Henrietta shook her head. “It is where you’re from. It’s what I want.”
“Lady Henrietta has already compromised on the timing, Trem,” Catherine said, her voice gentle yet forceful. “I’d respect her wishes here.”
“Of course. We’ll marry in the chapel at Tremberley Manor. I’ll tell Mr. Foxcross. He’ll be delighted.”
Her brother nodded. Catherine looked content.
Henrietta couldn’t help but feel lighter at this outcome. While the timing was quick, it also was a relief to have it settled.
And yet she did still feel a bit uneasy. A tension suffused the table, as everyone smiled at one another and reached for their tea. It was the tension of change. While each of them was happy about the engagement, it also meant that their lives as they had known them were disturbed forever.
“Very well,” John said, standing from the table. “Come, my love,” he said to Catherine. “We should ensure that Griffon has not taken his ill temper out on the nursery curtains and Mrs. Hoggins. We’ll leave these two to decide on the rest of the wedding details.”
Chapter Sixteen
The moment John and Catherine left the room, Trem turned to Henrietta.
“Dismiss the servants,” he whispered.
His blood was heated. He hadn’t wanted to insist so roughly over the date of the wedding, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
For one, Henrietta could be with child. He should have taken more care.
And second, he had received a letter this morning that very much made him want to hasten their nuptials.
As she followed his order, Trem looked at his fiancée. Ever since her debut, he had, of course, had a growing sense of her beauty. But now he couldn’t understand how he had overlooked her to the extent that he had. How he could have been calm, tranquil, in her presence. Looking at her in front of him today almost hurt. Little details of her person stabbed at his consciousness, each contributing to the growing sense of possessiveness in his gut. The smattering of light freckles above her nose. The soft chestnut color of her hair—and the way the strands bent to caress her cheek. How her eyes widened infinitesimally at his abrupt words.
The head footman, Cresley, paused when Henrietta gave the command. He looked at Trem, clearly thinking that Henrietta needed some kind of chaperone.
“We’re engaged,” Trem said to the man’s impassive face. “And I’ve been a friend of this family for years. I think I can be trusted alone with Lady Henrietta in the breakfast room.”
Cresley only raised his eyebrows and spun on his heel. The man clearly knew what Trem did—that he absolutely could not be trusted in the breakfast room with Henrietta. But, smart man, he had decided it wasn’t his quarrel.
Once the footmen had departed the room, Henrietta turned towards him.
“What is it?”
“I received a letter this morning,” he said, placing the thing on the table. Henrietta peered over to read it. As her eyes skimmed the paper, he read with her.
Dear Sir,
I will not dignify you with a preamble. The crime you have committed against me is so obvious that it needs little explanation. You knew of my connection with Lady Henrietta and were called to advise on the sensitive matter between us, as a friend of her family. You clearly have bent this advantage to your own ends.
I also know from my association with the lady that you were no more to her than her brother’s friend until quite recently. Despite your awareness of my intentions in regard to her, you have engaged yourself to her yourself—although I hesitate to even call this perfidious association a betrothal, no matter how society might support it. You pounced on our mutual vulnerability and used it to prevail upon her.
This behavior—towards Lady Henrietta and myself—is hardly befitting a man of honor. I challenge you to pistols, at dawn, in Putney Heath, tomorrow morning. I do not savor the notion of a duel, but I see no other way to remedy the insult done unto me by you. I could publicize your villainy, but the true facts of the case, if known generally, would only injure the woman I love. For her sake, I will say nothing of this matter to anyone but my second, Lord Drent, who is already well apprised of its details. I beg you to name yours.
Hartley
When Henrietta took her eyes off the paper, her pale skin looked peaked indeed.
“I know,” Trem said, feeling annoyed on her behalf, “what an absolute coxcomb. I grant that yesterday evening must have been humiliating for him but he took his chances when he announced to a room full of people that he was engaged to a woman who had refused him. Here I am, a happily betrothed man, and he is thrusting himself into the situation, where he is totally unwanted.”
“Damn Justin,” Henrietta snapped. “That announcement last night—it was a threat. He had no idea that you would counter him like that. He thought I’d be too scared to contradict him, given what happened between us.”
“I know,” Trem said, taking her hand. “If he wasn’t such a fool, I’d regard him as a danger.”
“He is a danger. He tried to coerce me into marriage and now he is threatening your life. I never gave him any indication that I had a romantic inclination for him. I should have known. Cassandra warned me that he had grown attached. But I didn’t listen.”
