“On the contrary, I seek your guidance now more than ever. Our delay in calling on you is the misfortune of a bad cold that has kept Jordana in bed the past few days. She is finally recovering. I’d thought to bring her to your home for tea this week, if that is convenient.”
“Wonderful,” Marissa lied. Part of her had hoped Haddon would decide he didn’t want her to help with Jordana. If her reaction to him tonight was any indication, Marissa couldn’t trust herself to be in his presence.
A loud clapping interrupted their conversation, breaking the soft bubble of intimacy surrounding them. Lord Duckworth was extolling the virtues of Simon and calling him to the podium.
Haddon looked toward the other side of the room. “Pendleton is about to speak.”
“Then I won’t keep you. I assume you’ve come to listen. You are friends, after all.” Marissa meant to dash away the moment Haddon’s back was turned.
“Oh, I wouldn’t call us friends, exactly,” Haddon said. “More wine?” The glass hovered near her lips.
“No, thank you. I was under the impression the two of you were quite close, and you held him in admiration.”
“Were you? I admire his ambition, I suppose. I am a supporter of his reforms and what he hopes to accomplish as I have a vested interest in his proposals.”
He’d neglected to directly answer her question. She searched his face for any clue as to what his comments meant, but Haddon was difficult to read, only allowing a hint of his feelings to show when he was angry.
As he’d been when I called him a dalliance.
“You own mines.” Marissa had never asked Haddon, assuming him to be involved somehow in tin, copper or lead. Most of the families in Derbyshire held some sort of interests below ground.
“Quarries. Are you sure you don’t want another sip? You look thirsty.”
“Quarries? You mean . . . rocks?” She allowed him to press the glass to her lips, moderately concerned someone might notice them tucked away at the edge of Duckworth’s drawing room. Like Enderly. But everyone’s attention was taken by Simon who was rousing those gathered with his fiery speech.
A low chuckle came from him. “You don’t have to sound so appalled, Marissa. I don’t do the digging myself, at least not anymore. I suppose stone isn’t glamorous in the least. Not like Pendleton’s Blue John.”
“No.” Marissa tensed at the mention of Blue John. “I suppose not.”
“Or the tin mines your friend,” he emphasized the word in an icy tone, “Enderly owns in Cornwall. I quarry limestone, granite, gritstone and the like. Someone has to provide building material for,” he gave a negligent wave, “all these fine houses. For streets, garden walls and the like.”
Stone had to come from somewhere, but she’d never given it much thought.
“I have two quarries which provide employment for most of the men in the small villages surrounding Buxton. I never have to despair I’m poisoning the water with lead, so I can sleep at night. I’ll never be ridiculously wealthy on the level of Pendleton or your family, for instance, but I have more than enough for myself and the girls. And a wife.” He winked at her.
“It sounds like a lucrative enterprise.” The last thing she wanted to do was discuss Haddon’s plans to take a wife, especially since the mere thought soured her stomach. Nor did she wish to debate the merits of Lady Christina Sykes who was probably the frontrunner in his quest for the new Lady Haddon. If only Marissa had not refused him—
He never asked to rekindle our affair.
The knowledge that he hadn’t stung again.
“I’ll allow you to continue with your evening, Lord Haddon.” Marissa wanted to leave, to blot out the image of Haddon and Christina Sykes because it bothered her far more than she wished it to. “My carriage is waiting outside.”
One dark brow lifted at that. “I can see you home.”
“That isn’t necessary, Lord Haddon. Please excuse me.”
“As you wish.” Bringing her knuckles to his lips, he murmured, “Good night, Marissa.”
Marissa turned and walked blindly through the back half of the drawing room toward the door. No one noticed her exit; everyone in the room was focused on Simon expounding on his own wonderfulness. Sparing not a thought for Enderly, who might wonder at some point about her disappearance, Marissa made her way to the door.
She could still feel the press of Haddon’s fingers against her own.
Drat.
6
Marissa pulled out two of the large ferns in the vase, put them aside, and rearranged the spray of peonies and roses. Sticking one fern back in, she stepped back to admire her handiwork.
“Much better.”
Her household staff, though they certainly tried, couldn’t make a decent floral arrangement if Marissa laid out a diagram for them. What was the point of spending a large sum of money at the flower market only to have them tossed in a vase without any care for how they looked?
Haddon was calling today.
She despised the trickle of anticipation at the thought. Of course, this time, he was bringing Jordana.
Marissa looked up at the clock. They were due to arrive shortly.
Fluffing a stray peony, she nodded to herself, satisfied at her handiwork. It shouldn’t matter if her flowers were arranged so artfully, other than that Haddon had remarked on such a thing when he'd last been in her drawing room.
After arriving home from Lord Duckworth’s, Marissa had spent the remainder of her evening nursing a glass of whisky and convincing herself she must tell Haddon she’d changed her mind about Jordana. She’d prepared a list of excuses. Even written a note to Haddon.
It would have been the wise thing to do, refusing to take on his rebellious daughter, but instead she’d tossed the hastily written note into the fire.
Now here she stood, furiously moving about the
