“Yes, do,” Matilda said.
Viola would write to her brother, the Reverend Michael Kingsley, and his wife, Mary; Matilda to Mrs. Kingsley, Viola’s mother; Anna to Camille and Joel; Jessica to Abigail and Gil; Elizabeth to Alexander, her brother, and Wren; and Mildred to Cousin Althea, Elizabeth’s mother.
Estelle and Bertrand Lamarr, the Marquess of Dorchester’s adult twins, were not yet in London, but they were expected within the next day or two. Viola undertook to make sure they were ready to follow plan B.
Mildred took it upon herself to speak with Mrs. Leeson, mother of her eldest son’s new fiancée. Miss Leeson had a younger sister, another of the chosen three possible brides for Harry.
“Since Boris’s betrothal was announced on Valentine’s Day, when none of us were in town, Aunt Mildred,” Anna said, “we really ought to celebrate it as a family while we are all together at Hinsford. Especially if Miss Leeson’s mother and sister are to be there too.”
“That is a brilliant idea, Anna,” Elizabeth said, beaming at her.
“Splendid.” Matilda added it to the bottom of her copy of plan B. “And I will let Sally’s mama know that we will definitely be going to Hinsford.”
Sally Underwood was the third prospective bride. She was a niece of Viscount Dirkson’s first wife, a pretty, vivacious girl, though Matilda admitted she did not know her well.
There were other details to be discussed, including exactly what information they must send to Mrs. Sullivan, Hinsford’s housekeeper. But for now they all applied themselves to the task of letter writing. For the next half hour all that could be heard in the dining room was the scratching of pens and the occasional exclamation from Louise, who declared crossly at one point that her pen must have been made specifically to produce one ink blot for every ten words.
Harry did not even know that Lydia had left until after she returned.
He called on her twice on the day he had told her he would. The first time, late in the morning, when she did not answer his knock on the door, he assumed she was out. But when she did not answer during the afternoon either, he guessed that she was deliberately avoiding him. She had, after all, begged him not to return, and she was doubtless reluctant to come face-to-face with him just yet. But it must happensometime. He had spent a couple of almost sleepless nights wondering if he had impregnated her.
She would not know yet, of course. His questions could therefore wait. If she was inside there now, holding her breath, hoping he would go away without making a fuss, he would not make things worse for her by knocking again. If she wasnotinside—and actually it was likely she was not, since there was no sound from the dog either—then he would be wasting his time trying to force an empty house to answer his summons. She had probably made good and sure to be away from her house all day.
He would give her a week and then try again.
But one week stretched into two.
During that time he avoided the village as much as he could, since he did not want to encounter her anywhere else but the cottage. He even missed church two weeks in a row though it was Easter. When he did socialize, it was mostly with neighbors outside the village. He dined with the Raymores one evening and went riding with Lawrence Hill and his sisters a couple of times. Lawrence rode over to Hinsford late one afternoon and stayed for dinner. Harry did walk into the village by the back way one day to spend an evening with Tom and Hannah, but there were no other guests. Just two men reminiscing about their boyhood and one long-suffering woman sewing quietly and smiling a few times and shaking her head a lot. Actually Hannah could reminisce with them over several memories, as she too had grown up at Fairfield.
Harry and Lawrence went to Eastleigh one day as escorts for Rosanne Hill and Theresa Raymore. While the ladies shopped and Lawrence looked at horses, Harry called upon the physician whom he had brought to Hinsford a while ago to have a look at Timmy Hack, and persuaded him to pay a second visit. Harry had called at the Hack cottage after his conversation with Lydia and found the situation just as she had described it. Timmy was indeed pale and listless and not recovering as well as he ought. Harry had been startlingly reminded of himself as he had been for almost two years in the hospital and convalescent home in Paris, the helpless victim of those who would have killed him with good intentions if he had not finally put his foot down and insisted upon returning to England and then upon being left alone at Hinsford to manage his own recovery. That was something Timmy could not do. He was still a child.
Harry spent most of those two weeks alone, however, reading inside the house on wet days, wandering about the park, admiring the spring flowers and the new foliage on the trees when the sun shone, or out on the home farm helping wherever he could, especially on the renovations to the old barn. He was, if the truth must be admitted, more than slightly depressed, and he did not like the feeling one little bit. He had fought suffocating, debilitating depression during the years that followed the Battle of Waterloo, first overseas in Paris and then here at Hinsford when it had seemed to him that he would never recover his full health and strength, that he would never behimselfagain. He had fought and won the battle. He resented the fact that it needed to be fought all over again now.
He ought not to have gone to Bath for Christmas. Or, if he had, he ought to have come back home immediately after, as he had originally planned. And he ought not—damn it—to have gone to bed with Lydia Tavernor. Against all his better judgment. Against the principles of a lifetime. Against what he knew wereherprinciples. But like a couple of brainless idiots, with no control whatsoever over their lusts and passions, they had gone and hopelessly complicated their lives.
Someone needed to take a horse whip to him.
The solitude and contentment he had so coveted and so enjoyed for four years were suddenly feeling like something far worse, and he did not appreciate it.
Late one morning he was sitting on a stone slab beside the lake, a picturesque spot beneath a weeping willow tree, warming himself in the dappled sunlight and trying to convince himself that this was very idyllic and peaceful and all was right with the world. Instead he was feeling neglected. By his family.
It was the ultimate idiocy on his part.
Those letters from his mother, Jessica, and Aunt Matilda, all of which had touched upon the question of whether he intended to spend any time in London during the upcoming Season, had not fooled him for a moment. For their motive had been glaringly obvious. They wanted to lure him to town so they could put on some sort of grand party in celebration of his thirtieth birthday. And they very probably wanted to do some aggressive matchmaking at the same time. He knew the Westcott family as of old—or so he had thought. He had fully expected to hear from a few more of them soon after with the same question buried amid other news, or perhaps even with some definite reason why heoughtto come or reallymustcome.
He had indeed received more letters—one from his grandmother, and one from Anna. Neither one had made even a whisper of a mention of his going to London. Or of his birthday. Or, for that matter, of his very single state.
Had they forgotten that he had a birthday coming up? Histhirtieth? Had they given up on him? Did they notcare?
He was laughing out loud suddenly. Poor little spoiled boy!
He picked up a couple of loose stones from the flat rock upon which he sat to pitch one at a time at the lake. But the angle was wrong for them to skip. He was too far above the water. They all sank without a trace.
Now that he was not being pressed to go to London, he was very tempted to go after all. To get away from here for a few weeks. To kick up his heels a bit. To air out his head, whatever the devil he meant by that. But it would be madness. Easter was over and done with and the Season would be just swinging into full life. And his sudden appearance might cause someone with the last name of Westcott to recall that he had a landmark birthday soon.
He did not belong to that world any longer, and in all truth he did not want to belong. The Harry Westcott he had been at the age of twenty was not the Harry Westcott who was sitting here now, attempting the impossible by pitching stones from well above the level of the water and expecting them to skip.
He got up and went down closer to the lake to find more stones. He managed to skip the second one four times, gave himself a congratulatory pat on the shoulder, and turned to make his way back to the house.
