Page 16 of Sacrificing the Untamed Lady Henrietta

“You lie to them?” Henrietta eyes widened. “And, for what reason?” She turned into a baited bull.

“You speak too freely, Tabitha!” he grumbled. “Mind your food.”

“Lord Peterborough asked about her again today,” Tabitha sighed. “I did tell them that you were traveling to a relative who has taken ill, but I feel that he thought me untruthful.”

Aaron’s head jerked up and he gazed at his wife.

“How? Why? Has he said something?”

“No, no,” Tabitha insisted, looking down. “I just felt that there was a way he looked at me…”

“Nonsense,” Aaron scoffed. “He suspects nothing untoward.”

“Shame that,” Henrietta muttered. She was certain Lord Peterborough wouldn’t care if he learned she was being held hostage until their wedding.

He certainly is not apt to come and rescue me on some armored horse of white.

Maybe she’d have a different fantasy this very evening when she returned to her chambers.

“Mind your tongue and your supper,” Aaron barked at them both. “I do not wish to hear another word on the matter of you going to Nightingale.”

“I have no interest in meeting him beforehand,” Henrietta offered.

“You will have a lifetime to become acquainted with him,” Aaron replied but his tone was less harsh when he saw he was not required to argue two people on the matter.

After a moment of silence, Tabitha said, “When you see Nightingale, you will believe us to reside in a cupboard”

“I do reside in a cupboard,” Henrietta muttered, but her parents ignored her. She was looking forward to minimally being apart from her father, even if Nightingale was but an hour away by carriage. Despite her mother’s boasts on the matter, was it possible her fate wouldn’t be as terrible as she had originally expected?

“May I be excused?” Suddenly, she was fatigued.

“Are you well?” Tabitha studied her daughter’s face. “You are quite waxen, Henny.”

Aaron’s eyes darted toward his daughter’s face and he, too, frowned.

“I am merely tired”

“From doing what precisely— reading all the day?”

Henrietta’s jaw tightened.

“Please? May I be excused?”

“Let her go, Aaron. She does seem pale. It will benefit no one if she falls ill before the wedding.”

“You may go,” Aaron grunted. “Ensure you rest. I will not have you remaining up until all hours of the night with your nose in a book. It is a small wonder you are tired.”

“Thank you, Father.”

She rose, running her hands along the folds of her dress before moving toward the hallway.

“Molly, attend to her,” Aaron called as he always did, but he did not need to waste his breath. The abigail was at her side already. As they walked in silence toward her chambers, Henrietta’s knees slightly buckled and reaching for the wall, she gasped.

“Miss Oliver!” Molly cried. “Are you all right?”

“I…I am fine,” Henrietta replied, straightening her body and shaking her head. She was overcome with dizziness, but it was subsiding.

“I will run for your mother…” Molly trailed off and peered at her skeptically.