Chapter Twenty-Eight
Hetty
Hetty fidgeted in her father’s chair. She hadn’t had time to change into something more appropriate, so she would be facing her aunt and cousin in naught but her father’s dressing gown. She missed the armor of Isobel’s dress, but this would have to do.
She could hear them already, combing the upstairs rooms, calling her name as though she were a missing pet.
They would find her soon enough, and her plan would be set into motion.
So much could still go wrong. She had sent away the young groomsman. If Claremont wished to overpower her, she would not be able to defend herself. She was relying on the fact that deep down, he was still bound by the restraints of a gentleman. That, and the threat of retribution, should they act on their plot. Aunt Celia did not believe that anything existed between Hetty and Jasper, but Claremont had seen them together and had felt the heat of Jasper’s skepticism and the weight of his concern. If his mother didn’t believe Jasper would come for her, her cousin did.
Eventually, they found her. Her aunt had the audacity to feign shock at the sight of her.
Hetty did not have time for games. She tried to speak clearly and give no indication of how very frightened she was to be in a room alone with them. “Claremont, Lady Celia, welcome.”
“Hetty,” said her aunt, clutching at her chest in a strained show of disbelief. “I did not expect to see you so…”
“Conscious?” she offered. Claremont blanched, but his mother’s posture only straightened. Hetty continued. “I must say, your teas have not been the reviving sort, Aunt Celia.”
She was playing for time, trying her best to keep her emotions in check lest she rush them to desperation. If Jack had gone as quickly as he had assured her he would, Jasper couldn’t be that far, could he?
Aunt Celia frowned. “Isn’t there a famous Latin phrase, Claremont, about the remedy often being worse than the disease?”
“ Aegrescit medendo ,” he replied, before offering Hetty a smug look. “That’s Vergil,” he added.
“And what does Vergil say of rapacious relations?” asked Hetty, suddenly discovering a wealth of Roman poetry in her mind. “ Latet anguis in herba , I believe.” There really was much to Aunt Adelaide’s theory that Hetty’s deeply buried memories could be tricked into resurfacing.
Her aunt looked to Claremont, evidently not as familiar with Vergil’s works. He tugged on his collar and cleared his throat. “A snake hides in the grass,” he translated.
“Oh, you cannot mean that, Hetty,” her aunt cried, making her way toward the door and closing it. “We have only ever wanted what’s best for you.”
Hetty did not like being shut in the room with her would-be kidnappers. “I’d ask that you keep the door open, Aunt.”
“My dear, we wouldn’t want anyone hearing that which should be kept between family. Think of your reputation.” She gave Claremont a significant look, an expression that could only be read between the two of them. Hetty was getting nervous. She looked out the window, praying a carriage full of Maycotts would appear.
Her aunt sat in the armchair by the fire. “Now, what is it you are accusing us of?”
Hetty didn’t want to play her hand too quickly. She knew very well her aunt’s intentions, but she didn’t want to reveal the extent of her knowledge before her actual rescuers arrived. “I don’t appreciate being drugged, Aunt Celia. I cannot imagine any doctor would have prescribed laudanum in such quantities.”
Her aunt tilted her head. “Perhaps my hand was a bit heavy, but my aim was only to help you through your ailment and avoid another incident like before. But look at the state of you, my dear. Perhaps I was wrong for thinking your mother’s fate could be avoided.” She gestured to her son. “Claremont, does she have a temperature?”
Her cousin moved toward her, but Hetty backed away from him, bumping into the pot she had upturned earlier.
Her aunt made a tired, disapproving noise. “Your insistence on villainizing us troubles me so, Henrietta.”
By then, Claremont had reached her, his arm extended as though to check her forehead. But Hetty knew it was all a farce, and she didn’t trust either of them in the slightest. She batted his hand away, surprising them both.
Her aunt’s tone was blank. “There are places for girls like you, Henrietta. Places where you can get the help you so desperately need.” But Hetty ignored her, choosing instead to focus on her cousin as he advanced ever closer. Her aunt sighed. “Claremont, take hold of her. She has lost her mind entirely and there is little we can do for her except protect her from herself.”
“Do not touch me,” Hetty warned her cousin with a snarl.
But Claremont had no reason to listen to her, and every reason to heed his mother’s command. He was on her in a flash, seizing one wrist hard enough to cause pain, and reaching for the other while she tried desperately to squirm away. But he was too strong for her, even with an arm free. Hetty might have stood a chance at her full strength, but her aunt’s efforts had weakened her. She knew if he got hold of her fully, she would not have the means to escape him.
Aunt Celia rose as they struggled. “I’ll send for Dr. Poole and he will attest to your madness, Henrietta. Such a shame, but we are woefully ill equipped to help you in the ways you so desperately need. But these things do tend to run in families, and we all know how it ended for your mother.”
It almost seemed as though her aunt believed Hetty might be swayed toward accepting she was mad and go quietly. Perhaps there was a time when that tack might have worked. Maybe if Claremont and Lady Celia had been the ones to find her in the road without her memories instead of Jasper Maycott. They would have coddled her into further illness, but Jasper had challenged her to get better, at first out of spite, but then because the small glimpses of the life she had before gave her something to reach for. Without the Maycotts, she might not have rediscovered herself at all.
Cursing, Claremont twisted her arm behind her back, and her vision went black with panic and rage. They meant to lock her away, to silence her in the most insidious way possible. And if they managed it before Jasper reached her, there was a good chance she’d be lost forever.
But Hetty would rather die than lose her freedom.
She reached blindly for something to defend herself with, her fingers grasping the hilt of the sword she had assumed belonged to her father. Instantly, memories flooded her mind: the clashing of steel, the jolt of pain surging up her arm, a grunt of air forced from her lungs, sweat dripping in her eyes, and the way victory tasted when she bested her opponent. In a flash, another essential truth about Henrietta Davenport locked into place: she was a most accomplished swordswoman.
Dance came easily to her because she had been trained to gracefully defeat her rival. The hard muscles of her arms came from the weight of a sword in her hand. It was like the pieces of a puzzle falling into place. Nothing could feel more right to her than the grip of the hilt. It was as familiar as breathing, as natural as putting one foot before the other.
Instinct took over. Hetty did not need to carefully plan what to do next, not when she had been there a thousand times before with opponents exceedingly more prepared than Claremont. In one fluid motion, she twisted out of his grip and planted her feet firmly on the ground in a perfect attack stance, holding the tip of the blade to her cousin’s throat.
He sputtered, arms raised, his jaw slack with the shock of it. “Christ,” was all he could manage.
She pushed forward, knowing she hadn’t won yet. Her exhaustion was barely a factor. The threat of imprisonment had awoken every nerve in her body, and the sword in her hand did not feel heavy or burdensome. In fact, wielding it made her feel freer than she had in days.
“Hetty, please,” her cousin gasped as the blade went deep enough to draw blood. He was shaking, his voice thinned to a whine. She wondered if anyone had ever given him a good beating before. Some aristocrats dabbled in pugilism, but not Claremont, she suspected, whose hands were as soft as lambskin.
“Stop!” her aunt cried from behind her. “Stop, you’re hurting him!”
I might yet . She relished how the scales had shifted, now that she could defend herself. Her cousin looked upon her with real fear in his eyes. It was obvious from the way she moved that Hetty knew how to wield the weapon in her hand.
Ignoring her aunt’s pleas, Hetty forced Claremont backward into a chair, where he landed with a thud and a whimper.
She gave him her most menacing look. “Move and I will not hesitate to slice you open. Do you understand me?” He nodded as vigorously as the blade would allow, and only then did she turn to her aunt, her sword arm still outstretched toward her cousin.
“Leave now and I may—”
“Hetty, this is madness! We came here to help shepherd you through your grief. How can you treat us this way when we are all you have left in the world?”
Hetty no longer cared to placate her aunt. “You claim to care for me, Aunt Celia, but it is you who would see me bound to an asylum, with my father’s inheritance in the hands of your foolish son. Love could never be the impetus for a betrayal such as that.”
For the first time since Hetty had awoken, Lady Celia, no longer concerned with lulling her niece into a false sense of safety, allowed her mouth to twist into a cruel grimace. “If you think this will support your claims to your sanity, you are sorely mistaken,” she hissed. “One word from us and I think, given your family history, they will have no choice but to commit you.”
“And what family history is that, Aunt Celia? You said it yourself, my mother was not mad, though perhaps you need be reminded that even if she were, it is not evidence against my own sanity or something either of us should be punished for.”
If she was surprised that Hetty had eavesdropped, her aunt did not show it. “How long do you think you can maintain this absurdity? And who would vouch for you, when you hold a sword against your only family’s throat?”
“You think me alone in the world, Aunt, and at your mercy, but that is not the case.” Fear flashed across her aunt’s face for a brief second, long enough to embolden Hetty. “You see, I have already written and dispatched two letters this morning, one to my father’s solicitor, who I suppose now acts as my solicitor, and one to the Earl of Belhaven, alerting them to my exact whereabouts and condition, as well as informing them of your intentions as to my inheritance.” It was, at least partially, a lie. Hetty hadn’t had the time to pen a letter to her father’s solicitor after overhearing her aunt. But by now, Jasper must have received the letter she had written him before she’d known the scope of her family’s betrayal, and she felt reasonably confident he would be arriving at Sutton House at any moment, even if she hadn’t known to impress upon him the very real danger she was in.
Her aunt laughed cruelly. “You have much confidence that these men will rescue you from the miserable future that awaits you?”
“What you fail to realize, Aunt, is that I am more than capable of rescuing myself.” She inclined her head toward her sword as if to prove her point. Claremont let out a noise that was caught somewhere between a giggle and a cry, and Hetty straightened. “Even so, I suggest you leave before Belhaven arrives, as he will be most aggrieved to hear of your plot against me, to say nothing of my solicitor, who may yet involve the police.”
Claremont whimpered. Lady Celia looked to him, disgusted, and back at Hetty. “You have no proof,” she challenged, and it was true. Hetty could not prove they meant to steal her inheritance and falsely have her declared insane.
“Perhaps not,” she offered, twisting the blade slightly, eliciting a gasp from her cousin. “But I do have a sword, and right now it is pointed at your beloved son, the one who would see you a pauper before exerting even a modicum of honor or an ounce of self-restraint. And I am also patient. I may not be able to prove your plot against me now, but so help me God, if you attempt to cross me again, I will not rest until a full accounting of your misdeeds, from theft to kidnapping to fraud, are read aloud in the halls of the Old Bailey.”
Her aunt assessed her coolly, looking between Hetty and the blade and her son, her calculations evidently not amounting in her favor. “What is it you want, then?”
Hetty’s heart began beating very quickly. She couldn’t lose her nerve yet. For all she knew, her aunt was playing for time, seeking another weakness in Hetty to exploit. “For you both to leave immediately and never return. Do so, and I will not involve the police.”
“Hetty, please, we are family ,” pleaded Claremont, finding his voice far too late.
She felt no sympathy for a man who would have happily seen her bound to an asylum in order to pay off his gambling debts. “I do not believe you know the meaning of the word, Cousin.”
Tears welled in his eyes, but they were not born out of remorse. Rather they were the tears of a man who had been caught. She lowered the sword, the threat of capture no longer looming over her.
“Claremont, if you had simply asked me for help, I might have done so.” She looked then to her aunt. “If you both had come to me with love in your hearts after my father had died, I would have gladly done what I could for you.”
Claremont had the decency to at least look ashamed, but the same could not be said for his mother, who could not leave without delivering one final insult.
“You know, you really are sentimental and dull. No wonder your father could not bear the thought of living permanently in England with you.”
The insults might have wounded the Hetty of a few days prior. This Hetty almost pitied her aunt. “Is it any wonder my father sought to place so much distance between us?”
With a huff, Lady Celia swept out of the room as though Hetty had been the one to wrong her. Claremont sheepishly followed, and Hetty allowed herself to slump into her father’s chair and let go of the sword that had saved her from a grim fate.
She found she could not move as real, unembellished tiredness settled onto her like a leaden cloak, but she would not sleep until they were gone. She heard them making a racket as they packed their belongings, likely stealing what silverware and jewelry they could fit in their trunks, but Hetty lacked the energy to stop them. All she wanted was for them to leave her house.
In a little under an hour, they were done, their carriage packed. She looked out the window and did not see a footman or driver. Perhaps her cousin would take the reins. Served him right. The snow had at least been packed down or melted some since the last storm. The road away from her was not impassable.
Claremont was already at the carriage when her aunt passed the study, obviously intending to leave without saying goodbye.
“Aunt Celia,” she called. Her aunt paused at the threshold of Sutton House, silent, fuming. Hetty caught up to her, suddenly overcome with the wish that things had been different. That she had found a family with them. “Did you really think it would work?”
For a brief second, her aunt’s mask fell and she looked almost sincere. “My dear, how naive you are to think it wouldn’t. We women have little more than what men choose to leave for us, be it money or power. Now that you are alone in the world, perhaps you’ll learn.”
“But I am not alone,” Hetty argued. “Family is not only determined by blood; it is a choice. And just as you have made yours, I have made mine.”
Her aunt gave her one last pitying look before picking up her skirts and descending, leaving Hetty in a house that did not feel like a home.
Tears fell freely as the carriage faded from view, but they were not tears of sadness. They were tears of relief. Of knowing she had saved herself from a fate all too commonly thrust upon women like her, and she had done it on her own. Jasper had cautioned her only days before that others might seek to manipulate her, and that the threat of asylum hung over every woman in need of succor whose behavior marked them as unwell or defiant. She hadn’t thought to fear it from her own family.
A sob rattled through her chest as she thought of what would have awaited her in Leicester. Stripped of her freedom, of her voice, imprisoned for the crime of being unwell and guilty of possessing something a man wanted for himself. Her heart ached for the women who hadn’t been so lucky, and the innumerable tragedies they faced. How easily she could have joined their ranks. How simple it was to silence a woman.
When her tears ran dry and her heart stopped racing, Hetty allowed herself some time to reflect on the circumstances that had brought her to Sutton House without a plan or an ally or an ounce of skepticism. It was the promise of belonging that had ensnared her fully. Of answering the question of Jane without-a-surname at last. But she knew now that she was wrong to think she had to belong to a place or to a bloodline.
At last, Hetty understood that a new life could begin out of the ashes of her old one. She might not ever remember all she had left behind, but that didn’t mean her life would be empty. She could discover herself anew, find new passions, chase new dreams. And she knew exactly who she wanted by her side on the journey.
Hetty had awoken in Mulgrave Hall without any certainty in her life, but now she stood in her father’s home and she knew the truth.
She loved Jasper. All of him. The stern bastard, the devoted brother, the lover of Jane Austen, the reluctant rescuer of kittens, and the man who had held his family together when they could have fallen apart, who cared for others long before he had ever cared for himself.
Hetty thought she’d come home to find her past, but instead she’d found her future. She wanted a new life with him, not the disparate, broken pieces of her old one.
She had left the belonging she sought behind her when she’d left the Maycotts. Hetty did not belong to a place she did not remember, or to family who did not love her. She belonged where her heart wished to be.
Jasper was her belonging, and at long last she knew Mulgrave Hall was her home.