Chapter Ten
‘And then you loop it round…like this?’
Ditty stared at the crocheting heart in her hands.
Well. It was supposed to be a heart. She’d never seen anything that looked less like a heart. It was all bunched up on one side, and the threads at the top were nothing like the stitching at the bottom.
She sighed heavily. Whenever she was left alone with a needle and thread, nothing ever seemed to work.
Though Avril and Mavis tried to look kindly at the monstrosity she was holding up in the middle of the table in the Brexley Lodge craft room, Ditty could see what they really thought.
She sighed as she dropped her hands onto the table. ‘How do you both do it?’
‘Years of practice,’ said Avril wisely.
‘Years? Decades, more like!’ cackled Mavis with a grin. ‘You just wait until your children have gone out to play and your husband is tinkering with something daft, and you have twenty minutes to yourself. All those twenty minutes add up!’
Ditty smiled weakly as the two older women laughed together. Of course, she wasn’t going to tell them her thoughts. She’d already been far too open with the residents of Brexley as it was.
Well, one of them.
She swallowed, gaze dropping to the misshapen heart in her hands. When had she last spoken about her father? Years ago. Thalia had tried to bring him up occasionally, and she knew Calliope spoke to Thalia about him, but she never joined in.
Until Henry.
‘I just wish I was a bit more help,’ Ditty said feebly, looking back at…well, she couldn’t call it a heart. Not with that shape. ‘But I don’t seem to have the hang of it.’
‘Make a hundred, and by the time you reach the last one, it might even look like a heart,’ said Mavis with a grin.
Ditty giggled. ‘And if I didn’t have such an important proposal to plan, then perhaps I’d take you up on that! But I think it would take me forever, and I’m leaving the day of the proposal.’
Now why did those words sound so strange and foreign in her mouth?
‘Humph,’ sniffed Mavis. ‘You aren’t staying, then?’
Ditty blinked. ‘Staying?’
She must have heard wrong. There was absolutely no chance of her—
‘Oh, you’ve got to stay, Brexley has been brought alive again by your presence here,’ said Avril, slowly cutting the material for the next heart. ‘Every shop in town says you’ve purchased from them.’
‘I have to get back home, keep building up my career,’ she said with a brief smile. ‘You wouldn’t want me here—’
‘Oh, yes, I would greatly miss you if you decided to go back to that big city of yours,’ said Avril, her eyes narrowed as she waved the pinking shears at her. ‘And I can think of one other person who would miss you a great deal, as well.’
Both the ladies glanced to their left.
Unable to help herself, and utterly perplexed as to what they could mean, Ditty looked in the same direction they were pointedly gazing at.
And flushed.
It was most unfair her body would betray her in that way. It was only Henry, after all. Henry in a greatcoat, standing outside the wide window and evidently looking up at something.
Ditty could feel her cheeks burning, and they only increased in temperature as Avril and Mavis giggled.
‘You’re as bad as a pair of schoolgirls,’ Ditty chastised with a raised eyebrow. ‘And you couldn’t be more wrong.’
‘Tell that to your cheeks,’ said Avril with a wink.
Ditty flushed and looked once more at her ridiculous attempt at making a heart.
She couldn’t make a heart. She couldn’t even open her own. What was it Thomas had said in that idiotic letter of his?
He understands this may come as a surprise, but he has given much thought to the matter, and after consideration has concluded there is nothing more to be gained from the relationship.
‘Why don’t you go and see what that nice duke is up to?’ Avril said sweetly.
Ditty rolled her eyes. ‘You know, you could at least attempt to hide what you’re doing!’
‘No, we couldn’t—and when you get to our age, you’ll know there is absolutely no time like the present,’ said Mavis severely, though there was a twinkle in her eye. ‘Now go and talk to the boy. See what he’s up to. Report back.’
‘But not too quickly,’ said Avril with a wink.
Ditty sighed but rose, as though she could not disobey.
Something was drawing her to him, something she had never felt before.
Something strange, that pattered in her chest and refused to stay still.
Perhaps if she just went out there and asked what he was up to, Ditty reasoned as she pulled on her pelisse, then this hot feeling would be gone. Whatever it was.
Smiling at the other residents as she walked down the corridor to the hall, Ditty was surprised at how many names she had learned in her short time here. She found Henry still outside the large Lodge, though farther along, to her great relief. At least Mavis and Avril wouldn’t have a clear view.
‘Hello,’ Ditty said, shyness suddenly overwhelming her.
Henry turned and beamed, and that strange fluttery feeling in her chest increased.
What on earth was going on?
‘Hullo, Ditty,’ he said easily, his tall frame just covered with his greatcoat.
Ditty could not help but notice it was short in the arms. What was a duke doing, wearing a greatcoat with frayed cuffs?
She glanced up and immediately saw what he was looking at.
‘Now, I’m no expert,’ she said, ‘but that looks like damp to me.’
Henry sighed. ‘Don’t need to be an expert to see it.’
Indeed, Ditty was rather surprised she hadn’t noticed it as she had arrived earlier that day.
It looked from the ground as though the drainpipe had cracked, allowing a small but steady trickle of rain down the side of the building.
Over time, it had created a damp patch which had to be at least four feet wide.
Ditty shrugged. ‘Shouldn’t be too hard to fix.’
Just for a moment, she thought he was going to say something, sadness in his eyes she had never seen before.
And then it was gone. Henry smiled. ‘Yes, I suppose it is not complicated. How’s your heart?’
Ditty swallowed. What the—what did he think he was doing, asking a question like that?
‘Mavis said you were learning to make one today, but she didn’t hold out much hope for you,’ he continued in a low, conspiratorial voice. ‘Avril stood up for you, if it matters.’
Ditty forced herself to laugh. ‘Oh! Oh, of course. I’m afraid my ability to make a heart just isn’t that impressive.’
The words tasted strange on her tongue, but surely it was the cold in the air.
Henry was nodding. ‘I suppose you came out here to escape them.’
It wasn’t really a question—at least, it didn’t sound like one. Ditty nodded, not entirely sure what else to say.
She knew what she wanted to ask, but the very beginning of their…whatever this was, had been more than a little fractious. And what she wanted to ask was far too intrusive a question, she knew. Even so…
‘What is it?’ Henry said, pulling a hand through his hair. ‘What, have I got something on my face?’
Ditty’s gaze was pulled inexorably toward his handsome features. ‘N-no.’
‘Then what is it? You’re looking at me like I’ve grown another head.’
Her stomach swooped, but there was nothing for it. She had to know. ‘When we took that walk in the woods, you—you said something about proposing matrimony again.’
Henry’s smile faded, but he did not look angry or upset. ‘I did.’
‘So you have proposed to someone before?’ Ditty prompted, her heart racing.
Why was it so important to ask? She still couldn’t quite put her finger on that.
Henry glanced up at the building once more, as though if he didn’t, it would fall down. Or perhaps that was just her imagination. Perhaps he just didn’t want to look at her.
‘Yes. Yes, I was almost engaged about two years ago.’
And a rush of jealousy, a powerful rush of envy Ditty had never known before, soared through her, overwhelming her carefully planned reply.
‘Why almost?’ she said quickly. ‘Why didn’t she—how did you plan your proposal?’
* * *
Henry laughed.
After all, what else could he do? There was absolutely no chance he was going to let that slide, even if Ditty looked almost as red as a beetroot.
And attractive, at the same time. How did she do that?
Still, there was a sting in her words. He had damned well planned the proposal, and look where it had got him?
‘Now then, don’t you blame the fact that she said no on the fact that I didn’t plan it properly!’ he teased.
At least, he tried to tease. It was difficult while his entire chest was frozen like ice and his heart wasn’t beating.
Ditty’s gaze had dropped to her hands and for that, he was thankful. Now Henry could try to collect himself before he spoke any more about that day in his life to which he had promised himself he would never return.
It had been a mistake taking Ditty along that path. He had known it at the time, especially when his mouth had slipped. He shouldn’t have even mentioned Georgiana.
Henry swallowed. The hurt inside was not what he had expected, though.
After Georgiana had declined his proposal, he’d been sure he would never think of her, speak of her, even return to that place without the sharp agonising pain which had cut his heart in two.
And for a while, that had been true.
But it was strange…speaking about it with Ditty, even in vague terms, didn’t bring back the same agonising pain. In fact, there wasn’t even a dull ache.
‘I did not say you didn’t plan it properly,’ said Ditty defensively. ‘I—’
‘I’m sure you didn’t, I’m just teasing,’ Henry said softly.
‘She declined your proposal, then.’
He nodded. ‘That she did.’
And in no uncertain terms, he could not help but think. Goodness, just a ‘no’ might have been bearable. He could perhaps have laughed about that with Charles, told their mother he’d done his best but his best, for some reason, had not been sufficient.
But instead…