“Oh, Hattie,” Flora moaned. “You understand me. What am I even doing? My parents are over the moon for this man. But I couldn’t think of a single thing to say to him! And don’t you dare suggest I talk to him about abook. I know you were trying to help me, but really, Hattie. Nobooks.”
“No books. I understand,” Hattie said patiently.
“But do you really?” she asked mournfully. Flora could get petulant when she was distressed. “I’m not good enough for him. It’s so obvious!”
“Nothing could be further from the truth!”
“I swear it is. The man is intelligent and kind, and he’s handsome, and he’s a duke and a viscount and he doesn’t belong with someone likeme. What have I got to entice him? I’m not a beauty like Christiana or a brain like Dahlia, or even a kind spirit like Mabel.”
Hattie moved to sit beside her friend on the floor. “You’re better than all of them. You’re kind, too, and smart, and you’re as worthy as anyone in all of England. Moreover,Ithink he rather likes you.”
“Why?” She pinned Hattie with a look. “Did hesayso? Has he told you something?”
“No, no—but I could see it. The way he looked at you. It was quite clear.”
Flora rubbed her nose. “Do you really think so?” she asked meekly.
“I do.”
Flora managed a bit of a smile and sat up from her slump. “But what do Isay? I’m so flustered when I’m near him and I turn into a cake.”
“Well,” Hattie said, crisscrossing her legs beneath her skirt, “he likes the study of stars. And history. Although I think he is more inclined to military history than any other.”
She glanced away, thinking of what else she knew about him. But when she looked back, Flora was eyeing her strangely.
“What?”
“You seem to know a lot about him for someone who is stuck in a closet, writing letters.”
Hattie could feel a bit of heat in her cheeks. She felt conspicuous, almost as if her lips were still swollen from that kiss. It suddenly occurred to her that Flora might discover one day, after she was married and a duchess and a mother, that Hattie had once kissed her husband. She felt a little sick.
Flora was still watching her, so Hattie forced a smile. “I work in the same room as him. But...they are only things I’ve heard from the other servants.”
Theotherservants? Had she reduced herself to a servant? What else could she be?
Flora suddenly laughed and reached across the space between them, giving Hattie’s arm an affectionate squeeze. “For a moment, I let my imagination run wild. I can’t help imagining thateveryonein London is better suited for him than I am.” She laughed again and shook her head, as if marveling over the fact that for a moment, she’d been so ridiculous to think that even Hattie Woodchurch was better suited to a match with Lord Abbott than her.
Hattie swallowed down the hurt.
“All right, tell me again what he likes,” Flora said, her enthusiasm renewed, and settled back, ready to be tutored.
So Hattie did. She told her the subjects she might broach, and how to discuss them. She said to mention the stars in a way that suggested she found them romantic. To indicate her interest in him as something other than a friend. And by all means, to ask him about Santiava.
And while she talked, her stomach twisted into a knot of despair and anger. Was it really so impossible to believe that she might be suited to Lord Abbott? All her life, she’d been viewed as second best. A different class. Someone to be befriended, but never taken seriously.
She was sick to death of it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
ATTHEIDDESLEIGHmansion in Mayfair, Lila was shown to the grand salon. She could hear the voices coming from that room as she followed the butler down the hall, and when she stepped inside, it seemed as if everyone was in the process of dismantling the room. Balls of yarn, needles, and embroidery patterns were strewn about. Papers and books, cloaks and hats, all looked as if they’d been joyously blasted into the air by cannon and then left where they’d landed.
The other thing she noticed was that there were alotof females. They were literally everywhere! The entire Hawke family was gathered in the salon on that dreary gray afternoon, including three small dogs. It was a madhouse.
Maisie, the middle child, scarcely looked at Lila, as she was in the middle of arguing with her mother about her desire to call on someone. Lady Iddesleigh—or Blythe, as Lila knew her now—wouldn’t hear of it. She said it was too damp, and that she would not risk her daughter catching her death.
“We’reprisonershere!” Maisie exclaimed with theatrical flair.
Beck was at a writing desk, randomly barking at everyone to “keep quiet, a man can hardly hear himself think!” as he apparently struggled to finish writing something.
