Maria examined her buffed nails. “White.”
All come-outs wore white. “Yes, but what fabric?”
“Gauze with satin sprig. And accent of Clarence blue.” Maria’s chin tilted. “It is anticipated to be one of the most popular colors this season.”
Mama rapped her fan on Maria’s arm. “Take pity on Helena, dear. She has likely not seen a fashion magazine since her marriage.”
“Would you like to see this one?” Andromeda lifted the issue of La Belle Assemblée.
Helena took the periodical and beckoned her little sister closer. “Show me your favorites.”
Andromeda shook her head. “Keep it. I’m finished.”
“Perhaps this year’s fashions will arrive in Perthshire by next year.” Mama perused Helena’s emerald silk gown with a critical eye. “You wore that last winter.”
“Excellent memory, Mama.” Her voice trembled. Mama wasn’t remembering old times. She was judging Helena’s being out of fashion. Helena used to do the same, before she fell from grace and learned a woman’s worth had naught to do with her gown.
“Is there no decent mantua-maker in your village?” Her grandmother spoke for the first time, her gray brows lifting under the brim of her rose satin toque.
Helena dropped the magazine atop the table. She didn’t want it anymore. “I have been busy with the children and as yet have had no need of one.”
“Ah, yes, you are a mother now.” She tapped a gnarled finger against the armrest. “To all those children.”
“There are but four, Your Grace.” She’d never been allowed to call her Grandmother.
“But one of them blind.” She whispered the last word as if it were a secret. “Why did you not leave them behind?”
Helena blinked. She’d explained why in her letters. “We brought her to London to consult a doctor.”
“No, not to London. I refer to bringing her here, tonight.”
“It is Christmas.” How foolish she’d been to think it mattered. “I thought you might wish to meet my new family.”
“Whyever would you think that? They’re not even your children,” Mama said, blinking. Then she reached for the magazine. “Show me what you found, Andromeda. You will require something spectacular made up for Easter.”
Maria pointed to the first page. “What an admirable flounce.”
Something altered within Helena, as if a flickering candle sputtered out. She’d hoped her family missed her, hoped they would be glad to see her. Hoped they would accept the children, but they didn’t care about her or her new family at all. Fixing in place the smile her mother had taught her, Helena excused herself and strode from the room.
Once cleared of the threshold, however, she covered her mouth with her hands and rushed to the alcove near the staircase, where she could hide and control herself. Much as she wanted to return to Saint James’s Square at once, the children shouldn’t see her like this, with foolish tears streaking her cheeks.
No one loved her.
Not her family, who seemed to scarcely tolerate her. She was no longer part of their fold.
Not Frederick Coles, who could have married her for her money if not for love, but he must have so despised her he preferred to have his way and abandon her.
Not the children, who might be growing used to her, but they did not love her.
And certainly not John.
God loves you. Have you already forgotten?
Helena’s lips mashed. She’d learned a great deal about Him and His ways these past few months, but sometimes, her old questions and fears sprouted like fungi before her, seemingly out of nothing.
Your love alone is sufficient, isn’t it, God? Then why does this ache to my soul?
She swiped her wet face with the back of her hand. The problem was her, after all, wasn’t it? She was selfish, wanting love for her own sake. She should have prayed to love John’s children so she could better serve them, so she could give them what they needed. Whether or not they loved her back was inconsequential.
Same with her family. And, too, with John.
She took a ragged, calming breath. John must never know how drawn to him she’d become. She could hide her feelings for five weeks until she and the children returned to Scotland, couldn’t she? Once there, she’d have distance and time to recover from her fanciful emotions, time to focus on the children and care for them as they deserved.
Resolved, she stepped from the alcove as John, handsome in his bottle-green coat, came down the hall.
His eyes widened when he saw her. “You’ve been crying. What’s happened?”
Her lips parted, but then her eyes moistened again and she shook her head. When he guided her back into the alcove, she went willingly.
“Your mother said you were in the nursery.” He withdrew a linen handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket and dabbed her eyes. “I hoped to join you. Have you been tucked in here this whole time?”
She started to answer, but no words came out.
He opened his arms.
Despite her determination not to want her husband, she needed this, needed him, one last time. She curled into him and let her arms go around his back, feeling weak and grateful all at once. And so comfortable with her cheek against his waistcoat. Warmth suffused her forehead where his lips rested. “What happened?”
“The evening has not gone as I had hoped,” she understated.
“I hoped for a merrier gathering, too.”
She sniffed. “I’m sorry.”
“’Tis not your fault.” His breath was hot over her lashes, her brow.
A watery chuckle escaped her throat. “We always speak the same things to one another. I tell you I’m sorry, and then you are gracious and say I’m not at fault.”
“Perhaps we shall assume those words said from now on and spare ourselves the trouble.” She could tell his lips stretched into a smile.
And then they were not. He dotted a kiss on her forehead, warm and gentle. Her fingers unfurled and rested against the soft wool of his coat. Moved down a fraction, to a more comfortable position on his back.
His lips moved down, too.
They pressed the corner of her eye where tears lingered on her lashes. Touched upon her cheekbone. Soft, brief, laced with his compassion for her distress. Kind kisses, no more—they could not be more, surely.
He drew back, no more than an inch. Their breath mingled, tinged with tea and sugar. His clear gaze locked on her, and for the briefest of moments, she expected him to pull away.
Instead he dipped his head again and kissed her lips.
The kiss was as tender as those he’d pressed on her brow and cheek, but this time a shock jolted from her lips to her toes, sparking something in the dry tinder of her heart along its path. She was aware of the faint stubble tickling her lip, the cedar smell of him, how this kiss was like the first bite of a nectarine, sweet and bursting with the promise of summer.
And then, parting her lips to return the kiss, she stopped thinking at all.
Chapter Fifteen
John’s pulse beat fast in his throat as his hand cupped the silken skin of her jaw, gently tilting her head up so he could better kiss her—
What was he doing? Ruining everything, that’s what. His hands fell, and he pulled back as if she scorched him.
He had tried to offer comfort, offer tenderness, show he cared for her with a small kiss on her brow, but he’d had such little control of himself he’d kissed her, really kissed her, like a husband kissed his wife.
“Forgive me. I never should have—I promised you I wouldn’t.”
“I promised the same.”
But she’d not returned the kiss. Her lips had moved against his and in the moment, he’d assumed she was responding, but she was probably about to reprimand him.
How could he have b
een so stupid? Not ten minutes ago he’d determined to be her friend and champion, nothing more. He thought hugging her would demonstrate care to her, and maybe a friendly kiss on the brow wouldn’t hurt.
If only he’d stopped there.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. To her, to God, to himself. “I don’t know what got into me.”
Well, he did know. She was beautiful and he was drawn to her, but to cross this boundary? “So can you find it in your heart to forgive me?”
“There’s nothing to forgive.” As if to prove it, she met his gaze.
“I assured you that you could trust me, and I’ve betrayed that trust. I should never—”
A loud knock rapped the front door, followed by footsteps striking the stone floor as a servant rushed to answer. By the murmured voices and sounds of the shuffling as the servants collected coats and hats, it sounded like a small party had entered.
And John and Helena were hiding in an alcove off the foyer.
She tugged him flush against the wall, the better to stay concealed.
He shook his head. They weren’t children, to be caught in such inappropriate circumstances. Better if they stepped out—
Her head shook with more vehemence. Uncle Cecil, she mouthed.
It didn’t matter who it was, but fine. He’d play it her way. Quiet as a cat, he sidled closer to her, hopefully out of sight when the guests passed the alcove into the drawing room.
Meanwhile, she still clutched his hand. He squeezed back.
The party passed them—two men and a woman—and once they were gone, Helena expelled a huge breath.
John tipped his head down toward her. “Relieved they didn’t see us?”
“Shocked, actually,” she whispered back. “We are right here—but more than that, Uncle Cecil brought Young Cecil. And his wife.”
“What’s wrong with his wife?”
“Aunt Davinia and Mama loathe each other.”
Helena’s mother didn’t seem to like much of anyone. John almost smiled.
“It’s quiet out there now.” John tugged her hand. “Are we safe to go out? And go home?”
The moment he spoke, footsteps rapped the stone floor of the hall again. A servant bearing silver cups walked past the alcove, then spied them, pausing half a second to peek at them before resuming his trajectory.
Helena watched after him. “They must be preparing to toast the day with lamb’s wool punch. ’Tis a longstanding tradition. We can’t leave now without greeting my aunt and uncle, anyway.”
“Are you certain?” Her family was rather beastly, but then again, John had behaved poorly, too, kissing her. “If my inexcusable actions didn’t give you a headache, then I’m certain sipping punch in the drawing room with the lot of them will. I can tell them you are indisposed.”
Her fingers fidgeted at her sides. “I’ll not lie. Nor will I let them think me hen-hearted.”
If he had not known it before, he surely knew it now. Helena was amazing. “You are the bravest female I know. No one would dare call you coward, my valiant lady wife.”
Her smile warmed him to his stockings. “We shall toast. Then take our leave.”
“Perfect.” He took her arm and led her out.
At once, she tugged him to a stop. “What you said in the alcove? I do trust you, John. More than I trust anyone.”
She forgave him, then. His heart lightened considerably, and he was almost smiling when he escorted her into the drawing room.
The temperature seemed to fall several degrees as they entered the room, among a frosty tableau. Everyone looked at them, but none of them spoke, much less smiled. The blond, thin fellow who must be Lord Cecil actually sneered.
Little wonder Helena’s cousin Tavin Knox had little to do with this family, and his mother escaped them by eloping.
Helena adopted her icy, artificial smile and made the introductions. If her Uncle Cecil, round, dark-haired Aunt Davinia and gangly brown-haired cousin of fifteen or so, referred to as Young Cecil, were pleased to make John’s acquaintance, they hid it well.
“Yours was a hasty marriage?” Lord Cecil’s superior tone insinuated he didn’t approve.
The smile playing at John’s lips stretched into a grin. “Our betrothal was short, yes, but we knew the moment we first saw one another we would wed. Is that not so, Helena?”
It wasn’t a lie, although it took her a moment to catch on. “’Tis true.”
“That sounds romantic.” Lady Davinia smiled at her husband. “We knew the same when we met.”
Her son rolled his eyes.
Lord Cecil frowned. “But our betrothal was lengthy enough for preparations to be made. Our families were invited, even if they didn’t all attend.”
A nervous-sounding laugh escaped Helena’s mother’s throat. So she hadn’t gone to the wedding, then? Helena had said her mother didn’t like Lady Davinia.
Eyes narrowed, the dowager duchess peered at John. “We all wondered at the news of such hasty nuptials, but yes, I see it now.”
See what?
Helena tipped her head in exact imitation of her arrogant mother’s. She took a cup of lamb’s wool punch from the footman’s tray. John followed suit, catching a whiff of the apple cider.
Kelworth reached for a cup, only to succumb to a racking cough. The poor man’s face reddened as he bent over, but not a single member of his family near him moved to assist him. So John did, Helena a half step behind him.
“Your Grace, come, sit.”
Kelworth shook off John’s arm as the cough receded. “I’m well.”
“Don’t be a fool, Arthur. Sit.” Lord Cecil shook his head.
“Your brother is right, dearest. Listen to Cecil.” The duchess smiled, to John’s surprise. She hadn’t smiled at anyone tonight.
Lord Cecil eyed his brother. “You know what happened to Father when he was plagued by coughs—”
“I said I’m well.” The dark color leached from Kelworth’s face.
Helena’s hand reached out. “Papa?”
Ignoring her, he turned, taking a cup of punch and lifting it in a toast. “Happy Christmas.”
“Happy Christmas,” the chorus responded, rather flatly.
“And a prosperous New Year.” Kelworth drained his cup.
John toasted his wife in silence. She bore her artificial, frozen smile again, but for the first time since they’d met, the frigid turn of her lips didn’t bother him a whit. He understood it now.
She’d been taught to don that frozen smile by her mother, but she also bore it as a measure of protection. It was her armor, hiding the hurt she felt over her family and the fear she had for her father’s health.
The look would defrost when they returned to their town house on Saint James’s Square, when she didn’t need it as a shield anymore, where she was safe and cared for. He’d do his best to comfort her, with his words and prayers and maybe a hug. Maybe one more kiss—
John almost choked on his punch. No more of that. Kissing, or wanting it.
* * *
Two mornings later, cold nipped Helena’s goose-fleshed skin as she stood outside the town house at Saint James’s Square, although her thick woolen gown, cloak, muffler and gloves provided admirable defense against the chill weather, if not the cold in her heart.
John’s Christmas kiss was forefront in her thoughts. As was her reaction to it.
For a moment in that alcove, Helena thought something was changing between them, that he felt drawn to her, too, to kiss her like that.
But clearly, she was wrong. While he’d been considerate and caring since their moment in the alcove, he was true to his word and he hadn’t touched her again.
A friendly relationship was what they’d agreed upon—what she’d wanted, after all, after Frederick—but she wasn’t so sure she wanted that anymo
re, other than to return that kiss of John’s. Since the moment he pulled back and apologized, rejection’s cold spikes pricked her flesh.
So, now, did the winter wind. She drew her cloak tighter about her shoulders.
John, wrapped in a caped gray greatcoat, scooped Louisa into his arms and hoisted her into the waiting carriage as Agnes joined Bill Coachman up top.
“I’ll place the warmer of hot coals under your feet in a moment.” John’s words to Louisa were spoken with such tenderness, Helena’s heart swelled. His love for his children was one of her favorite things about him.
“I don’t want a warmer,” Louisa called. “It will hurt my patterns.”
“Pattens,” Helena corrected as she prepared to enter the coach. “And the warmer will not hurt them.” The metal rings on the soles of her own pattens, strapped over her boots to provide more traction on the snow, clinked on the coach step.
“Pity,” a cheerful female voice resounded behind her. “I chose a most inopportune moment to call.”
Helena spun and hopped off the step. “Frances! How delightful to see you!”
Miss Frances Fennelwick resembled a frost maiden, blue-eyed and pale-haired with snow dusting her pale blue bonnet and cloak. The maid shadowing her at a respectable distance likewise wore a smile and a gray cloak dusted with snow. Helena presented Frances to John and Louisa, who remained in the carriage.
“Lord Ardoch.” Frances dipped her head and then peeked into the coach. “Good afternoon, Miss Louisa. My, what a pretty doll.”
“Tabitha.” Louisa extended the wooden-headed toy out the door for inspection.
After oohing, Frances returned her gaze to Helena and John. “I mustn’t keep you standing outside, in this weather.”
“I’m Scottish. We do not fear snow.” John grinned, bringing out his dimples.
“The Thames is frozen as far south as Kew.” Although she smiled, Frances spoke with the dry authority of a governess. “A pretty sight, although it has put a damper on several holiday festivities. With Parliament in, Town is full of society, but hardly anyone attended the rout at Lord Gillings’s, and Lady Bulthwaite caught chill and was forced to cancel her ball last night.”
A Mother For His Family Page 14