“You still have the house?”
“I do. I didn’t have the heart to sell it or rent it out. It’s still there, the same as ever. Will you come? I will bring the proof you need. Then maybe I can convince you to move on with your life. I will not hurt you. I swear it.”
Not in that house. That place was sacred to them. He would have met her somewhere else if he’d meant harm. How she knew that she could not tell, unless it was the stricken look she’d seen briefly on his face before he’d smoothly covered it up.
The thought of setting foot inside those doors terrified her, but she would not show it now. “So you think I’ll come when you crook your finger?” She tossed her head. “You leave me alone for five years and then assume I’ll come running? You should know me better than that.”
His eyes gleamed. “We have so little to do with each other.”
“Exactly.” Why she kept the key to the house, together with a few other treasures she did not know. She would return them by messenger. If that was done, then she should cut all ties.
“Except you are not a stranger to me, are you, Helena?” He paced the room. She had a clear path to the door now, if she wanted it.
“I’m a society stalwart, a wealthy spinster,” she said. “I am content.”
He shook his head. “You are still a lovely young woman, eminently marriageable. And an heiress.” His smile turned sardonic. “I do not intend to abduct you any more than I did five years ago. I hardly need the money.”
“I know.” He was richer than before, a mixture of wise investments and working to improve the estates having paid off tenfold. His very clothes tonight proclaimed his prosperous state. They might be plainer in style than those worn by many of the other gentlemen present, but they were very fine, and his buttons were diamonds set in gold.
“Except that I am not. I am wife to a man who refuses to come within three feet of me.”
“I know that, too.” His voice lowered, almost tender. He walked around the sofa to look at her. The arrogant sarcasm had gone, leaving utter sadness in its wake. “I told you. We are not married. You must move on, my l—lady.”
For one heart-stopping moment she thought he was going to say “my love.”
“The cleric was a real one, and the certificate is true. We entered our names in the correct book.” Getting to her feet with a rustle of silk and a graceful movement she had taken hours to perfect, she tapped her closed fan in the palm of her other hand. “There is little you can say that will change those facts. And while I am bound to you, I cannot in all good conscience bind myself to another.”
“There is a reason, Helena. A good one.”
“Then tell me.”
“Come to the house.”
She laughed harshly, and raised her fan as if to strike him. She lowered it with great care and flicked it open, examining the spangles and lace confection as if for the first time. “No. I want at least one memory to remain intact.”
“Where, then?”
“Here, now?” She stuck up her chin defiantly. “Just say it.”
Impatiently he shook his head, his hair gleaming in the candlelight like a raven’s wing on fire. “No time. What I have to tell you cannot be explained in a few minutes and brushed aside. But we are not married.”
“I expect you will find poor Reverend Clegg and kill him and then destroy the book. You are aware that both acts are against the law?”
“I have done worse,” he murmured, as if to himself. “I—” He turned away from her abruptly, his coat brushing the silk of her dress.
As if he had touched her, she flinched.
“This is not over. I will seek an interview with you any way I can.” On reaching the door, he glanced back at her. “We are not married.”
With that last rejoinder, he left.
Chapter 10
Perhaps she should not have been so hasty to reject his request for an interview. For days after their meeting at the ball Helena waited on tenterhooks, jumping at every clang of the doorbell, every knock at her bedroom door.
She went down to breakfast two days after the incident to find her brother and his wife at table. Julius did not release Eve’s hand but brought it to his lips and kissed it before restoring it to her.
Her brother was in love. Deeply and sincerely. His feelings for Eve made his previous marriage appear an adolescent dream, the impulsive and wild connection of two adventurers. Only when she saw him with the lovely Eve did Helena realize how wrong Caroline had been for him.
Flushing, Eve applied herself to her breakfast while Julius stood and courteously held Helena’s seat for her. She took her place awkwardly. Since Julius had returned from his country house with his bride she had felt more out of place than ever before. Sipping her tea, she watched them. They were perfect together. Although Eve was from relatively humble origins, scarcely a bride for a great lord, anyone seeing them together could not doubt the rightness of the match. Her heart ached, and almost without thinking she suppressed the reminder that she had nearly attained a love match of her own.
“I have been looking at properties by the Thames,” she said brightly.
Julius smiled at her. “It is time, is it not? Helena, if you are determined to live your life single, you should have somewhere to call your own. We may employ a woman or find a relative for you to make you respectable.”
Helena raised her gaze to the ceiling and sighed. “Ah, the necessity of a duenna! But nobody from the family, please. Just remember the problems you had finding a companion for me before! I will choose my own this time.”
Julius chuckled. “Indeed you have a point. I do not have the knack, it seems, of finding nannies and duennas. Yet one more thing I have to thank my wife for.” He said “wife” with such fondness, he might as well have said “love” and been done with it. “She has found a treasure of a nanny. The woman knows how to keep Caro in order without disruption and without upsetting my darling.”
“You just have to ask the right questions,” Eve said smoothly. She exchanged a laughing glance with Helena. “I can help you, if you wish.”
“I’d appreciate that.” Eve had a great deal of common sense. Helena would appreciate her aid, although the necessity struck her as sad. “Do you think Mother will accept my decision?”
“Not immediately,” Julius said. “She will appeal to your conscience, to your sense of rightness and your position. She will say you will disgrace the family.”
Those arguments sounded sadly familiar. “I will not give in. I cannot decline into a companion. She’ll have me knitting shawls for the poor next. And she’ll dress me in the drabbest, most unbecoming clothes possible. I still remember the night of one ball.” She shuddered, recalling the doll-like makeup. “She sent a maid who made me look like a puppet. I scrubbed it off.”
“Why would she do that?” Eve exclaimed.
“Because she always wanted Helena to be her personal slave,” Julius said grimly. “I hadn’t quite realized it then, but she always had that aim.” He clasped Eve’s hand once more, as if he couldn’t bear not touching her. “Helena, I know this is your decision, but did you not feel the least amount of fondness for Everslade? Or for any of the men who have taken you in favor? I cannot help but think that you’d be better if you could find a man who would suit you.”
He put that very delicately. As the heir to the dukedom, Julius could have compelled her marriage to a likely candidate. He had done the opposite, but Helena did not have to be a soothsayer to understand what he wanted now. To be alone with his family, so he could have intimate breakfasts with his wife and play with his daughter. “I daresay I will find someone. I’m not exactly in my dotage.” Her laugh sounded artificial even to her own ears.
“You never know. It might come upon you all at once,” Eve said, shooting her husband a glance. “As it did with me. In the course of one afternoon, my life changed. How much I didn’t know until later.”
“I did,” Julius said quietly.
“You said you did.” Eve picked up her china tea-dish and took a sip. “That tastes strange. Does your tea taste strange, Helena?”
Helena sipped her own brew. “Not at all. Perhaps you should change the dish. They might have left some cleaning salt in it.”
“Yes, that will be the reason.” But Helena pushed her dish and saucer away. “I’ve had sufficient for now. Will you be ready after breakfast?”
Helena racked her brain. Damnation, this was Thursday, which meant she’d promised to go shopping with Eve. “Give me fifteen minutes to find a hat and gloves, and I’ll be with you.”
Eve shot her husband a mischievous glance. “Helena has promised to show me her favorite milliner. She has an establishment at the far end of Bond Street.”
“Not at all fashionable,” Helena said. “But she has a startling gift for matching the woman to the hat. I’ve selfishly kept her secret until now, but I fear once she sees Eve, it will all be over. Everyone will be clamoring for one of her hats.”
“So not expensive?” Eve had spent her early years as the daughter of a cleric’s widow, scratching for every penny. She never made any secret of her humble origins, although Julius saw to it that few people asked her. She had come into a mysterious fortune, which made her eligible in the world’s eyes. Helena suspected the mysterious fortune had come from her brother’s coffers, but she never asked. It was not her concern. She had one of her wishes, in that her brother was blissfully happy with a woman he adored. Her other wishes would never come to fruition, but at least she had one happy outcome to show for her prayers.
Five years ago, she had sworn to herself that she would not repine, that she would make the most of what she had, which was a great deal when all was said and done. For the most part she’d stuck with her resolve. One day perhaps that pain deep inside her that leached her heart and her spirit would disappear.
Downstairs in the hall, she fussed with her broad-brimmed hat, tilting it this way and that, deciding which she preferred when she heard Eve’s amused, “You cannot disguise your beauty, Helena, however hard you try.”
She turned around, her skirts swishing around her. “Mother always says that Lucinda is the beautiful one.”
Busy putting on her gloves, Eve said drily, “Your mother lies. I suspect she does not see her untruths as such though, merely ways of getting what she wants.”
Helena found discussing her mother in such frank terms refreshing. “You married Julius so quickly, she did not have a moment to object. By the time she got wind of your union, the deed was done.”
Eve gave a particularly warm smile. “Yes, he insisted on it. I thought his reasons quite spurious, but when I met your formidable parent, I began to understand. She would have delayed the wedding as long as possible and thrown every rock she could find on the path. If it is not as she wishes it, then it does not happen.”
With a guilty pang, Helena agreed with Eve. Surely a mother should be more than that. Even in her own family, there were examples of loving parents. For the most part, her father kept away from family discussions, but he was capable of putting his foot down, should he wish it, and he had in Julius’s case. The duchess was remarkably reticent about Eve’s humble origins, and Helena suspected her father had dealt with her in no uncertain terms.
He had never intervened between Helena and her mother. Would he, if she asked him? As she followed Eve out of the house to the waiting carriage she wondered on that. She should certainly talk to her father, even if she wasn’t sure what she would ask him. She could hardly tell him of her clandestine and utterly foolish marriage.
She gave the footman a word of thanks as he helped her up and then frowned. “Have I seen you before?”
“No, my lady. I’m new to his lordship’s employ.”
His accent was faintly foreign, French or Italian maybe. He was tall, and met her eyes boldly, something she was not accustomed to with Julius’s well-trained servants. Not that she minded them looking at her, but society had its code, and that was part of it.
The contact was brief, before he bowed and closed the carriage door.
The journey to Bond Street took a little time, as the weather had broken last night, and rain teemed down. Carriages jostled each other, and drivers yelled curses, while people hurried past, the women’s skirts hiked up as much as was decent, the men hunching their shoulders, and all rushing at a pace that threatened to cause an accident.
Of course the urchins and beggars took no notice of the rain. They still darted between people, confusing some enough to pick their pockets and begging from others. “I wonder if they are as indigent as they look,” Eve said.
“No.” Helena had her brother to thank for the information. “Many are ragamuffins who make a fortune from their begging.” She didn’t tell the softhearted Eve that some even deliberately mutilated themselves or their children to garner more sympathy. Others would just bind their eyes and pretend to be blind or make a false peg-leg to wear at the end of a perfectly well-attached knee, strapping the top part of their leg out of sight. It was a wonder some were not permanently crippled by using that tactic. Of course the regular beggars were there too, the ones truly in want, but Helena had learned to be selective with her bounty.
They were in no hurry and the carriage was comfortable enough inside, newly upholstered in a soft green leather that did wonders for Eve. Helena loved how avidly Eve watched their passage, laughing at the more colorful expressions of the coach drivers they passed and noting places she might want to visit in the future. “You have much to experience, Eve, and you should enjoy every moment.”
“Have you been coming to London all your life?”
She nodded. “Until I met you, I had not realized how much I took my visits for granted. Even before I made my come-out I visited. Some families will leave their children in the country, but our mother preferred to have us where she could keep us correctly supervised, as she put it.” Even that did not hurt anymore, although her mother had used her children’s proximity to play one child off against another. That was why Helena had never grown close to Lucinda. Her younger sister was always held up as an example of the perfect daughter, until Helena dreaded the name. And she should have been Gemina, her first name, not Lucinda, her second.
Helena did not have a second name.
“We used to go to Vauxhall for the fireworks, and we thought ourselves very grown-up.” She smiled recalling her wonder at the colored lights and the parade of women, not all of them of the respectable kind. “Julius could always be relied upon to relate the greatest gossip.”
Helena gave a crack of laughter. “I can imagine. He has not stopped with that. I discovered this shop last year, with our cousin’s new bride. Viola is married to Marcus, the Earl of Malton. Like you, she’s from the country. You’d like her, I’m sure. Julius takes a lot of people under his wing,” she added, anxious to assure Eve that there had never been any of the attraction between Viola and Julius as there was between him and Eve.
But Eve, secure in the knowledge of her husband’s love, only smiled. Her fondness warmed Helena. Even if she could never experience it for herself, there was nobody she would have wished happiness more than her beloved brother. “It’s part of who he is. Not just Julius, but Lord Winterton, too.” She turned to face Eve, but caught her sister-in-law’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” she said when she spotted Eve’s wince. “Does it still hurt?”
“Hardly at all,” Eve said. She had sustained a wound a few months ago, and Julius had used it as a reason to transport her to his private home in the country. Tellingly, their mother had never visited it. Only the people Julius loved were invited to stay at the small Oxfordshire manor house. “I have a wicked scar, though. I’m rather proud of it. And of how Julius behaved.”
Nodding, fixing her smile in place, Helena glanced away. She preferred not to recall how closely Tom had worked with Julius at that time. For two men wh
o hated each other, they had a lot in common, in this case, an overblown sense of chivalry. Tom had no designs on Eve, although Julius had suspected him of it. Only Helena knew why.
Tom was still protecting her, albeit from a distance. Perhaps the acts of kindness were his way of making amends. If that was so, it was not working.
They drew up outside the shop, the horses nickering their protest. They would have to stand in the rain for a while now. Fleetingly, Helena felt sorry for them, but considering their shining coats and the bills for oats that passed through Julius’s hands, she was probably wasting her time.
The same footman handed her down and held a canopy over them to protect their delicate heads from the rain on the short passage from the carriage door to the shop.
After a pleasant hour selecting and ordering their confections, the women were ready to leave. A footman opened the door for them, bowing them out.
The rain had stopped, but outside the street was still damp. The sun was doing its best, but the heavy cloud cover prevented it from making much of a difference. Bond Street was the haunt of the fashionable. Across the street was the notorious fencing hall belonging to an Italian, Domenici, so several men were gathered outside as the ladies left the milliner’s shop. The footmen were burdened with boxes and parcels, containing the purchases they had decided to take home with them.
Eve laughed merrily. “I had never thought to spend such a sum on mere hats and caps before. I daresay my father would have considered the expense sinful.”
Eve turned her attention to someone standing behind her. Before she looked, Helena knew who it must be. She turned to face her suitor, her heart sinking.
“Lord Everslade.”
He swept his hat from his head and bowed. “Ladies. Lady Winterton, Lady Helena, it’s a delight to see you. I trust you are both well?”
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