Page 16 of Henrietta

‘I think he has moved on, now. The premises have changed to a – to a haberdashery, in fact.’

‘Oh, then they will surely know where to find him,’ Arthur pressed. ‘Perhaps you might take me? Tomorrow?’

‘Oh no, I would but I think he – Actually, I think he is dead!’

Arthur let out a choke of laughter. ‘Hetty, you heartless creature. You have killed the fellow off?’

‘You were becoming too attached!’ Hetty protested, letting out a gurgle of laughter herself. ‘You – you suspect then?’

‘That they are not copies? Yes, I do.’

‘I did not quite like to trick your mama in such a way, but I thought perhaps you would not like her to sell the diamonds – their being family heirlooms – and I knew she would not accept a single penny from me otherwise. What else was I to do?’

‘Perhaps you might have informed me of the situation,’ Arthur suggested.

‘By the time any letter had reached you, your mother’s affairs would have been in an even worse state,’ Hetty reasoned, and such logic was difficult to fault, as much as Arthur wished he could.

‘I shall repay you every penny,’ he promised. ‘Just as soon as …’

As soon as what? He did not yet know when such a thing would be possible – though it did not matter. If he had to sell off every single piece of unentailed land to manage it, he would do so.

‘I shan’t charge you interest, if that is your concern,’ Hetty assured him with a smile. Then, when Arthur still frowned, ‘Is that what has been bothering you since your return?’ she quizzed him. ‘There is nothing more?’

However tempting it was to pour all his current difficulties into Hetty’s willing ears, he could not. She had been burdened too much already. ‘There is nothing more.’

He had to drop her gaze after only a moment, for he had never found it very easy to lie to Hetty. From the corner of her eye he saw her brow wrinkle in confusion, and her mouth open to pursue questioning. Perceiving he would need to take the fight to her, he added hastily: ‘Aside, of course, from my curiosity over this Belgian fellow of yours.’

His strategy worked. Hetty flushed red. ‘You mustn’t believe everything Timothy and Trixie say. It’s nonsense.’

Arthur’s curiosity was, by now, entirely genuine. ‘Which part?’

‘There is no such person,’ she asserted, but now she was avoiding his gaze.

‘Hypothetically, however, if there were such a person – would I be able to meet him?’

‘No.’

‘Has Mama met him?’

‘No one has—’

Hetty broke off. She was making such a mull of this.

‘Surely you don’t intend to conduct a clandestine affair?’ Arthur quizzed her. ‘Not the thing, Hetty, really.’

‘No! Not at all, he is not – he does not see me in such a way!’

So harried did Hetty feel – so woefully unprepared as to how to extricate herself from a fiction not even of her own making – that the truth had slipped from her without her permission. She pressed a hand to her mouth, too late.

‘Hetty—’ Arthur began, concerned by the expression upon her face, but he found himself interrupted by three visitors, whose arrival afforded Arthur no small amount of astonishment, and Hetty no small amount of horror.

Hetty’s fortune would always secure her a place in the marriage mart, but her reserve had thus far managed to discourage all suitors save for those whose need for her dowry eclipsed all other considerations.

This is what united Sir Marcus Kirkham, with his near-legendary losses at the card table, seventy-year-old Lord Fenton, whose estates were almost as encumbered as his waistcoat, and young Mr Neal, the youngest brother of seven dowry-deficient sisters.

Arthur exchanged bows with every sign of politeness, cutting Hetty a sideways glance to share his surprise at the presence of such an odd grouping of persons in their box. Except Hetty would not look at him, and, indeed, though she managed to make all the necessary introductions – for only Lord Fenton was known to him – it was in a polite, wooden manner that bore little resemblance to the laughing creature with whom he had just been conversing.

‘Are you enjoying the performance, Miss Clithero?’ Sir Marcus asked her, while Lord Fenton quizzed Arthur on the war.