“I promise we shall visit often, Uncle.” Helena had embraced him fondly, pressing the hand of the creaky manservant he had brought with him. “Just as you must come to see us, whenever you wish.”
It was a relief to see him standing at the black painted front door, waving her away, for she had not liked to think of the home she had come to as a bride inhabited by strangers.
When the coach pulled up in front of the sparkling stone façade of the new house on the corner of Rupert and Coventry Streets, Helena expressed surprise. “It’s far grander than I imagined.”
“No more than my family deserve,” Guy said, escorting her to a double front door above a short flight of steps bound by a stone balustrade. The smell of new paint, cut wood and linseed oil assailed Helena in the lofty entrance hall, flanked by doors along both sides.
Henry stood at the top, hands clasped behind his back like a footman and just as nervous.
A cantilevered staircase curved up one side of the lofty hall, ending in a galleried landing above.
A glass lantern set into the roof two floors above flooded the tiled entrance hall with sunlight.
“This is the main salon.” Guy guided her through the rooms, explaining as they walked. “A morning room is next door and a dining salon farther down which overlooks the garden.”
Henry followed behind, pointing out features on each corner.
“You are both so clever.” Helena twirled around in delight. “I never imagined it would be as beautiful as this.”
The interior was white and cream with gilt architraves and mouldings. Black and white tiled floors in the Dutch manner graced the principal rooms. Ornate plastered ceilings dominated the main floors, some with murals of country scenes, with brocade and chintz curtains hanging from the long windows.
A library and a withdrawing room completed the ground floor, with a small orangery running across the rear. Three braziers were set to warm the tiny space in cooler weather and the orange tree Arthur bought them from Africa occupied a pot in a corner. When she saw the frail, but still living plant, tears pricked the back of Helena’s throat.
“Oh, Guy, how thoughtful.” She tucked her arm through his and he proudly showed her each of the kitchen offices, where pantries, grooms quarters, a dairy and laundry were laid out. To the rear lay a courtyard with a block of stables and a coach house.
Although Helena made enthusiastic noises, she had lost her interest in riding since her Mother’s mare was stolen by soldiers from Loxsbeare. Returning to the house, they wandered up to the first floor where Helena admired the six bedrooms.
“There are another six in the attics for the nursery and servants’ quarters,” Guy said, his pride in his latest accomplishment evident.
She was about to ask why they needed so many, when he drew her into a vast chamber with three tall sash windows lining one wall overlooking the rear gardens.
Painted white, the room contained a massive tester bed at one end, its hangings of pale green, lilac and white. A thick turkey rug lay on the floor in the same spring colours.
“I arranged this for you.” He reached past her, opening a door with a flourish.
A private closet, larger than her existing one lay beyond the door, with decorations to match the bedchamber. Her Exeter painting took pride of place on the wall, beneath which sat a polished wood bureau positioned with a perfect view of the gardens.
Tears pricked the back of her eyes as she stared around at all her intimate belongings arranged on the surfaces, but before she could express her thanks, Guy guided her back into the bedroom, indicating another door that led into a dressing room, where all her gowns hung on bronze rails, and a tall oak dresser containing a multitude of drawers.
“Chests are so old fashioned now,” Henry said, laughing. “Besides silk creases so easily.”
“I had no idea you knew so much about ladies’ gowns, Henry.” He blushed and stammered, so she rescued him with a hug. “Nor had I any idea I owned so many gloves and fans.”
“And through here,” Guy clicked open another door, revealing a set of steps curving downwards, “leads to a room where you may bathe.”
Helena descended the first few steps gingerly, peering into a dimly lit lower floor. A sunken bath lined with blue and white tiles was set in the tiny room, a row of leather buckets arranged like standing soldiers along the wall. “Why is it down there?”
“Being close to the kitchens, it takes advantage of the proximity of the stoves. The maids won’t have to dash along corridors with buckets of water which grow lukewarm before they arrive. You may have as much hot water as you wish.”
Helena backed up the steps into the dressing room. “That is ingenious. How did you come upon such an idea?”
“The old Duchess of Lauderdale had something similar built in her Richmond mansion years ago.” Henry tucked his fingers into his lapels and grinned. “I had a fancy to devise something similar here.”
“You are so clever, Henry. And it’s a wonderful house, Guy.” Helena pressed each of their hands in turn, ashamed she had expressed no more than a cursory interest in it before. “But where is your dressing room?” She frowned at her husband as she searched for another door.
Briefly, his gaze sought Henry’s, who gave a self-conscious cough and strolled onto the landing and out of sight.
Guy inhaled slowly. “My bedchamber and dressing room are arranged opposite the staircase.” He indicated a door on the far side of the curved banister.
“Your room?” Helena’s voice rose and she saw him wince. “We have separate rooms now?”
“I’m a prosperous businessman, with the resources to provide an elegant and substantial home for my wife and family. Separate apartments will add to our individual comfort.” He gripped her hand hard, more in a gesture of urgency than affection. “There is no reason for our… er…intimate life to be any different, my dear.”
Her pride refused to let him see how this decision shocked her. Having always believed their marriage thrived on the intimacy they shared in the marriage bed, it was incomprehensible that he would want them to sleep apart. And why hadn’t he mentioned it until now? Had her lack of enthusiasm in his new project prompt this coldness?
She studied his handsome, yet closed expression, wondering what had convinced him this situation would be acceptable to her. Nothing came to mind.
“How considerate of you.” She snatched her hand from his, and swept down the stairs.
Chapter Thirteen
May 1689, Palmer House, London – Helena
Alyce was one of Helena’s first callers at Rupert Street, although she chose a time when Helena was particularly tired and irritable.
“The new servants appear to have settled in with the old ones, but I constantly find strange people in the corridors, which unsettles me.” Helena forced a laugh.
“How can you find fault with being the Mistress of such a beautiful house?” Alyce wandered the room, picking up objects and setting them down again.
Helena felt her face grow hot. “Oh dear, I sound spoiled and ungrateful, don’t I?”
She was still unused to sleeping apart from Guy, waking with a start to find him not beside her. Then she would remember and have difficulty falling asleep again. Some mornings, she rose to find he had already left the house, leaving her to break her fast alone. Her initial resentment over their separate suites had been short lived and now she missed him.
Alyce held up a hand. “Melancholy, my dear, is a malady for which I possess the perfect cure.” She summoned a footman to fetch their cloaks and despite Helena’s mild protests, guided her gently into Robert’s waiting carriage.
“Where are we going?” Helena asked, surprising herself at how excited she was about the spontaneity of the outing.
Alyce put a finger to her lips. “A little place I know called Maiden Lane.”
No wiser, Helena alighted from the coach near Covent Garden, where Alyce led the way through a narrow, cobbled alley near the b
ustling market. Curious pedestrians stepped back as they passed, pressing themselves against the walls with nods and polite curtseys.
“Royal ladies use this very route,” Alyce offered in explanation. “Bess Villiers is a frequent visitor.”
Helena said nothing, doubting the movements of King William’s mistress were something Alyce Devereux was privy to. Then it occurred to her that she was being taken for a courtesan herself, but before this idea took root, Alyce halted outside a small shop and beckoned Helena inside. Its low doorway was not built to accommodate towering headdresses and Helena had to bend awkwardly beneath the lintel.
The interior was a revelation, arranged like a lady’s dressing room, with candles set beneath tall gilt mirrors atop polished tables. A range of tightly packed shelves lined the walls above small cupboards and drawers. Alyce greeted the diminutive French proprietor with her dimpling smile and fluttering eyelashes.
“I have brought a dear friend of mine to experience the delights of your establishment, Monsieur Duval.”
Without reacting to Alyce’s verbal mangling of his name, Monsieur advanced on Helena as if she were a new toy for his amusement. He examined her skin closely before sitting her before a looking glass surrounded by sweet smelling candles and proceeded to arrange a row of enticing little pots before her.
The dimly lit shop took on a mystical quality as he ground, poured and mixed coloured powders and creams, into which he dripped tiny amounts of oils. Finally, these concoctions were ladled into cork-stopped bottles and calumbric dishes with shallow lids.
“You must have a look at these.” Alyce pounced on a lacquer tray full of mouchees, holding each one in turn up to a candle flame to examine. They came in myriad sizes and shapes, from a crescent moon in felt or leather, to animals, fish and birds, even a tiny castle cut from black taffeta.
Helena declined. “I distrust the gum required to fix them in place.” She smiled at the image in her head of the scraps of fabric shifting to less flattering locations.
“My maturity requires such enhancements.” Alyce gave her tinkling laugh.
Helena made suitably disbelieving noises, knowing Alyce would have been hurt had she agreed.
Amongst the unguents, perfumes, potions and salves, Helena’s tensions flowed away. She even allowed herself to be persuaded to purchase a packet of Spanish paper cut into squares, with which to redden her cheeks and lips.
“Dare I try this henna cream?” She held up a tiny pot for Alyce’s inspection.
“Smoothed lightly onto the eyelids, Madame.” The effeminate hands of Monsieur fluttered round her. “It would suit your fashionable colouring exceedingly well.”
“You see, you have new colour in your face already. And you have not even used the Spanish Papers yet.” Alyce said, laughing.
Daringly, Helena added a jar of orange flower water and pot of apricot cream to the pile of purchases accumulating on the table.
They came away with their prizes of glass jars and coloured corked bottles, which Helena stored away in a cabinet in her dressing room. The subterfuge proved unnecessary, for Guy never ventured into her domain without an invitation. A courtesy she was becoming more reluctant to issue as the days went by.
* * *
July 1689, Palmer House, London – Helena
Helena enjoyed her subsequent visits to the emporium in Maiden Lane, a luxury she allowed herself over the coming weeks. Alyce had included Celia on one of their visits, where she had blushed and simpered beneath the Frenchman’s blatant flattery, yet left without buying anything, declaring Ralf would disapprove.
“As if that dear man would refuse her anything!” Alyce had huffed when they were alone again.
Amy, on the other hand had tried everything in the shop and departed with her arms full and a firm assurance that she would be back.
Still smiling to herself at the memory, Helena instructed the chairmen set her down at the entrance to Maiden Lane. Climbing out into the narrow street, she paid the bearer and instinctively tugged her voluminous cloak down over her skirt.
Guy warned that if she insisted on going out alone, she should take the precaution of concealing her fine clothes from the hordes of villains he was convinced prowled the streets.
Helena recalled his words with mild impatience, yet still she lifted the hood over her headdress and was about to cross the road, when a carriage turned the corner and rolled to a halt beside her.
With a jolt, she recognized Guy’s new acquisition, constructed in a Long Acre workshop to his particular specifications. The paintwork was a glossy black, with bevelled glass at the windows, the frames picked out in gold. The nature of their current relationship had tempted her to remark that this was designed purely to disguise the fact the Palmers had no crest to display, but at the last second she bit it back, turning it into an innocuous compliment.
The coachman harangued the driver of a hackney impeding his progress, his whip cracking and voice raised, demanding the other driver make way. Guy’s profile was slightly turned away to converse with his companion, apparently oblivious of the altercation between his coachman and a carter in the street.
Helena contemplated drawing his attention to her presence, but some instinct made her hesitate. Instead, she pulled her hood forward, concealing her face. The hackney had forced his vehicle through a dangerously narrow gap and the carriage glided past, revealing the face of a woman she had never seen before.
Cascading red ringlets tumbled from a raised fontange, from which ribbons of lace fell on either side of a long, mobile face. Guy bent his head close to hers, nodding and smiling in response to something the woman said. The carriage rolled away in the direction of The Strand, leaving Helena staring after it. She must have stood frozen for several minutes, suddenly becoming aware of two street hawkers hovering. They appeared to debate amongst themselves if she was a willing candidate for approach, but at her fierce glare, both retreated.
Monsieur Duval’s forgotten, Helena turned on her heel and summoned a chair.
The footman who opened the door of Palmer House started with surprise when she brushed past him and ran up the stairs. When the momentum that had driven her home spent, she found herself on the nursery floor, but with no firm reason to be there.
Chloe stepped into the hall in front of her, a distracted smile on her face as if something amusing was going on in the room she had just left. Her maid had abandoned the kitchens entirely since moving to Palmer House, her days spent in the vast, sunny nursery, ordering the nursery maids about.
“I thought you were from home this afternoon, Mistress.” Chloe smoothed her hands over her skirt. “Have you come to see the boys?”
Helena frowned. She couldn’t face the babies, not today. “I…er…no. I came to tell you I have the headache and might lie down for a while.”
Chloe accepted this explanation without interest and Helena retreated down the stairs, the face of the red-haired woman still vivid in her head. A woman with a wide smile directed at Guy.
Her Guy.
Surely there was a perfectly reasonable explanation? She was probably the wife or sister of a business associate, though the way she had looked at him seemed more than that of a relative or casual acquaintance.
When dusk fell, she refused dinner, though at Glover’s urging, agreed to take a supper tray in her room. After only a few mouthfuls, she discarded her knife with a sigh. Glover had placed a copy of the London Gazette on the tray, opened to a square, bordered announcement that told her what had prompted the gesture, making her smile at his thoughtfulness.
This morning about four o’clock, Her Royal Highness, the Princess Anne of Denmark was safely delivered of a son at Hampton Court
The report went on to say the child was to be baptized William Henry, after his uncle, the king.
Helena wondered how the exiled James Stuart would take the news, for this child was now the heir to the throne, and a Protestant. A throne he was trying to regain for his own son.
/> Chloe frowned at the discarded dinner tray when she arrived to light the candles, making attempts at conversation during the disrobing, which Helena ignored. When the maid settled herself behind her mistress to take down her hair, Helena grasped the hand wielding a hairbrush. “I can manage tonight. You may go.”
Chloe backed out of the room, her perplexed face reflected over Helena’s shoulder in the mirror.
The door clicked shut and Helena leaned her chin in her hands and stared into the looking-glass. She didn’t seem any different, but something had shifted in her head, leaving her unsure of her place in her world, or her husband’s life.
She was still wondering what she should do when looking up, she realised full darkness had gathered outside her window. She climbed wearily into bed. “I’ll think about it tomorrow,” she whispered to the empty room.
* * *
July 1689, Palmer House, London – Guy
When Guy returned home, Glover informed him Mistress Palmer had retired to her room. Disappointed, Guy ate a solitary dinner before retiring to his chamber for what was left of the evening.
The latter part of the afternoon he had spent with Poll, in her small but neat lodgings, although she had insisted he take her to the New Exchange first to purchase a few gew-gaws she had her eye on.
Poll was not stupid exactly, but clearly ill-educated. Nor was she even particularly pretty, but she pandered to his vanity, was unfailingly grateful for the smallest indulgence, so that he imagined himself a powerful figure in her submissive presence.
Unbidden, his wife’s beautiful face swam into his head, dispelling all thoughts of Poll. His pulse quickened at the vision of her exquisite smile, a smile he had not seen much of lately.
In the social circles in which Guy was welcomed, Helena was much admired, a fact he took as a compliment to himself. However, at such times, he stood on the fringes, observing her from a distance, accepted in her life, but not really needed.
She had her friends, the Maurices and the Ffoyles, who grew prosperous on the Woulfe wool business rescued from the rebellion. Then there were the influential Devereuxs of Lambtons, with whom all of London outside the royal court claimed acquaintance.
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