Chapter Twenty-Five
Isaac stood at the study window long after the household had gone back to its work, turning the morning over in his mind.
He admired Helena for standing up and telling the others the truth. It had taken true bravery.
And he had been both surprised and embarrassed by their reactions to the truth. Embarrassed because his own reaction had been so different. He had learned the truth about her and had treated her so coldly, while his servants had immediately been able to see beyond what he had not.
It was, in all honesty, a rather humbling feeling.
As he looked out at the grounds, Isaac could not help but wonder if becoming a Baron had changed him, twisting him into a different kind of man. One who was less generous and more judgemental. One who would dismiss a good person before giving them the chance to explain.
Yet the very way he was feeling, the embarrassment and guilt sitting in the pit of his stomach, told him that he wasn't entirely changed. That in his heart, he was still the same man.
He still cared about Helena, and he wanted to help her, to protect her, and knowing this, he turned and headed out of the study in search of her.
He found her in the linen room, her sleeves pushed back and a mountain of mending in her lap, working a needle through a torn pillowslip.
Isaac stopped in the doorway, hesitating, as she looked up at him.
"Isaac," she said.
He stepped inside, closing the door behind him.
"You left this morning," he said. "Without saying goodbye."
The room fell silent for a beat. “I thought it best. To protect you from scandal.”
“You do not need to protect me,” he said gently. “Or apologise again. It is I who owe you an apology. I should have let you explain."
"I am sorry, though," Helena said. "For lying."
Isaac took a step towards her, his eyes never leaving hers.
"After everything that's happened," he said. "I know what matters most to me now. And that is you, Helena."
"You matter to me, too," she said, her voice quiet. "But my father will come for me, Isaac. I know he will."
"I believe you," Isaac said. "So I need you to tell me what your father can and cannot actually do, because I confess I don't know the law of it, and I'd rather learn from you than from him."
She set her mending aside and looked back at him.
"Well, as his unmarried daughter, he has considerable authority over me," Helena explained. "He could compel my return, at least in the eyes of the law, though dragging me out of a peer's household by force would cost him dearly in scandal."
"Then we will hide you," Isaac said. "And tell your father that you left."
"No," Helena said firmly.
"No?" he repeated.
"I have decided, after everything, that I am done hiding," she said.
"But, Nell… Helena… you just said that he had considerable authority over you. He could make you return home."
"Maybe," Helena agreed. "But I won't have you, or the others, lie for me anymore."
"I want to lie for you," Isaac urged.
Helena smiled softly.
"And I thank you for that," she murmured. "But it's time I face my father and stand my ground, no matter the outcome."
Isaac knelt then, reaching for her hands. He looked up, meeting her eyes, and he knew in that moment he could not leave her to face this alone. He wouldn't.
"Then we will stand together," he said.
Helena smiled again.
"Well, it's a good thing you're a professional," she said. "Because I believe we will soon have a fight on our hands."
Isaac knew she was right, that this might be the most important fight of his life. But he had never lost a fight in the ring, and he wasn’t intending to lose this one now.
***
As Isaac and Helena had predicted, the Earl of Winford arrived at Rowan Hall a few days later, and he did not arrive quietly.
By the time Isaac had made his way down to the great hall, most of the household had already gathered along its edges, drawn by the same instinct that draws any crowd toward an unfolding confrontation, whatever discretion might otherwise have kept them at their duties.
The Earl of Winford proved exactly as commanding a presence as Isaac had expected from a man who had spent fifty years accustomed to absolute obedience.
He was tall and silver-haired, his bearing carrying the particular rigid authority of a man who had never once, in the whole of his life, seriously entertained the possibility of being refused.
"Helena."
His voice carried across the hall the moment he spotted her, standing near Mrs Ellis with her chin lifted despite the visible tremor Isaac could see in her hands.
"Gather your belongings. We leave within the hour."
"Papa—"
"You have humiliated this family quite sufficiently for one lifetime, and I will not stand here debating the matter in front of servants."
The Earl's gaze swept dismissively across the assembled household, and Isaac felt his jaw tighten at the casual contempt in it.
"You will return to London, and you will do so today, whether it is your wish or not."
"I won't go," Helena said, her voice rising slightly.
"You won't go?"
The Earl's laugh carried no humour whatsoever.
"And what precisely do you imagine your alternative to be, Helena?
You have no fortune of your own—every penny of it remains under my control, as you well know.
You have no respectable position left to return to, no reputation society will forgive, no future beyond whatever charity a stranger's household might continue extending to you, and I promise you that charity has its limits, however generous it may currently feel. "
He turned then, his attention shifting to Isaac with an expression that shifted, briefly, into something almost gracious.
"Lord Rowan. I understand you've sheltered my daughter these past months, and whatever her deception, I'm obliged to you for keeping her safe. But my responsibility for her begins again now, and I'll trouble no further on your hospitality."
The whole hall seemed to hold its breath, waiting, Isaac understood, for him to step aside.
To bow, perhaps or to offer some final courtesy by allowing the Earl to sweep his daughter back toward whatever future had already been decided for her without her consent.
But Isaac remained silent for several long moments, long enough that he saw uncertainty flicker across the Earl's face.
"She's not going anywhere," Isaac said. “Because I intend to marry her."
The silence that followed was absolute.
"You intend what?"
The Earl's composure cracked at last, colour rising sharply in his weathered face.
"You dare stand there, a common prizefighter dressed up in a stolen title, and announce you mean to marry the daughter of an earl?
I see precisely what this is, Lord Rowan.
You've calculated, however crudely, that an alliance with an ancient family might finally purchase you the respectability your own blood could never provide.
It's transparent, and it's frankly insulting to suggest I'd permit—"
"I want neither her fortune nor her name, My Lord.
" Isaac's voice remained level, though something hard had entered it now.
"I've enough wealth of my own that I've no need of a single penny of yours, and God knows the Rowan name has caused me trouble enough these past months without wanting the Winford name added atop it.
I want Helena. Only Helena—whatever she calls herself, whatever fortune does or doesn't follow her, whatever society decides to think of either of us for it.
I don't imagine you'll believe that, given how little else about me you've troubled to understand in the whole of this conversation, but it happens to be true regardless. "
The Earl stared at him for a long, furious moment, plainly searching for some further argument sufficient to dismiss the whole proposal, and found, evidently, nothing immediately equal to the task.
He turned instead toward his daughter, his expression carrying a colder judgment than it had shown even moments before.
"Is this truly what you want, Helena? A prizefighter's household, and whatever ruin follows from defying me a second time?"
Helena did not answer, and for a moment Isaac's chest tightened with sudden uncertainty. But then she crossed the distance toward him, took his hand in both of hers, and simply nodded.
The Earl's face changed into something cold and final, his mouth pressed into a hard line.
"Then you are no longer welcome in my house, nor in my consideration, whatever becomes of this ill-conceived match."
He turned toward the door, but before leaving, his eyes found Isaac again.
"Society will never forgive this, Lord Rowan. Mark me on that. A prizefighter and a ruined earl's daughter—you'll find every drawing room in England closed to you both, whatever fortune or title either of you claims to hold."
He left without a further word, the great doors closed behind him, and the hall fell into silence.
After a moment, Isaac and Helena made their way to the front steps together, and stood watching as the Earl's carriages wound back down the long drive and finally disappeared through Rowan Hall's iron gates, the sound of hooves and wheels fading gradually into the ordinary quiet of the autumn morning.
Neither of them spoke for a long while, her hand still held fast in his, the whole uncertain shape of whatever came next stretching out before them both.
"He's not wrong, you know," Isaac said finally. "About society. It won't be easy, whatever we decide."
"I know." Helena's voice carried a quiet steadiness that matched the resolve he'd first glimpsed in her on the day they'd met. "I don't imagine anything easy has been on offer to either of us in some while."
Isaac looked down at her, and found, despite the Earl's parting threats still hanging in the cold morning air, that he could not summon anything resembling regret.
"No," he agreed. "I don't imagine it has."