Chapter 31
HELENA
She sat on the windowsill of her bedchamber, her legs pulled up under her chin. Tears spilled from her eyes. A knock drew her attention and then the door opened and Mary walked in.
“Oh, Your Grace,” she said, and rushed to her, wrapping one arm around her. Helena dropped her head against Mary’s shoulder and let the sobs come. She shook heavily, shoulders heaving, as Mary guided her down from the windowsill and back onto solid ground.
“What in the world has happened? Heathcliff said Lord Vale came. Was he horrid?”
“Of course he was horrid. But that is not the point. He and Gideon … the two quarreled.”
“Come sit by the fire with me and tell me everything.”
She guided her to the chair, and Helena sat down.
“He came to request that I relinquish control of a piece of land left to Lavinia in Huxley’s will.
I told him I would not, and the two of us sparred.
He said some very unkind things — not just about myself, but about Gideon as well.
I thought I handled myself well. I stood up for myself, as I should have done with Huxley.
” She paused. “I also suspect he was the one who informed the scandal sheets about my heritage.”
“Of course he was. Bird-witted wretch.”
“But if I stood my ground, why are you reduced to tears?”
“Because of Gideon. He heard the end of the conversation and burst in, apparently determined to defend my honor. He screamed at him and ordered him out of the house. He grabbed him by the neck and physically removed him.”
“Good,” Mary said.
Helena looked at her.
“No. It was not good. It was not good at all. It was exactly the sort of thing I asked him not to do.”
Mary’s voice, when she spoke again, sounded more exasperated than Helena had ever heard it.
“Your Grace. You must stop comparing him to Huxley. He is not your former husband. You are ruining something that could be beautiful. I see the way he looks at you — he adores you. And frankly, he has since London.”
“It does not matter. Huxley looked at me in that manner also.”
“With all due respect, Your Grace, he did not. He never once looked at you in that way. And you know this perfectly well.” Mary took her hand.
“I understand that you are frightened of repeating past experiences. But you are throwing away a chance at happiness. Do not do this to yourself. Do not do this to him.”
“I thought you would understand me,” Helena said.
“I do understand you. And I will support you as long as you are acting rationally. You are not.”
“Do not tell me that I am irrational. You have not lived my life. You have not…” She shook her head. “This is no use. You do not truly understand me, despite everything.”
“Sometimes,” Mary said quietly, “I truly think that I do not. If you will excuse me, Miss Lavinia needs her dinner.”
Helena took a slow breath and watched her walk away.
She paced her chamber. It was nearing the time when she should be selecting a gown for dinner, but she had been robbed of her appetite entirely.
She did not wish to eat. She did not wish to see Gideon, or Mary.
All she wanted was to go to Lavinia’s room, pick her up, bring her to her bed, and go to sleep with the little girl in her arms. But she knew that too was not going to be possible.
Instead she took off her shoes and stockings, changed into her nightgown, and went to bed with the sheets pulled over her head against the still-bright light of the afternoon.
* * *
She never came for dinner. Gideon sat and waited as his pea soup grew cold and the crispy bread lost its crispiness in front of him. An hour after he had sat down he rang for the footman to take the soup away and bring him grapes and cheese instead.
He would simply have to be contented with that. He did not feel like eating anything else. Even the cheese tasted oddly bitter in his mouth. He finished it anyway, knowing that if he did not he would wake in the middle of the night ravenous.
He made his way upstairs and for a moment considered stopping at her chamber — to see if she was all right, to see if she was willing to talk.
But there was no candlelight under her door, and he left her.
Instead, he stopped at the nursery. Lavinia was already in her crib.
She had kicked off the blanket and lay with her arms and legs stretched to either side, head turned sideways, a sliver of moonlight illuminating her chubby cheeks.
He ran his crooked index finger gently along her face.
“I really want to be a good father to you,” he said. “And a good husband to your mother. If only she would let me.”
He sighed, and went to his own chamber.
Sleep did not come that night. He tossed and turned endlessly, dreading what the following day would bring, because he knew he had to speak to her.
The vicar was right. They could not continue on like this — two steps forward and five steps back.
That could not be his life. He did not wish to walk on eggshells every day, the way he would have with Cassandra.
No — this second marriage was not going to end in an annulment.
He was determined to make it work, if only he could get her to—
* * *
The following morning he sat in the entrance hall, beneath the portrait of his ancestor, and waited for the sound of Helena’s footsteps.
He knew from the governess that she had taken Lavinia for a walk before breakfast, and he had seen Marlena return with the little girl some minutes ago. Which meant Helena would be down shortly.
He heard the click of her heels on the marble, and then they stopped when she reached the carpet.
He got up. To his surprise, Lavinia was not on her hip as she usually was.
“Where is the little angel?” he asked.
She said nothing for a moment, and then took a slow breath, her chest rising. “I left her upstairs. I thought it best.”
“Will you sit with me? We must talk.”
She shrugged and followed him into the breakfast room. He looked at the breakfast dishes already assembled and let out a short, mirthless laugh at how splendid the table looked — warm and full, painting a picture of a happy household about to sit down together, when the opposite was true.
“I really wish,” he said, “that you would tell me what has happened to you in the past to make you so frightened. It seems no matter how much time passes, no matter how much I try, you are always expecting me to fly into a—”
“You do,” she said, and crossed her arms. “I have seen it multiple times.”
This was already exasperating. “I do not fly into rages. I am upset when people take advantage of me, and I think that is justified. As for what happened yesterday — I will not have you spoken to in that way in our home.”
“I did not need your assistance,” she said, her tone immediately putting his bristles up. It was so defensive. He had thought about this again and again all night and truly could not find what he had done wrong.
“I do not know what I have done to upset you,” he said. “I already explained why I raised my voice at the steward. As for Emmett — I will not stand aside while a man speaks to my wife in that manner. It was not right. It will never be right.”
“But I told you. I will not have this manner of conduct in my home.”
“I will not curb my every word and look in my own house because of something in your past that I had no hand in.” He got up and walked to the window, hands behind his back.
“I want to be respectful. But I will not have a label of violence and unpredictability fixed to me. It is not true. If you called me a rake, or suspected me of having affairs, I could at least understand it — that has always been my reputation, not that I have any intention of living up to it. But I have never been known for violence. I have never been known for unjust outbursts.”
“You almost planted a facer on Lord Henry at Almack’s,” she said. “And I heard about the outburst at the club when we first met.”
He stopped. He stood very still.
Was he a violent man? Did she see something in him that he could not see in himself? He turned. “Do you think I am violent? Do you truly think I would harm you? Or Lavinia? That I would lay a hand upon you?”
She looked at him for a long while. Then her eyes grew darker.
“No,” she admitted. And her tone told him she meant it entirely.
“Then why? Why do you act the way you act? Why are you cutting up stiff out of nowhere? I thought we were making progress. We had such a lovely day yesterday.”
“We did,” she said. “But it was a dream. An illusion. And reality caught up with us quickly.”
“I sometimes wonder,” he said, “if this whole marriage was an illusion.” He saw her flinch, though he had not spoken in anger — more in resignation, and he suspected that was almost worse.
“I will not lie to you, Helena. I had hoped that in time what was between us would grow into something real. A true affection. True love. And there were moments where I thought that you wanted that too.”
“I never gave you that impression,” she said. Though they both knew she had.
“Perhaps I was wrong to harbor such hopes. Perhaps I saw something that was never really there. But I will not lie to you. It is what I wanted. For the two of us to have something more.”
“Our agreement was always a practical one,” she said.
He wanted to scream. He had lost count of how many times she had said this only to act in a way that entirely contradicted it.
“Do you feel anything for me?” he asked.
She got up and walked to the fireplace.
“What I feel is not the point. What we agreed upon is the point. There was to be no love in this. It was an arrangement. A friendship at most.”
“It is not even a friendship,” he said, keeping his voice level. “None of my friends flinch when I raise my voice. And you were not like this in London — this seems to have come upon you suddenly since we arrived here. Why?”
“You were not my husband then. And we were not alone in a remote country house.”
So it was just how the vicar had concluded. It was because he was now her husband. But did their remote location play a part also? Would she be more comfortable near her friends in town?
“So, if we returned to London, you would stop acting as though I were a sleeping monster waiting to wake?”
“No,” she said. “You do not understand me at all.”
“No,” he agreed. “I do not.” He raised his arms in frustration — and at once she took a step back. He sank into his chair.
“We are at an impasse. I do not know what we are to do.”
“Neither do I,” she said. “It seems you are incapable of keeping your side of the agreement.”
“I am perfectly capable of keeping to my side of the agreement,” he fired back.
“I can be cold if that is what you want. I can take my meals alone. I can tend to the estate on my own. I can be a stepfather to Lavinia without ever crossing your path. If this is what you wish — a cold coexistence rather than a friendship, or a marriage, or anything at all — then that is what you shall have.” He stopped.
Then kept going, because he was in it now.
“In fact, if you wish, I need not speak to you at all.”
“Perhaps that is best,” she said.
She spoke the words quietly, as though pronouncing a sentence or making a vow. He had not meant any of it. He had wanted her to fight back — to tell him that she did want a friendship, that she wanted more. He had accomplished the opposite entirely.
“Very well,” he said at last. “That is what you wish, and that is what you shall have.”