Chapter 2

Two

1817.

T he Season after she turned eighteen, Lady Henrietta Stafford was presented at court. As a result, the whole family spent months and months in town with either her mother or father accompanying her to balls. Her brother Alexander refused to act as chaperone, saying he wasn't going to waste time at balls when he hadn't even reached his majority yet. There were far more diverting and far more wicked amusements available in London for a young heir to a duchy.

Yes, young men could wait. Young women weren't supposed to. And some young women didn't want to. Ellen cried and raged and begged to come out as well, even though she was only sixteen.

"It's so unfair! I couldn't possibly be more bored while Hen gets to have all the fun!" she wailed and slammed the bedchamber door in the Bexton town house as Henrietta's lady's maid Lucy struggled to wedge Henrietta's bosom into the cups of her stays before putting her into her ballgown.

It was too bad she couldn't trade places with Ellen. A ball would be the perfect place for her sister's high spirits. And, in truth, Henrietta found balls disagreeable. She would never breathe a word of complaint to anyone, but all of the young lords seemed barely formed and reminded her of her little brother Gideon. None were nearly as interesting or as attractive as Mr. Hartwell.

Or maybe she didn't like balls because she didn't look right? She wasn't always the tallest young lady present, but she was invariably the plumpest.

"I'm too big," she observed to her mother as they stood together and watched the dancing couples.

"No, dear heart, you come from warrior stock on your father's side, and you have generous curves in all the right places, like me, that's all."

It was very good of her mother to call it something else, but Henrietta knew the truth. She was fat. And it appeared fat was not desirable, not fashionable. It was also very good of her mother to take all this time away from her work on the Bexton Codex in order to help Henrietta find a husband.

"You'll have more dances at the next ball," her mother said in the carriage on the way back to the town house in the gray London dawn. Then her face lit up. "After we nap a bit, let's go to the British Museum this afternoon. That's where I met your father, after all. What fun we used to get up to in the manuscript rooms."

"Please, Mama." If Henrietta didn't stop her mother, she'd hear all about the fun .

"Such a talented kisser your father was. And still is. And the other things he can do with his?—"

"Mama!"

But ardent gentlemen in search of buxom brides did not haunt the British Museum as they had when her mother had been her age. Instead, the place was full of dusty scholars, enchanted to encounter the eccentric Duchess of Bexton and delighted to discuss the finer points of C?dmon's alliterative verse but not the least bit interested in her decidedly dull daughter who didn't know a hw?t from a hwearft .

Henrietta had to laugh at herself. She was too thick, in both senses of the word. Too big. Too dim. Too Henrietta.

But there were much worse things to be. She liked her own body, even if the gentlemen of the ton did not. It was strong and useful and gave her pleasure. She liked her own mind, even though it was far more interested in people than in books.

Their neighbors, the Ramseys, had also come to town for the Season, and unlike her brother Alexander, Geoffrey did not seem to think he was too young for balls. He politely asked her to dance from time to time, but she could tell it was a duty for him. He danced with plenty of other young ladies—slim, graceful ones—and she had ample opportunity to observe him as he did so. He approached those partners with eagerness and looked at them with what Henrietta guessed was a lustful gleam in his eye, puffing out his chest, getting closer than was proper during a waltz.

When the Season ended, Henrietta had had very few callers, no suitors, and no offers of marriage. And she had only seen Mr. Hartwell once when he had paid a call at the town house during his quarterly trip to the capital. The weather had been dry that day, the curl sadly not in evidence. And, if possible, Mr. Hartwell had looked even thinner than usual. He might waste away without ever once tasting Henrietta's custard.

It was a relief to leave London finally, to pack up and go home. She and her father and her younger brother Gideon were in one carriage and her mother, sisters, and Alexander were in another. And then there were all the carriages for the valets and lady's maids and several wagons for trunks and boxes.

What a lot of fuss and trouble she had made for everyone with no resultant match.

The Stafford carriages were well out of London and Gideon had his nose deep in a book when Henrietta took a deep breath and interrupted her father's amusing story about how the Duke of Thornwick's pantaloons had been soiled by the Duke of Kittredge's dog in the billiards room of their club. While Thornwick was wearing them.

"I'm sorry, Papa."

His bushy orange-brown eyebrows—so like fox tails in miniature, she had always thought—knitted together, furrowing his freckled forehead. "Sorry? For what, Hen?"

"For wasting everyone's time." She tried to laugh. "I don't think I want another Season."

"Nonsense. First, securing your happiness will never be a waste of time for me or your mother. And, of course, you'll have another Season. It's just this particular clutch of young blades are cork-brained. Wait and see. The right man will come along. "

Henrietta gulped. "I hope so."

"And he'll be the luckiest man in England. You're the sweetest of girls with a heart of gold."

"Thank you, Papa."

"And a very fine rider."

Yes, she was. And, at first, being home was wonderful. She rode Zephyr to her heart's content and was happy to be with just her family who liked her very well. Her nineteenth birthday was celebrated at the end of August in the perfect manner with a family dinner and lots of hugs and kisses and her mother recalling fondly how Henrietta had been the easiest and best-tempered baby right from the very beginning, barely crying before settling into her first cuddle with her mama.

However, a shooting party was planned for the end of the summer. In previous years, Henrietta had enjoyed her parents' house parties and the variety of company they brought, but after her Season, she had had her fill of being on view, of being judged and found wanting.

The Ramseys were to be included in the party, and invitations had been extended to Lord Danforth and his sister Alice, the Duke and Duchess of Abingdon and their three youngest children, and Lord Burchester.

The Earl of Burchester was a merry, talkative, silver-haired man who had danced with Henrietta at a few balls during the Season. She had liked laughing with him. She didn't mind she was taller than he was. Yes, he was old—at least thirty years of age, if not more—but Mr. Hartwell was far older than the earl despite Mr. Hartwell's raven-black hair, and she very much liked Mr. Hartwell, of course.

But before the guests arrived, her mother warned her never to be left alone with Lord Burchester.

"Phineas Edge is not looking for a bride. And I know he's given his word to your father that he would never dally with a maiden, but I've caught him eyeing you a few times."

Well, that was nice. Even if the earl didn't want to get married and she didn't think he'd make a very good husband for her. He was far too silly. Being married to him would be like eating treacle tarts at every meal. Fun at first, but eventually sickening.

The house party proved to be far less unpleasant than she had feared it would be. Despite the many guests, Henrietta had a great deal of liberty to do as she liked.

Lady Phoebe Finch, the Duke of Abingdon's daughter, spent all her time in the library with George Danforth, the pair of them bent over a chessboard as Amelia looked on and issued scathing commentary and Gideon quietly read book after book in the corner. Alice Danforth and Ellen quarreled like a pair of cats and then reconciled and then squabbled again. The Duchess of Abingdon and Lady Ramsey gossiped for hours about the Season and were quite patient when her own mother would try to divert them into a discussion of gnomic verses. Andrew Finch snuck away to the music room, and all the other men went off to hunt every morning.

With everyone else so well-occupied, Henrietta found she could still ride twice a day. As the house party was drawing to a close and she was feeling the flutterings in her stomach she always felt just before a visit from Mr. Hartwell, Henrietta and Geoffrey happened to ride out at the same time one fine September afternoon. She would have rather been alone with Zephyr and her thoughts of Mr. Hartwell, but perhaps Geoffrey had changed his mind about her and now thought she might make a wife. And if she were to marry Geoffrey, she should spend time with him. Shouldn't she?

They rode beside one another, chatting about the weather and the house party. Then, in the midst of boasting to her about the birds he had shot that morning, Geoffrey remarked, "You know, you should be smaller. Your mount could go much faster if you were."

She took his statement as an impersonal observation about riding, so she patted Zephyr's neck and laughed. "Yes, and the same is true for you."

Geoffrey must have abruptly reined in his horse because after a minute or so, she noticed he wasn't next to her any longer. She looked over her shoulder and saw him fuming, far behind her. She turned Zephyr and rode back to him.

"What's wrong?"

He pulled himself up very straight in his saddle. "In case you hadn't noticed, Hen, I am not fat. Not anymore."

He said the word fat as if it were a horrible, sinful thing. Like being a traitor or a murderer. And, besides, Geoffrey had never been fat. He'd been a round-cheeked, sturdy boy and now, he was a well-built, muscular man. He didn't have Mr. Hartwell's sharp cheekbones or spare body, but he wasn't fat.

Finally, she realized what his own comment to her had meant. Foolish girl. He was telling her she should be thinner when he said smaller .

She hung her head, her face hot and pricking with a strange, new shame.

"Forgive me," she mumbled, not knowing what else to say, not knowing if she was apologizing for being too slow to understand him or for being too fat.

Only much later, lying in bed that night, did she think how neither were things that required an apology.

And how her body was none of Geoffrey's business.

But if she married him, it would be.