Page 5 of Henrietta

‘Thank you,’ Arthur said gravely. He cast Hetty a sidelong, laughing glance that had her dimpling in response.

‘I shall give you the name of my tailor,’ Timothy offered. ‘If I’d known you were returning today, I could have made you an appointment.’

‘I can only apologise for my lack of forewarning – to you too, Hetty, for I so rudely left your last letter unanswered. I did not yet know if I was going to be able to leave early, and I did not wish to give any false hope.’

‘Do I not deserve an apology, too?’ Trixie demanded. ‘You might have warned me.’

‘And perhaps I might have,’ Arthur said, ‘if I had received more a single billet since I left – and in such a scrawl that your governess ought to be horrified.’

‘I don’t have a governess any more.’ Trixie raised her chin. ‘Hetty and I are both out now, and I am all the rage.’

‘Trixie! You mustn’t say such things.’

‘But it is true, Mama.’

Arthur directed a grimace towards his mother. ‘How have you survived?’

Lady Allerton bestowed a warm smile on them both. ‘Hetty gives me no cause to worry, of course – and Trixie has in truth been remarkably well behaved!’

Hetty took a sip of tea to hide her smile. Lady Allerton could not know how many of Trixie’s worst starts she had nipped in the bud. Only last week, it had taken her an hour to convince Trixie that a dress of gauze worn over a dampened and transparent petticoat would scarcely advance her in the good graces of those august members of the ton whose invitations were so essential to a young lady’s success.

‘Very good,’ Arthur said. ‘It seems you have no need of me at all.’

‘I wouldn’t say that.’ Lady Allerton reached for Arthur’s hands again, pressing them as if to reassure herself of his presence.

‘We have missed you,’ Trixie admitted.

Timothy nodded his head. ‘Devilishly!’

Arthur looked enquiringly to Hetty, as if to demand her contribution, too.

‘I suppose it has been a little dull without you,’ she conceded.

‘How kind.’ There was no longer any evidence of the surprise with which he had looked at her downstairs, the moment folded and put away as if it had never occurred. Had she imagined it?

Her thoughts were interrupted by Dawson, clearing his throat in the doorway.

‘Mr Thimbleby has arrived, my lady.’

Hetty’s ears pricked up – as, apparently, did Arthur’s, for he turned enquiring eyes upon his mother as he asked: ‘Father’s man of business?’

Lady Allerton’s smile, so beaming a moment before, grew rather fixed. ‘Thank you. If you could inform him that Arthur’s unexpected return means I will be unable to—’

‘Oh, don’t send the fellow away.’ Arthur took a draught of his tea. ‘If Thimbleby does not mind kicking his heels awhile, we might join him in only a few minutes.’

‘But you have only just arrived, my dear!’ Lady Allerton objected. ‘You must rest.’

‘You have been steering the ship alone for too long. It is high time that all such tiresome duties were taken from your shoulders – and I intend to see that they are.’

Lady Allerton fluttered her hands. ‘Arthur – do you mean …?’

For a moment, neither he – nor Hetty – understood the excitement in Lady Allerton’s voice, until Trixie enlightened them, asking baldly: ‘Do you mean to marry?’

Arthur started. So, too, for that matter, did Hetty. Marry? Arthur? She had assumed it would be years before he turned his attention to the matter – there were, after all, so many fewer time constraints on gentlemen than on ladies, and Arthur had always professed his disinclination to be leg-shackled at too young an age.

Fortunately, Arthur seemed to share these sentiments. His eyes finding the grandfather clock in the corner of the room, he laughed: ‘Mother – it has been only minutes! Do you intend to marry me off so soon?’

‘Well, one has to start thinking of these things!’ Lady Allerton reasoned. ‘She might be difficult to find, your viscountess. After all, the role is not an easy one.’