Page 89 of Henrietta

Arthur winced.

‘My eloquence has improved greatly,’ he said. ‘It’s not how I should phrase it now, of course.’

‘Oh?’ she said. ‘Do you really think you could do it any better?’

The words had escaped her before she had had a chance to consider how bold they were. They lay in the air between them, resting on a tension that was suddenly thick. Not a month before, she would have stammered and blushed and been mortified to have said such a thing out loud. Now, though her heart was beating very quickly, she let it lie.

Arthur raised his eyebrows.

‘I would already be doing a very fine job,’ he said. ‘I have stolen you away from the ball, into the’ – he looked up at the sky, thickly obscured by clouds – ‘moonlight.’

‘A full moon, is it?’ she said, trying for levity, but not quite managing it.

He nodded seriously. ‘The fullest. All that would be left would be to tell you – tell you how much you mean to me, which … would be very difficult, I’ll admit. When I try—’ He broke off, laughing a little. ‘Perhaps I was being too hard on my younger self.’

Hetty could not have spoken if she wanted to. Was she … imagining things, or had the space between them suddenly grown smaller? Was he … leaning towards her?

A crash from inside had them both jumping half out of their skins – and Hetty taking a few steps backward. What on earth had she been thinking?

‘Sounds like champagne flutes!’ she said in a too-loud voice. ‘Oh no!’

‘Better that than the champagne,’ Arthur said, shaking his head. ‘Though now, at least, I could feel confident of bearing the cost. The sale of the deer park was finalised today.’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Good.’

‘I have been assured, too, that our buyer intends to build no factory – how did he put it?’

He tried to remember the exact words, knowing Hetty would find them amusing.

‘Woollen or otherwise,’ she filled in, smiling.

There was a pause. ‘How … do you know that is what he said?’ he said slowly.

Hetty froze, as an animal does when it knows it is being hunted. ‘You told me,’ she said, as lightly as she was able.

‘No,’ he said. ‘We haven’t spoken since then. Which means you have spoken to Thimbleby, separate to myself, or …’ Somewhere within he had already reached the conclusion, however reluctant he was to admit it. ‘Hetty,’ he said. ‘You didn’t.’

To her credit, she did not try to pretend not to know what he was talking about. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I never meant for you to find out.’

Arthur felt a rush of nausea. To think he had been so proud of himself, thinking he had solved everything for them – but he hadn’t, had he? Hetty had. It had always been Hetty.

‘I have never been so mortified in my life,’ he said.

‘I just wanted to help,’ she said. ‘What is the point of wealth if you cannot help those whom you—’ She stopped.

Arthur, shaking his head, did not seem to hear her last words. ‘It was not your place to make these kinds of decisions.’

‘Why can you not accept my help? Why can it not be my place?’

‘Because this is not your family!’

The words burst out of him without his consent, and he had to watch them land upon Hetty as if they were bullets. Hetty stumbled backwards and fled back inside the ballroom.

She slipped through the crowds with her head down, making for the stairs. She needed to be alone before she began to cry.

But halfway up the room, this wish was denied her. ‘Miss Hetty!’

Hetty gathered her skirts in her fists and kept moving.