Chapter Eleven #2
She dropped to her knees beside the child without hesitation, heedless of her gown, heedless of the mud, heedless of everything except the small, crying girl before her. Her voice was gentle, soothing, as she examined the injury with practiced efficiency.
“There now,” Helena said softly. “Let me see. It is just a scrape, see? Not so very bad. We shall have it cleaned up in no time.”
She produced a handkerchief, Edmund had not even seen her reach for it, and pressed it against the wound with careful pressure. The child’s sobs began to quiet, her tear-streaked face turning toward Helena with the instinctive trust of the very young.
“What is your name?” Helena asked.
“E-Emily.”
“Emily. That is a lovely name. I am Helena. And this,” she gestured to Edmund, who was standing frozen, watching, unable to look away, “, is my friend Edmund. He looks very serious, but he is actually quite nice.”
The child, Emily, glanced at Edmund with wide, uncertain eyes. Helena leaned closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.
“Shall I tell you a secret? He is a Duke. Very grand and important. But do you know what? He cannot even tie his own cravat. His valet has to do it for him. Is that not silly?”
Emily giggled. The sound was watery, hiccupping, but unmistakably a laugh. Helena smiled, a real smile, warm and unguarded, and continued cleaning the scrape with gentle efficiency.
Edmund could not breathe.
That, he thought, watching his wife comfort a stranger’s child with the same patient tenderness she had shown her own family. That is who she is. Not the sharp tongue. Not the armour. This.
This is the woman I love.
A nursemaid came running up, breathless and apologetic, scooping Emily into her arms with profuse thanks to the Duchess for her kindness. Helena rose, brushing the mud from her skirt with characteristic practicality, and turned to find Edmund staring at her.
“What?” She glanced down at herself. “Is there something on my dress? Other than the obvious mud, I mean.”
“No. Nothing.” His voice came out rough, uneven. He cleared his throat. “You were most gentle and kind with her.”
“She was frightened. It is only sensible to offer comfort to a frightened child.”
Only sensible. As though what she had done was nothing remarkable. As though anyone would have dropped to their knees in the mud to comfort a stranger’s daughter.
Edmund knew they would not have. He had seen the ton’s finest ladies, and he knew precisely how they would have responded to a crying child in a public park. With disapproval. With disdain. With a quick step backward to avoid soiling their gowns.
Helena had not hesitated. Had not calculated. Had simply acted, because there was a child who needed help and she was capable of providing it.
I hold her in my highest esteem, Edmund thought again, and this time the knowledge did not feel like a burden. It felt like clarity. Like something essential finally falling into place.
She has captured my heart and I am utterly at a loss as to how I ought to proceed.
They returned to the townhouse as the afternoon light began to fade.
Helena excused herself to change out of her muddied dress, and Edmund retreated to his study. He stood at the window, looking out at the garden without seeing it, his mind replaying the scene in the park over and over.
Helena on her knees in the mud. Helena’s voice, gentle and warm. Helena’s smile when the child laughed.
This is the woman who has entirely secured my affections.
He heard Marcus’s voice in his memory: Tell her. Whatever the risk, tell her.
But what would he say? How did one confess love to a woman who had explicitly requested that their matrimony remain free of romantic entanglement? How did one admit to feelings that violated every term of their agreement?
I have watched you for weeks, he imagined saying.
I have noticed everything about you, the way you organise books, the way you hum when you think no one is listening, the way your eyes light up when you laugh.
I have sent you wildflowers and arranged gardens and adjusted my schedule around your presence because I cannot bear to miss a single moment in your company.
I am desperately, hopelessly, irrevocably devoted to you, and I have no idea if you feel anything in return.
He could not say that. The vulnerability of it was unbearable. And worse than the vulnerability was the fear, the terror of making himself one more burden for her to carry.
He had watched her manage everything. Her mother’s illness. Her sister’s future. The household at Westmere. The cruelty of society. Reginald’s legal challenges. She had shouldered every burden with grace and determination, never asking for help, never admitting weakness.
If he told her how he felt, she would have to manage that too. Would have to find a way to respond gracefully, to spare his feelings, to navigate the awkwardness of a husband who had broken their agreement by becoming captivated by her.
He did not want to be managed. He did not want to be another obligation she managed with her characteristic efficiency.
He wanted to be chosen. He wanted her to look at him the way he looked at her, with longing, with hope, with the desperate wish that their arrangement might become something more.
But wanting was not the same as having. And confession was not the same returning the attachment.
Edmund turned from the window. His eye fell on the desk, on the drawer where he kept his private correspondence. On impulse, he opened it and retrieved the stack of letters inside.
Nine of them now. Each one addressed to Helena, each one sealed, each one never sent.
He had been writing them since their first week of matrimony.
Late at night, when sleep would not come, he had poured his thoughts onto paper, observations about her character, confessions of his growing feelings, desperate attempts to articulate what she had come to mean to him.
He had never intended to send them. They were simply a release.
A way to express what he could not say aloud.
My dear Helena, the first one began. He knew the words by heart; he had written and rewritten them so many times.
I find myself noticing things about you that I have no right to notice.
The way you hold your teacup. The precise angle at which you raise your eyebrow when you find something ridiculous.
The particular shade of your voice when you are trying not to laugh.
I do not know when this began, this cataloguing, this attention, this helpless fascination with everything about you. I only know that it has become the central fact of my existence.
He closed the drawer without reading further. The letters were dangerous, evidence of feelings he should not have, vulnerabilities he could not afford. He should burn them. Should destroy them before anyone discovered how completely his heart had been surrendered to her.
He did not burn them.
Instead, he sat at his desk and pulled out fresh paper. His quill moved across the page almost without conscious direction, forming words he would never speak aloud.