Chapter 3
“Good morning, Mama.”
Coming to sit at the dining table, Nora smiled at her mother, still overjoyed with all that had occurred the previous evening. “You are awake early this morning.”
“I slept well and awoke refreshed.” Lady Somerset returned Nora’s smile with one of her own before gesturing to the pot of tea waiting on the table. “Should you like some? You know that I always enjoy at least three separate cups before I feel refreshed.”
“Yes, I am aware of that.” With a chuckle, Nora reached to pour herself a cup and then sat back in her seat, stirring in the milk with a gentle hand.
A smile of contentment settled on her lips as she looked at the sunshine beginning to push through the windows towards her, thinking to herself that the day seemed brighter than before.
Wondering just when Lord Hampshire might appear to speak with her father, she let out a small sigh of contentment, which, in turn, caught her mother’s attention.
“I presume you had an enjoyable evening last night?” Lady Somerset lifted an eyebrow just as heat rushed into Nora’s cheeks. “You certainly took a longer time than I had expected to return to my side after the waltz.”
“Lord Hampshire and I were trying to find you,” Nora replied, flushing.
“The ballroom was very crowded, particularly at the end.”
Her mother opened her mouth to say something more, only for the door to open and Louisa to step inside, hiding a yawn behind her hand. “Good morning to you both. Is Papa not to join us this morning?”
“Not as yet, he has business to attend to.” Lady Somerset smiled her welcome to Louisa. “Tea, my dear?”
“Let me fetch it for you.” Rising to her feet, Nora poured a second cup and then, setting the teapot down, handed it to Louisa. “Perhaps it will help restore you to wakefulness.”
With a slightly wry smile, Louisa accepted it. “I thank you. I did not sleep as well as I had anticipated, even though I was quite exhausted by the time we returned home. Mayhap I should not dance every dance at the next ball.”
“You still found it pleasant enough, I hope?” Nora asked, seeing the way her sister’s eyes glowed despite her weariness. “Lord Hawkley was certainly very attentive.”
“Yes, he was.” Louisa sighed softly, a faraway look in her eyes.
“Last evening was most delightful, I have to admit. I had the most wonderful time and danced with so many gentlemen, I was quite taken with them all! There was not even one whom I did not warm to, although that, I suppose, might make it somewhat difficult to know what to do should one come to call!”
Both Nora and her mother laughed at this, as Louisa blushed.
At the same time, however, a soft, uncontrollable warmth rose within Nora’s chest as she let her thoughts drift very easily indeed back towards Lord Hampshire.
Even now, she could practically hear his gentle voice lowered to an intimate whisper as he spoke of his love for her, could feel the gentle press of his hand around hers.
The promise of going to speak with her father was held tightly against her heart, tingling with anticipation.
When would he call? Surely it would be soon – although not too soon, since it would not be proper.
But then I shall be engaged and all will be well. I will have such happiness as I have never known before.
Her mother’s teacup clinked lightly against its saucer as she set it down, pulling Nora out of her reverie.
She reached for her own cup of tea as her mother picked up the gossip column, as she habitually did each morning.
Nora said nothing, looking towards Louisa, who quickly rolled her eyes and grinned.
Nora hid her smile as best she could, knowing that this was a daily tradition with which she was bound to take part.
If she were ever present at the same time as her mother when it came to breaking their fast, both she and Louisa would be expected to enquire and to exclaim over whatever news was offered to them by their mother.
She herself had very little interest in gossip and whisper but it was expected nonetheless.
“Goodness, that is astonishing!”
The exclamation made Nora roll her eyes, darting a glance toward Louisa, who was still half-yawning and showing very little interest. With an inner sigh, Nora turned back to her mother. “What is it, Mama? Has something happened?”
“There is an engagement!” Lady Somerset declared, her eyes widening as she scanned the paragraph. “It was only announced last evening and is quite unexpected. There was no suggestion of a connection between the families before now, even though I believe they are related.”
“Oh?” Louisa murmured, still sluggish. “It is not uncommon for such engagements to take place, I am sure.”
Lady Somerset clicked her tongue and shook her head. “He should have made it quite clear that he had this duty, however. He should not have allowed us to think him a bachelor without intention or obligation.”
Whether it was something in her mother’s voice or in her expression that gave her concern, Nora did not know.
But as she watched her mother’s face and the play of emotions upon it, she felt something cold brush over her skin.
“Might I ask who is engaged? Is it someone that we are acquainted with?” The questions left her uneasy, particularly when her mother frowned, shot her a look, and then clicked her tongue again in obvious displeasure.
“Yes, we are acquainted with him — Lord Hampshire, engaged to his cousin, a Miss Longleat. The truth is, Nora, I thought he was interested in your company. I do not think it right for him to have behaved in such a way towards you.”
Nora’s fingers tightened around her cup as the unease became dread.
“I beg your pardon?” Her mind instantly began to bat away any thoughts that would lead her towards Lord Hampshire.
It could not be that her mother was speaking of him, not after the previous evening’s discussion, not after their profession of love and his promise of engagement.
Nora’s world tilted to the left and then to the right, something hot and dark clawing at her stomach. The teacup in her hands was quickly set back on the table, rattling hard on the saucer from her trembling fingers. Her breath grew thin until it barely seemed to reach her lungs.
Engaged?
The word struck her like a hammer blow, shattering every precious moment of the previous evening and leaving it fragmented all around her.
Closing her eyes, Nora’s mind swam with visions of their previous conversation, of the tender warmth in Lord Hampshire’s eyes as he had murmured his words of affection to her, the fervent promise that he would speak to her father just as soon as was possible.
“I do not think I know Miss Longleat.” Louisa’s voice still held weariness, evidently not even noticing Nora’s shock and fright. “You say the families are connected?”
“Yes, she is Lord Hampshire’s cousin, or so it says here.” Their mother sniffed, lightly. “I still think it very poor of him indeed to behave as he had done. No doubt you thought him interested in your company, Nora.”
Nora could only nod, her mother’s voice seeming to come from a far distance, barely able to make sense of what was being said.
“You are not too upset, I hope?” Lady Somerset continued, her tone kind but entirely unaware of the devastation she was delivering with each and every word.
“You need not fear, my dear girl. You are only in your first Season and have already had more than one gentleman coming to call upon you, have you not?”
Again, she could only nod, not trusting her voice, her heart filled with such a great heaviness, it seemed to sink her low into her seat.
“Do not let this trouble you. There has been no harm done here, and the ton will not even take notice of his attentions to you. Instead, they will be talking only of his sudden engagement to Miss Longleat. You can now consider the other gentlemen in your sphere, which can only be a good thing. It seems that Lord Hampshire was not a worthy gentleman after all.”
Not a worthy gentleman.
A hollow laugh almost escaped Nora’s throat, but she held it back, her mouth going dry. Had she been deceived, then? Had he pretended to be all that she thought him to be whilst, at the very same time, intended to marry another? That did not sit well with her, for she had been sure of him.
Had she been blind?
Pushing herself up in her seat, Nora lifted her chin and gripped her hands tightly in her lap as she struggled to breathe evenly.
She had to pretend that all was well, that her heart had not just been torn open and cast asunder without any warning.
Her smile was tremulous, hardly able to stretch across her lips as her hands pressed hard against her knees under the table.
“You look upset.” Louisa reached across and settled her hand on Nora’s arm, smiling gently. “Do not fret over this, my dear Nora. One gentleman might have proven himself to be less than suitable, but as Mama has just said, many others are interested in your company. Do not forget that.”
Nora’s smile became brittle, as though it might crack at any moment and reveal the true depths of her suffering. Neither her mother nor Louisa would be able to understand the sheer agony now knifing through her, for neither of them had any awareness of what had taken place last night.
She stared down at the plate before her, her eyes seeing nothing as her mother moved onto the next piece of gossip, bringing the conversation about Lord Hampshire to an end.
Am I truly such a fool?
Slowly, painfully, she drew one deep breath and tried to listen to what her mother was speaking of now, but the ache remained, fierce and unrelenting.
“Do excuse me. I think I must prepare for the day.”
“But you have had nothing to eat.” Louisa gestured to her empty plate. “Are you sure you do not want to have something?”
Nora shook her head and blindly walked to the door, aware that she was about to collapse into racking sobs at any moment. Everything she had hoped for, expected, and believed had dissolved in an instant, leaving behind nothing but a cold and hollow ache where her love had once bloomed.
The letter arrived an hour later.
A maid brought it to her room on a tray, and Nora knew the hand at once — the firm, forward-slanting script she had watched him use to sign his name in her dance card only the evening before. She took it from the tray and waited until the door closed before she broke the seal.
She read it twice — once in bewilderment, once in a growing, airless horror — and then her fingers tightened on the paper until it creased along the fold.
Four stiff, apologetic sentences. That was all he had given her.
Four sentences to explain that he was engaged to another woman, as if the magnitude of what he was destroying could be contained in so small a space.
So the gossip column had not lied. She had clung to that hope — thin, irrational, but fierce — all the way up the stairs: that it was a mistake, a printer’s error, a confusion of names. But here was his own hand confirming it, and the last thread of doubt snapped cleanly in two.
She set the letter on her dressing table, placing it carefully, lining its edge with the edge of the looking-glass.
Her hands were trembling. She pressed them flat against the wood and held them there, feeling the cool grain beneath her palms, grounding herself in something — anything — that was solid and real and would not shift beneath her.
The room was too bright. The flowers on the windowsill — white roses, freshly cut that morning when she had still believed herself the happiest woman in London — released a sweetness into the air that turned her stomach.
She did not cry again. She had spent those tears in the corridor below, and what remained was a stillness, heavy and absolute, settling over her like dust over furniture in a house that has been closed up for the season.
She sat on the edge of the bed with one hand pressed against her breastbone where something sharp and bright had lodged itself and would not dislodge.