“Yes,” Calliope said, coming up on Helena’s other side. “Why did you send him away?”
Trapped between her two best friends in the entire world, faced with a love she could never have and filled with guilt for an act she did not regret, Helena could no longer keep her most heavily guarded secret. “Because there’s something else I couldn’t tell him. Something I can’t tell him. Something I haven’t even told either of you.”
Percy and Calliope waited patiently.
Helena gathered her courage.
“I murdered my husband.”
Chapter Thirteen
“My lord?” Mr. Charleston, Stephen’s solicitor of the past five years, looked at Stephen expectedly, his quill hovering in midair. “Would you care for me to repeat the question?”
It was a testament to how far Stephen’s mind had wandered that he didn’t even know Mr. Charleston had asked him one.
“Yes,” he said brusquely, leaning back in his chair. “Again, if you please, Mr. Charleston. I apologize for my...state of distraction.”
State of distraction.
A good a name for it as any, he supposed.
It certainly sounded better than I can’t stop thinking about Helena no matter how hard I bloody try.
Shorter, too.
“It is of no issue, my lord, I assure you.” Clearing his throat, the solicitor glanced down at the paper before him, then back up at his employer. “As we’re reviewing your spending accounts for the next quarter, I wanted to know what you would like me to do about the rental property in Berkley Square.”
“What do you mean?” Stephen said blankly.
“I…ah…was under the assumption, given our last conversation, that you intended to end the lease. Furthermore, you mentioned wanting to stop your monthly payments to a one, ah,” – he consulted his paper – “Lady Ware. Is that still the case, my lord? If so, I would need to submit a notice in writing to the lessor before the beginning of next week and notify the bank, as–”
“No.”
Mr. Charleston frowned. “N-no, my lord? To what part, exactly?”
“To all of it.” Unable to remain sitting, Stephen stood up from behind his desk with the restless energy of a caged animal and began to pace the length of his study. Keeping his gaze on the wall, he spoke calmly and precisely, his cool, detached cadence a perfect foil to the hot rush of emotions burning inside of him. “I want to purchase the house in Helena’s name. Then I want a separate account opened in her name as well, and ten thousand pounds deposited in it by the end of today.”
The poor solicitor almost tipped out of his chair. “Ten thousand pounds, my lord? Are – are you certain?”
No, Stephen damned well wasn’t certain.
He hadn’t been certain about anything since he’d returned to London.
But he knew this was the right thing to do. The only thing he could do, after learning the truth about Helena’s marriage to his father.
Her forced marriage.
Her marriage that he should have stopped.
When his stomach took a sharp turn, he went to the window and stared out at the quiet, tree-lined street beyond. He couldn’t go back in time and change what had happened, but he could do this. He would do this. And even though it wasn’t enough, it was better than nothing.
It had to be better than nothing.
As guilt gnawed at him, he spoke to the solicitor over his shoulder. “Thank you, Mr. Charleston. That will be all.”
A quiet rustle of papers, the creak of a door, and then Stephen was alone with only his bitter thoughts for company. For a full minute, he managed to avoid having those thoughts veer towards Helena, but the battle to avoid her wasn’t worth the effort. He could fight all day not to think about her, and as soon as he closed his eyes at night, her face was the only one he’d see. Her eyes, glittering like emeralds as she looked at him in annoyance. The small dusting of freckles across her nose that she tried to hide with powder, but he always knew they were there. The pink of her lips as her mouth curved in a smirk. All that red hair twisted and pinned and tucked beneath a hat when all he wanted to do was run his fingers through it.
On a heavy groan, he scrubbed his hands down his face.
Two weeks.
It had just been two weeks since he’d left the country and returned to town. Not even a full month, yet it felt like a year. Like two years. Two years of not hearing the little breath she made when she was angry with him or seeing the way her eyes darkened when she was aroused or feeling her soft, silky skin.
He missed her.
God, he missed her.
And he wanted nothing more than to go to her, but she’d been quite adamant that she wanted nothing to do with him. After what he’d learned, how could he blame her for it? If only he’d believed her when she had first tried to tell him about her engagement…but he had been too stubborn, too prideful, too hurt. He’d allowed years to be wasted. Years consumed by anger and hatred when they could have been filled with happiness and joy.
Now it was too late. Helena had made her feelings clear, and he wasn’t going to beg her again. But he was going to open another bottle of brandy.
He turned away from the window, and then he froze, his eyes wide with disbelief. For there, in the doorway, stood the woman who had stolen his heart and never given it back. The woman he’d wished for, day after day. The woman he’d dreamed about, night after night.
“What – what are you doing here?” he croaked.
“Hello, Stephen,” said Helena softly. “Is that any way to greet an old friend?”
For the entire journey from Winchester Manor to 7 Harcourt Lane, Helena had alternated between asking the driver to go faster and flinging herself out the window. Fortunately, common sense had prevailed, and she’d managed to reach Stephen’s townhouse without any unsightly bumps or bruises.
But as she stared at the man she loved, she couldn’t help but wonder if a few scratches wouldn’t have been vastly preferable to this painful thudding inside her chest and the trickle of ice running down her spine.
She could always flee, she supposed. She had told the carriage to wait. But she’d also come here for a reason. The most important reason of her entire life. And she wasn’t going to allow herself to leave until Stephen kicked her out. Which he would, of course, as soon as he heard what she’d come to tell him.
“Are we friends?” he asked her, his blue eyes unreadable.
“I believe you should reserve that question until after I’ve told you the truth. Do you mind if I sit down? I’m going to sit down,” she decided, helping herself to a velvet upholstered chair before he could reply.
“I was under the impression you already told me the truth.” Sunlight filtered in through the window at his back, illuminating the streaks of mahogany in his carelessly tousled hair. With his shirt partially unbuttoned and his sleeves rolled up, he’d never looked more handsome. She took a deep breath, then another.
Lord, but this was going to hurt.
“I told you one truth. Now I need to tell you another. About your father.” When her gaze fell to her lap, she forced her chin up. She owed it to Stephen – and herself – to look him in the eyes. “About the night we were married.”
His jaw clenched. “I don’t know if I want to hear this.”
“I don’t know if I want to tell you, but here we are.” She couldn’t figure out what to do with her hands. Why couldn’t she figure out what to do with her hands? After fidgeting with them for a moment, she braced her hands on the armrests of the chair. “You’re going to hate me more than you ever have, and I accept that. The only thing I ask is that you sleep on it before you decide whether or not you want me arrested. Whatever decision you make, I will accept that as well.”
“Arrested?” His brow creased. “Helena, what the devil are you–”
“I killed your father,” she blurted.
Silence.
Deafening silence.
Then Stephen walked to his
liquor cabinet. “I’m going to pour myself a glass of my strongest brandy,” he said with mind-boggling calm, “and you are going to tell me everything.”
Her nails dug into the chair as she waited. When he’d finished preparing his drink, he took a long sip before he faced her, his gaze cool and assessing. His mouth a stern, drawn out line. His shoulders tense.
“N-now?” she said weakly.
“Unless you can think of a better time.”
“All right. All right,” she repeated as she gathered her resolve. She’d already told Calliope and Percy. They’d received the tale with equal parts shock and horror before they’d both insisted that she go to Stephen without delay. So here she was, with her heart laid bare and her very soul exposed for judgement.
Ready to tell her final truth.
“You know the marriage wasn’t of my choosing. It all happened so quickly, the proposal, your rejection, the wedding day, that I never had time to consider what would happen on the wedding night. I was terrified.” She looked down again, gritted her teeth, and glanced up to discover Stephen studying her with quiet intensity.
“You were a young woman forced into bed with a man who never should have looked at you, let alone had the audacity to think he had any right to touch you.”
Those words – how much those words meant to her.
But she wasn’t done.
“I was brought upstairs and left in his chamber with directions to undress and lay still on the bed. I did not do either of those things. When he came stumbling in, it was clear he’d been drinking. It was also clear he intended to have his way with me, whether I was willing or not.”
“You don’t have to continue,” Stephen said sharply. “I’ve heard enough.”
“No. I want – I need – you to hear all of it.” Although her eyes stung, no tears fell, and her voice was miraculously steady when she said, “He pushed me towards the bed. I stumbled and fell backwards onto it. He started to climb on top of me and I…I didn’t think. I just reacted. There was a vase, on the table beside the bed.
“I picked it up and brought it crashing down on his head as hard as I could. I don’t know if that blow would have killed him. I don’t know if in that moment if I wanted to kill him or not. But he teetered sideways, and he cracked the back of his skull on the table, and he didn’t get up. He didn’t get up,” she repeated as silent tears began to flow down her cheeks. “And when I felt for a pulse, I knew he was dead. Somehow, there wasn’t a lot of blood, so I cleaned up what I could and I – what are you doing?” she asked, bewildered when Stephen crossed the room and scooped her up out of the chair.
“Holding you,” he said hoarsely, burrowing his face into the crook of her neck. When she felt moisture against her skin, she realized she wasn’t the only one who was crying.
“I’m sorry. I know he was your father, and this was must difficult to hear–”
Stephen lifted his head, and the rage in his eyes stole the breath from her lungs. “Any bastard who could do that to woman, who could do that to you, is no father of mine. If anyone should apologize, it’s him. And it’s me. I am sorry, Helena. My Helena.” He hugged her close as he began to rock back and forth. “My sweet lamb. My one and only love.”
Her heart stilled.
“You – you love me? Still?”
“Always,” he said fiercely. “I’ve loved you always.”
Helena smiled through her tears. “Always sounds good to me. It is how long I intend to annoy you, after all. Should we forget everything that’s happened then, and start again?”
“No,” Stephen said as he carefully put her down, and panic filled her before he dropped suddenly to one knee and held out his hand. “But we should forgive each other, and look to the future. Lady Cambridge, will you do the great honor of courting you?”
She started to laugh. Then her eyes widened. “You’re serious. Stephen, you don’t need to court me; I’m already yours.”
“I know,” he said. “But it’s something I want to do.”
“Will there be presents?” she asked, only half-jesting.
“I suppose. But no scarves. You’ve already plenty of those.”
“Then my answer is yes.” Ignoring his hand, she jumped straight into his arms. Right where she belonged. Where she had always belonged. “Let’s have a courtship, and a wedding, and beautiful children with your eyes and my hair. Let’s have it all, Stephen.”
And even though it wasn’t always easy…they did.
Epilogue
Helena tapped her knuckle against the door, then beamed when Percy opened it. She’d been doing a lot of beaming lately. Ever since she and Stephen became officially engaged, it was hard not to smile.
He’d brought her back to the very same fountain where they’d first met. And there in the moonlight, with the scent of wisteria in the air, he had asked her to be his wife. She had said yes, of course, and they were to be wed in two weeks’ time at a small church just outside of London.
Only a handful of loved ones would be in attendance. Stephen had offered her a big wedding, but she’d already had one of those. A simple affair was all she wanted. Not to say that her attire was going to be simple. The gown she had planned was fit for St George’s Chapel at Windsor, and she couldn’t wait for Stephen to see her in it. More than that, she couldn’t wait for him to see what she was wearing underneath of it.
“You’re doing that little grin again,” Percy remarked as she stepped to the side to allow Helena into her room. “You’re thinking about your wedding night, aren’t you?”
“Thirteen days and counting,” Helena said cheerfully before she sat down on a rosewood settee in front of the window. Summer sunlight spilled in through the glass, warming the top of her head as she leaned back against the sill. “It’s strange, really. For so many years the mere thought of my wedding night filled with me revulsion and guilt. But now I can hardly wait. How completely things can change when you’re with the person your heart needs.”
“I hope that’s true,” Percy said, her tone a tad wistful as she dabbed perfume on her wrists. “It’s just that…”
“What?” Helena asked when the duchess trailed off.
Her expression troubled, Percy crossed her arms. “It’s just that Calliope has found her soulmate, and you’ve rediscovered yours. But I…I’m beginning to fear I am always going to be alone.”
“That’s not true!” Helena argued. Springing up off the settee, she crossed the room and grasped Percy by her slim shoulders. “You’ll always have Calli and I.”
“I know, but…it’s not the same, is it?”
No, it wasn’t the same.
Helena loved her friends, but the love she felt for them and the love she felt for Stephen were two separate entities. Similar in some ways, different in others. She’d foolishly believed she could have one without the other, and maybe that was true for some people. But it hadn’t been true for her, and she recognized that it wasn’t true for Percy, either.
“You’ll find someone,” she said with the utmost confidence. “Someone who treats you with respect and admiration. Someone who is deserving of you.”
“But how?” In all the months Percy had been living with Helena she’d never cried, not once. But now her violet eyes were awash with helpless tears. “I am married. Even if I did find someone who loved me, there is nothing I can do.”
“Divorce?”
“Andrew would never allow it a hundred years,” Percy said bitterly, shaking her head. “It’d cause too much of a scandal.”
“And beating his wife hasn’t?” Helena exclaimed. Inwardly cursing herself when the duchess flinched, she lifted her hands and stepped back, giving Percy the space she was too timid to ask for herself.
“No one knows about that,” Percy said softly.
“We know. Stephen, Calliope, Leo, and I. We know what he did to you, and he won’t get away with it.”
A sad little smile stole across Percy’s lips. “There’s nothing that can
be done except for me to remain hidden. It isn’t what I want, but it is vastly preferable to the alternative. I could never go back to him, Helena.”
“And you won’t,” Helena vowed. “No matter what happens, he will never lay another hand upon you. I promise you that, Percy.”
The duchess dashed the back of her hands across her eyes, then managed a watery laugh. “Enough about me. It’s you we need to focus on. Are you ready to go find the perfect pair of earrings to compliment your ridiculously gorgeous wedding gown?”
Helena grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Later that evening, as Percy added the finishing touches to her latest painting in the rear garden while listening to the soothing chirp of crickets, she thought about promises.
How often they were made.
And how easily they were broken.
Andrew had promised to love her and keep her. He’d vowed it, before God and King and Country. But the ink had barely dried on their signatures in the marriage register before he struck her the first time.
A glancing blow to her cheek. An accident, he told her at once. Except they’d been in the middle of an argument – over what, she could no longer remember – and it hadn’t looked like an accident when he’d swung his hand through the air.
He’d claimed the next time was an accident as well, and the time after that. He’d asked for forgiveness. He’d made excuses.
If only she didn’t anger him so, he’d be able to control his temper. He didn’t want to hurt her.
But he did.
Again, and again…
And again.
Percy’s heart leap into her throat when she heard the distinct crack of a stick. In the quiet of the garden it sounded like a bone snapping; a sound she was well acquainted with. Holding her brush like a weapon, she slowly stood up, her gaze pinned to the shadowy fence at the far edge of the yard. Helena had gone out for the evening; Stephen was taking her to the theater. Calliope had offered to come keep Percy company, but she’d declined. Now she desperately wished she hadn’t.
Courting the Countess of Cambridge (Secret Wallflower Society Book 2) Page 10