Chapter Ten
“I do believe I shall be a tremendous success. I can feel it in my bones.”
Helena watched her sister twirl before the modiste’s glass, the sapphire silk swirling around her ankles like water.
Rosalind had arrived in London three days ago, and in that time she had managed to charm the household staff, befriend two of the neighbouring debutantes, and reduce Madame Delacroix to actual smiles, a feat Helena had not believed possible.
“Your bones are optimistic,” Helena said dryly. “They have always been your most unreliable feature.”
“My bones are excellent judges of character and circumstance.” Rosalind executed another spin, nearly toppling a display of fabric samples. “This gown is perfect. Edmund has impeccable taste.”
Helena’s chest tightened at the casual use of her husband’s Christian name.
Rosalind had adopted it immediately upon arrival, declaring that “Your Grace” was far too formal for a brother-in-law and that she was fully resolved to treat him as family, whether it suited his inclination or not.
Edmund, to Helena’s surprise, had not objected.
He had simply nodded and begun calling Rosalind by her given name in return, as though they had known each other for years rather than days.
It should not have affected Helena. It was a small thing, a minor adjustment in form of address. And yet watching her husband and her sister interact with easy warmth made something ache beneath her ribs.
He is kind to her because he is kind, Helena reminded herself. It means nothing more than that.
But she could not quite make herself believe it.
“The gown is lovely,” she agreed aloud. “Though I maintain that the matching slippers are excessive.”
“Nothing is excessive when one is making one’s debut.” Rosalind abandoned the glass and crossed to where Helena sat, dropping onto the settee beside her with characteristic disregard for the delicate fabric of her half-finished gown. “Helena. Are you happy?”
The question caught Helena off guard. “Excuse me?”
“Happy. Content. Satisfied with your circumstances.” Rosalind’s eyes, so like their mother’s, warm and knowing, searched her face.
“You have been wedded for over a month. You live in a grand house with a handsome Duke who arranges gardens for Mama and gowns for me and looks at you as though you hung the moon. Are you happy?”
Helena opened her mouth to deliver a deflecting response, something light and dismissive that would redirect the conversation to safer ground. But the words would not come. Rosalind was looking at her with that particular expression, the one that said she would not be fooled by evasion.
“I am adjusting,” Helena said finally. “It is not an unhappy adjustment. But it is an adjustment nonetheless.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only answer I have.” Helena smoothed her skirts, avoiding her sister’s too-perceptive gaze.
“The situation is complicated, Roz. The matrimony, the legal challenge, the expectations of society, none of it is simple. I cannot sort my feelings into neat categories when the circumstances themselves refuse to be categorised.”
Rosalind was quiet for a moment. Then she reached out and took Helena’s hand, squeezing gently.
“You have complete possession of his affections,” she said.
“I know you are yet disinclined to believe it. But I have observed him these past days, and I assure you, that man harbours a passion for you that borders on adoration. It is very likely he has not realised it yet himself.” Helena’s heart stuttered.
“You cannot possibly know that after a few days there.”
“I knew it beyond all doubt within my first hours here. The lingering gaze he bestows upon you whenever your attention is elsewhere speaks for itself. The way his voice changes when he says your name. The way he asked me, yesterday, what your favourite breakfast was when you were a girl, not because he needed to know, but because he wanted to understand you better.” Rosalind’s grip tightened.
“Helena. Stop looking for reasons to doubt him. Start looking for reasons to believe.”
The echo of her letter, the same words, the same plea, made Helena’s throat tighten.
“And if I believe, and I am wrong?”
“Then you will have risked something. Which is more than you have done in years.” Rosalind released her hand and stood, returning to the glass with the sparkling energy that was so entirely her own.
“Now. Tell me about this musicale tonight. Will Lady Clarissa be in attendance? I have heard she is quite the beauty, and I wish to see for myself whether the rumours are accurate.”
Helena allowed the subject change, grateful for the reprieve. But her sister’s words lingered, settling into the hollow spaces of her doubt like seeds waiting to take root.
He harbours a passion for you.
She did not dare believe it.
She was not certain she could survive being wrong.
***
The Countess of Stanhope’s musicale was everything Helena had come to expect from London society: beautiful, tedious, and thick with undercurrents of intrigue that she was only beginning to learn to read.
She had been attending events for weeks now, dinner parties, card evenings, afternoon calls, and the experience had begun to yield results.
Not friendship, exactly. Helena was not naive enough to believe that the ton’s daughters would ever embrace a vicar’s daughter as one of their own.
But she had earned grudging respect from certain quarters.
Her composure under pressure, her quick wit, her refusal to be rattled by whispers, these had not gone unnoticed.
She was no longer simply the Duke of Westmere’s inexplicable bride. She was becoming, slowly and against considerable resistance, the Duchess of Westmere in fact as well as name.
Lady Clarissa, naturally, had noticed as well.
The whisper campaign had intensified over the past weeks.
Helena heard the rumours through the servants, through chance remarks that were not quite chance, through the particular way certain ladies fell silent when she approached.
The matrimony was mercenary. Helena had trapped the Duke through some unspecified manipulation.
She was common, unfit, a pretender who would eventually be exposed for what she truly was.
The content varied; the source did not. Clarissa’s fingerprints were on every poisonous word.
Tonight, Helena could feel Clarissa’s gaze from across the music room, sharp, assessing, waiting for weakness.
She ignored it with the practiced composure she had perfected over years of managing difficulties far more serious than social disapproval.
Let Clarissa watch. Let her whisper. Helena would not give her the satisfaction of a visible reaction.
The musicale itself was interminable. A young woman of acceptable talent performed a series of Italian arias while the assembled guests pretended to listen and actually conducted their real business in murmurs and meaningful glances.
Helena sat beside Edmund, acutely aware of his proximity, the warmth of him, the solid presence that had become oddly comforting over the weeks of their marriage.
Rosalind was across the room, seated with a group of other debutantes, her face bright with genuine enjoyment. She was the only person present, Helena suspected, who was actually listening to the music.
“She is wonderful, isn’t she?”
Helena had not realised she had spoken aloud until Edmund’s voice answered from beside her.
“She reminds me of someone.” His voice was quiet, pitched for her ears alone. “Sharper edges, perhaps. But the same heart underneath.”
Helena turned to look at him. He was not looking at her, his gaze was fixed on Rosalind, on the bright-faced girl who laughed at something her companion had whispered. But Helena knew, with sudden, devastating clarity, that he was not talking about Rosalind at all.
He is talking about me.
She could not breathe. The music continued, the soprano had reached a particularly dramatic passage, but Helena heard none of it.
She was aware only of Edmund beside her, of the words he had just said, of the implication that he saw something in her worth remembering.
Worth comparing to her sister’s uncomplicated joy.
Before she could respond, before she could find words for the tangled thing happening in her chest, the music ended, and the room erupted into polite applause.
The spell broke. Helena clapped mechanically, her hands moving through the familiar motions while her mind raced. Edmund rose to fetch refreshments. The room rearranged itself into conversation clusters, and Helena found herself momentarily alone.
Which was, she realised a moment too late, precisely what someone had been waiting for.
“Your Grace.”
The voice was smooth, cultured, and entirely unfamiliar. Helena turned to find a man standing before her, small, precise, with the carefully bland expression of someone who made his living delivering unpleasant news. He was perhaps fifty, with thinning grey hair and eyes that missed nothing.
“I do not believe we have been introduced,” Helena said coolly.
“Forgive me. I am Mr Gibbs.” He inclined his head, not quite a bow, not quite a greeting. Something in between that conveyed acknowledgment without respect. “I am a solicitor. I represent Mr Reginald Vane in certain matters regarding the Westmere estate.”
Helena’s blood went cold.
She was aware, suddenly, of eyes upon her. Lady Clarissa had drifted closer, her attention fixed on the exchange with predatory interest. Other guests had noticed as well, the slight tension in the air, the unusual sight of a solicitor approaching a Duchess at a social event.
He has done this deliberately, Helena realised. In public, where I cannot make a scene. Where my every reaction will be witnessed and reported.