Oh, yes, he knew. The turbulence in his eyes betrayed it, and yet she read more desperation there than shame. And a challenge. He wanted her to ask him.
Well she wouldn’t. No one would ever know that she cared. She fought the sudden surge of misery with a deep breath. “Of course not. Merely, these thefts make me uncomfortable. I, too, have been at each location, except the Hart earlier this morning.”
At her casual tone, a frown flickered on his brow. But he said only, “Perhaps Marshall rode over earlier. I would like to see him in prison.”
She blinked at the malice in his voice. “You would? Why?”
“I don’t like the man. Perhaps you might contrive some cozy chat with Anne and find opportunity to search for other stolen items, such as the candlesticks.”
“Sir, I might with difficulty believe Anne capable of theft through some unbalanced melancholy, but I seriously doubt she would then plant the evidence on Kenneth Robinov! If anything, it seems to me she likes him a little too well.”
“Really?” Sir Marcus sounded intrigued. He considered. “Perhaps he does not reciprocate. Although, to be honest, I can’t imagine Anne being so vindictive. Perhaps it was mere fright.”
“Or perhaps you are completely wrong.”
A breath of laughter seemed to take him by surprise. “That is why I like you.”
Not enough. Not enough… Blindly, she walked faster, grasping for a different subject. “What ails Miss Carla Robinov?” she asked desperately.
Instantly, his face grew serious. “Influenza, according to the doctor. The trouble is, she has had a weakness in her lungs since childhood, and such illnesses are always a danger to her. She nearly died when she was ten years old.”
“Then I see why you are all so worried,” she murmured. With conscious courage, she added, “I will speak to Lady Overton. If she will give me leave, I will be glad to help nurse Miss Robinov, at least to allow her mother some sleep.”
“You are kind.” His eyes were warm, sincere, causing a fresh ache in her heart. “I will tell Dorothea of your offer.”
“Of course, you have Anne to help also for the moment—”
“Anne will not help. She does not cope with illnesses. She has already told us so.”
“Then I will speak to Anne,” Helen said decisively.
“I wouldn’t bother. I doubt it would help Carla to have someone weeping over her.”
It wasn’t really funny, but she had to bite back a choke of laughter at the image he conjured. “Perhaps not.”
Sir Marcus swore under his breath. They had almost returned to the front of the inn, but suddenly, he grasped her shoulder, pulling her back against the side wall where they could not be seen. “Damn it, Helen, this is impossible,” he ground out.
She forced herself to withstand his stormy gaze, to hold herself upright and not collapse against him, for he held her now by both shoulders.
“Don’t be silly,” she said prosaically. “Of course there can be nothing impossible about any of it. We must simply find the thief and nurse Carla back to health. Let me go.”
Just for a moment, she thought he wouldn’t, for his eyes burned as they had before when he had kissed her. And behind that was surely anguish.
Her breath caught. But abruptly, he lifted both hands from her shoulders and swung away.
Now it was she who hesitated, but she could not stay, not as things were. She stumbled away, to the front of the house.
She should have been relieved to see Lord and Lady Overton emerge from the inn and summon the children, ending her strange tête-à-tête. But she wasn’t.
Chapter Eleven
Although Helen did not relish the prospect of another journey to the Hart later that day, she felt obliged to bring the subject up with Lady Overton on the carriage ride home.
“I believe Anne has too much sensibility,” she added diplomatically, “to be a great deal of help in the sick room.”
“Then what on earth is she doing at the Hart when her parents are at Audley Park?” Lady Overton demanded with an unusual spurt of ill-nature.
“Keeping away from her parents,” Eliza said unexpectedly.
Lady Overton blinked, then glanced from her youngest daughter to Helen, her lip twitching. Then she sighed. “Do you think young Kenneth Robinov took those things?”
“No, I don’t,” Helen replied. “I could swear his shock was genuine when they were taken from his trunk.”
“Hmm.” Lady Overton sighed. “I could not expect you to nurse the girl by night and teach the children by day. But I suppose it is almost Christmas. The boys are on holiday, and Eliza will be more than happy to get off the schoolroom leash. So, if you wish to do this, I will happily countenance it. If you don’t, I shall be equally happy to play the selfish employer and forbid it.”
Touched by such consideration, Helen smiled. “You are very good, ma’am.”
“No, I’m not. I just value you, Miss Milsom. And at the same time, I know what it is to have a sick child. My own Charlotte—the duchess—almost died and was poorly for many years.”
“So I have heard.” Helen had an excuse to avoid the inn, to avoid Sir Marcus and the pain that came with him. But this was not about him or herself. “If Mrs. Robinov asks for me, I will go.”
Shut up in the girl’s sickroom, she was unlikely even to see him.
As they stepped down from the carriage at Audley Park, Philip waved to them from a ground-floor window, the reception room where he had set up his easel. Lady Overton inclined her head with a smile, though her posture told Helen she had had enough of her guests. The children, however, waved back and raced into the house to see what he was doing.
Philip will not like that.
He didn’t. When Helen followed them into the reception room, he was glaring at them and swatting Horatio away from his paint palette. “Out!” he ordered, which, considering it was their home not his, irritated Helen.
“They are merely curious and admiring,” she said mildly. “Children, go and wash before tea.”
As she herded them from the room, he thanked her, which she did not trouble to acknowledge.
“Helen, might I have a word?”
She wished he would not keep calling her by her Christian name, as though she were his own family. Since she wasn’t, it lowered her status to that of favored servant—or, worse, implied a quite inappropriate intimacy that did her reputation no good with outsiders. However, she forced herself to turn at the door and say civilly, “Of course. How can I help you?”
“Take a look at this.” He waved an expansive arm toward his easel. “What do you think?”
Reluctantly, she walked back into the room and halted a few feet from his easel. The painting was the one he had begun at dinner the previous night. Only most of the people in the foreground had been painted over. There remained only Anne. Kenneth, who had been at her side, had been replaced by a decent likeness of Sir Marcus. Philip had caught something of his straight, almost arrogant stance, the aura of decisiveness and power. Only the humor was missing from his face. Either Philip did not see it, or he could not reproduce it.
But then, she realized, Philip had only ever been a competent artist. He had not grown into a great one.
“I like the background scene through the window,” she said. “But what happened to all the young people?”
“They were too alike,” he dismissed them. “Made for a dull painting. It needed contrast, gravity, and I had observed Dain enough to paint him.”
“Perhaps your host would have a been better choice in the circumstances,” she hinted.
“The house is our host. And there is no connection between Anne and Lord Overton.”
Helen frowned. “Mr. Marshall, if you still believe there is one between Anne and Sir Marcus, you are very wide of the mark. Sir Marcus is betrothed to Mrs. Robinov.”
Philip dropped the brush he still held and swore beneath his breath. Bending to pick it up, he demanded, “When did this occur
?”
“I believe it has been an understanding between them since the death of her husband.”
“I had heard the rumors,” Philip said gloomily.
“What rumors?” she asked, and then could have bitten her tongue.
“That he never married because he carried a torch for the English wife of his foreign friend. In some stories, she was his mistress first.”
Helen knew she shouldn’t have asked. There was certainly a friendship, an intimacy between them that hurt her. She had never had any right to be hurt.
“Then you realize your hopes of a match between him and Anne would never have borne fruit,” she managed.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Philip said vaguely. “Dain is a proud man, and Mrs. Robinov is an aging nobody, unlikely to give him an heir. And, of course, she has a questionable family.”
Helen blinked. “What makes you think that?”
“Oh, something the children said when they came in.” He threw his brush down in a box. “Must we talk about them?”
“By no means,” she said calmly. “If you will excuse me…”
“No, wait, Helen, I meant only I would rather talk about us, about you.”
“I am employed as governess,” she pointed out. “Not to chatter with my employer’s guests.”
“The children will not miss you for ten minutes.”
She realized he was following her across the room and turned to face him. “What is it you wish to say?” she asked discouragingly.
“That I think of you a great deal. That over the years…and particularly over the last week or two, I have often regretted the decision we made ten years ago.”
She stared at him. “What decision?”
“To marry Phoebe.”
“I don’t believe I had any say in that. For what it’s worth, you did the right thing, and I for one, do not regret it.”
He blinked, then smiled, reaching for her hand. “Don’t say that, Helen.”
She stepped back out of his reach. “It would be more proper for you to address me as Miss Milsom.”
“You would not speak so coldly if you only knew my unhappiness,” he mourned.
“Your wife is the proper person to hear your confidences. Good afternoon, Mr. Marshall.”
She hastened from the room, every hair on her neck standing up in fear that he would follow and try to stop her. But through the open door, she was relieved to see Lord Overton stride toward the stairs, nodding to her as he went. She was safe.
It was bizarre, she thought ruefully, hurrying up to her own chamber. In those months of misery that had followed the breaking of her engagement, she would have derived so much satisfaction from his admission of regret, the acknowledgment of his mistake in choosing the wealthy Phoebe over her penniless self. Now she found it all distasteful. That he would dare now to court her in this way, in her place of employment—an employment he had necessitated ten years ago—under the same roof as his wife.
The man was an imbecile. Which said little for the taste of her nineteen-year-old self.
*
After tea, Helen was given a note from Mrs. Robinov, accepting her offer to help nurse Carla and stating she had written to Lady Overton to this effect. Accordingly, she packed her small bag and hugged the children, who threatened to ride over to visit her at the Hart if she didn’t return the day after tomorrow.
The journey, undertaken in darkness, reminded her of the earlier trip, when she had been driven alone to the Hart by Old John. On this occasion, although almost as tired of travel as she had been then, the coach was better sprung and considerably more comfortable.
The innkeeper immediately took her bag from her at the door and led her across the hall. Mrs. Robinov rushed downstairs to welcome her, taking both her hands. “Thank you for this! I do not think I can stay awake for another night. What a terrible day it has been!”
The wariness Helen had always felt toward this woman vanished into instant sympathy, for there was no doubting her genuine distress. “I am glad to help, if I can.”
“Come up. This will be your bedchamber. It was Marcus’s, but he has moved his things in with Kenneth.” She waited for Helen to deposit her bag, then led her across the hall and pushed open the door which Helen already knew led to Carla’s bedchamber.
In the large bed, Carla Robinov looked very tiny and very ill. She breathed with obvious difficulty, her chest rattling painfully. Her whole body shivered, yet her skin was burning hot to the touch. Clearly, she was much sicker than Helen had imagined, and for the first few moments, anxiety prevented her from recognizing the man who stood over the bed, bathing the patient’s hands and face. Sir Marcus.
He stood back as Helen touched Carla’s forehead.
“What has the doctor advised?” she asked.
“To make her as cool as we can and hope the fever breaks,” Mrs. Robinov replied. “He gave us this evil-smelling tonic which we’ve been trying to pour into her mouth along with water. Some of it goes down. But she doesn’t seem to know us. She’s delirious.”
Helen nodded. “Then I shall sit with her while you have dinner. You will be no use to her,” she added, “if you stop eating and grow weak.”
“But you have not eaten either,” Mrs. Robinov objected.
“I am not very hungry, but a little supper on a tray will be welcome. And perhaps some coffee.” She removed her cloak and was vaguely surprised when Sir Marcus took it from her.
As Mrs. Robinov bustled out, Sir Marcus followed more slowly.
“Thank you for this,” he said quietly.
“What was the doctor’s opinion?” They both knew what she was really asking.
“Between you and me, he did not look hopeful,” Sir Marcus murmured. “But I remain so. If we can only bring her temperature down.” He hesitated. “If you need anything, call on Kenneth or me, not her mother. She needs to sleep.”
“I see that.”
“I’ll look in later,” he said abruptly and left the room.
*
It was a difficult night. Left to her own devices, Helen bathed not only the girl’s hands and face but her whole body in an attempt to cool her. Carla shuddered and moaned, but for a short time afterward, she did seem more comfortable. However, her breathing remained wheezy and shallow, and her cough rattled her whole body. Every two hours, Helen dribbled the doctor’s mixture into Carla’s mouth, though its only effect seemed to be to make her grimace and spit.
She seemed to dream a lot, both waking and sleeping, none of it pleasant. Helen suspected she was reliving experiences from the war in Russia, her father’s death and their subsequent escape. She would tell people off, thrash on the pillow, her legs twitching as though she were running. It was all rather distressing for Helen, so she could only imagine how Carla felt.
Before dawn, Mrs. Robinov returned. “How is she?”
“Much the same, I think. Certainly, no worse. I found bathing her whole body seemed to make her a little more comfortable, if only for a little while. I’ve just given her another dose of the medicine.”
“Bless you, Miss Milsom. Go and sleep now.”
Helen did not argue, merely took the candle, stumbled across the passage to the chamber, and fell into bed with most of her clothes on. She didn’t know if Lily had changed the sheets, but her last conscious thought as she fell asleep was that something smelled of Sir Marcus.
And she didn’t mind that. She didn’t mind at all.
*
For Sir Marcus, the only light in the darkness of Carla’s illness was that it had brought Helen Milsom under the same roof as him once more. It was strange, but her mere presence seemed to bring him hope and calm in the face of Dorothea’s terror for her daughter’s life and bewilderment over the accusations thrown at her son.
He was aware he had no right to the comfort she brought him, for he doubted it was reciprocated. How could it be? The growing closeness between them had been shattered by Dorothea’s arrival and the duty imposed by old pr
omises. And then by her announcement of their engagement. Of course, she had said it in an effort to keep Kenneth out of prison, with no idea of the pain it might cause Helen. Or him.
And now, quite uncharacteristically, he was wracked by both guilt and indecision. His duty to Ilya Robinov’s family predated any kind of understanding or longing between himself and Helen. Explaining everything to her would surely just add to her pain. And he could not doubt that pain. He had seen it in her eyes, in her stiffness with him since leaving Steynings. She had been betrayed before. His explanation might salve her pride, but make things harder for her in the long term.
He needed to speak bluntly to Dorothea. But for now, everything took second place to making Carla well again. He could only try his best to support that effort, and do whatever had to be done when her fate was decided. He wasn’t normally a praying man, but he prayed now, intensely, for his friend’s daughter.
Only Kenneth could coax his mother out of the sick room for a meal or a brief walk in the fresh air. On those occasions, Marcus allowed Anne Marshall to be quite useful in cheering both Robinovs, while Marcus guarded the sick room.
It broke his heart to see the beautiful, lively child he remembered in such a condition. In fact, as he replaced the cold cloth on her forehead, rare tears pricked at the back of his eyes. “Bear up, my dear,” he whispered. “Be strong and defeat this, too…”
A knock on the door jerked his head up in time to see Helen walk in and close the door.
“You are up early considering when you went to bed,” he remarked.
She ignored that. “How is she?”
“Much the same. Her mother has gone for a much-needed walk with Kenneth and Anne Marshall.”
She nodded and gave a shiver, glancing at the open window.
“I thought it might help cool her,” he said.
Again, she nodded and went to the other side of the bed, leaning over to feel Carla’s forehead and wrist.
Watching her, he said abruptly, “Have you eaten?”
The Weary Heart Page 12
