Page 33 of The Virtues of Christmas
Chapter Six
I don’t regret a moment of the time I spent making Henrietta Whitlow what she is today, though she’s never thanked me for the effort I put forth, peeling her grip from the dust mop and rags of propriety. When our paths cross now, she adopts an air of subtly injured dignity, though I can’t imagine she’d ever want to go back to dreams of wedded contentment, or a quiet life in the shires.
She’s had the pleasure of my protection, after all, and I’m nearly certain when I ended our affair, her heart was broken for all time. I did her a very great favor, if so, for what woman plying the oldest trade has any need for tender sentiment or permanent attachments?
“She has your hair, Henrietta,” Isabel said, taking a seat across the kitchen table. “I think Thad is pleased by that. Philip’s two got it as well.”
Henrietta stroked the downy head pillowed on her shoulder. “The little ones all have Mama’s hair. I hope the children got Mama’s sweet nature too.”
Isabel searched through a bowl of whole cloves. “You have a sweet nature.”
“You’re being kind.” Both brothers, and their wives, and even Alexander and Dicken were being kind, treating Henrietta with the unfailing cheer of those on nursing duty in a sickroom. She was sick—at heart—but her family need not know that.
“I’m being honest,” Isabel said, jabbing a clove into an orange. “If you’d been less sweet, the squire would never have been so daft as to think he could marry you off to Charles Sampson. Those oldest three sons of his have gambled away half his fortune, and the second Mrs. Sampson is rarely out of childbed.”
The kitchen was perfumed with cloves and oranges, and the baby was a warm bundle of joy in Henrietta’s arms. Isabel’s words were an odd sort of comfort too.
Henriettahadbeen sweet, far too sweet. “I didn’t know Mr. Sampson had remarried.”
“Mrs. Sampson got a procession of runny noses and lazy housemaids. You got London and the company of dukes, from what I hear.”
Isabel selected another clove from the dish, her focus overly intent.
“Only two dukes, Isabel, and they’re much like any other man. One of them snored a bit and had a cold nose, which he delighted in nuzzling against my neck. The other fretted endlessly over his three sisters and had a fondness for chocolate.”
Isabel popped the clove into her mouth. “No orgies, then?”
“Not a one. I would have sent any man who suggested such foolishness on his way with a flea in his ear.”
“And they would have departed on your whim,” Isabel said. “You’re not sweet, biddable Hen anymore. Has that child gone to sleep?”
A quiet slurping near Henrietta’s ear suggested otherwise. “Not quite. How many cloves will you stick into that poor orange?”
The hapless fruit resembled a beribboned mace from days of old. Isabel set it aside and plucked another orange from a bowl on the table and measured off a length of red ribbon.
“So what now, Hen? You’ve made your fortune, turned your back on Sodom, and here you are. The whole shire knows you bided with the squire for most of this week, and we’ll drag you to services on Sunday if you like. If you were here to make a point, you’ve made it.”
“I am here to enjoy my family’s company over the holidays,” Henrietta said, though also, apparently, to make a point. “Attending services needn’t be part of the bargain. Papa allowed me to bide with him, but he might as well have been billeting a French prisoner of war for all the hospitality he extended.”
The squire had barely spoken to her, had barely acknowledged her at meals. Henrietta had been tolerated under her father’s roof because to toss her out would have created more scandal than to allow her a few days at her childhood home.
And that tolerance had been more hurtful than all his years of distance, oddly enough.
Isabel cut the red ribbon with a single snip of the shears. “Do you believe that if you attend services, then you can’t go back to your old life? Is waking up in the middle of the night to a duke’s cold nose pressed to your neck that thrilling? I can suggest a few dogs who’d be as obliging, though they might not pay you in any coin but loyalty and devotion.”
The baby sighed, and no exhalation was ever softer than a baby’s sigh.
“She might be falling asleep now,” Henrietta said.
“Good. I suspect the poor thing is getting ready to present us with a few teeth, and that’s always an occasion for misery.”
Isabel wrapped the ribbon about the orange with an expert flip and a twist, such that the fruit could be tied to any handy rafter or curtain rod. Henrietta had dealt with her partners in much the same way.
Flattery, affection, an interest in the man’s welfare, a semblance of friendship always bounded by pragmatism. When the gentleman grew too demanding or restless, a subtle cooling from Henrietta was all it took to nudge him out the door and add another diamond necklace to her collection.
The oranges Isabel decorated would shrivel and turn brown, then be tossed to the hogs, no matter how pleasing their fragrance now.
“I don’t want to go back to what I was,” Henrietta said, “but I’m not sure in what direction I should move next.”
