“Fine.” Mrs. Williams threw her hands in the air, finally at her wit’s end. “I give up. You don’t want to meet any of the gentlemen I worked so hard to find you? Don’t meet them. You can pine away in your ivory tower. At least it will spare me the embarrassment of having to deal with your behavior at our morning calls.”
A flash of relief crossed Miss Williams’s face, though she concealed it quickly. It seemed she’d won.
Does that mean I’ve finished my part?
“I’ll never forget you.” She turned to Silas, dabbing at her eyes, which were perfectly dry. Yes, this act was reaching its logical conclusion. “I’ll write to you every day.”
“Uh, I’ll write you too,” Silas offered. It seemed the sort of thing he should say, though he hoped he wouldn’t actually have to fulfill the promise.
“And I’ll burn the letters,” Mrs. Williams muttered angrily.
Seven
Hannah spent the next month confined to her guest room in Jane and Eli’s house, counting the petals on the floral motif on the wallpaper and generally trying not to expire from boredom. True to her word, Mama hadn’t brought another gentleman caller to the house since the disastrous proposal from Sir Richard.
She also hadn’t let Hannah entertain any of her friends, or attend any social events, or even leave the house except under the watch of immediate family. Annabelle Danby had tried to come and see her early in her imprisonment, followed by an inconsistent smattering of the other young debutantes she’d gotten to know since arriving in town, but Mama had turned them all away.
“You wanted to be ruined?” she’d asked Hannah with a cool glare. “Ruined girls aren’t welcome in polite society. Respectablemarriedwomen are welcome at any place you’d like to go, if you change your mind about Sir Richard.”
“No, thank you.” Hannah had pursed her lips and returned to counting petals.
She was allowed to emerge from her prison only to attendBishop’s with Jane in the mornings, which proved far less exciting than Hannah might have hoped. She was given a long list of chores to accomplish to atone for her sins, and she was always whisked to safety before they opened their doors to guests in the evenings. She’d first been assigned to take an inventory of all the champagne in the cellar, then of all the preserves in the kitchens, and then finally, making sure none of the decks were missing a card.
Hannah was fairly certain that last one had no real purpose but to keep her occupied.
“How are you?” Jane asked over tea and currant buns, sometime toward the end of the fourth week, as they took a short break from their work. Hannah would say this much: Even if bishop’s was nothing more than a variation on her prison cell, at least Jane brought treats.
“Fine,” Hannah said. “Though I miss Mr. Corbyn dreadfully.”
“Hmm.” Jane took a bite of her bun, unwilling to comment on this.
Everyone seemed to harbor their doubts about the sincerity of Hannah’s love affair—which was really quite rude of them, seeing as she’d gone to so much trouble to produce solid evidence—but they couldn’tproveshe was lying if she didn’t admit it.
Though Jane didn’t seem to be hunting for inconsistencies in her story as Mama did, one could never be too careful.
“Do you expect that your, uh, devotion to this gentleman will last much longer?” Jane asked delicately.
A trap!Hadn’t she just been thinking she was safer here than at home? Jane might seem kind enough, but she’d already proven that she wouldn’t keep secrets from Eli. And once Eli knew the truth, he couldn’t be trusted not to share it with Mama.
I can’t let my guard down with any of them.
“It will last for as long as I live,” Hannah said tartly.
Jane’s shoulders sank as she let out a long sigh. “All right, all right. I was only asking because my uncle Bertie has been wanting to come and visit, and I wondered how much longer the guest bedrooms would be occupied.”
“You could turn us out if you like,” Hannah suggested, trying not to sound too eager.
She’d expected that Mama would have admitted defeat and taken them back to Devonshire by now. After all, with her dreams of matchmaking up in smoke, there was nothing to keep them in London. But whenever Hannah tried to broach the subject, Mama stared her dead in the eye and asked, “Won’t you miss your true love if we leave?” which made it utterly impossible to press the point any further.
Besides which, her mother seemed to be entrenching herself into Eli and Jane’s life here in town. Della had reduced the amount of time she spent at Bishop’s since that fateful kiss, meaning Jane and Eli spent more of their evenings there. Mama and Hannah generally watched Gloria now that they were no longer gallivanting across half the ballrooms of London in search of a suitor.
At this rate, it would take some external pressure to drive them from Jane’s house.
But Jane retreated from the suggestion immediately. “Of course I wouldn’t do that. You and your mother are welcome to stay for as long as you like. Please, forget I said anything.”
“What if you gave your uncle Mama’s room and put her in the nursery with Gloria? I’m sure she’d love to be closer to her grandchild.”
Maybe the nighttime cries would finally do the trick.
