“Studding, eh? Laudable solution. England has need of more bay horses. Mares love it, my papa told me.”
Hetty looked up to see her father smiling at her in that vague way of his. He surprised her by saying, “I trust poor Drusilla’s sick sister hasn’t hampered your activities, my dear child. Your first trip to London and all that I would not wish you to be bored.”
She could but stare at him. He’d noticed her gown was too short yet he’d not realized that poor Drusilla Worthington had left London a good four months ago? She reached out and clasped her father’s hand. “Dear sir, I assure you that I am never bored. I have made many friends and am never at a loss for something interesting to do. In fact, after luncheon, I am promised to meet friends and go to, ah, Richmond Park to walk through the maze. Have you ever been there, Father? Do you know the secret of the maze?”
He looked at her as if she’d asked him for a key to Bedlam. She wondered if he even knew what Richmond Park was. “Never mind, sir. I shall find my own way.” She saw Sir Archibald couldn’t manage to hide his relief. She knew he was delighted that she’d settled so quickly into London life. He wanted her to attend all the routs, balls, but the thought of chaperoning his daughter to such affairs would never even occur to him.
Looking at her father now, she realized he loved her, that he knew she was a good daughter, not at all bothersome, never demanding this or that from him. She never overspent the generous allowance he made available for her and ran his house with silent, uncomplaining efficiency. He made Hetty blink in an effort to understand his mood when he said sadly, “How very much like your lovely mother you are, my dear child. Never importuned me for a thing, did that wonderful woman.” He heaved a heavy sigh and turned his attention back to a wafer-thin slice of ham.
“Why thank you, Father.” Goodness, where had that come from? She was about as much like her deceased mother as Mr. Scuddimore was like her father. Poor Mother. Even as a small child, Hetty could remember Lady Beatrice complaining bitterly of her husband’s neglect, of his blind preoccupation with all that political rubbish. When she contracted a chill and died swiftly of an inflammation of the lung, it required a stirring eulogy by the curate to make Sir Archibald aware that an important member of his family had passed to the hereafter. He grieved for her perfunctorily, focusing his beautiful, vague eyes on Hetty and patting her on the head in recognition of their mutual sorrow for the better part of two weeks. But then, suddenly, there was an election. Perceval became Prime Minister, and as a result, the Whigs began to wield such political power that Sir Archibald sought to throw himself immediately into the fray. He patted Hetty on the head for a final time and set off to London to launch a counteroffensive. Hetty went back to her prim governess with the natural dread of a lively child condemned to sewing samplers in a cheerless schoolroom. And then Damien had arrived to rescue her. Wounded in a skirmish on the Peninsula, he was packed to the country to recuperate. How quickly he had realized that the country offered very little in the way of amusement. He had turned to her, recognized her deep loneliness, and instantly taken her under his wing. Miss Mills, Hetty’s governess, was charmed to her very soul by Damien’s brotherly treatment of her, and so raised no great fuss. Thus it was that Hetty had found herself riding to the hunt, shooting at bottles with Damien’s dueling pistol, and quickly becoming the most skilled ten-year-old piquet player in England.
Hetty felt a lump rise in her throat. Although she did not in the least resent her father’s vague dismissal of her mother’s demise, she couldn’t help but think Sir Archibald oddly selfish when he had shown no more emotion at his son’s death. She wondered with a tinge of bitterness if her father would even remember Damien if it were not for the large portrait of him that hung in the drawing room over the mantelpiece. Lady Beatrice, unfortunately, had never achieved a like immortality through the artist’s brush.