Chapter 20 #2
A worse thought struck her as Duprix dressed her hair with high, loose curls and added a light dusting of lavender powder.
Pitt had already suppressed meetings of debating societies due to talk of treason and the unrest in France.
He might shut down the Minerva Society entirely, and it would be all Henrietta’s fault.
She felt as low as when her mother died when she descended to the formal parlor. Rutherford Bales sat there, wearing a small powdered periwig much like Sir Pelton’s. His clothes were dark and severely cut, but his high, stiff cravat was perfectly tied.
“I am glad you still see fit to associate with us, Mr. Bales.” Henrietta entered the room in the way Darien had taught her to walk, with gliding steps rather than her usual tromp. “I had hoped Marsi would not suffer a loss of friends because of me.”
“I would never abandon her.” Rutherford rose in a quick, clumsy bow. He had none of his cousin’s elegant poise.
She seated herself, and Rutherford sat as well, his limbs gangly in the ill-fitting suit, his neck craned toward her.
Darien had a strong, well-sculpted neck, as he had a strong and well-sculpted everything.
Darien filled out his dinner jackets in a most fetching manner.
Rutherford’s coat hung on his lanky frame.
How unjust of Lord Darien Bales to overshadow all other men.
“Mr. Bales.” Henrietta turned her attention to him.
Rufie’s suit was worn, his shoes well-used.
“Have you any hopes of a living? Or perhaps a position at university? It seems to me your talents ought not lie fallow.” The parish that held Birch Vale had a rector, but perhaps she could find something nearby.
Seeking to aid another was the surest way to lift herself out of the blue devils.
Darien would call it meddling. She pushed thoughts of Darien aside.
Rutherford cleared his throat. “I had hopes of the living on Horace’s estate of Bellamy, but after Lucretius…” He trailed off, agonized. “And then, with Lucien missing…”
Henrietta nodded. Only the owner could assign a living on his estate. Darien must know that his cousin’s fate hung in limbo while the oversight of Bellamy Hall was in question. Must know and yet refused to remedy it.
“Forgive me,” she said, “but my father—as I think you know, he had some part in funding the Third Mysore War.” When Rufie gulped, his Adam’s apple jouncing up and down, she hurried on.
“I am terribly sorry if my family was in any way responsible for injuring yours. But I do not understand why Darien will not take over his brother’s estate if Lord Lucien—” Had died at the hands of the Sultan’s forces and, indirectly, those of Sir Jasper Wardley-Hines.
Rutherford stared at the patterned paper on the opposite wall.
“Darien took his mother’s death harder than any of the boys,” he said at last. “They tried to shield him from it, but in retrospect, it made his grief worse. At the end, she went so quickly, and he was away at school—he didn’t have the chance to say a proper farewell.
Then, when Lucien bought his colors and left, Darien felt abandoned all over again. He and Lucien were very close.”
“Lucifer and Daring,” Henrietta murmured. “I’ve heard the stories.”
“Not half of them, I’d wager.” Rutherford splayed his hands over the knees of his dark breeches.
“Horace always said Darien was going to give their father apoplexy if he didn’t mend his ways, stop his carousing around town, ruining young women by the score.
But it was Horse—Horace who had the apoplexy.
And I think Darien feels he was the cause of it. ”
“He could not be responsible,” Henrietta said.
Rufie shook his dark head. Not a hair shifted. “Not in the logical way of things. But grief has its own logic. Nell, their mother, was there to look after the children, but when Lucretius took ill, that dear boy—”
“A fever, I think?” Henrietta said gently when Rufie strangled into silence. She shared that agony; they’d lost Fanny to fever too.
“Darien was away on the Continent. He returned home only to bury him.” Rufie swallowed hard.
“He blames himself, God knows why. I truly feared he wished to do himself in. Then Nell went away, leaving Horatia behind, and my brother, Rathbone, stepped in to take things in hand at Bellamy. My uncle the marquess thinks Darien will settle down if he has more responsibility. But Darien won’t touch what he thinks belongs to his brother.
He’ll never agree to declaring Lucien dead. Never.” He sent her an unhappy look.
“And his reputation leaves him with no credit,” Henrietta said to herself. “No allies to protest the suit.” No wonder he had pinned his hopes on Sir Pelton.
“His reputation. Yes.” Rutherford cleared his throat, and Henrietta recalled with searing detail the kiss between her and Darien that Rutherford had witnessed.
“I hope you will not hold it too much against him. How he has—er, behaved with other women. Including, um, Lady Celeste.” He winced.
“I am quite sure the right woman will be able to command his entire devotion.”
Henrietta drew back. “But you must know…”
She let the protest dangle. Rutherford stared at her with appeal and a hint of worry. He had no notion that Darien’s reputation was largely a ruse, a set of compromising situations staged to free trapped girls from unwanted unions.
The realization made her sway in her seat. Darien let his family, the people he loved most, believe him no better than what the gossip sheets portrayed. And yet he had trusted her with the truth.
Who else knew him as he truly was, a kind, sensitive man who could not walk past a person in need?
He had sprung to her aid when he’d found her standing wretched and alone outside St. James, well before he knew she might be of use to him.
He had helped her bring Mary Ann out of the workhouse and arrange Elijah’s burial.
He had gone to Colonel Pennyroyal to return the deed he’d won at cards. But no one knew any of this.
He was no paragon, certainly. Arrogant, commanding, high-handed, and far too absorbed with matters of style and dress.
And dangerously sensual—that was true also.
He had not tried to deny what happened with Celeste.
Who, as far as Henrietta gathered, had used Darien to taunt the man she really wanted and been left with a babe in her belly for her tricks.
“Forgive me,” Henrietta said again. “For inquiring into that which is none of my business.”
“It is well within your rights to ask, since I hope very much to become an accepted member of your family,” Rutherford said, color high in his cheeks.
Henrietta blinked and drew back. “You do?”
He had dark brown eyes, lovely, soulful, if far less striking than Darien’s searing blue.
Darien’s eyes could ensorcel a woman—as so many had been ensnared before her, Henrietta reminded herself.
She’d lied when she’d told Darien she wanted a staid, quiet man, a scholar or dreamy vicar.
She wanted a man who sparked her mind and her blood.
Rufie gulped and nodded. “I am sure Lady Pomeroy has higher hopes, but I intend to convince her and Sir Pelton that no one shall love or provide for their daughter more devotedly than I can and will do.”
“Marsibel?” Henrietta exclaimed. Her cousin appeared on the threshold, Darien beside her.
Darien. Here. Henrietta’s mind ground to a halt as awareness of him washed through her in a tide of heat.
“Marsi, are you and Rufie—I mean, Mr. Bales—?”
Marsibel flushed a delicate rose-pink. “I must discuss it with my father and mother,” she said. Her eyes lingered on Rufie with hope and softness. “But I hope we may persuade them of our suitability.”
“I felt it incumbent upon me,” Darien said coolly, “to inform Miss Pomeroy how very little my cousin has to offer her.”
“Marsibel!” Henrietta repeated. “You’re in love, and wish to marry, and you didn’t tell me? How could I not have known?”
Fresh tears stung her eyes. Her cousin had finally grown up enough to be interesting, and now she would be lost to marriage, wifehood and motherhood, a realm Henrietta would never know.
Marsibel flew into Henrietta’s arms and the girls laughed and danced about together, then dried each other’s tears, talking a mile a minute.
Rutherford looked on with a fond smile, as calf-witted as any man in love.
Darien leaned against the door, affecting boredom. “Are you in transports to be part of the Bales family, Henry? I thought we were aggravating aristocrats.”
He was so tall, so elegantly dressed, so overwhelmingly potent, and so dear. She felt struck like a bell, as she had upon seeing him at the door of her cell. Every nerve vibrated, every thought fell away as one clear truth washed through her, bright and obvious.
“Darien.” She breathed his name, feeling her chest tighten. “I did not expect—” She had feared she would never see him again. Yet he was here.
He shrugged. “I felt I should look in on you all,” he said. “See if—” But he bit off the words.
Henrietta rose and crossed the room, holding out her hands. As if he understood everything, he took her hands in his own, pressing her palms against his chest. His eyes burned bright blue.
“I did not know Lord Lucien was lost in Mysore. I am so very sorry to hear it. I don’t know how you can bear to be around us.”
He held perfectly still, yet she felt he leaned toward her, body and heart. “Your father is not to blame for what the King did with his money,” he said gruffly. “And Lucien is not lost. He’s alive. He’s coming back.”
Henrietta studied his face. In his eyes she saw the swirl of emotions, the bleakness, the longing, the fear. Her heart swelled. She longed to put her arms around him. She wanted to hold him and never let go.