Chapter 4
FOUR
Have you heard? There’s a baron in Highbury!”
The Knightleys’ Michaelmas Ball was every inch the crush Highbury had expected, everyone in the town eager to attend, eager to see their host and hostess in proper marital bliss.
The Knightleys had married only half a year prior, and had immediately taken up residence at Hartfield to be closer to Mrs. Knightley’s aging father, who enjoyed being caretaked more than most.
There might have been a time, years ago, when Hetty’s own experience caretaking Mrs. Bates would have brought her closer to the newly wedded Mrs. Knightley, but it was difficult to see past what had transpired between them in the months and years leading up to Emma’s marriage, and beyond.
Hetty was perfectly aware of her lack of fortune, monetary or otherwise, but she couldn’t help resenting Emma for drawing a line beneath it at every possible chance.
The dress, for example. What should have felt like a kindness instead felt like mockery when Hetty put it on earlier that evening.
It was exactly as beautiful as it had been in the box.
The kind of dress a girl dreamed of having, because it made one feel just as beautiful as the frock.
But Hetty Bates was no girl, and so when she peered into the looking glass in the front room of her threadbare home, she did not feel that she’d been made beautiful by the silk and gossamer and silver threads.
She felt silly.
Like a child, playing pretend in her mother’s Sunday dress.
Before she could take it off, however, her mother had entered and gasped her delight at the thing with a too-loud “Oh, Hetty!” and “You look so youthful!” and “Why, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without a cap!”
“Of course you’ve seen me without a cap, Mother,” she snapped. “I wasn’t born a spinster.” Luckily, the old lady didn’t have her ear horn, so she did not catch the full blast of Hetty’s irritation. She didn’t deserve it. Not really.
“Is there something wrong with the frock?” her mother asked, replying to whatever she’d imagined Hetty had said.
“No,” Hetty said. It was not the dress; it was the day.
It was the lifetime.
“I don’t much care for Michaelmas,” she admitted softly.
A long pause before her mother said, “That’s nice.”
“We should bring your ear horn, Mother,” Hetty had replied as a knock sounded on the door, heralding a too-charming Frank Churchill, arrived with the Westons’ second-best carriage to take them to Hartfield.
And now Hetty was posted at the far side of the ballroom, near a collection of potted ferns and the seats reserved for the event’s most seasoned attendees, searching the crowd for Jane and listening to Charlotte Tilbury chirp about the mysterious baron in their midst.
“I had heard of the baron!” Hetty chirped in reply, falling easily into her role. “How very exciting! Darling Jane wrote to us and said he’s let Lorimer House! It really is quite exciting.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Mrs. Tilbury said. “Have you heard anything of him? I do wonder if he is unmarried?”
Charlotte had three daughters, two of marriageable age, and was always on the lookout for eligible gentlemen upon whom to foist them, so Hetty knew the script. “One can hope, my dear!”
“Indeed!” Charlotte replied, breathless with dreams of a fresh, titled son-in-law.
“I heard he’s not just a baron,” Mrs. Pearson said, lifting her chin to peer through her spectacles at the assembly. Hetty held back a little smile at the words—as though a title in Highbury were just anything. “I heard he’s also a military hero.”
Of course he was. Mysterious new gentlemen in Highbury were always kings of men—titled, heroic, and the gossip would soon report he had fifty thousand pounds a year, no doubt.
The truth would surely be less exciting.
He would be revealed to be a man of middling age, interest, and fortune, and everyone would return to reason.
Hetty played her part, nonetheless. “A baron and a military hero,” she said breathlessly. “How exciting! And I imagine he’s quite wealthy, as well.”
“Oh, I’m quite sure of that!”
The truth was, Hetty wasn’t interested in the baron. Or the military hero. She was interested in Jane, as she hadn’t yet seen the young woman and eagerly awaited their reunion.
“Aunt Hetty!” As though summoned by her thoughts, Jane appeared at her shoulder, tall and beautiful and bright-eyed, and joy burst in Hetty’s chest at the look of her.
“Darling Jane!” she said, pulling her into a tight embrace before releasing the younger woman to study her carefully. “You look very well indeed.”
“I am,” Jane said. “And so happy. Wildly, wonderfully happy now that Frank and I are finally settled.”
There was nothing Hetty liked so well as that news, and she turned to shout to Mrs. Bates, “LOOK, MOTHER! IT IS JANE!”
“Hello, Grandmama,” Jane said, crouching to greet the older woman, pink silk skirts blooming around her. “You all look very deep in conversation!”
“Oh, Jane!” Mrs. Bates and Mrs. Pearson immediately drew Jane into their gossip. “We are discussing the new resident of Highbury!”
Jane looked to Hetty, who quickly explained. “The baron you wrote of. Everyone is wondering when he’ll make an appearance.”
“Well,” Jane said, rising with a grace that never failed to send pride bursting in Hetty’s chest, “I can answer that! He’s here tonight!”
“Is he!” Charlotte Tilbury sounded as though she might require a smelling salt. “I must tell the girls!” She was gone before anyone could reply, and Hetty met Jane’s gaze, sharing a silent laugh with her niece.
“She ought to be careful,” Hetty said quietly. “A turned ankle will do her no favors in introducing her daughters to the man.”
Jane leaned in quietly. “I don’t think he is the type to be interested in meeting the Tilbury daughters, honestly, Auntie.”
“Why not?” asked Mrs. Pearson.
“It’s just that Captain Harris is rather… too distinguished for an ingenue, I think.”
It took a moment for the name to find Hetty, but when it did, her breath caught in her throat. Captain Harris.
It was nonsense, of course. Harris was a perfectly normal name. She wouldn’t have even noticed if it wasn’t Michaelmas. He was always on her mind at Michaelmas. Besides, Jane said Captain Harris. Edward wasn’t a captain of anything. He hadn’t gone to war. He’d been on a merchant ship.
A ship, though.
No. Impossible.
“Distinguished,” Mrs. Pearson repeated. “That means old.”
“Not at all!” Jane replied. “He’s no older than my father would have been. And a lovely man. Godson to the first Mrs. Weston. And he’s been to Highbury before, apparently.”
The temperature in the room was unbearable. Hetty was finding it difficult to breathe. And then Jane said, “As a matter fact, he asked after you, Auntie. Perhaps you—”
Hetty spun away from the conversation, desperate for air. Across the room, the large doors were open, the night sky beyond. She stepped toward them, barely containing the urge to make a mad dash for them….
And there he was.
Older. Broader. Rougher somehow, despite the perfect cut of his clothing, each item tucked and hemmed and sewn to his exact dimensions.
And they were magnificent dimensions. Twenty-one years had done Edward Harris very well, adding muscle to his lean frame and wisdom to his open face and silver to the hair at his temples, now darker brown than it had been.
He was not a lovely man, as Jane had described him.
He was overwhelmingly handsome, damn him.
And he was staring directly at Hetty.
Hating herself for the weakness, she drank him in, this man she’d dreamed of for years, late at night, when she was alone and no one could judge her for it. But in those late hours, she dreamed of him young and safe and impossible.
There was nothing safe about this man.
Nothing young, either. He was well and truly grown.
He remained impossible, at least, swarmed with the citizenry of Highbury—fathers eager for a chat about whatever money and power he’d accrued in the last two decades, mothers eager to thrust their unmarried daughters in his path.
Hetty watched them surround him with delight and curiosity, ignoring the twist of emotion that coiled through her.
Refusing to confront that familiar wistfulness that had always marked their time together—a curling plume of what might have been, disappearing like smoke.
A young debutante was shoved into his path, the poor girl barely able to keep her balance, and he looked away from Hetty, setting her free as he delivered a patient smile to the sacrifice, inquiring about the young woman’s well-being. At Hetty’s elbow, someone heaved a feminine sigh.
She didn’t look to see who. Hetty didn’t begrudge the woman, as she would have done the same, truthfully, if she’d been able to breathe at all.
Because he was looking at Hetty again. No.
Worse. He was crossing the room, headed for her.
There was no escaping him, she realized.
Nowhere to go in this room full of people—why did everyone have to like Emma Woodhouse so very much?
Her gaze fell on the collection of palms in the corner. Perhaps she could—
“Hello, Hetty.”
Even his voice had changed. It had gone deeper, richer. More seasoned. And her name on his tongue sent a shiver through her, just as it always had. She turned back to him. “You shouldn’t—”
“No?” he asked. “Time may have passed, but we have been properly introduced, have we not? Is there a statute of limitations on introductions?”
How dare he joke? How dare he simply turn up after all this time?
And looking like this? As though the world had done nothing but make him stronger, smarter, handsomer, more wonderful?
And Hetty—she’d been left behind. She swallowed back the words, settling on “There is a statute of limitations on our friendship.”