Chapter 7 #3
The rest of the day passed in eager anticipation of Charlotte's visit. When at last she was shown into the morning parlor, she found Helena waiting to receive her, looking altogether transformed.
"You look positively radiant!" Charlotte exclaimed, hurrying toward her. "Tell me you have not gone back on your word and attached yourself once more to that dreadful baron... No, you would still look sorrowful, only with a healthy measure of dread besides."
Helena laughed. "Heavens, no!" Seeing Charlotte's unmistakable relief only made her laugh again as she found her seat and gestured to the place beside her. "I would sooner become a governess than be his wife. However..."
"Good, I would have worn a mourning gown to your wedding. Now, ‘however’?" Charlotte prompted as she settled beside Helena.
"My happiness arises from finding a solution to the dreadful situation in which I found myself in the last few days." Helena held her friend's gaze. "There is to be another marriage."
Charlotte lifted her eyes toward the ceiling with theatrical resignation. "What ladies must endure merely to secure a place in the world." She looked back at Helena. "Tell me it is neither an elderly gentleman nor some insufferable fortune hunter."
"No, fortunately not." Helena smiled. "It was Lord Blackmere who proposed the arrangement."
Charlotte's eyebrows rose. "Indeed?"
"He confessed that he had been considering a second marriage for some time. As our families have always been closely attached through our parents' friendship, he believed such a match might prove a remedy for both his circumstances and my own."
Charlotte was silent for a moment. "And there was no declaration of affection?"
"Not of the romantic sort, no." Helena smiled fondly.
"But we have always been good friends. Our families spent many summers together when we were children, as you have heard, and afterward we corresponded for several years.
Not frequently, but often enough to remain acquainted.
It was only after he left Eton for Christ Church, Oxford, that our letters gradually ceased. "
"A marriage of convenience..." Charlotte mused. A smile slowly spread across her face. "I wonder how long it will remain merely convenient before one of you falls hopelessly in love with the other."
Helena stared at her in astonishment before laughing. "Charlotte!"
"The truest of love in marriages begin with friendship, Miss Fairchild." Charlotte nodded with complete certainty. "Mark my words."
Their shared laughter faded when they heard a knock at the door. Two footmen entered, one carried a tea tray and began pouring for the ladies, while the other held a neatly wrapped parcel.
"This has just arrived for you, Miss Fairchild," he said, placing the flat parcel upon the table before her. It was wrapped in plain brown paper and tied with a white ribbon. He then presented her with a letter.
After thanking him, Charlotte and Helena exchanged curious glances. Helena waited until the footmen had withdrawn before breaking the seal.
She recognized Tristan's hand at once; the note was brief.
My dear Helena,
Thank you for accepting my proposal today. My family was greatly pleased by the news and already look forward to welcoming you among them.
I hope you will accept this small gift as a token of the promise I have made: That I shall always endeavor to protect you, to treat you with respect, and to encourage your independence.
Your friend, and soon-to-be husband,
Tristan
Helena read the note a second time before lowering it slowly into her lap.
Charlotte, who had been making every effort not to peer over her shoulder, could contain herself no longer. "Well?"
Helena simply handed Charlotte the note before reaching for the parcel. Carefully undoing the ribbon and folding back the paper, she found a large leather portfolio. She lifted the cover. Inside lay a pastel landscape.
Her breath caught. "A Turner," she whispered.
"Is it?" Charlotte leaned closer to examine it. "Is he not the artist whom you are so exceedingly fond of?"
Helena nodded. She had mentioned Turner once to Tristan, at the baron’s ball.
Yet he had remembered.
The landscape glowed with delicate color, the light seeming almost to shift across the paper.
Even in pastel, Turner possessed that extraordinary ability to capture atmosphere and movement in the simplest of scenes.
Helena knew he occasionally experimented with the medium, though he was celebrated chiefly for his paintings.
She traced the edge of the portfolio with her fingertips. "However did he procure such a thing?"
Charlotte smiled. "He is an earl… I daresay there is very little beyond his reach should he truly desire it." Her eyes sparkled with amusement. "And, if I may say so, it is a vastly superior gift to the improving book the baron would have insisted you read."
A laugh escaped Helena. "Most certainly."
She looked once more at the drawing. It was not merely that Tristan had given her something beautiful. It was that he had remembered a passing remark she hardly recalled making herself. For reasons she could not entirely explain, that touched her more deeply than the drawing alone ever could.