Henrietta would give nearly anything for another tête-à-tête with Cassandra. However, when she sent her best friend a note asking for such a meeting, she received an answer in the negative. Apparently, Mrs. Seymour had learned of Cassandra’s unchaperoned ride in the carriage yesterday with Sebastian and was not at the moment inclined to let her daughter out of her sight again. Henrietta had winced for her friend at this news. Mrs. Seymour could be severe indeed—she was not a woman that you wanted displeased with you.
That said, Henrietta could not see Trem again without seeking Cassandra’s counsel. She knew she was taking a risk in writing to Cassandra about such a scandalous happening, especially given Mrs. Seymour’s mood at present, but she didn’t think the mother had yet taken to reading the daughter’s correspondence.
She dashed off a note to Cassandra explaining the situation—in the most veiled terms she could muster—and an hour and a half later received the following response:
Let him love you. Hartley can hang.
And don’t neglect Mr. Redmond tonight!
Henrietta laughed at this tart summary of her situation. Cassandra was right—she couldn’t forget her promise to secure the editorship.
Of course, she could not be as sanguine as her friend. She couldn’t believe that Trem loved her. How could he? He seemed to have not noticed her as anything more than his best friend’s little sister until two days ago. Cassandra was too kind and optimistic for her happiness to see the truth.
Because as much as she wanted to see Trem again, she had many fears about what such an encounter would bring. She feared that he would tell her what had transpired between them could never happen again. But even more than that, perhaps, she feared that he would get down on one knee and propose marriage.
She feared that he would see it as his only option. The only honorable thing to do. And she didn’t want to be his honorable sacrifice. She wanted his love. If she could have just a little more time with him, alone, she might even be able to win it.
Her heart lurched. The more she considered it, the more she suspected that he would offer for her. She knew him. She knew how he worked. Yesterday, he’d had the assurance of the devil himself, but by this time he would have sunk into a panic. Her brother had always said that Trem acted first and thought later—and Henrietta knew where his thoughts would wander. He would try to do the right thing. He would be worried about John, whom he loved very much. Henrietta knew how much. Trem didn’t have any family. He only had John, Montaigne, and Leith. And John most of all. But she wouldn’t marry him when he didn’t really want to be with her. At least not yet. She needed more time to make him love her. Then, she would happily marry him.
He couldn’t love her now, her conscience told her, no matter how torrid and exquisite yesterday had been. He didn’t know who she really was. Like all of society, Trem didn’t know that she was illegitimate. True, he had accepted her conduct with Hartley. But he didn’t know the secret at the bottom of her existence. That secret her brother had industriously worked to keep a secret, even from his best friend.
She needed more time.
And she needed to tell him the truth about herself, somehow, if they were ever going to have a real relationship. After all, he couldn’t love her until he knew who she really was. Not a lady at all, but a fraud. A counterfeit that her father and brother had passed off on society.
No, she couldn’t marry him.
Not until he knew.
None of these questions, of course, would be settled until the man himself did or did not make his appearance. If he would come, it would be during her and Catherine’s regular visiting hours, which they held in the afternoons.
Given the popularity of their at-homes, Henrietta had no idea how she would be able speak to him privately, if he did appear.
In that case, she would just have to find a way.
Chapter Ten
When Trem entered Breminster House and gained the drawing room, he was displeased to see that Henrietta was not alone. Catherine sat on the divan and Lady Trilling, who had often played the chaperone for Henrietta in the past few years, was perched on the sofa.
On the other side of the room, arrayed around Henrietta herself, sat two young lordlings, Lord Drent, whom he had not seen since their ill-fated excursion the other evening, and Eric Nottingham, the Earl of Sotheby. Trem knew that Lord Sotheby had asked John’s approval to court Henrietta this season. John had told Sotheby that if his sister saw his attentions to her as courtship then that was her business.
Henrietta looked, to his eye, ill at ease, but beautiful. That she would be distressed made him angry, but he could do nothing about it under these circumstances, of course. Her hair was done up in a complicated series of braids and her dress was very plain; in such a getup, she appeared almost impossibly pure and innocent. That he knew she could be anything but made his breath catch.
Caught up in contemplating the woman who had consumed his every waking and unconscious thought for the past forty-eight hours, Trem failed to notice a figure sitting just behind Sotheby.
It was Hartley.
No wonder Henrietta looked stricken.
Unfortunately for himself, there was no available seat near the group. He could have wedged himself onto the love seat with Henrietta, but such an action would be so improper that it would be talked about across the ton by nightfall.
Instead, he settled himself by Catherine on the sofa, barely tendering a greeting in her direction as he did so. He ignored the innocent chatter between her and Lady Trilling, trying to catch Henrietta’s eye from across the room and succeeding only intermittently. She seemed her usual self but subdued.
“My dear,” Lady Trilling said to Catherine, “baby Griffon looks just like John when he was a boy. I cannot see how anyone could think any differently.”
“Mrs. Morrison insists that he is the spitting image of myself as a babe.” Catherine laughed. “Although how she could be so definitive, after so many years, I am not certain.”
Trem did not know how much more of such talk he could take. He ached to go to Henrietta, but to do so in front of Catherine and Lady Trilling was impossible.
