“No, really?” Cassandra said, grasping her arm again. “You must have been frightened out of your wits.”
“I was for a time. I was so afraid he would die. But he has healed well. I felt terribly that he would have been put in such danger because of me. And there is another thing on that score I feel I have jeopardized forever. Tell me. Have I lost us Mr. Redmond completely?”
Cassandra smiled. “Almost. But once the news spread that your marriage was still happening, I convinced him that your antics would bring more publicity to the magazine. What lady wouldn’t want to take advice from Lady Henrietta Breminster, soon-to-be Viscountess of Tremberley, who had defied convention and still walked away with a dazzling match? He was swayed.”
They had reached the stones and they each sat on one of the long slabs, so that they were across from one another.
“You have a genius for persuasion.” Henrietta was very relieved to hear that Cassandra had been able to content Mr. Redmond. “You are our salvation.”
“Indeed,” Cassandra said, with another smile, twisting her face towards the sun. Then, she returned her gaze to Henrietta’s, her countenance suddenly grave. “But there is something serious I must tell you about, Henrietta. I know not whether it is true or false, but I must warn you all the same.”
“Oh, good Lord, what now?” Henrietta moaned. “I’ve created so much trouble for myself that I never want any trouble ever again. I want to live a quiet life from now on.”
Cassandra laughed. “You? A quiet life? That I doubt. But this is serious. It is about Lord Hartley.”
Henrietta felt herself blanch. “He sent me a letter, demanding I marry him once more. But Leith and Montaigne said they threatened him and he agreed to give up his suit.”
Cassandra nodded. “I hope they did persuade him. Perhaps he will keep his word. But I must tell you that, when everything was in the newspapers, it addled him. Sebastian saw him in Hyde Park two days ago and he claimed that he was going to travel to Tremberley Manor to interrupt the wedding. That he must have you—no matter what. Sebastian obviously tried to speak reason to the man but he wouldn’t hear it.”
“Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks,” Henrietta swore, panic surging through her. “If I had ever known how a man could make the life of a woman hell, I would have never, ever dallied with Justin. Now I have to contend with John and him.”
“John?”
“He is cross about the marriage. He is in a temper about it. He feels Tremberley deceived him, I think. They had a row. It was my plan this morning to find him and try and reason with him.”
“And I have waylaid you,” Cassandra said, standing.
“Never! What would I do without you?” Henrietta took her friend’s arm. “But we should return to the house. I need to find John. And if we are out here for much longer, your mother will mount a search party.”
On the way back to the house, she and Cassandra chatted and laughed about their wedding preparations—and Henrietta tried to put Hartley out of her mind. Sebastian had likely spoken to him before Leith and Montaigne had gotten to him. Cassandra relayed to her how she was to be married at home and that Mrs. Seymour was being, in a surprise to no one, extremely exacting about the decorations.
When they crossed the threshold of the house, Cassandra said to her, “I do hope that Hartley was merely exaggerating about his threat to come here.”
Henrietta murmured her agreement.
And she decided right there that Justin must have given up his plot—and that there was no reason to worry Trem about this most recent piece of intelligence. Hartley had haunted them long enough. She chose to believe that Leith and Montaigne had settled the matter.
She would forget about the man.
*
After a hasty breakfast with the Seymours and Sebastian—as well as the Brightleys and a few other guests who had arrived late the evening before—Henrietta went in search of her brother.
After asking Bonner if he had seen her brother, she found John and Catherine in the gardens. They were playing with baby Griffon, who was toddling from tree to tree and collecting handfuls of leaves. The picture together, of her brother and his wife and child, arrested Henrietta for an instant. It brought back to her how happy she was that John had found Catherine and that he had been able to build a life with her. The look on his face was one of immense peace and she felt hope that he could be convinced that she had found a similar love with Trem.
As Henrietta walked up to their little group, Griffon was the first to notice her. He ran up to her and she knelt down and caught him, kissing his smooth baby cheek. “Hello, Griff,” she said. “Are you enjoying the garden?”
The baby offered her a handful of leaves.
“Leaf,” he said, his tone matter of fact, as if he were educating her for her own benefit. “Trem leaf.”
She laughed. His parents had clearly been instructing him on his location. Her brother had known her since she was as young as Griffon, she thought, suddenly, and she felt a bit more sympathetic to his protective tendencies. He had been ten when she was born, so he could remember her this way, small and plush, still learning about the world.
Griffon toddled back to his parents, who looked at her with very differing expressions. Catherine’s face reflected stark worry, whereas John’s appeared stoic and grave.
“Hello,” she called out to them, closing the distance between them. “How was your journey?”
“It was very comfortable—”
