She reached the end of Curzon Street and crossed Charles Street, her heart sinking still further. The nearer she got to Tarbrook House, the more it felt as though she was putting her head under a velvet cushion and inviting her aunt and uncle to smother her with it.
If only she’d known what a London Season would be like, she would have thanked Aunt Susan politely for offering her the chance to make her debut alongside her younger cousin, Kitty, and made some excuse to stay away. She could easily have said that Papa relied on her to keep the household running smoothly, what with Mama being mostly too preoccupied to bother with anything so mundane as paying servants or ordering meals. Aunt Susan would have understood and accepted the excuse that somebody had to approve the menus and go over the household accounts on a regular basis. For it was one of the things that had always caused dissension between the sisters, whenever Aunt Susan had come on a visit. Mama had resented the notion that she ought to entertain visitors, saying that it interfered with her studies. Aunt Susan would retort that she ought to venture out of her workshop at least once a day, to enquire how her guests were faring, even if she didn’t really care. The sniping would escalate until, in the end, everyone was very relieved when the family duty visit came to an end.
Except for Harriet. For it was only when Aunt Susan was paying one of her annual visits, en route to her own country estate after yet another glittering London Season, that she felt as if anyone saw her. Really saw her. And had the temerity to raise concerns about the way her own mother and father neglected her.
But, oh, what Harriet wouldn’t give for a little of that sort of neglect right now. For, from the moment she’d arrived, Aunt Susan hadn’t ceased complaining about her behaviour, her posture, her hair, her clothes, and even the expression on her face from time to time. Even shopping for clothes, which Harriet had been looking forward to with such high hopes, had not lived up to her expectations. She didn’t know why it was, but though she bought exactly the same sorts of things as Kitty, she never looked as good in them. To be honest, she suspected she looked a perfect fright in one or two of the fussier dresses, to judge from the way men eyed her up and down with looks verging from disbelief to amusement. She couldn’t understand why Aunt Susan had let her out in public in one of them, when she’d gone home and looked at herself, with critical eyes, in the mirror. At herself, rather than the delicacy of the lace, or the sparkle of the spangled trimmings.
Worse, on the few occasions she’d attended balls so far, Aunt Susan had not granted any of the men who’d asked her to dance the permission to do so. The first few refusals had stemmed from Aunt Susan’s conviction that Harriet had not fully mastered the complexities of the steps. And after that, she simply found fault with the men who were then doing the asking. But what did it matter if her dance partners were not good ton? Surely it would be more fun to skip round the room with somebody, even if he was a desperate fortune-hunter, rather than sit wilting on the sidelines? Every blessed night.
Yes, she sighed, catching her first glimpse of Tarbrook House, the longer she stayed in Town, the more appealing Stone Court was beginning to look. At least at home she’d started to carve out a niche for herself. After being of no consequence for so many years, she’d found a great deal of consolation in taking over the duties her mother habitually neglected.
But in Town she was truly a fish out of water, she reflected glumly as Shadow trotted through the arch leading to the mews at the back of Tarbrook House. Instead of dancing every night at glittering balls, with a succession of handsome men, one of whom was going to fall madly in love with her and whisk her away to his estate where he’d treat her like a queen, she was actually turning out to be a social failure.
The only time she felt like herself recently had been on these secret forays into the park, before anyone else was awake. And now, because of those...beasts, she wasn’t even going to be able to have that any longer.
She dismounted, and led Shadow to her stall, where a groom darted forward with a scowl on his face.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I should not have gone out riding on my own. But you need not report this to Lady Tarbrook. For I shall not be doing so again, you may be certain.’
The groom ran his eyes over her. His gaze paused once or twice. Over the grass stains on her riding habit, for example. At which his mouth twisted in derision.
He thought she’d taken a tumble and had now lost her nerve, the fool. She gripped her crop tightly as she warred with the urge to defend her skill as a horsewoman. But if she admitted she’d dismounted through choice, he’d wonder where the grass stains had come from. And since she was not in the habit of telling lies, she’d probably blush and stammer, and look so guilty that he’d go straight to Aunt Susan and tell her that her hoyden of a niece had been up to no good.
And Aunt Susan would extract the truth out of her in no time flat.
And she would die rather than have to confess she’d let a man kiss her. A strange man. A strange drunken man.
And worse, that she’d liked it. Because, for a few brief moments, he’d made her feel attractive. Interesting. When for most of her life—until she’d taken to giving the servants directions, that was—nobody had thought her of any value at all. She’d just been an afterthought. A girl, what was worse. A girl that nobody knew quite what to do with.
So she lifted her chin and simply stalked away, her reputation as a horsewoman ruined in the eyes of the head groom.
* * *
Jack Hesketh sat up slowly, his head spinning, and watched the virago galloping away.
‘Do you know,’ he mused, ‘I think we may have just insulted a lady.’
Zeus snorted. ‘If she were a lady, she would not have been out here unattended at this hour, flirting with a pack of drunken bucks.’
Jack shook his head. He couldn’t believe Zeus—who’d pursued women with such fervour and conquered so many of them while he, and Archie, and Atlas had still been too pimply and awkward to do anything but stand back in awe—had become the kind of man who could now speak of such a lovely one with so much contempt.
If he were to meet Zeus now, for the first time, he didn’t think he’d want to be his friend.
In fact, after the way he’d behaved tonight, he’d steer well clear of such a man. Zeus had always been a bit full of himself, which was only to be expected when he was of such high rank and swimming in lard to boot. But there had been a basic sort of decency about him, too. He’d had a sense of humour, anyway.
But now...it was as if a sort of malaise had infected him, rendering him incapable of seeing any good in anyone or anything.
And Archie—well, he’d turned into a sort of...tame hound, trotting along behind Zeus like a spaniel at his master’s heels.
While Atlas...oh, dear God, Atlas. He winced as he turned his head rather too quickly, to peer into the gloom at the wreck of the man who’d been his boyhood idol.
Though, hadn’t they all been his heroes, one way or another? Which was, perhaps, where he’d gone wrong. In keeping his schoolboy reverence for them firm in his heart during all his years of active service, like a talisman, he’d sort of pickled their images, like flies set in amber. That would certainly explain why it had come as such a shock to see how much they’d all changed.
Especially Atlas. Imprisonment at the hands of the French, and illness, had reduced him to an emaciated ruin of his former self. In fact, he looked such a wreck that Jack had been a bit surprised he’d managed to lift the virago on to her horse at all. Though at least it proved he was still the same man, inside, where it mattered. They hadn’t given him the nickname of Atlas only because of his immense size and strength compared to the rest of them, but because of his habit of always trying to take everyone else’s burdens on his own shoulders. Rescuing that girl from Zeus was exactly the kind of thing he’d always been doing.