Page 33 of How To Woo A Wallflower

Chapter Sixteen

‘Whether he likes it or not, Jim needs some fresh air.’ Hattie had commandeered a nurse to assist her in getting him dressed now that Dr Cribbs had agreed a change of scenery might do his most cantankerous patient some good.

Obviously, she had been sketchy on the details, allowing Dr Cribbs to think she was taking Jim on a short wheel to the bakery around the corner rather than the park, and that she would be properly chaperoned as he had queried without specifically mentioning by whom. Being rushed off his feet, the good doctor accepted this before he was distracted by more work, leaving Hattie free to basically do as she pleased. While all the lies she was telling to people who did not deserve it bothered her, the need to see Jasper overruled her niggling conscience.

Besides, now that they would always be in the midst of the Wallflowers’ Club in public, if she did not see him today, then who knew when she would next have an excuse to see Izzy and him alone?

At least that was how she was justifying this improper trip to herself, despite not believing that justification at all.

‘Do whatever it takes to get him ready for an outing but don’t tell him that I am here.’ Her best chance of getting Jim to comply was to have him sat in the wheeled chair before she made her entrance. ‘I am not his favourite person at the moment. The last time I saw him, neither of us behaved particularly well.’

‘I figured as much as he sulked for hours after you left.’ The kindly older nursemaid smiled in sympathy, recognising Hattie’s guilt before she discounted it. ‘Although I suspect it might have hit home as he’s asked about you a few times since, in his own charming way, enquiring as to your prolonged absence while pretending to be relieved by it. But it doesn’t fool me. He might outwardly pretend to hate you but he’s simply making you earn your stripes.’

‘Let’s hope so.’

Hattie visited with some of the other patients while the nurse did her bidding, trying to focus on them rather than Jasper with little success. At least her preoccupation with him prevented her from overthinking how to behave with Jim or formulating a plan of attack when her gut told her to take her lead from the boy and work on that.

Jim, who undoubtedly was floundering and lost and in dire need of rescuing exactly as Jasper had said, blinked in shock as she strode through the door as if he had not expected to ever see her again but quickly covered that with a scowl.

‘Well look what the cat dragged in.’ He was sat in the wheeled chair and dressed in a set of clean but scruffy clothes, either charitable hand-me-downs or the clothes he had arrived in.

‘Did you honestly think I was so lily-livered I would allow one tantrum from a frightened little boy to dissuade me from coming?’ She sauntered towards the bed defiantly. ‘I am made of sterner stuff than that, Jim.’

‘Only because you want me to do as you say. To roll over and do what you want.’

‘I just want you to get better.’

‘I won’t get better!’ The venom with which he spat the words was echoed by the utter despondency in his eyes. ‘Stop lying and pretending that I will!’

‘I am not lying.’

‘Adults always lie.’ He turned his head away. ‘So go away, you stubborn old hag, before I push you over again.’

‘Do you honestly think another tantrum might work on this stubborn old hag when the last one failed?’ To prove she wasn’t the least bit afraid of him and his temper or wounded by his insults, she sat on the exact same spot of the mattress he had pushed her off only a short time ago and offered him a wry smile. ‘But seeing as we are on the topic of your tantrum, I should like to apologise for mine.’ As she had intended, that threw him, and his jaw dropped.

‘I am sorry for losing my temper with you the other day, Jim. I would have come to apologise to you sooner, only I had to support a good friend who has lost someone close. But I am here now, later than planned but determined to make amends.’ Hattie suppressed the urge to reach out and touch him because Jim was a long way off ready for that yet. Instead, she shrugged and smiled. ‘Just because you were cruel to me, doesn’t give me the right to raise my voice or to resort to insults in retaliation. I am usually a better person than that and I am sorry.’

By the confusion behind his freckles, he hadn’t expected an apology, nor knew how to react to one. ‘I shouldn’t have called you a coward either, Jim, that was uncalled for, and I retract those awful words as I suspect you have had to be braver in your ten short years than a person like me, with my spoiled upbringing, could possibly imagine in a lifetime.’

‘You’ve got that right at least.’ A begrudging admission which could not disguise how shocked he was at her words. If she were a betting sort, Hattie was prepared to wager hers had been the only apology he had ever received in his life. ‘You wouldn’t last five minutes in my world.’

‘I wouldn’t.’ She sat back and looked him dead in the eyes. ‘But then I sincerely doubt you would last five minutes in mine either. It’s not easy being the daughter of a duke.’

‘Oh, boo-hoo, poor you.’ Sarcasm dripped from every syllable, but she was impressed he could quote her quite so aptly and with such cutting precision. ‘How you must have suffered in your father’s fancy mansion, sipping tea with your little finger in the air and embroidering your pointless days away.’

She shrugged, unoffended, as he made a valid point. ‘I’ve always been useless at embroidery. I can’t paint, or draw, or sing, or play an instrument either, so I am probably the least accomplished duke’s daughter that ever lived. Which rather exacerbates my current problem, as the sole purpose of an aristocratic young lady like me is apparently to be so perfect and accomplished that I can catch the discerning eye of an aristocratic man, marry him and make more aristocratic babies. Now that I am, as you so rightly pointed out, an ugly, lame, old hag, nobody discerning wants to marry me, so I have no purpose any more. I have outlived my usefulness. I am only twenty, yet as far as my shallow world is concerned, my life is over.’

‘You’re not...that ugly.’ By the way his features scrunched, even that much of a begrudging apology hurt him. ‘Someone will likely still want to marry you.’

‘Oh, there’s someone, all right.’ She shuddered for effect. ‘Lord Boreham has tossed his hat into the empty ring, but he is pompous and dull, spits when he talks and only wants me so he can benefit from my father’s connections. And there is the not insignificant detail that he also makes my flesh crawl.’

She folded her arms and stuck out her chin. ‘I am certain I deserve better than that! And, after giving the matter a great deal of thought, I have decided I deserve better than being an aristocrat’s wife too. Just because that is what is expected doesn’t mean that I can’t do something else, does it? There’s a whole wide world out there and not just the one I was born into, so why should I allow other people’s stupid opinions and prejudices to dictate what I do next? And so what if I have one leg shorter than the other? How dare they condemn me to the ash heap on the back of it. I am going to prove every single last one of those naysayers wrong by gripping my life by the lapels and living it to the full just to spite them!’

‘How much shorter is it?’

She stretched out both legs and hitched her skirts up enough so Jim could see her boots. ‘Two inches, or thereabouts.’ Sensing they were turning a corner, she decided to continue being honest with him. ‘When I first broke my leg, I also punctured a lung, so as saving my life was the physician’s main priority, fixing my leg was an afterthought. By the time my chest had healed, the bone in my shin had set badly and our family physician believed there was nothing else that could be done. I could barely use it, it was so misshapen and weak. Fortunately, that is when Dr Cribbs came along and reset it, and now I can use it again, so what is two inches in the grand scheme of things?’

‘Did it hurt?’

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