bad-tempered, unshaven and arrogant apology for a gentleman would not turn her back into the silenced little mouse she’d nearly become under her grandmother’s roof when Papa had sent her back to England after her mother had died and he didn’t seem to know what else to do with his only child.
Back then the Dowager Lady Porter was determined to turn her skinny, suntanned and rebellious grandchild into a meek and mild young lady who did as she was told without questioning why. Why on earth Hetta’s father thought a stay under his mother’s roof for Hetta and his grandson would work this time, she had no idea. It was a disaster last time and, after enduring two years of being forever in the wrong, Hetta had been desperate enough to elope with the first man who had asked her to in order to avoid spending one more day under her rigid and forever disapproving grandparent’s roof. This time she had a bright and rather rebellious seven-year-old son with her as well and felt no more inclination for polite society than she had last time she had to live with the Dowager Lady Porter. Sir Hadrian Porter had made the arrangement behind Hetta’s back, though, leaving her no chance to refuse and stay on the other side of the Channel while he was in England.
He didn’t even tell her about his plans to keep her out of the way this time until France was fading from view and it was too late for her to refuse to cooperate with them. If only he hadn’t been so devious about it, she and Toby could have found refuge from the relentless heat of midsummer on the Normandy coast and let the polite world pass them by, again. But her father had other ideas and Hetta was very suspicious about them now she was actually in England and the pall of drizzle, stilted manners and her dread of being forced into an empty society marriage was on her once more.
How she cursed the promise her father had wrung out of her that she would agree to be sent somewhere safe with her son whenever Sir Hadrian thought they could be in danger from one of the secret villains he pursued for his country. This time he had invoked the promise to get her to agree to go somewhere she did not want to be even more than usual. She ground her teeth at the memory of making such a blasted promise when she had finally managed to track her father down after her husband, Brandon Champion, had died and her son was a mere babe in arms. With all the failed romance and blighted hope behind her, Hetta was desperate for the old life she’d lived with her wandering parents until her mother died and had been so desperate to escape England she’d rashly made the promise Papa demanded of her as a condition of her staying with him at all. He had held her to it ever since.
Of course, Toby was a wondrous gift from those wretched years and he made every minute of it seem worthwhile. But even though Hetta felt horror at the very idea of being sent back to England, her father knew she would never break her promise to him. Her word was her bond as surely as any gentleman’s and she knew Papa’s trade was a dangerous one, but she was growing very weary of being bent to his will when he chose. It was time to settle into a life of her own making somewhere, she decided, and with a sidelong look at Toby she knew it must still revolve around his needs. He was old enough for school now and she would have to settle for this dull and rainy land at least in term time. He would probably be his grandfather’s heir one day, if Sir Hadrian didn’t make an April and December marriage and beget a direct heir, so Toby would have to learn to be an English gentleman whether either of them liked it or not. To do that he had to go to school here and she would have to live here as well, at least for most of the year. The prospect didn’t please her, but neither did the idea of leaving her son at school and travelling the world without him. Somehow or another this trip to England had to be the start of a new life for both of them.
Anyway, never mind all that now. Brought back to the present moment, Hetta refused to let Magnus Haile’s hurtful words make her lose control of her words for the first time since Toby was born. If that was the sort of gentlemen she was likely to meet here she wished herself in France more than ever. Never mind the sea. She would brave it again right now to avoid ever having to meet him again. Probably.
‘Mama, he said he’d smack me himself if he ever heard of me pulling another stunt like that,’ Toby told her as he ran towards her as if sensing her fury with the stranger might outdo her anger with him if he worked at it hard enough.
‘Good. If you truly ran under a horse’s hooves as he said you did then you should be beaten to make sure you never do it again,’ she said briskly and gave him a hard stare to say And stop right there if you’re thinking of denying it.
She knew her son far too well not to know when he was lying. However furious Magnus Haile made her with his last contemptuous look, she was still not going to fall for any of her son’s clever tricks.
‘I saw a puppy,’ Toby said sulkily, as if of course that explained why he’d darted across a road just as a high-nosed aristocrat was cantering down it.
‘Well, it won’t be the last one you see in England, so you had best get used to the sight if you want me to think you deserve a dog of your own one day.’
‘I want one now,’ Toby insisted.
‘I wanted an angel boy for a son and a house in France where we could stay all summer without a care in the world, but instead I got you and the next place we need to be on your grandpapa’s list. Life is hard, my son.’
‘Why can’t we have a dog?’
‘Because a dog needs a home and we move around so much the poor beast would never know if it was coming or going.’
‘Then we should stop moving around and make a home for it.’
‘You would be bored within a week, Toby, and I would end up looking after the animal. Now that’s enough of the whole subject, unless you would like me to spank you instead?’
‘No,’ Toby said, eyeing her warily.
‘Then accept the fact your hen-witted conduct makes it less likely I will agree to what you want instead of the other way about and stop trying to look like a waif. I am a wonderfully kind and patient mother and, luckily for you, there is far too much for me to do right now to see that you get your just deserts. We must find our carriage and get to London so Grandpapa can start work. I doubt even you will be bored for long in such a great bustling place as London, although I would quite like you to be right now, so you should spare me a few moments to repent your stupidity in diving under a moving horse when you are nearly eight years of age and quite old enough to know better. You are supposed to be bright, are you not?’
‘What good is one of Grandpapa’s mysteries without a dog to help us track down the criminal?’ her son muttered disgustedly and carefully ignored her question, as if intelligence had nothing to do with his longing for a pet.
Hetta silently gave him full marks for determination, although her headache wished he would accept defeat and be a good, quiet boy for once. Other women did seem blessed with adoring little angels for offspring, though, and sometimes they made her son seem a little devil in comparison.
And how boring such perfectly behaved little cherubs must be to live with, her inner rebel whispered.
She wished it would be quiet and go away while she got on with her headache and a nice cup of tea in a peaceful and preferably darkened room, but that was never going to happen, was it? No, now she must find Papa and get him and her son to London, then hope for a rest when they got there.
‘Where has your grandpapa got off to now?’ she asked, smoothing Toby’s wildly curling mop like the doting mother he certainly didn’t want her to be. She chuckled when he shrugged her off and made a wry face. ‘Find him for me and I might try to forget you put ten years on my life with your latest duel with death, my son, but first promise me never to do anything so stupid again.’
‘I promise,’ he muttered with a fine show of reluctance, so she wouldn’t think it was too easy. ‘The man scared me when he shouted, but I suppose he was right,’ he admitted at last.
Progress indeed, Hetta decided as Toby scampered off to do as he was bid for once and she organised the transfer of their luggage to the inn where a fast carriage would be waiting to whisk them up to London. At last Sir Hadrian emerged from a ship’s chandler’s shop with a neatly wrapped package