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Chapter Two
‘Hattie? Good heavens above!’ He hadn’t seen her in what must have been close to two years. Not since the Easter before she had had her accident. ‘Fancy seeing you here?’ Genteel ladies only usually ventured into the colourful environs of Covent Garden at night to visit the theatre, and then they did so with a battalion of chaperons rather than the solitary maid who was seated dutifully beside her.
‘I was about to ask the same thing but seeing as we are a stone’s throw away from it, I assume you are bound for your scandalous club?’ He could not recall ever really having a substantial conversation with Hattie, so hearing her ask him a direct question, her confident gaze unwavering, was odd when she had always blinked at him like a startled deer in the past.
‘I am indeed.’ He found himself drawn to her carriage window. Found himself suddenly intrigued by the stark changes in her and willing to linger. ‘I have a month’s worth of dreary accounts to catch up on. But what brings you to this neck of the woods?’
‘I have been volunteering at the infirmary.’
‘The Ragamuffin Infirmary on King Street?’
‘The very one.’ Hattie beamed, and that transformed her face from pretty to downright beautiful. When had that happened? ‘Within spitting distance of the daily debauchery of your club, which propriety dictates I shouldn’t find entertaining—but which of course I do. The Reprobates’ Club always lives up to its shocking name.’
Which was also the secret to its huge popular appeal. Where Brooks’s was staid and White’s erred on the side of the traditional, and the depravity of the hells was too much for most, Jasper’s club filled the gap in between. It was naughty and frivolous rather than sordid. A place for fun, gambling and raucousness which allowed its wealthy patrons to blow off harmless steam in the lap of luxury they were accustomed to.
‘Doctor Cribbs is a saint. One who lives piously among us sinners and puts us all to shame with his benevolence.’ He never apologised to anyone for owning The Reprobates’ or its outrageous reputation. Why would he when that establishment had saved him and so many others from poverty?
She nodded, obvious affection in her expression for the man. ‘And Dr Cribbs is a genius. The miracles he works on those children are quite astounding.’
And talking of miracles...
‘How are you keeping...nowadays?’ His eyes flicked to her legs without thinking and he winced, wondering if he should have asked. Her brother Freddie had kept him informed of her progress throughout her extended convalescence at the family estate, so he knew Lady Harriet Fitzroy was no longer what she was. Hardly a surprise when the riding accident had been horrific, crippling one leg as well as breaking a wrist and two ribs. One of which had punctured a lung. For weeks afterwards she had fought for her life, battling an infection, and then defying all the odds. Hell, she’d even been given the last rites twice, so it really was a miracle she was sat in this carriage at all. Yet here she was, back in town, out and about independently and volunteering no less—no mean feat when one considered the mountain she had had to climb.
‘I am in very good health, thank you for asking.’ She smiled but did not elaborate further, clearly reluctant to bring up her struggles even to an old family friend. ‘It has been for ever since we last collided, hasn’t it, Jasper?’ A decisive change of subject if ever there was one, so he happily took the bait. He was a great believer in pride, even if it did often come before a fall. Pride did not only save face. It kept you going no matter what. Gave you the determination to succeed against all the odds. It put steel in your spine. Forced you to stand and fight when all you wanted to do was curl into a ball in defeat.
‘Indeed. Yes. If memory serves it has to be at least two springs ago.’ A time during which he had, in the main, lived his life to the fullest how he pleased while she had fought tooth and nail to get hers back. He had no idea why he suddenly felt guilty at that distinction, but he did. Probably because he had a tendency to feel guilty about everything. ‘I believe the last time we collided was at Avondale Hall for your mother’s house party. She had invited everyone on the planet, as I recall, certainly all the soon-to-be eager debutantes of the 1811 Season.’ What was the matter with him! The 1811 Season was supposed to have been her Season too—until the accident had scuppered things within days of that party.
She had been eager then too, he remembered, although not quite as excited about her debut as her more vivacious twin who was chomping at the bit to take society by storm. But then again, she and Annie had never been anything alike in either looks or character. Up against Annie, Hattie had always faded into the background. The other Fitzroy daughter had always been the prettier of the two with her dark hair and perfectly proportioned features. Everyone could see from an early age that Annie was destined to be a great beauty. Even when the twins were twelve, when Jasper had first met Freddie’s family, that had been patently obvious.
Whereas Hattie had been almost as awkward as an eighteen-year-old prospective debutante as she had been at twelve, more comfortable in the great outdoors racing her horse across her father’s country estate or climbing the hills which surrounded it. Happier shooting targets with her brother than she had ever been discussing the more genteel feminine pursuits among her peers. A skinny, gangly girl with unremarkable dark blonde hair who was yet to grow into her features.
Looking at her face and what he could see of her figure now through the window—and all credit to Mother Nature—she had done that magnificently since he had last seen her. The adolescent, gawky angles had rounded in the most delightful and womanly way. The mouth which had seemed too large was plump and ripe; the shy, often startled, big blue eyes now held his with unmistakable intelligence and a new confidence which hadn’t been there before. A confidence which surprised him in view of her circumstances.
‘Those girls were quite brazen in their pursuit of the eligible bachelors in attendance as I remember it, despite their tender years. I was staggered at the unashamed boldness of a few of them.’ She chuckled at the recollection. ‘Their mothers weren’t much better.’
‘Oh, they were the worst! Be in no doubt. The lengths some of those matrons went to in their attempts to make me their son-in-law that weekend beggared belief!’
Hattie threw her head back and laughed at that. Not the customary, repressed tinkling laugh he was used to hearing from gently bred young ladies who were careful to always look demure and pretty, but the genuine, unabashed and unselfconscious sort. ‘What did you expect? Three single, wealthy and titled gentlemen all trapped under one roof in the middle of nowhere for four whole days was all their wildest dreams come true. You were a captive audience.’
‘We were sitting ducks.’
‘You were.’ The flash of sympathy dissolved into another earthy chuckle. ‘They really wouldn’t leave you or Freddie or George Claremont alone.’ She leaned on the window frame grinning. It made her eyes sparkle in the most addictive fashion. ‘I found that irony so hilarious I might have encouraged them a tiny bit to be more intrepid.’ She held her index finger and thumb an inch apart. ‘Perhaps a little more than that.’
‘You encouraged them!’ Jasper made an unconvincing effort to look offended. ‘I never realised you had such a mean streak.’
Probably because Hattie, like the rest of those determined debutantes, had seemed so young back then. Beneath his notice. Slips of girls. Silly children with silly lives which he couldn’t be bothered with because he had more important things on his mind—like earning a crust and building his business while behaving, at least on the surface, like the reprobate his club had been named after.
‘The three of you used to lock yourselves in the billiards room for fear of being caught in a compromising position. Even then you all had such shocking reputations and were already confirmed scandalous reprobates, yet there you all were, quaking in your boots and gripping your billiard cues like weapons, in genuine fear of being ruined.’
‘Until they found us in the billiards room and laid siege, thanks to your evil sister giving them the housekeeper’s keys.’
She laughed again and he heard it like a man, enjoying the silky way it caressed his nerve endings. ‘As confession is supposed to be good for the soul, I should probably tell you that it actually had nothing to do with Annie.’
‘It was you!’
‘What can I say? Lydia Rycart offered me five shillings for the keys.’
‘You sold me and your own brother down the river for five paltry shillings?’ Jasper liked this hitherto unseen but mischievous side of Hattie. A side which clearly had always been there beneath the shyness.
