Free A Reformed Rake by Jeanne Savery Page A

didn’t catch what you said?”
    “ ’Twas nothing, Sir Frederick.” They swept apart.
    When they met again Harriet suggested the moon might rise in the west for a change. Sir Frederick agreed. She thought the steam engine might replace sail upon the sea. Even this ridiculous suggestion brought nothing but preoccupied agreement. The dance ended—and the sport. For once Harriet found herself irritated a set was over.
    She allowed Sir Frederick to guide her back to her seat. He bowed over her hand muttering politenesses far too quickly and rose, his eyes meeting hers for the last time. She made no effort to hide her disgust or her scorn, and he blinked, stared at her for a moment. “It’s been delightful, Miss, er...” he began, and realized for the first time that he didn’t know her name. His brows rose when she chuckled. “Er, I’m sure we’ll meet again,” he said. Sir Frederick then moved away but looked back once, a perplexed expression drawing his brows together. He was unused to a young lady treating him so cavalierly and—but only for a moment—he wondered at it.
    So, thought Harriet, she’d made an impression on him. But obviously, he’d put her quickly from his mind and moved on to the circle surrounding the ton’s latest beauty. When the ball ended and she returned to her temporary home on Curzon Street, Harriet was unable to sleep. She sat at her desk and drew out writing materials, mending a pen before setting ink to paper:
    Dear Papa,
    Poor Mama will be so disappointed in her only daughter. I do not take. Ah, the horror of it, the disgrace, the tittle and the tattle as I walk in the park or am announced at a ball. The fear I have that my family will disown me! Oh, Papa, will you, truly, be disappointed if I return to you unwed?
    Tonight was the latest of the society functions to which my revered chaperon has begged or borrowed or, for all I know, stolen an invitation. It was, as usual, a very boring evening—except for one incident, which I will relate in detail in a moment. Father, I have reached a decision. I will no longer pretend to be other than I am, despite my chaperon’s horror at my normal demeanor. I will enjoy myself in my own way, no longer caring how my behavior reflects upon the poor lady responsible for me. I will, for instance, urge her to get tickets for musical performances and the theater, which is good, when I can hear the actors—which is rarely! We will attend the lectures I enjoy so much and go to exhibits. Please say you will forgive me. Please allow me to return as soon as possible to the happy home from which I was thrust. Please, please, arrange my passage back to you and Mother!
    Now let me tell you what happened. I am completely disillusioned, dear Papa, in the set of humanity designated rake. It is a hum. It is a bug-a-bear to scare young demoiselles, a story for children! Why the most notorious rake in London is nothing but a court-card...
    Court-card? Harriet returned to the present, the word jarring her mind from the impassioned letter she’d written that long ago night. She stared blindly around the bedroom in the old inn in Calais. Never in his life, she thought, had Sir Frederick Carrington acted the mincing prattling court-card!
    But, however that might be, dear Papa had arranged for her to return to Lisbon and, once there, she’d spent hours with her pen writing and polishing her “memoirs.” That writing, she thought, her eyes narrowing, had been a ridiculous collection of satires, setting far too many well-known tonish figures to ridicule. What had she done with it? She turned her head to where a highly polished wooden chest sat on a table and thought, drowsily, about unlocking it and searching it.
    She hadn’t thought of those manuscript pages for years. If they still existed amongst the papers she toted wherever she went, they should be destroyed before, somehow, they chanced to fall into the wrong hands. She had not been kind to society in that