Chapter Ten #2
She drew herself up to her full height, which was not considerable but which she deployed with the authority of a woman who had spent years commanding respect in far more difficult circumstances than this.
“Mr Gibbs.” Her voice was perfectly level. “I was not aware that legal matters were typically conducted at musicales.”
“They are not, Your Grace. But my client is eager to resolve certain questions regarding the validity of His Grace’s matrimony.
” Gibbs’s smile was thin, and utterly devoid of warmth.
“He merely wishes to ascertain a few facts about your domestic arrangements at Westmere Park. The nature of your household duties, the degree of your involvement in estate management, the… character of your relationship with His Grace. Informal questions, you understand. Nothing that need trouble the courts.”
The implication was clear. Answer his questions now, in this public setting, or face more formal interrogation later. Cooperate, or be dragged through the legal system with all the publicity and humiliation that would entail.
Helena felt the tremor begin in her hands. She clasped them together, hiding the weakness, and met Gibbs’s gaze with steady calm.
“Mr Gibbs.” Her voice carried just enough to reach the nearby listeners, Clarissa among them, without appearing to raise it.
“I am not in the habit of conducting legal consultations at musicales. If your client has questions concerning my matrimony, he is welcome to direct them, in writing, to my husband’s solicitor. I believe you know where to find him.”
She paused, allowing the words to settle. A shadow of astonishment crossed Gibbs’s features; he had plainly expected her to falter. “Now, if you will excuse me,” Helena continued, her tone perfectly courteous and utterly final, “I believe I see an acquaintance I must greet. Good evening, Mr Gibbs.”
She turned and walked away.
Her spine was straight. Her pace was measured. She did not hurry, did not flee, did not betray by so much as a quickened step that her heart was pounding so hard she could feel it in her throat.
She made it to the corridor before her composure cracked.
The hallway was empty, blessedly, mercifully empty. Helena pressed her back against the wall and let herself shake. Her hands trembled visibly now, released from the iron control she had maintained in the music room. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps that she could not seem to slow.
He came at me in public. In front of witnesses. In front of Clarissa.
The audacity of it stunned her. The calculation behind it chilled her. Reginald Vane was not content to wage his war through solicitors and legal documents, he wanted to rattle her, to humiliate her, to prove that she was not equipped to stand against him.
He had failed. She had held her ground, had deflected his attack with grace and composure.
But the cost of that composure was visible now, in the trembling of her hands and the racing of her heart. She had won the battle. She was not certain she could survive the war.
“Helena.”
She looked up. Edmund stood at the end of the corridor, his face pale, his jaw tight with barely contained fury. He must have seen, must have watched from across the room as Gibbs approached her, as she faced down his cousin’s solicitor with nothing but her own determination.
“Edmund.” His name came out steadier than she felt. “I am fine. I managed it.”
He crossed to her in three long strides. Without speaking, he took her hands in his.
His grip was warm. Steady. An anchor in the storm of her jangled nerves.
“You’re shaking,” he said quietly.
“I am aware.” She tried to pull back, tried to reclaim the distance that kept her safe, but he held firm. “It will pass. It always passes.”
“Helena.” His voice was rough. “Look at me.”
She looked.
His eyes were dark with something she could not name, anger, certainly, but something else beneath it. Something that looked almost like anguish.
“You were remarkable,” he said.
The word hit her like a physical blow.
Remarkable. He had called her that before, in her sitting room in Somerset, the day he proposed. He had said it as though it were simply true, as though he were stating an observable fact rather than offering a compliment.
He was saying it the same way now. With the same quiet certainty. The same devastating sincerity.
Helena’s throat tightened. She felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes, ridiculous, unwanted tears that she could not afford to shed.
“You keep saying that,” she managed. “That word.”
“Because it true.”
She should pull away. She should retreat behind her walls, should protect herself from the vulnerability of this moment.
She should not stand here in a corridor, holding her husband’s hands, feeling the warmth of his skin against her trembling fingers and wanting, desperately, dangerously wanting, to believe that he meant every word.
She pulled her hands back.
Edmund let her go. A look of disappointment wavered momentarily across his countenance, and then quickly disappeared. He did not press, but simply stood there, solid and patient, waiting for her to decide what she needed.
“We should return,” Helena said. Her voice was almost steady. “People will notice our absence.”
“Let them notice.”
“Edmund.”
“They can notice whatever they wish. They can gossip and speculate and draw whatever conclusions suit them.” His jaw tightened.
“You have just stood firm against my cousin’s solicitor in front of half the ton.
If anyone believes you are not capable of managing yourself, they are not paying attention. ”
Helena stared at him. The anger in his voice, it was not directed at her, she realised. It was directed at Gibbs, at Reginald, at the entire situation that had put her in the position of defending herself against attacks she had never asked to face.
He was angry on her behalf.
Something cracked in her chest. Something that had been held tight for so long she had forgotten it was there.
“We should still return,” she said, but her voice was softer now. Less defensive. “Rosalind will worry if she does not see me.”
Edmund nodded once. He offered his arm, a gesture so natural, so automatic, that Helena took it without thinking.
They walked back to the music room together. Helena’s hand rested in the crook of his elbow, her fingers curved against the wool of his coat. She was aware of the warmth of him, the steady rhythm of his breathing, the way he adjusted his pace to match hers without seeming to think about it.
He is remarkable too, she thought, and the realisation settled into her like something inevitable. I have been so busy protecting myself from wanting him that I failed to notice I already do.
***
Later that evening, Helena sat at her dressing table, brushing her hair with slow, methodical strokes.
The maid had been dismissed. The room was quiet, lit only by a single candle that cast dancing shadows across the walls. Helena watched herself in the glass, the stranger who was becoming, slowly, familiar.
She replayed the evening in her mind. The solicitor’s oiled courtesy. The weight of watching eyes. Her own voice, steady and sharp: I am not in the habit of conducting legal consultations at musicales.
And then Edmund’s hands, warm around her trembling fingers. His voice, rough with something that sounded almost like reverence: You were remarkable.
He said it as though it was the simplest fact in the world.
He said it as though he meant it.
Helena set down the brush. She pressed her palms flat against the dressing table, steadying herself against the tide of feeling that threatened to overwhelm her.
She had spent her entire life protecting herself. From disappointment. From wanting things she could not have. From the particular pain of hoping for affection and receiving obligation instead.
But Edmund kept slipping past her defences.
Not with grand gestures or passionate declarations, but with quiet attention.
With books sent from Westmere. With gardens arranged for her mother.
With wildflowers appearing on her desk without explanation.
With the way he said her name, and the way he said remarkable, and the way he had held her hands in a corridor while she shook.
Rosalind claims that his heart is devoted to me.
Perhaps, she is right.
The thought was terrifying. The thought was exhilarating. The thought was the most dangerous thing Helena had allowed herself to feel in years.
She rose from the dressing table and crossed to the window.
Before her lay the great expanse of London by night, the streets illuminated by the soft glow of lamps, the faint clatter of distant carriages fading beneath an immense, starless sky.
Tomorrow there would be more battles. More whispers.
More calculated attacks from Reginald and Clarissa and everyone who wanted to see her fail.
But tonight, she allowed herself to feel something other than fear.
Tonight, she allowed herself to hope.