They lapsed into silence after that as the carriage made its way back to Lady Fosberry’s estate in Hampstead Heath, each of them lost in their own thoughts. Sarah was no doubt dreaming of ballrooms and blue silk gowns, and Margaret was perhaps reliving the moment when handsome Lord Hayward had bowed over her hand.
Hattie rubbed her hands together to warm them.
She wouldn’t cry. Shewouldn’t…
But despite her best efforts, by the time they reached the front door hot, stinging tears were pressing against her eyelids.
She’d dreamed a thousand dreams about the moment she and Cass would meet again, and in the time it took to drive from Berkeley Square to Hampstead Heath all her girlish fancies had crumbled to dust.
Very well, then. Shewouldcry, but she’d do it in the privacy of her own bedchamber. As soon as they were inside, she went directly to the staircase, but before she could make her escape, Lady Fosberry stopped her.
“A word in the drawing room, if you’d be so kind, Harriet.”
There was no kindness to be found inside her, only confusion and heartache. How could she have been so foolish as to think Cass would be pleased to see her? Never, in all the years they’d been friends, had he ever treated her so dismissively as he had this afternoon.
The look in his eyes, the coldness there?—
“Hattie, Lady Fosberry is speaking to you.” Margaret had reached the first-floor landing, but she paused and glanced over her shoulder, her worried blue gaze pausing on Hattie. “Go on. I’ll check on Sarah while you have a chat with Lady Fosberry.”
It seemed there was to be a chat, whether she wished it or not. Silently, she followed Lady Fosberry down the corridor to the drawing room, her feet dragging with every step.
“Sit down, dear.” Lady Fosberry waved a hand at the yellow silk settee. “Tea?”
“No, thank you, my lady.” The sooner this discussion was over the better, because it felt as if a lead ball was lodged in her stomach, and she wasn’t at all sure she wouldn’t cast up her accounts all over Lady Fosberry’s pretty, silk settee.
“Very well.” Lady Fosberry settled herself comfortably among the pillows before turning the direct gaze that was the scourge of the upper ten thousand on Hattie. “That meeting with Lord Windham was a bit awkward, was it not?”
Awkward?My, that was an optimistic interpretation.
Hattie let out a hollow laugh. “It was a good deal more than awkward, my lady. Lord Windham came as close to giving me the cut direct as I’ve ever seen.”
How had it come to this? It was one thing for Cass to break off their correspondence. It wasn’t proper, after all, for a single gentleman to write to a lady he was not betrothed to. At least, that was how she’d excused Cass’s sudden silence to herself.
But she knew better, now. The way he’d glared at her with those ice-cold eyes, it was as if he’d never seen her before, as if they’d never been friends.
Devastating would be a more appropriate word. Heartbreaking.
Lady Fosberry considered this and shook her head. “I don’t deny Lord Windham was startled to see you here in London, my dear, but I wouldn’t call it a cut direct.”
What did it matter what they called it? “I think…I think I’ve made a mistake coming here, my lady.”
She didn’t belong here. That had become painfully obvious after one glance at the fashionable young ladies in Cass’s partythis afternoon. She wasn’t elegant or witty, and she didn’t know a thing about fashion.
Was it any wonder he’d stopped writing to her? He must have found her quaint account of her quiet life unbearably dull. Why, in her last letter to him she’d given a detailed description of the bluebells blossoming in the filtered sunlight of the oak grove behind the stables! She’d even drawn a picture of them.
It made her cringe to think of that letter now. How provincial he must find her!
If nothing else, this afternoon’s debacle had confirmed what she’d always suspected.
The best place for her was in her quiet little corner of Kent, mucking about in her gardens in her dusty boots and breathing the fresh country air. “I think it’s best if I return to Kent at once, my lady. I beg your pardon for causing you so much trouble.”
Lady Fosberry said nothing, only gazed at her, her expression giving nothing away.
Hattie squirmed under that direct gaze, but surely Lady Fosberry must see that her remaining in London was utterly out of the question. Just the idea of it made her stomach lurch with panic.
“My sisters may stay, if they like. There’s no reason for either of them to return to?—”
“Why did you come to London, Hattie?”
