If she unfroze her face, it would dissolve into tears, because now when John left for London in a few weeks, Helena would lose him and Louisa, too.
The thought pricked at her, as if she stitched her skin instead of the cloth spread over her lap. The white-on-white sheaves of wheat looked as untidy as her sentiments, but she kept stitching. Needle down, John leaves for London. Needle up, he’s taking Louisa with him.
The pain threatened to crack her in half.
She would miss Louisa’s growth. Loose teeth, perhaps. And Louisa would be lonely without the boys and Margaret. She may even miss Helena, and Helena would be hundreds of miles away.
But this was Louisa’s best chance to perhaps see again. God, what do you have in store for her?
With a rustle of paper, John folded his letter into a precise rectangle. “Done. Are you unwell? You scarcely ate, and I daresay you’re pale as your embroidery canvas.”
She glanced up. “I’m overwhelmed after all we learned at Mr. Holme’s office.”
“I was overwhelmed, too.” He dropped the letter onto the edge of the desk. “To think I doubted this trip would bear any fruit. I’m sorry, Helena.”
“No need to be sorry. And I’m glad you don’t think the trip was in vain.” If nothing else came from their venture to Edinburgh, Holme’s Relief for the Blind received a substantial donation from her generous husband, but it seemed John wouldn’t fight her in teaching Louisa more skills now. “Do we leave after breakfast? I’m anxious to return home.”
“The children will be delighted to see their presents.” A smile tugging at his lips, he settled into the chair to her left, as if they were in the library at home. “And us, of course.”
Then why take Louisa from Helena?
He seemed ignorant of what his edict had done to her. On the contrary, he’d behaved like a different man altogether at the toy shop when they shopped for the children’s presents. Lighthearted and playful, touching the puppets and mechanical toys like Callum and Alex would. She’d wanted to join in his childlike spirit, but she’d felt as if she were petrifying inside.
Still, the gifts she and John had chosen for the children seemed perfect. For Margaret, a new type of board game, Virtue Rewarded and Vice Punished. For the boys, toy ships to sail in the creek, breaking one of Catriona’s rules, of course, but John seemed to have forgotten. And for Louisa, simple dolly frocks for Tabitha.
“How long do you suppose you will keep Louisa with you in London?”
John stretched his legs before the fire. “I thought to bring all the children, not just Louisa. They’ve never been to London.”
The altar cloth slipped off Helena’s lap. “All four?” Without her?
“All six of us, unless you’d rather not, but I think Louisa would be comforted by your presence during the examination.” His soft smile twisted as he studied her face. “Did you presume I meant to leave you behind?”
A lie rushed to her lips. Instead she scooped up the cloth from the floor. “I wasn’t certain.”
“I’d like you to come, if you wish. For a month or two, at least. Perhaps your father’s health has improved. You can visit your family.”
Could she? Mama, Papa, her sisters...perhaps even the family she’d not been able to bid farewell, her grandmother and Uncle Cecil, whose wife Mama abhorred for her lower station. After so long a separation, Helena would be delighted to see any one of them.
But especially Papa. The chance to spend time with him, ill as he was, seemed like a gift. And the thought of being together with John and the children for the holiday was better than any trapping of Christmas: plum pudding or mummers or wassail or packages or playing in the snow. She’d appreciate the holiday in a new way, too, now she’d begun to place her trust in the Baby whose birth they celebrated.
John’s brow was lifted as he awaited her answer. “So we’ll all go to London, together?”
She could not repress her smile. “I should like it very much.”
John grinned back.
It would be the best Christmas of her life.
* * *
The next two weeks passed in a flurry of preparations for the trip to London. John was grateful for the busyness of it all, since it kept his mind distracted from the feelings stirring in his chest for his wife.
Far better to be occupied with making arrangements for the London town house to be opened and handling the flood of correspondence regarding the massacre in Manchester—Peterloo, as some were calling it, referencing the Battle of Waterloo. Another blackmail letter arrived, too, with a falcon imprint in the seal, demanding money. He locked it into the treasure box with its loathsome brothers.
He’d see to putting an end to the blackmail once he arrived in London.
The journey proceeded as schedule, and continued, smooth and uneventful, aside from the disturbing effect prompted by sitting near his wife in the carriage. He spent too much time admiring her eyes, laughing at her little jokes with the children, enjoying being a family with her and itching for more than they agreed to. After two days of such torture, he decided to ride his horse alongside the carriage.
The boys joined him part of each day, and it turned out to be a rich time with them. They spoke of their toy soldiers, the mice they’d kept as pets and the estate, but he was sure to include Callum in the conversations on running Comraich, and Alex didn’t have a single nightmare over the journey.
The afternoon of their arrival, London was dressed for autumn in hues of gray and brown. A light wind blew off the Thames, carrying a tangy odor that followed them into his town house on Saint James’s Square.
“What is that smell?” Callum grimaced.
“London.” John exchanged a glance with Helena. She was smiling.
After they divested their outer garments and greeted the staff, John beckoned Helena upstairs. The boys followed them up, but then ran down again, as if stairs were a novelty. Well, these particular stairs were. Iona kept pace with the boys, a doggy smile on her face. John peeked back. Someone had better be mindful of Louisa.
Margaret had her in hand, and they counted the stairs as they ascended.
John led Helena to the sitting room between their bedchambers. Weak autumn sunlight spilled between heavy green brocade curtains and over the faded furniture, some of it a hundred years old, which made it both charming and uncomfortable to sit on, to John’s thinking. He gestured around the room. “I’ve not seen the need to update anything. Not when it was just me living here. Not when it has always been just me.”
“You said the children have never been here, but Catriona never came with you, either?” Her dainty hand landed on the back of a bulky brown chair.
His head shook. “Mother seldom came to London, either. I thought you might want to change the room to suit your tastes. All the rooms, here and at Comraich, too. Our marriage might not be conventional, but I don’t wish you to feel as if everything you have is secondhand. They’re your rooms, Helena. I want them to be new for you.”
She didn’t say anything. The only sounds in the house were the children’s whoops and the scrapes of servants unloading trunks outside. Did she understand what he was saying? It had less to do with interior design and replacing moth-eaten draperies than it did with wanting her to be happy and comfortable. She needed to know this was her home as much as it was his.
And because he had feelings for her. Warm feelings, despite his efforts to keep Helena from taking over his heart.
The tiniest corner of her lip curled. “Do you like blue?”
His shoulders relaxed. “It depends upon the shade and where you mean to drape it. Cerulean is fine for walls but not my pantaloons.”
Her jaw dropped in mock despair. “I had meant to surprise you with cerulean pantaloons. Pity. They were to go with the scarlet silk coat I planned for your Christmas.”
“I’ll not wear
scarlet for you, woman.”
Her laugh was like little bells. “’Tis well, I suppose. I like you in green. It brings out your eyes.” Then she flushed. “Thank you, John. I should enjoy this project. Something pastel, to allow in the light?”
“Splendid, yes.” Pastel, stripes, puce, he didn’t care. He looked well in green?
Barnes bustled past the doorway between the sitting room and Helena’s bedchamber. Spying her, Helena moved to join her lady’s maid, but turned her head back to smile at him. “I shall start on the morrow, then. Shall we entertain soon? My family, your friends, whomever you like.”
It was an ordinary expectation for one of her station in society. “Of course. Let us start small. With your family. I shall see enough of Carvey at Westminster.”
Her grin warmed his bones. She was at home in London. And if she was happy, it would be enough to sustain him through the rest of their marriage.
Chapter Fourteen
It was not the happy Christmas John had hoped for his wife.
Oh, it had been festive and loud and fun at their town house on Saint James’s Square, where the children reveled in their gifts and nibbled candies before breaking their fasts. Helena had a gift for him, too: a gold stickpin for his neck cloth, not a scarlet coat, as she’d teased. He’d given her a shawl trimmed with scarlet ribbon, because of that teasing. They’d both laughed, and he’d been warmed to his bones to share in a joke with her.
Although the library had grown rather frigid when Adam brought in yet another blackmail letter with a falcon-imprinted wax seal. This time, the blackguard did not want money. He wanted John’s vote for Sidmouth’s Six Acts, in particular the one prohibiting political assembly of more than three individuals. Much as John did not like the law, it would pass. So why did someone want his vote when it wouldn’t even matter?
Power. Someone would manipulate him for the sport of it, and sent the note of blackmail today of all days in order to ruin his Christmas.
John had refused to let it, but he should have known Helena’s family would ruin hers.
At the appointed hour, they’d bundled the children into their coats and ventured to the grand town house Helena had lived in before she married. John had never been there before, nor had he met the blonde duchess, their two unwed daughters and the dowager, a tiny, sharp-eyed woman who examined him through a bejeweled quizzing glass. He wasn’t certain whether to feel offended or amused, but chose the latter and flashed her a saucy smile.
Her brows rose, but it also seemed as if the tiniest corner of her lips twitched.
After quick introductions, the duchess sent his children upstairs, including Margaret, who was of age with Helena’s sister Andromeda. Margaret’s cheeks had flushed with indignation. “Why—”
“You’ll have more fun,” John whispered to her. Miss Munro and Agnes would no doubt organize games and amusements, and they’d enjoy their dinner together.
After pleasantries, John followed the small family party into an elegant, gold-papered dining room for the Christmas feast.
“Helena,” his mother-in-law said the moment grace was spoken and they filled their plates with a savory dinner of roast goose, root vegetables, buttered fish and jewel-colored jellies. Her smile was precisely like the one Helena wore when she applied her stoic mask, but otherwise, she did not look much like her daughter, although she was a beauty. “You will never guess who attended the Fairburns’ ball last Thursday. The Duke of Bowden.”
Bowden had been their intended husband for Helena, rich and old enough to be her grandfather. Not only that, he was the uncle of the man who’d assaulted her, Frederick Coles. Did the duchess realize how much pain she was inflicting right now by broaching the subject? John scowled.
Helena’s gaze dropped to her plate. “He is well, I hope.”
“He is to wed. Banns will be posted soon. I think you know the young lady. Viscount Ralston’s daughter. The match is so far above her, she is reveling in her success.”
And Helena’s match was so far beneath her—John caught the duchess’s subtext. Helena had confessed she’d looked down on those beneath her in rank before her marriage, including her cousin’s wife, Gemma. It was clear where Helena had learned to hold such a high attitude of herself. Were her sisters the same?
John leaned to his left, where the middle sister, Maria, poked at her food. “Helena says you will come out in society this spring.”
Maria watched her mother, as if waiting for permission before responding. “Yes,” she said at last, turning back to her food with such focus he had no choice but to end that conversation.
Andromeda sat on his other side, looking like a rounder, younger version of Helena.
John smiled at her. “Andromeda, did you make a wish on the Christmas pudding?”
“Wishing on pudding?” the duchess interrupted before Andromeda could speak. “How charming.” Her tone implied she thought it anything but.
“It is, Mama,” Helena inserted. “We had a wonderful time together. Everyone in our house takes turns stirring the pudding and then makes a wish.”
“From the lord to the chambermaids.” John sliced into a portion of goose.
Kelworth skewered him with a pointed gaze. “Did you wish for a petition for education for all? It would be most predictable of you.”
His bite of goose didn’t go down easily.
“Enough politics,” the duchess said with a long sigh. “We are at the table.”
Helena’s grandmother cackled. “Christmas is not Christmas unless someone is upset.”
“I’m not upset.” Helena flinched, as if speaking had taken great effort. It probably had. Brava, my dear. “I’m happy. To see you all after so long an absence.”
The silence stretched too long before Kelworth nodded. “Yes, well, yes. It surprised us to learn you’d come to town. So soon after the, er, wedding.”
The goose sat in a lump in John’s gullet. “We travel as a family. The children are attached to Helena, as she is to them.”
“You’re staying through the social season, then?” Maria didn’t sound pleased. Was she afraid Helena and her lower-born husband would somehow affect her debutante season?
“No.” Helena toyed with her food. “The children and I will return north in a month or thereabouts, leaving John to concentrate on his work. But we came to spend Christmas together, and for a special appointment. We are to take Louisa to a physician in two days.”
“Louisa?”
“The youngest. She is five and she—”
“Oh, yes.” The duchess investigated the carrots.
“I say, Ardoch, what think you of this weather?” Kelworth sliced into his goose. “Colder than it has been for a few winters.”
John blinked at the abrupt change of subject. What was wrong with these people? Scornful, rude, unwelcoming. They hadn’t seen Helena in months. Now she looked at each of them like a penitent pup, scolded for stealing a sock.
His grip tensed on his fork.
They should rise from the table and leave, prove to them all how ill-mannered he was and give them something new to discuss. But Helena wanted connection to her family, so he’d endure more of it for her. Although he’d far prefer to tell the lot of them what he thought of them.
Instead he stared at the duke. “Yes, it’s cold.”
And he didn’t just mean outside.
The dowager, the duchess and Helena’s sisters all remarked on the snow. He and Helena need not be at the table at all, the way they were ignored.
It was a relief when the ladies finished and withdrew to the drawing room, although it left him alone with Kelworth to endure talk of politics and thinly disguised slights. John sat back and, in the spirit of Christmas, let his father-in-law speak. It allowed him to think.
Tonight made something clear. Helena’s family hadn’t given her the c
are she’d needed and deserved while she was growing up. His family had had its own issues, but he’d known he was cared for more than Helena had. Little wonder she’d responded to Frederick Coles’s displays of affection.
So few in Helena’s life loved her back, and she’d hid her wounds beneath a wall of ice. Such a barrier would not disappear in the course of a conversation. Or a half year of marriage with him. But with time and his full support, perhaps she would heal.
How could he help her?
The shawl he’d given her for Christmas was a token, a trifle. But his real gift to her would be a loving home, the companionship and affection she’d been denied under this roof.
He’d be her champion, her friend, and he’d see her happy, God willing.
“Why are you smiling like that?” Kelworth’s brow furrowed.
Was he? John didn’t attempt to smother it. “Just thinking of your daughter. How glad I am to have married her.”
Kelworth’s head snapped back. He probably thought ‘twas bad enough John had married his daughter, but it was downright distasteful that John and Helena might be happy about their marriage.
For some reason, that made John smile even wider. “As you were saying?”
* * *
This was what Helena had anticipated most of all since returning to London: time with her sisters. She followed Maria to the green-papered drawing room, intent to sit beside her on the cream velvet settee. Mama took that seat, however, leaving no room for Helena. Andromeda curled at Mama’s feet with an issue of La Belle Assemblée while the dowager settled into the plushest chair by the fire.
Helena perched on the chair closest to Maria. “You must tell me everything I’ve missed in London.”
“Is Scotland so removed you receive no newspapers?” Maria didn’t meet her gaze.
“I meant what I’ve missed of you. I imagine you are preparing for your presentation at court.” They used to daydream of their special court dresses, chatting about lace and feathers and managing the dresses’ long trains. “What will your gown be like?”
A Mother For His Family Page 13