Never had he felt more like a holiday humbug. It had been almost two months since his ill-planned visit to the Rare-Foure’s country home, and he hadn’t been back to Rare Confectionery to see if they’d reopened. He didn’t need to. He’d been served Amity’s chocolates at more than one party already and seen a tin of them at a friend’s home.
He hadn’t been able to eat a single one.
Nor did he examine the papers for engagement announcements. He’d been told by Waverly that most people didn’t make as big a fuss if they weren’t titled since no one cared who married whom, not unless they were in the upper echelons.
That wasn’t always the case. Henry cared very much.
“I’m ready, dear boy. Gracious, don’t look as if I’m dragging you to your own hanging. It’s the ballet, and we’re lucky the theatre is so close. You don’t mind being at the ballet with your old mother, do you?”
“First of all, you’re not old. I should be escorting you to balls so you can find a new husband. I don’t like to think of you alone. Secondly, you know I don’t care for the ballet, but I’m happy to suffer through it with you. And there’s always the intermission and the well-stocked bar.”
His mother patted his cheek fondly. “I am barely out of mourning,” she protested. “Although the past two months, you seem to have taken over for me. You are gloomy and cranky.” She paused and looked at him, scrutinizing his face. Then she lifted one shoulder in an elegant shrug.
“Regardless, I will not be dancing at a ball alongside the debutantes any time soon. How unseemly. If I am fortunate enough to find another man to love me as your father did, I will be twice blessed.”
Henry could only nod at her wisdom and take his dowager mother to the theatre. Amity had been twice blessed to be loved by two men, and it sliced him, leaving him gutted, to have been the one she didn’t choose. He wasn’t sure he would ever quite recover.
In half an hour, from the Pelham private box, to Henry’s consternation — and also keen interest — he saw the entire Rare-Foure family of five walk down the main aisle and take their seats about seven rows back from the orchestra.
His chocolatier wore a plum-colored gown, maybe the one he’d seen her in at the Peabodys’ home. That seemed a long time ago. He wished he could invite them up to his box, but that would send all sorts of wrong signals to those who might be watching. Also, it would sting like the devil to be close to Amity.
“What are you staring at?” his mother asked. “Or rather whom?”
She practically hung over the edge to get a better view. “Who has caught your interest? I know only the lady who does not have your attention any longer.” She glanced at him again, before training her gaze back on the people still taking their seats. “Tell me, Henry, I command you.”
“Mother, please. I was simply watching people entering.”
She made an exaggerated gasp. “You have not lied to me since you were a little boy and snuck into the kitchen to eat an entire custard pie. You were sick for a day and tried to pretend you had no idea where that pie went.”
“There are no pies here tonight,” he said, crossing his arms.
“Don’t you want to know how I knew you were lying to me then and now?”
“Apart from my face turning a sublime shade of green and my being dreadfully sick into your needlepoint basket?”
She smiled. “It was the way you lifted your eyebrows while narrowing your eyes at the same time. A strange trick you do when prevaricating and at no other time. I shall have to tell your future wife to be on alert. Is she out there tonight, I wonder?”
He let his glance flit over the Rare-Foures and shook his head. She unquestionably had been if she hadn’t chosen chocolate over him. Henry wasn’t about to tell his mother that.
“Maybe I will let you choose the next female I woo. What do you say, Mother? Can you find me a duchess?”
The dowager sat back in her seat and looked at him. She gave him a loving smile that hadn’t changed in all the years. “If you’re serious, my son, I would be honored to help. Not that I don’t think you can find someone for yourself,” she added, touching his shoulder. “Nonetheless, perhaps I can discover a female with particular qualities you might be overlooking.”
“Which qualities?” he asked.
“Well, Lady Madeleine had but one thing going for her.” She wrinkled her nose in the exact likeness of his sister.
Henry frowned. “Not true, Mother. In addition to her obvious beauty, the lady was bred to run a household and to be the wife of a titled lord.”
The dowager’s face soured. “She was as dry as Brighton beach sand and just as dull. The sole time I ever saw her demonstrate an ounce of spirit was the night she ate the wrong chocolate, and she had a most disgraceful conniption in public over it. Hardly a young woman who would dazzle London as your duchess. You need someone with genuine warmth and capability and with a certain spark.” She patted her coiffure. “Rather like your old mother.”
He laughed. “I already told you, you are not old. By the way, why aren’t Penelope and Randolph joining us tonight? Why aren’t they being forced to endure this ballet?” he added teasingly.
“Your sister is married and can set her own schedule. Besides, I think they have more important things to consider than the ballet.”
The lights went down, so Henry whispered, “What do you mean?”
“I will tell you more at intermission, but I think you are going to be an uncle.”
Henry sat back feeling shocked. His sister was to be a mother? Penelope was a year younger than he was. That undoubtedly meant soon after his own wedding, he might be expected to start thinking about producing an heir.
Amity’s face instantly came to mind, looking down with love at a wee babe with soft brown hair and her rich mahogany-colored eyes. He would have cherished them both.
Eventually, when he was sure his mother wasn’t looking, he leaned over to see if, in the darkness, he could discern Miss Rare-Foure — assuming there had not been a hasty wedding turning her into a Mrs. Cole. He thought he could make out her feathered hat by the dim gaslights running along the sides of the theatre.
Warmth and capability, his mother had said. She had both of those things in spades.
“Stop sighing, Henry, I’m trying to enjoy the ballet.”
He could hardly wait for intermission and a large glass of wine.
AMITY HADN’T REALIZED she was staring, unseeing, at the shelf behind her marble worktable until Beatrice spoke into her ear.
“You are getting nothing accomplished today. Why don’t you take a walk? Direct your plum-colored boots to St. James Place and see if the duke is in. Maybe he needs more Pelhams.”
Amity sighed. “He liked them so much, I thought he would come in to buy one or two someday.”
Beatrice shook her head. “You ninny. His Grace is not going to come in after you so firmly gave him the mitten.”
Amity blinked at the old-fashioned term for turning down a man’s offer.
When Mr. Cole had left and never returned, Amity told her sisters — after much cajoling on their part — how Henry had made his proposal.