Chapter Twelve #2
She was utterly devoted to him. He had won her heart through his quiet attentions and that unexpected, dry humour of his.
She found endearment in his absurd system for arranging his library, and took secret delight in the way he adjusted his chair at dinner or uttered the word remarkable.
Most of all, she cherished how he had held her trembling hands in the passage after her confrontation with Reginald’s solicitor.
Her heart had belonged to him for weeks, yet she had guarded herself against the truth, refusing to yield to a tenderness she could no longer deny.
What do I do now?
She could not tell him, and confess what she had heard, what she now knew, what she felt in return.
The vulnerability of it was too great. The risk of rejection, or worse, of making him uncomfortable, of changing the delicate stability they had achieved.
However, she could not continue maintaining her walls as they had finally crumbled and lay in ruins.
Edmund’s heart is entirely mine, and mine is unalterably his, yet I am utterly at a loss as to how I must proceed.
She returned to the party.
Her composure was restored, outwardly, at least. She had taken several minutes in the alcove to steady her breathing, to blink away the tears, to arrange her features into the composed mask she had perfected over years of managing difficult situations.
When she rejoined the other guests, no one could have guessed that her entire world had just shifted on its axis.
Edmund found her a few minutes later.
“There you are.” His voice was warm, slightly relieved. “I was beginning to worry.”
Helena looked at him, really looked, perhaps for the first time since their matrimony. At the careful way he held himself, the concern in his dark eyes, and at the slight softening of his expression when his gaze met hers.
He has formed an attachment to me, she thought. All those times I was looking for evidence that he has not, I was looking in the wrong direction entirely.
“I needed some air,” she said. Her voice was steady. She was proud of that. “The room was rather stifling.”
“Are you quite all right?”
No, she thought. I have just discovered that my husband cherishes me, and I cherish him, and I have spent weeks protecting myself from exactly this, and I do not know how to stop protecting myself.
“Perfectly well,” she said aloud. “Merely tired.”
Edmund studied her features for a moment, his gaze searching. A fleeting shadow crossed his expression, a look of uncertainty, perhaps, or that familiar restraint he had maintained of late. Words hung upon his lips, clearly straining against his carefully guarded composure.
But he did not speak. He merely offered his arm, his touch gentle as she took it, and guided her back to the party.
They spoke to other guests. They made appropriate conversation. They performed the roles they had been performing for weeks, the Duke and Duchess of Westmere, a united front against the whispers, a partnership that appeared more genuine with each passing day.
But everything was different now.
Helena was acutely aware of him beside her.
Of the warmth of his arm beneath her fingers.
Of the way he angled his body toward her, protective without being possessive.
Of the small gestures, a touch at her elbow, a glance to confirm she was comfortable, a slight adjustment of his position to shield her from a particularly persistent gossip.
He does this every time, she realised. I simply never let myself see it for what it was.
When they finally returned to the carriage, Helena was exhausted, not from the physical demands of the evening, but from the emotional labour of carrying knowledge she could not act upon.
She sat across from Edmund, the carriage lanterns casting soft shadows across his features. He was watching her with quiet concern, the restraint still evident in the careful way he held himself.
“You seem troubled,” he said softly. “Are you certain nothing is amiss?”
Helena looked at him. At the man who had defended her when he thought no one could hear. Who had called her remarkable and meant it. Who had been devoted to her quietly, secretly, without ever demanding that returned her affection.
Her throat tightened. She wanted to tell him. Wanted to cross the small space between them, take his face in her hands, and confess everything, what she had heard, what she felt, the walls that had crumbled and the hope that had bloomed in their place.
But the words would not come. The vulnerability was still too raw, the fear still too present. She had spent too many years protecting herself to abandon the habit in a single evening.
“Perfectly well, Your Grace,” she said. Her voice was steady.
Her heart was in ruins.
A look of disappointment crossed his features momentarily, only to be masked yet again. He nodded once, accepting her deflection, not pressing for more than she was willing to give.
They rode the rest of the way home in silence.
***
That night, Helena sat at her dressing table and brushed her hair with slow, mechanical strokes.
The maid had been dismissed. The room was quiet, lit only by a single candle. In the glass, she could see her own reflection, the composed face, the steady hands, the woman who had learned to hide her feelings so well that sometimes she forgot she had them.
She was my only choice. She will always be my only choice.
Edmund’s words echoed through her mind, impossible to silence, impossible to forget. She had spent weeks telling herself that his kindness was performance. That his attention was strategy. That whatever she saw in his eyes was her own desperate imagination.
She had been wrong.
He held her in his highest esteem, without demanding anything in return. And now she had to decide what to do.
She could continue as they had been. Could maintain the walls she had built, keep her feelings locked away, and pretend that nothing had changed. It would be safe. It would be familiar. It would protect her from the terrifying vulnerability of admitting what she felt.
Or she could risk everything.
She could confess that she had heard what had transpired in the room, and she felt the way he did. She could choose to take that chance and trust that he would accept it.
The risk terrified her. But so did the alternative, a lifetime of cherishing someone in silence, of being cherished in return and never acknowledging it, of maintaining distance when she wanted nothing more than to close it.
Stop looking for reasons to doubt him, Rosalind had written. Start looking for reasons to believe.
Helena set down the brush.
She rose from the dressing table and crossed to the far wall, to the door that connected her chambers to Edmund’s. The door that had been closed since her arrival. The door that represented everything they had agreed to keep separate.
She pressed her palm flat against the wood.
She could not hear anything from his chambers. Her hand stayed on the door, but she did not open She could not hear anything from his chambers. Her hand stayed on the door, but she did not open it.
But she did not pull away either. She stood there for a long moment, her palm pressed against the barrier between them, and let herself imagine what might happen if she did.
Tomorrow, she told herself. Tomorrow she would find the courage. Tomorrow she would take the risk. Tomorrow she would tell him what she had heard, what she knew, what she felt.
Tonight, she simply let herself hope.