by Mary Balogh
Her legs stopped moving suddenly and her back stiffened. She could feel prickles along her spine. There was something behind her. She had heard nothing, but she felt a presence very strongly. She hardly dared turn her head. Heaven knew what kind of vicious beast might be there just waiting to pounce at her smallest movement. She turned her head and glanced cautiously over one shoulder.
A man was leaning one shoulder against a tree some distance away, arms folded, watching her. She knew at a glance that he was Mr. Mainwaring. This was his land, after all, and one could hardly expect to find another strange and fashionable young man wandering in this particular area, especially when the young man was tall and dark. Yes, and handsome. Melly had been quite right. Helen did not move. She just continued to look.
Helen could feel her face flushing. She felt horribly embarrassed to be caught thus, in this position and in these clothes. She, Lady Helen Wade!
"Is it a wood nymph?" he asked. "Or is it human?"
"Oh," she said, and rolled over onto her knees, "you did startle me. I thought you were a wild boar at the very least." In self-protection, almost without realizing she did so, she used the North Country accent that the servants always used, instead of talking in her own voice.
He raised his eyebrows and moved forward to stand beside her on the bank, looking down into the water. "It is a lovely spot you have chosen," he said. "Do you make it a habit to come into the woods?"
"They are yours, are they not?" she said. "Would you mind if I said that I come here often?" She sat back on her heels the better to look up at him.
He smiled, and the expression completely transformed his rather austere features, she found. He stooped down on his haunches. "Do you like to be alone sometimes too?" he asked. "Or do you have the evil intention of burning my woods to the ground one of these days?"
"I like it here," she said, her cheeks still aflame. "This is my own special place, and if you were to forbid me to come, I should have to disobey you."
He chuckled. "Well, you are honest at least," he said. "And tell me, what is it you have to escape from? What are you supposed to be doing at this moment?"
Helen gazed back into his dark eyes, on a level with her own, her mind fast inventing a story that would sound plausible. But he went on to answer his own question.
"You should be helping at home, is that it?" he asked. "Baking bread, or doing the family wash, or scrubbing the floors, or some other activity that is supposed to keep females happy?"
"Yes," she said vaguely, and she began to feel her heartbeat return to normal. "I slip away whenever I am able."
"And suffer later, I suppose," he said, and smiled again. "Who are you?"
"Nell, sir," she replied with only a moment's hesitation.
"And you have only one name, Nell?" he asked. "But no matter. That is enough. It is a pretty name. It suits you, wood nymph. What were you doing when I came upon you?"
"Learning water," she said earnestly.
"Learning water?"
"Yes," she said. "Tell me if you can, without looking, what color is water?"
He looked amused. "Blue sometimes," he said. "Sometimes green or gray. It depends upon the sky."
"But what if it is not exposed to the sky?" she asked. "What if there are trees?"
"Then perhaps brown or green," he said.
"You are right," she said excitedly. "All your answers are right all of the time. And yet you missed light and shade and movement and all the differing tones of the colors you named."
"Indeed?" he said. "You intrigue me." But he was amused, teasing, Helen could see.
"Look," she said. She became so engrossed in her subject that her embarrassment of a few minutes before and her awareness of the impropriety of her appearance and behavior were forgotten. She rolled Over onto her stomach again and leaned over the water. "Look and tell me what you see."
He followed her example and stretched out beside her. "What do I see?" he asked. "Let me consider a moment. Ah, yes. I see a wood nymph with lots of fair hair and large gray eyes. She looks just like you."
Helen laughed with delight. "You will not believe me, will you?" she said. "It is true, though, as you will see if you but take the time to observe. There is a great deal to learn about water."
"Yes," he said more seriously, "you are quite right, Nell. Many times one thinks that one sees nature and appreciates its beauty. But most of the time our senses but scratch the surface."
"Oh, you do understand!" Helen exclaimed, turning a glowing face to him. "Most people think I have windmills in my head when I talk that way. You like to be alone too, do you not? Is that why you came here? Or did you merely feel that you must explore every part of your property?"
"You know who I am then?" he said. "But I suppose it is common knowledge in the village that I have come at last."
"Oh, yes," she said. "Everyone knows, sir."
William Mainwaring sat up on the bank and looked around him. "That hut must belong to the gamekeeper who used to be employed here," he said. "I wonder if he left anything inside."
"Oh, no, he did not," Helen said quickly, catching at his arm as he made to rise. "There is nothing at all inside, sir, and the door is stuck."
He looked at her and the amusement was there in his eyes again. "Nell," he said, "you are lying to me. Why must I not look inside?"
She blushed. "Please," she said, "I use it sometimes. I do not do any harm. Such a ramshackle building cannot be of any use to you, can it? Please do not go inside."
He relaxed into a sitting position again. "Well, wood nymph," he said, "are you allowed to accept gifts from gentlemen? I hereby make you a present of the gamekeeper's hut and I shall never trespass without a personal invitation. Will that make you happy?"
"You are very kind," she said earnestly.
They looked at each other in silence for several moments, without embarrassment. Each was assessing the other.
William Mainwaring finally got to his feet and brushed grass from his buckskin breeches. "I must be going, wood nymph," he said. "I shall leave you alone to learn water."
"Good-bye, sir," she said, "and thank you for the present. It is one of the most precious I have ever received."
He laughed. "Au revoir, Nell," he said.
William Mainwaring found that he was still smiling as he walked through the woods in the direction of home. The letter from Hetherington lay in his pocket forgotten for the moment. What a delightful little creature! She really did seem more wood nymph than woman. Learning water, indeed! Now, what did she keep in the gamekeeper's hut that was so important? he wondered. It had sounded as if she came often to the place.
She must have indulgent parents if she was allowed to escape the day's chores without punishment. Perhaps, though, she thought the punishment an acceptable exchange for a few hours of freedom. In fact, maybe it was not parents she was escaping. Perhaps it was a husband. He did not think she was as young as he had at first thought her. She did not seem married, though.
***
Helen was still sitting on the bank of the stream, hugging her knees. She was no longer studying the water. She was gazing across at the trees on the opposite bank. The man was not at all as she had expected. He certainly looked every inch the proper gentleman, and his face in repose was severe. But there was warmth and humor in him, and an understanding of what depths were in nature for those who cared to observe. She liked him. Yes, she thought, her eyes widening in surprise, she liked Mr. Mainwaring. She could never remember liking any man before, and precious few women.
But what a coil! She had deliberately deceived him into thinking she was a village wench. She had talked with that accent all through their conversation and she had not contradicted the suggestions he had made about what she should be doing that afternoon. Her appearance, of course, would have completely deceived him. The dress, her loose, tangled hair, her feet and legs bare to above the ankles-none of them would betray her true status.
What was she to do
when he discovered her real identity? What an embarrassment it would be! Would he look at her with amusement as he had done a few times that afternoon? Or would it be with disgust that a lady could have appeared and acted as she had done? Either way, it was going to be hard to face him. That evening! Of course, he was to dine with them that evening. Helen groaned and put her forehead down onto her raised knees. She couldn't. She just couldn't face him, least of all with Mama and Papa and her sisters looking on. Why, oh why, had she not simply revealed her identity immediately?
The afternoon was clearly ruined, she thought, getting to her feet and crossing with lagging footsteps to the old hut. Her hut. Her precious gift! A slow smile lit up her face. She was going to have to think of some course of action, and fast.
Chapter 3
It was five days later before Helen was able to return to her private place in the woods, the longest absence she could remember since she had started to go there two years before. It seemed that everything conspired against her.
First of all, she had to play sick for the whole of a glorious midsummer day. She had feigned a headache on the night when Mr. Mainwaring had been invited to dinner, and Helen never had headaches. She had finally convinced the whole family after wandering around the house frowning and clutching her temples for more than an hour and had been packed off to bed with lavender water and vinaigrette, warm milk, and a hot brick for her feet. Mama herself had come to bathe her temples with the lavender water.
"Poor child," she had said. "I do hope you are not going to become a martyr to the migraines as Emily and I are. You lie there and do not worry about a thing. I shall make your excuses to our guests. It is provoking that yet again you will miss Mr. Mainwaring, though. Such a gentlemanly man, and just the person for one of you girls. Of course, I believe he already favors Melissa, but he has not yet met you, child, and you can be quite prettily behaved when you set your mind to it."
Helen moaned and her mother leaned over her and kissed her forehead. "There, there," she said soothingly, "you go to sleep now, child."
Helen had felt very guilty after her mother had left. Mama did not often treat her with such gentleness. It seemed unfair to have won sympathy through a deception. She had sat up in bed and clasped her knees. It was all very pointless anyway, this feigned illness. She would not be able to avoid meeting Mr. Mainwaring forever. Sooner or later he would know that Lady Helen Wade ran around in the woods in rags that barely covered her decently and spent her time doing undignified things like lying on her stomach by a stream, bare legs waving in the air.
Perhaps it would have been easier to have dressed for dinner and met him after all. She could have put on her very best chilly manner, the one she used with that horrid Oswald Pyke, who fancied himself such a ladies' man. Mr. Mainwaring would not dare look at her with contempt if she treated him so. Helen had sighed. Truth to tell, it was not so much the embarrassment of having her identity revealed to Mr. Mainwaring that bothered her. It was more the ending of an intriguing situation that she could not bear to see. She wanted to meet him again in the woods, just to see if her first impression of him was correct. She did not know that he would come ever again, of course, but she was almost sure he would.
Mama insisted on fussing over her all of the next day, too, the day when the weather was so glorious. And she could not even read a book or write in the journal where she kept copious notes on all her thoughts and feelings. Melissa kept tiptoeing into the room and gazing solicitously at her, and asking in a stage whisper if there were anything she could do. It was all very touching and preyed heavily on her conscience.
And then for two whole days it had rained, the sort of fine misty rain that soaked one's clothes and one's hair and seemed to get right through to one's skin and even under the skin. It was the sort of weather in which it was impossible to remain cheerful.
Helen had shut herself into the music room for much of the first day and hammered out a tune on the piano. She knew the piece without the music. She always learned by heart the music that she liked, so that she could then close her eyes to play and learn to feel the melody. She was not content to sit back and listen to the music she produced. She wanted to be inside it. The result was not necessarily what the composer had had in mind when he wrote, but it was marginally satisfying to Helen. Not totally satisfying. She was never quite sure that she was there inside the music. But then, she was not certain that she wanted to be. Perhaps it would lose its fascination if she ever felt that she understood it completely.
That activity was stopped abruptly when her mother appeared in the room and suggested very gently that such violent playing would only bring about a recurrence of her headache. Helen had no choice but to meekly agree.
Sunday came finally and it was necessary to go to church. Helen always looked forward to the outing. She was not at all interested in the bonnet parade, which seemed to be the chief interest of most of the female part of the congregation, or in the game of attracting more admiring male glances than any other young lady present. Helen loved the building and the ritual of the service.
The church was ridiculously large for such a small village. It was never more than one-third full, though everyone within a five-mile radius came on Sunday mornings, come rain or shine. But to Helen its very size was its attraction. It was a cold stone building, uncomfortably cool even in the height of summer. Its Gothic doorway and stained-glass windows, its high arched ceiling all reached toward heaven. She loved to see the vicar in his vestments. Dull, ordinary Vicar Brayley became in church a figure of great dignity, and his voice, hesitant and monotonous during conversation, took on power and authority when he read from the Bible or chanted a psalm.
On this particular Sunday she was not so eager to go. Mr. Mainwaring was bound to be there. He would see her, and her humiliation would be very public. Miraculously, though, he did not see her, not to recognize, anyway. She wore her bonnet that had lace piled on the crown and she pulled the lace down over her face when they went into the church. He was indeed there but sat at some distance from the earl's family. After the service was over, Helen made an undignified bolt for her father's carriage while the rest of the congregation stood around in groups for fully twenty minutes.
"I was afraid that the sunshine would bring back my headache," she explained feebly when the rest of her family joined her.
"And what on earth were you doing with the lace from your bonnet all down around your face?" Emily asked. "You did look a fright, Helen. You looked as if you were in deep mourning, except that the hat is blue and not black. I was quite mortified to be seen sitting in the same pew as you."
"Mr. Mainwaring must think you quite a freak," Melissa added. "You ran away like a frightened rabbit, Helen. You will have us all thinking that you are afraid to meet the man for some reason." She turned to her older sister. "Mr. Mainwaring has offered to take me driving this afternoon, Emmy."
Helen wished suddenly that she had walked home instead of waiting twenty minutes in a stifling carriage.
And so it was Monday afternoon before Helen finally managed to escape to the woods again'. She changed into her cotton dress, loosened her hair, kicked off her shoes, and pulled off her stockings. She wanted to read; she wanted to write; she wanted to paint. But she would do none of these things. If Mr. Mainwaring came, he would know immediately that she was no village wench if she had a book or a brush in her hand. And she wanted him to come. She had tried to tell herself all morning that she wished to come here merely so that she could be alone and free from the fetters of her life again. But she wanted to see him.
She paced the bank of the stream, dangled her feet in the water, twirled around the trunk of a tree, and finally climbed the branches of the old oak tree, which had been created for that purpose. She wedged herself high up, her back against the sturdy trunk, her knees drawn up, and her feet resting on a branch. She watched and watched for him. And finally she looked up and became absorbed in the pattern the branches and the leaves
made against the sky, and in the changing face of the wide blue expanse above her as wisps of cloud scudded across it.
***
It had not been an easy week for William Mainwaring. He had read and reread the letter from Hetherington, feeling alternately comforted that they still wished to be his friends, and yet hurt to know that they were apparently happy together, that they were expecting a child. The child had probably been born already, in fact. In some ways it might have been better never to have known how their marriage was progressing. He had to feel happy for Elizabeth. After all, he loved her, and love could never be a wholly selfish emotion. And he had known even when he planned to marry her himself that she loved Robert. He was glad for her that her story had had a happy ending at last. But his own pain was not therefore lessened.
He loved her still. The longing only became stronger with time, in fact. He dreamed frequently of what it would be like now to live at Graystone with Elizabeth as his wife. With her perhaps he could enjoy the social life of the neighborhood, which he was finding something.of an ordeal. There were several families here that he could like if only he had her with him to please them with her warm charm and her never-failing ability to converse with even the dullest person.
He had finally written back two days after receiving the letter. It was a reply that accepted unconditionally the renewed offer of friendship and that accepted a full measure of blame for the unpleasantness that had happened in the past. He congratulated them on the expected birth. But the letter was noncommittal about their invitation. He could not yet contemplate the thought of seeing them, of knowing beyond a doubt that he was nothing more than a friend to the Marchioness of Hetherington.