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Neither mother nor daughter had done any such thing. They had welcomed her into their circle with open arms.
For their sakes, Henrietta drew on all her reserves of will-power and mustered up a wan smile.
‘We have nothing like it in Much Wakering, Mrs Crimmer,’ she said quite truthfully. ‘So many talented acts, one after another. It was quite, um...’
‘Overwhelming, was it, my dear?’
Mrs Crimmer, the wife of one of Mr Ledbetter’s business contacts, nodded her head in a sympathetic manner. People who lived in London all year round, she had swiftly discovered, tended to look upon provincials with a mixture of pity and contempt.
If Mrs Crimmer had spoken so patronisingly to her three days ago, she would have made a withering retort. Or at least, she corrected herself, she would have bitten one back, for the sake of Mildred’s prospects. For Mr and Mrs Ledbetter were hoping that Mildred would look favourably upon young Mr Crimmer’s suit.
She glanced across the room to where the red-faced young man was paying court, rather bashfully, to Mildred, while Mildred was looking decidedly unimpressed.
Her aunt and uncle, for so she had come to think of them, might have hopes in that direction, but Mildred was looking for more from life than a prosaic match to cement a business alliance. She was looking for romance.
But then Mildred was pretty enough to have romantic aspirations. She had lovely golden hair, wide green eyes and a delicate little nose that made her look like an angelic kitten.
Perhaps that was why they had all accepted Henrietta into the household so readily, she sighed. With her gawky figure and plain face, she posed no threat to her distant cousin. When the pair of them walked into a room, all masculine attention went to Mildred.
Which had not bothered Henrietta in the slightest. She did not want masculine attention. Or at least, she had only ever hankered after the attention of one man.
But even he was beyond her reach now. Three nights ago, he’d finally forced her to accept the fact that she’d been a complete fool to follow him to London. And now she could no longer even pretend to herself that, deep down, she did mean something to him.
She could never have meant anything to him, for him to treat her as he had. She reached out and took a biscuit from the plate set on the table between her and Mrs Crimmer.
She was stuck in town until the end of June, at the very earliest, for she could not bring herself to slink home. Especially not in the light of what he’d said.
You belong in the country, not in a rackety place like London, had been the opinion he’d expressed upon the only occasion he’d called upon her. I shouldn’t wonder at it if you aren’t soon aching to get back to Much Wakering.
It was galling to admit that, in a way, he was correct. She did miss the trees and the tranquillity, and the fact that everyone knew everyone else.
But that didn’t make her a country bumpkin.
It had been a shock to hear Richard—her Richard, as she’d still been thinking of him then—speak to her in such patronising tones. She had only been in town one week, after all, and of course she’d still been a bit wide-eyed and excited.
But that did not mean she would never be able to cope with the sophistication of London society. Why, Richard himself had only acquired his town bronze after several trips. At first, the difference had only been apparent in his appearance. He’d begun to look very smart in clothes bought from a London tailor. And then the way he’d had his hair cut, well, it had drawn gasps of admiration all round. That shock of unruly curls had been tamed into a style that took much of the boyish roundness from his freckled face. He’d no longer looked like the easy-going son of the local squire, but, well, just as she’d always envisioned Paris, the man so handsome goddesses had squabbled over him. But, gradually, she’d sensed an inner change, too. She’d begun to feel uneasily as if he was drawing further and further away from her. And this last Christmas there had been a veneer of sophistication about him, expressed in languid mannerisms which were so unlike those of the blunt, honest boy who had run tame in her house for years that he had made her feel positively naïve and tongue-tied.
She ought, she reflected gloomily as she snapped her biscuit in half, to have taken heed of his withdrawal then and spared herself the humiliation she’d endured at Miss Twining’s ball. Or recognised his reference to her return to Much Wakering as a hint that he didn’t want her in town. Instead, she had persuaded herself that his words were an awkward expression of concern for how she would cope. Oh, why was she so stupid? Why hadn’t she seen? If he had really been concerned about how she would cope, he would have escorted her everywhere. Haunted the Ledbetters’ house and taken steps to shield her from all the undesirable elements he warned her stalked London society.
