“Ah, well,” he continued, trying to find the right way to explain it. “I didn’t mean to tell you. Or John. Ever. But, uh, do you remember your relative, uh, your second cousin—Baron Falk, I believe?”
“Y-yes,” Henrietta replied, her eyes narrowing. “I don’t—wait, how do you—”
“John and Catherine told me what he did to you. When he kissed you—against your wishes. At that masquerade. The one we attended the summer before your debut.”
“I didn’t know you knew about that.”
He nodded. “With all of us staying at the hall, it would have been difficult for them to keep secret. And I think John wanted us to know in case Falk ever tried to cause trouble in the future.”
Henrietta blinked, the surprise in her expression ebbing. “I suppose that makes sense.”
“Well, do you remember how he left for the Continent, exposed and ruined? And, er, well, beaten?”
“Of course. Catherine and John never knew who did it. We assumed it was one of the many to whom he was in debt.”
“Er, yes. However, it was, ultimately, me, who arranged it. Did it, I suppose you could say.”
“Trem!”
“I couldn’t stand the idea of him walking around free after what he did to you. And that he had wanted to force more. It tore me up. It nagged at me. I couldn’t—I couldn’t let it go. So, I found him in an alleyway in Cheapside, beat him, and told him to leave England if he didn’t want more of the same.”
Suddenly, she was in his arms, sitting on his lap, and kissing him.
“I can’t believe you did that for me. I dreaded seeing him during my debut.”
He nodded, not sure that he deserved her elated response. At the time, he hadn’t understood how John and his friends could let the man walk free. Even now, he couldn’t untangle if his response had just been in his nature—to be protective towards someone he cared for—or if it had to do with his feelings for her specifically. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to know the answer to that question. Whatever he had felt for her then had been so buried, so incipient, that it was unrecognizable to what he felt now. Nevertheless, he had been the one who had hunted down the man who had hurt her and had beat him with his bare hands.
At his somber expression, she returned to her chair, but did so with a smile.
“What will you do about Hartley’s challenge? Presumably, you will wait before giving him the Falk treatment.”
“I will send an apology,” he said, putting words to the solution that he had been mulling over ever since he had received the letter. “Usually, if one is challenged to a duel, you have a chance to apologize for the slight. Hartley has been embarrassed, so I will try an apology first. I will explain that you and I have had…an affection of long standing and that I am sorry that his infatuation with you occurred at such an inconvenient moment.”
“He won’t believe that we have an affection of long standing.”
“Why not?”
“Justin and I were friends. He will think I would have told him.”
Trem shrugged. “He can’t imagine you told him everything about yourself. Did you?”
Henrietta seemed to think for a moment. And then she shook her head. “No, I didn’t.”
“So, this long-standing affection will just be one more thing that he didn’t know about you.”
“He won’t believe it.”
“But isn’t it true?” Trem had been turning over what Montaigne had said to him yesterday in his head. Montaigne had said that Henrietta had always nursed a tendre for him. Trem had never noticed such a thing—at least not consciously. But now that she was his fiancée, he wondered if it was true.
He watched as his question brought heat to her cheeks. He smiled. Now this, he thought, was going to be the best visit to this breakfast room that he had ever paid.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she finally said. “You hardly ever looked at me. The violence you committed on my behalf notwithstanding.”
“I’m not talking about myself. Or at least not only myself.”
Trem pushed back his chair from the table.
“Where are you going?”
