Chapter Seventeen
Helen made her way out the terrace door to Galway’s gardens the following morning, mind still on the events at the theater.
She still couldn’t quite come to terms with the fact that her Roxboro wasn’t…
.the real Roxboro, but now that she considered it, the differences had been there, only Helen had ignored them.
Her attraction to him simply blotted out everything else, even the guilt she carried for dallying with a betrothed duke.
But I did not. He’s no duke. I’ve no idea who he is.
Galway was less than pleased Helen reappeared in the company of the Duchess of Roxboro. At first, he hadn’t recognized the duchess, dismissing her to focus on castigating Helen. The slow realization, along with his sputtering apologies was delightful to behold.
Lord Lowell and his mother, upon noticing the duchess, immediately came forward to greet her.
Cerise was far less enthusiastic.
Helen’s interrogation lasted the entire carriage ride home from the theater.
She’d recited the accounting of catching the duchess before she fell at the modiste’s shop so many times now she even believed it had happened.
The timing of the incident would eventually be called into question as it had happened when Roxboro should have been in the country. Galway would eventually notice.
Cerise’s obsession with Roxboro hadn’t abated in the least at seeing the duchess, rather, it intensified to an alarming degree. Marching into Helen’s rooms this morning without so much as a knock, she demanded to know if Roxboro had asked after her.
What a complete peahen.
Helen answered as diplomatically as possible to avoid a tantrum.
Afterward, she wandered down to the kitchens for tea and toast, still mulling over the duke having a twin when she overheard, quite by accident, about…doppelgangers.
Such a strange, foreign word.
German, in fact, if Cook was to be believed.
Helen was practical to a fault. Entertaining the notion that there might be someone else in the world who looked exactly like you as ridiculous.
But Cook had left a book sitting on the kitchen worktable, a collection of tales with ghosts, creatures and other curiosities.
Wanting to take her mind off matters, Helen had leafed through the book while drizzling honey over her toast and settled on William Wilson, written by an American, Edgar Allen Poe.
“Ah,” Cook peered over her shoulder. “That’s a good one. Lad sees his doppelganger while away at school.” She gave a terrified shiver. “Quite disturbing.”
“Doppelganger?” Helen had asked. “I’m not familiar.”
“Your twin, but you don’t know it.” Cook winked.
“Got that from Lady Emerson’s cook.” She nodded to the leather tome.
“Says her mistress reads all sorts of macabre stories and such. Ghosts and monsters. Which I suppose makes a great deal of sense given Lady Emerson likes to make those wax masks of her servants.”
“Indeed.” Cook had mentioned the oddness of Lady Emerson more than once. Helen didn’t know much about Lord Emerson and his wife, only that the countess was considered a bit odd.
“Leave the book on the table when you’re done,” Cook said to her. “I’m enjoying a bit here and there while I work. Don’t dare read those tales at night. Wouldn’t sleep a wink.”
William Wilson unsettled Helen to a great degree. Could such a thing as a doppelganger be true? It could be a possible explanation for another man looking so much like Roxboro.
She paused on the path winding through the garden, to look out over the manicured beds.
Everything here, especially the roses, was tended carefully.
Galway liked roses a great deal. Also, ostentatious fountains, one of which she was approaching.
The sound of water spewing tickled her ears and Helen wandered closer.
The fountain, despite how garish it happened to be with Poseidon in the middle surrounded by bare-breasted mermaids all fawning over him, gave off a soothing rhythm, helping to calm her nerves.
Galway was suspicious of Helen’s acquaintance with the Duchess of Roxboro.
The discussion on the ride home from the theater confirmed to her that not only didn’t he believe the wild tale of meeting the duchess at Madame Laurent’s, he was convinced Helen had somehow maligned him.
Her employer didn’t think much of Roxboro, but he was a duke and the son-in-law of the Lord Speaker of Parliament.
Galway would extract his pound of flesh from Helen at some point for the imagined insult.
There was also the matter of the second Roxboro. What would she do when he appeared?
Convince him to return the pendant.
He must, or Kate would suffer for it. Helen could not count on the duchess to render aid, not when she was reluctant for anyone to know the duke had a twin, of sorts.
And without her support, Galway was unlikely to believe a man resembling the duke had stolen the pendant, even if Helen broke her word and told him.
I cannot. I promised the duchess.
She’d agreed, though she hadn’t a choice, to bring the second Roxboro close to the duke so that they might question him. The duchess and her comments about walking with him in the park behind Roxboro’s home left no doubt as to what she expected. Helen worried they meant to have him arrested.
Honestly, I should give a fig. He’s a thief.
True. There was no telling how long he’d been pretending to be Roxboro while simultaneously stealing from the ton.
As a criminal, he deserved to be punished.
Prison…. or worse would be his fate. That was the eventual end to all of this.
Roxboro was unlikely to simply let him go.
Her Roxboro would end up in chains, sitting in some dank cell, waiting to be hung or transported halfway across the globe with other criminals. Helen would never see him again.
Her heart clenched like a fist.
He might not be the real Roxboro, but Helen’s affection for him was not false. Worrisome and unwise, but true, nonetheless.
He must return the pendant.
“I’ll ask to borrow two of the footmen to search the gardens,” she said quietly, laying out her plan.
“Once I have the pendant back, I’ll convince Parker I saw Cerise wearing it while enjoying the roses.
I will also say I recently found one of Cerise’s bracelets among the peonies when it went missing.
” She bit her lip, deep in thought over how she must save Kate, because not having the girl’s life ruined was far more important than Galway’s pettiness, the duchess and her own, misplaced affections.
“You look quite distressed, little gnat.”
The raspy low rumble curled over Helen’s skin like smoke, producing a delicious hum that the real Roxboro could not.
Now that she’d spoken to the duke, the differences in their speech were all the more glaring.
Even with the false, patrician accent, the inflection was completely incorrect.
How anyone, after speaking to the second Roxboro could think him a duke, was astonishing.
But if you had a glass or two of champagne and were struck dumb by his looks, you probably wouldn’t question it too much. Cerise certainly hadn’t.
Yes, but she’s a nitwit.
Attraction buzzed between them, a sensation completely absent from Helen’s meeting the real Roxboro. Her heart fluttered gently, until she remembered what she had promised to do.
“Your skirts are in a twist. I can tell by the look on your face.”
The words came from the other side of the fountain, just behind Poseidon’s tale. A dark head popped up a moment later, the green of his eyes shimmering in the sunlight of the garden. He must have been laying in the grass because there was a blade or two stuck in his hair.
Good lord but he was…. beautiful, no matter who he happened to be.
Her gaze darted to the freckle at the end of his nose; the only physical evidence he wasn’t the duke.
Were he dressed expensively, cut his hair, and his speech matched the duke’s accent, the pair could march into any gathering in London and no one, except possibly the duchess, could tell them apart.
Helen stretched her fingers along the folds of her skirts, sparing a glance towards the house, wondering how she should proceed.
Coax him into meeting her in the park and stroll past Roxboro’s, she supposed, all without letting him know that Helen knew he wasn’t Roxboro.
The duchess would need to be informed immediately.
Another flutter over her heart.
No matter the reason, she was happy to see him. Her small body ached to be closer to his. The pull was unmistakable.
“You appear in the most unusual places, Your Grace,” she said lightly, attempting to keep her voice even.
“I do, don’t I?” He grinned back.
Helen walked calmly to the far side of the fountain and took a seat on a stone bench beside one of the large breasted mermaids.
The bench and this portion of the fountain weren’t visible from the house, something Helen knew because Cerise, in her efforts to be ruined, often insisted potential suitor stroll with her in this direction.
Helen had never once been able to see her charge clearly from the drawing room and usually had to march out and demand the walk come to an end.
“I thought I made myself clear the other day.” She clasped her hands and regarded him with irritation because now she…well she must tell the duchess. Had he only stayed away.
“Perhaps I misunderstood,” he countered.
I’m an idiot. He sounds nothing like a duke. “You did not, Your Grace,” she replied tartly. “Why are you here?”
“The rosebushes,” he answered. “The scent enticed me.”
“You’re a duke,” she replied, sharper than intended, already hating this farce and her part in it. But if nothing else, she must try to save Kate. “I imagine you have your own roses to sniff, alongside your duchess.”
“Well, she’s rather boring.”
Having met the Duchess of Roxboro, Helen could have assured him boring was hardly a correct description.