Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The Hines carriage arrived in style at St. James Palace on the day that Henrietta’s fate would be decided.
As the Pomeroy coach drew up behind them, packed with her relatives, Henrietta descended the steps with Charley’s aid and recalled with a melancholy fondness the last time she set foot on these cobblestones.
Then, the turreted brick gatehouse had simply felt like the entrance to another world. Now, it was the path to her doom.
Another coach drew up behind the Pomeroy vehicle, with a team of six matched blacks and the Bales arms picked out on the door.
Henrietta watched in amazement as Rutherford scrambled out and moved toward Marsibel like a bee to honey.
The Marquess of Langford, in full court dress, assisted Horatia from the coach.
Then Darien, stepping down last, looked around and met her eyes.
The others faded into the background as her whole world tilted on its axis and reoriented toward him.
She suspected he would always do that to her. Become the center of her world each time he stepped into it.
He no longer wore the sling. His back was straight, his hair clipped and queued, and like everything else she had laid eyes on that day, he was unbearably beautiful. Her heart expanded, reaching toward him.
“Lord Darien,” she murmured as he came to her like a compass needle pointing north. She felt her insides shift and settle. A thrill shot through her body as he bowed over her hand. “I recall we met here before.”
“Your dress has considerably improved.”
He appraised her from head to slipper. Duprix had rebuilt her court gown completely, shearing away the excess ruffles and shirring the stomacher and underskirt with neat rows of tiny pink ribbons.
The brushed green silk made Henrietta’s eyes gleam a deep emerald, matching the jeweled collar at her throat.
Instead of ostrich feathers, a set of tall, soft plumes nodded like angelic thoughts above her head.
Her panniers swayed elegantly as he led her through the gate and a phalanx of red-coated yeoman guards conducted them through the long hallways of St. James. She clutched his arm, her face pale.
“I expect that Lord Pinochle has been bending the Prime Minister’s ear about me,” she said in a subdued tone. “I don’t expect Mr. Pitt to approve of my stealing his maid away when good servants are so hard to keep. Likely there is a crime in it somewhere.”
“Pinochle is in no position to harass anyone at the moment,” Darien said. “It seems his debts have caught up with him and he has withdrawn to the Continent. His servants were offered board wages, but not a one of them wanted to stay in that house.”
Henrietta’s heart fluttered in her chest. Nancy was safe. She need never fear Pinochle might try to find her or her child. “You did this?” she whispered.
His mouth twisted in a wry grin. “My father. You are right that a marquess is a handy threat to wave about.” He covered her hand with his, squeezing her gloved fingers. “I won’t let them take you, Henry.”
Her throat was too tight to speak. The threat of transportation did seem remote, especially when men like Jasper filled the King’s war chest. But a worse result seemed far more likely—she would be squashed, silenced, dismissed.
Her argument about justice and reform and proper rights for women would be flicked from the monarch’s sleeve like a flower bug, while men like Pitt kept the wheel of government turning, crushing the lesser in body and soul.
“Perhaps I shall flee to the Continent too,” she said. “Flanders has always interested me. There is a long history of fabric production.”
She wished, for a wild moment, that they could run away together. Leave everything that was unsettled, everyone they owed behind.
Horatia’s innocent remarks over the past few days had drawn a picture for Henrietta of the Bales family and Darien’s place within it.
The spirited youngest, indulged and protected by his brothers.
As his family members left him, one by one, he’d found refuge in larking about the Continent, escape in turning his reputation for wildness to some use.
But she better understood his outrage at the unfairness of the world, that the two men destined to inherit the Langford patrimony should not be here to take it up.
“I’ll run away with you if you wed me first.” The sculpted planes of his face were severe, but so dear as he stared down at her. She wanted to trace those fine, beautiful lips with her fingers.
“I thought you had withdrawn your offer,” she said. “We have not seen you at Hines House since—” Since their last, terrible parting.
“I’ve been attending to business. Henry, you goose.” His face filled her vision, her heart, her world. “My offer stands until you finally accept. You won’t be rid of me. Not ever.”
She nodded as tears rose to her eyes. Somehow she, the most unlikely of women, had won this most winsome of men. She was the most unsuitable woman he could possibly have chosen, and he had come, with his father, to support her as she went on trial before the King.
“Could get you a special license,” the marquess rumbled from behind them. “The Archbishop of York is my cousin.”
“You talk to her, then,” Darien said as they lined up outside the King’s presence chamber. “I would swear she loves me, but I can’t persuade her to take on the leg-shackle.”
“Thought it was all they were out for, women,” the marquess remarked.
“Not this one,” Darien said.
Henrietta clenched her hand on her arm, wondering if she were being foolish.
She had been convinced that love alone was slender ground on which to marry when there was so much else to consider.
But her objections were harder and harder to call to mind.
With Darien at her side, all she could think about was how magnificent he was.
How deep and good he ran, true to the bone.
She would deal with that discovery later. She had to survive this interview first.
“The Most Honorable Marquess of Langford,” the herald intoned as they filed by rank into the King’s presence chamber. The marquess had left off his coronet, but his dress sword banged against his boot, a mark of respect.
“Langford!” King George sat up in his chair. The red velvet upholstery matched the patterned red canopy suspended from the ceiling. Henrietta glanced at the sculpted head of a woman looming above the fireplace and hoped it was Minerva. She could use some of her strength today.
“Heard you were in town, old man,” the King said. “But Pitt’s taking up my afternoon. Some chit he wants to put through the wringer.”
“The chit,” said the marquess, “is to be my daughter. So naturally I interest myself in her future.” He made a deep leg to Queen Charlotte. “Your Majesty.”
“Hello, Cassius,” the Queen said with a small smile.
“Haha! Hear that, Pittsy?” the King bellowed across the room. “Daring’s getting shackled to the bluestocking! You owe me a pony.”
“You may add it to the great list of debts I owe you, sir,” came the reply.
“Lord Darien Bales, son of the Marquess of Langford, and Miss Henrietta Wardley-Hines, daughter of Sir Jasper Wardley-Hines,” the herald droned, and Darien swept Henrietta into the room.
“Riveted him after all, did you?” the King said with glee. “Well done, minx! You just won me five hundred pounds off Pittsy. Much obliged.”
In fact, the King’s was not the only bet lodged on the chances of Miss Wardley-Hines succeeding where so many had failed, and many a gentleman forced to settle a debt entered into the book at White’s laid a curse on her head and on those of her progeny down five generations.
“Your Majesties.” Henrietta made her curtsies to the King and Queen.
“Daring,” the Queen observed, “I counseled you, when you were last here, to find yourself a bride. But I did not expect you to be so obliging.”
Darien swept into his bow, and the Queen’s eyes lingered on the striking figure he cut.
It was more than his height, the saber swinging against his legs, the chest and shoulders filling out his tailed coat that gave him presence.
There was a new sureness to Lord Daring these days.
As if he had settled something within himself.
He still had that alert, watchful air, but he looked less desperate.
Perhaps it was the birth of his daughter, or being reconciled with his father, or his brush with mortality that made self-destruction look less appealing.
It never occurred to Henrietta that she might be the reason for Darien’s new dignity, and she would have scoffed at the idea.
But the Queen watched her with a considering look while Sir Jasper and his wife, Sir Pelton and his lady, and Marsibel and Rutherford, bringing up the rear, all made their bows.
“Brought the whole family to a private audience, Pell?” said the King with a touch of spleen.
“Pittsy has a piece to say, but I’ve a few questions of my own first. Langford, what is the trouble with your son’s estate?
Pitt tells me there’s a pile of suits backed up.
It’s going to be a devil of a headache for the assizes. ”
“Since we’ve had no word from Lucien since the Treaty of Mangalore,” the marquess said in a level tone, “I think it time to settle things on Darien. The King’s Bench has advised me to bring a suit before the Lords.”
“Cursed Mysore,” the King barked. “We’ll settle it this time.
We’re taking the sultan’s sons hostage and bringing them to England to civilize them.
Man’s on his way now.” He glared at Darien.
“Well, boy? Time to cast off the life of dissipation and take up your duties, ain’t it? Set an example for Prinny.”
“If Your Majesty so advises,” Darien said in a neutral tone.
“Take it,” the King grumbled. “The world’s going arse up, first those blasted Colonies and now France. We must keep a steady hand on the reins.”