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Fool for Love

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“No one knows what the future has in store for them, darling,” Millicent said, winding her arm around Henrietta’s shoulders.

Henrietta smiled affectionately at her stepmother. “In my case, it doesn’t include dancing. Or suitors.”

“You’re more beautiful than Selina Davenport any day,”

Imogen said with some satisfaction.

Henrietta grinned. “What a hum that is!”

“It’s true. None of the girls around here can hold a candle to you. If you weren’t lame, they wouldn’t have a single beau amongst them. I heard Mrs. Burnell saying that you were getting dangerously beautiful, Henrietta. Imagine that—

dangerously beautiful! No one will ever say that of me. Not with my unfashionable hair.”

Imogen came up behind Henrietta and made a face into the glass. Henrietta’s hair was a pale amber marked with strands of sweet lemon and honey gold. Imogen’s was a less modish mass of black curls.

“Hogwash,” Henrietta said bluntly. “No one cares about the color of your hair if you can’t have children.”

“Mr. Gell heard of a new doctor,” Imogen reminded her.

“That bone doctor in Swindon. Perhaps he’ll know what to do.”

“Papa dragged me to every doctor within forty miles, and they all said exactly the same thing. If I carry a child, I’ll likely die in the birth and the child as well. It’s better to face the truth, not keep dreaming of a new doctor who might say differently.”

Imogen pressed her lips together and for a moment she looked as commanding as a Roman goddess. Or her late father. “I won’t settle for it,” she said. “There’ll be a doctor who can cure you. You’ll see.”

Henrietta laughed. “I don’t want a husband.”

“You are always clucking at babies,” Imogen said, sounding unconvinced. 44 Eloisa

James

“No, I am not,” Henrietta said, rather nauseated by the oldmaid image. Did she really spend her life clucking at other people’s babies? A familiar sense of despair clutched her around the heart. It was so unfair.

If only she were like those fashionable women who had no interest in their offspring. Lady Fairburn boasted that she never saw her children but twice a year. Said it was the best way to raise them. And the oh-so-splendid Mr. Darby didn’t even recognize his own sweet sister.

That was the crux of it: she, Henrietta Maclellan, was cursed with a passion for children and a hip that prevented her from bearing them. She was doing her absolute best to convince herself that running the village school was an adequate substitute. And she was blessed—as she tried to remind herself often—with sufficient brain to see how tiresome husbands could be.

“If I had a husband, my life would be utterly tedious,” she pointed out. “I would have to pretend that I thought his talk of ferrets and hunting dogs was interesting. Men are selfabsorbed idiots. Take that Darby, for instance. He was so absorbed by his own consequence that he actually tried to play his London manners off on me— me!”

“That’s why you are wearing your crape,” Imogen crowed.

“I should have guessed immediately! Is he terribly handsome? Emilia told me that all the girls in London were longing to dance with him. With a single compliment, he could make you one of the most eligible ladies in London.”

“A more conceited man I never saw,” Henrietta said dampeningly. “You should have seen how pained he looked when he realized that his neck cloth was crumpled.”

“Darby must have seen how lovely you are. Did he compliment you? Is that why you’re wearing your best dress?”

Henrietta burst out laughing. “Oh, Imogen, give over! Why on earth would I change my apparel because a frenchified London beau was rusticating in Wiltshire? The man has no Fool for Love

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interest in me. And—more to the point—I have none in him. I decided yesterday that I would wear my crape. As I told you, I decided that I’m not saving anything for a better occasion.”

“I don’t believe you,” Imogen said mulishly.