Chapter 33
HELENA
The drizzle of an early morning rain tapped against the window pane. She stared up at the dark blue canopy decorated with golden half-moons and remembered, as she did each morning, that she was not at home.
It was odd to think of Blackthorne as home. But it had become that. Peculiar as that felt.
She was at Clara’s house. She had arrived two days ago, and had shared very little with her friend.
Clara had not asked. But she would have to explain sooner or later, and she knew it.
Helena was grateful for any reprieve for she felt at sixes and sevens after her departure.
She’d taken herself off without much of a plan, and that a fact was now haunting her.
With a sigh she pushed herself up and swung her legs out of bed. She dressed without calling for Mary, though she felt guilty for it — for having uprooted Mary once again from the home she had known. Mary would never complain, never make her feel badly about it. But it was a fact nonetheless.
She put on one of her simplest dresses, one of the ones she had kept from Bloomsbury, and made her way downstairs.
To her surprise, she heard chatter and giggling coming from the drawing room. She took a breath and knocked on the door frame.
At least five pairs of eyes looked up at her and conversation ceased.
Clara was sitting among the Langley sisters and their cousin, the five of them arranged in a loose circle.
And in the middle of them was Lavinia, currently engaged in piling an assortment of ribbons on top of her own head.
The dolls, which had clearly also been provided for her entertainment, had been set aside in favor of this endeavor.
“Helena,” Evelyn said warmly. “It is so lovely to see you. We heard you were back in town. We hope you do not mind the intrusion.”
“Not at all,” she said, and took the empty seat beside Clara, who squeezed her hand.
“I thought you could do with the company,” Clara said.
“Yes,” Helena replied. “It is lovely.”
It was anything but. She had not wanted company. She had wanted to be left to her own devices. But she was a guest in this house, and if her friend wished to do her a kindness by inviting these women, who was she to decline.
Tea was poured. Conversation resumed, most of it revolving around the four ladies and their children, interrupted regularly by Lavinia, who squeaked and attempted to join in with the limited vocabulary available to her.
Helena smiled and spoke when spoken to. But she felt entirely out of place.
Did these women know what had passed between herself and Gideon?
Were they aware that she might very shortly not be a Duchess at all?
Surely they would not be as kind to her if they knew she was not going to be one of them anymore.
She did not have to wonder long.
About an hour into the visit, a knock sounded at the front door. Clara went to answer it and returned a moment later with a peculiar smile on her face.
“There is a gentleman here to see you,” she said to Helena. “Or rather — to see your maid.”
“What?” Helena rose and made her way into the foyer.
Her eyebrows went up. Sir Franklin was standing in the entrance hall holding a bouquet of daisies that looked entirely self-picked.
“Sir Franklin.”
He bowed immediately. “Your Grace. It is wonderful to see you again. I wanted to call because I had hoped to visit with your maid. I was not entirely certain which entrance would be proper for such a venture, but I thought it right to speak with you first.”
“I will fetch her,” Clara announced, and disappeared.
Helena gestured toward the music room and Sir Franklin followed.
“I have been writing to her on a couple of occasions while you were out of town,” he said. “I hope you do not mind.”
“Not at all. She mentioned it.”
Sir Franklin went slightly pink. “She did? I was not aware she had thought enough of our correspondence to mention it. Though I suppose it is only proper that she should.”
“Indeed it is. I hope you do not have intentions of whisking her away.”
His cheeks grew redder. “Well. I had hoped to court her, but perhaps not in the way that you might imagine.”
Helena smiled, remembering the conversation she had already had with Mary on this subject.
“I found her quite charming when we first met,” he continued, “and I would very much enjoy her company, if she will have it. I was unsure whether she would or would not, but His Grace encouraged me, and—”
She looked up. “He encouraged you?”
“Yes.” He smiled. “I spoke with him just before the two of you departed — I saw him at Parliament. I am in the House of Commons, if you were not aware. In any case, we conversed, and I mentioned my fondness for Mary, and he told me I ought not to let the difference in our stations prevent me from following the call of my heart.” He paused.
“I thought it quite generous of him. And then of course I heard about your background, and it made his words seem even more—”
She looked at her shoes.
“Oh, do not let that affect you,” he said quickly.
“It does not bother me, and I do not believe anybody is truly still talking about it. Not since Lord Walthamstow was found to be carrying on behind closed doors with his brother’s wife.
” He waved a hand. “I should not gossip. Nobody cares anymore. The truth of your heritage is yesterday’s news.
Regardless — I took His Grace’s words to heart and decided to write to Mary.
That is why I began the correspondence in the first place, under the guise of enquiring about a housekeeper.
But now that you are here in town, I thought a proper call was more fitting.
” He stopped himself. “I do talk rather a great deal. I am a terrible gabster.”
She sat watching him and found him entirely charming. Not in the way that would have made her regret not having pursued things further herself, of course. But charming for Mary, certainly.
What had unsettled her more than anything else was Gideon’s involvement.
He had spoken to Sir Franklin on Mary’s behalf and said nothing to her about it.
He had known about Mary’s late husband, known that she might be reluctant, known enough to speak to Sir Franklin with care and consideration — and had kept the whole of it to himself.
“You understand that Mary was married once before,” she said.
“I do. His Grace mentioned it. He also warned me that on account of this, she may not be amenable to my efforts. But I am willing to try.”
Before she could say anything else, Clara appeared with Mary behind her.
Sir Franklin rose at once and crossed the room. He extended the flowers, and Helena noticed that his hand was shaking.
“I did not know if you would mind daisies. They grow near my house. I think they are very beautiful.”
“I love them,” Mary said quickly.
Helena glanced at Clara, who tilted her chin toward the door. The two of them retreated back to the drawing room. Clara pulled the door to — not all the way, propriety being what it was — and they returned to their seats.
All four of the Langley women had migrated toward the door frame during their absence. Marianne was balancing Lavinia on her hip.
“That is your maid,” Frances said.
“And the gentleman your husband tried to match you with is making a push for her,” Charlotte added.
“And one of the very first suitors Nathaniel brought into the house,” Evelyn pointed out. “He was perfectly pleasant. I would know him and his daisies anywhere.”
“Oh, he is the one with the daisies,” Marianne said, nodding. “Evelyn scared him away.”
“I scared them all away, which was the point. But he would make a fine match for someone who is not me.”
Helena smiled. “Apparently Gideon put him up to it.”
“Gideon?” Frances exclaimed.
“Yes. I did not know he had paid such close attention to the things I said, but apparently he had.”
“Oh, Gideon listens to everything and retains everything, even when he doesn’t share it,” Frances said. “He has always been that way.”
Helena absorbed this. A part of her had already known it.
They returned to their seats. Lavinia had fallen asleep against Marianne’s shoulder, and Helena reached over and gathered her, settling the little girl in her own lap with her head nuzzled against her collarbone.
Frances took a quiet breath. “May I ask a question?”
“Of course.”
“I am somewhat aware of what has transpired at Blackthorne. Only because James left this morning to see Gideon — Gideon wrote to him.” She paused.
“He also wrote to ask that we keep a weather eye on you while you are in town, and put funds at your disposal should you require them.” She nodded at her cousins.
“As are they. We are rather like a small village.”
“Right,” Helena said. She could not face any of them and so fixed her gaze on the teapot, its contents by now gone cold.
“What happened exactly?” Charlotte asked.
Helena sighed. She did not want to talk about it. And yet not talking about it was exactly what had brought her here.
“I did not tell them anything,” Clara said quietly.
Right. Should she really share her deepest thoughts with these women?
They were not exactly her friends — Clara was, but she barely knew the others.
And yet somehow each of their lives was intricately woven into the fabric of hers now.
By way of Gideon. Several of them knew Gideon better than she did.
She took a breath.
“I was afraid of him,” she said.
“Of Gideon?” Frances exclaimed. “He is all bravado.”
“He does have a temper,” Charlotte put in. “Not a violent one. Though I know he has planted a facer on more than one gentleman. Always richly deserved. But he would never harm a woman.”
“He never would,” Clara agreed. “Was he ever unkind to you?”
Helena shook her head. “The opposite. He has done so much for me.” She paused.
“He never mistreated me. I know how it must sound. I have no reason to have been afraid of him. And in truth I was not afraid of him — not until after we were married. There were occasions on which I was not pleased by his outbursts of temper, but I was not truly afraid. I don’t even know if afraid is quite the right word.
It is just that in the past—” She stopped.
Wrapped her arms around herself. “My former husband was very charming when we first met. I thought he was kind and generous and that he would be a good husband. But once we were married I found the opposite to be true. He was unkind. He treated me very badly. Especially after he began to suspect that my father was not related to an earl at all.” She bit her lip.
“He became dismissive. Increasingly so.”
“Did he hurt you?” Evelyn asked. Her tone was gentle but direct.
“He would shout at me. Tell me I was worth nothing. That I had tricked him. That I could never be the kind of wife he needed. He would grab me by the arms or the wrist. Drag me. Push me. Once or twice he pushed me to the ground. He would raise his hand, and — well. Once he did more than raise it.”
A sharp breath went around the room. Charlotte sat with her fist curled in her lap.
“He is fortunate he is dead,” she said.
Helena smiled despite everything. “That is exactly what Gideon said.”
“I would expect nothing less of him,” Frances said.
“But if you know that Gideon is not like that,” Evelyn said, “then why did you leave?”
Helena shrugged. “Every time he raised his voice — even when it was justified — I was reminded of Huxley. It was as though my body was still trapped in that old life, even when my mind knew perfectly well where I was.”
“I have heard physicians call this soldier’s heart or nostalgia in soldiers,” Evelyn said.
“My lady’s group has been working alongside soldiers returned from the war.
Many of them suffer from something very like it.
Something as simple as a door banging can make them feel as though they are still on the battlefield. ”
“But I am not a soldier. And my marriage was no battlefield.”
“It sounds as though it was,” Marianne said quietly.
“Marriage is always a battlefield,” Evelyn said, “but there is not usually violence involved. At least if one is lucky.”
“Why did you not tell Gideon any of this?” Clara asked.
“I wanted to, sometimes. But I could never bring myself to. And I think — I think he already knew something. You told him the marriage was difficult,” she said to Clara.
“I indicated that Huxley was not a good husband. Yes.”
So that was how he had known.
“I told him the marriage was unhappy. But I never told him how far it went. I never told him that Huxley struck me. I did not want to revisit any of it. I thought I could keep the past separate from the present. And I agreed to the marriage on the understanding that it would be a practical arrangement — that I would never have to worry about such things. But then Gideon made it clear that he wanted something more, and I—”
The room was quiet.
After a moment Charlotte looked up. “And you? Do you love him?”
Helena took a long breath. “Yes. Despite my better judgment, I do.” She looked at her hands. “But I hurt him very badly the last time we spoke. He will not wish to see me again. And even if he did — I do not know that I can be any different. Perhaps I am doing him a favor by staying away.”
“Perhaps,” Evelyn said, “you are making it easy on yourself. By telling yourself he no longer wants you, you have an excuse not to try. But what if he does?”
“What if I can never change? What if I can never stop feeling this way?”
“If you do not try, you will never know,” Marianne said, and looked at her with kind eyes.
“She is right,” Charlotte agreed.
“My advice,” Frances said, “is to take a few days. See how you feel. James has gone up to see Gideon now, so there will be word soon enough. Take this time to think about what you truly want. And then follow your heart.”
Helena sighed. This was simple enough o say.
But did she really want an annulment? A divorce?
She knew in her heart that she did not. She knew what she had told them was true.
She loved Gideon — had been battling herself over it for so many weeks that she had almost forgotten what it felt like not to.
Perhaps it was best that she took this time and thought clearly. It would be good for both of them.
The only trouble was that if she decided she wanted to go back, she had no way of knowing whether he would still want her to.