Chapter 2
HELENA
“Milk! Milk! Come get your fresh milk!”
The milkmaid’s pails clanged together with every step she took, and Helena Vale’s head felt as though it might split clean in two.
Her eyelids were so heavy she could scarcely open them to judge how far the woman had progressed down the road.
Surely, she had to be almost past by now.
And yet it sounded as though she had stopped directly outside the drawing room window of the little Bloomsbury house.
It was a modest house. Nothing like the Vale estate in Bath where she had spent the last few years of her marriage. It wasn’t that she missed the place. Not at all. It had never felt like home to begin with.
Bloomsbury suited her considerably better.
It was quiet and respectable, and most of all, cheap enough so she had been able to pay the rent in advance for a year.
Although that year was swiftly coming to an end and she wasn’t sure she could pay what was required.
Not without letting go of far more than she already had.
The wriggle of her daughter Lavinia drew her out of her thoughts. The little girl had been sitting at her feet, batting cheerfully at a wooden toy. Now she raised her arms up.
“Pap!” she demanded. For reasons unclear the Helena, Lavinia had decided that ‘pap’ was her word for ‘up’ and she used it with some frequence for all manner of locomotion.
In addition to up, it also meant she wanted to be held by someone else.
That she wanted down. That she wanted to eat…
and whatever else she had to say. In this case, however, Helena did not indulge her and the little girl soon managed to pull herself upright.
At just over a year old, Lavinia was increasingly mobile and increasingly opinionated, and Helena had learned that a quiet moment was rarely quiet for long.
Sure enough, when Lavinia failed to stand on her own and fell back onto her behind, she instantly burst into tears.
She reached down to scoop her up, but before she managed it, Lavinia let out a burp and something warm spread over Helena’s shoulder. She looked down and groaned. Spit-up, on one of her very last clean dresses.
“Never mind,” she said. “Never mind. I have the laundry to do at the weekend.” She settled her daughter on her hip and began looking for a cloth, dreading the thought of yet another soiled dress to add to the pile.
How far she’d fallen. At the Vale estate, she’d had servants to do all this for her, but that was long ago. Or so it felt
All of that was done now. The estate had gone to Huxley’s brother, Emmett, who had no great love for her. She’d received only her jointure, which was ridiculously small, and some of the content of the house.
When she’d asked Emmett for further funds to support herself, he’d cited Huxley’s poor investments as reasons nothing could be spared. Thus, she had departed Bath with nothing but her own belongings, and those she’d inherited from her parents.
“Perhaps, my lady,” Mary, her trusted housekeeper, said.
Mary, who had worked as her lady’s maid back when she was still a married lady, had followed her from Bath and shown no signs of abandoning her despite the dramatic reduction in both wages and grandeur.
“You might let me take her for a moment. You have done quite enough for one day.”
“No,” Helena said, though her voice came out sharper and higher than she intended. She paused. “Forgive me. I simply feel as though I haven’t done anything near enough.”
“You have done far more than you ought,” Mary said. “Now, let me take her. Sit down and rest a moment.”
She sat. She truly did not know what she would do without Mary this past year.
They had been dark months. Not because of grief.
She would not lie to herself about that.
She had not grieved Huxley the way a widow ought.
She had grieved the life she had imagined marriage might be, the safety she had hoped for, the warmth that had never come.
She had grieved her father and her mother, still, and always.
But her husband? No. The relief of his absence was something she kept very private, and tried not to examine too closely.
She felt Mary’s hand on her shoulder.
“You mustn’t work yourself into the ground, my lady. Your father wouldn’t like to see it.”
“No, but he is not here to help carry it. It is just you and I.”
Mary nodded, and something in her kind, weathered face shifted. Helena knew that expression well. It was discomfort.
“What is it, Mary? Your eyes say more than your mouth ever could.”
“It’s only that … I collected the week’s groceries, and I managed to put most of it on credit, but Mr. Barnes at the bakery is insisting on being paid. As is Mr. Jones, the butcher. It is only a matter of time before Mr. Worth at the greengrocer’s says the same.”
Helena closed her eyes and pressed her fingers to her temples.
“I know. I know it. Things cannot come about if there is nothing left to come about with. I have written to my aunt to ask for another loan, but she has not replied. There is my cousin Hazel in Scotland. I could write to her though I doubt her reply would arrive in time, even if she were in a position to help.” She paused. “I suppose I could sell the ruby ring.”
“My lady … that was a gift from your mother.”
“It is all I have that is worth anything to a jeweler. I have the brooch my father gave me, and my mother’s pearl necklace, neither of which I am willing to part with.
And there is my wedding ring —” she said the words flatly, without sentiment.
“And I know I have not paid you in nearly two months.”
Mary looked away. “I know it, my lady. But I did not wish to raise it. I manage well enough. I have my room here and board.”
“You are too kind to me. I cannot go on relying on your generosity indefinitely.”
The truth was, over the past months she had been forced to sell a great many things.
She’d asked for loans from the few people she knew, but she’d grown up in Somerset, and most people she knew there she’d grown apart from during her years in Bath.
After her marriage she had tried to establish herself in Bath, but those acquaintances had quietly dissolved once it became apparent that Lady Vale’s circumstances were not what society expected them to be.
There was one exception. Lady Clara Hampshire, whom she had met years ago at finishing school and who had become the truest friend she had ever had.
Since her return to London, Clara came to call.
Clara took her out. Clara took her duties as Lavinia’s godmother with complete seriousness and showed no sign whatsoever of caring what anyone in society thought of any of it.
She also knew that Clara would occasionally give Mary money to cover expenses, though it was an unaddressed kindness, as Clara knew how hard it would be for Helena to accept that help. It was one thing to ask relations for assistance, quite another when it was a friend whom you saw regularly.
Clara was, in short, a great comfort. But beyond Clara there was nobody.
Now she was alone. She had her Aunt Margaret, who had already given more than she wished to. Her cousin Hazel. And she had Mary.
Her lip wobbled. She set her teeth against it and straightened. She had to keep herself together. Hartwell women did not come apart at the seams over grocery bills.
A knock at the door drew her from her thoughts, and Mary stepped out into the hall. Words were exchanged — low and polite, too quiet for her to make out — though the voice alongside Mary’s was unmistakably male, and one she did not recognize.
She frowned and stepped into the hall.
To her surprise, a tall, broad-shouldered gentleman in a fine coat and starched cravat stood in the entrance.
He had dark blond hair and the kind of easy, self-possessed stance that suggested he had never once in his life felt unwelcome anywhere.
The sort of man, Helena thought, who moved through the world as though it had been arranged for his convenience.
She distrusted him immediately on principle.