The Seventh Miss Hatfield (7 page)

The fabric had a faint sheen to it, like satin, and was a dark green, a shade of emerald. It was gorgeous, actually, and reminded me of the dress Miss Hatfield had lent me. It had the same texture, but instead of dark red, it was a deep, vivid green.

‘I think it’ll look stunning with your eyes,’ Henley said.

My eyes trained themselves downwards and it was my turn to feel a warmness spreading through my cheeks.

‘Not to mention with that blush of yours.’ He laughed and Mrs Wetherby joined in.

‘I’ll make an evening dress out of this.’ She looked to me as I nodded, a little too eagerly, perhaps. I felt myself getting swept up in all this, but couldn’t stop myself. ‘Will four nightgowns do?’ This time she looked to Henley instead of me.

‘Yes, that’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘Will that be all, do you think?’

‘It most certainly is. Kitty and I will begin work on your order at once, and will send the first part of it directly to your house by sunrise tomorrow. The rest we’ll send to your country residence just as soon as they’re completed.’

‘Very good. Thank you.’ Henley nodded as we walked out.

‘Do come again!’ Mrs Wetherby called through the store’s open door. ‘And Miss Margaret, it was a pleasure to make your acquaintance!’ Her voice was so loud that heads on the street turned our way to see who exactly this Miss Margaret was. Apparently finding me peculiar, they stared until we got back into the carriage.

Once seated with a barrier between me and the crowd, I let out a sigh. Henley chuckled as I shot him a look. ‘What?’ I asked him.

‘You think it’s all over.’

‘Well, isn’t it?’ I was confused. ‘Aren’t we going back?’

‘Not yet. At least, not for a little while.’

I groaned inwardly as he continued to laugh louder.

‘No need to make that face. All you have to do is say yes to everything they show you. That’s the simplest way out of it.’

‘But it’s too much. I don’t want you to buy all these things for me.’

‘Remember, everything’s a gift.’

‘That’s too large a gift for me to accept,’ I insisted as Henley shook his head at me.

‘I’ve never met a woman who dislikes shopping as much as you do. Other women your age would be overjoyed to receive all the new dresses they could wish for. But you … I can’t understand you,’ he said slowly. ‘You look like most women most of the time, but occasionally it’s as if you came from another world entirely.’

It scared me how close to the truth he was coming. ‘Maybe I’ll learn to enjoy shopping sometime, but for now, I’d rather do as little as possible of it.’ I tried to smile, to shake off the uneasiness his words had stirred within me. ‘Why are you helping me?’

Henley stared out through the carriage window, so I couldn’t read his face. I’d resigned myself to not getting an answer when he turned back to me.

‘I used to love stories of adventure and books about regular people like me waking up one day and deciding to seek treasure, find their fortune.’ Henley’s eyes crinkled in a smile. ‘I suppose I was like every boy in that way. I wanted adventure.’

‘What happened?’ I asked.

Henley looked confused.

‘You said you used to love stories of adventure. What happened?’

‘I grew up.’ Henley’s words were hard, but he still had a smile on his face. ‘I put away the copy of Treasure Island I’d kept on my dresser for years. I knew I had to put my childhood away and become an adult.’

I felt my brows furrow and Henley laughed at my confusion.

‘When you turned up, I guess I took advantage of the situation. There you were, a mysterious stranger impersonating my cousin, with some secret reason to visit our house … How much more adventurous could you get?’

I liked the way Henley laughed. It was carefree and bubbled up from within him like a child’s. I shook my head, shaking off any hint of heaviness with it.

‘So, where are we off to next, then?’

‘The hat store,’ he said.

I couldn’t help but frown. ‘I think I can do without one.’

‘Nonsense. It’s the fashion for women right now. We’ll buy you a few, at least.’

‘A few? How about just one?’

‘And make my father look bad by not treating our guest like gold? Especially when it’s his niece.’

‘Fine, but I’m not happy about it,’ I said, which only made him laugh more. I sat mutely for the rest of the short carriage ride.

‘We’re here,’ Henley announced when the carriage stopped again.

‘I know, but I’m not getting out,’ I decided.

‘You’re not getting out?’

‘Yes, that’s right – I’m not. You can’t make me take your gifts.’

Henley tried to reason with me. I knew I was acting childishly, but I was stubborn. My pride couldn’t let me back down.

‘Fine,’ he said suddenly, surprising me. He got out of the carriage by himself and walked into the hat store. From outside, I saw him briefly talk to the store clerk before coming straight back to the carriage.

‘What was all that about?’ I asked him.

‘It’s what happens when you’re stubborn and won’t accept gifts gracefully.’ I was puzzled, unsure exactly what he meant by that. ‘I bought out the entire store.’

‘You what?’

‘Now, that’s no way for a young lady of your breeding to speak,’ he teased. ‘I simply bought out the store.’

‘You mean you bought every single hat in that shop?’ I tried to wrap my mind around the idea that I was in the presence of a young man, roughly my age, who could afford to do that.

‘And a few pairs of gloves,’ he said. ‘You know, it would have been much easier if you’d come in with me and picked out the ones you actually liked.’

I closed my eyes, trying to dissolve the annoying fellow in front of me, but when I opened my eyes again he was still sitting there with an infuriating smirk on his face.

‘Please say we’re done with shopping now.’

‘If you say so.’ His smile dripped into his voice. It was so contagious, I couldn’t help but feel an identical one spreading across my own face. ‘But we’re not done with our outing just yet.’

‘Oh! What more is there to do?’ By this point I was practically begging him to take us back home. To
his
home, in
his
time, my thoughts silently reminded me. I was still on a mission, but it was so easy to get sidetracked, especially with this fascinating young man doing his best to impress me. Or embarrass me. I wasn’t sure which.

‘We’re two young people in a great city – there’s always more to do. I gave the coachman instructions to drive to my favourite place in all of New York. I think you might like it.’

The smile on my face only grew bigger. It was as if I’d known Henley for ages. I didn’t know anything about his childhood or his favourite things, but those were trifles when I felt I understood who he really was at the core of his being. It was clear to me that he was actually quite uncomplicated, and voiced his opinion plainly. Henley was a man of this time, but his voice and personality would have fitted in anywhere, and probably at any time.

‘Here we are,’ Henley said. ‘That wasn’t so bad a ride now, was it?’

The coachman helped Henley step down from the coach, and then Henley ran around to the other side to help me down. ‘Thank you,’ I murmured, recovering my hand from his.

‘Anything for my dear cousin.’ He winked and I hoped the coachman didn’t catch it.

‘So where are we going?’ I asked as I looked around. There were yet more shops dotting the street, but Henley had promised I was going to be spared from more shopping for now. There was a fountain at the other end of the street, but it didn’t make sense that he’d ask the coachman to stop here if that was our destination.

‘You haven’t figured it out yet?’ He grinned. ‘It’s right in front of you.’

I looked up to see the sign for Hallman’s Ice Cream and Confectionary and gave him a questioning glance. ‘This is your favourite place in the entire city?’

‘It would be yours, too, if you’d grown up eating their strawberry ice cream.’

I smiled, imagining Henley as a little boy eating ice cream. He did strike me as a strawberry kind of boy. He wouldn’t want something as decadent and rich as chocolate, but neither would he settle for something simple like vanilla.

‘Come on inside – that’s where the magic really is.’ He held the door open for me and I stepped into his childhood. We took seats at a table near the back of the room. I saw at least three little boys, any of whom could have been Henley when he was younger. I sat on a chair with legs and back made of wrought-iron struts that wove around each other in a dizzying dance. The table was of the same design, and Henley placed his hat on it.

‘So I suppose you want me to order the strawberry?’ I asked him.

‘Whatever you’d like,’ he replied, sounding most like a gentleman’s son. ‘But if you’d share one with me, dear cousin, I would be most grateful.’ He snickered at his false formality.

‘You may have some if you wish,’ I teased back. ‘But if I like it, I’m expecting you to act like a gentleman and let me finish it.’

‘You have only to ask.’

When Henley left to place our order, I finally had a chance to survey the room more closely. There was a counter at one end, where Henley was currently waiting to be noticed. The man behind the counter was wearing a tie with a white and red striped shirt rolled up to his elbows, a long apron tied around his waist. Behind him were candies and sweets – every child’s fantasy – in pot-bellied bowls filled to the brim. Cakes were displayed underneath the counter, shielded from greedy fingers behind thin glass. The sweet scent of sugar and molten chocolate transcended any point in time, and it drew me back to my mother’s baking. I could almost hear the sound of sugar sifting.

A cold hand pulled me out of my reverie. My mind sprang back to my body as my head jerked up in response to the foreign touch.

‘What are you doing here?’

I looked up past the veneer of a woman’s hat veil into the cool eyes of Miss Hatfield. ‘I–I’m with a friend,’ I said. I didn’t know how to explain myself and I was so acutely conscious of all the bodies in the room around me, I could almost feel their movements as my own. I thought I sensed the tug of a man crossing his leg on the other side of the room and the shifting of a woman’s hand to her glass. I knew we had to be careful what we said, so no one would hear the real meaning behind our words.

Miss Hatfield’s eyes followed mine as they darted to Henley’s back at the counter.

‘So I see.’ There was a slight pause before she continued. ‘Come to me as soon as you can get away. We have much to discuss.’

With those quick words, Miss Hatfield turned and left me nodding to her back.

‘Here it is.’ The glass of ice cream clinked against wrought iron as Henley placed it on the table. My head turned from Miss Hatfield’s receding back to Henley’s face.

‘No wonder you asked me to share with you,’ I said, taking care to smile and not betray my surprise at what had just happened. The glass cup had at least four scoops of ice cream in it.

‘You thought I was fooling you!’ He put on an offended expression, which made me laugh. I reached for a spoon, but he snatched it away from my grasp. ‘And now you think you can fool me. I saw you talking to that woman.’

I felt the colour draining from my face as my mouth slowly opened, my mind racing frantically as I tried to come up with something to say.

‘Relax,’ he said. ‘I know who she is.’

I felt my hands tremble and instinctively grasp each other for support. How did he know her? And what did he know about her?

‘She’s an old friend you don’t really want to see any more, right? We all have some of those,’ Henley said, and a sigh of relief escaped my lips. ‘Is she from the same place as you?’

‘Sort of, but not really.’ I tried to dodge around the truth.

‘A mystery, indeed.’ Henley wiggled his eyebrows. I wanted to laugh, but felt exhausted after my moment of panic. I reached for the spoon again. This time Henley passed it to me and I started eating the ice cream while I tried to piece together who he really was.

All along he’d been trying to figure me out, but I suddenly realized I didn’t know him, either. When I first met him, he was just a wealthy man’s son who had everything he could possibly want, and therefore was nothing like me. Now I saw that Henley was also a little boy, somewhat stuck in the past, always ordering strawberry ice cream as he’d done when he was younger. I felt confused. Who was the real Henley Beauford? Was he the little boy I was seeing today, or the gentleman’s son I’d met yesterday? What if he was neither, but something else entirely? I didn’t even know why I cared. I wouldn’t be here long – I couldn’t be. I had to get the painting and leave before anyone else figured out I didn’t belong here. But still, I couldn’t resist the temptation to learn more about this man. Perhaps I needed someone to ground me in this strange world I’d found myself in.

‘Is it my turn to ask you questions now?’ I asked him.

‘I’m not sure you’ve answered mine at all.’

‘I’ve answered them to the best of my ability, kind sir.’ The corners of my mouth twitched, as I fought to hide a smile.

‘You haven’t even told me your name.’

‘Of course you know my name – I’m your dear cousin Margaret,’ I said. I saw him roll his eyes at me as I continued, ‘You know me perfectly well.’ Henley opened his mouth to speak, but I interrupted him. ‘And as your cousin, it feels odd that I know nothing about you.’

‘So what do you want to know?’

‘Something about your childhood.’ I knew I was asking about his childhood to better play the role of his cousin, but I found myself actually caring. I didn’t know why, but at that moment in the ice cream parlour, it felt important to me.

‘Well, I was raised by my father, mostly, and whatever governess he’d employed at the time. They never lasted long, and as soon as I reached an acceptable age I was sent to boarding school.’

‘So you grew up being passed from hand to hand?’ I tried to imagine what that would have been like, but found I couldn’t. I’d grown up with a mother and father always there for me. My world was miles apart from the one Henley had grown up in.

‘It wasn’t that bad,’ he said. ‘It’s expected, being the oldest – well, only son. I had a lot to learn before I could take over my father’s affairs. Still do.’

‘But what about your mother?’ I asked him. ‘Didn’t you say that she loves Mrs Wetherby’s dresses?’

‘Used to,’ he was quick to say. I knew he saw my brow furrow when he started explaining. ‘My mother … my mother passed away.’

I was mortified. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I never should have brought her up … I should have realized when you didn’t mention her—’

‘It’s fine,’ Henley said. ‘She passed away when I was still a baby. I don’t even remember her. All I know of her, my father told me.’

‘It must have been difficult growing up without a mother.’

‘In some sense it was, but I never knew what I was missing.’ He tried to gloss over it lightly, but his voice was strained. ‘When I was younger, still a little boy, I rarely saw other boys’ mothers – their governesses usually accompanied them. But when I did see their mothers, all they ever did was pat their boys’ heads and tell them to be good. I never thought I was missing out on much as my father did the same thing to me. I never knew how it felt to have a mother.’

I nodded. ‘What was your father like?’

‘The same as he is now,’ said Henley with a laugh. ‘My father was older than my friends’ fathers, so we never did anything the other boys did with theirs. Not once would he play ball with me; he just told me to go and work on my Latin exercises with my tutor, and that’s precisely what I did.’

‘So you were never close to your father?’

‘Not in the sense you mean, no. We never did anything together. I learned to prefer solitude.’

A chuckle escaped my lips and he raised his brows at me. ‘You prefer to keep to yourself, yet here you are helping a stranger,’ I explained, not wanting him to think I was laughing at his childhood.

‘You’re not a stranger,’ he said, and it was my turn to raise my brows at him. ‘Of course not – you’re my cousin.’ He smiled his devilish grin and I had to laugh along with him again. But then his face turned serious. ‘I–I have a question I must ask you.’

‘What is it?’ I feared the worst.

‘Are you going to eat that?’ He pointed to the remaining ice cream which was slowly melting, as was his serious demeanour. I pushed the bowl towards him as his counten- ance cracked and a smile escaped again. The smile made its way to his eyes, and it was contagious. A smile spread across my face, too. I couldn’t help it.