Mary Balogh: A Chance Encounter

Elizabeth arranged the charcoal pieces more neatly on their shelf, her back to Cecily. "It is a delightful day for a walk," she said calmly. "You must go, Cecily, but I cannot think my presence necessary. I am sure your mama will consider Mrs. Prosser chaperone enough."

Cecily pulled a face. "But I particularly wish you to come, Beth," she coaxed. "You see, I feel shy. I shall not know what to talk about."

Elizabeth smiled. "What?" she teased. "I have never known you to be at a loss for words before, Cecily."

The girl looked rather shamefaced. "Say you will come, please, Beth. You are always so sure of yourself. I know you will not feel a qualm at being in such company."

Elizabeth felt completely trapped. "Oh, very well," she said finally, and went to her room to fetch a straw bonnet.

Mr. and Mrs. Prosser smiled cordially when the two ladies returned to the drawing room. Hetherington bowed stiffly in Elizabeth's direction and smiled dazzlingly at Cecily.

"You look most charming, Miss Rowe," he said, eyeing appreciatively the blue bonnet and parasol that complemented the white muslin of her dress. "Shall we leave?" He extended his arm to the girl, and she laid her hand within it.

On the stroll to Granby, two miles distant, Elizabeth was left to walk behind with the Prossers. She found them good company. Mrs. Prosser, a plain but sensible woman in her middle thirties by Elizabeth's estimation, did not say much, but her husband conversed easily, not suggesting any condescension to the inferior status of his companion. He made her feel a social equal, in fact, as he talked about the welcome they had received from several families in the neighborhood. He talked about his life in the diplomatic service, about a year he had spent on government business in Lisbon.

All the while Elizabeth watched the couple walking ahead of them, arm in arm, talking and laughing together. Hetherington was obviously turning the full force of his charm on this new victim, she decided bitterly. She had once considered that charm to be natural and unforced. Elizabeth felt an actual pain in the region of her throat as she saw the fair head bend closer to Cecily's to listen to something she was saying. As he had once done with her.

When the group reached Granby, Cecily immediately led the way to a haberdasher's and turned eagerly to Mrs. Prosser, so that the five people came together.

"Mrs. Leigh has a fine selection of ribbons," Cecily said. "Shall we see if she has what you need?"

"Yes, indeed," Mrs. Prosser answered. "And do come with me, Henry. You always say I do not have a fine eye for color."

Elizabeth made to follow the trio into the shop but was forestalled.

"I am quite sure you do not need four people to help you choose one length of ribbon, Bertha," Hetherington said. "Miss Rossiter and I will entertain each other by taking a turn down the street. Ma'am?"

He was holding out an arm to her. Blue eyes that she had never seen so steely were boring into hers. The other three members of the group disappeared inside the shop. Elizabeth ignored the proffered arm. She could not bring herself to touch him. But she did turn away from the doorway and begin to move along the street.

They walked in loud silence for a few yards.

"I did not expect to find you so come down in the world, Miss Rossiter," he said without looking at her. Could that icily polite voice be Robert's?

"Being a governess and companion is respectable employment, my lord," she replied stiffly.

"But you expected more, did you not?" he asked.

Elizabeth looked across at him in astonishment. His words had been sneering. "I do not know how you can say that," she said, trying desperately to hide the slight shake in her voice. "I was never wealthy, and never looked to be."

He looked back at her now, and the sneer was in his face too. "Except once," he said, and looked away from her again.

Elizabeth would not ask him what he meant. She raised her chin and continued to walk beside him. It was he again who broke the silence.

"Time has not been kind to you," he said quietly. "You look a perfect fright, Elizabeth."

Had she not been almost blinded by hurt, Elizabeth might again have been surprised by his lack of manners and by the anger in his voice.

"Thank you," she said, her own voice now shaking with suppressed anger. "I am six and twenty years old, my lord. Alas, women cannot be expected to retain their beauty forever. And the clothes befit my station. I did not have it in mind to please you when I dressed this morning."

They walked on in angry silence.

"We should turn back," Elizabeth said at last. "The purchase of the ribbons must be almost complete."

He turned obediently and they began to walk back in the direction from which they had come.

"And what happens to you when Miss Rowe marries?" Hetherington asked. "The day will come quite soon, you know." The sneer was back in his voice.

"Then I shall find another family in need of a governess," she said, "or I shall go home and be maiden aunt to my nephew. John has a son, you know. But whatever I do, it is no affair of yours, my lord."

"Maiden?" he said softly, looking across at her with one eyebrow raised.

Elizabeth flushed but did not answer. Cecily had emerged into the street, followed by the Prossers. Soon they were all walking back home again, Mr. Prosser with Elizabeth, followed by Hetherington with a lady on each arm. He was oozing charm and good humor again, Elizabeth noticed.

---

Both Cecily and Mrs. Rowe were ecstatic when the visitors from Ferndale had departed in their phaeton.

"I had hoped that you would make an impression on Mr. Mainwaring, Cecily, my love," Mrs. Rowe said, "but to have taken the attention of the marquess! Why, he had eyes for no one else. Did you not notice, Miss Rossiter? I declare, it was probably his idea in the first place to come this way and invite Cecily to walk with them."

"The marquess is such a pleasant man," Cecily confided to Elizabeth a short while later as they ascended the staircase to their rooms to prepare for dinner. "As soon as we began to walk, I forgot about my shyness and felt quite as if we had been friends for years. His title has not made him a conceited man. He is charming, is he not, Beth? You should know. He was kind enough to walk with you while Mrs. Prosser was choosing ribbons."

"Oh, yes, he is certainly charming," Elizabeth conceded. As she went on her way to her own room, she hoped that Cecily would not fall in love with Hetherington. The girl was too young and inexperienced in the ways of the world to fall prey to a man whose own interests always came first, a man who could hurt another apparently without a qualm.

She went through the motions of changing into the gray silk dress and brushing and reknotting her hair while her mind dwelled deeply on the encounter with Hetherington that afternoon. She had known that he could be cruel, that he was basically heartless, but she had never had face-to-face proof of the fact before. The voice and the facial expression that she had witnessed during that walk along the street in Granby had made him a stranger to her. She had never seen him cold, sneering, sarcastic before. He had behaved as if he hated her. But why? She was the one who had been wronged, hurt almost beyond bearing six years before. Was it conscience that had made him turn upon her with such contempt?

Elizabeth had tried to hate him in that first year when the pain had been intense enough to drive her almost out of her mind. But even then she had not been able to. The best she could do eventually was to dull all feeling, so that a mere empty ache would gnaw at her when her mind strayed to that episode in her life. She had trained herself to think of him, if at all, as he was at the beginning of their relationship.