CHAPTER XV #3
‘See, it is working!’ Nicolet whispered as they began to dance. ‘Already he is beside himself with envy.’
Hetty let out a strangled laugh. ‘You were both deplorably ill mannered.’
‘If I’d had to waltz with Her Grace I should have been undone,’ Nicolet defended himself. ‘Nowhere do I show to better advantage.’
‘You wretch,’ Hetty accused him without heat. ‘You had entirely forgotten about me until it suited you!’
He begged her pardon. ‘I had lost myself in Lady Jersey’s eyes, you see. They are such a wonderful …’ He paused.
‘Blue?’ Hetty suggested. ‘Brown? Green?’
‘One of them.’ He nodded. ‘Certainly one of them.’
At this Hetty could not help but smile, though, after a pause, she ventured to ask if he had reconsidered his sentiments towards the Grandduchess.
‘It would be rather a brilliant match, after all,’ she reasoned, ‘and would save you from all this effort.’
‘It is worthwhile effort,’ Nicolet assured her. ‘Recollect your words, Miss Clithero!’
Hetty’s brow wrinkled. ‘What words?’
‘The outcome justifies the deeds,’ Nicolet pronounced loftily. ‘I do believe it to be the wisest thing you have ever said.’
On another occasion, Hetty might have laughed, or even taken the time to explain this oft-quoted phrase was not one of her creation, but she did not. For in that moment, her disagreement with Arthur still echoing in her ears, she was instead much struck.
She did not speak for the rest of the dance, her mind spinning in many different directions – and was fortunate that the Marquis, merrily chattering away, did not seem to need much input from her.
Only when the dance concluded did she come back to herself, advising him that he had better stir his stumps, for: ‘No one is going to believe you are in love with me if you continue to flirt with half of London!’
‘Dash it, you’re quite right!’ he said, promising he would do better. It was a vow he upheld for the rest of the evening, and his attentions were so assiduous that more than one envious miss wondered sulkily to her mama what on earth he saw in shy Miss Clithero.
‘She is worth a pretty penny, my dear,’ Lady Potherby reminded her daughter – and, indeed, herself.
It was easy to forget about Miss Clithero, who always used to fade into the background so thoroughly, and who could not seem to survive a conversation without expiring into blushes.
Now, however, she might well be a different young lady, and it struck her ladyship forcibly just how entirely remiss she had been in not already introducing Miss Clithero to her nephew.
The dancing that night lasted until near four o’clock in the morning, yet Arthur did not take a place in the Allerton carriage when they left for home.
Instead, he walked, weaving a far longer route through London than was strictly necessary to reach Berkeley Square: there were some moods that could only be alleviated by trudging and this was one of them, as he tried to lift himself out of the doldrums that had overcome him this evening.
You are being foolish, he advised himself.
There was a great deal for which to be thankful because, indeed, this day might well mark the conclusion to many of the worries which had plagued the past weeks.
For Hetty had shared a waltz and a long conversation with the Marquis and, if Arthur did not think it possible for the fellow to be quite as amusing as Hetty seemed to think him, this boded very well.
She would not, soon, need his help any longer.
And if Thimbleby were correct about the worth of the deer park, then soon the future of his family would be secured.
It would not be a return to the old ways; no: they still would have to tread carefully; he could not afford to buy back his adored bays and he had yet to find some way of reasoning with his mother but—
Arthur stopped. His feet had taken him to Hertford Street, which was almost silent, save for the occasional yowl of an alley cat involved in some territorial dispute – and so the drawing up of a carriage could not help but attract his notice.
The carriage – a hackney cab – halted in front of number 11.
The carriage’s sole occupant slipped out of the vehicle and disappeared into the house – whose door had opened as if the visitor were very much expected – so quickly that had not the moonlight caught the person’s face at a certain angle, Arthur would not have recognised it.
It did, however, and Arthur had. Afterwards, he stood there for a long few moments, regarding the closed door of a house that was very familiar to him, before continuing to walk. He rapidly re-examined the conclusion he had just reached: his troubles were not, indeed, coming to an end.
For while he could not, of course, be wholly certain as to the reason why the Marquis de Nicolet would pay a visit, in the early hours of the morning, to number 11 Hertford Street, two things were absolutely certain: the first was that Hetty still needed his aid, and the second that tomorrow, he himself would be paying a visit to Mrs Ridley, as well.