Page 44 of Henrietta

‘Let us go together,’ Arthur said. ‘You might introduce me.’

CHAPTER XIII.

IT was as if Hetty were suddenly trying to move through thick, thick stew. Each step towards the Marquis felt as if it were taking several hours, and yet, horrifyingly, her mind was moving with even greater sluggishness. She ought not, she noted vaguely, allow Arthur to approach this fellow, this near-stranger. Certainly, that would lead to humiliation so great as to cause her immediate death, and yet extrication would require a level of intelligent thought that in this moment seemed entirely impossible. Perhaps she could faint? Or she might curl up in a ball upon the floor and refuse to move … it was more tempting, certainly, but—

There was no more time. They had crossed the ballroom, they were standing in front of the two gentlemen who turned toward them: Davenport smiling in welcome and Nicolet regarding them with an expression of pleasant neutrality. This whole charade was going to unravel very quickly. Her death would be swift, at least.

‘Allerton! Miss Clithero! May I present to you—’

‘It is you!’ The Marquis Henri de Nicolet made a great show of doing a double take.

Hetty said nothing. She could not, of course, having so recently turned to stone. Noticing this, Arthur spared a moment to consider that he might well have erred by forcing this encounter. Had Hetty not said this fellow was the one gentleman with whom she had no trouble conversing? One would certainly not think it, to look at her … Why had she not greeted him?

Davenport was looking between them curiously. ‘I see you have already been introduced!’

The Marquis winked at her. ‘In a manner of speaking.’

‘Their acquaintance is of a long standing,’ Arthur explained to Davenport, when it appeared Hetty would still not speak.

The Marquis’s smile faded, to be replaced by a rather quizzical expression. Arthur felt his confidence falter.

‘You are the Marquis de Nicolet?’ he checked, wondering for one awful moment if he had misidentified him, led Hetty blindly up to the wrong person.

‘I’ve always thought so,’ the Marquis replied. ‘It’s what people call me, at any rate.’

‘It seems safe to assume, then!’ Arthur said rather tartly. He did not quite understand why this fellow was being so difficult: he should be beside himself at such a reunion.

‘Forgive me, I am being rather slow,’ Davenport asked. ‘When did you make each other’s acquaintance?’

Nicolet opened his mouth to answer – and suddenly Hetty found she could not bear it.

‘In – in our childhood,’ she heard herself say, as if from a long distance. ‘We are childhood friends.’

‘Childhood friends,’ Nicolet echoed blankly. Hetty stared him full in the face, eyes so beseeching, so imploring, that a smile began to quiver at the corners of his mouth. ‘Childhood friends,’ he repeated more emphatically.

Davenport clapped him upon the shoulder. ‘You did not tell me that, cousin!’

‘No,’ Nicolet acknowledged. ‘I did not.’

He had, until this moment, been enjoying a pleasant but unremarkable evening, and was by no means displeased to have such a diversion thrust upon him. One was not often in conversation with a lunatic, and he was inclined to make the most of it.

‘You did not expect to find me here tonight,’ Hetty put in.

The Marquis confessed this was true. ‘Why did you not inform me?’ he reproached her, and Hetty found herself apologising.

‘It has been such a busy month, I have not had time to write – all my correspondence has fallen behind.’

The Marquis sighed. ‘And yet I thought I constituted more than mere correspondence.’

‘Come now, Nicolet.’ Colonel Davenport felt moved to defend Miss Clithero. ‘The demands of the Season, you know.’

‘Miss Clithero was delighted to hear of your arrival on British soil,’ Arthur put in.

The Marquis appeared mollified. ‘I was delighted to come, to reunite with my childhood friend after – how long has it been?’

‘I …’ Hetty searched her mind frantically. If they had met, fictionally, in Rome, that would make it …

‘Too long!’ the Marquis declared.