Chapter Five
“Welcome to Westmere Park, Your Grace.”
The housekeeper’s voice was perfectly correct. Polite and efficient, and underneath it all, Helena detected the faintest note of assessment, the careful evaluation of a woman who had run the household for years and was now being asked to accept a new mistress.
Mrs Prescott was perhaps fifty, with steel-grey hair pulled back in a severe knot and eyes that missed nothing.
She stood at the head of a line of servants, maids, footmen, the butler, the cook, more people than Helena had ever been responsible for in her life.
Her posture suggested she had already formed opinions about the vicar’s daughter who had somehow become a Duchess.
Helena met her gaze steadily. She would not flinch. She would not apologise for her presence. She was here now, whether anyone liked it or not, and she would conduct herself accordingly.
“Thank you, Mrs Prescott.” Helena kept her voice even, measured. The voice of a woman who belonged there, even if she did not yet believe it herself. “I look forward to learning how the household operates.”
Something flitted across the housekeeper’s features, perchance surprise, or the first token of esteem, which was too fleeting to be recognised.
“Of course, Your Grace. I am at your disposal.”
The introductions continued. Names and faces blurred together, Mary the upstairs maid, Thomas the first footman, Mrs Barrow the cook who had been with the family for thirty years.
Helena committed as many as she could to memory, knowing she would need to review them later, knowing that remembering names was one of the small currencies of household management.
Fifty servants, she thought, as the line seemed to stretch on forever. I managed a household of three. My mother, my sister, and myself. I made the bread. I mended the linens. I knew every creaking floorboard and leaking pipe.
This is not the same.
Edmund stood beside her throughout, a steady presence at her shoulder.
He did not speak much, he seemed content to let her take the lead, but she was aware of him in a way that felt new and unsettling.
The warmth of him. The solid reality of his presence.
The occasional brush of his sleeve against hers as they moved down the line.
When the introductions were finally complete, Mrs Prescott led them inside.
The entrance hall alone was larger than the entire ground floor of the vicarage.
Marble floors, soaring ceilings, a grand staircase that swept upward like something from a dream.
Portraits lined the walls, generations of Ridleys staring down at Helena with expressions that ranged from haughty to disapproving.
I do not belong here, whispered a voice in the back of her mind. Anyone can see that. The servants can see it. The portraits can see it. The house itself can see it.
Helena straightened her spine and ignored the voice. She had never belonged anywhere, not really. She had simply made herself useful until people forgot to question her presence. She would do the same here.
“The Duchess’s chambers are in the east wing,” Mrs Prescott was saying, leading them up the grand staircase. “They were last occupied by His Grace’s mother, the late Duchess. I have had them aired and refreshed, but if Your Grace wishes any changes…”
“I am certain they will be more than adequate,” Helena said. “Thank you.”
The chambers were beautiful. And cold.
It was not because of the temperature, as there was a fire burning cheerfully in the grate, and the late afternoon sun streamed through tall windows that overlooked the gardens.
But there was a coldness to the space that had nothing to do with the weather.
It was a room that had been perfectly maintained and utterly unlived in.
Museum-quality furniture, arranged with geometric precision dominated the chamber.
Paintings that complemented the colour scheme without expressing any particular taste.
A bed large enough for four people, draped in silk looked as though it had never been disturbed.
Helena walked to the window. The gardens stretched out below, formal, manicured, and beautiful in the way of things that had been designed to be looked at rather than enjoyed.
Behind her, she heard Mrs Prescott explaining something about the bell pulls and the morning routine. She was aware of Edmund lingering in the doorway, watching her with that quiet, unreadable expression.
And she was aware, acutely aware, of the door on the far wall.
The connecting door. To Edmund’s chambers.
It was closed. Firmly, definitively closed, as though it had been closed for years and intended to stay that way.
As agreed, Helena reminded herself. Separate lives. Separate bedrooms. This is what you asked for.
She did not know why the sight of that closed door made something in her chest ache.
“Thank you, Mrs Prescott,” she said, turning from the window. “I believe I would like some time to settle in before dinner.”
The housekeeper curtsied and withdrew. Edmund hesitated a moment longer, as though he wanted to say something, then simply nodded and followed.
Helena was alone.
She stood in the centre of her beautiful, cold room and allowed herself exactly thirty seconds to feel overwhelmed. Then she squared her shoulders and began to explore.
The house was a labyrinth.
Helena spent the next hour wandering through corridors and chambers, trying to build a mental map of the place she would now call home.
There were sitting rooms and drawing rooms and morning rooms and music rooms, each more elegant than the last. There were galleries filled with paintings and sculptures that probably cost more than her father had earned in his entire career.
There were corridors that seemed to lead nowhere and staircases that appeared without warning.
It was magnificent. It was also profoundly impersonal, a showpiece rather than a home. Beautiful furniture that no one sat on. Priceless artwork that no one looked at. The accumulated wealth of generations, arranged for display rather than comfort.
Helena wondered if Edmund ever felt lost here. If he wandered those very corridors at night, a stranger in his own home. If the grandeur ever felt less like a blessing and more like a cage.
She found the library almost by accident.
She had been looking for a way back to the main staircase, and instead she had turned down a corridor that came to an end at a set of double doors. She pushed them open, expecting another sitting room.
And held her breath, lost in sudden awe at the vision before her.
Books. Thousands of them. Floor to ceiling, wall to wall, more books than Helena had ever seen in one place outside of a public library.
The room was two stories tall, with a gallery running around the upper level and a rolling ladder attached to the shelves.
Windows let in the fading afternoon light, illuminating dust motes that danced in the air like something magical.
Helena walked forward as though in a dream.
She ran her fingers along the spines, leather bindings, cloth bindings, some so old the titles had worn away entirely.
Poetry and philosophy and natural history.
Novels and essays and volumes of Shakespeare.
A complete set of something in Latin that she did not recognise but desperately wanted to explore.
For the first time since arriving at Westmere Park, something in her chest loosened.
This, she thought. This, I understand. This, I can truly cherish. She was still standing there, lost in the books, when a voice spoke from behind her.
“You have found my favourite room.”
Helena turned.
A woman stood in the doorway. Elegant, silver-haired, dressed in the black of deep mourning though Helena knew it had been years since the previous Duke’s death. Her posture was perfect, the posture of a woman raised to be a Duchess, but there was something frozen about her. Something locked away.
It was the Dowager Duchess of Westmere. Edmund’s mother.
“Your Grace.” Helena curtsied, suddenly aware of her travel-rumpled gown, and the honey-blonde tresses that had slipped free from their pins. “Forgive me, I was exploring.”
“There is nothing to forgive. The library is available to all members of the household.” The Dowager’s voice was cool, correct, and utterly without warmth. “You are Helena.”
It was not a question, but Helena answered anyway. “Yes, Your Grace.”
“My son’s wife.”
“Yes.”
The Dowager studied her for a long moment. Helena had the uncomfortable sensation of being weighed and measured, and of the scales not quite balancing.
“You like books,” the Dowager said finally. There was still no warmth, but perhaps faint trace of interest.
“I do. My father was a great reader. He believed that a good library was worth more than gold.”
“A vicar’s philosophy.” There was no condescension in the words, merely observation. “Edmund reads. He spends most of his evenings here, when he is in residence.”
Helena filed this information away. She was building a picture of her husband, piece by piece, and every fragment mattered.
“I will try not to disturb him,” she said.
“You misunderstand me.” The Dowager’s gaze sharpened slightly. “I am not warning you away. I am merely informing you. Of where you might find common ground.”
Before Helena could respond, the Dowager turned and walked away, her black skirts rustling against the marble floor. She did not look back.
Helena stood alone in the library, surrounded by thousands of books, and thought about a frozen woman who had just offered her, perhaps, the smallest of gifts.
Informing you. Of where you might find common ground.
It was not friendship. It was not even approval. But it was something.
She found the study by chance as well.