“Um…mostly, Lady Hartfield,” Hal said. He shifted from foot to foot, feeling ridiculous. No wonder Hestony was nervous of her mama! He himself felt utterly at sea.
“It is polite to greet a lady, before disturbing her breakfast and bothering her with questions.”
“ My sincerest apologies, My Lady.” Hal felt his heart thump. He really was making a bad impression! How could he have forgotten something so inherent? He’d come here to ask her for formal permission to court her daughter! Now he was messing things up awfully. He swallowed the lump that was growing in his throat. “Good morning, My Lady.”
“Good morning, sir.” She nodded crisply. “Now. Have you a message I might pass on to my daughter for you?”
“No, My Lady,” Hal stated. His guts twisted with discomfort. “I just wished to call on her. If you might inform her that I was here?”
“Yes. Anything else?” She was standing with her back to the window, arms at her sides. She was a head shorter than him, which meant she was an inch or two shorter than her daughter. All the same, she had an icy stiffness about her that made her implacable as cliffsides.
“Yes, My Lady.” Hal nodded, swallowing hard. “I wanted to speak to you, too, actually.”
“To me?” A pale eyebrow arced over one eye. Her hair was butter-pale, the same color as Hestony, only with white woven into it at the temple. She wore the thinnest of caps over it, a nod to her widowed status. She seemed formidable.
“I wanted to…to ask permission. To…call on Hestony. Sometimes.” A plague on him! Why, Hal thought desperately, Can I not do this properly? He’d made the worst possible impression, only to request permission to call on Hestony? If he were her mother, he’d send himself away quite instantly.
“Sometimes?”
“Yes.”
Hal saw her expression change, moving from surprise to composure.
“If I grant this, it will be with one condition.”
“Yes, My Lady?” Hal almost pleaded. He had never felt more intense about anything. He had snuck around the issue of asking for a courtship – requesting one without actually saying it. Maybe she was going to grant it?
“My request is simple. That you are never alone with her. A maid, or myself, or some responsible person, must be there.”
Hal closed his eyes. She could not have said something more cutting. If she had wished to make him feel foolish, she couldn’t do better. A courtship would have allowed him more liberties than that. Without his ever having explicitly asked for one, she had already denied him.
“Thank you, My Lady,” he managed.
“I’m pleased to hear it.”
Hal felt his hands open and close, and bowed low, deciding the best thing he could do was go. “I bid you a good day. Please inform your daughter of my visit.”
“You have my word.”
Hal bowed again, stiffly, and walked hurriedly away.
Hurrying down to the stables, he mounted up and rode swiftly away.
“Pox on it!” he shouted as he rode. He was furious. Fury was better than humiliation, or hurt. He nursed the fury, growing it inside himself, making it grow bigger than his hurt and sadness. The wind whipped at him, making his coat billow out and he had to hold his hat in place with one hand, leaving most of the guidance to the tension of his legs.
By the time he reached Westmore House, he was shivering. Inside, though, he was lit up with rage. He wanted to do something, but he couldn’t very well strike back at Lady Hartfield! She was Hestony’s mother, and a lady. The only safe target was the outlaw who’d been spying on her and Hestony’s estate.
“Cousin Luke?” he called as he stalked up the steps, changing his soaking outdoor boots for inside ones. “Luke?”
“Hello?” Luke called to him from the upstairs parlor. Hal put his head in curiously, wondering why his cousin hadn’t yet come out to say hello. His voice sounded muffled, too, which worried him. When he spotted him, he almost laughed. Luke was at the mantelpiece, carefully balancing a painting atop the marble shelf of it. His arms were stiff and tense with straining. “How does it look?”
“Splendid,” Hal said, not really looking at the painting. He felt too distracted to offer much of an opinion about anything, let alone anything artistic.
“You didn’t even look,” Luke said, sounding a tad upset.
“Cousin, I need to talk to you.”
“About what?” Luke had turned back to the wall, lifting the heavy, gilt-framed painting with a grunt. Hal went to help. Together, holding onto a gilt-edged casing, they moved the picture – a landscape scene, with horses – to the hearthside.
“It’s about Lady Hestony,” Hal said. He helped Luke balance the painting against the marble pillar of the mantelpiece, then stepped back towards the window, feeling utterly wretched.
“She’s here,” Luke said.
“She is?” Hal felt his heart thump. “Where, cousin?”
He inclined his head towards the hallway. “Talking with Emilia. They’re in the breakfast-room, and I have the impression company isn’t wanted, so I came in here to decide where to put the paintings.”
“I see,” Hal chewed his lip. “Will she want to talk later, do you think?”
“I don’t see why not,” Luke shrugged lightly, handsome face wrinkled with a frown. “What is it, Hal? You’ve been worrying at something since you returned home. And it isn’t all about accounting.”
“No,” Hal admitted with a sorrowful laugh. “It isn’t.”
“What, then?” Luke asked, stretching expansively. “We can talk in the drawing-room, if you want. We are in nobody’s way up there, and less likely to be overheard.”
Hal just shrugged. He waited for Luke to check the stability of the painting for a final time, and then followed him into the hallway.
“Looks like good riding weather,” Luke commented, leaning against the windowsill upstairs as they settled into the drawing-room. The lace curtains were pulled aside from the vast French window and a fire burned warmly in the grate under yet another marble-faced surround.
“Yes. Cousin?” Hal said swiftly, before they ended up talking about riding all. “On what terms are you with Hestony’s mother?”
“Lady Hartfield?” Luke shrugged at the change of subject. “Amicable ones. She seems a little set in her ways and views, but I suppose we can all get a bit set, eh?” He smiled nervously. “Why do you ask?”
Hal swallowed hard. “Luke, she doesn’t want me to court Hestony.”