Their anxious gazes followed her as she rose from her seat, but none of them ventured a comment, and she let out a breath of relief as she passed from the breakfast parlor into the corridor. She didn’t like to worry them, but she couldn’t bear tosit there any longer, pretending everything was fine as her heart broke in her chest.
She dragged herself up the staircase, but just as she reached the upper landing one of the downstairs maidservants called out to her. “Lady Harriet, wait! I beg your pardon, but you have a visitor.”
A visitor? She hadn’t heard the bell, and it was far too early in the morning to receive calls. Who would be visiting her, anyway? After last night, she would have thought everyone in London would take care to give her a wide berth.
Scandal, after all, could be contagious.
“Give my excuses, won’t you, Mary? I’m a trifle under the weather today.”
“Yes, my lady, only the gentleman said it was urgent. A matter of life and death, he said.”
Life and death? How strange, but it seemed she was to have no peace at all. “Yes, very well, Mary. I’m coming.”
She turned and dragged herself back down the stairs, but she hadn’t gone a half-dozen steps before she paused, her feet frozen to the step beneath her.
There, standing in the entryway with his hat in his hand, was Cass.
She pressed her hand to her chest, her heart beating a wild tattoo against her palm. She must have made a noise, because his head jerked up, and his gaze met hers, and for an instant time was suspended as they stared at each other.
He looked different this morning. Oh, he was every inch the elegant Earl of Windham in his fashionable cutaway coat an elaborately embroidered silk waistcoat, but his cravat was slightly askew, as if he’d tied it in a hurry. The shadow of a beard darkened his handsome face, and he looked as if he hadn’t slept.
“Cass,” she whispered, a tremor in her voice, because just looking at him with those shadowy circles under his eyes was breaking her heart. “What are you doing here?”
“I-I beg your pardon for calling so early, Hat—that is, Lady Harriet. I hoped you’d agree to have a word with me.”
He waited, turning his hat in his hands, his gaze locked on her face.
Perhaps she should have refused. Perhaps she should have told him it was best for them each to go their separate ways before someone else got hurt. After everything that had happened, there didn’t seem to be anything left to say, and yet…
She’d never been able to refuse Cass anything, and she couldn’t refuse him now. She couldn’t turn him away any more than she could give up breathing. “Mary, please tell Lady Fosberry Lord Windham is here, and that I’ve joined him for a walk in the rose garden.”
“Yes, my lady.” Mary cast a wide-eyed glance at Cass before hurrying off in the direction of the breakfast parlor.
Slowly she descended the staircase, her legs shaking with every step, until she was standing in the entryway with Cass, so close she might have reached out and touched him.
Wordlessly, he offered her his arm, and for better or worse, she took it, because she could do nothing else. She would always take Cass’s arm, every time he offered it to her.
They didn’t speak, and they didn’t look at each other, but as he led her through the entryway and out the front door his height and broad shoulders kept the chilly wind at bay, and his arm felt warm and solid beneath her fingertips.
She’d always felt safe with Cass, and despite everything that had happened, she still did.
Surely, that must mean something.
After the liesEgerton had told her about the letters, Cass had feared Hattie would refuse to see him this morning. Even now, with her small hand on his arm and the soft crunch of her boots on the pathway, he could hardly believe she was here.
Regret had found him last night as soon as his head touched his pillow, just as he’d known it would. One’s sins always seemed darker at night than they did in the cold light of day.
He had no misgivings about the brawl with Egerton. If he hadn’t been certain another scandal would hurt Hattie, he and Egerton would have been facing each other at dawn this morning.
The villain had gotten less than he deserved.
But where Hattie was concerned, his conscience wasn’t as clear as he might have wished.
He should never have left her side at the ball last night. He should have prevented Egerton from dancing with her, he should have kept a better eye on her…the self-recriminations went on and on, the apologies hovering on his lips, but now he had her alone at last, he didn’t have the first idea what to say to her.
Where did he begin?
“Er, I trust you slept well?”
