“Capital,” said James roughly. “Here’s a sovereign for your trouble, my girl, and we will be off. Carriage is waiting for you, d'Épiluçon.”
Pierre glanced at Helena, who was turning the sovereign over and over again in her fingers. Finally, she held it out to him.
“I cannot accept this,” she said coldly. “I only accept gifts from my friends.”
Pierre swallowed, and took a step closer to her. “Would you accept it from me then, Helena?”
For a moment, he was sure that she was going to acquiesce: sure that she would accept it, needy as she and her father were.
But she took his hand, and placed the cold metal in the palm of his hand. “No,” she said quietly. “As I said. Only from my friends.”
Pierre wanted to retort, wanted to plead, wanted to open up his soul and heart and tell her that she was central to both – but James, ever eager to get on the road, gave him no time.
“A very honourable sentiment,” he said with a smile, picking up his travelling cloak and nodding at Pierre. “Come on, old chap, into the carriage with you. We can feed you upon the road.”
Pierre nodded, and turned, and followed his friend. And he did not look back, though his heart burned with pain and love and agony.
9
The feeling of a clean pillow beneath his cheek, and of soft linen sheets on his chest, had become so uncommon and were now so strange to Pierre as to confuse him as to his location when he awoke the next morning.
“Où suis-je…” And then the memories flooded back. James arriving at the door, Helena’s face as he refused to reveal his feelings for her, the pain of having his belongings returned to him, honourably, as he should have known…
The clean sheets and silken hangings around the four-poster bed felt too ostentatious after the honest and simple living that he had been able to experience for the previous few days. What need he for such exaggerated wealth? Why did he need so much display of money around him?
Rising, he found that the clothes he had borrowed from Helena’s father – the very clothes that he had stepped out of her house in – were gone.
In their place, a rich and valuable shirt, britches, cravat, and all the little accessories that told the world that this was a man of consequence.
His fingers fumbled around the cravat, accustomed as he had become with leaving his throat bare. Eventually he threw it down, bad temperedly, onto the bed and left the room.
It did not take him long to find James. He had always been the same as a child: his love of the outdoors continued all year around.
“Are you sure it is quite warm enough for this?” He asked with a smile, stepping out of the drawing room doors onto the lawn where the Viscount of Paendly was breakfasting.
James turned, and smiled at him over his newspaper. “Ah, you are finally up. Sleep well?”
Pierre nodded. “Merci, mon ami.”
His friend nodded at the table, covered in delicious food. “Help yourself, do. Cook is eager to feed you up after that dreadful ordeal.”
“Ordeal?” Pierre repeated as he leaned forward to pour some tea into the nearest cup.
James laughed. “My fear fellow, that hovel that I discovered you in!”
Pierre stared at him. “How did you find me.”
With a tap on his nose and a grin on his face, James laughed. “Ask me no secrets, old chap. Trust me, there is enough of a spy network between here and France to keep relatively good tabs on you, even if you try to give them the slip by throwing yourself into a boat hardly fit for a shallow river, and take it over the Channel!”
“Spy network – give them the slip? What is this slip,” Pierre said defensively, “for I gave it to no one.”
James shook his head as he laughed, and passed him a plate. “I am impressed that you did not starve in the four days that it took me to find you – your stomach must be of iron, if that kitchen I saw was any judge!”
Irritation rose in Pierre’s throat at the casual way that his friend offended Helena’s home. “I survived easily enough, I was well taken care of.”
James raised an eyebrow. “Really? By whom?”
“By Helena – Miss Metcalfe,” corrected Pierre hastily as he drew the cup to his lips and took a long draught. He needed it. “You do not need to concern yourself.”
“Nonsense,” said James flatly. “A man such as yourself, stuck in such a place? ‘Tis a wonder you are still alive – and that reminds me. Stephens!”
A footman appeared at the Viscount’s side, and Pierre could not help but smile, as he reached for some toast, at the way that his friend’s servants had evidently been drilled.
“Doctor Stephens, if you please,” were all the words necessary to be heard, and the footman scurried away to Pierre’s disgust.
“Now, really Paendly, I am quite well, there is no need to get a doctor involved!”
James dropped the newspaper onto his lap, and casually laid his feet upon one of the chairs beside him. “You think so?”
Pierre nodded wearily. The sun was not warm, and he had not dressed for an al fresco breakfast. “Miss Metcalfe is an expert in these matters, and she cared for me most assiduously. I cannot imagine what else a doctor could do for me.”
For a moment, James’ eyes raked over him curiously, and then he shook his head. “No, I am sorry old boy, but your sister would not forgive me if I did not take the absolute best care of you – and you know how afraid I have been of Giselle since infancy, so do not ask me to go against her.”
“Giselle?” Pierre looked about him wildly, but saw only an elderly gentleman move from the drawing room holding a doctor’s bag. “She is here?”
“No, do not be so foolish – good morning Doctor Stephens,” said James smoothly. “Here is your patient. And really,” he continued in an undertone to Pierre as the doctor bowed, and began removing instruments of examination out of his bag, “do you really think I would leave you in such suspense if she was?”
Pierre wanted to retort, but found his mouth suddenly filled with a wooden stick to force his tongue still.
“Say ‘aaaah’,” said the stern doctor, a little too close for Pierre’s comfort.
He obliged as James continued, “I must say, d'Épiluçon, that I was monstrous glad to find you so soon. I had received word that you had left France, though why you could not tell me yourself by letter I do not know – ”
“It was all too fast for that,” interposed Pierre, finally free of the wooden stick and now being forced to cough intermittently as the doctor listened to his chest. “I had no time to even – ”
“And then you know, the British Isles has rather a lot of coastline,” continued James, raising his newspaper once more and smiling cheekily at his friend. “I was fortunate to pick that stretch first to search, or who knows how long it would have been before you could have been returned to civilisation?”
Pierre was now having his pulse counted, but it was surely not helping the doctor’s kind ministrations that his temper was rising at James’ words. “Civilisation?”
Without answering with words, James indicated the large house, the gardens, and the parkland that stretched out across into the distance, deer moving slowly as they grazed in the early morning.
“I will have you know,” said Pierre angrily, “that I do not think anyone – even yourself, Doctor Stephens, I am sorry to say – could have taken better care of me than Miss Helena Metcalfe.”
James raised an eyebrow. “I am surprised at your devotion to her.”
Pierre saw Helena’s smile as she kissed him the morning before, the look of pain and hurt when he said he would not marry her, and felt her writhing beneath him in an agony of ecstasy.
He swallowed. “I have not met her equal in kindness and gentleness, and her medical knowledge and ability surpasses all doctors in France whom I have been tended by before – begging your pardon, Doctor Stephens, I mean no offence.”
“None taken,” croaked the old man, who plac
ed his pocket watch back in his waistcoat, and smiled at him. “And I must say I agree.”
That was enough for James to lower his newspaper. “I beg your pardon?”
The doctor nodded. “I would say that it is in my expert opinion that, had this young lady not taken such impressive care of this gentleman, my lord, that he would not have survived.”
“Well now,” murmured James as the doctor made his way back into the house. “Now that is a surprise.”
What was this rush of emotions that now threatened to overwhelm Pierre now: stupidity for not recognising Helena’s worth sooner? Fear that he would never see her again? Lust for her body, love of her soul?
“‘Tis a shame she is so poor,” announced James matter of factly, as he descended back behind his newspaper. “She sounds a good match for you, d'Épiluçon. Willing to care for the adventurer, the French outcast. Why on earth did you leave her?”
The slamming of the door was the first indication that he was back. Then the shout.
“Helena!”
“Here, Father,” she called back, seated quietly in the garden with a steaming cup of tea in her hands.
The stomping noise increased in volume, and then the back door opened and there he was.
“My word, what are you doing out here?” He asked.
Helena smiled faintly. It was strange indeed, her need for the outside since Pierre had left, but someone she felt closer to him out here. As though somewhere, the same sky that was looking down at her was looking down at him.
“Welcome home, Father,” she said quietly, not turning around to look up at him. “Did you have a pleasant trip?”
He snorted, and dropped his bag on the ground before stepping around to stand before her. “Nothing like as good as I had imagined, of course…but then, that is always the way that it is, I fear. And you? Anything happen while I was away?”
Helena swallowed. This was always how it was when he returned from one of his ‘trips’. More jovial, kinder, more interested in herself. Until he could not wait any longer, and disappeared for another week or so.
But then, who was she to turn away a loving and kind father, when she had so little?
“Nothing much,” she said lightly.
He snorted. “Nothing much?”
Helena had thought through this moment: wondered exactly what it was that she should say to her father, how she could possibly explain what had happened without losing her honour and reputation, and how to explain a man who was so contradictory as Pierre.
The decision that she had come to, she mused as she heard a blackbird sing in a tree a few yards away, was the easiest one.
“No,” she said simply, smiling up at him and gesturing for him to take a seat. “Well, yes. There is a letter from Teresa that you must read, and I do not wish to reveal the contents, you should discover them for yourself. Mrs Thatcher brought another a letter around, but it was not for us, a mistake only. There was quite a gale, the day that you left.”
“By thunder, so there was,” said her father with a smile. “And I will tell you now, my dear, that I felt it as no one can: there we were, on the road…”
Helena allowed the story to wash over her like a gently encroaching tide. There was no stopping her father, after all; he loved to tell his stories, and it was better to get them all out now, rather than wait for the tale to drip out over five or six days.
What a tale she could tell him.
“…and it was then that I realised, the direction we had been going was – Helena?”
Her father’s voice was startled by her suddenly rising and moving towards the house.
“I am sorry, Father,” said Helena hurriedly, “I am still listening, but I have much mending to complete. I thought that I could bring it out here, to work on while I listen.”
His ego restored to the best of health, she sat and listening for another twenty minutes while her deft hands moved smoothly across the shirt that was on her lap. It took her that long to realise that the shirt she was mending was not her father’s.
“My, that is a fancy piece of needlework!” Her Father exclaimed, breaking off from his story. “Not one of mine, I warrant – where did you get it from?”
Helena felt her heart race. Was she willing to lie to her father, the man that had raised her – was it worth hiding the fact that another had been here?
“Ah, no matter. I am going to change, my dear, and I will join you again shortly,” said her Father, his interest waning as it frequently did if he did not receive an immediate response.
For a moment, she felt that she was safe; that the deception, small as it was, had been successful. But as soon as her father returned to her afterwards, she knew that all was lost.
“Helena, has someone been here to stay with you?”
The hurried turn in her seat, the frightened look, and the silent response was all that he needed to confirm his suspicions.
“My best shirt has gone, there is far more food missing than I could imagine you could eat,” and here he laughed as he sat beside his daughter, “without wanting to sound like a bear, there has been someone sleeping in my bed!”
Helena could not help but laugh, but it was a bitter one and her father caught at it immediately. “Helena, you know the truth. Tell me.”
She bit her lip as she looked at her father steadily. “Just a poor shipwrecked sailor, Father. There was a little injury, but you know that I am accustomed to such things. I did nothing but give him shelter for a few days, feed him, and then send him on his way.”
And offer myself entirely to him, she murmured in the quiet of her heart. And make myself so vulnerable that it physically hurts, sitting here, knowing that he is happily far away from me. As the memory of him kissing her throat, kissing her neck, his hands moving slowly over her body rose up in her mind, she forced it down.
No, she would not indulge in such bittersweet remembrances.
“Poor man, he must have been quite done for if he arrived after that gale. At least that explains where my rum disappeared to!” mused her Father.
She nodded, but did not trust her voice to speak.
He sighed. “Helena, you were never a good liar, and I thank God for it. But you have to tell me the truth – all of it, or as much as you can, if you please.”
Helena raised her blue eyes to her Father, and wished for a moment that he was not quite so perceptive. But then, would he be her father?
“His name,” she began in a low voice, “is Pierre. When he arrived…”
The story did not take long to tell; the vital parts she omitted, knowing that those would be hidden in her heart until she died. There was no need to break his heart with her wanton behaviour, and besides, that was something that she wanted to keep between herself and Pierre. He may not have valued it the way she did, but it was a precious moment to her. It was not to see the light of day.
Helena was almost saddened at how easily his departure was explained, as though it had been easy for him to leave her. When she finished the story, she looked at her father silently.
His face looked grave, but there was a gentle smile on his face. “You cared for this man, I think.”
She swallowed, and not trusting her voice, nodded.
“Hmmm,” said her Father, looking more serious now. “I will admit that I was concerned at the thought of a gentleman here alone with you, my child – not because I do not trust you, far from it, but because I know you are of a loving soul, and you could easily be worked upon to fancy yourself in love.”
Hot tears threatened to rise up and fall in Helena’s eyes. Worked upon? Had she been worked upon? She had not felt under any pressure from Pierre: if anything the contrary, had he not left her easily enough?
“But now, I am even more concerned,” her Father continued, “that you have lost the opportunity of being with the man that you love.”
Helena blinked as the words started to settle into her mind, and asked hesitantly, “Father?”
T
he man that she had cherished and cared for over the years moved to kneel at her feet. “Helena, love is the greatest storm that we ever weather, and yes, sometimes it leaves us shipwrecked on a shore that seemed barren. We feel alone, but what we do not realise is that there is always another person shipwrecked along with us.”
The tears she had managed to keep back for so long now over spilled and fell on her cheeks. “He left,” she managed to say under her voice. “He left me.”
Reaching out and brushing away one of her tears, her Father asked her quietly, “Does that mean that the ship has sunk?”
10
Pierre shut the door irritably, and winced when it slammed.
“Careful,” came the concerned cry from near the fireplace, as James swirled his brandy delicately in his hands. “What did the door ever do to you?”
“Mes excuses,” muttered Pierre, not catching his friend’s gaze as he strode into the room. He threw himself into the armchair opposite James, and glared at the crackling fire.
He knew that his behaviour was unreasonable; knew that he was stomping around the house like a child, but there did not seem to be anything that he could do about it. The more that he tried to calm down, the more that his temper rose.
James said nothing, but handed over a large glass of golden amber liquid. Pierre took it, and threw a vast amount of it down his throat.
Which was a mistake. The fiery brandy scorched his throat as it went down, and it was all that Pierre could do not to choke.
“Excellent brandy,” he said, eyes streaming.
James laughed, and shook his head. “You really are the most stubborn man I have ever met, d'Épiluçon.”
“No, really,” said Pierre hastily, taking a slower taste from the glass now and tasting its honey golden flavours. “I do not think I have tasted such good brandy since…well, since Versailles.”
Another laugh. “My dear fellow, where do you think my smugglers get it from?”
Ravishing Regencies: The Complete Series: A Steamy Regency Romance Boxset Page 25
