Thank the Lord she had stopped short of telling Justin that full truth. A small but significant blessing now. She had only lost her virtue to him. Hardly what most ladies could pass off to themselves as honor, but she was still thankful for that sliver of dignity. She hadn’t been that stupid. Just reckless. Like her mother and father before her.
Henrietta groaned aloud again.
Her brother would be devastated if he found out what she had done. He had gone to great lengths to keep her parentage secret. And now for her to throw away her reputation on nothing? She felt like the worst younger sister that had ever walked the earth.
She might feel less guilty if her brother were the type to force her into marriage with Hartley. If he were the type to sentence her to the wrong marriage for her crime, she could rail against his lack of respect for her autonomy.
But John would never make her marry a man against her will. He would be horrified by her actions, shocked by her recklessness, but he would keep protecting her and he wouldn’t compel her to do anything contrary to her wishes. Even if it blighted his own position and tainted the future of their family—the futures of his children—he would keep protecting her.
And that would be the worst of it. Because she wouldn’t deserve his protection. Nor his mercy or his kindness. Or Catherine’s. And yet they would extend it to her anyway.
When she thought of John finding out what she had done, her shoulders slumped, and she felt like weeping. Her brother had trusted her. He had once been so resolute in trying to shield her from everything. But after what had happened in the wake of their father’s death, when the secret of her parentage had come out, he had resolved to be open with her. To trust that she could handle difficult things. When he found out the truth—the secret that made her success in society feel at times like a great ruse—John could have hidden it from her, but he didn’t. He had been honest with her.
At this thought, Henrietta felt her eyes well with tears.
If that wasn’t bad enough—and it was, in her estimation, more than bad enough—she had also risked everything that she and her best friend, Cassandra, had been working for in the past year. The editor of The Lady’s Magazine was to soon retire, and they had been lobbying its owner, publishing magnate Mr. Redmond, to make them the new editors.
She and Cassandra had dreams for the magazine. It was already a publication which addressed women on the subject of literature, art, and fashion, and they yearned to add a little politics to the magazine, a topic which had hitherto been largely neglected by its current editors as unsuitable for ladies. They had almost convinced Mr. Redmond to agree, but he would never hand over the reins if Henrietta disgraced herself. Mr. Redmond wanted to make his way into high society and he couldn’t do that if he put a scandalous lady at the helm of one of his periodicals. And even Henrietta could see that a disgraced editor would have little use to a publication as respectable as The Lady’s Magazine.
Just like John, Cassandra wouldn’t turn her back on her in the event of her disgrace. She would lose the opportunity that she had worked for and still call Henrietta her best friend. She wouldn’t even blame her. She would blame society, the world, the strictures on women. Even if her association with Henrietta made her life harder, she wouldn’t abandon her. It would be more forgiveness that she didn’t deserve.
The truth was that, at the age of almost two-and-twenty, she, Henrietta Breminster, had succeeded in risking everything that she cared about on a whim. All for an experience that, while perfectly enjoyable, had been ultimately as forgettable as a sack of Cheapside bonbons.
Panic filled her chest at this accounting.
Perhaps she should just marry Justin. She liked him. And she had passed a pleasurable evening with him, even if the thought of him didn’t drive her wild.
No, a little voice inside of her protested. She felt a grinding dread at the prospect.
She couldn’t marry Justin.
She didn’t want to.
She refused.
Especially not when she had always thought she would marry someone else. Or, rather, three someone elses.
Well, of course, not all three of them.
But one of the three.
One of her brother’s best friends.
One of the Rank Rakes.
She had loved them since she was a girl and had silently debated to herself for years which would be her future husband.
Of course, it was probably wanton thoughts like these ones that had led her down the path to this moment. Many would say that there was something inherently sinful in her nature if, as a mere girl, she had debated to herself which of three handsome men she would claim as her own.
And yet she had never been able to help conjecturing on this score.
Would she leg-shackle the Earl of Montaigne with his golden-blond hair and sky blue eyes? His smile the type that made a lady swoon? (She had seen it happen! Lady Pomeroy, at the Darlingtons’ Venetian breakfast. She had gone straight to the bottom of a pond. She had taken down a candelabra with her.)
Or would she take Leith to husband, the man who cared about rules but couldn’t help breaking them? With brown eyes the warm color of whiskey and who carried himself with such proper confidence that she did not believe that she had ever seen him blush? Who, according to report, was the type to fret about the low cut of a lady’s gown on the way to a ball and then avail himself of that same scandalous bodice on the carriage ride home?
Or would she marry Tremberley, her brother’s closest friend? Who had hoisted her onto his shoulders when she got tired of walking in the fields near Edington? The one who had escorted her to her first-ever opera—with chaperones, of course!—and held her hand, ever so briefly, when she thought her strength might fail her? The one famous for his convoluted love affairs that scandalized society and who—she knew—had fought in at least two duels? Who loved gossip so much that her brother teased him about being a fishwife? And who, sometimes, when you caught him from just the right angle, had such melancholy in his hazel eyes that it made you want to find something, anything, that would ease his troubles?
Henrietta clenched her eyes closed and wondered what Trem would think if he knew about what she had done with Justin.
