Regency Bride. Michelle Styles
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has forgotten what it is like to be alive.’
‘Not at all. I’m not given to flights of fancy. I do have the honour of having been on a picnic with you. I have heard you laugh.’
‘Then what?’ She found the answer mattered suddenly.
The dimple in the corner of his mouth deepened. His gaze seemed to pierce her very soul. ‘I’m merely welcoming our return to friendship. Nothing more. Your servant, Mrs Wilkinson. Stop being so hard on yourself.’
‘Hurry up, Livvy,’ Hattie called from the governess cart just after ten on the fourth of July. ‘You don’t want to be late for the fair. Your mother and father left over an hour ago.’
Portia had run over and clambered immediately in, but Livvy slowly picked her way across the puddles, holding a white parasol over her head. Hattie wanted to get out of the governess cart and bodily pick her up. All night she had thought about Kit and how she’d behave during the fair. They were friends. The fact that she kept remembering the kiss they had shared was her problem.
‘Isn’t the sun fierce this year?’ Livvy said, finally getting into the cart. ‘You will freckle, Portia, if you don’t pull your hat forwards.’
Portia stuck out her tongue and pushed the straw bonnet back.
‘If there is any bickering, you can stay at home.’ Hattie gave the reins a shake and the horse started off smartly. All she could hope was that the day improved. This was the sort of thing she loved—being with her nieces. Except today, it felt a bit like everyone took her for granted. There was a question of how she greeted Kit as she had not bothered to inform Stephanie about the precise ending of hostilities. ‘I mean it, Portia and Livvy. I want no repeats of last year.’
‘You can’t do that!’ Portia’s eyes went wide. ‘I have been waiting for oranges and gingerbread for ever so long. Whenever I’m feeling sad, I tell myself—oranges and gingerbread lumps as big as hats at the Stagshaw fair. Somehow it makes everything seem more bearable.’
‘I am sure there will be time for both oranges and gingerbread … provided you both behave yourselves.’ Hattie concentrated on navigating the rutted road. The short journey to Stagshaw was fraught with difficulty after so many carriages and carts had churned up the road. The last thing she needed was a broken wheel or to get stuck in the mud. She had taken pains with her dress and had tried out a new hairstyle. ‘I’ve saved some pennies for you. Shall we see how many squares of gingerbread we can eat?’
‘Can I use the money towards a pair of Hexham Tans?’ Livvy smoothed her skirt and tilted her chin. From where Hattie sat, it appeared that she was striking a variety of poses, trying them out to see which suited her best by looking at her shadow. Hattie remembered the phase all too clearly. ‘I would like a pair of gloves more than anything and I have almost enough. I’ve saved my Christmas and birthday money especially.’
Portia snorted. ‘You mean you are hoping to run into Mr Hook and don’t want your face grubby. Personally I fail to see what the fuss is about. He doesn’t appear to know much about newts. I asked him about the toads in our garden when we ran into him at the Halls’ At Home. And he kept primping his curls when he thought no one was looking. The tousled look.’
Livvy rolled her eyes. ‘There is a difference between toads and newts, Portia. Any fool knows that.’
‘Will he be giving the proposed lecture before he departs? I understood they were only staying for the Stagshaw fair,’ Hattie asked, attempting to keep her voice casual. Her mind raced to think about whether Kit had actually said they were staying or if today was truly going to be goodbye. Her heart sank. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye.
‘It depends on what Colonel Cunningham decides, but I plan to sit in the front row when it happens.’
‘Livvy, we weren’t going to speak about meeting Mr Hook in the High Street. Mama said. Sir Christopher would barely speak to Aunt Hattie at the concert. They have fallen out of civility and it is all Aunt Hattie’s fault. Her best chance for marriage in years is gone.’
Livvy clapped her hands over her mouth. ‘I’m so sorry, Aunt Harriet. I understand now about the sorrows of the heart.’
‘Is there a particular pair of gloves you want or are you going to look over the stalls?’ Hattie asked, silently damning Stephanie. Sorrows of the heart and Kit being a good marriage prospect indeed. She was not wasting away for love or looking for a loveless marriage with a charming but unreliable man. The only person who would see the irony was Kit.
‘Oh, I thought I would wander up and down the stalls until I found the one I wanted.’ Livvy gave an elaborate shrug.
‘Does your mother approve of your plan? You are hoping to meet Mr Hook.’
‘Mama fails to understand.’ Livvy bent her head and fussed with her lace gloves. ‘I’m sixteen, but I also have a brain. I want to go to London and have a Season. I’m not about to do anything foolish.’
‘You did go into the card room.’
‘Mr Hook explained that it was not my best idea, but how else could I meet him?’ Livvy screwed up her nose. ‘Sir Christopher gave him a talking to. Being young is no reason to be ignorant of society’s pitfalls.’
Despite her earlier misgivings, Hattie was impressed. Mr Hook had obviously considered his position and decided that he wanted to court Livvy. She might not agree with everything, but the light romance would not put anyone in danger. ‘I agree with Sir Christopher.’
Livvy clapped her hands together. ‘Why did you have to fall out of civility with Sir Christopher? It makes everything much more difficult. Mama has taken against Mr Hook for some unknown reason. And now they say Sir Christopher has taken up with one of the Dent sisters. The elder one who has the annoying laugh. And the younger one probably will get her claws into Mr Hook.’
‘I heard that it was Maria Richley.’ Portia put her hand over Hattie’s. ‘We weren’t meant to tell. Mama made us promise.’
Hattie pasted a smile on her face. Stephanie obviously knew that Portia would be unable to keep a secret and had primed her. After the incident at the musicale with the seating arrangements, she should have guessed that Stephanie was not going to give up her matchmaking scheme easily. Still the gossip caused a slight jealous twinge and that surprised her.
All in all it was safer if no one knew about her renewed friendship with Kit. Hattie forcibly turned the subject away from Sir Christopher and back towards safer subjects like gloves, gingerbread and the possibility of exotic animals.
The odour of spice and citrus fruit mixed with animal and overlaid with sawdust took Kit back to his childhood. He could remember every step of the fair even though he had not been in twenty-five years. The stalls looked tantalisingly familiar—here one for London Spice and there another selling oranges. Still further on were the stalls devoted to all manner of pots and pans. It appeared as if a large tented city had sprung up overnight. Kit struggled to see the windswept field where he and Hattie had picnicked only a few days before.
The memory of waiting outside the ale tent and hoping that his uncle would not turn out like his father sliced through him. Your father has it all wrong, Kit. Bad blood doesn’t mean you have to be bad. Damn your mother to hell. Never wait on a woman.
Kit frowned and pushed the memory away. Over the years he’d perfected the art of not thinking about the past and only living in the present. And the present meant deciding what to do about Hattie. He wasn’t ready to face that … yet, and it was unlike him to be mealy-mouthed. He would end it after the fair. The gift he gave her would be special, but in keeping with their relationship. The weight on his shoulders eased. He was going to do the right thing.
‘Do keep up, Rupert,’ Kit said as Rupert endeavoured to linger at the