She grinned ruefully. “Yes, sadly, I think you are right. I am a bit of a mess.”
“A bit?” he teased.
She managed to punch his shoulder, he cried out in mock pain, and she laughed and said, “Indeed, but I should go back, wash, and put on a pretty dress … wait, what should I do then? Stare at the walls? Embroider? Me with my clumsy fingers? No, I think I would rather be a mess.”
He chuckled and nodded. “Egad, no, not you, you couldn’t sit still long enough to draw a line let alone do intricate embroidery. I can’t imagine you could stand still long enough to be of any use in any of those very estimable female occupations. But blister it, Kitty, you shouldn’t be running around in breeches and looking like a ragamuffin, either. You should be in a lovely gown, receiving suitors.”
She made an unintelligible sound.
He said, “And this past Sunday, you should have put on a gown and presented yourself with Nanny at church.”
Kitty put up a brow. “Should have, could have, and didn’t.”
He pulled a face. “Incorrigible child.”
“Child? You speak as though you have a decade of years over me, and you do not!”
He grinned. “I have a few over you, though, and besides, Kit, I would be remiss if I didn’t make a push to put a real smile on your face.”
She did smile then, from the heart, and threw her arms around him. “Oh Harry, you are my dearest friend, and you must know I am trying.”
“I do, I do know, but, Kit, you can’t go on grieving forever. You must call on one of your relatives to visit and give you countenance. You can’t go on alone here at Wharton Place. You know that, don’t you?”
“I am not alone. I have Nanny,” she answered, surprised.
“Nanny is a dear, but you ride roughshod over her, always have, and it won’t do. You need a chaperone still.”
“Nonsense. I am nearly twenty-one,” Kitty said, genuinely shocked.
“Are not, and won’t be for another seven months! People always blamed your guardian for allowing you to run amok … and now, look at you, twenty and alone here at Wharton without a chaperone and fellows like me, coming and going …” He grinned wickedly at her and wiggled his eyebrows.
She laughed out loud. “Oh, now I know you are jesting and playing with me.”
“Well, about me, yes, but in truth … your situation is … well, it might get the gossipmongers wagging their hungry tongues.”
“As though I give a rap for such things.” Kitty frowned.
“But, honestly, Kitty, you can’t go about dressed like an urchin, and you must have a chaperone, if only to honor your guardian’s memory.”
That stopped her in her tracks. Kitty didn’t like the notion of people gossiping about her uncle or criticizing anything he had done. As she frowned over the problem, Harry hurried on.
“Also it is time you were presented,” he said and coughed into his hand.
Kitty looked at him from the top of his thick waves of auburn hair to his clear hazel eyes and then to his mouth spread wide with a grin. “Is that so? And who should present me? Who, Harry?”
“Well, as to that, I haven’t got it all worked out yet, but I will …” He played with his lower lip as he gave this some thought.
She picked at the dirt on her breeches, “Well, you are right about one thing, I am a woman full-grown.”
She looked up and burst out laughing at the expression of horror on his dear face.
She had been infatuated with Harry when they were youngsters, but that soon turned into something else since she had been seven and he nine, and a very clear friendship had ensued instead.
He could have treated her as his inferior—she was younger than he by two years, and he was heir to a healthy estate and a title—but he had never done that to her.
; He was certainly opinionated, but she had often found that, in his own way, he made good sense. He was, in fact, quite like family, and she did think of him as a brother as much as a friend.