“With respect, you didn’t see his face when he was watching you on that swing, soaring so high,” Catherine replied in earnest.“Now, I don’t profess to know too much about romance, but I know affection when I see it. I know fondness when I see it. And I know when a man doesn’t want a woman to be too far from him. If you’d have flown off into the sky, my lady, he’d have made wings to fly up after you.”
Frances sniffed. “Then you must have been mistaken. It must have been too dark for you to see properly.”
And even if you are right, my dear friend, it would not matter.He had said he would never marry again; he had warned her that he was not a good man, and she doubted she could change his mind in either regard.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
For an entire week, Dominic had made himself scarce, the manor so large and grand that it was not difficult for him to vanish. Frances had no doubt that she could have found him if she had wanted to, but his absence spoke volumes: he did not want to be found.
“When will my gowns arrive?” Harriet asked for the fiftieth time, catching Frances’ eye in the reflection of a tall, oval looking glass.
After so many tedious days in the library, going over the dreary rules and expectations of society, interspersed with hours of dancing and a few rehearsals with the dining room cutlery, Frances had seen fit to give the poor girl a more enjoyable task. Namely, trying out the latest styles for her hair and teaching Harriet’s lady’s maid how to do them.
“Shortly before your debut,” Frances repeated for the fifty-first time. “I realize you are anxious, and that is to be expected, butMadame Jonquille will not let you down; I have complete faith in her talents.”
Harriet groaned. “But what if they are unsuitable? What if I change my mind about them? What if the color and style do not pair well with my hair and my jewelry? There will be no time to alter anything or place a new order, and I must look my best!”
“Much as I wish I had such power, I cannot change the date of the debutante ball,” Frances said with a sad smile.
If shecoulddelay it a few months, then she would be certain of Harriet’s readinessandpotentially be there to accompany Juliet through the stresses and strains of debuting. Alas, it was little more than three weeks away, and she still had not figured out what she would do in that interim week, if Dominic decided that the agreed term of a month was enough.
Creep back to London with my tail between my legs, no doubt. Sneak into the house and hide until it is all over.
Harriet puffed out a breath that fogged the mirror. “I know; I am just so nervous. I did not think I would be, but the closer it gets, the more restless I become. I hope Father lets you stay longer, for I do not know how I will do any of this without you.”
She turned around sharply, much to the frustration of her lady’s maid, who had been trying to place a particularly stubborn curl. “Would you join us in London, if he allowed it?”
“No, dear girl,” Frances replied, her tone apologetic. “But I would stay here to help, right up until the moment you had to depart.”
Harriet tilted her head to one side, quirking her mouth in thought. “What if we snuck you into the townhouse? No one would know you were back in London; it would be our secret.”
“Let us concentrate on making sure you are entirely prepared before we think about that,” Frances urged, for she would not allow herself to even dream it was a possibility; the disappointment would crush her, otherwise.
Harriet turned back around. “Very well.” She smiled as if it was already a certainty. “It shall be so strange to be at the townhouse again. I have not been there in… yes, it must be nine years. Goodness, has it really been so long? I wonder if anything has changed.”
“Your father told me you were raised there, for the most part,” Frances said without thinking. It was not a subject she wished to return to, considering how the conversation had ended in the park.
Harriet nodded effusively, apparently not as averse to the topic. “We left here when I was one or two, I think, and I lived there until I was nine, just a few months before Mama died.”
Her eyes shone with the warm memory of a past that Frances knew so little about. “My bedchamber looked out over the gardens, and I would watch the foxes at night when I wassupposed to be asleep. Three of them. They would always come slinking around the lawns, and I remember, just before we came back to Alderwick, one of them had babies. The sweetest little darlings, fighting and playing with each other like puppies.”
“Perhaps, they will still be there,” Frances encouraged. “Grown now. Or, maybe,theirchildren will be there.”
“I hope so,” the girl murmured.
Pretending to look over the combs and brushes that were lined up on a nearby side-table, Frances did her best to fight the swell of curiosity that rose up within her. But the wave of it would not be stopped.
“Did your father ever visit you in London?” she asked, grimacing at her weakness.
“Every few months,” Harriet replied with a shrug. “He does not like the city, so it is understandable. He would tend to business, we would sometimes have dinner together, and then I would wait until he came back a few months later.”
Both Catherine and the lady’s maid exchanged a pointed look, for the staff always knew more about things than they ever dared to let on.
“Sometimes, when I was much younger, my grandfather would be there,” Harriet continued, her expression hardening. “I knowyou are not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but I did not like him at all. I do not think he liked me, either.”
“Why is that?” Frances prompted, hoping to fill in some blanks that Dominic’s story had left behind.
Adjusting one of the wavy locks of hair that framed her face, Harriet’s lips curved into a bitter smile. “Because I was a girl and Mama and Father could not have any more children. I heard my grandfather once, hissing nasty things to my mama like a snake. Said that ‘promises had been made’ and he ought to receive recompense for the end of his legacy. She laughed at him and he stormed out.”
