25 September, 1891 — Sanditon Season Close

Henrietta had rather wanted to be engaged by now. Not that she'd had any reason to suppose she would be, of course. Helga Scamander was everything a bride ought to be, and she was still unmarried after a frankly dizzying number of social season. Octavia Rose Fawley had been all but declared the diamond of the season when she'd debuted, and she was approaching the end of her second season without so much as an offer. All of the evidence before her pointed to the notion that only the most exceptional of women married in their first season, and no one who'd ever met her would have described Henrietta Cartwright as exceptional. Still, it would have been nice to have been done with this ordeal of the social season and switched to married life, which seemed to be a little less chaotic from her outsider's perspective. It would have been nicer still to have been able to see her mother's shock if Henri had managed to make a good match in record time.

Of course, it wasn't to be. This event may not have been the absolute last of the season, but since it marked the end of the resort's season it did certainly feel like it. Henri was feeling more pensive than usual, and after dancing a handful of mediocre dances with mediocre men she took the opportunity to steal away to the refreshment table — and then to steal a little farther away, until the noise of the party faded slightly and was replaced by the noise of the sea. She found a bench and took a seat, momentarily lost in thought.

A noise startled her. She looked up, heart skipping a beat as she immediately thought of all the worst things that could happen to her away from any of her chaperones, but relaxed when she realized she recognized the man walking by. "Oh. It's you," she said simply. Truth be told, she felt more than a little embarrassed that she still didn't know his name, but it wasn't a problem she could address at the moment.

---

The Season was over, none of Noble's sisters were engaged, and one had recently been kidnapped. So in short, the Greengrass family was fucked, and he didn't know what to do about it. (A part of him thought that, after his conversation with Verity, maybe they should just count themselves lucky not to be scandalized yet.) So he ought to talk to Ford about the money — they couldn't afford it if Clem came out and the other two were still unmarried — but neither of them had brought it up yet, and maybe, tonight, the family would get lucky and someone would fall for one of the girls.

Noble didn't really believe that, but it was either that or believe it was all for nothing.

He shouldn't wander away from his sisters again, not after last week, but Ford and Mama were here too and a few minutes couldn't hurt. Besides — they were by the sea, and Noble wanted to spend a few minutes looking at it before he went back to being a dutiful chaperon. (He would never make a mistake like he had the other week again.)

He stopped short at the familiar voice and turned. "Miss Cartwright," Noble said, "Nice seeing you again." He said that because it was something you said, not because any of their encounters so far had been anything like pleasant.

---

He knew her name, which made her feel even more guilty about not knowing his. Perhaps she could get it out of Holden later, but that would mean actually having a conversation with Holden, which didn't seem likely. She wasn't sure if he disliked her or if he was just that adverse to familial responsibility, but every time Henrietta tried to tell him something about her season he looked as though he might come down with a sudden headache and ended the conversation shortly after. She didn't know how she'd manage to talk to him long enough to bring up any of his friends, much less how she could subtly ask for their names without him wondering why she was so curious about it. Maybe one of her sisters would be more help; they at least seemed capable of conversing with her without making it obvious how impatient they were to escape her company. Most of the time.

She could have made some sort of small talk; asked how he was enjoying the evening or whether he was well. The problem with that was that he would probably return the questions, and then she'd have to lie. This party had her feeling melancholy, and her brief reflection on whether or not her brother secretly hated her hadn't done much to help her spirits.

"Let's stay on land this time," she said instead. "I still haven't learned to swim."

---

Noble was startled into a laugh by her comment; whether intentionally or not, (and he never could tell if it was intentional,) Holden's weird sister could be a bit funny. "To tell you the truth," Noble said, "I'm not a very strong swimmer myself." When they still had the old house, he had gone swimming off the docks at the pond — but the dock had always been in sight, and that felt different than an ocean. (Even an ocean with carefully-controlled weather charms.)

---

His laugh startled her. She wasn't used to people thinking she was funny. Was she funny? She didn't know. Her sister Hermione was funny; she had wit and charm to spare. It had never really occurred to Henri that she could even try to be funny; it had just seemed like something claimed by her sister, just like Hortense had claimed beauty and grace. Henrietta was left with... how would people have described her? Quiet and proper, perhaps. She didn't know, but she imagined she wouldn't have been very enthused by the adjectives they came up with. How did she want people to describe her? She wasn't sure she knew that, either.

Henrietta looked out at the waves with a faint frown. "If it's not on the curriculum at the Pendergast School then it's nothing a proper young lady needs to know," she commented wistfully. She paused, then added in an almost conspiratorial tone, "I think I'd like to learn to ride a bicycle."

---

"I feel as if bicycles shouldn't be that offensive," Noble said. Sure, he had heard the rumors — but they had always read as fake to him, because surely bicycles would have been less popular if they really did cause infertility. "What do they teach you at Pendergast's?" Verity would know, he thought — but Noble had never really been that curious. It just made sense that Miss Cartwright, a weird but proper and quiet woman, would have come out of Pendergast's.

---

Henrietta wrinkled her nose the barest amount. "The usual things," she said without much enthusiasm. "Etiquette, dancing, French. Embroidery and needlepoint. Art. Pianoforte." She shrugged. None of these subjects held as much interest for her as the prospect of riding a bicycle — but maybe that was only because riding a bicycle wasn't allowed, and she was in a wilful mood. Perhaps if she ever tried, she would find it just as dull as French grammar structures.

"The best part was that —" she began, but left off abruptly when she glanced over at him and saw something terrible just over his shoulder.

Her mother. About to catch her avoiding the ballroom. About to catch her alone with a man.

Instinctively Henri pressed in close to his shoulder, trying to hide behind him in case her mother hadn't seen her yet and might pass them by unmolested. Of course, if her mother had seen, this was only going to make everything worse.

---

Noble grinned, amused again by the tone she'd taken. He wasn't sure that she was being funny on purpose — Miss Cartwright was not particularly easy to read, given that there seemed to be more going on with her than he'd suspected at first — but he was amused.

And then she pressed close to him, like something frightening was coming. "What —?" Noble said, turning his head to see whatever was behind him —

But it wasn't a horror; just a woman. He took a step back, to create a little space between himself and Miss Cartwright. "Mrs. Cartwright," Noble said mildly.

But this was weird — Miss Cartwright was acting like she was afraid of her mother.

---

Had she been thinking things through properly Henrietta would have understood immediately why he'd stepped away from her, but in the moment all she felt was a sense of betrayal; she'd been intending to hide herself away and here he had not only failed to shelter her, but turned to greet her mother. Had she not been so caught up in figuring out what her mother was going to do after finding her in this predicament Henri might have been a little awed by his casual tone. It was like watching the younger students at Hogwarts out on the lawn prodding dangerous creatures in one of their classes, unaware that these things they thought were harmless had the potential to maim them in an instant. She'd seen it happen once. She didn't know the name of the creature — of course as a proper young woman she had not taken that class — but the girl had spent three days recovering in the hospital wing, and a month afterwards walking with a slight limp. Someone had said she couldn't waltz to this day because her feet weren't dexterous enough to manage it.

Mama looked at the young man for a long moment before turning her withering gaze on Henri (did she use the same withering gaze on the gentleman? Henri would never know for sure; he certainly did not seem to have withered). All she said was "Henrietta," but Henri understood all of the subtext in that word.

"I came out here on my own," she blurted — usually with Mama it was safer to say nothing, but this was different. Whether he knew it or not, the man was in danger — not physical danger like the students at Hogwarts, but a certain kind of danger. Mrs. Cartwright could destroy someone socially if she had cause to, and Henri had no doubt she would if she felt her daughter's reputation — and therefore her own reputation — was threatened. "I wasn't here with him, Mama."

---

Mrs. Cartwright looked at him like he was unworthy of her attention, and Noble was left baffled — she knew him, he was friends with Holden, he'd been to her house. He didn't understand why she looked at him like that, or why she said Henrietta in that tone, until Miss Cartwright started babbling. It clicked into place: oh. He should have thought this already, but Mrs. Cartwright was her mother, surely she wouldn't do anything to damage either of their reputations?

(After years with Daff it was almost ironic that something like this would happen with a woman he barely knew and hadn't actually done anything with.)

"We would never," he attempted.

---

This was not going to go well for either of them. Henrietta could tell just by looking at Mama's face; she was unconvinced by their protests. It didn't matter to Mrs. Cartwright whether anything had happened, or whether Henrietta had come out here by herself or with a gentleman, and really Henri had already known that. She'd been trying to say whatever she could to lessen the wrath of her mother, but for a woman like Mrs. Cartwright it was quite enough that her daughter, who ought to have known better, would put herself in a position where something could even have been assumed in the first place. A well-bred young woman should be beyond reproach; if her character is called into question she is worthless.

What Henri didn't know was what would happen next. In romance novels sometimes the couples caught in these sorts of predicaments were forced to marry, but Henrietta couldn't imagine that would happen. He might have been Holden's friend, but that didn't mean he was worthy of marrying a Cartwright daughter — he was too young, too poor, too haphazard. A marriage would have been such an obvious red flag to everyone that they might as well have just marched back into the ballroom and announced to everyone that they'd been caught together. Not that, but then what? She could blackmail him into silence, but Henrietta didn't think it likely — he had comparatively so little to lose in this scenario that Mrs. Cartwright would probably have to pay him in order to be assured that he wouldn't mention this to anyone, and even then she'd never know for sure.

Probably the best course of action for Mrs. Cartwright would be to rid herself of her troublesome daughter, in whatever fashion she deemed fastest and least likely to raise eyebrows. An arranged marriage to a foreigner would do the trick best, probably. At least, that would probably be what Mama told people — as for what actually happened to Henrietta, there were probably things that were quicker and cheaper. An asylum, maybe. Her mother had always warned her that if she didn't pull herself together someone would start calling her hysterical. It may have started as a cautionary tale but now it seemed distinctly like a threat.

"I'm going home," she declared, surging forward to try and push past her mother. She didn't know that she did intend to go home, but she definitely had no intention of staying here.

---

Later, when he was going over every second of this entire encounter, this entire night, Noble would pinpoint this as the first point where things started to go catastrophically wrong. He would look at it from every direction, trying to identify every moment where he could have made a different decision — anything that would prevent them from ending up where they eventually did.

In the moment: he didn't know what to do, because based on the look on Mrs. Cartwright's face, they were fucked. He was very aware, with a clarity he felt in his bones, that the Cartwrights were a powerful family — maybe not as powerful as some of the rich purebloods that Verity looked up to, but powerful all the same. And how could he defend himself when faced with a look like that?

Noble was thinking about this, trying to find some way out of this, when Miss Cartwright surged forwards to leave. She brushed against her mother and the older woman moved with more speed than Noble expected — she wrapped one of her hands around her daughter's arm, and even from this distance, Noble thought her grip looked painful.

He stepped forwards — he wasn't thinking but some instinct told him to get between them. And — a mistake, here — he took his wand out of his pocket. He didn't point it, didn't aim, but Mrs. Cartwright still hissed, "Are you drawing your wand on me?" with a level of outrage that made Noble flinch.

---

Even as she'd said it Henri had known she would not really be allowed to leave, but she'd thought that at least putting some space between herself and her mother and the man might diffuse the situation. If anything, it had done exactly the opposite. Mama's hand was on her arm in a way that Henrietta could still feel even through the dissociative haze she was beginning to slip into, which meant she must have been holding on tight. Mama holding onto her might have been alright — or if not alright, at least no more than she expected — if the man had taken the opportunity to extricate himself from the situation, but he did precisely the opposite. Why would he have drawn his wand? For a split second she could make no sense of it at all. She didn't feel any of her mother's apparent outrage at the situation, only confusion. Action was not in her nature, and in his shoes she would have fled. Henri considered briefly that he might have been about to apparate away — then in a flash recalled their last encounter, where he'd apparated her out of the tunnel before the water from the lake had crushed in around them both. It clicked into place then: he was trying to protect her.

Mama still had a grip on her arm, despite her attention being focused on him. Without knowing what she was doing or why, Henrietta suddenly pulled back and leaned all her weight to one side. Mama, who had not been expecting resistance (who would ever have expected resistance from Henrietta Cartwright?) lost her balance and stumbled to the side. She tried to catch herself but her feet weren't quick enough through all the layers of skirts, and in another second she was tumbling down the nearby stair off the edge of the boardwalk. She could easily have taken Henri with her, but fortunately had let go of the arm as she tried to catch herself, which left Henri in a perfect position to see her fall.

Her hand flew to her mouth and her eyes widened with shock. When her mother climbed back up to the boardwalk, she was going to murder Henrietta.

---

Noble had his wand out, but he didn't know what to do with it — didn't move as Mrs. Cartwright stumbled over the edge of the boardwalk and tumbled into the waves below. He stood frozen for another beat, eyes caught on Miss Cartwright's hand over her mouth, and the thrashing of the waves — and perhaps, of Mrs. Cartwright — seemed amplified to his ears. He expected her to climb out right away — it was a bit of a drop, but not a terrible one — but as the seconds passed in that oceanside near-silence Mrs. Cartwright did not emerge.

It occurred to him all at once: Miss Cartwright couldn't swim because it was not ladylike. Since she was presumably even more ladylike, Mrs. Cartwright was likely also not able to swim. "Shit," Noble said. He held his wand between his teeth and tugged off his coat, dropping it to the boardwalk.

"I'm going to get her out," Noble said to Miss Cartwright, switching his wand into his hand again. Hopefully Mrs. Cartwright was fine — hopefully she was already on shore and planning his doom. Hopefully he was overreacting.

He jumped into the water. It was warmer than he'd expected, and gentler — hardly any current at all, and he could touch the bottom with his shoes. (Stupid — he should have taken off his shoes.) Surely Mrs. Cartwright could have handled this by herself?

Something pushed up against him in the water; Noble grabbed onto it on automatic but nearly dropped it when he realized it was a limp arm. He thrashed in the water when he saw her: Mrs. Cartwright. She hadn't drowned.

Instead, her head was at an odd angle where it had hit something — the pillar of the boardwalk, maybe — and her eyes stared at him, unseeing. Noble knew without checking that she was dead; her steeled himself and grabbed onto her arm again, and with a few kicks he was close to the boardwalk again. He reached up to hold onto the boardwalk itself, hold on.

"Miss Cartwright?" he asked.

Her mother was dead; should he be calling her Henrietta?

---

It hadn't occurred to Henrietta that falling from the boardwalk meant falling into water. Even as she looked over the edge and into the gentle waves below it took a few seconds for the realization to dawn on her. Water below the boardwalk. She had just thrown her mother into the ocean. (Was that accurate? She'd fallen — Henrietta hadn't pushed her — had she?) Her dress would be ruined when she came out, stiff with salt and stained as it dried. Expensive fabrics did not tend to dry well. They were not meant to be tossed carelessly into the ocean.

The man swore, which shocked her. People did not tend to swear around Henrietta. Her first thought was that perhaps he'd forgotten she was there at all. Given the circumstances it seemed unlikely, but she was rather forgettable. In any case, Mama wouldn't like that he'd sworn — hopefully she couldn't hear, from where she was. Henri turned her attention to the man and was utterly confused by what he did next. Why was he undressing? He spoke to her but his words made no sense in her ears. He was following Mama down off the boardwalk, but why? Why take his wand? What did he hope to accomplish? He ought to leave. Mama was going to be terribly cross when she came back out, and whether she'd fallen or been pushed it certainly wasn't his fault that she'd ended up in the water.

He was down, and she could hear him splashing around below. Her eyes lingered on his coat. Her vision seemed to have narrowed; she could only focus on about a foot of area at a time, so looking at his coat meant she was unaware of him and of most of her surroundings. There was a very small puddle nearby on the boardwalk, in the slight indentation of a knot of wood on one of the planks, and she worried it would soak into his sleeve. Henrietta carefully bent down to retrieve it and folded it over her arm. Now he wouldn't have to explain a wet mark on his sleeve, when he went back to the ballroom, after this was all over.

He said her name and she turned to see him at the edge of the boardwalk, one arm up on the edge by her feet. Oh. It wouldn't matter much whether or not his coat was damp. She kept hold of it anyway.

"Yes?" she replied in a bit of a daze. She had expected Mama to have returned by now, but of course she hadn't realized at first that there was water right below them. It would take longer for her to climb out if she had to struggle against all that wet fabric. Still, they were on borrowed time — Mama would be in the middle of things any moment, and she wouldn't be happy about this turn of events.

---

Maybe there was a better way to go about this. It was too late now, though, and Noble didn't have any experience with telling someone about their accidental murder.

Because that's what this was, he realized: an accidental murder. Shit. From their previous interactions Miss Cartwright seemed fairly harmless, except for all the odd things that happened around her. For Merlin's sake, she had his coat folded over her arm. But this was still going to look very bad, because it was her mother. It would look bad for Noble, too. As if they had actually planned this, like they were meeting in secret, and now they killed her mother together.

They were going to have to come up with some other way out of this.

But first he was going to have to tell her.

"I think," Noble said, conscious of the weight of the body he was holding onto, "That your mother is dead."

Maybe not the most graceful way to tell her, but they did not have an abundance of time.

---