will be expected to take her part in leading society. You will not have it all your own way any more, Lady Thorndike. The new Mrs Montemorcy might even agree with me about the necessity of having garlands at Lady Winship’s ball.’
Henri gave Miss Armstrong a stern look. The conversation was fast becoming insupportable and beyond the bounds of propriety. She refused to think about any sort of wife that Montemorcy might take. She forced her breathing to be calm, even as a great hole opened up inside her. Robert Montemorcy couldn’t marry. It would change everything.
Miss Armstrong’s rosy cheeks became a slightly brighter hue. ‘That is to say, Lady Thorndike, I hope the rumours are wrong. I merely sought to inform you so that you could make a reasoned judgement and not faint at any gathering.’
‘Such considerations have never troubled me, Miss Armstrong. I never faint.’ Henri put a hand to her chest and adopted her ‘woman of sorrow’ expression. It had held her in good stead for ten years whenever the prickly subject of remarriage was brought up. ‘After all, a woman can only ask for one chance of happiness. And my dear sweet Edmund was gentle perfection. He never said a cross word or argued with me. He was quite simply irreplaceable.’
‘You have always struck me as someone who enjoyed a good argument, Lady Thorndike. I fear I was mistaken.’
‘Obviously.’ Maintaining all the poise she could muster, Henri swept away from the infuriating woman.
As she entered the coolness of the circulating library, Henri stood for a moment and allowed the scent of leatherbound books and dust to fill her nostrils. There was something wonderfully calming about a library. Visiting one always restored her mood. And right now she needed to piece together the various bits of news and discover the truth. Robert Montemorcy had an unmarried female visitor—that much was clear from Miss Armstrong’s testimony. But the precise nature and reason for the visit was shrouded in mystery. And she hated mysteries of this nature.
She hated the small spiral of jealousy that encircled her insides. Hated to think about him verbally sparring with this unknown woman. Would they wager as well? She clenched her fists and counted to ten.
Suddenly, down one of the aisles she spied a pair of broad shoulders encased in a form-fitting frock-coat: Robert Montemorcy. Who should have been at his desk in Newcastle, pontificating about the scientific method to his managers, or attending to his new guest, rather than causing innocent people’s pulse to race and lose all power in their legs. Henri turned on her heel and started to tiptoe down the next aisle. Blindly she picked up a book and pretended to be reading.
She struggled to breathe and wished her corset was a smidgeon looser. It hurt far more than she thought that Robert Montemorcy had not bothered to confide in her, and the reason for the wager was now transparent. He was going to marry this unknown, and did not want anyone else encouraged to take an interest. But why the subterfuge—why hadn’t he just told her? It was not as if she held any claim on him. She had thought they were friends. She could keep a secret and she wouldn’t have interfered…beyond introducing the woman to society. She knew what it was like to be new and friendless.
‘Lady Thorndike? Is something wrong?’ Robert Montemorcy asked with a concerned note in his voice. ‘You failed to acknowledge my wave. It is most unlike you. Preoccupied, yes, but never rude.’
‘Go away. I’m reading.’ Henri buried her nose deeper in the book and tried to ignore the way he towered over her. She wasn’t attracted to him in the way Miss Armstrong suggested. Attraction was a gentle comfortable thing such as she had felt for Edmund. Robert Montemorcy always made her feel unsettled and determined.
‘You will find it more edifying if you attempt to read right-side up, Lady Thorndike.’ Strong fingers took the book from her unresisting ones. ‘Allow me to assist.’
Henri’s cheeks burnt and fury swamped her senses. How many people had thought him…her property? And was he truly going to marry this Diamond of the Season? A girl in her teens would be wrong for him. There was no way on God’s green earth she could actually ask him. She had to banish all thoughts of such a thing or else…it would come out at precisely the wrong time. She squared her shoulders, forcing her mind away from Mr Montemorcy’s matrimonial prospects.
‘I wanted to look a point of information up,’ she said quickly before she blurted out her real intention of regaining her composure after The Shocking News.
‘Lady Thorndike, since when did you need to know about The Good Husbandry of Cattle on the Yorkshire Moors? Are you truly a secret bluestocking? Or is this in aid of some match that you intend to facilitate at some later date?’
‘That is not what the book is about,’ Henri said, putting a hand on her hip, trying to ignore the way his sandalwood scent enveloped her. ‘You are merely seeking to discomfort me.’
He held out the spine. Henri read the title with a sinking heart. Of all the books she could have randomly chosen, it would have to be one that she had not the slightest interest in. She hurriedly replaced the book on the shelf. ‘It simply proves why I couldn’t find what I was looking for.’
‘And here I thought you were trying to avoid me.’ The richness of his voice rolled over her in delicious waves.
‘Why would I want to do that?’
He gave a maddening shrug of his shoulders, emphasising their breadth. Henri forced her gaze upwards to his sardonic face. ‘You know better than I. A guilty conscience? How are your attempts at keeping the wager going? Finding it difficult to stop playing Cupid? I hear the curate took the vicar’s youngest daughter for a stroll after church last Sunday. Did you have a part in that?’
‘I’ve kept to the letter of our agreement, which is more than I can say for you.’ Henri gave him a stern look. How dare he insinuate that she was attempting to hide something! She had played the hand strictly according to Hoyle, not deviating at all, not even when Doctor Lumley had asked about the vicar’s eldest daughter and whether she could sew a fine seam. He, on the other hand, had cheated. Manipulated her for mysterious reasons of his own and, what was worse, she had fallen for it. ‘You attempted to deceive me. You procured our wager on an entirely false premise. It is only because I never go back on a promise that I’m even contemplating keeping it.’
He stilled and his cheeks flushed the slightest tinge of pink. ‘What gossip have you heard, Lady Thorndike?’
‘I’ve heard all about Miss Ravel’s arrival. The village buzzes with the news.’ And the impending nuptials, she thought with a pang. But she wasn’t about to stoop that low and mention them! Robert Montemorcy had to reveal the news and then she’d make some withering retort, the perfect sort of response for when one with whom one’s name has been inadvertently linked becomes engaged to another. Henri touched her little brooch that Edmund had given her for luck.
‘News travels fast. Miss Ravel and her stepmother only arrived last night. I am attempting to choose some reading material for Miss Ravel as she has a preference for popular fiction, rather than the scientific tomes that populate my library. Do you think Ivanhoe will strike the right tone? Or would she prefer the latest Fenimore Cooper?’
He was searching the stacks for reading material for the unknown Miss Ravel. Henri hated how the knowledge hurt. ‘If she likes such books, the young woman in question will have probably read Ivanhoe. And I believe Mr Crozier has the latest James Fenimore Cooper out. He might not be going to America, but he has developed a taste for adventure.’
‘You are quite right. I will have to find another selection.’ He stood there,
