Chapter 4 #2
Something flashed in his gaze, familiar and fleeting. “Then we must begin again.” His gazed flickered over her shoulder. “Mrs. Churchill, if you would be so kind as to introduce us?”
Jane stepped into view, looking absolutely delighted by whatever was to take place. Oh, dear. Jane. Before Hetty could stop her, the young woman said, “Captain Edward Harris, Baron Courtenay, may I present my dear aunt, Miss Hetty Bates.”
The irony of Jane reintroducing them was not lost on Hetty, and she loosed a hysterical bit of laughter before he reached out his hand and she was unable to make any sound at all, because manners and habit and her own desire to please everyone around her, at all times, had her placing her hand into his.
Which was a mistake, because when they touched, it made her think of all the other times they’d touched.
Of all the other ways they’d touched. And she hated him for leaving her all over again.
She attempted to snatch her hand back.
He did not allow it, instead executing a perfect bow over it and saying, “Miss Bates, it is a pleasure to meet you.” He looked up, his brown eyes sparkling as they’d done decades earlier. “And may I say, you look beautiful in blue.”
You look beautiful in blue.
He’d said it to her then, the night before he’d left. When he’d told her future and predicted she’d wear blue on their wedding day. Except there hadn’t been a wedding day, or any other.
Realization dawned. “You sent it.”
Edward didn’t have to admit it. She could see it in his eyes, along with a dozen other things she dared not name.
“Why?” Was it some kind of jest? With the world watching?
She looked around, a dozen people nearby, trying desperately to look while appearing not to look.
The Eltons. The Westons. The Martins. The Knightleys.
All of Highbury, here to inspect their silly, dull neighbor and whatever nonsense this was. Awful.
She tried another snatch of the hand, but he once again wouldn’t allow it, instead inspecting her wrist. “Where is your dance card?”
The snatch became a successful yank. “I don’t have one.”
“Why not?”
Because forty-year-old spinsters don’t dance. They’re lucky enough to be invited at all. She lifted a chin. “I don’t dance.”
“That’s not true,” he said, the words coming on an edge of something like frustration. “You love to dance. I’ve watched you dance.”
“Well, I don’t dance anymore.”
“I want my dance, Hetty. I’ve been waiting for it.”
But he hadn’t been waiting for her, had he? Edward had lived a whole life without her. It had been Hetty who had waited. While her whole life had passed her by.
And whatever this game was, it was not entertaining. She shook her head. “You don’t get one.”
“Why?”
She could feel the heat of the assembly watching, growing more and more curious. And her mother. And Jane, who said with soft grace, “Go on, Auntie. You deserve a dance.”
Jane.
Hetty shook her head. Not with Edward. No.
Captain Harris. No. Lord Courtenay. Lord!
How on earth had that happened? He’d had barely tuppence to rub together when they’d known each other.
And now… he was so far above the aging spinster the whole town condescended to be kind to that it was a wonder she could see him.
But she could see him. And that lit a fire in her, a fire that arrived with a little, chaotic laugh. “Because you left, my lord, or Captain, or whoever you are. And I never danced again.”
“Oh.” A soft exhale of surprise from Jane, who’d certainly never seen Hetty say anything so forcefully ever before.
Edward, on the other hand, had seen it many times. He’d been the only person ever to see the truth in her. And he’d left. “Hetty,” her name came on a soft, deep rumble, like he’d been saying it for twenty-one years in her mind. “Hetty. I’m back.”
“No.” She shook her head again, feeling sad and angry and a little bit wild. “You’re too late.”
She pushed past him then, crossing the room, pushing past the revelers, desperate for air.
She found it beyond the large doors, out on the balcony, beneath the night sky, her hands gripping the cold marble balustrade tightly as she looked to the darkness and willed the tears that threatened not to come.
And it was only then, as she attempted to pull herself together, that Hetty realized her mistake. She hadn’t left him.
She’d returned to the place where it had all begun.
“I’m sorry.”
He’d followed her, of course. It seemed that one thing that had not changed about Lord/Baron/Captain/Harris/Courtenay/Whatever He Called Himself Now was that he did not take no for an answer.
At least he’d apologized.
She did not look to him as he drew close, coming to stand alongside her.
Did not speak as he gripped the balustrade, his strong hand mere inches from her own.
Instead, she stared down at that hand, wondering at the white scars that crossed the back of it.
Wounds she might have cared for if he’d returned.
If they’d had the life he’d teased her with.
“Let me explain,” he said, deep and quiet, like a secret. “I came back.”
She nodded. “So you said.”
“No,” he said, the word clipped, as though he wanted to say a dozen things but instead settled on, “Not today. Not now. I mean, I came back then.”
Disbelief sent her gaze flying to his face in the shadows. “That’s a lie. I was here. I was waiting for you. I stood by the window for hours. I waited. And waited. Through the autumn. Into the winter.” As long as I could.
He nodded. “There were terrible seas on the voyage back—waves so high I’d never seen the like. We were tossed far off course and landed in Gibraltar, where we were commandeered and conscripted to fight.”
She sucked in a breath. “You saw war.”
He nodded. “Like my father and his father before him. A family business of sorts.” He huffed a wry laugh. “But I didn’t die.”
Thank heavens.
“After we held the day at St. Vincent, I returned. I came straight to you. Here. In Highbury.”
“When?” The question was more breath than sound.
“April the twelfth. In ninety-seven.”
Her heart began to pound. “I wasn’t here.”
“Your mother wouldn’t see me. Your father barely looked at me.
I was told you were north with your sister.
That you had met a man. That you were to be married.
” He looked away, to the darkness. “To a man of means, someone worthy of you, your father said.” He looked away, lost to the memory.
“I left that day. Returned to the navy. Became a captain of a different sort. Traveled the world for something I wanted as much as—”
You.
Her heart was in her throat, the words spilling out of her. “That April, I was not here. I was north, with… Jane. But the rest—it’s not true. There was no man. There was no marriage. My father, he lied, and he shouldn’t have. They never told me. I should have known. I deserved to know.”
She had deserved to know, if not when he arrived, then after, when she returned to Highbury, devastated with sorrow and loss and longing for what could never be, before she packed it away and guarded it fiercely with chirping and chattering and nonsense.
“He was protecting you,” Edward said, too kindly. Too decent. “I was not a safe wager for something so precious as his daughter. A sailor with nothing to show for it.”
“What nonsense,” Hetty said, letting the anger come. “There was no one else. Not then, or since. There was only—”
You.
His hand moved closer, the smallest of his fingers pressed against the smallest of hers, and he whispered fervently, “I thought it best. Had I known, Hetty… I would have moved heaven and earth to get back to you. To be with you. To keep my promise.”
They stood like that, barely touching, staring into the darkness, for what felt like forever, stealing the quiet of company against the roar of the party inside and all the things they wished to say.
“You are a baron now,” she said finally. “A far cry from the boy who left to find his fortune.”
He scoffed. “I’m still that boy. No one is more surprised than I am about the title—a distant cousin of a distant cousin of a distant cousin died, and I was the last of a very long line.”
“Lord Courtenay.”
“Don’t call me that,” he said harshly. “Let me be Edward to you, still.” A beat, as he looked to the sky and said, “Cor! The way my heart pounded when I heard young Frank was to marry, and to whom. The Bateses, Captain Weston wrote to me. Perhaps you remember the old vicar.”
He turned toward her, his face half shadow, half light.
A tiny smile. “I’ve never in my life replied to a letter so quickly.
A full page of nonsensical felicitations before allowing myself to inquire after the old vicar’s daughter.
Do you realize the strength it took not to ask all I wanted to know?
Had you ever returned to Highbury? Had you married?
Were you well? Happy? As happy as I might have made you? ”
“I returned,” she answered, her heart pounding in her chest. “I did not marry. I was well, but not very happy. How could I be?” His hand settled on hers, the warm weight shock and comfort, and such temptation.
The only way he could touch her, in full view of God and Emma Knightley’s assembly.
Hetty lowered her voice to a whisper and lifted her gaze to his. “I was not with you.”
“Hetty,” her name came on a ragged whisper. “I should have found you. I wanted to. For years, I lay under the stars on ships around the world and imagined what would have been if I’d come for you and stolen you away from the man you married. I hated that man you married. I still do.”
She smiled. “He does not exist.”
“It doesn’t matter. I hate him anyway. The number of times I marched into your estate house and laid him flat out, tossed you over my shoulder, and absconded with you.”
“To the high seas? Like a pirate?”
“Finally putting all those years on the water to good use.”
A little giggle bubbled up from deep within her, a sound she hadn’t made in ages, since she was young and full of something like hope.
He lifted his hand in the wake of it, like he might be able to catch the sound. Keep it. He met her eyes. “You look just the same. Just as I dreamed.”
It wasn’t true, but she didn’t correct him.
“And I was right. You do look beautiful in blue.”
A blush bloomed high on her cheeks. “I am too old to look beautiful.”
“No,” he said, leaning toward her, the words infinitely soft, so close to her ear she shivered with the warmth of them.
“You were beautiful then, you are beautiful now, and you shall be beautiful forever. And if you’ll let me, I’d very much like to tell you that every day from now on—to make up for all the days I’ve missed. ”
She couldn’t have stopped herself from turning toward him in that moment if everyone inside the ballroom had tumbled onto the balcony.
When she did, he was there, so close, so warm, wrapping her in the scent of cedar and spice, casting her back to their youth, to when Hetty Jane Bates did wild, wonderful things.
Like kissing the man she loved.
Their lips touched and she sighed, and a deep rumble sounded in his chest, familiar and perfect, and Hetty set her hand to the new, wide expanse of him as though she could settle the beast within.
She woke it, instead. His hand came to her hair, holding her still as he took over the caress, deep and delicious until it felt like plunder, like the pirate he’d promised to be.
And it was magnificent.
After long moments, they broke the kiss, both of them gasping for air there, in the darkness, smiles on their faces, full of delight and discovery.
“I should warn you,” he said finally, his thumb running along the edge of her jaw. “This time, I am not leaving. Not unless you are with me.”
She came up on her toes at that, propelled by joy and hope and the undeniable promise of happy ever after he’d just made, and kissed him again, not caring that all of Highbury was mere feet away, no doubt aware of the scandal taking place on the Hartfield balcony.
Edward didn’t care, either, another low rumble sounding in his chest as his arms came around her again, pulling her tight to him for another few minutes.
When they broke apart again, she said softly, “I’ve been waiting for this Michaelmas for twenty-one years, Mr. Harris. I should warn you that I’ve no intention of letting you leave.”
“Thank God,” he replied, his hands cradling her face just as they had years ago. “Do you think you can love me again, Hetty Bates?”
“Not again,” she said. “Still.”
He set his brow to hers and closed his eyes, whispering a thanks to the heavens.
It was impossible to believe that the night had taken such a turn—that her life had taken such a turn.
All that time, and finally, finally, this.
This man she’d longed for. This future she’d packed away like spun glass, fragile and unsteady.
When they parted, she cast a glance toward the ballroom, where Jane and Frank danced past, bathed in golden light, well and happy and in love.
Jane.
“Edward,” she said softly, loving the way he watched her, hanging on her words. As though everything she said had weight and power and import. “You must meet Jane.”
“Mrs. Churchill?” he replied, a tease in his voice. “I have—she introduced us not an hour ago.”
“Yes,” she said. “But you must be properly introduced.”
And though he did not understand—though no one could, in that moment—he nodded without hesitation, and something burst in Hetty’s chest. Something like hope. Like happiness.
The future.
They returned to the ballroom, all of Highbury watching, each person assembled eager to begin long days of discussion as to the scandal that had transpired between Miss Bates and Baron Courtenay in the darkness—it must have been a scandal, mustn’t it, for the couple to arrive so breathless and bright-eyed and joyful.
But to Hetty, it did not feel like a scandal. It felt like a triumph.
For that evening, not one person in Highbury thought Hetty Bates dull. In truth, no one ever thought her dull, ever again.