she was eye-level with the girl. “Where do you live? We might see to getting you home.”
“I do not need help going home,” the girl said. She smiled widely as if she were proud of herself for something, but for what, Harriet did not know.
“How old are you?”
“Eleven,” the girl replied, standing with her hands behind her back and her nose pointed in the air. “You might be the one who is lost. I come here all the time to play with the bunnies and I have never seen you. I think I would have remembered you. You look like you are having a really bad day. Maybe even a bad week. Or year.”
Harriet’s eyes narrowed. “Thank you.”
“Actually, that wasn’t a compliment. More like an observation. A sad one.” The girl crossed her arms.
“I am just fine, thank you.” Harriet frowned, puffing out air in an attempt to get a curl out of her face. Her hands were too dirty from the coop for her to even dream of touching her hair. “I think perhaps you and I could find some commonality if you gave me a chance,” she said. “I’m the Dowager Viscountess’s niece. Call me Harriet.”
The girl’s lips pulled back. “I am sorry.”
“It is quite all right.” Harriet sighed. “We can start anew.”
“Oh.” The girl frowned sheepishly. “I meant that I am sorry that you were named that. It’s a dusty sort of name, don’t you think? I am Daphne. Did you see a house down the road? All the way over there?” She pointed at a bank of tall trees at the edge of the property. She must have been gesturing towards the beautiful estate that Harriet and Lucy had seen on their way.
“I did.”
“Well, I live there, and it belongs to my cousin. He might think your name is funny too.”
Harriet’s face burned hot with frustration. “You have a rotten attitude, you know that?”
The girl shrugged lightly. “I know that. I have been told as much.”
“Well, you ought to fix your attitude, or I’ll see to it that you no longer come around to play with the rabbits,” Harriet warned.
The girl ran forward, her arms extended, and pushed Harriet. Harriet fell, her bottom hitting the ground with a thud. She shouted as mud splattered around her, coating her dress and speckling her face. Her eyes widened, and she looked up at the girl, but Daphne was already running away, likely with the intent to cause more chaos.
Harriet stayed in the mud for a few minutes, contemplating how she had come to this point, when not even two weeks prior she had been standing at the altar with whom she had assumed to be the love of her life.
At that moment, as if the sky was wanting to highlight just how down she ought to be, it began to rain. It was just a sprinkle, but within a minute, it began pouring down heavily.
Harriet had spent far too long living in a fairytale, and now here she was. She should have known. Fairytales didn’t exist, and everyone who claimed they did was lying.