She would not cry, not here, not in front of Mama. She strode to the door.
“Leave the seal.” Mama’s final words to her, spoken with stern authority.
Helena placed the falcon seal on the little table by the door and walked out.
Directly into Papa.
Chapter Twenty-Four
John glanced out the nursery window at the dark street below, searching for their carriage. Where was Helena? She’d been gone a long time—
“Oomph.” A body plowed into his legs from behind.
“It was Callum,” Alex cried.
“‘Twas the dog,” Callum countered.
Iona panted, the picture of innocence. John grinned. “‘Twas all of you, I suspect.”
“Not us.” Dressed in her tiny nightgown and nightcap, Louisa toddled toward him, one hand clutching Tabitha, the other held in front of her to feel for obstacles. “Margaret and I were perfect ladies.”
“That’s right.” Margaret folded her arms. “We don’t wrestle with the dog before bed.”
This seemed to renew the boys’ attempts to climb John like a tree.
“You are the wildest lot in the square, and it’s nearly bedtime.”
As the boys moaned, Louisa reached for him. “Are you going to bed, too, Papa?”
“Not yet. I await Helena’s return from her mother’s so we can dine together.” Normally they dined before the children went to bed, but when in London, Helena had reverted to keeping London hours. Still, she should have been back an hour or more ago.
Louisa’s hands roamed his sleeves. “You forgot your buttons.”
“How observant you are, little one. Mourning coats have no buttons on the cuffs. ’Tis a way of showing respect to the deceased.”
“We’ve not worn blacks since Queen Charlotte. Louisa just doesn’t remember.” Margaret’s tone held an air of authority, but it was not as superior as it had been a few months ago, to John’s relief.
Callum rolled to his back on the floor, wrinkling his nightshirt into a twist. “When we are back at Comraich, I wish to play with the paper theater.”
“Cinderella.” Louisa lifted a wet finger into the air.
“Yes, yes,” Margaret agreed. “But Hamlet next. We’ve had our fill of Cinderella.”
“When we get home I will check the cows for you, Papa.” Alex nodded. “Just as you taught me and Callum. And tell you about the bad bull. We will write of how things progress.”
How grown up they were. The knowledge was bittersweet. “You are all ready to go home, then.”
“London smells bad.” Louisa scrunched her little nose.
Just then, Agnes entered the nursery with a stack of linens—an excuse, perhaps, to remind him the children should be abed.
“London will be more fun when I’m old enough to attend the parties.” Margaret returned his embrace.
“Give me a horsey ride before bed, Papa.” Louisa patted his thigh.
“Very well.” He took a chair and pulled her onto his lap. “This is the way the ladies ride, primmy, primmy.” He wiggled his legs, then knocked them about with more vigor. “This is the way the gentlemen ride, jimmy, jimmy. And this is the way the butcher boy rides, obbly-oi, obbly-oi!” He bounced Louisa about, setting her shrieking.
She’d never go to sleep now.
A flash of black at the door drew John’s gaze. Adam stood in the threshold with an odd look, as if seeing his master giving horsey rides was difficult to reckon. He recovered at once. “Milord, Lady Ardoch is arrived, accompanied by His Grace the Duke of Kelworth. They await your lordship in the drawing room.”
The boys crawled upright. Louisa slipped off his lap. “Mama!”
Mama.
John’s heart swelled and then, when it felt it couldn’t get any fuller, cracked in two. Joy for Helena. Grief for Catriona, who would wail to hear her daughter call another woman by that name. An odd mixture of both emotions for Louisa, who had come to love his wife.
The other children were silent. Neither of the lads protested, as they had at the wedding. Margaret’s mouth was shut, but she didn’t grimace. The older children might not be able to call Helena Mama or Aunt, but they did not hate the notion anymore, either.
“Will she kiss our cheeks tonight?” Louisa puffed hers out.
“Of course, although if His Grace is here, it must be important and we should attend to him first.”
“We will behave whilst he is here,” Margaret assured him, eyeing her cousins. “His Grace has not called upon Helena yet, so she must be pleased. We should not ruin it for her by causing a ruckus.”
“The duke doesn’t like noise.” Louisa’s voice followed John out of the room.
Indeed, Kelworth did not. He didn’t seem to like a lot of things. Then why had he come?
John hastened downstairs. Helena sat on the settee, dabbing her eyes with a large, black-trimmed handkerchief. Kelworth perched in a stiff pose beside her, but he held her hand.
John’s lips popped apart. A thousand questions rose to his lips. Kelworth’s attendance, his hand on Helena’s, the stricken look in his eyes. What cause? He settled on the most important. “Helena, what has happened?”
She waved the handkerchief. “I’m so happy.”
He exchanged a look of disbelief with Kelworth. Then he bowed. “Your Grace. I’ve forgotten my manners.”
Kelworth stood, disentangling himself from Helena. “Lord Ardoch.” Then he peered down at Helena. “You are not happy, daughter.”
“I am.” She sniffed. “You are with me, Papa, and your defense of my character gladdens my heart in a way I cannot express in words.”
John knelt at her side, offering a dry handkerchief from his pocket to supplement the damp one, which, presumably, belonged to Kelworth. “I, too, am grateful, although I’m befuddled.”
“She’s overwrought.” Kelworth took a seat in a wing chair, leaving the spot beside Helena for John. “It had been a most eventful afternoon.”
“Coles was released?” John popped to stand again.
Helena took his hand and with a gentle tug, pulled him to sit. “No. It is Mama.” With a guilty look at her father, she recounted the day’s events. The falcon seal. Mama’s blackmail, because she wanted Helena to go away. Kelworth stood silent, but there was betrayal behind his too-blank expression. He had heard it with his own ears, having returned home earlier than expected and catching the end of his wife and daughter’s conversation.
Then, spoken with the high-pitch harbinger of more tears, Helena spoke of the duchess’s resentment toward Helena. “She begrudged me not making a dynastic marriage. But there were joys in her life, John. Papa is a good man. And me and my sisters—why could she not have been happy with us?”
“I pity her.” John squeezed Helena’s hand.
“I’m sorry, Papa.” A few tears clung like jewels to Helena’s lashes, but she had stopped crying.
“I am the remorseful one.” He stood and paced. “I didn’t realize how harmful our actions were. I thought if you married Bowden, you’d have been well-provided for. And close by.” His voice cracked.
And not married to a Scot. John dared not smile.
“When you told us what Coles did to you, I wanted to take a whip to his hide, but we could not expose you to the scandal of seeing him brought to justice. I suppose my exasperation was revealed in other ways.” Kelworth brushed a shock of blond hair from his brow. “Such as how I treated you. I didn’t know how to, well, go about things, and I’d wanted the best for you.”
Releasing John’s hand, Helena rose, stepping forward with her arms extended. “Papa.”
Their embrace was awkward. Kelworth hugged like a marionette, his arms not quite going around his daughter, his joints stiff. But it was probably the first embrace Helena had received from her father in a long time, if eve
r. John blinked something from his eye that was absolutely not a tear.
Helena blinked a few times, too. “I love you, Papa.”
“Yes, well.” He pulled away, unable to say the words back. “I should return home to see to your m—Her Grace. And I apologize, Ardoch. For the blackmail. Not for disagreeing with you at Westminster.”
He couldn’t hold back a chuckle. “Indeed not.”
Helena sniffled. John dug his handkerchief from his coat pocket and dabbed the last of her tears. “With Coles caught, will you stay in London longer?”
Blinking, her brow puckered. “He was never the reason we decided the children and I would return to Scotland without you. You have work to do, and we—well, I think the children are ready to go home.”
He stepped back, shoving his handkerchief in his pocket. “The bairns are anxious to be reunited with their paper theater, aren’t they?”
Helena met his gaze. “I think I need to go home, too.”
Comraich. She’d called it her home. The sound of it warmed him, and it wasn’t any use thinking it was because he was glad she’d settled into their new life together. It was something far more dangerous than that.
These feelings he’d developed for Helena—well, he’d never felt such emotion for Catriona. Never hated the prospect of telling her goodbye like this.
“I should probably bid the children good-night, if they are still awake.” Helena was still speaking when a knock sounded on the door.
John stepped away from her. “Come in.”
Adam approached with the salver, which bore a single familiar card. “His Grace, the Duke of Kelworth.”
“Again?” He exchanged glances with his wife. “Show him in at once, Adam.”
Kelworth lacked breath, coughing. John ushered him to be seated, but Kelworth waved his hand, recovering quickly. “I just heard in the square—His Majesty King George is dead. The regent is now king.”
No one moved. John didn’t think he even breathed. “Lord, have mercy.”
Helena’s hand was at her throat. “I shall write condolences at once.”
Kelworth nodded his approval, and then looked to John. “I’m out to learn more information, if I can. Would you care to accompany me?”
Helena waved him away as Catriona had once done to him. “Go. I will see you tonight. Or tomorrow. You must not neglect your duty.”
The gesture took him back to a time when everything he did was for duty, not his heart. He married Catriona out of duty, served out of duty. Perhaps he needed the reminder that he still had a duty, and part of it was upholding his word to Catriona.
Which was probably why it was best Helena returned to Scotland as planned. So he could be apart from her for a while, and rein in his emotions before he fell all the way in love with his wife.
* * *
Helena kissed the children good-night, ate a light meal and began writing out letters of condolence to the royal family. The night grew late, but John didn’t return home, so she went to bed.
The next morning, she was up early, but John had already risen and left, so she began preparations for her return to Scotland.
Over the next few days, John wasn’t home much, but Helena understood the gravity of the situation. In between matters of state, he’d ensured the Crown’s case against Frederick Coles went as it should, and now Frederick was imprisoned in Newgate.
John’s absence made it far easier for Helena to stay busy and keep her mind off of John. She bid farewell to Frances and took the children on last-minute errands. Soon enough, the day for their departure arrived, crisp and clear, perfect for travel. Voices clamored through the brisk February air on Saint James’s Square as the servants secured their baggage and Alex and Callum tossed snow at the girls.
The tidy town house would be quiet once she and the children ascended the coaches and found the North Road. John would be alone except for Iona—the children insisted he keep the dog as company—but he would undoubtedly be lonely. She could prevent it by staying.
But he needed to work. That was their original agreement, wasn’t it? That he would reside in London and she would care for the children at Comraich.
Now, they stood outside the house and he embraced the children and Tabitha three times each, kissing their brows and bidding them farewell.
When the children settled into two carriages—the boys with Miss Munro and the girls in the carriage they’d share with Helena, John gazed down at her, his expression businesslike. “If the weather continues to hold, you will be home shortly.”
“I shall write when we arrive.”
“Please.” John glanced back at the house. “Things will be quiet here now. Too quiet.”
“You won’t even notice we’re gone. You’ll be quite busy.” There would be the king’s funeral and matters of state to deal with.
But there was also new work. With the death of the king, the session of Parliament would die, too. John, as a Scot, would not be allowed to keep his seat, as Papa would. John must soon vote for another Scottish lord to take his place in the House of Lords, a bitter decision.
He wouldn’t be able to introduce his petition on education reform. He’d have to leave it for others to do. He’d scarcely had any time to do the work he’d long prepared to do. Poor John.
He looked down at the snow for a moment before meeting her gaze, but his look was no longer businesslike. It was intense, shooting fire through her core. “Be assured, I’ll notice you’re gone, Helena. All of you.”
She licked her dry lips. “We shall miss you. I shall miss you.”
Perhaps she shouldn’t have said it, but it was true.
He looked about to say something, but shouts escaped the boys’ carriage. They turned, and Callum shooed the dog out the open door. “You can’t come, Iona! You stay with Papa!”
Iona stared at the carriage, her head tilted.
It was best Helena go before the dog tried again, or someone cried over parting from her. “I should go.”
“God be with you.” John handed her up the first carriage step, then stopped. Pulled her back down.
“John.” At her gasp, the servants peeked at her, then looked away.
He embraced her, hard, lowering his head so his lips brushed her ear, just under the brim of her bonnet. “So much has happened these past few weeks, with Coles and your mother and your father, but I hope when you are alone at Comraich and you think of them, you remember to see yourself as God sees you. As I see you. A new creature, worthy of love and hope. Wear white again, Helena.”
Then he let her go.
“Mama,” Louisa’s high voice shouted out the coach. “I cannot find Tabitha’s fancy gown.”
The one with the ruffles.
The coach rocked. “It is here,” Margaret shouted. “Louisa brought too many toys. I have no room for my legs.”
Perhaps it was a good thing the boys rode with Miss Munro on this leg of the journey.
John smiled down at her. “I can only prolong this goodbye for so long. Just remember, Helena, you are—”
Her breath caught. What would he say? That she was in his prayers?
“A gift.” He kissed her hand. “Godspeed.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Helena was outside London before the girls settled down and she was able to think about what John said right before sending her on her way. You are a gift.
To him? Because her care for the children freed him to do his government work, as they planned back in July, when the weather had been warm and the heather grew thick among the green around Comraich, and her greatest hope was to love the children and be left alone by John?
So much had changed since then.
She was afraid of him—of all men, after Frederick. She felt broken, iced, unloved and unwanted by her family. She was relieved John would be gone so much
of the year.
She didn’t feel any of those things anymore, not with God’s healing in her life, and the way He’d filled her heart with love for her new family.
Including John.
Heat suffused her chest, spreading down her limbs. She loved John. Really loved him. Not as her friend. Not as her partner in raising the young ones.
As her husband.
She’d known she was in danger of falling in love with him, but she’d been foolish to think she could prevent it. This wasn’t mere attraction, or even gratitude for all he’d done for her. She loved his gentleness, his strength, his humor, his smile. She loved him from the very marrow in her bones.
Her posture straightened with resolve. Her love would change nothing. She wouldn’t let it. John had promised Catriona to never replace her in his heart. He was a man of his word, so even if he came to care for Helena, he’d never act on it.
Much as she never wanted to be apart from him, this separation might be the best thing possible. God might use the time to heal her of her impossible love for John, so she wouldn’t yearn for him and something she would never have.
Louisa patted Helena’s cheek, demanding her attention. She dipped her head. “What, sweetheart?”
“Tabitha needs a proper coat, too. Like ours.”
Helena fingered the tiny flannel coat. “What is wrong with it?”
“It has a button on each sleeve. Papa says buttons aren’t worn on cuffs in mourning.”
Margaret shoved Louisa’s felt toys off her side of the seat. “Rip it off and then sew it back on once mourning is over.”
Louisa harrumphed, sounding so much like the Margaret of old it took considerable effort not to laugh.
Thank you for these children, Lord. For my new life.
She was grateful the entire trip home. The Lord provided clear weather and a smooth journey, and the children didn’t bicker much despite being confined to the carriages for several days. Soon, they were back at Comraich, requesting the paper theater be brought down from the attic.
Helena wrote to John first thing, a longer letter than necessary, perhaps, but he’d want to know about the children. She also wrote of her plans to visit the tenants, many of whom were ill, according to the housekeeper.
A Mother For His Family Page 23