Despite feeling less than celebratory, Kitty had felt it important to dress for the occasion of her proposal nonetheless, and was wearing her best blue crêpe gown and her favourite gloves. They were ridiculously impractical: cream-coloured, made of soft buttery fabric, with a row of tiny buttons running from elbow to wrist, and she loved them all the more for their high society decadence.
Taking courage from them now, she tottered out of the carriage after Mrs Sinclair, one hand pressed to her head to keep her curls from being upset by the wind, and one hand holding tightly to her cloak. The evening was going to be a trial.
Pemberton found her almost immediately.
‘Miss Talbot,’ he called out to her. Then, a little critically, he added, ‘Why do you look so bedraggled?’
‘It is very windy outside,’ she pointed out, not sure how she was meant to avoid looking bedraggled after walking through a gale-force wind.
He frowned – in disapproval, or disbelief, or both.
‘Well,’ he said reluctantly. ‘I suppose it can’t be helped. May I escort you to the gardens? They are quite beautiful.’
He was going to do it straight away, then.
‘Yes,’ Kitty heard herself say as if from a great distance. She took his arm, and they walked together into the gardens, which were brightly lit and still busy, though the night air was quite as windy as it had been just a few moments before. Ignoring this – as if he could prevent it being so by not acknowledging it – Pemberton led Kitty to a bench in a secluded corner where they sat next to each other. He reached over and took her hand in his. She fought the urge to shake it off. She did not want him to touch her, she thought hysterically. How could she marry someone she did not want to touch her?
‘Miss Talbot,’ he said with great gravitas.
This was it.
‘Miss Talbot,’ he repeated. Strangely, despite the wind, there seemed to be an echo within the garden, for though Pemberton’s mouth was not moving, she could hear his calls of ‘Miss Talbot’ repeating faintly.
‘Miss Talbot!’
Not an echo. Kitty looked up to see Captain Hinsley hastening towards them. What on earth … Drawing closer, Hinsley looked from Kitty to Pemberton and back again.
‘Oh hell,’ he said despairingly. ‘Devilishly sorry to interrupt – may I speak with you for a moment, Miss Talbot?
‘Now?’ Pemberton blustered, but Kitty was already getting up.
‘An emergency, is it?’ she asked eagerly, as he pulled her a few steps away.
‘Have you seen Lady Radcliffe?’ he demanded as soon as Pemberton was out of earshot.
‘Lady Radcliffe?’ she said, confused. ‘No, not since last night.’
‘Blast. Pattson said she’d be here, but she must not have yet arrived—’ He broke off and cursed, looking most agitated.
‘What on earth is going on, Captain?’
‘It’s Archie. It’s just as you said – or worse – he’s fallen into a bad crowd. I’ve been asking around, and I believe Selbourne has duped him into joining a high stakes game. The devil did the same thing to the Egerton boy, and young Mr Cowper. Word is he gets young men of fortune quite doped on spirits, and then fleeces them of all their fortune with a rigged deck. It’s how he plans to regain his fortune – man is up to his ears in debt, you know.’
‘Dear God,’ Kitty breathed, going quite pale. ‘Radcliffe must be told at once!’
‘He left for Devonshire today!’ Hinsley said miserably. ‘Told me so last night – and Pattson said he made his goodbyes to the family this morning. I don’t know what is to be done. I don’t know where Archie has even gone. I don’t know where to start.’
A recollected scrap of memory was swimming to the forefront of Kitty’s mind.
‘But I do …’ she said slowly, trying to capture the thought. ‘I think I know where they have gone, for the toad tried to invite me.’
‘Did he? The scoundrel. What did he say?’ Hinsley said urgently.
‘I can’t quite remember – I wasn’t properly listening,’ Kitty groaned, racking her brains. ‘In Wimbledon, certainly …’
She turned to look at Pemberton, who waved an impatient hand at her. She should surely go back to him. Let him propose. Accept. That was the right thing to do, she knew. It was simply one of those terrible moments where the right thing was also the selfish thing. And though it pained her to leave Mr de Lacy to such a fate, she could not risk her family for his sake, she just couldn’t.