Chapter 31
“Where is His Grace?” Daniel asked softly. He looked around the warehouse as if expecting to see him. “He has not come here in so long.”
“Oh…” Helena’s chest tightened. “He is… he has been busy.”
“He has not come to see us in days,” Daniel pouted. “Does he not care about us anymore?”
“What? No—why would you think that?”
Daniel shrugged. “That’s how it usually is. Every time someone meets us, they promise to help. But they eventually get bored or sad, and before long, they forget about us. I think His Grace has forgotten about us.”
“That is not…” Helena took Daniel by the shoulders and forced him to look at her.
“Listen to me, Daniel. That is not at all the case, understand? His Grace cares for you—he loves you. Each and every single one of you. He has just been busy these last few days, and it is nothing to worry about. I promise that he will come and visit as soon as he can.”
Daniel did not look convinced. “If you say so…”
Helena meant her words, and she spoke them like the truth that they were. Sebastian cared for the children beyond reason, and she knew that he would do anything he could for them. They were his everything, and nothing would change that.
Only…
Is that still the case? How can I defend a man I hardly know? A proven liar and one who acts only in his self-interest?
She did not know Sebastian nearly as well as she liked to pretend.
And what she did know about him brought her little hope.
Deep down, she believed that Sebastian still cared for the children and that wouldn’t change.
But she also knew that he was not to be trusted, and that anything he had told her was a lie.
Was it possible that he had grown bored? That he was done with the children? That, for whatever reason, he had moved on to new ventures, choosing to leave these innocent souls behind?
She could not believe that, but it was getting harder to defend her husband.
“Come on.” She took Daniel’s hand. “How about a story?”
He sniffed back tears and smiled at her. “Yes, please!”
“Wonderful.” Holding his hand, she led him toward the reading area.
Seeing the two of them go, more children fell in behind, eager for one of Helena’s stories.
“What story do you want to hear?”
“I do not mind.”
She laughed. “Best pick something. Or I might choose one you do not like. Maybe a romance—”
“No!” Daniel cried out, laughing. “Anything but that!”
“I thought you said you did not mind.”
“Not a romance, please,” he begged.
She smiled at the way he pouted, secretly glad that he had objected to her suggestion.
A romance was the last thing Helena wanted to read today, needing to keep such follies out of her mind because reading of love between star-crossed lovers, even if it was only a story, might very well break her. And she did not relish crying in front of the children.
She had not seen Sebastian for two days. Not that this was hard to do, as he had not tried to see her either.
It felt as if he was avoiding her on purpose, which she guessed to be the case. No doubt he had noticed the change in her demeanor, figuring that she was done trying to grow close to him and was happy to let this marriage play out as it should have in the first place.
It hurt to consider the fact that she had dared to believe for a moment. That he had allowed her to believe in the first place.
How could he do such a thing? Although she supposed that, based on everything she knew about him, it should not have been surprising.
As for her coming to see the children today? That was born from her boredom and need to escape the manor. She missed them, she found. She wanted to see them. And despite everything, they were blameless in this and did not deserve to suffer.
So it was that she spent the rest of the day reading to them. Daniel sat on her lap as she did, turning the pages for her, pretending that he could read even though he could not.
She wanted to stay there forever, but soon the sun began to wane in the windows, and she knew it was time to go home.
“Will you come back again soon?” Daniel asked as he followed her to the front door.
“Of course I will,” she assured.
“And His Grace?”
She hesitated, not wanting to lie. “I promise that he will.”
Daniel scrunched up his face. “Are you and… Are the two of you fighting?”
She blinked in surprise. “Why would you say that?”
“I don’t know.” He looked down at his feet. “But I have not seen you together all week. I thought maybe we had done something wrong.”
It broke Helena’s heart. She did not want to lie to the children, just as she did not want them to think that the worst might be happening. They deserved only the best, and while she was certain that Sebastian would give them that, she also could not say for sure. Not anymore.
The trip back home was a long and torturous one. She spent it thinking about Daniel and what he had said. He feared that Sebastian had abandoned them. It made no sense to her that he would do so, because he had started all of this for their sake.
Only so much had changed last week. And what if, with it, Sebastian had changed his mind? What if he no longer saw the point in trying and was set to end this marriage quickly and move on from her and the orphanage?
Helena tried not to think about it.
When she arrived home, she hurried to her room, set on writing. It was the only thing she could do to clear her mind, a way to pour her emotions onto a page and clear them from her thoughts. That was how it used to be.
She sat down. She dipped her quill in the inkpot. She hovered it above the page and… nothing.
Her mind was fractured into a million little pieces. Those pieces shifted and moved about, refusing to settle. It confused her greatly. It even hurt. She wanted to write down all the bad that had happened, to spell it out so she could move on. But such things were not so easy.
As a girl, writing had always been a way for her to escape. When her parents were upset with her. When she was angry or afraid. When she was bored. When she was happy. Writing was her way of being free, even if she felt like she was in a prison.
As things stood, she knew that to try and write her way through the sadness would be to lie to herself. She could not escape this by vanishing inside her head. She could not be free when she felt so trapped. And the answers she sought were not to be found in ink.
She needed to know what was going on with her and Sebastian—what was truly going on. Why had he lied to her? Why had he changed so quickly? And what did he want?
She needed to know about the orphanage. Had he given up on the children? Was he still trying to help them? Where had he been this last week?
And most of all, she needed to know about her future. That was the most important thing.
When this was all said and done, what was in store for her and Sebastian?
She could guess. She could imagine. But until she knew the truth, she would be trapped, and no amount of writing would change that.
It was just then that she heard the front doors of the manor opening, and she knew it was Sebastian returning from wherever he had been.
He would not come to her, and he would not want her to come to him. Despite how much she wanted to, Helena knew that to avoid him would be to avoid the truth she needed. A truth that might hurt more than anything, but would also set her free.
She sighed and set down her quill.
She took a deep breath and rose from her chair.
She turned around and settled her beating heart and knotted stomach and then walked out of her room.
It was time that she and Sebastian had a talk. One that she knew would change everything.