Page 21 of Presenting Miss Letitia (Once a Wallflower 1)

Chapter Eight

Letty sipped her tea. Earlier, she had been toiling over a letter to Cumbria, finding it difficult when she had to exclude so much. If Uncle Alford learned the truth, he would be on the doorstep within days.

Arietta came into the breakfast room. “Tonight, we are to attend a rout in Hampstead at Lord and Lady Willcox’s home. You are sure to enjoy it, Letitia.”

Letty put down her teacup. “What is a rout?”

“A rout is a house party,” Arietta said. “Guests fill the reception rooms to listen to music, discuss books and art, and enjoy a nice supper. There might also be card tables.” She nodded to the footman who hurried to attend her. “Your jaconet muslin dinner dress with the embroidered roses will be perfect.” She cocked her head. “Tell Adele to place a plume in your hair, they are de rigueur.”

That evening, their carriage traveled down a long driveway lit by flickering lanterns, to the stone mansion set amongst formal gardens. Letty stepped from the carriage with mixed emotions. While she hoped that Cartwright wouldn’t be here, she admitted to the desire to see him again. Did he spy for the French? She remembered the Frenchman with Fraughton in the library whom Cartwright obviously hadn’t met. But that told her nothing. How frustrating!

“There will be music but no dancing,” Arietta said as they climbed the steps to the portico and the tall front doors. “A harp or pianoforte, perhaps.”

Routs seemed an odd thing to Letty. To be crammed in a drawing room with so many people? Some of the behaviors and rules the ton lived by made little sense to her. The world her mother and father inhabited had never been hers. At seven years old, she had watched from the staircase as they left the house in their elegant clothes to go to a party. Her beautiful mother had looked like a fairy queen

, and her father so handsome in his evening clothes. But during the night, a snowstorm hit, and they did not return. A bridge had given way, and their carriage plunged into the icy waters.

Letty was left crushed with loneliness. Uncle Alford tried to help, but having never married and therefore, no children of his own, he really didn’t know quite what to do. His idea of comfort was to read the Bible and invite her to pray with him. It took her a long time to become content with her life in Cumbria. But she still yearned for something more. A sense of freedom, perhaps, to choose the life she wanted. And yes, the love of a good man. But she doubted marriage would provide what she sought. Wives were even more constrained by their husbands. Yet, what else was there for her but marriage?

Following Arietta’s example, Letty handed her evening cloak to a footman, and they moved into the stuffy, overcrowded drawing room where guests stood shoulder to shoulder. The noise greeted them like a blow. A harpist played in a corner but could barely be heard. Even though the night wasn’t cold, a fire crackled in the fireplace. The smoky air blended with the scents of warm bodies seemed to suck all the oxygen from the room. She was glad of the glass of wine a footman gave her. As she sipped, Letty studied those around her, searching for a familiar face.

Arietta whispered in her ear from behind her fan. “Cartwright is over in the corner talking to Lord Fleetwood. Watch him. I wish to know whom he seeks out this evening.”

“But I don’t know anyone’s names.” Letty turned to find Arietta had been swallowed up in the crowd.

With an eye on Cartwright, she gulped down her drink and placed it on a waiter’s tray. Cartwright had left the gentleman he’d been talking to and purposefully made his way to a door. He disappeared through it.

Excusing herself left and right, Letty followed him out.

She found herself in a wide corridor, the walls hung with gilt-framed paintings and tapestries. Her heart beating fast, she crept along it, glad that her silk evening slippers made little sound on the hall runner. Voices reached her. She edged forward and paused at a doorway, then peeked into the room. In the small study, Lady Fraughton talked to Cartwright. She leaned back against an oak desk and laughed, running a hand over his waistcoat. “What has caused this change of heart?” she asked in a low seductive voice.

Cartwright caught her wrist. Letty couldn’t catch his low reply.

Afraid he would turn, or Lady Fraughton would peel her eyes away from Cartwright’s broad chest and see her, Letty pulled back. She checked the corridor, but thankfully no one had entered from the busy reception rooms beyond the door. Was Cartwright intent on some covert mission as Arietta suggested? Or was it a liaison? The way he whispered to the lady suggested they were on intimate terms. Letty’s blood boiled to think he would have an affair with a married woman. She had thought better of him, though any reason why she should, escaped her, since she knew absolutely nothing about him.

She chanced another quick glance with the excuse of seeking the withdrawing room, should she be discovered. Lady Fraughton removed a letter from her reticule and handed it to Cartwright. He unfolded it and held it up to the candlelight. After a quick scan, he handed it to her. “Put it back where you found it, and quickly, before it is missed,” he said in a sharp tone. “And let that be the end of it. I shall require no further assistance from you, Lady Fraughton.”

“Have I not been helpful?” she murmured.

“You have. I am grateful.”

“How grateful are you, Cartwright?”

Fearful of discovery, Letty reluctantly left them and hurried back to the drawing room. Whatever that letter contained had been of great interest to him. However, none of this meant he was working for the French. Arietta must be wrong. Letty realized she made excuses for him. She supposed she must be that naïve country miss Arietta said she was.

She waited for Cartwright’s return by taking shelter behind the broad back of a portly gentleman who talked disparagingly of Lord Byron’s recent marriage and his latest poem. She did not have long to wait. Cartwright walked into the room alone with a serious mien, but when a man clapped him on the back, his expression lightened, and he was drawn laughingly into a group. Letty admired his expertise. Such skill! So untrustworthy! With a polite smile, she edged away through the throng as erudite discussions swirled around her peppered with witticisms and laughter.

A few moments later, Lady Fraughton emerged. Without glancing at Cartwright, she joined an older man whom Letty assumed was her husband. Fraughton’s long narrow face bore a humorless expression. He would be some thirty years older than her, tall and lean, his hair white, but with a kind of upright wiry strength, which gave the impression of a good deal of self-consequence. Might Lady Fraughton’s interest in the younger, more handsome Cartwright merely be prompted by desire? Yet, she could not discount the letter. What did it contain? Lady Fraughton had replaced it in her reticule which now hung on her arm. Arietta would be interested to learn what it contained. Letty stared at the bag, hoping the woman might put it down somewhere.

As she considered this, Fraughton left his wife’s side and walked out through the French doors leading to the gardens. Letty spun around to watch as Cartwright immediately excused himself and went after Fraughton.

Anxious to seize the opportunity to follow him and discover just what his interest was in this man, she hurried in his wake.

Outside, braziers burned along the terrace and the garden paths, their fiery glow casting light and shade over the manicured grounds. Neither Cartwright nor Fraughton were anywhere to be seen.

She walked along the path, taking deep breaths of the welcome fresh air scented with flowers and trees in their new spring green, the breeze cool on her face.

Men’s voices drifted over the lawn from a gazebo along with a faint tang of cigar smoke. Was Cartwright there? As they may spot her if she ventured farther, she decided to stay where she was, in the hope they’d come her way. She might pick up enough of their conversation to relay to Arietta. She peered through the branches of a flowering tree while finding it difficult to keep her balance on the uneven ground.

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