Lucy smiled then, her face taking on a beatific radiance. “He is tall and mighty, with broad shoulders, strong enough to lift…why even me I suppose! He has comely features, with hair like the sun, and eyes so blue that they seemed to be formed of sapphires. But more than that, he is kind to all he meets. And generous to a fault.”
She laughed a little. “I suppose you think I go on overmuch, but he is considered beautiful by all who meet him, both in bearing and manner. It is not only I who think so.”
Helena felt a chill run through her. “He is then, a good head taller than me? With a voice that is low and deep, but who speaks with great intelligence?”
Lucy looked at her in surprise. “That is indeed so. I suspect you have seen him somewhere before?”
“I met him once in a dream I think,” Helena answered softly, trying to ignore the tremble that ran through her body.
Lucy nodded, with a somewhat wistful smile. “Many balls must seem as such to a Lady such as yourself, though he eschews society of late. He was much in demand this Season but stayed back from London this year due to certain…circumstances.”
The shadows were back in her eyes, and her hands fluttered nervously before her. “Please, I must go. I would hate to see my Lord suffer with worry over me.”
“He would worry over a servant?” Helena asked, drawing still closer though she knew the danger. One gloved hand raised to tug at her hood, to keep her face in shadows, though she angled her body away from the other all the same.
“He would worry over anyone in his household. He is that kind,” Lucy answered softly from behind him.
“We will send him a message then…”
The woman darted forward and caught at her arm. “Please no! I should not have said so much. If he knew I was here…”
“Here? You mean at this house?” Helena only just stopped herself from turning to face the woman fully. She shook her off her arm and retreated to the nook by the books. “Explain yourself.”
Lucy shrank back toward the window. “I cannot.” She glanced past the harp through the frosted panes of glass. “Look, the storm is perhaps waning. I am warm now and well fed. Truly you have been a godsend, but I need not trouble you any longer.”
“At the very least I will arrange for a carriage to take you.” Helena moved toward the door. “Give me but a moment.”
She needed that moment. As she shut the door behind her, she took a moment to drop the hood of the cloak. Her hair clung in wet tendrils to her sweaty face, making the itching worse. She clawed at the worst of it, not caring anymore that she wasn’t supposed to scratch. The urge was just that maddening.
Thankfully the hall was empty, so no one saw her transgression, though her forehead now burned from the rough treatment, it was better than that insidious itch. She went thoughtfully to the entry, trying to peer through the window next to the door, to see the storm for herself, if anything blowing wilder than ever before.
No, there was no way she could send anyone into this storm.
A short search found a maid who moved with alacrity to prepare their guest a chamber. In less time than she had supposed, she had returned to the doorway to the parlor where she paused, one hand on the knob while she considered things.
If she stayed much longer with their guest, then her aunt would grow suspicious. She had invented a task in the kitchen regarding discussion of next week’s menus that should not have taken even this long. She fully expected that soon, her deception would be found out.
But at the same time, she wanted nothing more than to find out more about this Duke, who was so noble and kind, and who apparently invaded the dreams of sleeping maidens.
I will ask but one more question. Maybe two. Then I absolutely MUST be satisfied, or I will be found out and not allowed out of my room again. I just know Aunt Phoebe would imprison me forever if she but thought I was talking to strangers in this way. Or Antony will, though it is quite clear the woman is no danger. Why she must be nigh on fifty! As if someone of such an age could be so suspicious as he thinks!
Half laughing at herself for even listening to such crazy fantasies, she pulled the hood of her cloak up and opened the door.
Her visitor was still standing by the window, not looking out, but instead her attention was on something else entirely, some small object cupped in her palm.
Even as Helena watched, she saw the cunning look come over Lucy’s face, though she seemed to waver, debating something within herself before carefully closing her fingers around the object and slipping it into her reticule.
Helena frowned, her gaze going to the table next to the window, seeing only the book there she had been reading earlier in the day.
My brooch!
Helena started forward, forgetting to clasp the cloak shut at her throat, not caring as it fell away behind her in a heap. The words that tore from her throat were nearly incoherent with rage. “What are you doing? Is this how you repay us? Where is my mother’s rose?”
Chapter 3
Lucille Davenport, late of the employ of the Duke of Durham, cowered away from Helena as the girl descended feeling like a wild thing, crazed with fury, upon the woman. She tore the reticule from the old woman’s hands, ignoring her protests, ignoring everything except the violent rage that sent sobs shuddering through her body.
“How dare you!” she cried as she drew the rose from the confines of the bag and held it up in heartbreaking triumph. “We brought you in from the storm, and this is how you repay us?”
“You do not understand…” Lucy’s hands came toward her, clasped in prayerful supplication. “I only meant—”
“To steal? Does your precious Duke know of your habits? What would he say if he knew you to be so light-fingered?”
“Please…please do not hurt me…” the woman stammered, cowering back against the window as though to escape through the glass itself into the very storm if necessary.
“Hurt you…?” Helena repeated the words and drew back, realizing how her unexpected guest stared at her face.
Helena’s fingers went to her cheeks, to her forehead, the glove coming away stained red with blood. Belatedly Helena remembered scratching wildly at her forehead, the tears of the skin beneath her assault. How must she look, her skin wild and mottled and stained red with blood, coming at a person as though a…a wild beast.
Her other hand clutched at the rose, feeling the sharp edges of the pin even through her glove. “Why must you stare? Why must you look at me so?” Helena wailed, drawing the hood of the cloak up, despite the fact that the damage was well and truly done.
“I was not…I never meant…it was all a misunderstanding!”
Helena lifted the pin so that the firelight reflected off the facets of each individual ruby, setting the pin itself ablaze so that the rose was illuminated as though it had a life of its own. “This is quite the misunderstanding,” she mocked before drawing back away from the other. “For heaven’s sake, go sit down. You can barely stand.”
The woman sank into the chair by the window, the very one Helena had vacated. Her slender frame shook with sobs as she bowed her head, burying her grief in her hands. “You do not understand.”
“Then make me understand,” Helena replied, throwing up her hands. “Help me to make sense of this all. For I understand not why you would steal from me if you are honestly in the employ of a man of such obvious wealth and breeding.”
“Then you know him?” Lucy asked, raising her tear-streaked face hopefully in Helena’s direction.
“I know of him,” Helena replied cautiously, for in truth she knew only the name. But then she only ever knew the names through the stories her aunt told her, tales carried from her own socials or teas.
Oddly enough, this was one such name that had stood out, perhaps by dint of the sheer number of times it had been repeated. Aunt Phoebe had a certain fascination for the Duke of Durham.
The woman sprang at her, falling to her knees in front of Helena and clutching at
Helena’s cloak with fingers that shook. “Pray, do not tell him what I have done. I had…a need. A situation that called for some…funding. I saw the pin and thought perhaps that such a small thing might not be missed. It was foolishness on my part. I have never…”
“You have never, perhaps, but you did all the same here tonight,” Helena said, trying to pry the woman’s hands from her clothing before she lost the cloak again, revealing her shameful appearance for a second time that night. Once was enough. “What thing is so desperate in need of money that you would risk so much for the sake of a single pin?”
The woman moaned, drawing away, curling within herself, her face twisted in grief so deep that Helena’s heart beat hard within her breast. What could cause such overwhelming grief, such desperation that would cause a woman to take such an unlikely chance?
The storm. She came out in the storm because she needed money. Not to rob. To talk to someone else on this street about a loan perhaps. Only she was turned away, hence her attitude when faced with the storm. Storms cannot possibly matter when faced with so much turmoil within.
Helena drew back, unsure what to do. Someone of a finer heart than hers likely would have forgiven her already and set about to see what could be done to remedy this woman’s situation. Did she have some relative in trouble? Some terrible debt to pay?
I am not so fine as all that. Perhaps this is a flaw within my own character that I am still angry. But this was my mother’s brooch. And while I kept her safe from the storm, she repaid me thus. Is it not right that I be more than a little put out by the entire affair?
Helena felt the anger rekindle within her breast. “Do you not have an answer for me, then?” she asked, her tone mocking. “Or does it take too much time to concoct a lie suitable for the occasion?”
“No. No lie. Only the truth.” Lucille rose unsteadily to her feet, seeming to pull herself up by sheer will. “I am many things, but I am not a liar,” she said, raising her chin somewhat. “But I cannot share with you my reasoning without a promise from you in return.”
“A promise?” Helena asked, drawing back a little in shock. “Whatever can I promise you? If you are worried about the constable…”
Lucy shook her head. “No. If you had wished to cause that kind of scandal, you would have called for someone to summon the constabulary the moment you realized what I had done. This is another sort of promise altogether.”
Helena lifted a hand to her cheek, brushing her fingertips over a spot that had been troubling her for some time. It was so very difficult to not scratch, especially as she had noticed that the rash that plagued her was so much worse when she was distressed, as she was now.
“Tell me,” she said carefully, aware that she was dealing with someone who had already proven herself clever on more than one occasion. “What makes you think you can trust my promise?”
At this Lucy smiled a little. “It is plain to see that you are a lady who prides honor over all else by the very means by which you had me brought here, and my every need attended to.”
This was perhaps true enough, though Helena was not one to be won over easily by mere flattery. “What is this promise then?”
“That you tell no one what I am about to tell you.”
A confidence then. Helena sank down onto a chair, careful that her face remained hidden, though it seemed foolish now that she had been seen already once. Besides, the cloak was very hot. With a sigh, she pushed the hood back from her sweaty face, ignoring the quick intake of breath from her guest. “Tell me then and I will decide whether ’tis worthy of the promise.”
She was being unreasonable, but Lucy nodded, accepting this. Taking a deep breath, she began. “I have already told you that I serve the Duke of Durham. What you need to understand is that I have tended him since he was a child. I was his nurse, and so am privy to information that the rest of the household is not.”
Helena nodded. Her own aunt had taken that role with her, and she understood well that nature of the position.
“What is not widely known, is that the Duke’s entire fleet was lost in a hurricane in the West Indies little more than a fortnight ago. In this disaster, it was found that his business partner had been…less than forthright with him regarding his holdings. He has stolen from him, great amounts of money. As of this moment, the Duke is…without means, save his own houses.”
There was much unsaid in the story, but Helena also appreciated the raw honesty. She stared at the brooch still clutched in her hand. Each brilliant petal worth so terribly much. As a whole, a priceless beauty. “You thought to help him,” she said softly.
Lucy nodded, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “I thought that such an exquisite piece would perhaps fund another voyage, one that would enable him to build his fortunes again. That done quietly…no one need ever know. I thought…well, I thought that once the fortune was made, you could have been repaid…with interest even.”
For a moment it was hard to breathe. An entire ship and a fortune built upon a single pin? It seemed incredible…but also entirely possible.
The Duke of Durham was a good man. Had not Aunt Phoebe sung his virtues often enough when she had come in from an outing where he had been sighted? Not that he and Aunt Phoebe moved in the same circles. But she had an uncanny knack for attending the various musicales that he loved. She had only good things to say about the man.
What if she were in a position to help him?
She felt the edges of the pin with her fingers. She had never known her mother. Anne Barrington had died giving birth to her only child. What would she say in this situation?
Helena found herself rising to face her guest. It would be such a simple matter to give the pin to the woman. A small piece of jewelry could stand between a man and complete and utter ruination. It was not too late — her Aunt thrived on gossip. She’d know if the Duke’s change in fortune had been broadcast about. If it were still a secret, would not the noble thing to do, be to help? To think of it, as Lucy had said, as a loan?
No. A gift. She did not want the Duke to be beholden to her. She opened her mouth to say as much when a thought occurred to her. “Is the Duke a proud man?” she asked, drawing her hand back, and feeling the edge of the pin cut into her palm. The pain was at once sharp and a relief.
“How do you mean?” Lucy asked, looking up at her with troubled eyes. “If you are asking whether he would be unhappy to hear of my actions, I assure you he would be. I have done a thing which has reflected badly upon his household.”
Helena waved that away as inconsequential. “Pray do not start crying again. It only occurs to me that he would not be one to accept a gift of such magnitude, would he? From what I have heard of his nature, he would be shamed by such.”
For a moment bright hope flared in Lucy’s eyes only to fade. “You have the right of it. Even had I brought him the means he would have been most unhappy with me and refused the gift outright. I was not thinking.”
“What if it were not a gift?” Helena drew Lucille to her feet and pressed the rose into the other woman’s hands. “I am using it to purchase a service from him. A thing that only he can do.”
“He is hardly a common laborer…” Lucy said uncertainly, glancing around the room. “And I fail to see what you could possibly need.”
“A suitor,” Helena said all in a rush, hardly daring at her audacity. “I wish to be courted. What say you? Will he agree?”
Lucy’s eyes opened wide. “A suitor?”
“A suitor. I would purchase the company of a Duke. Look at the petals of the rose. Five of them. Five priceless rubies. One visit for each.”
“You wish him to marry you?” Lucy asked, drawing back in horror.
“Oh la, no!” Helena laughed and stood back. “LOOK at me! I would never be so bold as to even imagine such a thing. I am a veritable beast! No…I only…” her expression grew thoughtful. “I only wish to know what it’s like to have a gentleman come to call. To…to do the things that a gentleman
caller would.”
Helena blushed a little and laughed. “Oh, please do not look at me like that. But…perhaps…he would not mind taking me for a turn around the garden? To share tea. To…talk. I so would like to have someone just…talk to me.”
Her voice had become wistful, and she busied herself with her cloak, retrieving it from the chair. “‘Tis a ridiculous idea, I know. I likely am asking too much…” she said past the sudden lump in her throat.
Helena laughed. “I get rather caught up in my ideas, do I not? I see only how perfect it would be. Being the daughter of a Duke myself, there are limitations as to whom would be considered proper company for me, were I not so afflicted. But then…I am not exactly one suited to the world of courtships and marriages, am I?” She reached to put on her cloak.
“No…” Lucy’s voice behind her stayed her hand. “No, you are wrong. And ’tis not too much to ask at all.”
“You think not?” Helena took a shaky breath, the sudden surge of hope making her chest burn with a strange tightness. “It is not too strange a thing for me to demand your Master return to this house for your transgressions?” she asked, shaking her head and thinking what an absolute fool she was acting to even question it.
Lucy faced her, having drawn herself up straight and sure, her eyes burning with intensity. She looked at the rose in her hand, before curling her fingers around it. “I will see to it,” she said with quiet determination.
She meant it. Dear God in heaven, she meant it. “Five visits?” Helena asked, breathless.
“Five,” Lucy said with a firm nod. “In exchange for this rose, I will myself see to it that James Campbell returns to this house five times.”
“Not out of pity though. Please. Don’t tell him…” she gestured toward her face, “As payment. A business transaction. His company for the space of five afternoons. No expectations of a genuine courtship. Nothing…untoward. Just…just enough…”
Enough to not feel alone. Enough to know what it was to be like other girls her age. Enough to be normal.
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