Chapter Six #2
It was neither polished in expression nor smooth in delivery, but something in the way he said it made Helena’s heart do something complicated in her chest.
“Thank you,” she said. “Your Grace.”
She walked away before she could say something she would regret.
***
Lord Marcus Tremont arrived three days later.
Helena was in the library when he found her, she spent most of her evenings there now, losing herself in books the way she had once lost herself in her father’s collection. The room had become her sanctuary, a place where she could be something other than the Duchess under siege.
“Lady Westmere.” Marcus swept into the room with the easy confidence of a man who had never questioned his welcome anywhere. “I hoped I might find you here. Edmund mentioned you had discovered the library.”
“Lord Marcus.” Helena set aside her book. “I did not realise you were visiting.”
“A brief stay. I had business in the area and thought I would call on the newlyweds.” He settled into the chair across from her, entirely at ease. “How are you finding matrimonial life?”
“Educational.”
Marcus laughed. “Diplomatic. I approve.” He studied her for a moment, and beneath the charm, Helena sensed genuine assessment. “Edmund speaks well of you. That, is not common, for him.”
“Is it not?”
“Edmund speaks well of very few people. He is particular in his regard.” Marcus leaned forward slightly. “Did he tell you about the cottage?”
Helena went still. “What cottage?”
“For your mother. He has already purchased it, a property two miles from here, comfortable, with a garden. He interviewed nurses himself. Three of them, before he found one whose references satisfied him.” Marcus’s eyes were intent on her face. “He did not tell you.”
“No.” Helena’s voice was very quiet. “He did not.”
“And Miss Rosalind’s Season. He has already begun making arrangements, consulting with modistes, reserving dates for presentations, compiling lists of suitable acquaintances to make introductions.” Marcus tilted his head. “Did he tell you about that?”
Helena shook her head. She could not find words.
“I thought not.” Marcus sat back, satisfied. “He is not good at taking credit, our Edmund. He conducts his affairs with silent modesty, performed behind the curtain and strictly shielded from public display. It is one of his most infuriating qualities.”
Helena stared at him. Her mind was spinning, trying to reconcile what she was hearing with what she had assumed.
She had assumed the affair would remain in the hands of attorneys, preserved as a mere commercial arrangement, devoid of personal feeling. The fulfillment of a contractual obligation, nothing more.
She had not expected Edmund to personally interview nurses for her mother. To spend hours selecting the right cottage. To pour attention into Rosalind’s Season as though it mattered to him personally.
“Why are you telling me this?” she asked.
Marcus’s smile softened. “Because I have known Edmund since we were boys. And I have never seen him work this hard to make someone happy.” He stood, straightening his coat. “Make of that what you will, Your Grace, but I thought you should know.”
He was gone before Helena could respond.
She sat alone in the library, surrounded by thousands of books, and thought about a man who did things quietly. Who never took credit. Who had arranged her mother’s cottage and her sister’s future without saying a word.
He is definitely not what I expected him to be. He never ceases to amaze me.
***
Edmund found her the next morning at breakfast.
“I have received word from my solicitor,” he said, setting a letter on the table between them. His face was carefully neutral, but Helena had learned to read the tension in his shoulders. “Reginald has been gathering statements.”
Helena set down her tea. “What kind of statements?”
“From people who were at the assembly. People who claim to have observed us that evening.” Edmund’s jaw tightened.
“They are prepared to testify that there was no genuine affection between us. That the match appeared sudden and transactional. That you showed no interest in me, and I showed no interest in you, until I suddenly proposed without warning.”
Helena absorbed this. The words stung, not because they were untrue, but because they were partially true. She had shown no interest in him at the assembly, because she had been too consumed by her own crisis to notice anyone. She had not expected him to single her out.
“They are assembling evidence to prove this matrimony was a mere contrivance.” She said slowly. “That we are strangers playing at partnership.”
“Yes.”
“Then we had better give them something different to see.”
Edmund looked at her with his quiet intensity again, the way he seemed to see past her composure to something underneath.
“What do you suggest?”
“London,” Helena said. “Society. If they are gathering evidence that our matrimony is a performance, then we need witnesses of our own. People who see us together, who see how we function as partners, who can testify that whatever we began as, we have become something real.”
She heard the words as she said them and felt something shift in her chest. Something real. Was that what they were becoming?
Edmund was silent for a long moment. Then he nodded once.
“We will go to London,” he said. “Together.”
***
That night, Helena lay awake in her enormous bed.
She thought about the cottage Edmund had arranged for her mother. The careful attention he had paid to the details, the right location, the right nurse, the garden because her mother had a liking for gardens. How had he known that? She did not remember telling him.
She thought about the rose garden. The way his face had transformed when he was talking about grafting techniques, before he remembered he was supposed to be composed and distant. The almost-smile when she had teased him about shrubbery.
She thought about the morning room. This room has never looked this alive.
He is not what I expected, she thought. I wish he would stop surprising me.
And then, against her will: I wish I knew whether any of it was real.
She rose from her bed. The floor was cold beneath her bare feet as she crossed to the far wall, to the connecting door that had been closed since she arrived.
She pressed her hand flat against the wood. It was solid. Cool. The barrier between his world and hers.
On the other side, she heard nothing. Perhaps he was asleep. Perhaps he was lying awake as she was, staring at his own ceiling, thinking his own thoughts.
Her hand lingered on the door.
Then she pulled it back, returned to her bed, and stared at the darkness until sleep finally claimed her.