Page 70 of Henrietta

‘For if you were a fortune hunter, you would be chasing titled heiresses, after all,’ she went on, ‘not persons such as I.’

This was the means she had decided upon, a test of such simple elegance that she fancied King Solomon himself would have approved.

‘It is not like you to be self-deprecating,’ he said, rather amused. ‘Come, Miss Allerton, you do your charms a disservice.’

‘But it is true.’ Trixie sighed. ‘I am entirely without dowry, recollect – my brother’s fortune being so sadly reduced – and so does your courtship not prove you are a better man than they think you?’

She watched his expression under her eyelashes, waiting to see how this pronouncement – which, though she believed it to be a deceit, touched perilously close to the truth – would land.

There was a pause, while Captain Edgewood cursed himself for ever believing a word that had come out of Mrs Ridley’s mouth – but he spared only a moment for this activity, for he owned quick thinking, if not the tiniest shred of shame, among his greatest skills.

‘Courtship?’ he said. ‘My dear Miss Allerton … I am so terribly embarrassed! Have I given you the impression …? I thought it was plain that we were enjoying a mere flirtation.’

It was a speech calculated to make her feel small, and it succeeded – though not in the way, perhaps, that he had intended. Where, a moment before, Trixie had felt godlike in her manipulations, she flushed now with mortification. She had been wrong; Arthur and Timothy had been right: Edgewood was a miserable little snirp. How she held on to her temper, and did not shriek recriminations at him right there in the theatre, Trixie did not know – but, surprising herself with herself with the control with which she bid him goodnight, she returned, rigid and furious, to the box.

‘Only fancy the Princess doing such a thing,’ Lady Allerton said now, returning to the earlier topic. ‘One has to admire her mettle, but truly, I do not understand the purpose of such public carryings-on.’

‘I do,’ Trixie said. ‘When one has been wronged one cannot simply let them win.’

Lady Allerton, rather alarmed by the emotion in her daughter’s voice, pressed her for elaboration, but Trixie only shook her head and, once they had returned home, took herself off to bed without a word.

‘I think perhaps she is tired,’ Lady Allerton said. ‘It is understandable – but still, I do not think it is the thing to call people worms.’

‘I shall speak to her,’ Hetty promised.

‘Dearest girl,’ Lady Allerton said affectionately. ‘It gives me such joy to see you spreading your wings – I did not know you had it in you!’

Neither did Hetty, though she was not certain she would herself characterise it as ‘spreading her wings’. Perhaps it was more that, having faced such a rejection, nothing else could quite hold the same fear. So much so that, the next day, she found herself revisiting Madame Picard, the modiste, to reiterate that she would buy the dashing gown of blue satin that had so daunted her before; and when, that evening, the Marquis once more offered to introduce her to his many foreign acquaintances, she was brave enough to accept.

‘Truly?’

‘Yes,’ Hetty decided. Not knowing how long this bravery would last, she would try to make some use of it first – for Lady Allerton’s sake, if nothing else, for that lady was still bemoaning the lack of illustrious attendees to her ball. Whatever European acquaintance Hetty might be able to make would, she knew, be very much appreciated. ‘Only let us stay where I can still keep an eye upon Trixie, too.’

Despite Hetty’s best efforts, Trixie had not confided in her as to the source of her listlessness the night before. In contrast, tonight she appeared to be possessed by a restless energy that worried Hetty just as much. They were in Lady Jersey’s garden, sipping champagne ahead of the vast firework display that was to follow. The Tsar and his sister – from whom the Marquis was keeping a careful distance – were in attendance, a fact that had caused a great deal of excitement if not much surprise (for Lady Jersey was said to be his flirt), and Trixie kept teasing her mama that she might easily secure one of these royals for her ball if only she would faint into their arms.

Plainly, it behoved Hetty to keep an eye on her, and as the Marquis bore her off to meet a pack of his associates, Hetty periodically spotted Trixie in the crowd, in the moments when it would not be ill mannered to allow her attention to stray. It was a feat she thought she managed gracefully enough – or certainly with more elegance than would have been possible weeks before – as the young men of the Marquis’s acquaintance were all broadly far too anxious to show off, to her and to each other, to ask much of her.

‘You should have had your heart broken years ago,’ Nicolet advised her. ‘It has done wonders for you. But – and one hates even to ask – may I still depend on you to break mine, leaving me utterly unable to trust any woman again?’

Hetty reached out to clink her glass against his. ‘Always.’

‘I think we are in for a treat this evening,’ Mrs Morgan said, easing her way through the press of persons to reach their side.

‘I hope we’re up to snuff,’ the Major agreed. ‘One wants to show the foreign Johnnies what we’re made of.’

Nicolet sniffed. ‘Foreign Jeans, please.’

The fireworks were magnificent, and received with many oohs and aahs from the assembled crowd, lasting almost ten minutes. As they concluded, Hetty turned to try to catch sign of Trixie in the crowd – only now she could not seem to spot her … until, in the peace left by the final burst of the last giant Catherine Wheel, a fresh commotion had them all turning.

‘Oh, goodness!’

‘She has fainted!’

Hetty turned to see Trixie, prostrate upon the floor only a few feet away. She blanched. ‘Trixie!’

Hurrying over, the Marquis by her side, she joined the cluster of gentlemen all about Trixie – her heart just about to cease beating entirely. Only then, before she had suffered more than a few moments of panic, Trixie’s eyes blinked open.

‘Oh dear.’ She sighed. ‘I am so embarrassed.’