Page 80 of The Viscount Who Vexed Me

Hattie shrugged. “I don’t know how he is to poor, simple Englishmen.” She was not going to share Teo with her family. She was not going to give them the satisfaction of finding reasons to belittle him to her. She had one blessed thing that they hadn’t yet destroyed, and that was her days with him.

She could not wait to leave this house for good, one way or another.

“It’s absurd, these invitations you’re getting,” her mother complained. “Why are they sending them? Just what are you promising for them?”

“I beg your pardon?” Hattie exclaimed, greatly affronted. “Nothing!”

“Leave her be, woman,” her father said to her mother. “This might all lead to something.”

Thatstruck fear in Hattie, and she slowly turned her gaze to her father. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, keep your ears and eyes open for opportunity, Harriet.” He pointed at his own ear.

“You’ve got nothing to wear to a posh ball,” her mother said.

“Yes. Papa... May I buy a ball gown? I need one.”

“You don’t need one,” he said dismissively. “An expensive frock to wear a single night? No.” He returned his attention to the post.

Hattie rubbed her temples. She was giving him fifteen percent of her wages. He couldn’t allow one gown?

“I might have one or two,” her mother said with a sniff. “I was quite remarked for my clothes when I was young.”

A ball gown from twenty years ago, Hattie thought gloomily. She’d be the one everyone talked about. And not in a complimentary way.

THATAFTERNOON,Hattie accompanied Flora and Queenie to a fitting of their many ball gowns. How ironic that today, of all days, she would be forced to look at all the beautiful clothes the two of them had purchased.

When Flora stepped behind a screen to don the first gown, Queenie sat beside Hattie on the small settee and smiled in a manner that made Hattie immediately suspicious.

“Tell me, Hattie,” Queenie said, her voice low. “Flora believes she has all but secured the viscount’s proposal. Is thattrue?”

“Queenie, I never said that,” Flora protested from behind the privacy screen.

“Perhaps not, darling, but you’re thinking it,” Queenie said back.

Flora stepped out from behind the screen and presented her back to the attendant to fasten the hooks. “What do you think, Hattie, really?” she asked.

“It’s beautiful,” Hattie said, admiring the yellow-and-white silk gown.

“Not the clothes, goose.Him.I truly don’t know what he thinks of me. And I feel as if I talked and talked to the point of being overbearing and insufferable.”

“Men don’t like women who talk too much,” Queenie said.

Hattie shot Queenie a look. “You did wonderfully, Flora.”

“Did I, really?”

“You were the picture of elegance and confidence.”

Flora beamed. Queenie rolled her eyes.

“But...has he said anything about me?” Flora asked.

Hattie’s heart pinched. She swallowed. “Not to me,” she lied.

Queenie smiled as if that answer pleased her. “Has he said anything about anyone?”

“No.”