Henrietta had been overpowered in the foyer of Hines House by the combined forces of Jasper, Lady Clarinda, and their butler, Dearbody, all insisting that while she might be accustomed to tramping at her liberty around their estates in the north, the wilds of London demanded more caution. She had not seen her name touted in the morning gossip columns as Lord Daring’s latest ruin, nor had any denouncement come from Lord Pinochle, but nonetheless, Henrietta thought it wise to concede.
So, while other ladies stepped down from worn family carriages with a maid beside them, Henrietta bowled up in a spanking new coach with the newly designed Wardley-Hinescoat of arms in fresh paint on the door, a coachman driving, her groom beside, and two tall footmen of matching height hanging off the back.
“I see that some of us bring all our servants on missions of mercy,” Mrs. Spickey, a deacon’s wife, loudly observed to her daughter.
Henrietta pretended not to hear. She had initially been welcomed by the Ladies Auxiliary of St. Marylebone’s, but then her father was knighted and Henrietta took that precarious step from the rising bourgeoisie to the ranks of lesser gentility. What before had been dismissed as the free manners of a tradesman’s daughter or a northerner were now marks of her unfitness for the ranks of the gently born. The judgments stung, whether or not she heeded them.
Poor Constance Spickey, one of those proper girls taught from birth that she existed to serve men, stood in silent agony while the workers paused to whistle at and offer crude evaluations of the gathering females. Henrietta decided to show Constance her trick. Never mind it hadn’t worked to drive Lord Daring from her side the previous evening; the principle stood that one must take a firm hand with bold men.
She marched up to one of the worst offenders, who leaned on the handles of his wheelbarrow. “I say, is that Bath stone you are using?”
The man straightened and snatched off his cap in an ingrained gesture of respect. “Nay, miss, Portland stone, it is,” he said in the lilt of a Cornishman.
“Ah! That is what Wren used on St. Paul’s, I believe?”
The man nodded and showed Henrietta the contents of his wheelbarrow. “Aye, miss. Can ye conscience the yards o’ stone in that pile? Portland’s the best ye can build in.”
“Is it? I like Hopton Wood stone myself. Such a lovely color, and there are quarries near my house in Derbyshire.”
“Aight, but there’s a stone for the inside, mum,” a second man said with the rolling r’s of Yorkshire. “Duchess o’ Devonshire ’as it all over Chatsworth. I cut that rock meself, sure enough.”
“Well! I shall consider your advice when I refurbish the mill I am hoping to acquire. And how well the infirmary looks already.”
Henrietta beamed at them. The men returned to their labor, their heckling turned on one another, and she joined the queue at the door.
Mrs. Spickey scolded, “Miss Wardley-Hines, you oughtn’t speak with them. Such men are beneath you.”
“Beneath me?” Henrietta said as the porter opened the workhouse. “I only wish I possessed such a useful skill as masonry.”
“Sapskulls,” said James, her groom, following close at her side. “Fashes me why you gentle morts come ’ere anyway. Naught but anglers, bunters, and the merry begotten. Might as well fling your coppers into the Thames.”
“They’re not criminals, James,” Henrietta said. “Just people who don’t have a home.”
Peter, one of the two footmen, looked about. “I’ve an uncle in ’ere,” he said. “Got turned off without a character. Ain’t seen ’im in an age.”
“Buzz man?” James asked with interest. “Filched from the wrong mort?”
“Blue ruin,” Peter responded, and James shook his head with atsk.
Blue ruin, Henrietta had learned, meant gin. “You must find this uncle and ask what we might do for him.” She handed Peter a thick woolen blanket, worsted stockings, and a pair of mittens.
“Aye, saw off, ye big gollumpus.” James shooed him away. “I’ll see to Miss Hetty.” He immediately began an argument withthe remaining footman, John, over who would hold the pile of things Peter had carried.
“I will hold the packages,” said another male voice, and a pair of gloved hands, attached to arms clothed in a glossy superfine, reached for the footman’s load. Henrietta looked up with surprise into the face of Lord Darien.
“You!”
Excitement, apprehension, curiosity, and a deep, bright pleasure surged through her at the sight of him, polished, elegant, and entirely out of place. His light brown hair was unpowdered and drawn back into a neat queue, his neckcloth was expertly tied, and everything about him exuded health and strength. Henrietta peered into his eyes. He didn’t look like a man who had spent his night in riotous dissolution.
“Miss Wardley-Hines.” He gave a brief bow, watching her warily, those perfect lips quirked in a smile. “Good morn.”
Apprehension won out. She glanced about, wondering who here might know him. If she were spotted with him today after their conversation last night, she was sunk for certain. A lack of marriageability wouldn’t matter much to her, but to lose Aunt Althea’s grudging goodwill, endanger her election to the Minerva Society, cast a cloud upon Lady Mama and Marsibel and the girls—there was too much at stake.
Add to that, her northern neighbor would never sell his mill to a woman of loose morals, no matter how many ciphers she added to the offer.
“Lord Darien. I cannot begin to guess what business brings you here.”
“I was interested in your mission of mercy. I thought that while your friends are imparting Christian consolations, I might offer the wisdom of the Stoics, or some others of the ancient Greeks.”
