CHAPTER V #2
Arthur let out a choke of laughter. ‘Hetty, you heartless creature. You have killed the fellow off?’
‘You were becoming too attached!’ Hetty protested, letting out a gurgle of laughter herself. ‘You – you suspect then?’
‘That they are not copies? Yes, I do.’
‘I did not quite like to trick your mama in such a way, but I thought perhaps you would not like her to sell the diamonds – their being family heirlooms – and I knew she would not accept a single penny from me otherwise. What else was I to do?’
‘Perhaps you might have informed me of the situation,’ Arthur suggested.
‘By the time any letter had reached you, your mother’s affairs would have been in an even worse state,’ Hetty reasoned, and such logic was difficult to fault, as much as Arthur wished he could.
‘I shall repay you every penny,’ he promised. ‘Just as soon as …’
As soon as what? He did not yet know when such a thing would be possible – though it did not matter. If he had to sell off every single piece of unentailed land to manage it, he would do so.
‘I shan’t charge you interest, if that is your concern,’ Hetty assured him with a smile. Then, when Arthur still frowned, ‘Is that what has been bothering you since your return?’ she quizzed him. ‘There is nothing more?’
However tempting it was to pour all his current difficulties into Hetty’s willing ears, he could not. She had been burdened too much already. ‘There is nothing more.’
He had to drop her gaze after only a moment, for he had never found it very easy to lie to Hetty.
From the corner of her eye he saw her brow wrinkle in confusion, and her mouth open to pursue questioning.
Perceiving he would need to take the fight to her, he added hastily: ‘Aside, of course, from my curiosity over this Belgian fellow of yours.’
His strategy worked. Hetty flushed red. ‘You mustn’t believe everything Timothy and Trixie say. It’s nonsense.’
Arthur’s curiosity was, by now, entirely genuine. ‘Which part?’
‘There is no such person,’ she asserted, but now she was avoiding his gaze.
‘Hypothetically, however, if there were such a person – would I be able to meet him?’
‘No.’
‘Has Mama met him?’
‘No one has—’
Hetty broke off. She was making such a mull of this.
‘Surely you don’t intend to conduct a clandestine affair?’ Arthur quizzed her. ‘Not the thing, Hetty, really.’
‘No! Not at all, he is not – he does not see me in such a way!’
So harried did Hetty feel – so woefully unprepared as to how to extricate herself from a fiction not even of her own making – that the truth had slipped from her without her permission. She pressed a hand to her mouth, too late.
‘Hetty—’ Arthur began, concerned by the expression upon her face, but he found himself interrupted by three visitors, whose arrival afforded Arthur no small amount of astonishment, and Hetty no small amount of horror.
Hetty’s fortune would always secure her a place in the marriage mart, but her reserve had thus far managed to discourage all suitors save for those whose need for her dowry eclipsed all other considerations.
This is what united Sir Marcus Kirkham, with his near-legendary losses at the card table, seventy-year-old Lord Fenton, whose estates were almost as encumbered as his waistcoat, and young Mr Neal, the youngest brother of seven dowry-deficient sisters.
Arthur exchanged bows with every sign of politeness, cutting Hetty a sideways glance to share his surprise at the presence of such an odd grouping of persons in their box.
Except Hetty would not look at him, and, indeed, though she managed to make all the necessary introductions – for only Lord Fenton was known to him – it was in a polite, wooden manner that bore little resemblance to the laughing creature with whom he had just been conversing.
‘Are you enjoying the performance, Miss Clithero?’ Sir Marcus asked her, while Lord Fenton quizzed Arthur on the war.
Hetty said she was. Sir Marcus, unsurprised by this brevity, continued easily on: ‘Kean does Iago very well, does he not?’
Hetty agreed that he did.
‘May I say how well you are looking, Miss Clithero!’ Lord Fenton put in jovially.
‘That is a very fine gown,’ Mr Neal said with such little inflection that Arthur was at once certain he had rehearsed this line very much in advance.
Hetty stammered out her thanks.
‘I thought I knew all the gowns in your wardrobe, but it seems I was mistaken,’ Sir Marcus agreed, causing Hetty to wish very much she had held on to her cloak after all.
‘I am glad of it!’ Lord Fenton said tartly. ‘Perhaps I ought to teach you both a thing or two about giving a lady a compliment, dear boys!’
‘A grandfather’s prerogative,’ Sir Marcus murmured rather caustically.
Lord Fenton – who was rather hard of hearing these days – did not pay this any mind. ‘One ought to praise Miss Clithero’s beauty, you know – not the gown!’
Hetty’s colour rose. Keenly aware of Arthur’s observation, she felt even more objectionably awkward than usual. Arthur, for his part, was suddenly able to perceive why Trixie had thought Hetty needed their aid in courting her Belgian.
‘Was that the interval bell?’ Arthur wondered, though Hetty had not heard anything. ‘Yes, I think it was!’
He ushered them out of the box with as much politeness as he could muster. In the wake of their departure, Hetty continued to avoid his eyes. She would have given a great deal of her fortune to have prevented him seeing such a scene as this.
‘Hetty—’
But once again he was interrupted – this time by the appearance of Timothy, who stalked into the box in high dudgeon, brandishing two glasses of lemonade.
He was followed by his friend, the Honourable Robert Hargan, who had somehow managed to balance three glasses in his hands, though as soon as he set eyes upon Arthur he forgot this circumstance and attempted a deep bow.
‘Steady!’ Timothy barked as the lemonades sloshed dangerously.
‘Begging your pardon, I—’
‘Shall I—?’ Hetty stepped forward to relieve him of one of his glasses.
Catching her eye, Mr Hargan flushed. ‘We – ah – missed you in Hyde Park this morning, Miss Clithero.’
Mr Hargan was Hetty’s last, and preferred suitor, for his shyness so far eclipsed her own that she felt positively sparkling by comparison.
‘I must go,’ Timothy announced. ‘Make my excuses to Mother, will you?’
‘You are leaving? Why?’
‘Corky,’ Timothy spat out in explanation. ‘He spilt lemonade upon my trousers. Says it was an accident, but it was not – as Hargan will tell you! He saw it all.’
Hargan admitted he had, indeed, witnessed the dreadful event.
‘You see!’
Arthur looked down to Timothy’s nether limbs, but could see nothing. ‘I cannot see anything.’
‘It can only have been the tiniest splash,’ Hetty agreed.
‘To you, perhaps,’ Timothy said, aggrieved, ‘but dash it, I have a reputation to uphold. I cannot be – be – besmirched in such a way!’
‘N-no.’ Arthur kept his voice level with great effort. He could not look at Hetty; he would be lost then. ‘I can understand that.’
‘… he was perfectly pleasant, certainly,’ Lady Allerton was saying as she and Trixie re-entered the box.
Trixie was nodding. ‘Poor Captain Edgewood, to be so misunderstood.’
Arthur turned his head. ‘Did you introduce Edgewood to Trixie?’
Lady Allerton looked at him in some surprise. ‘No, Arthur, I certainly did not – but it was the chanciest of things! Trixie took quite a tumble in the hallway! She would have fallen entirely were it not for the Captain’s quick reactions, for he was exiting his box at just that moment.’
Arthur surveyed his sister with great cynicism. ‘What a remarkable coincidence,’ he said blandly.
Trixie’s innocent expression fell apart instantly. ‘We were just talking. Honestly, how am I meant to become a Great Beauty without having flirts? Stands to reason: if he’s a libertine, he must be good at it!’
‘Hush!’ Lady Allerton hissed. ‘I will have not another word about libertines! In front of Mr Hargan, too!’
Mr Hargan murmured his apologies, and all but fled from the box.
‘Mama, I must leave,’ Timothy declared. ‘At once!’
‘Whatever for?’
Timothy drew himself up. ‘Look at me!’
Arthur kept his face as straight as he was able. ‘Really, Mama, is it not obvious?’
‘It’s a lemonade emergency,’ Hetty explained gravely.
With some effort, Arthur maintained his composure. ‘Timothy, you cannot leave. It would be too ridiculous,’ he told him firmly and – resolutely ignoring his brother’s protestations – instructed them all take their seats once more.
Only once the curtain had risen again did he say to Hetty in a whisper: ‘You wretch, you almost tipped me into whoops.’
‘Timothy would never have forgiven you,’ she whispered back.
Her eyes looked at him, brimming with mischief – so different, so absurdly different to the dead-eyed creature who had inhabited Hetty’s body mere moments ago, that Arthur felt overcome with sudden determination.
He might not yet know how to untangle his family’s finances, or rescue their fortunes from destitution, but Hetty – Hetty, he could help.