Henrietta woke early, having only been able to catch sleep in fitful bursts.
When she remembered the events of the night before, she sighed and then screamed into her pillow.
And then she did what she always did when she felt utterly at sea.
She wrote to her best friend, Miss Cassandra Seymour, and asked to meet her in Hyde Park. And that is how, not twelve hours after she had confessed her misdeeds with another man to the one for whom she had long held a flaming tendre, she was strolling the park arm in arm with Cassandra and telling her the entire tale. Her footman, Thomas, walked a discreet distance behind them, just out of earshot. God bless his discretion.
Cassandra was taken aback at all that Henrietta related, but she did not scold her or even gasp aloud. Her open-mindedness, her ability to take the measure of Henrietta’s quandaries with a matter-of-fact air, had always been one of the reasons that she loved Cassandra.
“I told you about Hartley,” Cassandra said when Henrietta finished her story. “I knew he was in love with you.”
“That is your moral?!” Henrietta gave her friend a playful shove and Cassandra laughed. “I tell you I have utterly ruined myself and you are focused on how you were right?”
“When my wisdom is so wantonly disregarded, I am forced to consider such things. And I would watch yourself with Lord Tremberley as well, Hen. I think he may be in love with you too.”
“No, he isn’t,” Henrietta groaned. “You should have seen how he recoiled from me before he left yesterday evening.”
“I don’t know about that, but I’ve never forgotten the opera box.”
“You have always made too much of that.”
“You are the one who told me of the incident!”
“True,” Henrietta said, as they approached the winding Serpentine. “I couldn’t help but fall in love with him even more after that.”
“Ah! So you admit it. You do love him.”
“Cass,” Henrietta objected. “You know what I mean.”
“You should let him marry you, Hen. You never loved Justin, so of course you’ve had to say no. But if Trem proposes, you should accept.”
“I highly doubt he will propose to a ruined woman. Even if he is too kind to think of me that way. If he did, it would only be out of a misplaced sense of honor. How could he love me? Before last night, he barely saw me. Now he does see me and surely it is for the worse.”
“You are more sure of that than I am. I would say that this past season he has noticed you particularly. I once saw your brother address him right after you came into the room and he didn’t even answer because his eyes were trained on you.”
“You never told me that before!”
Cassandra shrugged. “What was the point? You were wrapped up in Hartley.”
“I was not!”
“Hen, I know you are not in love with Hartley and never were, but you can’t deny that he has occupied your attention all season. I’m your best friend and I couldn’t tell if you were really serious about him or not.”
“Then how can you know my feelings for Trem?”
“Well, that’s a different matter. I never doubted that if Tremberley showed you even a shred of interest you would drop Justin faster than Lady Eloise broke her engagement to Lord Pennington when she found out he had the pox.”
Mirth illuminated Cassandra’s light brown eyes and Henrietta had to laugh at the jest, even if it did paint a less-than-flattering picture of herself.
“Cass! You make me sound like an absolute…” Henrietta gaped for the word and couldn’t find it.
Cassandra shook her head, her dark curls swaying with the motion. “What did you do with Hartley that any man of the ton hasn’t with at least one woman? How often do they pay court to a girl for three months and then change their minds?”
“Most of those men don’t actually sleep with the women in question.”
“Sure.” Cassandra smiled, giving her arm a playful squeeze. “But lady’s prerogative.”
“You laugh but you haven’t actually done anything improper with Sebastian.” Sebastian was Cassandra’s fiancé and they had been engaged since last season; they should be married by now but Cassandra’s mother and Sebastian’s father couldn’t come to terms on the settlements. It was very vexing to Cassandra. Henrietta knew her friend dearly hoped they were nearing an agreement. She and Sebastian loved each other beyond measure and the wait had become torturous.
