First Season Read online

  Once the decision had been made for Hetty to return home, her aunt had lost no time in arranging it. Hetty had helped Daisy pack the trunks, taking all her new clothes, both the ones her aunt had selected and the ones she had ordered herself. The former she planned to give to Daisy; the neutral colors would look attractive on the maid with her bright red hair.

  Hetty’s departure from London had been arranged so swiftly that she had had time to pay only a short call on the dowager marchioness and Lady Emily to bid them good-bye and thank them for their kindness. Hetty had hesitated to make the call, since she had not heard from Lady Emily after the duel, but her friend had seemed genuinely happy to see her and sorry to hear she was leaving. It was the only moment when Hetty herself felt a pang at leaving London.

  “Please come and visit me in Derbyshire, Lady Emily,” she had begged, and had given her direction so they could correspond.

  “I shall try. And I promise to write often,” Lady Emily had said, embracing her friend. Lord Wakeford had not been at home, and Hetty had asked his sister to make her farewells for her.

  Her parting from her aunt and cousin had been far less affecting. Sophie had not even bothered to get up early enough to bid her good-bye, and her aunt’s farewell had been markedly cool. Hetty forced herself to thank her aunt for the Season and had gotten into the carriage feeling nothing but relief at the thought of never again entering the town house on Adam Street.

  A familiar turning of the road brought Hetty’s thoughts back to the present, and she watched eagerly, waiting for the first sight of her Derbyshire home. When the low-pitched roof of gray slate came into view, her heart began to beat fast with anticipation and she felt tears of happiness fill her eyes.

  “We are almost home, Daisy,” she told her maid excitedly.

  Daisy’s eyes, which had been closing with sleep, opened wide, and she joined Hetty in looking out the window. “I’m that glad to be back, miss,” she confided to her mistress.

  “I am, too,” Hetty agreed. When the carriage halted before the house, Hetty did not even wait for the carriage door to be opened, but pulled it open herself, jumped down to the ground, and ran eagerly to the front door and into the stone-paved entrance hall. At the sound of the door her parents came into the hall and Hetty threw herself into her father’s arms, where she unaccountably burst into tears.

  Squire Biddle patted his daughter’s glossy curls awkwardly, saying, “There, there, it’s all right, puss, you are safe at home now.” He met his wife’s eyes above Hetty’s head, and Mrs. Biddle shook her head slightly, indicating that now was not the time.

  The squire and his wife had been awaiting their daughter’s arrival with trepidation. The news in the letters from Lady Hardwick had caused them great uneasiness, and their daughter’s letters had not relieved it. Hetty’s correspondence had seemed restrained and very unlike her since she had been in London. The last letter from Lady Hardwick, informing them of the duel and Hetty’s impending return home, had greatly distressed them both.

  Hetty went from her father’s arms to her mother’s. After she embraced her daughter warmly, Mrs. Biddle led her upstairs to her bedchamber above the hall and urged her to rest from her journey. She and the squire would have a serious talk with Hetty, but it could wait until later.

  The next morning Hetty awoke to the sun pouring unfettered through the bedchamber windows, and a warm sense of peace filled her breast. She rang for Daisy, who came in carrying a tray with a thick dark wheaten loaf and a mug of fresh milk.

  “Mrs. Biddle bade me bring your breakfast to you, and I thought you would like this,” she said shyly.

  Hetty bit into the coarse bread with relish. “It’s delicious, Daisy. It will be good to eat Mrs. Perry’s cooking again.”

  “That it will,” Daisy agreed wholeheartedly.

  When Hetty finished her breakfast, Daisy helped her dress in one of her new gowns from London, and Hetty gave her young maid the ones Lady Hardwick had chosen for her. As Daisy exclaimed over her mistress’s generous gift, Hetty decided she might as well go down and face her parents. They would be waiting for explanations, she felt certain.

  Hetty found her mother and father together in the same parlor where she had pleaded so ardently for a London Season four months earlier.

  “That is a becoming gown,” her mother said after they bade each other good morning. “I shall be interested to see your other gowns and hear of the latest London fashions.”

  “I have much to tell you,” Hetty replied as she sat on one of the armless farthingale chairs by the fireplace and quietly awaited the questions she knew would be forthcoming. Her father leaned forward in his chair, and, after clearing his throat, began to speak.

  “Hetty, we have been distressed and concerned by the letters we have received from Lady Hardwick these past two months. Also the ones we received from you, for we felt you were not being entirely candid. This last letter we received from your aunt particularly concerned us,” he said, holding up several closely written sheets. “If Lady Hardwick had not said you were coming back, I should have gone to London to get to the bottom of the affair. We have heard what your aunt had to say, now we should like to hear your accounting. Tell us, please, what led to a duel being fought over you.”

  Hetty clasped her hands in her lap and quietly and factually told the story of her attachment to Lord Courtney, her aunt’s refusal to allow her to see him, and her pressure on Hetty to accept the suit of Lord Satre, culminating in her decision to elope with Lord Courtney and her rescue by Lord Wakeford when she had changed her mind at the last moment.

  At the end of her recital silence reigned in the parlor as the squire thought over what she had told them. Hetty heard the ticking of the long-case clock in the corner and imagined that the beating of her heart was beginning to reverberate as loudly as the clock as she waited for a pronouncement from her father. At last he spoke.

  “Although your aunt and cousin were not without blame in this affair, I am afraid that your behavior was not at all what it should have been, Henrietta. Your aunt was quite right to forbid you to see Lord Courtney, as subsequent events have borne out, and you should have obeyed her. We told you before you left that your aunt would stand in our place and that you owed her the obedience you would give us while you were a guest in her house. You do see that?”

  “Yes,” said Hetty, looking abashed. “But Lord Courtney was the only person who was kind to me, or at least the only gentleman,” she amended, thinking of Lady Emily. She went on to tell her parents of her social errors and the nickname she had been given, facts she had left out of her letters home for fear of distressing her parents. “Then Aunt Ernestine pressed me so to accept Lord Satre’s suit, and I could not like him. He made me feel uncomfortable, and he was quite as old as you, or even older, Papa.”

  Squire Biddle smiled slightly before replying. “Your aunt did not do well to press you to accept Lord Satre’s suit against your will. However, you must realize she was concerned about your preference for Lord Courtney, and probably felt she was acting for the best. She wrote that Lord Satre is very wealthy, and that she could be certain his interest in you was not motivated by your fortune. You should have realized that no betrothal could be officially entered into without my approval, and that I would never force you to marry a person you could not care for.”

  “I know that now, Papa,” Hetty said. “But when I was in London, you seemed so far away.” Her voice broke, remembering. Now that she was home, the fears she had had in London seemed foolish, but when she was in town, her home and family and its influence had seemed so very distant.

  “I am sorry if I have failed to behave in a proper manner,” she said contritely. “Please forgive me.”

  “Of course we forgive you, and you did not fail us. But I think you should write to Lady Hardwick and apologize for not obeying her as you should have and as she had the right to expect that you would. That, at least, you could do with honesty?”

  “Y
es, Papa,” Hetty agreed, if halfheartedly. It was true she had owed obedience to her aunt, but she did not think that all of Lady Hardwick’s behavior to her had been motivated by concern for her welfare.

  Noting her hesitation, her mother entered the conversation. “You must remember that you went to London at your own request, Hetty. We do not say that Ernestine was blameless in the affair. She was not. But perhaps there would have been less friction between you if you had been more obedient.”

  “Yes, Mama, I see that,” Hetty agreed.

  The dressing-down at an end, the conversation turned to tales of Hetty’s happier experiences in London, and they talked together animatedly until it was time for dinner.

  Hetty found herself looking at the country with new eyes after her return to Derbyshire. The days no longer seemed dull, the entertainments no longer flat. She was even happy to see Thomas Goodman and his sisters again. The farmer’s frank admiration was balm to her spirits, and she recognized the good qualities in him that she had failed to appreciate before her Season in London.

  Hetty soon realized she did not miss London at all, excepting her friendship with Lady Emily, and she kept up a regular correspondence with her friend, which helped mitigate that loss. Lady Emily’s letters were unsatisfying in one aspect, however, for she mentioned little about her brother. Hetty wondered how Lord Wakeford was and what he was doing. Had he perchance found another girl to tease and occupy his mind now that his amusing “Half-baked Hetty” was no longer in town?

  Sophie, naturally, did not correspond with Hetty, but Hetty heard about her cousin through her letters from Lady Emily. Hetty smiled as she fingered the letter she had received that very July afternoon, a letter in which Lady Emily described her first meeting with the new Lady Lockwood.

  “Your cousin wore an elaborate robe of multicolored vertically striped satin worn over a full decorative petticoat of horizontally striped silk, topped with a triple-caped collar of figured silk. She was dripping with jewels, and no less than four ostrich plumes were displayed in her hair. And yet the whole did not become her nearly so well as the gowns she used to wear. She was mightily pleased with the appearance she made, however, and unbent so far as to speak with me. It was most condescending of her, since as a married woman she must take precedence over the unmarried daughter of a marquess. Indeed, she generously offered to assist me to make a match before I was quite at my last prayers. I thanked her and said that at the advanced age of two and twenty I had already reached them, but that she might use her offices to help Miss Alcock.

  “The latest on-dit is that the new Lady Lockwood now considers her own mother to be beneath her consequence, and is rarely seen in her company.”

  Hetty finished the letter and refolded the sheets, placing them in her escritoire. So, Sophie had achieved her goal of becoming a titled lady. Despite Sophie’s deceit and unkind treatment of her, Hetty wished her cousin happiness. She could not deny, however, that she felt Lady Hardwick’s failure to enter the higher realms of Society through her daughter was no less than she deserved.

  The letter had made Hetty feel rather lonely, and she decided to go for a ride and clear her megrims. One of the best things about being back in Derbyshire was being able to ride her gentle mare, Acorn, again. She dressed in one of her new riding habits, her favorite one of red-trimmed fawn, and started down the road to the village. To her surprise, for he was usually busy working in the fields all day in the summer, she encountered Thomas Goodman walking up the road.

  “Good morning, Mr. Goodman,” she called cheerfully.

  “Good morning, Miss Biddle,” he replied, stopping as she came abreast of him. “Is the squire at home?”

  “No, he went to Lord Woodburn’s this morning. He should be back this afternoon. Is it anything urgent?”

  “No, I just wanted to ask his advice on a hunter Sir Archer has offered to sell my father. I can ask him another time.”

  “Help me down and I shall walk with you,” Hetty offered. Tom held her mount and gave her a hand as she slipped down from the sidesaddle. They walked slowly down the road together, Tom leading Acorn.

  “I was glad to find you unchanged when you returned,” Tom confided, his brown eyes observing her frankly. “I was afraid that after a Season in London you might return to Derbyshire a fine lady. Not that you aren’t, I mean …” he added, floundering as he searched for the right words.

  “I know what you thought, Mr. Goodman,” Hetty said, laughing at his confusion. “At first there was a danger of that, but I found London was not at all as I expected it would be.”

  Tom looked at her questioningly, and Hetty soon found herself confiding to Tom all that had happened to her in London. By mutual consent they turned off the main road and walked into the woods, where they sat together beneath an oak while Hetty continued her story. She told him things she had told no one else but her parents, although she left out the duel and Lord Wakeford.

  “And so it turned out they all despised the squire’s daughter, although they respected her money, even if it was tainted by trade,” Hetty finished, a bitter note in her voice.

  Hearing it, Tom reached for her hand and took it in his. “Those fine town gentlemen don’t know real quality when they see it,” he said indignantly. “You were wise to come home, where people accept you and value you for what you are. I liked you before you had any fortune, as did everyone in the district.”

  Hetty gazed into Tom’s honest face, now sober with concern, and smiled warmly. “Yes, you did,” she said, overcome with a rush of affection and gratitude.

  Her smile moved Tom to boldness. “Miss Biddle,” he said suddenly and unexpectedly, “would you consent to become my wife? I have always admired you and wished to marry you, since we were children.”

  Hetty, surprised by the unexpected declaration, said nothing for a moment, but continued to gaze into his eyes. As she looked into Tom’s honest face, bronzed from the sun with all his days working in the fields, she felt a flood of warmth, love, and appreciation for his genuine goodness. She remembered her conversation with Lady Emily and how her friend had told her she would rather remain on the shelf than marry a gentleman with lesser character than that of the love she had lost. The fine character of Thomas Goodman was evident in every plane and shade of his face, and Hetty now recognized that.

  “I have taken you unawares,” Tom said. “You will need time to consider.”

  A picture of a man with paler skin, chestnut hair, and amused green eyes flickered through Hetty’s mind, but she banished it ruthlessly. She had had no word from Lord Wakeford; he had not even asked to be remembered to her in the letters she had received from his sister. No doubt he had completely forgotten the girl he had labeled “Half-baked Hetty” and from whom he had derived so much amusement. The duel had been a matter of honor only; it had not indicated that Lord Wakeford had had affection for her.

  “No, I do not need time to consider,” she answered. “I should be honored to be your wife, Mr. Goodman.”

  “You have made me very happy, Miss Biddle,” Tom said simply, his face lighting with joy. He looked at Hetty as though he could not believe his good fortune, and then drew her into his strong arms. “I shall speak to your father in the morning,” he said, and, turning her face to his, softly kissed her lips.

  Hetty felt very secure and safe in Tom’s arms. His kiss was very unlike Lord Satre’s disgusting assault on her lips, and it did not cause the tingling down her spine that the one she had received from Lord Courtney had, but it was warm and comforting, and that was what Hetty wanted. She needed reassurance and protection. She had learned her lessons in London well, and would not pine again for finely dressed gentlemen and life among the haut ton. Life as a farmer’s wife would be much more appropriate for “Half-baked Hetty,” the green girl from Derbyshire.

  That same late July morning in London Lady Emily Wakeford was endeavoring to make out invitations to a musicale her mother planned for the next week, but was finding it di
fficult to concentrate on her task because of a rhythmic tapping noise coming from the other side of the room.

  “Jules, do leave off playing with your whip and come sit down if you do not intend to ride.”

  “I beg your pardon Emily, I have been feeling restless this morning,” Lord Wakeford apologized, turning from the window where he had been standing and tapping his boots with his whip.

  “You have been restless all summer,” Lady Emily declared, dipping her pen into the inkwell and turning to face her brother.

  “Yes, I suppose I have. It is quite dull in town with the Beau, Palmer, Prinny, and all the rest off in Brighton.”

  “Why do you not join them?”

  “It does not appeal to me somehow,” Jules confessed. “I must be getting on in years.”

  “Fustian. You are no older than Palmer, or the Beau, for that matter.”

  Lady Emily looked at her brother curiously. It seemed to her that her brother’s ennui dated from before the end of the Season and the departure of his friends for Brighton. To when Miss Biddle had left town, to be precise. She wondered if the two cared for each other more than they had realized. She remembered Miss Biddle’s concern for Jules the night of the duel. Miss Biddle never asked about Jules in her letters, but that could as easily denote interest as a lack of it.

  “Miss Biddle has been most pressing in her invitation to me to stay with her family in Derbyshire,” Emily said aloud. “If Mama agrees, I think I shall go in September. Aunt Maud is planning to come to stay here with Mama and remain until Christmas, so I would not be missed. Do you not have a friend in Derbyshire who has asked you to partake of the hunting there? Perhaps you could escort me,” she suggested, closely watching her brother’s reaction to her words.

  He appeared to be taken by the idea, for he left his position by the window and his face brightened.