“But it was to a walk that you invited me,” she said as the butler opened the front door and she reached for her veil.
“Will you leave it raised?” he asked her. “We are not likely to encounter many people face-to-face, and the veil is really quite unnecessary anyway.”
Her hands remained in the air for a moment before she sighed and lowered them. “Very well,” she said, and they stepped out onto the street. She took his arm, and he was reminded as they set out along the street of how very comfortable it felt to walk with a woman so close to him in height and with a stride to match his own. “I am sorry to have kept you from a garden party on such a beautiful day.”
“I was not planning to attend,” he told her. “I would prefer the alternative anyway.”
“You are gallant,” she said, and frowned as a gentleman hurried past them with a nod for Alexander and the touch of a hand to his hat brim for Miss Heyden.
“Lizzie told me you found some of your glassware on display,” he said.
“Yes, indeed.” Her voice warmed noticeably. “In two shops, on Bond Street and Oxford Street. I found it really quite exciting. I am familiar with the designs, of course, and see the finished products all the time in the workshops and the visitor shop attached to them. But they looked somehow different and more impressive displayed here among other, competing wares. They were not by any means overshadowed. I even had the pleasure of witnessing a gentleman purchase one of our vases for his wife.”
“I hope you made yourself known to him,” he said.
“I did not.” She winced slightly. “But Lady Jessica did. It was terribly embarrassing.” But she laughed suddenly. “And really rather gratifying too, I must admit. He shook hands with me, as did the shopkeeper, who assured me that our glassware items never remain long on his shelves.”
“You were not annoyed with Jessica, then?” he asked as they crossed the road to make their way into the park.
“Oh, not at all,” she said, “despite my embarrassment. She was so very happy to make the announcement, as though I somehow belonged to her and she could bask in my reflected glory.”
He had been surprised yesterday at the way Jessica had taken to her and by the way she had responded in kind. It seemed nothing short of tragic that she had been so alone through much of her life, and he wondered if her aunt and uncle had been partly to blame, if perhaps they had coddled her rather too much when they might have nudged her out of the nest when she grew up. But he must not judge. He knew so few facts. He had heard Jessica say—with great delight—that Miss Heyden must be looked upon as a mystery woman when she appeared in public, her face shrouded by a veil. But she was a mystery woman even without it, for she wore layer upon layer of inner veils. He had had only brief, rare glimpses within, and this was one of them. Her eyes were bright and her right cheek was flushed, and she looked eager and youthful and approachable.
It did not last, of course. They passed a few people inside the park gates, and each time she raised her left hand to her bonnet brim, as though a brisk wind were attempting to blow it off. She did not draw down the veil, however, and she removed her hand whenever there was no one close by. He turned them onto a wide expanse of grass and led the way toward the line of trees beyond it. A path meandered through the trees close to the border of the park and was a lovely shaded place to stroll. It was not usually much frequented, most people preferring the more open areas of the park, where they might meet friends and acquaintances and have plenty of human activity to observe.
They talked about her long journey from Staffordshire, about the Serpentine and St. Paul’s Cathedral and Bond Street, about Hookham’s Library, which she had also visited this morning in order to borrow a few books on Elizabeth’s subscription. They talked about the House of Lords and some of the issues currently being debated there, about the wars and the weather. They passed only one other couple, and they were so intent upon what might have been a quarrel that they kept their heads down and their eyes lowered as they hurried past in a tense silence before resuming the argument just before they moved out of earshot.
“Why did you come?” Alexander asked at last. It was perhaps not a fair question, but it had been spoken aloud now.
There was a fairly lengthy silence, during which he became aware of the distant shrieking of children at play and birds trilling and chattering in the trees.
“When you and then Lady Overfield—Lizzie—asked me to come,” she said, “I saw it purely as an invitation I would not accept. But after I had gone to Staffordshire, I remembered it more as a challenge I had missed. And I asked myself if it really was a matter of courage. I have always wanted to come to London to see the famous sites. I like to think of myself as a strong, independent woman, and in many ways I am. I am proud of that. But sometimes I am aware of the coward lurking within. My veil is one aspect of it, I freely admit. My tendency to live the life of a hermit is another, though I genuinely like being alone and could never ever become truly gregarious. I came to prove that I could, Lord Riverdale. I did not come in answer to either your invitation or your sister’s. That would have been unfair, for I had refused both. However, I did intend calling at South Audley Street to pay my respects—oh, and to prove I was not too cowardly to do so.”
“It takes courage to call upon friends?” he asked her.
“I do not know,” she said. “Does it? I have never had friends. And are you a friend, Lord Riverdale? To me you were and are the gentleman to whom I once offered my fortune in exchange for marriage. I withdrew that offer when I understood that such a plan would not work for either of us. We could hardly be called friends, then, though I hope we are not enemies. We are something between the two, friendly acquaintances, perhaps. Your sister has been kind enough to call herself my friend since that day she visited me, but it was a friendship to be conducted largely at long distance by letter. Yes, it would have taken courage to call at Westcott House. And it seemed to me it might not be the right thing to do anyway. You came here to find a bride. I had no business interfering with that and still do not. But I met you here—quite by accident, I assure you—and then felt obliged to keep my promise to call upon Mrs. Westcott. Then, of course, I found myself being persuaded to stay there. I hope you do not believe I maneuvered such an outcome.”
“I know you did not,” he said. “I suggested it to my mother, and I am well acquainted with her powers of persuasion.”
“I hope I did not cause any awkwardness with the young lady you were escorting by the Serpentine,” she said. “She is very pretty. Though I am sure I could not have been mistaken for competition.”
“That pretty young lady’s mother has serious designs upon me,” he said, “as does her father. They will turn their matchmaking efforts upon someone else, however, as soon as they understand that I am not in the market for their daughter’s hand.”
“Ah,” she said, stopping and sliding her arm from his before moving off the path to look out through a gap in the trees to the sloping lawn beyond and the carriage drive below. “You have someone else in mind, then.”
“Yes,” he said.
She gazed into the distance, tall, elegant, self-contained, unapproachable again. “I hope for your mother’s sake,” she said, “oh, and for yours too, that she is someone who can do more than just repair your fortunes, Lord Riverdale. I hope you feel something for her and she for you.”