Sarah glanced up from her letter at Margaret’s stern tone, her cheeks coloring. “I beg your pardon. I’ll just read to myself, shall I?”
“Yes, I think that would be best.” Margaret opened her book again and a companionable quiet settled over the parlor.
It should have soothed Hattie’s jangled nerves, but instead she found herself staring down at her book, the colorful page of pressed larkspurs swimming before her eyes.
Perhaps she’d been a fool to believe she and Cass would always be friends. She hadn’t seen him since the summer he’d come to Kent. That had been twelve years ago, and with every subsequent year that passed it seemed less likely she’d ever lay eyes on him again.
But for him to just go silent as he’d done, with no warning or explanation felt like…her heart gave a sharp throb of pain in her chest, as if it had been speared with a dagger.
If felt like betrayal. Or worse, abandonment.
But then if the scandal sheets were to be believed, he spent his every waking hour engaged in one debauchery after another. Apparently, it was rather time-consuming, being a wicked, dissipated earl, and left him little leisure to write.
Not that it mattered much anymore. It was just as well he’d ended their correspondence, as it wasn’t proper for a lady towrite to a gentleman to whom she wasn’t betrothed. Her brother would have worried if he’d known of it, and she didn’t like to lie to Johnathan, or go behind his back.
Cass was doubtless taken up with his fashionable friends at Brooks’s, and hischère amie, and…and…well, whatever it was young aristocratic gentlemen got up to in London.
Yes, it was much better this way. She’d forget all about him soon enough, and the good news was she’d have much more time to devote to her flowers now. Really, it was a tremendous relief to be free of such arduous correspondence.
A tremendous relief, indeed.
She turned to a blank page in her book and plucked up the white larkspur she’d picked several weeks ago. She’d dried it between two sheets of the special absorbent paper Johnathan had brought her from London, so the white petals wouldn’t turn yellow after it was pressed.
It was ready now, and she had the perfect place for?—
“Goodness, that’s…oh, my.”
Hattie turned to Sarah, her hand going still over the thick book spread out on the table in front of her, and her heart plummeted from her chest into her slippers at the stricken look on her sister’s face. “What is it?”
Except she knew. Even before Sarah said a word, she knew.
“It seems, ah…well, it sounds as if Cassian has got himself into a bit of a scrape.”
“What scrape?” Hattie’s voice was much higher than it should have been, and her cheeks went hot as Sarah’s and Margaret heads jerked toward her. “What’s he done this time?”
“Perhaps it would be best if we—” Margaret began, but Hattie interrupted her.
“No. I want to hear it. Read it, Sarah.”
Her sisters exchanged a glance, but then Sarah began reading in a halting voice. “Cassian Fitzgerald, the newly minted Earl ofWindham was seen stumbling down Maiden Lane after a street brawl near The Deuce in Covent Garden.”
“A brawl?” Margaret let out a breath. “What, another one?”
“It seems so, and this one must have been quite a melee. Listen to this. Lord Windham’s friend Lord Hayward?—”
“Lord Hayward!” Margaret exclaimed. “Stephen Beaumont, the Earl of Hayward?”
“Alice doesn’t say, but I suppose there’s only one Lord Hayward, isn’t there?” Sarah resumed reading. “Lord Windham’s friend Lord Hayward, who was bleeding profusely from his nose, was obliged to assist his unsteady companion from Maiden Lane to Garrick Street, where Lord Windham’s carriage and driver were waiting. Lord Windham was staggering, either from an excess of drink or a nasty blow he sustained to his temple.”
The stem of the larkspur she was holding snapped between Hattie’s fingers.
Margaret let out a breath. “Dear God. What can Cass be thinking, brawling in public in such a disgraceful manner?”
Hattie stared down at the broken flower cradled in her palm until it blurred in front of her eyes. Silly of her, to get so upset over it. She could replace it easily enough. There were dozens of white larkspurs in the Melrose House gardens.
She could pick another one. One was as good as another?—
“Lord Windham’s left eye was swollen shut, and according to our witness he collapsed as soon as he gained his carriage.”
