Larissa shook her head. “There’s some who know me and they’d report it. Lord Partington would be incensed if he knew I’d had anything to do with any of his daughters. And now I really must return to my employer. However, I was gravely concerned for Miss Araminta and wanted to tell you everything I knew.”
There was no point in trying to detain or even question her, for it was quite clear Larissa was Lord Partington’s daughter. Hetty digested this painfully as she watched the girl leave, her serviceable boots showing cracked and worn beneath the hem of her dull, plain skirt. She’d thought she’d hate her, this girl who represented her father’s failings and her mother’s unhappiness. Until recently, Hetty had been able to bury her head in the sand and pretend ignorance of life’s painful realities.
Now she understood the dangers too clearly to do nothing.
She cast a worried look at the sky. It would soon be dusk. The long summer twilight was in her favor but Hetty’s hands were tied. What could she, a single, innocent female, do to solve a mystery she wasn’t even sure was a mystery? What if Araminta had done exactly as Hetty had done? Assumed subterfuge to indulge her fascination for a gentleman she was being warned off?
The thought made her feel ill as she trod the back stairs to her bedchamber.
Was Araminta at this moment wrapped in the arms of the man who had been Hetty’s lover?
Regardless of propriety and the inherent danger, she had to find out.
Chapter Eleven
Sir Aubrey stretched out his long legs as he savored the last of his cheroot before tossing it into the fire. There was little else to savor these days, he thought sourly.
He reached for the decanter at his elbow and shakily poured himself another measure of whisky.
Since depositing that alluring, too-innocent-for-anyone miss with her cousin and older sister earlier, he’d felt as if the sun had gone out of his life.
“Leave it!” he snapped to the unwary parlor maid who, clearly not realizing he was in the room, had drawn the curtains, highlighting the fact that everything bright and joyous was beyond his library and out of reach.
Out of reach. His Henrietta would be forever out of reach. She had taken far too bold a risk for one in her position and she’d singed her wings and come crashing down to cold, base reality. She now must realize there was nothing he could or would do.
Unless, of course, there were consequences, though he’d been careful, as always. When he took a wife it would be to further his own comfort and to sire an heir, but never would he willingly sire a bastard.
He only prayed to God there would be no inconvenient repercussions so Miss Henrietta Partington would be spared an unfit husband such as himself.
He was roused from his torpid languor by a rapping on the library door, which was pushed open by the recently dismissed housemaid. The cheery smile she’d turned upon him when he interrupted her earlier was replaced by a look bordering on trepidation. Good. Women should be afraid of him. He was not a nice man. Only if his appetites for the fine life were indulged was he prepared to show his more charming side. Margaret had said it. She’d cited it as a reason for leaving him—the fact he was not the sunny-tempered charmer she claimed her cousin Lord Debenham was.
Well, Debenham was the least sunny-tempered gentleman of his acquaintance but clearly he knew how to put on a good show. Sir Aubrey did not believe in dressing up the truth. If he felt out of sorts, he’d take himself off elsewhere until his mood had passed. He was not given to playacting.
Unlike the deceiving wench Miss Henrietta Partington, who clearly was nothing like he’d believed. He had a deep-rooted contempt for deception. Margaret had deceived him. She had received him with pretended pleasure but she had deceived him into imagining that he was pleasing his delicate wife.
And now, if Miss Henrietta hadn’t already taken deception to the greatest heights possible for a young woman in her position, surely she’d gone one step further, he thought with horror as she was shown in. Despite the heavy veiling, it could be none other.
Come to persuade him to alter his mind and…what? Marry her? Take her to bed?
He narrowed his eyes as he prepared his defenses, trying to armor himself against the arousal her clasped hands and trembling form unleashed in him. For although he could see nothing of her face, he could well imagine her soft hetty eyes appealing to him from her pretty round face, an affecting performance enhanced by a suitably trembling lower lip. How he longed to nip that lip and how fiercely he had to rein in his desire.
“I cannot receive you, Miss Partington,” he said in a voice intended to repulse her with its lack of warmth. He hated himself as much as he longed for her.
“Where is Araminta?” she burst out.
He had not expected this. She was halfway across the room, her eyes boring into him with real concern now that she’d raised her veil.
Forcing distance into his tone, a feeling he was so far from experiencing as to be laughable, he strolled to the window and stared into the street.
“Why, you are more of a play actress than I’d have given you credit for, Miss Henrietta. You do the profession proud.”
It was close to a direct insult and he expected she’d take grave offense. Instead she covered her hands with her mouth as she gasped, “So she really isn’t here with you?”
He couldn’t tell if she was more upset or relieved. Certainly both registered in the look she sent him and the way she sank against the back of the sofa.
With a sense of righteous indignation, he went on. “Did you imagine I followed up our phaeton ride with the type of assignation I’ve enjoyed with you, Miss Henrietta? Why, that notion seems to upset you. Don’t forget, my dear, you pretended to be someone who’d entered a profession not known for its discernment. A business transaction that takes no account of the heart.”
He told himself he didn’t care that she looked as if he’d shredded her heart in two. Hadn’t she done the same to him?