Loving Helen (A Hearthfire Romance Book 2)

by Michele Paige Holmes

  “I am rather enamored of the awake version,” Helen said, trying to keep the disappointment from her voice. “But all right.” He still kept her hand, and she followed him down the hallway and felt somewhat scandalous for behaving thusly, so late at night.

  Nonsense. I spend time in the nursery every day.

  Beth’s door was closed, but Samuel turned the knob with his free hand and slowly pushed it open. “I check on Beth every night and have yet to waken her nanny. I believe she sleeps rather soundly.”

  Evidence of such came in the form of muffled snoring from the room adjoining the nursery. Helen and Samuel exchanged guilty smiles at hearing Nanny Mary’s snores. Ignoring these and the continued thought that she should not be here, Helen entered the room behind Samuel.

  Moonlight poured in from the bay window, bathing the nursery in a soft glow. Helen pulled her hand free of Samuel’s and crossed to the bed where Beth lay, curled up with one of her dolls clutched tightly in her fingers.

  Samuel was right. She appeared different in sleep — serene and a little bit older. More innocent than during the day, when she is almost always up to some mischief. For some reason Beth’s changed appearance made Helen sad. Carefully she sat on the edge of the bed and touched Beth’s cheek. “She is growing up.”

  “She will be four soon,” Samuel whispered. “Has she told you how many days must pass before her birthday?”

  “Every day — several times a day,” Helen said, smiling.

  “And to think she did not know much of numbers or counting until you taught her,” he remarked.

  “She is very intelligent,” Helen said, stroking Beth’s hair.

  “So is her tutor.”

  Helen turned to him and caught him gazing at her with a look of such tender affection that at first she thought it must be for Beth.

  But no. He is looking at me. Their eyes locked, and Helen again felt the same anticipation and hope she’d had moments earlier, at the top of the stairs.

  “The night is not quite over,” Samuel said. “There is time yet for one last dance, a waltz I think.”

  This time Helen did not hesitate but rose and accepted his hand. He led her to the moonlit circle before the window, and they faced one another. As before, he placed his other hand at her waist, and she laid hers on his shoulder. This time they did not count out loud. There was no need. They simply looked at one another, and their dance was begun.

  Instead of swirling her about the room, Samuel led them in a tight circle, slowly and quietly. They did not speak, but the silence felt comfortable as it had on their sleigh rides to and from the ball. His brown eyes had grown serious, as if considering a weighty matter. But Helen felt only light, a buoyant kind of happiness lifting her soul as Samuel held her close.

  Outside the snow had begun to fall again, tiny flakes floating down on an already laid carpet of white. The fire in the grate burned low, yet the room felt perfectly warm. She felt perfectly warm whenever Samuel held her close.

  The imagined song came to an end far too quickly, as Samuel slowed their already leisurely pace until they were stopped in front of the window and stood facing one another.

  Helen’s breathing seemed much too shallow and quick for the little exertion their dance had required, and she worried the ruby necklace rising and falling would give her away, in spite of her best effort to calm herself.

  But this is not fear. I am not afraid. Her eyes met Samuel’s, and his appeared as searching and inquisitive as hers.

  What are you thinking? There were too many possibilities that could crush her fragile hope, so she dared not ask. To hear him mention his wife at this moment would be her undoing, when all Helen could think of was how far past pretending she had strayed.

  Care for me. Just a little.

  It seemed he might, for when her hand slid from his shoulder he caught it and held it over his heart, beating every bit as quickly as her own.

  “Helen —”

  A great snort came from the adjoining room, and Helen and Samuel sprang apart, staring at the door apprehensively. The noise came again, and she brought a hand to her mouth to stifle laughter. Samuel was not so successful, and a sort of choking guffaw escaped.

  New sounds — feet on the floor and a match being struck — came from the nanny’s chamber. Light flared beneath the doorway as Helen began backing her way out of the room.

  “Who’s there?” Nanny Mary’s voice sounded frightened.

  “Only me,” Samuel said, composed once more and sounding defeated. “I came to check on Beth. My apologies for disturbing you.”

  Helen continued her retreat and made it safely to the hall. Samuel had not followed but still stood as she had left him, alone in a circle of moonlight.

  “Goodnight,” she called to him softly.

  He looked at her a long moment, then nodded and turned away, his expression appearing almost as troubled as it had been that first morning in the garden. She waited, expecting Samuel to say something or come over to her, but he remained where he was, staring out the window. Helen took a step forward, longing to go to him, to put her arms around him and lay her cheek against his back and offer comfort. But something held her back.

  If he wanted my comfort he would ask for it.

  Instead, Helen felt as if she had been dismissed. She stood at the threshold of the nursery, longing to go in and be a part of the family on the other side. But she had not been invited and was not really part of it at all.

  I have only been imagining. It has all been pretend.

  February

  “I’ve been thinking,” Samuel began at dinner the following week. Far too much about you. “And I feel we must not continue on this way. Reuniting Grace and Nicholas is taking too long.”

  Helen, about to take a bite, stopped her fork halfway to her mouth. “Too long?” There was no mistaking the hurt in her voice.

  Do not look at me that way. Samuel cleared his throat uncomfortably. “What I mean to say is that we are not accomplishing what we set out to do. The longer Nicholas is apart from Grace, the more difficult it will be to make him see the necessity of taking her back.”

  “What do you suggest?” Helen set her fork down, bite uneaten, though she appeared to swallow with difficulty anyway.

  “We must present the evidence to Nicholas in person.” Samuel took a deep breath, committing himself to the course he’d been considering for the past few days. “We must invite him here.”

  “Will he come?” She sounded skeptical rather than nervous, and once again Samuel found himself in awe of the transformation he’d witnessed in her the past month. If nothing else, their charade had helped her. And hurt me. Now, it seemed, he had not only Beth’s feelings to worry over if Helen left, but his as well.

  “I do not believe that he will accept my invitation,” Samuel said, “unless we provide a compelling reason for him to do so.”

  “A reason?”

  As her brow furrowed, her nose wrinkled, as he’d noticed it did when she was concerned. He wished to kiss the wrinkle away and tell her not to worry. He wished he could spend the indefinite future easing her worries. I am a fool to imagine it.

  “I shall send him a message telling him that I have decided to marry again and would like his blessing.”

  “Marry?” She sounded a little breathless.

  Does the idea still frighten her so much? Samuel ignored her wide, bright eyes and forged on before she could voice an objection. “We shall send word for Christopher and Grace to join us for a celebratory dinner. Nicholas will be furious at my audacity, so he will come to tell me off — if not more than that — and then he shall see you and me together. He will see Grace and realize that both her feelings and his are unchanged. And everything will be as it was before. Everyone will live happily ever after.” Except me.

  Almost a minute passed before Helen spoke. She appeared to be considering the idea or composing herself — which one, he could not tell. Finally she took a drawn-out sip of wate
r before sharing her opinion.

  “What if the invitation is not reason enough? What if he still won’t come?”

  “I’ve thought of that.” Next came the part of the plan that would prove most difficult — and risky. “I have a messenger in mind who is sure to gain his favor.”

  This time, there was no mistaking the alarm flooding Helen’s face. “Not Beth.”

  He nodded soberly. “She is almost four. It is time. She deserves to know her mother’s family. And they deserve to know her.”

  “That is most gallant of you,” Helen said. “But Samuel, are you quite certain?” She placed her hand over his on the table.

  “No.” He looked at their hands, thinking of how natural it seemed that she would comfort him, that she sat by his side every night, that she spent her days playing with his daughter.

  Why didn’t I realize sooner? He felt that he’d wasted all of the precious months they’d had together, especially December, when they’d spent so much time in each other’s company. If he’d only realized then, if he had but examined his feelings and told her — before her brother’s preposterous suggestion.

  Which is not so unbelievable after all.

  “I am not sure at all that I want to share Beth with Nicholas and Lady Sutherland. But I am certain that it is the right thing to do.” Samuel looked at Helen, searching her eyes for any sign of her feelings — other than those they pretended for each other. “I have been remiss in many things; it is time I remedy those I can.”

  She smiled warmly and patted his hand once before withdrawing hers. “I will trust your judgment then. Beth is your daughter.” She spoke the last quietly, as if reminding herself more than stating the fact to him.

  “That may be,” Samuel said, deciding it was high time he lightened their mood. “But I daresay she likes you more than she does me.”

  Helen’s shoulders lifted in a delicate shrug, and when she looked at him again, her eyes twinkled, though somehow Samuel felt that she was still playacting — as if she knew of his attempt at humor and was merely going along with it. “Perhaps if you would take to sewing doll clothes in addition to making swings, she would prefer your company.”

  He held out his hands and laughed. “I fear to imagine what creations these would come up with.”

  “Let us hope for now that it is your mind that has conjured something good.” She leaned back in her chair and folded her arms as if settling in to listen awhile. “Tell me in detail of your new plan to reunite my sister and Lord Sutherland.”

  “This was not my plan.” Samuel crouched behind the bushes outside of the drawing room at Sutherland Hall as rain poured down. Beth had been out in the rain but a minute or two, as she was escorted from the carriage to the front doors. But he and Helen had now spent several minutes outside getting soaked. Samuel fervently wished he’d been able to convince her to stay home. He tried once more to persuade her to leave. “Your brother will have my head if you become ill.”

  “Shh,” Helen scolded, as if those inside might somehow overhear. Hair plastered to the sides of her face, she stood, peering above the bushes to see through the window. “Oh dear.”

  “What? What is it?” Samuel started to rise, but Helen pressed her palm to his head, pushing him back. He tottered a moment on the balls of his feet, arms flailing before he fell back, sitting hard in the mud.

  “For some reason, Beth jumped out at Lady Sutherland, startling her so that she nearly fell,” Helen explained. “But she is all right now. Lord Sutherland has joined them.”

  “And?” Samuel prodded, grimacing as he put a hand on the soggy ground and tried to right himself.

  “He is talking to Beth,” Helen said. “He appears somewhat startled — which is to be expected, of course.” She glanced over where Samuel had been but found him sitting on the ground instead. “What are you doing? Come look for yourself. You know his moods and manner better than I.”

  Keeping an oath to himself, Samuel pushed up from the wet ground and joined her in looking through the window. The scene that met his eyes soon caused them to mist — or perhaps it was just the rain impeding his vision. Moisture aside, he could not deny that he was witness to one of Nicholas’s more tender moments. When Nicholas at last nodded his promise to Beth that he would come to dinner, then took her hand in his, Samuel knew a moment of deep contentment, of a wrong begun to be right.

  “She is safe,” Samuel said. “Nicholas is a man of his word. He will be joining us when he brings her home this evening.”

  He turned from the window to find Helen taking in his muddy appearance. “You’re a mess.”

  He grinned, his heart feeling lighter than it had for some time. “Was it not you who told me there was a price for spying? I suppose my muddy clothing is the cost. Whereas you” — he reached out with his clean hand, brushing a strand of wet hair from her cheek — “have lost only a few curls for our efforts.”

  She stilled beneath his touch but did not shrink from it. Her eyes closed briefly, and for a second, Samuel felt hope that his touch had affected her as it did him.

  “Would that was all I had lost,” she whispered, then moved suddenly.

  Still bending low, she crept from the house, toward the garden and the gate they had entered. Samuel followed, perplexed by the meaning of her words and the change that had come over her. As soon as they were safely out of sight of the house, he caught her arm, stopping her.

  “What were you speaking of back there?”

  She shook her head and pulled away, resuming her walk at a brisker pace. They reached the garden wall and the bench Grace had stood on when conversing with him last fall. Helen glanced at the bench briefly before hurrying through the gate, which they’d left ajar. She continued onto Samuel’s garden paths while he closed and fastened the gate.

  When he’d finished, he ran after her as she headed toward the open lawn.

  “Helen, wait!” He caught up with her near the ash tree with the swing he’d made for Beth. Remembering the day they’d first played here, that first glimpse he’d seen of the other Helen — the one who’d been so present lately — he determined to discover what was troubling her. He took her hand this time, forcing her to stop beneath the bare limbs of the great tree.

  “What is wrong?” he demanded. “What have I done to upset you?”

  “It’s not you.” She shook her head. “It’s me — my fault.”

  Her tears mingled with the rain on her cheeks, and he realized that this conversation would take more than a minute; but they were both still getting soaked. “Come with me.” He took her hand, pulling her across the lawn and toward the shelter of the gazebo. She didn’t resist. Only when they’d climbed the steps and were safely out of the rain did he drop her hand and turn to her. She promptly burst into tears. More bewildered than ever, Samuel wrapped his arms around her and held her close as she cried.

  Outside the gazebo the rain continued falling, and it felt as though the temperature was dropping quickly. He worried that she would catch a chill if he didn’t get her inside and out of her wet cloak. But for now, whatever was troubling her seemed to be the more pressing issue, so he stood patiently until, at length, her tears stopped and she stepped from his embrace, wiping at her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Samuel.”

  “For crying? Don’t be,” he said, attempting humor. “It’s good for me to offer comfort to a lady in need every so often. Keeps the gentlemanly skills in practice.”

  “Not for crying … though I’ve done your jacket no favors.”

  He glanced at his shoulder, wet from both rain and her tears. “No harm.”

  “But I have done you harm,” she exclaimed, looking as if she would cry again. “I spied — on you.”

  “Really?” Instead of feeling put off by her admission, as it appeared she believed he would be, he felt intrigued, even flattered, perhaps. “When?”

  “That morning I met you in your garden — Elizabeth’s birthday — though I didn’t mean to then, and I only hear
d you talking for a moment.”

  He nodded. “You admitted as much that day. I know it was quite by accident. I have appreciated your honesty — and trustworthiness about my — uh — unusual conversations.”

  “There’s more.” Helen rushed on. “That same afternoon I decided to walk in the gardens. I did not realize that the fence separating Lord Sutherland’s property from yours was so close, and I came upon you and Grace. I discovered that you had affection for each other.”

  “I see.” The feeling of lightness he’d enjoyed earlier vanished amid a renewed guilt that he’d shown and felt interest in Helen’s sister. “It wasn’t what you thought,” he said, but he wasn’t sure he could explain exactly what it had been. He’d cared for Grace, but now he cared for Helen.

  As if she would believe that.

  “At first I only wanted to hear her voice and know she was well,” Helen said. “But the more I heard, the worse I felt. Because …”

  “I’d already shared with you my intent for her to be with Lord Sutherland?”

  “Ye-es,” Helen said, looking as if there was something more she wished to say.

  The moment passed. She wrapped her arms around her middle and began pacing. “But it is even worse.” She passed him but would not stop or turn his way. “On Christmas day, I was coming home from playing with Beth. And I came upon you and Grace again. This time on Lord Sutherland’s side of the fence.” Helen stopped, facing out of the gazebo, toward the guesthouse.

  Oh no. Samuel closed his eyes briefly. My proposal. “How much of our conversation did you overhear?” Samuel asked.

  “Enough.” She still hugged her arms to herself, and her head hung as well, shoulders hunched forward, as if in defeat.

  “And how did that alter your opinion of me?” Samuel asked. He recalled the day they had walked from the guesthouse and discussed this previously when she had accused him of being manipulative. At the time he hadn’t realized that she’d been privy to the intimate details of his proposal.

  “It didn’t change my opinion.” At last she faced him. “It broke my heart that Grace refused you. And now it is you who shall have an altered opinion of me, thinking of me as little more than a busybody.”