by Liz Carlyle
Helene felt a moment of grave concern. It must have shown in her face.
Cam gave a resigned sigh. “Helene, I expect you’d best confess everything. I know you too well, my dear.”
Uncertainly, Helene bit her lip. What should she do? Had Bentley really gone to visit the Wodeways? Had Joan come to her senses? Or had word of Cam’s discussion with Mrs. Belmont reached them, ending their impulsive flight? The scrap of paper in her pocket seemed to be burning a hole right through her petticoats.
Ruthlessly, Helene shoved her hand into the folds of her skirts and handed it to Cam. “Bentley gave this to Joan last night. She dropped it in the ladies’ retiring room.”
Deftly, Cam flicked open the note, his eyes darting across it. His head snapped up again, and he held her gaze intently. “Is this what you were attempting to discuss with Bentley last night? Is this what you feared would anger me?”
Mutely, Helene nodded.
Cam paused for a long moment. “Perhaps it would have,” he said quietly, “had I any feelings for Joan. As matters stand, however, I daresay it is just as well. Set your mind at ease, Helene. Bentley departed in his oldest coat, and carrying nothing but his shooting gear. He’ll not be rushing to the altar with Joan now. If he goes at all.”
“You think he will not?”
Cam shrugged. “Now that he is sober, and no longer imagines himself to have been shoved aside, Bentley may find both his heartache and his devotion somewhat diminished.”
“Let us hope that you are right,” murmured Helene. “After all, I want only his happiness.”
He cast her an inscrutable look. “As I want only yours, Helene.”
Abruptly, Cam rose from his chair and strode to the fireplace, taking up the poker, and jabbing rather ruthlessly at the fire. She was reminded yet again of how beautiful and untamed he had been last night.
After a moment, he braced one hand high on the mantel and spoke into the fire. “I must go to London tomorrow. It will be but a short trip, four days at most.”
When she made him no reply, he turned to face her, the rod balanced loosely across his palm. “You spoke of happiness, Helene,” he softly explained. “Whilst I’m away, I would ask that you carefully consider just what would make you happy. And if it is in my power, you shall have it. I will not pressure you further. I have no right.”
Helene nodded but made no reply. The meeting was at an end, she sensed, and Cam had nothing more to say.
Abruptly, he put down the poker and went to her chair, taking her hand in his and drawing it fleetingly to his lips. Resisting the urge to fly into his arms, Helene rose and murmured a hasty good-bye.
She rushed out and up the stairs, her mind and heart in turmoil. His question echoed in her head and in her heart. What would make her happy?
Camden. That was the answer. It never changed.
She paused for a moment on the landing. Did Cam still want her? Yes, it would seem so, though he had kept his distance until the last moment. Somehow, she was not as relieved by his reticence as she should have been. Somehow, the things that had led her to refuse him last night—her work, her life, and yes, her indignation over Cam’s assumptions—all seemed to pale in the light of morning. Today, she could think more rationally.
She had reached the schoolroom, but could not will herself to enter. For a long moment, she lingered, staring through the long, mullioned windows at the end of the empty corridor. Through them, she could see Chalcote’s formal gardens, which stretched into orchards, then rolled into fields, now lying fallow for winter. And along with that sweetly familiar view, the memories of her girlhood rolled out before her as well, reminding Helene yet again that while she could not excuse Cam’s behavior, she could somewhat understand it.
But she was no longer the reckless girl she’d once been. During the years they had been apart, Helene had changed, at least outwardly. Yet somehow, Cam always brought out the worst in her.
Or was it, perhaps, the best? She still wanted to challenge him, to shock him. And while that particular short-coming had shown itself all to clearly in bed last night, it seemed not to have troubled Cam at all.
As to Cam’s lovemaking, Helene was convinced that no one save herself would have recognized the man who had bedded her so ruthlessly, and yet so gently, last night. With his legendary restraint in tatters, all of Cam’s raw sensuality had been unleashed. And it had been beautiful, not frightening, to behold.
Yes, outwardly, they were polar opposites. In reality, they were soul mates.
It was, perhaps, as simple as that.
Without another word from Cam, Helene saw the day of his departure dawn, warm and unseasonably sunny. Traveling without a carriage or servants, Cam set out for London at mid-morning. Almost as if she had timed it thus, Catherine arrived shortly before luncheon, her brother’s dust barely settled.
Helene was freshening up in her bedchamber when she saw Cam’s sister turning into the drive. Mounted on her huge, heavily lathered bay, Catherine had apparently come without her usual groom. Hastily, she slid from the saddle and vaulted up the steps.
Wondering what could have brought Cam’s sister in such haste, Helene quickly splashed water over her face, slid a quick hand over her hair, and left her bedchamber. Then she remembered. Bentley had gone to the Wodeways. Hadn’t he? Or had he run away with Joan after all? Helene suppressed a sick wave of fear, and rushed downstairs, only to find Cam’s sister chatting casually with Milford.
But Helene was not fooled. Catherine’s restless energy thrummed through the room. Upon seeing Helene descend, Catherine hastened to the foot of the stairs, still clutching her gloves and crop.
“Oh, Helene, how glad I am that you are home! Will and Bentley have left me bored to tears, and so I have abandoned them, and come to join you for luncheon.” She made a dramatic gesture with her empty hand. “Will you feed me?”
“Yes, of course,” Helene answered, a little mystified. “And Bentley—do you mean to say that he is at Aldhampton?”
Catherine looked at her strangely. “Indeed, he’s to go shooting with Will today. Where else might he be?”
Muttering a vague response, Helene turned to Milford and asked that the noon meal be brought to them in the yellow parlor. Catherine preceded her into the room, shoved the door closed, then leaned back to press her palms against the wood, as if the door might pop open of its own accord.
“Oh, Helene!” she whispered conspiratorially. “I came as soon as I heard. Is it true—?” An unholy light seemed to flicker in her eyes.
Busy pulling out a chair for Catherine, Helene jerked her head up quickly. “Is what true?”
Catherine came away from the door and rushed toward the small dining table, almost tripping over her habit. Bracing her arms on the polished surface, she leaned intently forward, and words began to spill from her mouth. “Is it true that Cam has broken with Joan—? Is it? Bentley says it is! And my parlormaid, Betty—she’s a sister to Larkin the footman—they had it from Mrs. Naffles that there was a terrible row between Cam and Aunt Belmont.”
Helene was still shaking her head as Catherine continued speaking.
“But it must have been right here, Helene!” she insisted. “At my birthday dinner! I saw them go into the study. And Cam—hoo!” Catherine paused to roll her eyes heavenward. “He was in a rare wicked mood all night, was he not?”
You don’t know the half of it, thought Helene wryly.
“Anyway, what do you think has happened?” Catherine leaned away from the table. “Come, Helene! Out with it.”
Helene made a pretense of moving a vase of flowers from the table to the window. “Perhaps you should speak with your brother, Catherine—”
“Well, I cannot very well do that now, can I?” retorted Catherine, coming around the table to follow her, “when he has gone off to town, and left me here to perish of curiosity? Now, I know you know, Helene, so you may as well tell it, or I shall wheedle you to death.” Catherine turned a sweetly stubbo
rn smile upon Helene.
One hand set on her hip, Helene studied the younger woman. While it was true that Catherine resembled Cam when she was angry, at her most persuasive moments, she and Bentley might have been twins. Which meant, of course, that she was irresistible.
“Oh, very well then!” exclaimed Helene, dropping down into a chair by the table. “Though I ought to be discharged for gossiping about the family.”
“Oh, twaddle!” announced Catherine, with another dismissive toss of her hand. She sank into the opposite chair. “We are the family, you goose. Now, out with it!”
Helene stared down at the table. “As I understand it, Lord Treyhern came to realize that he and Miss Belmont were not well suited. I collect that he discussed it with Mrs. Belmont after dinner, and she agreed.”
“Agreed? Ha!” shouted Catherine. “I rather doubt that!”
Helene’s brows shot up. “That is all I know, Catherine.”
Across the table, Catherine’s face broke into a shameless grin. “Somehow, I rather doubt that, too. But keep your secrets, my dear, if it pleases you!”
Suddenly, a knock sounded on the door, and Milford stepped in. “Pardon me, Lady Catherine, Miss de Severs, but Mr. Lowe has just arrived—”
From behind him, Thomas Lowe slipped around and into the room, freezing in his tracks at the sight of Catherine.
“—on a matter of some urgency, he says,” finished the butler haughtily, cutting his eyes toward the visitor.
Helene looked about uncertainly. What on earth did Thomas mean by barging in? “Well, do come in, Mr. Lowe,” she managed to utter, rather needlessly, since he had already done just that. “Milford, please lay a third for luncheon.”
“Very good, ma’am,” intoned Milford, pulling shut the door.
Still in his greatcoat, Thomas laid his hat on the table and shifted his eyes back and forth between the ladies. “I cannot stay to dine,” he finally blurted out. “Forgive me for intruding. But a matter of some importance has arisen, and I—” he paused uncertainly, and glanced at Catherine.
With the merest crook of one brow, Cam’s sister rose gracefully from her chair as if to leave.
“No,” said Helene firmly. “You will sit down, Catherine. This is your home, not mine. Moreover, there is nothing the rector and I might discuss to which you ought not be privy, I’m sure.” She smiled calmly at Thomas.
“Oh, no indeed! Indeed not,” he readily agreed.
If Thomas was disappointed in Helene’s position, his expression did not reveal it. Instead, he sank into a chair at the table and ran a hand through his thick blond hair. “In truth, I daresay it is news more appropriate for your ears, Lady Catherine,” he said grimly. “I fear I bring very bad news. Very bad indeed! Despite all my efforts, the worst has finally happened.” The rector’s voice dropped to a haunted whisper. “Treyhern will be rid of me now, without a doubt.” He shook his head mournfully and said no more.
“What—?” chimed Catherine and Helene in unison.
“It’s B–Basil,” stuttered Thomas, lifting his bleak gaze from his lap. “He’s gone. His bed has not been slept in. His gig has disappeared. And I am sure”—with every syllable, he pounded his fist on the table—“that he has taken her to Gretna Green!”
“Who—?” answered the ladies at once.
His next two blows rattled the epergne, sending an orange bouncing across the table. “Miss Belmont!” shouted the rector, ignoring the flying fruit. For an instant, his expression shifted from one of mere anxiety to a flash of heated anger. “My cousin—my curate—has run off with his lordship’s intended wife! Oh, yes, I knew of Treyhern’s secret betrothal! I had it from Mrs. Belmont herself! And now—oh, dear! This, on top of all else, and I am done for. Well and truly done for!”
“Basil Rhoades has eloped with Joan?” Catherine sounded precariously close to giggling, but Thomas seemed not to notice. “Come now! You cannot possibly be serious!”
“Oh, perfectly serious,” moaned Thomas. “And that’s not the half of it!”
“Well, do go on!” urged Catherine, clearly relishing the conversation. Helene looked back and forth between them, feeling like an unwilling actor in bad farce.
Brows arched high, Thomas’s eyes opened wider still. “Why—they have been secretly meeting,” he whispered hoarsely. “Lovers’ trysts! Right in the vestry, no less!”
“Trysts?” hissed Catherine, obviously fascinated. “Behind those red velvet curtains?”
Suddenly, the signature on Joan Belmont’s note danced before Helene’s eyes. B.R.—Basil Rhoades! At once, Helene understood just why Joan had rushed through the churchyard that day, and why she had been so desperate to keep that fact from her mother. It had nothing to do with Bentley! Innocent young Joan had been cavorting with St. Michael’s curate!
Helene could not help but wonder who else suspected. Chalcote was the quintessential English hamlet, which meant that half the villagers and all of the servants undoubtedly knew of the illicit liaison.
Thomas nodded mechanically, then drew another deep breath. “And what’s worse, she is—or he claims that she is with—” Abruptly, the rector broke off and swallowed hard.
Helene bit her lip in silence, dreading to hear the inevitable. Catherine, apparently, suffered no such qualms. “Not with child—?” she breathed.
Eyes squeezed shut again, the rector nodded. “And now I find that Lord Treyhern has gone off to London, and I have no notion what I ought to do. Should I ride after him? Should I ride after them? Should I call upon Mrs. Belmont and confess my suspicions?”
After a long pause, Catherine leaned forward, and with a gracious, lady-of-the-manor gesture, patted him lightly on the arm. “Don’t think another thing of it, Thomas,” she said sweetly. “This is all for the best, to be sure. In truth, my brother and Joan had recently decided that they did not suit at all! She and Basil shall make a lovely couple, and Cam will wish them very happy, you may be confident.”
Thomas Lowe looked suddenly on guard. “What’s this? Do you mean to say there was to be no betrothal after all?”
“Just so,” agreed Catherine with a punctilious nod. “You have nothing at all to worry about. In fact, I have long suspected that my brother’s affections are fixed elsewhere, though I cannot be sure if the lady he fancies returns the sentiment.” Across the table, Cam’s sister lifted her knowing gaze to boldly catch Helene’s. Her eyes held a smile, and a hint of a challenge, too.
Thomas’s face, however, fell. “But what of Mrs. Belmont? That must still be reckoned with, and there shall be no escaping one such as she.” He cast an uneasy glance over one shoulder, as if the lady herself might pounce from the china closet.
Catherine patted him again. “You would do well to leave all this unpleasantness to me, Thomas! Do I not always act in my brother’s stead when he is away? And I daresay I know just what ought to be done with my aunt, so you may set your mind at ease. Now, do go home and comfort your sister. I can only guess that poor Mrs. Fane must be terribly overset.”
Looking quite unconvinced, Thomas rose, and with an uneasy glance back and forth between the ladies, took up his hat. “Then I must thank you, Lady Catherine. You are all kindness, I am sure.” He made an abrupt, uncertain bow, and headed toward the door.
Helene was on her feet before the door thumped shut. “Catherine!” she hissed, rounding on Cam’s sister. “I do not like this one bit. What do you mean—you know just what ought to be done with your aunt?”
“But I do know!” Cam’s sister said sweetly. “The old crone ought to be drowned in a cask of cheap whisky. Alas, I’ve not the heart for it.”
Helene stalked around the table toward Catherine’s chair. “Then just what do you mean to do, pray tell?”
Catherine shrugged and made a dismissive motion with her hands. “Why, I shall do just as Cam would have done. I shall do nothing! If Joan has finally taken hold of her life with both hands, then who are we to meddle? She’s hardly a fool, Helene. And
Basil’s a quiet, good fellow, whilst Aunt Belmont, on the other hand, is a bloody tyrant.”
“But where shall they go? How will they live?”
Cam’s sister rose from her chair and went to the window. Finally, she cut a sharp look over her shoulder toward Helene. “Have you truly lost all faith in the power of young love, Helene?” Her tone was a little bitter. “Joan and Basil will make do. There is always a way, if one does not give up one’s dream.”
“Do you think so?” asked Helene unsteadily, no longer certain of what or whom they were discussing. She began to feel exceedingly ill-at-ease.
“I do.” Catherine turned quickly from the window. “Joan shall come into her money in another few years, and until then, I know I speak for Cam in saying that he will assist them if need be. Do not be concerned for them, Helene. Worry for yourself, instead.”
Helene looked up in surprise, her fingertips pressed to her chest. “Myself—?” she asked, growing increasingly uncomfortable. “In what regard, Catherine? I vow, I wish you would speak plainly.”
“Oh, Helene, do you think me such a fool that I cannot see what has been going on in this house these last few weeks?”
Helene felt her face suffuse with heat. “Why, I ... I really cannot think what you mean.”
“My brother is, and always has been, utterly in love with you. He has never forgotten you. Never gotten over you. Why ever do you imagine he hired you in the first place?”
Cam’s sister seemed to know a great deal. Helene fought back a wave of panic. “How foolish you are, Catherine,” she argued, feeling her breath quicken anxiously. “I can assure you that Lord Treyhern had no notion who I was.”
“There’s yet another thing I rather doubt, Helene,” Catherine dryly responded. “Helene—it is not a common sort of name at all, is it? And de Severs—so decidedly French. That, combined with your age, and your Swiss education... I daresay it took no great leap of imagination to suspect. Or to hope, perhaps in the back of his mind.”