So she told him of how Maggie went largely unpaid, and how the dower house brought her a small sum when she rented it out. Explaining how very little it cost to live in Bartle, she told him that she had no need of ball gowns, after all, nor a score of new dresses every season. At this he gave a significant look at her attire, but she distracted him from comment by detailing the bartering system she employed for most of their food. As she spoke, she became aware of the way he had about him of making her feel quite relaxed. It was nothing he did, or said. He had a presence that caused her to feel comfortable, and the words tumbled out of her, regardless of any reserve she had felt only moments before.
"And do you not feel the loss of your former life?" He spoke lightly but his eyes were fixed intently on her, and she felt this was more than simple curiosity. "You don't ever wish for a bit of velvet, or a carriage for travel?"
"I have enough for my needs, my lord, and those are things that I do not need. Even you have survived this last half hour without those imperative goods," she said with a smile.
He gave an answering smile, another burst of warmth. "True enough, I have. And I see that as you said, you do well enough without the wealth to which you were born. I doubt that many others would adjust so easily."
She felt herself blush faintly at the compliment, and the lingering effect of his singular smile. She wanted to ask after her brother's wife, and could not find a way to lead up to it. Well, he wouldn't be tricked into saying anything, nor would he simply not notice her interest, so she must swallow her pride and be prepared to ask it outright.
She rehearsed the words over and over in her head before finally forcing herself to voice them. "And will Lady Whitemarsh be interested in my situation, too?"
Immediately she felt his quick look, the razor-sharp focus that would not fail to note the eagerness in her. He doesn't miss a thing, she thought ruefully. But he answered easily.
"She will, yes, though I do not think it wise to tell her I have found you. She might ride through the night to come here and see you with her own eyes, most likely with your brother dragged by the ears."
Gratifying as it was to think of Alex being dragged anywhere by a woman, she could not return his grin.
"She wants so badly to find me, then?" Perhaps she wished to come here and begin a lecture on the grief that had been brought to Alex, to rail at Helen as Alex had, so long ago.
"Lady Whitemarsh has told me that she longs for a sister, someone to tell her about her husband's youth." His voice had taken on a tone of reassurance, and she cursed herself for letting her apprehensions show so clearly. "I have met her only briefly, but she made no secret of her impatience with Lord Whitemarsh in regards to you."
A hundred questions about Lady Whitemarsh began to pile up in her mind immediately. But her pride would not allow her to ask them. She had decided that, given the opportunity, she would ask just one simple question. Now she forced herself not to care how pitiful and grasping it might sound. She could regret it later, as she most likely would regret talking to him at all.
"Will you tell me a little about her?"
He did. At great length, and with the minutest of detail, he described Elizabeth's background, her bearing, and how she had managed to catch Alex's interest (they met at a dinner party at the Duke of Thursby's home, and were bored to tears). It was more than she'd ever hoped to learn, and she did not question why Summerdale spoke so freely. She only relished the warmth in his voice when he related Elizabeth's growing determination that Alex should forgive his errant sister.
When Summerdale left, with a promise to call again on his next pass through the village, Helen was already thinking of the thousand things she would ask him next time. It was not until he was well gone that she realized he had learned more of her than she'd wanted him to and that he was still not to be trusted, no matter how much she may want to talk with him again.
Chapter 4
"November, your cousin writes, and will give us the exact date in her next letter, just as soon as she may."
They were all three sitting in the kitchen, Maggie and Marie-Anne and herself, as anxious as debutantes invited to the king's ball. It all came to this, everything they had planned for. Marie-Anne's eyes were bright with enthusiasm as she pulled Helen's hands into her own with a broad smile. Like children with sweets, thought Helen, feeling a foolish grin split across her face. You'd think the child were our own.
Helen had pictured her countless times: a girl with long dark hair and milky white skin. Her features were less defined in Helen's imaginings. She could hardly bear to think of the child's parents, and every attempt to conjure up a family likeness ended in cold sweat and nightmares. Helen had turned her thoughts over the years to the future. Bringing the child here was the first step, and after that she allowed herself to build dream castles, all occupied by the little girl she'd never known.
Katie. The name came to her a hundred times a day this last year, and often enough in the years before that. She would make dinner and wonder if Katie liked fish. She would dress for bed each night and think of the pink flowers she'd embroidered on a little white nightgown, hoping Katie would like them. On a walk through the village, she'd mentally point out every home and tell Katie about who lived where. And she'd saved just enough to get passage for the girl and Maggie's cousin to come across the sea to England, where they could live happily in this quiet village.
This girl and their plans for her had become the center of everything. Now Helen admitted it to herself, how it had slowly become her only reason for waking each day. She kept herself busy, found ways to make herself useful, and enjoyed the company of her friends. But there was no denying that her life had become, since that fateful day six years ago, a rather meaningless existence. What was the point of it all, with no family left to her, and no prospect of making a new one? There was no point, a fact that haunted her thoroughly, until she had determined to make Katie the focus of it.
This one thing, she could still do. She could care for an orphaned child, work toward that one purpose: give Katie a life worth living. Let it all have some meaning in the end, her own downfall and banishment and empty days. Only keep the child safe, and bring her here where Helen could watch her grow and thrive and live and love – and her own life would be worth living, too.
Whenever the nightmares came on her and drove her mad, whenever she found herself living in that worst moment again – smelling the smells, feeling the weight of him, tasting her own terror – it was thoughts of Katie that drove it out and brought her back to her senses. Katie will come here, she would chant to herself in the terrible night. Katie will sit safe here next to me, and I will feed her cakes and watch her laugh. Katie will be with me. Katie will be here. With each repetition, her heart would slow its wild beating. With each vision of this happy future, the visions of the unspeakable past receded into nothingness, until she was calm again.
Of course, Katie's coming also meant Maggie's leaving, a fact she had not dwelt on until now. Watching her maid gather up her bundle and hastily leave for her day of work at the Hawkins home, Helen tried to imagine a life without her friend. Maggie had always wanted to return to her family, of course. How could she not, having left so precipitously? She wanted to care for her ailing father; she wanted to start a family of her own. So she would take the ferry back there with her cousin, while Katie was safely delivered to Bartle.
Since that long-ago and horror-filled day, Katie had stayed with Maggie's family. With the little bit of money that Helen managed to send for the girl's keep, she liked to think that life was good there. Katie was sickly, she had always been. But she was also a bright girl, according to every report sent by the diligent cousin, and her prospects would be better in England. "Nothing for a girl in Ireland but maid's work, and not even that for a girl that came from a Traveling family," Maggie had said.
All that was enough to convince Helen that it wasn't her selfishness alone that brought the child across the sea. The idea
of Katie's dismal prospects paled in comparison to the danger Helen felt the child exposed to. The Odious Henley lived on the nearest estate and was the lord of the manor. He was the law in that place, a fact she had learned most definitely, and explosively. Helen greeted each letter sent for the last six years with a mixture of joy and terror, never knowing if she would be told that Katie was now teething, now walking, now learning her letters, or now discovered by Henley. She knew it was unreasonable to think that he would know of the child, or care anything about her, but reason had no place in her thoughts about Henley.
Marie-Anne's voice held a vast satisfaction. "Jack and Sally have already prepared a room, and if Sally knits one more scarf for the girl, they'll be able to stuff them all in a mattress for an extra bed."
"Do you think we should wait to tell them until we know the date of her arrival? If anything goes wrong or delays them, I don't want their hopes dashed."
Helen would happily have taken Katie in as her own, and they had discussed the possibility of saying it was a cousin, or a niece. But she knew that in spite of her own acceptance in the village, there was enough knowledge of the rumors to leave a cloud of scandal around her. Such a cloud would do no favors to a young girl come to live with her. It was a cold fact, and one that Helen had no choice but to accept: no matter how the villagers cared for her, they would no more forget what she had come from than would the fine lords and ladies in London. She would not have her own ruin follow an innocent girl around for life. Besides that, Katie deserved something of a normal life with a mother and a father, and Jack and Sally deserved a child.
They all deserved to be happy. Together. Helen was really very happy for them all. Or so she kept telling herself.
"The next letter sent will give us a more precise date, and then we'll tell the happy couple," Marie-Anne suggested. "Jack must be told, so that he can plan to take the trip. And everything will go well, of course! You worry so much, my dear."
"I do, I know, but so many things can go wrong." Helen bit her lip. "I am afraid, I think, mostly because of Lord Summerdale." They had not spoken of him yet, and it seemed to Helen that there was much to discuss. "I wish he had not come now, spying all around, sniffing out the details of my life. What if he should learn of Katie?"
Marie-Anne raised her eyebrows at this. "There is no reason he would, I think, with Jack and Sally in the next village over. And even if he did know, what of it? Besides, he's not likely to come to Bartle often."
Helen stood, agitated. "But he will. I was stupid enough to make him feel welcome to visit again, and he's come expressly to learn more about me, for the purpose of telling my brother how I get along. I don't like it, Marie-Anne!"
Her childish outburst did not ruffle Marie-Anne in the least, who only picked up the bundle of herbs on the table and began methodically to strip the rosemary from the stems. "Do not pretend to me that it doesn't please you to know your brother will learn the extent of your independence. I know the idea of a peer telling him how very much you don't need his help to get along absolutely delights me." Marie-Anne had never made a secret of her feelings toward Alex; she thought him second only to Henley in his barbarous treatment of an innocent girl. "So I think that you must mean you don't like Summerdale himself, though he seems most agreeable to me."
"Agreeable! Indeed, it's his amiability that I dislike most. He will charm you, just as he very nearly charmed me." He had no right whatsoever to inquire into her financial affairs, yet she had been as open with him as she was with her solicitor, all on the strength of his blasted friendliness. "One more smile, and I'd have taken him on a tour of the root cellar to show him how well provisioned I am for the winter."
"Well, there is something in his smile that makes a woman want to give more than she ought," observed Marie-Anne sympathetically, "and show him all sorts of delightful things. In the root cellar indeed." There was a quirk at her lips and a twinkle in her eye that Helen had not quite patience enough to tolerate.
"Oh, do stop being so very Gallic, Marie-Anne." She heard the peevishness in her own voice, and reminded herself that Marie-Anne would always choose to laugh, when she could, and that this was something she should treasure in her friend. "He is handsome, I'll admit, but he uses it well and always to his own advantage. Remember that, if you please, when he calls on you next."
"I look forward to it!" Marie-Anne laughed with delight. But she sobered at the sight of her friend's clear anxiety. "Hélène, you must believe that I will not tell him anything you don't wish me to say. I'll speak to this Summerdale about my Shipley as much as I can, to keep him off the subject of you. But you have not told me how much he already knows. Did he ask about The Odious Henley?"
Helen stiffened only slightly. They had assigned this title to Henley, deciding long ago that he deserved it. Nothing too sinister, so they could speak of him easily. He was odious, and so much more than that. But they could turn him into a character out of a bad novel by referring to him thus, and Helen preferred not to think of him as completely real. At least not when she was attempting to have a normal conversation.
"I've refused to speak of it. He did not press me on that, only offered me the chance to change my story. So I believe he must know. Alex will have told him something of it, though God knows what." She smiled grimly. "And the rumors are out there. He would have heard of it in any case."
Marie-Anne made a gratifying noise of disgust. "Rumors, not truth." She flicked her fingers. "What I want to know is what you want me to tell him. Or what it is I should not tell him."
Everything she had spoken about with Lord Summerdale rolled around in her head. Of her finances he need know no more than she had already revealed. It was the news of her new sister-in-law that intrigued her most, and the yet unknown depth of sincerity in her brother. She considered a long time while Marie-Anne waited patiently.
"I think I want to know if Alex really wants me in his life again, or if this is all the design of the new Lady Whitemarsh." She did not try to hide the quaver in her voice that betrayed her emotions. "She sounds wonderful, but she is not my brother. His affections matter to me, not hers. Not really."
It was a hard thing to admit, especially to Marie-Anne, who virtually hated Alex.
Marie-Anne sighed as she scooped the herbs into a bowl. "Well, I shall look on it as an opportunity to seek information from Lord Summerdale, then, and not as an opportunity for him to learn more about you. We shall see if your brother has any good in him at all." She stood up and laid a hand on Helen's shoulder. "I only want to prevent you from suffering more at the hands of this brother, you know. I shall scratch the eyes out of anyone who brings you any more pain," she said in a kind and gentle voice, and Helen did not doubt her every word.
"Now!" Marie-Anne exclaimed cheerily. "Let's talk of happier things, like dear little Katie, and how we will best welcome her when she comes."
Marie-Anne de Vauteuil was no empty-headed debutante, nor was she coldly calculating. What she was, Stephen decided as he sat in her sparsely furnished parlor, was a very good friend and a woman entirely confident of herself and her place in the world. It was a rare thing indeed. It was even rarer to find someone who could so deftly evade his questions.
He put on his most charming smile – she liked it, he could see – and tried again.
"Are you as contented to stay in this little village, madame, as your friend Lady Helen seems to be?"
"Bartle is a lovely village, I find. Small, and very little to entertain a man like you, I think, but the people are kind. Daniel Black is a good man, and pleasant, do you not think?"
"Yes, he was most obliging, and his son as well." He tried not to sound dismissive of this on his way to forcing the topic back to that person he wished to discuss. "They are both quite taken with Lady Helen. I understand she has been a good friend to them, and to all the villagers?"
She gave him a dazzling smile. "I am most taken with the villagers myself, you know. One can hardly keep from making friends
here, if one lives as they do."
She quite obviously wanted to be clear that he could never be seen as anything other than a lord here, and it would forever keep him apart. He hoped he would not be reduced to working in the fields in order to glean information from anyone, and thrust aside the unexpected and uncomfortable notion that he cared at all what common villagers thought of him. He once again forced the conversation back to where he wished it.
"Lady Helen seems to have made many friends here as well, despite the fact that she has not always lived as they have. Was it so difficult for her to find acceptance?"
It didn't surprise him when she ignored the question and picked up a small cake and offered it to him innocently. "Mrs. Gibbons makes the most wonderful cakes. Won't you try one? Do you know, it was a love of French pastry that brought my Richard and me together? He was looking for a chef, and–"
"Madame." He cut her off, thinking that if he heard one more inanity about Richard Shipley, or if he had to parrot the name of Lady Helen Dehaven one more time, it would drive him from the room, as she no doubt depended upon. "I am sorry to speak so plainly–"
"Hardly a thing to apologize for, monsieur."
"But I notice that you are determined to avoid speaking of Lady Helen. Yet I feel quite sure she has told you I came here in search of her."
"She has." She acknowledged it with a graceful tilt of her head.
"And will you oblige me with at least an acknowledgement that the woman exists?" he asked with some exasperation.
Her lips curved into a slight smile, a deep dimple appearing at one side of her face. "I will of course admit that she exists, my lord."
"Thank you." His exaggerated gratitude widened her smile. Since they could both talk in circles all afternoon, and had been doing so for the last ten minutes, it was time to come to the point of it before the heavy clouds rolled in from the west and opened up over his road home. But hardly had he determined to speak plainly when Mme de Vauteuil seized the initiative.
A Fallen Lady Page 5
