Chapter 27
HELENA
The following morning, Helena walked down the stairs with Lavinia at her side. The little girl was learning to manage the stairs but took her time about it, which was just as well. It gave Helena time to sort her thoughts and calm herself.
Her conversation with Gideon still sat heavy in her bones.
She knew that sooner or later she would have to tell him the truth about what had happened in her past. About how cruel Huxley had truly been.
She also knew that she could not go on letting the past govern her present. Still, it was difficult.
Blackthorne was beginning to feel like a real home.
The estate, the people in the village — all of it was beginning to feel like something she might belong to.
What concerned her more than anything, though, was Gideon.
It was becoming clear that he was imagining something more for their marriage than they had agreed upon.
And the truth was that sometimes she wished for that too.
“Mama?” Lavinia said, looking up at her with wide eyes. They had reached the bottom of the stairs, and Helena had not even noticed. She scooped the little girl up and crossed into the breakfast room.
She and Gideon had dined alone the previous evening, not speaking very much, and he had not pressed her — which she had appreciated.
This morning, when she entered, he rose and pulled out a chair for her beside his own.
They settled Lavinia into the small chair designed for her, placing her between them.
“I hope you slept well,” he said.
“I did,” she replied. “Quite well. It is a lovely estate.”
A servant brought in a fresh tray and Gideon, without ceremony, cracked a boiled egg, removed the shell, and set it on Lavinia’s plate.
Lavinia grabbed it at once and attempted to insert the whole of it into her mouth.
He removed it with equal speed. “I do not think your mama was quite finished with that yet, little lady.” Then, to Helena’s surprise, he cut it into small pieces and arranged them on the plate, leaving Lavinia to manage them herself.
“Mrs. Strom taught me something about feeding small children,” he said. “Or rather, allowing them to feed themselves.”
Lavinia crammed several pieces into her mouth simultaneously, missing some, and smeared yolk comprehensively across her cheek. Gideon took a napkin and cleaned her up.
“I know it is futile and we shall have to do it again afterward,” he said.
“And yet,” she replied. “You are really trying. I appreciate it.”
“I told you — this is her home now. I want her to feel comfortable here. And I want her to think of me as her father, if that is all right with you.”
She nodded. They had never properly discussed what his role in Lavinia’s life would look like day to day. It was good to hear it said plainly.
“I thought perhaps we might walk into the village today,” he said. “There is a market on Mondays and Thursdays. I should quite like to have a look. Several of the farmers sell there, and I understand there is an abundance of belly timber on offer.”
She looked up. “I heard there are apple and strawberry pies, and all manner of seasonal ones. I should very much like to try them.”
“You like pies?”
“I adore them.”
“Pie pie pie,” Lavinia announced, and slammed her hand on the table.
“Not for you,” Helena said. “And you are not coming to the village today. You are going with Miss Marlena.”
“No!” Lavinia screamed, and threw a piece of egg.
“Lavinia,” Gideon said, in a firm, even tone.
Helena’s shoulders drew up instinctively, bracing — but he only wagged one finger at the little girl.
“It is not polite to throw eggs. There are a great many children who would be very glad of an egg for breakfast. We do not throw ours simply because we are cross.”
A laugh escaped Helena before she could stop it.
“What is it?” he said — and then understood. “I am doing it again. Speaking to her as though she were considerably older than she is. But I truly do not know how else to explain to her what is right and what is wrong.”
“A firm no will do,” she said. “A wag of the finger too. And repetition — we will tell her again and again until she understands.”
He nodded, got up, and picked the piece of egg off the floor. Helena relaxed.
They finished breakfast together in a companionable fashion, debating which pie they ought to try first. Then she took Lavinia upstairs to be cleaned and handed off to Miss Marlena.
An hour later she came downstairs ready. She had taken some care over her dress — a Pomona green walking dress with a matching bandeau. Gideon was already waiting at the carriage and smiled when he saw her.
“You look lovely,” he said, and opened the door.
He handed her in, his hand closing around hers, and for a moment she stayed there and did not pull away.
Then she took a breath and stepped up. The carriage shifted as she sat, and again as he joined her.
Once it had settled, Gideon leaned out of the window and slapped the side to signal the coachman.
They rode into the village together for the first time as husband and wife.
They had each been independently many times, but never together.
As he handed her out at the market square, people turned and greeted them — smiles and waves accompanying them as they made their way through the stalls.
She caught people murmuring about what a handsome couple they made, what good fortune it was to have such a Duke and Duchess.
It was so very different from London, where there had been nothing but whispers and rumour.
“I wonder if things would change here,” she said quietly, “if people knew that I am not of noble birth. Nor related to anyone who is.”
He shook his head. “You need not worry about that. I spoke to the vicar and the matter came up. I made it clear you have no such connection. And Mrs. Strom tells me the rumours reached here before we did, and nobody cared in the least.”
Relief flooded her immediately. “I had worried about what people might think. Whether they might look at me differently.”
“In the country people rarely care about such things as they do in London. And I think what matters to the people here is that you are a good person who listens to their difficulties and concerns. Not whether you are related to some obscure Earl. Besides — your father having been a captain in the militia means considerably more to people out here than any such connection ever could.”
“I desperately wish everyone thought that way.”
“I take it that at your former husband’s estate, they did not.”
“Oh no,” she said, as they stepped into the busy market.
“There were always schemes about how Huxley might elevate himself — become an Earl, or even a Marquess one day, through military distinction.” She paused.
“Not that he would ever have joined up. The thought of Huxley in the militia is ludicrous. He was the sort of man who talked a great deal and did very little.”
“Was he—” Gideon began.
She knew what he was about to ask. And she found she was not quite ready to answer it — not here, not with the smell and noise of the market pressing in around her on all sides.
It was, she had to admit, quite the spectacle — and well worth coming for the gapeseed alone, even had there been no pies at all.
The market square was transformed on Thursdays from a quiet open space into something altogether livelier.
Farmers’ carts were arranged in a wide ring around the perimeter, their horses standing patient in their traces while their owners called out the merits of whatever they had to sell.
The air was rich and layered — fresh bread baking somewhere, woodsmoke from a small brazier near the butcher’s stall, the particular warm animal smell that came from the pen of pigs to her right, and underneath all of it the clean country smell of grass and turned earth that she had been breathing since their arrival and had already come to love.
The stalls themselves were a considerable variety.
The greengrocer had set out towers of autumn vegetables — turnips and parsnips and the last of the summer’s squash, along with onions braided together in long ropes that swung from a frame above his head.
Beside him, the baker had laid out loaves and rolls and small pastries in neat rows on a cloth-covered board, with a sign in careful handwriting advertising the pies.
Further along, the butcher presided over a display of cuts that drew an admiring crowd of housewives, and next to him a woman Helena had not seen before was selling preserves from a cart — small glass jars of jam and jelly and pickled things, all neatly labelled and arranged by color.
A linen merchant had set up at the far end, his bolts of cloth propped upright like a small standing forest of blue and brown and cream.
Between all of these, villagers moved and greeted one another, children ran and were called back, and dogs investigated everything within nose reach with enormous dedication.
To her right, a large pen held a group of pigs grunting over scattered vegetables. Further along, horses were being shown at another stall.
She paused in front of the pig pen, where a small piglet had found itself wedged against the fence, squealing desperately as the larger animals pressed against it.
“Oh no,” she said. “The poor little thing. It will be crushed.” She leaned over the fence and reached for it.
“Get away from the pigs!” the farmer barked.
She stood up straight. Inside her, conflict rose at once — she did not like confrontation, and yet the piglet continued to cry, looking up at her with eyes that seemed to plead.
“The pig is being crushed,” she said. “It is inhumane.” She leaned over again.
“I said get—”
“And I say you will not speak to the Duchess in that manner,” Gideon said.