by Susanna Ives
“Helena, go... go put on the dress,” Emily ordered.
“Sara and I can finish the dress later,” Helena said.
“Let me s-see it on you!”
Helena didn’t want to leave Emily, so Sara helped her change in the parlor corner.
Mrs. Gordon slipped in the room with a cup of steaming tea. “Drink this.”
Helena watched Emily blow on the surface before taking a sip, “Ah, that is good.” She closed her eyes and drew an expansive breath through her nose. “I feel myself improving.”
As Sara’s deft hands measured and pinned up the gown’s hem, the other women made a show of telling Emily how beautiful the dress was and how Theo would be overcome when he saw his bride in it. Within an hour, Helena’s cousin was laughing again, but a quiet sadness still lingered about her.
“It is the most beautiful wedding gown I have ever seen,” Sara said, as she studied its pleats and ruffles.
“Yes, it is,” Helena agreed, although the shoulders gaped and waist dropped a little too low. Her old London acquaintances would laugh at such a homely creation. But Helena knew the truth: this gown, made from cotton, thread, buttons, and love, was far too fine for her.
Emily reached out and fingered the fabric. “Megan will look so lovely in it, too.”
Tiny, worried plaits formed between Megan’s eyebrows. “No, Mama, we will sew another dress for me.”
Emily bit the edge of her bottom lip. Tears shone in her eyes.
Helena wrapped her arms around her cousin’s slender shoulders. “You will sew Megan’s wedding gown and at least a dozen or more christening gowns.”
“I hope it is so.” Emily patted Helena’s arm. “I hope so.”
Megan cuddled beside her mother. “You will.”
“Oh, my wonderful, wonderful girls,” Emily whispered. The three women clasped each other, gently rocking, until Emily stiffened and cried, “Theo, get away from that window!”
Helena glanced up in time to see a blur of Theo disappearing from view. A few seconds later, footfalls thudded in the hall.
“Sara, tell him to go away!” Emily made urgent shooing gestures with her hand. “He isn’t supposed to see the gown.”
But Theo had already breached the parlor threshold. Branwen shot from behind his legs, scurrying for Megan.
Poor Sara froze, too petrified to ask her employer to leave.
He wore his long coat and appeared as if he had been walking in the elements for some time. He smelled of grass, dirt, and wind. His cheeks were brilliant red and the edges of his hair, which had escaped the protection of his hat, were a tangle of curls.
He audibly caught his breath when his gaze fell on Helena. A warm wave rushed over her skin and down to her sex, which still tingled from their quick, stolen lovemaking in his greenhouse yesterday. These quick trysts sated her for a short time, but her desire always came back, stronger than before, longing for when she could love him slowly, fully, secure in the knowledge of their names scribed on a registry.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered. A devilish grin cracked his lips. “Everyone look the other way. I must kiss my bride this very moment.”
Emily snatched a ball of red yarn from her sewing box and threw it at him.
“Ouch!” he bellowed. He grabbed his shoulder and moaned as if he had been struck by a hard rock or arrow.
“You must wait for your wedding night,” Emily scolded.
“Why are you being so cruel?” he cried. “Can’t you see my bride is ravishing and I’m mad for her?”
He lunged for Helena. She shrieked and dashed, giggling, across the room. He started to chase her but stopped.
“Mr. Mallory! Mr. Mallory!” a servant boy called as he scampered across the front garden.
Sara slipped from the room to answer his knock. Moments later, she returned to announce, “The Earl and Countess of Staswick have arrived at Castell Bach yr Anwylyd.”
“What?” Theo barked. His brows shot down. He wiped his fingers across his mouth. Clearly, he had not expected or desired his parents’ presence.
The realization hit Helena like a blow to the face. They have come to talk Theo out of marrying me. That prescient worry, the fear she tried to reason away, which churned in her brain at night, was coming true. This wedding wouldn’t occur.
“Come... come to dinner tonight,” Theo stammered in the distracted way of someone trying to grapple with a changing situation. “Seven o’clock. No, no, perhaps earlier. I’ll send word.” He slapped his thigh. “Come, Branwen, we’re leaving. Now.” He walked out the door without glancing back.
Through the window, Helena watched him stride against the wind. Beneath the lowered brim of his hat, his eyes were narrowed and his jaw grimly set. A soldier off to battle.
“They are going to hate me,” Helena cried.
“No, they are not,” Emily retorted. “And if they do, so be it. Theo doesn’t care. He loves you.”
“I can’t stop feeling as if something is wrong,” Helena admitted. “That something dreadful is stirring.”
“Come here,” Emily said.
Helena crossed to her cousin, letting Emily take her hands.
“You’re just nervous,” Emily counseled. “That is all. Marriage is an enormous change, and you’ve been through so much already. Be gentle with yourself, Helena. You know Theo adores you. Trust him.”
“Yes.” Helena mentally admonished herself for doubting Theo, a man who loved her and declared his honest intentions to marry her. He was a good, sincere man. What had her father’s skullduggery done to her? Now some aspect of her, which she couldn’t stifle, obsessively hunted for darkness where none existed.
“Now, let’s remove this gown, and we will all rest—including me—until we must make ready for Theo’s dinner. You will see that your fears are baseless.”
∞∞∞
Theo turned into his drive to find Gordon waiting by the entrance gate. By the fountain, Theo’s stepmother, adorned in dark blue traveling clothes, held his father’s arm.
“Why weren’t they invited inside?” Theo asked Gordon.
“They said they preferred to wait here.”
“Have their trunks been brought in?”
“They arrived with only one and I had it taken up.”
“Can you keep Branwen with you?”
Gordon clamped his rough, muscled fingers onto the dog’s collar. As Theo started towards his parents, Branwen barked and struggled against her captor.
His father turned his head. The lines of his face were etched deep in his aging, sagging skin. His mouth was a solemn line.
Oh, Bloody Hell.
His stepmother smiled at Theo, at the same time squeezing her husband’s arm. “You’ve done a great deal since we came last.” Her voice carried the same stiff brightness as her smile. Theo could hear the strain of worry beneath her words. “It was all weeds and nettles then.”
Theo saw no reason to pretend not to know the reason for their visit. “I’m currently adding a garden for my future wife,” he said. “She will come down to meet you this evening, once you’ve settled in.”
Marie gazed up at his father. The two communicated without uttering a word.
“We would like to speak to you about Miss Gillingham,” Marie said.
Of course, you would.
“No doubt to congratulate me for marrying the woman I love,” Theo quipped dryly. “Let us come inside.”
∞∞∞
When he had left this morning for Helena’s garden, the house was electric with anticipation for its new mistress. Rugs were being hauled in from outbuildings, having been beaten and aired. The recently polished carvings gleamed and smelled of oil and lemon.
Now the festive mood was destroyed as his parents strolled through the rooms. His stepmother complimented his house, his person, anything she could find to praise. Her cheerful façade clashed with her husband’s dour demeanor. The elder man took in his son’s fanciful home with unvoiced disappro
val.
Theo escorted his parents to the parlor and closed the door behind them. Marie took a seat on the edge of a wing chair, her back straight, hands neatly clasped in her lap. Her husband stood like a sentry beside her with one hand poised protectively on the chair.
“My son,” Lord Staswick began in the tone of someone about to launch into a rehearsed lecture.
Theo held up his palm. “If you’ve come to disparage my bride and convince me to retract my proposal, I assure you, you are wasting your breath.”
“Your father is terribly worried about your alliance with Miss Gillingham.” Marie took on her usual conciliatory role.
Theo rebuffed her with a sardonic snort. “Not half a year ago, you both were more than happy to unite me with her.”
“Don’t pretend to ignore the material point,” his father thundered. “Miss Gillingham is disgraced.”
“Not in my eyes!” Theo barked, not cowed by the blustering man. “I shall not have my bride disparaged in my own home.”
“You are bringing her into my family.” The earl drew his aging body up, a sad show of old honor. “She will bear my family name. She is a detriment to more than yourself.”
For a moment, Theo didn’t trust himself to speak. When he did, his words were low and measured. “I love her. She loves me. We are happy. I’m sorry if our happiness is a detriment to your so-called honor.”
His father stepped forward, ready to tear into his son, but his wife placed a calming, restraining hand on her husband’s arm. “You promised,” she whispered to the earl, as if to remind him of a prior agreement between them.
Then she focused her dark, brilliant eyes on her stepson. “Please understand your father thinks only of your happiness. It’s all he’s wanted since you’ve returned from the war.”
“No, he would prefer an unstable, angry drunk with family honor than for me to find peace and happiness with Helena,” Theo fired back, glowering at his father.
Marie gasped. “Theo!”
Theo began to pace, flexing and balling his fingers. His parents watched him. He wanted to slam his fist into a chair, the wall, the bureau, something to get this goddamned rage out of his body. He would send a note reassuring Helena of his love, but asking her to stay away this evening. His parents would not work on her. He wouldn’t allow them at his wedding.
“I’m sorry but I must ask you to leave if you cannot approve of my bride,” Theo said when he was composed enough to speak.
He expected his father to thunder on about family and honor, but instead, the old man wiped his hands down his sagging face. Theo could hear the chaff of his rough skin and whiskers. “Her father took his life because you informed Scotland Yard of his crimes. I don’t understand how you will have a successful marriage.”
The earl’s words hit like a bullet, exploding under Theo's skin. For a beat, their meaning, their hurt, didn’t sink in. It was the same feeling Theo had seen in his soldiers—the first moments of painless disbelief at a fatal shot. Then the knowledge radiated through him. He staggered on his feet and blindly reached for the mantel for support. “H-how did you learn this?”
His father’s gaze flickered to his wife. The two exchanged a look. The earl reached into his pocket and drew out a neatly folded torn page. “This was in the London Times yesterday.”
Theo took the paper. He could scarcely read for the words screaming in his head and his shaking hand. The second paragraph pronounced his doom. An unnamed official now claims the war veteran who first informed Scotland Yard of Mr. Gillingham’s fraudulent investments is Mr. Theodotus Mallory, third son of the Earl of Staswick and recipient of the Victoria Cross medal.
A rush of blood filled Theo’s ears. He released the page. It danced back and forth in the air as it descended to the floor.
I’ve lost her.
“Is this true?” his father demanded.
Theo sank into a wingchair.
“Is this true?” the earl repeated.
Theo rested his throbbing head in his hand. “Yes.”
“Then I don’t understand what would entice Miss Gillingham to marry you,” the earl relentlessly continued. “Do you hold something over her?”
Theo could hear Branwen’s muffled barks in the front garden.
“What have you done, my son?”
Theo squeezed his eyes shut as a convolution of emotions flooded in—despair, anger, frustration, sorrow, loathing. He began to shake. He needed a drink, a cigarette, her touch, something to keep his mind together, something to numb. When he opened his eyes again, his parlor was a slurry of mud and blood. The air was acrid with smoke from the artillery fire.
You bastard. Don’t fall apart now. You owe that much to her.
He blinked, chasing away the vision. He carefully rose and strode from the room on unsteady legs. He had to get to Helena before anyone else. She needed to hear the truth from him.
He could hear his father yelling his name. The sound boomed through the corridors and exploded in his ears. Theo couldn’t stop. He had to keep pressing on.
The sunlight streaming from the top window glinted on the dust floating in the stairwell. Not even a week before, he had pointed to the carving of Luned and told Helena he was her gallant Owain, saving her from the fire.
Instead, he had tossed her in its flames to watch her burn, because he was weak, because he was mad. He was as corrupt as her father.
He gripped the banister, forcing himself up the stairwell and down the corridor. His chest and lungs weighed heavy, as if he were collapsing in on himself. In the study, he flung himself in his desk chair and slammed opened his ledgers. He combed his fingers through his sweat-slickened hair and pressed the heel of his palms into his temples.
How much could he give her?
How much would compensate for killing her father, destroying her social standing, and then taking her virtue? How much was her life worth?
Black spots crowded his vision, obscuring his neat lines of numbers. Flies nibbled the edges of the paper. Dead Russian soldiers whispered to him, pleading for him to shoot them.
“Damn me,” he growled.
He reached for his decanter out of habit but stopped himself. No. He must take care of Helena before he surrendered to alcohol’s oblivion. He forced himself to concentrate on the numbers and block out the cries of his dying soldiers.
He could give her 20,000 pounds—almost all he had. Then he would go away, maybe to an asylum, paying Efa and Gordon to care for Helena and her cousins... and any child that she might be carrying.
He groaned and threw back his head, staring up at the ceiling.
Her memory filled his mind’s eye. Her face was flushed and her eyes languorous from love-making. Their frantic energy had been burned up in climax, now their slowing breath moved in and out like waves lapping the shore. As he lay upon her, kissing her neck, she began to whisper of her dreams. She wanted a future of small things: a garden; evenings spent with him, Megan, and Emily, mundanely reading or sewing by the fire; and children playing in his sheltering gardens.
His eyes drifted to his Minié rifle mounted on the wall. His fingers itched for its cold metal comfort. He had tried so hard to plant harmless flowers, to love a woman, but he couldn’t submerge who he was, what Crimea had made of him.
He closed the ledger and walked down the corridor, his mouth, jaw, and eyes tightening with grim resolve. The strike of his heel on the floor planks boomed in his ears.
He left through the sculleries to avoid meeting his father and descended the hill to his neighbor. He kept his head straight, his gaze directed to where the swirled-up clouds met the stony peaks. The wind carried the scent of moist soil and sweet grass; it keened through the tangled hedge branches, whispering, like his men murmuring their prayers while waiting for the call to advance.
∞∞∞
Betry opened Emily’s door. “Please…please f-follow me,” she said to Theo. She rubbed her massive belly, lumbering toward the parlor only to be intercept
ed by Emily at the threshold.
“Betry, I told you to lay down! Now!” Emily shooed the servant.
Upon Betry’s departure, Emily clasped Theo’s elbow, guiding him away from the parlor door. “Poor Helena is distraught,” she whispered. “She’s afraid your parents…” He could see her pupils contract a tiny fraction when she realized something was wrong with him. She leaned in. “What has happened?”
He studied his old friend. He remembered how she shook her dying son’s shoulders to make him breathe again, trying so hard to keep him from following his father into death. And now he had brought more pain to her doorstep. Damn him.
His words came out, cold and ferric, as if spoken by someone else. “I must speak to Helena.”
“You shall tell me what is the matter.”
“Emily, please don’t push me. Not now.”
“You are marrying her,” she hissed. “You are.”
Helena appeared at the door, halting his and Emily’s conversation. Her arms were wrapped across her chest. Her face, pale and fearful, searched his. His natural inclination was to take her into his arms and kiss away her qualms, but he couldn’t. He might never be able to embrace her again.
“Are we to be married?” she asked.
“Will you walk with me?” He knew he would have to live forever with the memory of everything about to be said, every tear that rolled down her face, and the impotence of not being able to do anything to stem the pain he had inflicted.
Money was a blunt, heartless compensation for the damage he had wreaked.
Twenty
You knew this would happen, Helena admonished herself.
She had been pretending so hard these days. Believing if she worried enough, if she had enough faith, she could thwart fate. That this beautiful, gentle man and his sheltering gardens could salvage her wrecked life.
But now she felt as if she were four years old again, falling down, down, down from the ancient castle about to hit the hard ground. She had lost him. There was nothing to do but listen to his reasons and struggle to keep from breaking down.