Chapter Sixteen
“We should return to Westmere.”
Helena looked up from the letter she had been reading, the third communication from Edmund’s solicitor in as many days, each one more detailed than the last in its explanation of what the upcoming hearing would entail.
The legal language blurred before her eyes, but the implications were clear enough: in twelve days, they would stand before the Master in Chancery and submit their matrimony to formal examination.
“Return to Westmere?” she repeated.
“The hearing is not for nearly a fortnight. There is nothing productive we can accomplish here in London, and the constant scrutiny of the ton is exhausting for both of us.” Edmund said slowly.
Helena set down the letter. He was right, of course.
The past week had been a gauntlet of social obligations, each one weighted with the knowledge that Reginald’s challenge had become public.
The whispers had intensified. Clarissa’s campaign had grown bolder.
Every appearance required a performance of martial unity that left Helena drained by the time she retreated to her chambers each evening.
And there was the other thing. The confession Edmund had begun in the library, interrupted by the footman’s arrival. The words that had hung between them ever since, unfinished and impossible to ignore.
I was jealous. Of the way you laugh with him.
She had not known what to say. Had not known how to respond to such raw honesty from a man who had always been so careful with his feelings. And before she could find the words, the moment had been lost to crisis and urgency.
They had not spoken of it since.
“Westmere,” she said slowly, testing the idea. “Yes. I think that would be wise.”
Something in Edmund’s expression eased, relief, perhaps, or gratitude. “We can leave tomorrow, if that suits you.”
“Tomorrow suits me very well.”
***
Westmere Park in early spring was a revelation.
Helena had seen the estate only in winter, bare trees and dormant gardens, the austere beauty of a house waiting for warmth to return.
Now the grounds were coming alive. Crocuses pushed through the dark earth in purple and white profusion.
The ornamental lake reflected a sky that seemed bluer than any London sky had managed to be.
And everywhere, the sense of growing things, of life returning, of something beginning.
She stood at the library window and watched Edmund walking through the rose garden below, deep in conversation with Mr Greenway.
His hands moved as he spoke, animated in the way they only were when he was discussing something he genuinely cared about.
The careful composure he maintained in public had dropped away, revealing the passionate, engaged man underneath.
Helena thought about the things she had learned about him over the past months. The library organised by emotional weight. The rose hybrids he was trying to develop. The letters he kept in a drawer and never sent, she did not know this for certain, but she had begun to suspect.
The quiet attention he paid to everything she said and did and was.
I earn them one by one and I keep count of every single one and it is never enough.
The words echoed through her mind, as they had been echoing for days. He counted her laughs. He tracked her smiles. He measured his days by the warmth she gave him, and he found it insufficient.
Not because she did not give enough, but because he wanted more. Wanted her. Wanted everything she had been too afraid to offer.
And she had stood there, tears in her eyes, about to say something, she did not even know what, when the world had interrupted.
It is not a burden, she had said. Edmund, I,
What had she been about to say?
She knew. Of course she knew. She had been about to tell him the truth, that his jealousy was not a burden but a gift, that she wanted to be the person who made him laugh too, that she had spent months protecting herself from feelings she had never stopped having.
But the moment had passed. And now here they were, at Westmere, with twelve days until their matrimony was formally examined and everything between them still unspoken.
The routine established itself easily.
They took breakfast together, not just at the same end of the table now, but truly together.
Helena found herself lingering over her tea, extending conversations that had no particular purpose beyond the pleasure of his company.
Edmund seemed in no hurry to leave either.
They talked about the estate, the upcoming hearing, about books and weather and the small observations that had become the currency of their companionship.
After breakfast, they walked. It had begun almost by accident, Helena had been going for her usual solitary turn through the gardens, and Edmund had appeared at her side with a question about the climbing roses.
The question had led to a discussion, the discussion to a debate, and by the time they returned to the house, an hour had passed.
The next day, he had been waiting for her at the garden door.
Now it was simply what they did. Every morning, after breakfast, they walked together through the awakening grounds of Westmere Park.
Helena showed him the corners she had discovered during those early weeks, the bench beneath the ancient oak, the path that wound down to the lake, the small door in the garden wall that led to a wild meadow beyond.
He showed her his rose experiments, explaining grafting techniques with an enthusiasm that made her heart ache.
And in the evenings, they retreated to the library.
Those hours had become precious, with the fire crackling, the books surrounding them, and the comfortable silence of two people who no longer needed words to share space. Sometimes they read, and other times they engaged in meaningful conversations.
One evening, Helena found herself telling him about her father.
“He was the kindest man I ever knew,” she said, curled into her window seat with a book she had long since stopped pretending to read.
“Completely impractical. He gave away half of everything we had to anyone who asked, and he never understood why the household accounts never balanced. But he made everyone he met feel valued, as though their concerns were the most important things in the world.”
Edmund had set aside his own book, giving her his full attention. “You miss him.”
“Every day.” Helena traced the spine of her volume with one finger. “He would have liked you, I think. He always said you could tell a man’s character by how he treated people who could do nothing for him. The way you treat the servants, the tenants, he would have seen that.”
“I am sorry I never had the chance to know him.”
“So am I.” She paused. “He would have approved of this matrimony. Not for the title or the money, he cared nothing for those things, but because.” She stopped suddenly.
“Because?”
Because you are kind, she wanted to say. Because you pay attention. Because you count my laughs and send me wildflowers and remember every small thing I have ever told you. Because you are exactly the sort of man he would have wanted for me, and I have been too afraid to let myself have you.
“Because you are a good man,” she said instead. “He valued that above everything.”
Edmund was quiet for a moment. Then, softly: “My brother was the good one. Henry. He was everything a Duke should be, charming, confident, and comfortable everywhere he went. I was the spare. The quiet one. The one who preferred books to ballrooms.” He paused.
“I was not unwanted, merely unnecessary.”
Helena’s heart clenched. “You are the least unnecessary person I have ever met.”
He looked at her then, and the expression on his face nearly undid her. Surprise. Hope. Something deeper that she was afraid to name.
“Helena.”
“Tell me about Henry,” she said quickly, before he could say whatever was in his eyes. She was not ready for it. Not yet. “If you would like to.”
He told her. About the brother who had been his best friend. About the accident that had taken him, and the years of grief and obligation that followed. He told her about the loneliness of inheriting a world he had never been meant to lead.
Helena listened. And something between them shifted, not toward romance, exactly, but toward understanding. Toward the kind of intimacy that comes from sharing pain.
When they finally retired for the evening, Edmund paused at the library door.
“Thank you,” he said quietly. “For listening.”
“Thank you for telling me.”
They stood there for a moment, the space between them charged with everything they were not saying.
Then Edmund nodded once and walked away, and Helena was left alone with a heart so full she could barely breathe.
***
Rosalind arrived three days before the hearing.
She had written ahead, of course, she was not so lacking in manners as to simply appear, but Helena had not expected her until after the legal matters were resolved. Instead, she had come, climbing out of the carriage with her usual sunny energy, her eyes bright with sisterly concern.
“I could not stay away,” Rosalind said, embracing Helena on the front steps. “Not when you are facing this horrid examination. You need family around you.”
“I have Edmund.”
Rosalind pulled back, studying Helena’s face with that penetrating gaze that always saw too much. “Yes,” she said slowly. “You do.”
They walked together through the gardens that afternoon, arm in arm, while Helena tried to explain the situation and Rosalind pretended to listen.
“You are aware that he is devoted to you?” Rosalind said abruptly, interrupting Helena’s detailed explanation of Chancery procedures.
Helena stumbled. “Don’t be ridiculous.”