Twenty

“ L ord Highsmith!”

Mother was laughing elatedly at something the man had said. He grinned at her from across the table, seemingly pleased at how easily he’d delighted her.

Dinner had come and gone, the clinking of china far gone, and I’d hardly touched my plate. Still there sat roast, potatoes, salad, all neglected. The men’s plates were clean, Mother’s picked at enough to prove she ate.

I wanted a drink. A cigarette.

It was hard to look in Lord Highsmith’s direction. He was attractive enough, in a simple way, but the way he and Lucas laughed, their camaraderie plain to see, I found it hard to believe that he was a good man. Surely he must know Lucas well, unless Lucas had become such a successful liar that he could trick anyone into thinking he was a good American businessman with a doting wife and mother, whom he loved oh, so very much. If Highsmith knew the cruelty that lurked beneath Lucas’ skin, I wanted nothing to do with him.

I sipped on the chilled cucumber water I had asked for, only able to stomach the subtle flavor.

“Sister,” Lucas started. All eyes at the table turned in my direction.

I pulled the glass from my lips, heat rushing to my cheeks.

“You’ve hardly eaten,” Lucas continued. “Was dinner not to your liking?”

He’d hardly looked at me all evening, keeping to entertaining his guest. They’d all done a grand job of ignoring me, the three of them. I barely even listened to their conversation. Shouldn’t Lord Highsmith want to speak to the girl he was agreeing to marry?

“I’m not hungry,” I said. “I haven’t been feeling well today.”

Lucas’ eyes flashed like he knew I was sick over my situation.

“That’s no good,” Lord Highsmith piped in.

Mother’s smile remained, but as she spoke through her teeth, I knew she was displeased. “Helena, dear, you were alright earlier?” Snap out of it .

I was not alright earlier. She had seen that.

I set my water down. “Perhaps I’ll go to bed. It is getting late.” Never mind I was normally out in the evenings, I couldn’t stand being in that room one moment longer. Glancing at the clock on the wall, the face read only eight-thirty. But Lord Highsmith didn’t know any better, didn’t know I was a night-owl.

I began to stand, but Lucas gripped my wrist. His eyes were fire. “Stay,” he said, fingers tightening. “We were all just getting to know each other so well.”

Lord Highsmith seemed not to read into Lucas’ glare, into Mother’s insistence of my health. He smiled, his lips still pulled into a kind expression. “Yes,” he agreed. “I’ve enjoyed getting to know your family.” He stood, offering me his hand. “But I’ve hardly talked to the woman of the hour.”

I was supposed to take his hand. I was supposed to stand and let him lead me wherever he wanted, so he could continue his interrogation. So he could truly meet his bride-to-be. But I felt stuck to my seat. “Truly, I—”

Lucas stood as well, his chair creating a low screech as it moved. “Perhaps we should give them some time.” He gave Mother his arm. “Let us go to the parlor, and the two of you can spend some time together. Helena, why not show him the garden?” A brow lifted, his instruction clear.

I looked between him and the baron-heir.

Just take his hand . Then maybe I can feign sickness and escape to my room.

When his fingers met mine for the second time, I felt no spark, just the warmth coming from his skin, soft and unworked. Not like Adam’s . Adam’s hands were rough, strong, hardened after years of work, and then the war.

Had Lord Highsmith even gone off to war? Or was he protected, cozy and safe on his estate?

He looked pleased when I acquiesced, and nodded once to Lucas.

“The garden?” He placed my hand at the crook of his elbow. We were close, his cologne strong and foreign, the fabric of his jacket impossibly soft. It was a luxurious fabric, probably more than even Lucas would spend on a dinner suit. He stank of wealth, of old money, of servants forced to stay on his land for generations, while his family lorded over them, with no merit or real reason for their positions in society.

We must have seemed so small to him. Just a little American family.

“I’m sure it’s nothing like the one you must have at home,” I said, forcing politeness into my voice. Mother and Lucas left without a second glance, their voices trailing off down the hall. The servants began to enter, taking plates and glasses, the majority of the feast leftover, likely to be taken into the kitchen and eaten for their own dinners.

I showed the lord down the hall to the garden’s doors, the same ones I’d ran through the other night. Outside, a brisk breeze flowed, softly rustling the leaves around us. We had no moonflowers, only roses and dahlias, heathers, daffodils. The garden was still very much fashioned into Mother’s decades-old ideal, her head still stuck with the Victorians.

“Would you be surprised if I said I hardly ever went into our gardens?” Lord Highsmith looked around, his expression clear of distaste, only a faint curiosity. Perhaps he didn’t know flowers at all.

“Maybe,” I said.

“Do you enjoy the outdoors?” He looked at me directly, like he was truly interested in my answer. It was uncomfortable, having his full attention. At dinner, in the foyer, at least we were with others.

But now we were alone, and that fact really began to settle into my bones .

His skin was unblemished, and though I didn’t know him well, I knew that he looked most himself when he was dressed up as he was for the evening. What did a Baron even wear during the day?

“I suppose I do,” I answered. “I like this garden.” I liked the garden at Vince’s manor. I thought of the rose yet alive in my bedroom, its withering thorns and few fallen petals the only evidence of the passing of time.

Flowers were a doomed gift. Their beauty only flourished for a breath before time took it all away. A gift of passion that reminded you of death.

“I must admit if I lived in a city such as New York, I’d need a place to escape to as well,” Lord Highsmith continued. We strolled along the path, and though it was somewhat quiet within the garden walls, we could still hear the sharp horns of cars, the sound of people on the street. It was a residential area, but there was still plenty of activity.

“You still live in the countryside?” I chanced a look at him. I had been avoiding his gaze, keeping my attention on the blooms around us, dull in the moonlight.

“I do,” he said. “Though I did attend Cambridge, and when I finished my studies, I didn’t return home right away. I explored the continent for a year and a half before I was called home due to the War. I haven’t left our estate much since, though I’ve traveled to London here and there for business.”

“What sort of business?” I asked. I supposed I needed to know if I was to become his wife.

He peered at me, surprised I’d ask. “Well, we support a village,” he said. “And with the war, the country needed soldiers. Railroads are still being built all over. I suppose we have our hand in everything. My father is in Parliament, and he hopes I’ll take that position one day.”

“So, you will remain in London for much of the year? And your wife will stay at home? In the country?”

He made a noncommittal gesture. “Somewhat.”

I stopped, pulling my hand from his arm. My palm felt damp with sweat. The light blue dress I wore looked almost ghostly white in the moonlight, the lamps yet weak in the darkness. It cast a ghoulish shadow across his face as he turned to face me. He still looked as put-together as he did before dinner.

“What do you expect of me?” I asked.

I wanted to drop all pretenses. My skin was crawling underneath the dress my mother had picked. As we’d walked the garden, I’d only felt that the facade Lord Highsmith showed me was just that—a mask to hide whatever he truly felt underneath. Much like Lucas and his ability to show whatever side of himself he pleased.

Lord Highsmith’s brows furrowed, and he adjusted his cuffs. “Well,” he began, and he seemed unsure of what to say, like my forwardness was entirely outside of what he expected. What had Lucas told him about me? Had Lucas said how “unruly” I was? Had Lucas told him about Adam?

And did Lucas know Adam was back?

“When you are my wife,” he began.

Not if , but when . It was decided. They’d already talked it through.

I felt my throat constrict, but willed my mouth to stay shut .

“When we return to England, we’ll live on the estate. In the country.” He straightened himself, and I saw a glimpse of the man who was used to being listened to. “You’ll be under the guidance of my mother, the Baroness. She’ll keep you busy with her work, showing you what your responsibilities will one day be when I assume the Barony. She does much volunteer work in the village, manages the house—”

“Does she ever leave?”

“Leave?” His brows furrowed. “You mean to London?”

“Wherever. Can she leave?”

“She leaves if there’s reason to.” I saw a light fall from his eyes. “Generally, no, I suppose not.”

“I see.” Crossing my arms, the chill from the evening air seeped into my skin. The gloves and sleeves were only a thin silken barrier between myself and the spring air.

“Helena, she’s a Baroness. She has responsibilities.”

It was the first time he’d said my name, and I wanted him to take it back, to un speak it. It sounded wrong with his accent—entirely different from Dixon’s, though their ways of speaking were not entirely different. Dixon was familiar, never asked anything of me. Lord Highsmith—

“She never had much chance to leave, anyway,” he continued. “When she began to have children, I suppose, she became too busy with the nannies and the house that it became impossible to worry about much else.”

“And must I have children?”

I knew the answer. I felt his incredulous stare on me. A scoff, almost a laugh.

“Why, yes— ”

“Then this cannot be done,” I said, and turned to take my leave.

A tight grip on my arm halted my steps, and I whirled around before he could say anything, willing as much strength into my words. “If you think you can lay your hands on me because my brother and my mother have given you leave to do so, you’re sorely mistaken.”

Ire flashed in his eyes, and the kind man he was not twenty minutes before disappeared. I saw the heir then, his real self, staring down at me, taken aback by my words. “Helena,” he said again, and I recoiled.

“You may as well return to England,” I said, mustering all the courage I had.

“I will not.” His grip only tightened, and I winced at the pain rocketing up my arm. If he’d handle me like this, I wondered how many other women he’d been rough with. Was this what I could expect as his wife?

“This is atrocious behavior,” he scolded, like already he owned me.

I attempted to wrest away, but he was deceptively strong.

“You’d be wise to calm down,” he threatened, voice low. “It is already done. Angering me will only make this harder.”

“ I don’t care ,” I seethed, ripping myself away, already feeling the bruise begin on my arm. I marched back toward the door to the inside. The garden’s walls only felt constricting, closer and closer, like they were moving in to trap me. “You can rip up whatever contract Lucas got you to sign.”

“Really, Helena,” Lord Highsmith called. “This is ridiculous. Is having my children really what is making you refuse?”

“It is marrying you,” I said over my shoulder .

He followed, but did not touch me again, only scoffing in disgust. “You only need to have one. Then you can take whatever man you’d like. So long as you’re discreet.”

And he could continue his gallivanting with any woman in the city, while I was stuck and locked away in the countryside. I didn’t care to be so controlled, to have to hide what made me happy. I didn’t want anyone’s child if I did not want it, much less his . I didn’t want his mother watching my every movement, didn’t want to have to live amongst such a family. I didn’t want the responsibilities, whatever they were, of a Baron’s wife. I didn’t care about the title, didn’t care about the money. I didn’t know a thing of England, or London, or the rest of those countries. I didn’t want to live somewhere I couldn’t reach Flora. I didn’t want to waste my life away as this man’s wife.

These thoughts whirled in my mind, creating a tornado that churned and churned until I wanted to scream. At my mother, at Lucas, at Lord Wright Highsmith. All of them.

Scream until I was finally heard. Until the sound of my anger seeped so deeply into their bones, a worm in their ear, that they couldn’t escape my anguish, and they’d know, they’d know , just what they’d done to me.

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