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said,” she petulantly complained.
    As Harrison had never been a husband, he had no idea how one sounded. In his opinion he sounded as if he were the only reasonable person in the drawing room. Miss Hastings was determined to go to her sister and weep on her shoulder, but Harrison was just as determined that she not do so until Lord Carey had departed Everdon Court.
    Carey’s mood had been particularly foul that afternoon after Harrison explained that his younger brother, Lord Westhorpe, had made a series of decisions for the Carey estate in Surrey that had cost a significant sum. Lord Carey did not tolerate mistakes in anyone. He thought himself above making them, and expected others to be above them as well.
    “David will ruin us,” he said sharply. “After centuries of building this family’s fortune—since Edward the Second sat the throne!—he will bring it down with his spendthrift ways and inattention to details!”
    Harrison considered himself fortunate that, for whatever reason, the marquis listened to him. Carey heeded his advice, sought his counsel, and, for the most part, treated him as an equal in the management of the vast Carey holdings, which rivaled those of the richest men in the kingdom.
    Harrison was an excellent and capable steward, trained by the best in England. But he was not so naïve as to believe that he was somehow immune from instant dismissal. He’d seen it happen too many times.
    He liked to think he had prevented some of that at Everdon Court. He couldn’t help but feel protective over the servants there—they were powerless people, displaced on the whims of powerful men like Carey, and he’d spent too much time in their shoes as a child. He’d watched his mother worry herself ill and struggle to keep the gentlemen who provided for her engaged in any way she might, for when they were finished with her, that was the end of their largesse. One of Harrison’s most painful memories was the night his mother had learned that her benefactor had been seen in the company of a younger paramour. She’d collapsed in a heap, sobbing, and he’d felt a deep uselessness. He could not help his mother. He could not give her peace.
    A fortnight later, they moved to meaner surroundings—him with his books, his mother with the jewels she used to pay for their living.
    Now, Harrison was in a different position. He was powerful in his own right, because the Carey family trusted him.
    Harrison firmly believed that he’d remained in good favor as a result of the relationship he’d enjoyed with Lord Carey’s late father. The marquis’s father had employed Harrison based on the recommendation of one of his mother’s lovers. He had kindly overlooked Harrison’s situation and had grown very fond of Harrison. He’d always treated him as an equal. His son had followed his lead and had come to rely on Harrison just as his father had.
    Today, however, Harrison had detected a slight change in the marquis’s tone, and it had to do with Alexa Hastings. As Harrison had gathered his things to leave, his lordship had stopped him with a question: “What do you intend to do with the whore?”
    Harrison bristled at the term—Miss Hastings was an eighteen-year-old girl who’d made a singular, life-altering mistake, but he resented the judgment of her. “I intend to search for a situation that will suit everyone involved, and if I cannot find it, I intend to marry her,” he’d said flatly.
    A dark look had come over Lord Carey’s face. “I am shocked. I have given you every respect, and this is how you repay me? By taking a whore as your wife while in my employ?”
    “I beg your pardon if I have offended you,” Harrison responded evenly. He knew how to appeal to Carey’s ego. “But if someone does not marry the girl, the scandal could very well be ruinous.”
    Carey hadn’t said anything to that, but had eyed him shrewdly.
    “It is my duty here to look after the estate,” Harrison had said, and had