“I apologize for having left the gold carriage at home, but unless you have another conveyance, come on board.Now, Hat.”
“A gold carriage,” one of the men scoffed as he eyed Hattie closely.
They were drunk. Somewhere in the space of the past hour or so, Daniel had left a respectable evening and returned with two drunken mates. Why had fate put her in this family?
“We haven’t got all night,” Daniel snapped, and leaned forward, his hand outstretched to her.
Hattie was humiliated. She was supposed to ride off like some night flower with them? But what choice did she have? It was far worse to walk home and have strange men assume she was a three-penny upright looking to pay her rent, wasn’t it? When Daniel impatiently wiggled his fingers at her, she put her hand in his and allowed him to haul her up to sit in his lap.
And then she tried to hide her face beneath her hood, lest anyone from the Forsythe party see her.
They clattered along, passing the Forsythe house and disappearing into poorly lit London streets as Hattie bounced along uncomfortably on her brother’s knee.
“What’s it like up in that house?” one of Daniel’s friends asked.
Hattie ignored him. The cab made a sharp left, and she fell into the wall. When she did, her hood fell away from her hair.
“Hey,” said one of the men. “I know you, don’t I? You were engaged to Rupert Masterson.”
The second man leaned forward to have a look at her. “Blimey, it is.” He burst into laughter. “What’d you do to make the lad cry off? He—”
“Shut up,” Daniel growled.
“Och, Dan, we didn’t say any—”
“Shut your mouth,” Daniel said more forcefully, jerking toward his friends and very nearly dislodging Hattie in the process.
Hattie said nothing. She was dying a thousand small deaths, mortified that one of those men had recognized her as Rupert’s fiancée. Is that who she was in this town now? Rupert Masterson’s jilted fiancée? The truth, which Rupert had so gallantly said he meant to conceal, was apparently out there.
When the cab pulled to the curb on the north end of Portman Square, Hattie leaped from it, stumbling and landing on all fours when she hit the hard pavement. She heard the rip of fabric and felt the pain in one knee. She heard them laugh, heard Daniel direct the driver as she ran down the sidewalk, away from them and their leering faces.
She slipped into the house, relieved to find no one awake. She found a butt of a candle by groping around an entry console and made her way upstairs through the shadows of grandfather clocks and dress forms. She found two cats curled on the foot of her bed, but Hattie was so exhausted she didn’t make them leave.
She looked down at her borrowed gown. She’d torn a hole in the knee, all right. She fell, with despair, facedown onto the bed and let her shame sink into her.
She’d thought mixing with the Quality would be fun. She’d thought that’s what she wanted from life. But now that she’d done it, she only felt empty. She was not of that world.
But neither was she part of this one.
Where did that leave her?What world did she belong to? Was she to be an island of a woman, moving through various parts of society, belonging to no one but herself?
One of the cats began to purr and flex its claws against her arm.
Hattie rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling overhead, stained from a leak in the roof that her father had left unrepaired for too long. In the vague outline of the stain, her mind’s eye saw Lord Abbott.
He’d looked so striking in his formal suit of clothing. Virile and worldly and mysterious. She’d tried not to ogle him, but that had proved more difficult than she would have guessed. He’d said very little to her, other than to express his surprise that she was there. And then to exchange a look or two when Miss Porter sang.
She’d watched him speak to the three women Lady Aleksander had deemed worthy of his consideration, obviously making an effort to know them, just as he’d said he would do. She’d yearned to know what he said, what he asked, but except for Flora’s conversation, that had been impossible. She wondered if he wanted to be married. Maybe he was one of those gentlemen who would prefer to remain a bachelor all his life, but fate had intervened.
Then again, perhaps he saw marriage as something to aspire to—a state of being that was more blissful than his solitude.
What if his marriage was to Flora? Hattie tried to imagine her friend as the duchess of Santiava. Flora was naturally gregarious and liked to have her friends around her. She would want to host parties and suppers and patronize her favorite charities. But how would she cope if her husband hardly said two words to her every day? She couldn’t imagine it—Flora thrived on companionship.
Christiana? No. After this evening’s disastrous performance, during which the viscount had had to bite his lip to keep from laughing or crying—it was hard to know which was more appropriate—she guessed that Christiana would not be his choice.
Dahlia Cupperson? Hattie had always liked Dahlia and found her to be curious about any number of topics. A match with Dahlia was possible, she supposed. She pictured the two of them, bent over their books, discussing things like...math. Dahlia had always struck her as smart and clever in that way.
The vision of the two of them made her feel a little queasy.
