Chapter Twenty-Four #2
“He should be. It is high praise from your father.” Mrs Whitmore glanced toward the house, where Edmund was waiting on the front steps with studied patience. “Now. Introduce me properly to this husband of yours. I have much to discuss with him.”
Helena laughed and led her mother toward the house. Edmund descended the steps to meet them, his expression warm with welcome.
“Mrs Whitmore.” He took her mother’s hand with gentle courtesy. “It is an honour to finally meet you properly. I apologise that circumstances prevented me from introducing myself before the wedding.”
“Circumstances prevented many things,” Mrs Whitmore said. “But I understand you made the best of them. The cottage, the nurse, the garden you arranged, my daughter has told me everything.”
“She deserved no less. Helena has given me everything, Mrs Whitmore. I can only hope to repay a fraction of what I owe her.”
Helena felt her cheeks warm. She was not accustomed to hearing Edmund speak so openly of his feelings in front of others, he usually reserved such declarations for their private moments.
Mrs Whitmore studied him for a long moment. Then, slowly, she smiled.
“You will do,” she said. “I believe you will do very well indeed.”
***
The Dower house was a revelation.
Helena had visited it during the preparations, of course, had directed the furnishing and the arrangements and the thousand small details that transformed a house into a home.
But seeing it through her mother’s eyes was different.
Seeing her mother’s face as she moved through the rooms, touching the curtains and examining the garden view and settling into the chair that had been positioned precisely where the afternoon light was warmest, that was something else entirely.
“You thought of everything,” Mrs Whitmore said, her voice thick with emotion. “The herb garden. The chair by the window. The shelf for my books.”
“I wanted you to be comfortable.” Helena sat across from her mother in the sunny sitting room, Mrs Blackwood having tactfully withdrawn to allow them privacy. “I wanted you to have a home that felt like yours, not just a place you were sent to be managed.”
“I never felt managed. Not once.” Mrs Whitmore reached across to take Helena’s hand. “You have always taken such care of me, my darling. Even when you were so young, even when you should have been thinking of your own life rather than mine.”
“Taking care of you was never a burden.”
“I know. That is what makes it so precious.” Mrs Whitmore’s eyes searched her face. “But I worried, sometimes, that you would forget to take care of yourself. That you would spend so much energy on others that there would be nothing left for your own happiness.”
“I worried about that too,” Helena admitted. “For years, I believed that my purpose was to serve, to manage, to fix, to carry burdens so that others did not have to. I thought that was all I was good for.”
“And now?”
“Now I understand that I was wrong.” Helena smiled. “Edmund taught me that. He showed me that I could be strong and also be cherished. That accepting help was not weakness. That I deserved happiness as much as anyone else.”
Mrs Whitmore was quiet for a moment. Then she lifted Helena’s hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles.
“Your father would be so proud of you,” she said. “Not for the title or the position, but for who you have become. For the woman who walked into an impossible situation and made it beautiful.”
Helena’s eyes filled. She blinked rapidly, but the tears escaped anyway, she seemed to cry more easily now, since the walls had come down.
“I miss him,” she said. “Every day, I miss him.”
“So do I.” Mrs Whitmore’s own eyes were bright. “But he lives on in you, Helena. In your determination and your kindness and your absolute refusal to give up, even when giving up would have been easier. Every time I look at you, I see him.”
They sat together in the sunny room, mother and daughter, the past and the present woven together in a moment of quiet grace.
Outside, the garden bloomed with the herbs Helena had arranged, rosemary and lavender and thyme, just as her mother had grown in the vicarage garden years ago.
Inside, the room was warm and comfortable, filled with familiar objects that spoke of home.
This was what Helena had fought for. Not the title or the fortune, but this, her mother safe and comfortable, her sister provided for, her family whole again in a new configuration. Everything she had sacrificed, everything she had endured, had led to this moment.
It was worth it. Every bit of it was worth it.
***
The betrothal celebration for Rosalind and Mr Hartley took place at Westmere Park two weeks later.
Helena had insisted on hosting, had wanted to give her sister the kind of celebration she deserved, in the home that had become Helena’s own.
The guest list was modest by ton standards but perfect by Whitmore standards: the Hartley family, a few close friends, Marcus Tremont, and of course Edmund and the Dowager Duchess.
The Dowager had continued to emerge from her isolation in the weeks since their conversation in the conservatory.
She had begun joining them for dinner regularly, had resumed her visits to the gardens she had once valued, had even expressed opinions about the arrangements for the celebration.
It was a remarkable transformation, not complete, perhaps, and still fragile in some ways, but genuine.
“She suggested the flowers for the table arrangements,” Helena told Edmund as they dressed for the evening. “White roses and forget-me-nots. She said they were what she had at her own betrothal celebration, years ago.”
“I remember.” Edmund’s voice was soft with wonder. “I had forgotten, but I remember now. There is a painting somewhere, in the gallery, I think, of my parents at their betrothal. The flowers in the background are exactly as she described.”
“She is coming back to herself.” Helena adjusted his cravat with practiced fingers. “Slowly, but truly.”
“Because of you.”
“Because of time. And perhaps because she finally had a reason to return.” Helena stepped back to examine her handiwork. “There. You look devastatingly handsome. Try not to outshine the prospective bridegroom.”
“I shall do my best.” Edmund caught her hand before she could move away, pressing a kiss to her palm. “Have I told you today that I adore you?”
“Twice. At breakfast and again when you caught me in the hallway.”
“Then I am falling behind. I cherish you deeply, Helena. Three times now.”
She laughed and kissed him quickly before they were interrupted by the arrival of the first guests.
***
The evening unfolded beautifully. Rosalind was radiant in a gown of pale pink that perfectly complemented her bright blue eyes and ready smile.
Mr Hartley, William, Helena reminded herself, looked at her sister with an expression that Helena recognised intimately.
The expression of a man, whose devotion was absolute.
The formal announcement was made over champagne, toasts were offered, and Helena watched her sister accept congratulations with a joy that seemed to fill the entire room. This was what she had wanted for Rosalind, not just security, but happiness. Not just a match, but affection.
“You are crying,” Edmund murmured in her ear.
“I am not crying,” Helena said, dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief. “I am merely suffering a reaction to some property of the champagne.”
“That is a falsehood.”
“Then I am crying,” she admitted, a faint smile touching her lips.
“Though they are happy tears, the very best kind.” Edmund slipped his arm around her waist, and she leaned into him, watching Rosalind laugh at something William said.
Her sister caught her eye across the room and smiled, a smile of pure, uncomplicated happiness.
Thank you, that smile said. For everything.
Helena smiled back. You are welcome. Always.
***
Later, after the guests had begun to drift toward the music room for the informal entertainment Helena had arranged, Rosalind found her on the terrace.
“Helena.” Her sister’s voice was soft with emotion. “I do not have words for what you have done for me.”
“You do not need words.” Helena took her sister’s hands. “Seeing you happy is all the thanks I require.”
“But I want to say it anyway.” Rosalind’s eyes were bright with tears she was not quite suppressing.
“You sacrificed everything for me and Mama. You wedded a stranger to give us a future. You faced down the ton and a legal challenge and all the cruelty people could throw at you, and you never complained. You just continued to be strong.”
“I was not always strong.” Helena’s voice was quiet. “There were moments when I was terrified. When I thought I had made a terrible mistake. When I wanted nothing more than to run away and hide.”
“But you did not run. You stayed.” Rosalind gestured at the beautiful house, the blooming gardens, the warm evening that surrounded them. “Now look at what you have built. A home. A family. A life that anyone would envy.”
“I did not build it alone.” Helena squeezed her sister’s hands. “Edmund helped. And you, and Mama, and even the Dowager in her way. We built it together.”
“Perhaps.” Rosalind smiled through her tears. “But you laid the foundation. You took the first step. And I will be grateful for that, Helena, for the rest of my life.”
They embraced on the terrace, two sisters who had weathered storms together and emerged into calmer waters. The music drifted out from the house behind them, a gentle melody that spoke of celebration and joy. The stars were beginning to emerge overhead, pinpricks of light in the darkening sky.
“William is devoted to me,” Rosalind said against Helena’s shoulder. “Really cherishes me. Not for the dowry or the connection, but for who I am.”
“I know. I can see it in his face.”