‘I’m going to give you something better,’ he interrupted.
‘Oh, yeah?’ The boy’s face brightened.
‘Yes. I’m going to give you that job I promised. A man has to keep his word, you see? Especially when he gives it to a lady.’
Overnight the drizzle drifted away, leaving the sky cloudless. When the girls awoke, there was a layer of frosted ice on the inside of their bedroom window.
They shivered, red-nosed, into their clothes and rushed downstairs to the warmth of the parlour.
The moment she got downstairs though, Mary wished it wasn’t quite so cold in their room, or she could have found some excuse to stay there. For her aunt was still upset with her over what the girls had told her of their outing to Westminster Abbey.
‘I cannot think what came over you,’ said Aunt Pargetter as she poured Mary’s tea. ‘To have raised your voice to Mr Morgan...’
‘I am sorry, truly sorry, if my behaviour has offended you.’
‘It didn’t offend me,’ said Lotty, wrapping her fingers round the cup that contained her own, freshly poured, steaming hot tea.
‘Nor me,’ added Dotty. ‘I only wish I’d had the courage to speak up for the boy when that nasty verger threatened him with gaol. He couldn’t have been any older than Will.’
‘It wasn’t a matter of courage,’ Mary protested. She wasn’t a courageous person. Not at all. ‘I just...’ She shook her head. To be truthful, she had no idea why she’d picked that particular moment to finally speak her mind. She just... She’d had to endure so much, in silence, for so long. She knew what it felt like to have nothing. To be at the mercy of strangers. And yesterday, it was as though a lifetime of resenting injustice, of knowing that the strong naturally oppressed the weak and trampled down the poor for being of no account, all came to a head and erupted without, for once, her giving a fig for the consequences.
‘I just couldn’t help myself.’
‘I’m not denying you were right to feel as you did,’ said Aunt Pargetter. ‘But to risk driving away such an eligible suitor, by openly challenging him like that...’
‘Mary did just as she ought,’ said Mr Pargetter, folding up his newspaper and getting to his feet. ‘The consequences must take care of themselves.’
A tense silence hovered over the breakfast table after he’d left the room. Until Dotty cleared her throat.
‘You know,’ she said, ‘it didn’t do Mary any harm in Lord Havelock’s eyes.’
‘No,’ added Lotty. ‘He looked at her as though he thoroughly approved of her standing up for the boy.’
‘Hmmph,’ said her aunt. ‘Well, I suppose that is something.’
And though her aunt let the subject drop, the atmosphere remained tense throughout the rest of the morning, as they all waited to see if either of the gentlemen would call upon the house again.
Either Dotty or Lotty kept a vigil by the window, while Mary kept close to the fire, steadily working her way through a basket of mending.
Until at length, Lotty let out a squeal of excitement.
‘It’s him! Them! Both of them! They’ve just got out of their carriage!’
Her cousins rushed to the mirror to check their appearance, before dashing to the sofa and striking relaxed poses. Which were only slightly marred by the way their chests rose and fell so rapidly.
It puzzled Mary to see the girls greet Mr Morgan with such enthusiasm, when his callous behaviour the day before had shocked them all so much.
She could have understood it if they’d flown to Lord Havelock’s side, and showered him with praise, and pulled him down on to the sofa between them.
Instead, he was left standing just inside the door, watching them with a kind of amused disbelief.
Couldn’t they see how...superior he was to Mr Morgan, in every way? When she thought of the way he’d lifted that boy out of the verger’s reach...
Just as she was reflecting that she’d never seen a man use his physical strength to protect the defenceless before, he turned, caught her watching him and smiled at her.
Her stomach gave a funny little lurch. Her heart sped up.
She hastily lowered her head to stare at the sewing that lay in her lap.
She wasn’t interested in him, not in the way Lotty and Dotty were interested in Mr Morgan. She just...she just couldn’t deny it was flattering to have such a handsome, personable young man smile at her like that.
She hadn’t been able to forget the look he’d shot her as he’d left the Abbey with the pickpocket still held firmly by his collar, either. Or the feeling that had come over her when he’d defended her from the verger’s censure. It had washed over her again, several times the night before, while she’d been trying to get to sleep.
And it positively surged through her when he took a chair, carried it to her side and sat down.
‘I bring good news,’ declared Mr Morgan once the flurry of greetings had died down. ‘The Serpentine has frozen over. Hard enough for us to go skating, if you ladies would enjoy it?’
Dotty and Lotty beamed and clapped their hands, saying what a wonderful idea it was. Just as though the incident the day before had never happened.
‘You will be coming with us, won’t you, Miss Carpenter?’ said Lord Havelock, with a hopeful smile.
She shook her head.
‘I cannot skate,’ she said with what felt suspiciously like regret.
Regret? No! She didn’t want to spend any more time than she had to with these two men. They both made her uncomfortable—Mr Morgan because of his harsh manner and Lord Havelock because of the tendency she had to say far more than she should when she was with him. And for feeling that she could say it to him. And most of all—she had to be honest with herself—because she found him so...attractive. Which made him downright dangerous.
‘I will teach you,’ said Lord Havelock, somehow turning up the warmth in his smile in such a way that she wished it wouldn’t be such a terrible idea to draw closer to him and warm herself at it.
‘Oh, Mary, please! You have to go,’ begged Dotty.
‘Yes. For we cannot go out and leave you here on your own,’ pointed out Lotty.
And they both really, really wanted to go.
There was nothing for it but to surrender with good grace.
With cries of glee, the girls took her upstairs to ransack their wardrobe again, going back down only when all three of them were swathed in gloves, scarves, boots and several extra layers of petticoats.
Her cousins sat one on either side of Mr Morgan in the carriage, which meant that she and Lord Havelock were sat next to each other, with their backs to the horses.
Once they’d tucked luxurious fur rugs round their legs, they set off. Even though the carriage was very well sprung, and they had far more room than the three squeezed together on the opposite seat, every so often the jolting of the carriage meant that their legs bumped. Whenever she felt the warmth of Lord Havelock’s thigh pressing against hers beneath the concealment of the fur, everything else faded into the background. The chatter of her cousins, the buildings at which she was pretending to look through the window—none of it reached her senses. Once or twice, he made an attempt to speak to her, but she wasn’t able to give a coherent reply. It was