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Her father studied her silently over his newssheet when she found him in his study.
“A young lady who looks so like your sister as to be remarked upon? Here?” He harrumphed as his eyes flicked from Hetty’s face back to the newssheet. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, my dear.”
Clearly he’d long since decided silence and obfuscation were the only ways to deal with potentially awkward situations like this. Defeated, Hetty returned to her room, where she paced up and down, chewing her fingernails and wondering what to do.
After a while, Hetty became aware of a figure standing on the pavement beneath a plane tree on the other side of the road. The young woman’s poke bonnet concealed her face but her figure and dress proclaimed her of middling rank and perhaps around Hetty’s age.
Hetty went to the sash window and peered out. The movement immediately drew the attention of the young person across the road and, in addition, a surreptitious wave.
Pushing up the window, Hetty put her head out and squinted. A passing carriage obscured the girl and when it had gone, so was the girl. Then Hetty realized she was crossing the road, indicating for Hetty to meet her at the railing beside the portico. She’d know Hetty would need to be accompanied anywhere beyond her front gate but a clandestine meeting right by the house might be permitted.
Snatching a shawl, Hetty hurried down the stairs and emerged on the pavement, saying without preamble, “You know where Araminta has gone, don’t you? You were with her earlier.”
The young woman nodded. She bore a greater resemblance to her sister than Hetty had at first thought, though her expression had a more serious cast to it. The well-shaped nose and brow, the full upper lip and the arched brows above flashing green eyes were, however, the same.
“Why were you with Araminta? And who are you?” The questions tumbled out. Hetty remembered seeing this girl in the village church though she’d not remarked upon any particular resemblance. She’d been younger then, so perhaps her features had not matured.
“My name is Larissa and I met your sister by chance when she first came to London a few weeks ago. Today, to my surprise, she sent a note around asking me to accompany her to a secret meeting in a coffeehouse.” The girl’s expression gave nothing away. “I’m a governess and my young charge is being fitted for a new gown. As she’s going in company with her mama, I was spared the ordeal.” Only her lips stretched into something resembling a wry smile. “Miss Araminta said I was to keep the visit secret and it was my intention to simply return to the household where I’m presently employed…only I was concerned.”
Hetty trembled. This was confirmation of her own fears. Araminta was unprepared. She had no idea what and who she was dealing with. “Did you accompany Araminta home? Where is she now?” She gripped Larissa’s hand but the girl shook it off.
“I don’t know,” she said. “That’s why I was concerned—”
“But you said you were with her. Was there anyone else there? Well, there must have been since she was meeting the footman, Jem. Wasn’t she?”
Larissa nodded. “He’d come to show her a letter, it turned out, and when she read it she clapped her hand to her mouth and said, ‘Oh my goodness, what a shock!’”
“What did the letter say?”
Larissa shook her head. “She didn’t say and I wasn’t going to ask her right there.”
“Then what happened? Did Jem turn nasty? Has he done something?”
The girl hushed her alarm. “No, but he was mighty put out when she took the letter. He said that wasn’t the agreement so she fished in her reticule and handed him half a crown. She was very cross when that didn’t satisfy him.” Larissa frowned. “After that it was very strange.”
“Strange?” Hetty’s alarm was growing by the minute. “Why? Tell me what happened.”
“Well, after he took back the letter, Miss Araminta jumped up and flounced through the room, with everyone looking at her as she said over her shoulder that she reckoned a fine lady would be believed over a mere footman, and to consider himself lucky that he wasn’t going to swing.”
“But where did she go?” Hetty was nearly beside herself now.
The furrows of Larissa’s brow deepened. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? You were with her!”
“Yes, I was, but then Jem said something to me. He was angry and I tried to placate him so he wouldn’t make
a scene, only he wasn’t ready to be placated, although at least he didn’t jump up and do anything so foolish as to grab a lady in a public place.”
“But you must have followed Araminta. Where did she go? Where is she now?”
Larissa looked helpless. “I can’t tell you. I followed her, of course, but when I stepped onto the pavement she was nowhere to be seen.” She bit her lip. “I thought it was very odd that she’d leave, unaccompanied, much less leave me there alone, but she’d been in high dudgeon and I’ve observed her over the years, so perhaps it wasn’t so surprising.”
Hetty made no remark to this acute observation. “So Araminta simply disappeared and you came back here, hoping she’d returned? What, perhaps by jumping into a passing hackney? I saw you across the street. Why didn’t you make yourself known earlier?”
A blush swept the girl’s pale cheeks. “Papa—I mean, I was instructed very clearly that I must never make myself known here.”
“You could have sent a message,” Hetty muttered. “You could have given it to someone in the kitchen.”
