Hattie consulted the watch pinned to her gown. “We will be late,” she warned him. Which to her seemed an unpardonable sin—it wasn’t every day the Earl of Iddesleigh invited one to tea, and if he did, one surely would not be so rude as to arrive late. “He doesn’t care about your walking stick!” she called after her father. A cat rubbed against her skirt. She nudged it away.
“Ah, here we are.” Her father reappeared carrying the walking stick and held it up to Hattie to inspect. “The earl will like this. I assure you he’s not seen finer.”
Hattie refused to look at it. “May we please go now?”
She was angry with her father for insisting he accompany her today—her chance encounter with Lord Iddesleigh was the best thing to have happened to her in the fortnight since she’d handed Rupert Masterson his freedom, and she didn’t want her father to spoil it.
He would most definitely spoil it.
When she’d sent Rupert the letter he’d asked Flora to arrange, he’d responded immediately, assuring her it was the right thing to do and wishing her all the best. That was all he said. Nothing about the months they’d been courting or the times Hattie had helped him in his shop. Not a word about the plans they’d made, or how he could so easily step away from their commitment to each other. Why was it so simple for him, and so hard for her?
The initial shock had drained out of her. There were days when the end of her engagement seemed like a dream, but most days she was enraged that Rupert had turned out to be such a coward—and that her family had turned into such a glaring problem for her.
More than once, she’d found herself standing across the street from Masterson Dry Goods and Sundries Shop. She had a very strong desire to confront him and knock him in the mouth, just like she’d seen the boxers do in the gymnasium that Daniel had insisted taking her to see. But mostly, she stewed.
And she stewed.
And she stewed.
What had her so bloody angry at the world was that she had done everything she was supposed to do to gain a good offer of marriage. She’d been demure and accomplished. She’d been helpful and never argumentative. She’d held her tongue on those rare occasions that Rupert said something so inconceivably stupid as to make her eyes water. She’d helped him in his shop! That he’d so easily discarded her left her feeling like an old dog and very, very distrusting of men in general.
But Hattie was certain of one thing: she would never again conform herself to some social ideal of how she was to conduct herself. Or some social ideal of how she was to think. Or what she was to say. Or who she was to be. If Rupert Masterson could so easily cry off, her prospects for marriage were rather bleak, and she didn’t see the point in being anything other than herself.
She had happened to be standing across the street from Rupert’s shop envisioning how she would swing her arm and hit him right in the kisser when the Earl of Iddesleigh saved her from making a terrible mistake. Hattie had one foot in the street, having summoned the courage to confront the coward, when she heard her name called. She turned. She saw Lord Iddesleigh and his eldest daughter, Lady Mathilda, walking toward her. And in that moment, the earl breezily changed the course of her life.
For asecondtime.
If one believed in guardian angels, then the Earl of Iddesleigh was hers. The first time he’d saved her, she’d been fourteen years old. She’d been so angry at her father’s unreasonable grip on his purse that she’d gone out looking for work. She had in mind an occupation as a bookkeeper, or a secretary. Something respectable but that did not involve children. She’d knocked on the door of the Duke of Marley’s London residence because she’d heard he was rich, and certainly the house in Mayfair backed that up. She’d figured it was better to beg a rich man for work than a poor man.
How naive she’d been! There was no work for a fourteen-year-old girl that didn’t involve chamber pots or scrubbing floors or children. But Lady Marley and her friend Lord Iddesleigh happened to be with the duke that day and both took a keen interest in Hattie. Lord Iddesleigh knew her father, and somehow, he’d convinced the notorious Hugh Woodchurch to send his daughter to the Iddesleigh School for Exceptional Girls in Devonshire.
On a scholarship, she would later learn. Funded by Lady Marley.
That school had changed Hattie’s life. She’d learned about the world beyond her overstuffed house. She’d learned about math and science and art. And useful skills, the sort of skills she could use for employment. She’d learned confidence and how to stand up for herself—in a school stuffed to the rafters with girls, it often felt like survival of the fittest. Hattie was determined not to lose her spot at the school and return to her home until it was absolutely necessary.
It became necessary when she’d graduated and had nowhere else to go.
It had been a few years since Hattie had seen his lordship, but he seemed truly delighted to see her and inquired about her life, and asked after her family. And then he’d looked at her curiously and asked, “Is your penmanship still as pristine as it was when you were at school?”
Hattie had laughed. “How odd that you would remember,” she said. “But yes, I think it is.”
“I know someone who is in need of excellent penmanship.”
“Someone needspenmanship?” Lady Mathilda asked. “How can one need penmanship?”
“When one’s own penmanship is sorely lacking, which, my love, I would think you could appreciate.”
Lady Mathilda groaned and looked away.
Hattie had never heard of such a thing, either, but a few days later, the earl sent round a note inviting her to tea. He said that he had an opportunity that might interest her. The note had been addressed to her only, but in her delight, Hattie had made the mistake of telling her parents. Would she never learn?
Her father—a short, wiry man with eyes like a hawk—had sat up so abruptly that he’d startled a pair of sleeping cats, who then leaped off the back of the chair and knocked a pile of darning onto the floor.
“Tea with an earl!” her mother had cried. “I will know at once what mischief you’ve been about to garner such an invitation!”
“Mischief?” Hattie had repeated. “It’s tea, Mama.”
Her mother was plump and often lethargic, particularly in the afternoons after she’d had her sherry. She was stretched on a chaise, three cats nestled in beside her. But the news enlivened her, and she’d carelessly brushed the cats aside. “You’ll not go to tea without someone to accompany you, Harriet. I won’t have it.”
