Ellen was perfect.Perfect.
A rage started to simmer inside Henrietta. How dare Geoffrey talk about her sisters that way, as if they were made upof parts that either pleased or displeased him? As if that were the purpose of their bodies?
Geoffrey’s next words had a bite of menace to them. “But if you don’t marry right away, neither of them will ever nab a husband.”
She halted and pulled her arm out of Geoffrey’s grasp. “What do you mean?”
He stopped walking, too, and faced her with a shrug. “Oh, you know.”
“No, I don’t. What do you mean?”
“Don’t be a dunce, Hen. Scandal with one daughter spreads to the others. You must know everyone in thetonwill think Ellen and Amelia are trollops.”
Like youwere the words he left unsaid.
But her mother had told her she didn’t have to . . . oh, no. Never mind about herself. That wondrous kiss from Mr. Hartwell had ruined Ellen’s and Amelia’s matrimonial chances, too.
She looked at Geoffrey, the only man she had ever thought she might have a possibility of marrying. But he didn’t love her. He didn’t even like her. She would disappoint him. Already, she resented he didn’t want her as she was.
And Geoffrey was . . . Geoffrey was . . .
Her anger boiled over and all the bad words she knew spewed into her brain.
Geoffrey was a beastly, boorish, bloody bully of an arse.
She looked back at Mr. Hartwell, still standing at the far end of the rose garden, hat in hand, waiting. He was, and had always been, a fixed ideal in her mind. It must mean something that she had always been drawn to him. That she had always desired his happiness.
Could she make Mr. Hartwell happy?
She didn’t know. But she could try. And this might be her only chance to snatch some future happiness for herself.
She remembered her manners.
“No, thank you,” she blurted to Geoffrey. She picked up her skirts and ran all the way back to Mr. Hartwell. She gasped for air and her chest heaved as she stood in front of him in the sunshine.
“Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you.”
His grave face did not change. “Very well.” He bowed and replaced his hat and offered her his arm. “Shall we go tell your parents?”
Six
The guests had all departed a week ago in a welter of whispers about her and Mr. Hartwell’s indiscretion and subsequent betrothal. Had it been Geoffrey or his father or one of the other men who had tittle-tattled? She would never know, and it didn’t matter.
Henrietta would wed Mr. Hartwell tomorrow.
In the unusually warm September dusk, they strolled the lower lawn, just the two of them. Henrietta’s parents had not insisted on a chaperone this evening. They must think the horse was already well out of the stable.
A horse in a stable. How would Zephyr like the Lake District? Because, of course, she would take her friend with her. She must ask Mr. Hartwell about accommodations for her big horse at Crossthwaite.
But Mr. Hartwell interrupted the silence between them before she could voice her question.
“I will not impose on you.”
She had no idea what he meant, so she played with her fan and waited for him to explain himself.
After a bit of time, he said, “I don’t know how much your mother has told you about what passes between a husband and wife.”
Henrietta now held her fan up in front of her face to hide her blush and her smile. Her mother was a scholar of the Middle Ages and back in those olden days, people had been quite frank about things that most ladies today would consider unmentionable. The unconventional duchess had adopted that same frankness. Henrietta had been well-prepared for the changes in her body, the beginning of her courses, the blossoming of her own desire.
