Hex and Hexability by Kate Johnson

Author:Kate Johnson [Johnson, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780008671426
Publisher: One More Chapter

CHAPTER 11

She didn’t see the Duke for several days.

But every night she dreamed of the beasty with the squirmers.

Sometimes it was the tiny thing she’d seen in the filthy puddle at the gaol. And sometimes it was the huge monster that had attacked the Thames. And sometimes Tiffany thought she saw a woman’s face, pale and distressed.

She longed to ask Aunt Esme about it, but after the supper that never was, Elinor had kept her too busy. She insisted on taking Tiffany walking every day in Hyde Park, which was terribly busy with other people who would not admit they were there for a glimpse of the Duke too. They attended card parties and supper parties and musicales, and after a while people began to speculate that the Duke had left town for some reason.

‘You should have danced with him again,’ Elinor told Tiffany.

‘You think he left because we only danced once?’ she said.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Elinor, although her face disagreed. ‘I meant you should have taken your chance. I have invited him to our house party for Cornforth’s birthday.’

‘Has he replied?’

‘No.’ Her face said this was not acceptable. ‘But he is a duke. I am sure he is very busy,’ she allowed.

Tiffany assumed it was because he was waiting for his bruises to heal. She had only caught a glimpse or two at the gaol before Aunt Esme whisked her away in a hackney, but all three of the men had looked somewhat worse for wear.

And then one day there he was, striding along Rotten Row as if he hadn’t a care in the world. The bruises on his face were faded, but visible enough to provoke whispers from everyone he passed. His eye was blackened, his lip cut. It should have made him look like a thug, and yet it only made him look like the more poetic kind of pirate.

He greeted Tiffany and Elinor quite elegantly, and conversed with them about the weather as if everything was completely normal. Tiffany could feel Elinor straining like a dog on a leash, desperate to ask what had happened but too bound by politeness.

‘I was considering going to Vauxhall Gardens tonight,’ he said. ‘I hear they have the most impressive gas lighting and I should like to see it. Will you be there?’

Elinor loathed Vauxhall Gardens. It wasn’t just that it was gaudy and a little dangerous, it was that anybody who could pay a few shillings was allowed to enter, no matter their class or refinement.

Tiffany had always wanted to go.

‘Oh, we adore Vauxhall, don’t we, Theophania?’ Elinor said.

‘We do?’ said Tiffany. ‘I mean, we do. Adore it. Yes. We might have supper there,’ she said, twisting the knife. ‘In one of the boxes.’

The supper boxes were notoriously expensive and while the Cornforths could easily afford it, Elinor objected strongly to the idea of being put on display for the hoi polloi to gawp at.

‘That sounds very exciting,’ said the Duke, his eyes on Tiffany. ‘If I take a box, will you join me?’

And then Elinor had to say yes.

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