Chapter Twenty-Two
“She is going to receive three proposals by the end of the week. Mark my words.”
Helena looked up from her correspondence to find Edmund watching her with an expression of fond amusement.
They were in the drawing room of the London townhouse, the late afternoon light casting long shadows across the carpet.
Through the window, she could see the street below, the endless parade of carriages and pedestrians that had become the backdrop of their London life.
“Three proposals,” she repeated. “You seem very confident.”
“I have eyes.” Edmund set aside the newspaper he had been pretending to read. “Your sister has been the sensation of the Season. Every young man of acceptable fortune has been vying for her attention. Lord Asher has called four times this week alone.”
“Lord Asher is a bore.”
“Lord Asher has ten thousand a year and an estate in Hampshire. His conversational skills are irrelevant.”
Helena laughed, she seemed to do that constantly now, laugh without calculation or restraint, and shook her head. “You sound like a matchmaking mama.”
“I am merely observant.” Edmund crossed the room to stand behind her chair, his hands resting on her shoulders in a gesture that had become habitual over the past weeks.
“And I have a vested interest in seeing Rosalind well settled. It would make you happy. And making you happy has become something of a personal mission.”
Helena tilted her head back to look at him. “You are ridiculous.”
“I prefer ‘devoted.’” He dropped a kiss on her forehead.
“But I will also accept ‘ridiculous.’” She caught his hand and held it against her cheek, marvelling, as she did several times each day, at the simple freedom of touching him, and being touched, and existing in a matrimony where affection was offered openly rather than hoarded and counted and carefully rationed.
It had been six weeks since the night of the letters.
Six weeks since she had crossed the connecting door and let herself be cherished.
In that time, everything had changed, and nothing had changed at all.
They still took breakfast together, still walked in the gardens, still spent evenings in the library reading and talking and simply being together.
But the quality of those moments had transformed.
The walls were gone. The pretence was finished.
They were simply Helena and Edmund now, two people who had chosen each other and kept choosing each other, day after day.
Happiness, Helena had discovered, was remarkably uncomplicated.
She had long assumed it to be the reserve of others, those more fortunate, more favoured by beauty, or less encumbered by duty.
Yet she now saw it was no matter of chance, but of surrender: the willingness to abandon her constant guard against disappointment and embrace present joy.
Edmund had shown her this truth, or perhaps, under his gentle guidance, she had at last discovered it for herself. In either case, her gratitude was complete. “Rosalind will be home soon,” she said, releasing his hand with reluctance. “She was visiting Lady Catherine this afternoon.”
“Lady Catherine Ashworth?” Edmund’s eyebrows rose. “I did not realise they had become close.”
“Very close. They share a passion for watercolours and a mutual disdain for Lord Hartington’s poetry.” Helena smiled. “Rosalind has been building alliances all Season. She is far more strategic than she appears.”
“She learned from her sister.”
“She learned from necessity.” Helena’s smile faded slightly. “We both did. When you have nothing, you learn quickly how to make the most of what you are given.”
Edmund was quiet for a moment. Then he squeezed her shoulder gently.
“She will never have nothing again,” he said. “Neither will you. I have made certain of that.”
Helena knew it was true. The settlements Edmund had arranged, the dowry for Rosalind, the provisions for their mother, the security that now surrounded her family like a fortress, ensured that the Whitmore women would never again face the desperate circumstances that had driven Helena to accept a stranger’s proposal in a Somerset sitting room.
But sometimes, late at night, she still dreamed of those final weeks at the vicarage.
The leaking roof. The dwindling funds. The letters she had written to every connection she possessed, begging for positions that never materialised.
The seventeen pounds in the household accounts and the knowledge that it would not be enough, could never be enough, to save them.
She had been so afraid. And she had hidden that fear so completely that no one had known. Not even Rosalind.
“Helena.” Edmund’s voice was gentle. “Where did you go?”
“Nowhere.” She shook off the memory. “I was just thinking about how different things are now. How different everything is.”
“Better, I hope.”
“Infinitely better.” She turned in her chair to face him properly.
“A year ago, I was a vicar’s daughter with no prospects and a family on the verge of ruin.
Now I am a Duchess with a husband who records my smiles in a journal and a sister who is the toast of the Season.
” She paused. “It does not feel real sometimes. Even now.”
“It is real.” Edmund crouched beside her chair, taking her hands in his.
“Every bit of it. And you earned it, Helena. Not through luck or accident, but through your own determination and courage. You walked into an impossible situation and you made it work. You confronted every adversary who sought your ruin, and you emerged triumphant.” He kissed her knuckles.
“I am merely the fortunate bystander who gets to share in your triumph.”
Helena’s eyes stung. She blinked rapidly, still uncomfortable with tears even after weeks of letting her guard down.
“You are considerably more than a bystander,” she said.
“Am I?” His eyes sparkled. “Tell me more. I enjoy hearing about my own virtues.”
She laughed again, the moment of melancholy dissolving in the warmth of his teasing.
This was what she treasured most about him, not just the quiet attention and the careful devotion, but the playfulness that emerged when he felt safe.
The Edmund who jested and teased and made her laugh was the real Edmund, the one who had been hiding beneath the composed ducal exterior.
And she was the only one who bore witness to him.
***
Rosalind arrived home as the clock struck five.
She swept into the drawing room like a small whirlwind, all bright eyes and pink cheeks and the particular energy that had characterised her since childhood.
At nineteen, she was everything Helena had hoped she would become: confident, charming, genuinely kind beneath the social polish she had acquired.
And, Helena noted with a mixture of pride and amusement, absolutely glowing.
“You look pleased with yourself,” Helena observed.
“I am extremely pleased with myself.” Rosalind dropped into the chair across from her sister with characteristic disregard for proper posture.
“I have had the most wonderful afternoon. Lady Catherine and I went to Hatchard’s after our watercolour session, and you will never guess who we encountered there. ”
“Lord Asher?”
“Lord Asher is a bore.” Rosalind waved a dismissive hand.
“No. We encountered Mr William Hartley. The younger son of Viscount Thornwood. He was browsing the poetry section, actual poetry, not Lord Hartington’s dreadful verses, and we fell into conversation about Wordsworth, and Helena, and he is wonderful. ”
Helena exchanged a glance with Edmund, who had settled into his own chair with the air of a man preparing to be entertained.
“Wonderful,” Helena repeated carefully. “In what way, precisely?”
“In every way.” Rosalind’s eyes were shining.
“He is kind and thoughtful and genuinely interested in what I have to say. He did not spend the entire conversation talking about himself or his horses or his hunting dogs. He asked me questions and actually listened to the answers. And when I mentioned that I had been learning Italian, he offered to lend me his copy of Dante, in the original language, with annotations he made himself during his Grand Tour.”
“He sounds like a paragon.”
“He is not a paragon. He is simply good.” Rosalind’s expression softened. “He reminds me a little of Papa, actually. The way he pays attention. The way he makes you feel like your thoughts matter.”
A lump rose in Helena’s throat. Though their father had long been gone, the loss remained an enduring ache within her heart.
For Rosalind to compare anyone to him was a profound testament, and to speak of him with such unfeigned warmth moved Helena beyond measure.
“Tell me about his circumstances,” Helena said, shifting into practical mode. “You mentioned he is a younger son.”
“Younger by four years. His elder brother inherited, of course, but Mr Hartley has an income of his own, something to do with investments in the Indies. Lady Catherine says it is quite respectable, though not extravagant.” Rosalind paused.
“I know it is not as grand as Lord Asher’s ten thousand a year.
But Helena, I do not want grand. I want someone who will see me. Someone who will pay attention.”
Someone like Edmund, Helena thought. Someone who will count your smiles and record them in a journal and never make you feel invisible.
“Does he return your interest?” she asked.
“I believe so.” Rosalind’s cheeks flushed deeper. “He asked if he might call tomorrow. He wants to bring the Dante.”
Edmund cleared his throat. “I believe I know something of young Hartley. He was at Cambridge with Marcus, a few years behind, but Marcus spoke well of him. Said he was one of the few undergraduates who actually read the books he was assigned.”
“That is high praise from Marcus,” Helena said.