‘At least you do not ask me what I have done, which is what Mama will ask, and she will be quite right,’ she replied wryly. ‘It was all my fault. I have just lost another suitor.’
‘What? That prosy bore Smyth?’
‘Yes, although as you have never spoken to him, I do not know how you can be so judgmental.’
‘He stalks around with a look of moral superiority on his face. Either that or he has a permanent bad smell under his nose,’ Hal said with a distinct lack of charity.
‘He certainly has high standards,’ Julia said with a sigh. ‘But although I am prone to an occasional irregularity of moral purpose and exhibit an impulsive lack of discretion, he was sure I could be set on the right path with suitable guidance and can be a model of rectitude in the parish. Only I did not think I could stand it.’
‘I should think not.’ Hal sounded aghast. ‘What irregularities and impulsiveness, for goodness sake?’
‘That favour at the races.’
He groaned.
‘And he saw me leave the room with you earlier tonight.’
‘So I have lost you another suitor. I am sorry, Julia. It is I who has been showing the impulsive lack of discretion.’
‘Oh, he would still have taken me,’ she said, realizing as she spoke how cross that patronising attitude had made her feel. ‘I turned him down.’
‘Good for you.’
‘Mama is going to be so disappointed in me. I have had this chance to make all our lives so much more secure and I have just thrown it away.’
‘Surely when she sees how you feel about him?’
She shrugged, de pressed.
‘Has he hurt you very much? Were you very fond of him, Julia?’ Hal leaned forward and took her hand, stroking it as though to comfort her.
‘Fond of him? Certai
nly not, how could I be when I lo—’ She froze, the two betraying words trembling on the tip of her tongue. Love you. I love you.
Chapter Eleven
Hal went very still, while the warm pressure of his hand through the silk of her white evening gloves sent her erratic pulse wild. For an appalled moment, Julia thought she must have said the words aloud. ‘Lo…Loathe being lectured like that,’ she finished, desperately.
‘I see,’ he said, and she could not read the underlying emotions in his voice. ‘What will you do now?’
‘Keep parading myself on the Marriage Mart,’ she said, beyond keeping up pretences with him. ‘Before Napoleon escaped there wasn’t much point—anyone who might have been interested was as hard up as we were. But with all the new arrivals, and Lady Geraldine being so kind, Mama thought it worth the investment in gowns.’
‘It’s a cut-throat business for a young woman, isn’t it?’ he asked, shifting on the seat so he was directly in front of her and could take both her hands in his. Just like Thomas Smyth at the races, Julia thought. But then she had felt mildly embarrassed, now she was scarcely aware of her surroundings, only of the man sitting opposite her, his hair pale in the flickering, intermittent light, his face turned down to their clasped hands.
‘My sisters both had their Seasons,’ he went on, as though he was thinking aloud. ‘But it is easier for them, I suppose. They both have titles, dowries; their father is an earl. Not that Honoria found her husband that way.’ There was amusement in his voice, not disapproval.
‘Honoria is like you?’ Julia asked, fighting with the urge to lean forward, kiss the sharp angle of his cheek bone that was all she could see of his face.
‘Lord, yes!’ he laughed. ‘Hence the trouble.’ For a moment she thought he would explain, but then he said, as though his words were a logical continuation of what he had just been talking about, ‘Has Hebden made further contact with you?’
‘The jeweller? No. It was strange though. When he was looking at the pieces he mentioned you.’
‘What?’ Hal sat bolt upright and released her hands. Julia just managed not to grab his back.
‘He implied that he had heard gossip that made him assume I was selling the jewellery to finance my—oh, husband-hunting is what he meant, I suppose.’ Hal went very still. ‘He said something about the reverend, the widower and the rake. You are the only rake I know,’ she said with an attempt at a laugh. ‘I remarked to Mama that no doubt someone saw us at the review and gossiped.’
‘So he thinks I am a suitor for your hand?’ Hal sounded decidedly worried.