Frail
Page 17
“I’m here,” Gordon answered in a low, calm tone. He was leaning against an oak, his arms and ankles crossed. “She doesn’t know, does she?”
“I’m your commanding off—” Theo caught himself and inwardly cursed. “Your employer,” he finished. “You don’t question me.”
Gordon scratched the raised scar running up from his jaw. “You’re letting her fall in love with you.”
“I warned you! You don’t speak to me like that.”
Gordon’s jaw worked. “Very well,” he pushed himself off the tree with his boot heel. “I’ll take Efa, and we’ll go back to her family. I won’t be party to this. We came here so we could live free and with clean consciences, not watch you destroy a broken woman and yourself.”
“Go to hell.”
Gordon tipped his hat and started to walk away.
“Wait.” Theo leaned over, resting his shaking hands on his knees. “I’ll tell her the truth,” he whispered. “God help me, I’ll tell her.”
∞∞∞
Humiliation stung Helena as she hurried down the hill back to Emily’s. Theo didn’t even stand up for her or upbraid his insolent employee. She had spilled her heart in that kiss—all her raw fears surfacing. What she couldn’t feel for Jonathan easily arose in her breast for Theo. She could love him. She knew it from the first moment she saw him in London.
But he must not feel the same. Whatever tenderness was in that kiss, he didn’t want.
Why did she give herself to people who would only hurt and reject her? Like her father, like all her false friends in London?
Ahead, Megan was walking up the hill. “I couldn’t find you,” she called. “Had you gone to Theo’s?”
Helena broke into a run. Megan pulled up next to her. “What’s wrong?” the girl cried. “Did Theo upset you?”
Helena couldn’t answer, but flew around the hedges and into her cousin’s garden.
“Helena!” Megan called. “Stop!”
Helena rushed up the stairs to her chamber. She sank on the floor by the bed.
Megan beat at the door. “Please, let me in!”
“I need… I desire to be alone. Please,” Helena pleaded, burying her face in her knees. She wanted to cry, but couldn’t. She remembered the same hollow sensation the first days after her father’s death, when the enormity of the situation was too much to grasp.
The door creaked open.
“Don’t listen to Theo,” Megan said. “If you leave, you will hurt Mama.”
Helena raised her head and stared out the window at the quartz-blue sky and the old castle tower. “If I stay, I will hurt your mother, too. You have to see that I don’t belong here.”
“I’ll think of something to make things better.” Megan knelt beside her. “I’ll find a way. I shall. ”
Helena kissed Megan’s forehead and embraced her. She didn’t have the wherewithal to tell her it was more important than ever to leave.
∞∞∞
Helena didn’t sleep that night. Her mind circled the tulip labyrinth, flower by flower. At breakfast, she braced herself to tell Megan and Emily of her intention to leave. But before Helena could speak, Emily launched into a plan to thoroughly clean the house. She didn’t speak of Sunday’s disaster, instead forced a pretense of normality, as if she could scrub all their demons away. This week the rugs were to be hung in the barn and beaten, the chairs aired in the sun, and the floors were to be mopped down with oil. She spoke fast and firmly, not giving Helena or Megan a chance to interrupt.
From outside, where the branches swished in the breeze, a flash of black and gray caught Helena’s eye.
“Reverend Jeffries!” Megan shouted and bolted up, shaking the table.
The reverend held his hat against the wind and used his free hand to unlatch the gate. In the crook of his elbow swung a basket, its contents covered in a white linen cloth. He caught the women watching and waved, his booming “Good morning” was audible through the thick glass.
“Oh, heavens,” Emily said. “You can never get a complete thought out before some gentleman interrupts you.”
Helena didn’t want to see Reverend Jeffries again. She wanted to tell Emily and Megan her decision—to make a nice, clean break and be done with it. But now the reverend’s arrival pushed everything back, making Helena hold the weight of her unspoken words even longer.
A chilly gust accompanied him into the hall.
“I’ve brought honey and scones.” He tugged on the cloth in his basket. “My housekeeper was appalled when I told her how many of your scones I consumed.”
“Oh, how lovely,” Emily said, as Megan took the man’s basket. “Do come by the fire and warm up.”
“Aye, I don’t mind the elements,” he said, removing his hat, letting his gray curls spring from captivity. “I’ve been out in the bluster for hours now. Back and forth I paced in my garden last night, pondering. Mrs. Molders would call for me to come inside—that I would catch my death of a cold—but I hadn’t found an answer… not until this morning.” He stripped off his dark gloves and jammed them into his hat as he ambled into the parlor behind the women.
“And what was that answer?” Emily queried.
“We shall have a small dinner party for Miss Gillingham this very Saturday,” he said. “People can get to know her as you and I have. Surely, this conflict will cease when they see for themselves her kind heart.”
“I knew it!” Megan threw her arms around the man’s girth. “I knew you could repair everything.”
“What is your opinion?” he asked Helena. All heads turned towards her.
No, no, let me go, she wanted to cry. Why make the misery drag out? The words trembled on her tongue, but were never voiced.
“It would be lovely,” Emily answered for her.
“Wonderful,” Reverend Jeffries said and clapped his hands together. “We will need to—”
“I don’t think I should stay.” The words burst from Helena. She closed her eyes, feeling the raw silence of the room. It was done. The words finally voiced.
“You can’t go,” Megan’s voice cracked.
“Please,” Helena pleaded. “It’s best for everyone.”
“Come now, you must have more faith.” The reverend rested his heavy, warm hand on her shoulder. “I say, let us have this dinner party and then you can decide whether you desire to stay or leave.”
“I think…” Helena whispered. She shook her head. “Please, no. This cannot work. Their opinions will not be altered.”
Emily walked to Helena, kissed her cheek, and then placed her palm over the spot. “Don’t give up so easily. Let us try.”
“You don’t understand…” Helena couldn’t finish. She couldn’t explain what had happened in Theo’s garden after the incident at church. The tears she couldn’t shed last night now blurred her vision.
“Please, if not for your own sake,” Emily said. “Then mine and Megan’s. We want you to stay.”
Helena’s throat burned too much for words. She didn’t have the strength to fight, but only nodded, conceding defeat, letting Emily embrace her. She wanted to stay so badly in this tiny family. She had felt unmoored her entire life. But she doubted Reverend Jeffries could sway the villagers… or Theo. How much longer did she have to linger in this purgatory, seeing everything she wanted just out of her grasp? She needed to give up hope and be done.
“There, there,” the reverend said, an eager glow coloring his face. He sank into Megan’s usual chair. The wood creaked beneath his weight. “So we must invite guests and plan a menu—oh, I believe the bell has rung.”
A whistle of wind blew through the hall and then the door closed. “I rudely let myself in,” Theo’s voice rang out.
∞∞∞
Helena’s lungs emptied as Theo turned into the threshold. He wasn’t wearing his long, loose coat but a gray tailored one. A simple, gold stickpin adorned his neat necktie.
His polite smile flattened to a grim line when he saw Helena.
“His keen mind?” Emily tilted her head and said tartly. “What would we want with that? No, no. We want Mr. Mallory’s keen home.”
Theo arched a brow. “Why, may I ask?”
Emily sashayed toward him and tapped a finger on his chest. “You are to host a small dinner party for Helena.”
Theo’s gaze latched onto Helena. “What is this?” he asked.
Mortification heated Helena’s face. Before she could muster an answer, Emily stepped in. “We are having a small dinner party for Helena on Saturday evening at your home. Thank you very much, Theo, for volunteering it. So kind and considerate of you.”
“Perhaps you should have consulted me?” Annoyance saturated his words.
“Well, I am now,” Emily said. “Come, be happy. It would be nothing for you to give a dinner in that mountain hall of yours. Mrs. Gordon would adore it.”
“It shouldn’t be more than ten or twelve people,” Reverend Jeffries assured him.
Theo’s jaw worked, bristling the hairs of his beard. “Miss Gillingham is in mourning. It is not proper.”
“Half mourning,” Emily corrected. “And, really, no one cares if it’s a young, beautiful miss in question. It’s just a small dinner party. Nothing improper at all.”
“Is this what Miss Gillingham desires?” Theo asked her, his voice low and raspy.
It’s not what I desire. Helena screamed in her head. I want none of this. “W… we are to have a dinner party,” she stammered. “And then I’ll choose whether I shall stay or go.”
“Ah, then, all is well,” Reverend Jeffries said. “We must plan the menu. I was thinking—”
“Reverend Jeffries, as it’s my home, I shall decide the courses.” A wry half-smile hiked the side of Theo’s mouth. “Or should I say Mrs. Gordon shall tell me my decision.”
The reverend snapped his fingers. “Then I shall invite people. I think the Rees and… and… Well, I shall find people.”
That the village reverend couldn’t readily think of whom to invite only added to Helena’s misgivings.
“You needn’t fret.” Reverend Jeffries nodded to Helena, guessing her thoughts. “It will be quite the squeeze.”
Once, all of London society vied for Helena’s attention. She and Emmagard would spend days discussing the social ramifications of not inviting someone to a ball or dinner party, for surely their absence would have been noted in a newspaper. Now she was desperate for anyone to show up for Emily’s sake. She smoothed the fabric of her dress, feeling the heat of Theo’s eyes on her. She could almost hear his thoughts, Why are you trying so hard? You’ll never belong here. I’ll never care for you as you do for me.
“Well, I should make myself busy.” Reverend Jeffries eased out of his chair. “I shall bring the guest list to you, Mr. Mallory, in the next few days. That should allow Mrs. Gordon ample time to perform her magic.”
Everyone escorted the reverend to the hall. Helena waited behind the others by the stairs. Reverend Jeffries gave Megan a huge hug, lifting her feet from the floor. “My goodness, you just keep growing.” He nodded to the others. “Good day, ladies and Mr. Mallory. And don’t agonize, Miss Gillingham. It will be a wild success, I assure you.” He donned his hat and headed into the wind.
Emily closed the door. The smile she wore turned waspish and she launched into Theo. “You stood there the entire time with a Friday face, Theo. Can you not have a little faith that this might work? Could you try to show some enthusiasm?”
“I just committed to hosting a dinner party,” he sniped.
“Please leave and don’t come back until you are in a civil mood,” Emily said.
“I confess that I came to ask Miss Gillingham if she would care to walk with me,” he said, no trace of enthusiasm or civility on his face.
“What!” Emily exclaimed. “She will catch her death out there in the wind.”
“But I would like to go,” Helena replied quietly.
∞∞∞
Theo didn’t know what to say anymore as they stood outside Emily’s door. He had paced his chamber into the early hours, words he would tell her flowing in and out of his mind. He was resolved to confess to her and vow that if she went to his parents, she would never have to see his face again. Damn Emily and the reverend for interfering. He couldn’t tell her now. Yet, for her sake, he had to do something to forge a wall between them. Something to let her know that what had happened yesterday wasn’t her fault.
But as the wind beat her hair around her face like black flames and turned her nose and cheeks red, he wanted to draw her to him and bury her head against his chest.
“Would you like to go inside and fetch a bonnet or gloves?” he asked.
“I am well.” She scanned the soaring vista.
Her pale, fragile eyes were killing him in small degrees. She resembled the lost woman he had met at the inn door not a week ago. Merely looking at her caused him physical pain. He couldn’t hurt her, but he couldn’t let her get close again.
She wrapped her fingers around his offered arm, allowing him to lead her up the stony road to his home. The wind swept against them, flapping the lapels of his coat and billowing her skirts.
He was very conscious of the pressure of her hand, the brush of her shoulders against his. She kept her head straight, focusing ahead except for when they passed the gates to his home. There, she flashed him a questioning look.
“There’s a pleasing view of the mountains around the bend,” he said.
As they curved along the hill, the ancient castle wall shielded them from the bluster. A panorama of the stony gray mountains dappled with snow opened before them. The sky was hidden behind thick cottony clouds that streamed over the mountains, being blown from the wind coming off the sea. All the while, he searched his mind for what wedge he could drive between them to keep her distant. To push away the woman he wanted so much to hold close.
He swallowed, trying to soothe his dry throat. “You should know that—”
“You mustn’t feel any guilt over what happened,” she broke in. “Or any affections that you don’t have for me. My position now is…” she shook her head. “My position in society—”
“I want you to know I highly esteem you,” he finished, not acknowledging her interjection. “It is me. I… that is, since the war, I suffer from nerves.”
She took in his words and shook her head. “But you seem so happy in your garden and with Emily and Megan.”
“I am lifted for a while, and then I sink low again. What you saw in London, that is my true nature coming to the surface.” He squinted in the distance. “My… my head is disordered, and I see things some times that aren’t there.” He paused, hating to admit the truth. “I’m unstable, as you have probably heard rumored.”
“Tell me what happened to you.” She touched his arm.
He flinched, surprising himself. “Please don’t ask me.”
“Why not?”
A rush of rage flashed out of nowhere. “Because you don’t need to know!” he snapped.
Her mouth fell open, her eyes widened with shock. His chest viscerally hurt, like grapeshot had burst inside him.
“I’m sorry.” He slicked his quaking hands down his face.
“Tell me,” she whispered. She had moved so close to him that the hem of her gown brushed his ankles.
He couldn’t. He never talked to anyone about those years at war. Not his father or brothers, not the quacks Marie lined up to cure him, or even Gordon, who had been with Theo for almost half of it. That first winter in Crimea had killed something inside of him, turning him into a shell of flesh. He was afraid to let people close enough to peer into the black nothingness inside him.
But now she stood before him, compassion tender on her face, her fingers entwining with his. “I’m so sorry, Theo.”
He stared heavenward, his e
yes wet and stinging. How he wanted to wrap her in his arms and let her kiss quiet his mind. Yet, that kiss would only dig him deeper into his deception.
He had to push her away. God knows, he didn’t trust himself. He was broken. All those things gentleman claimed were their code: honor, truth, and dignity. He knew they were flimsy lies to cover a frightening void. If he didn’t set Helena free from him, he would drag her into his hell.
“Every day was death,” he said. “Every day we would bury maybe a dozen from cholera or a hundred from Russian guns. We wrapped them… or what was left of them… in blankets and laid them in the dirt.” He stared out at the mountains, but in his mind, all he saw was the black mud of the trenches, thick with blood and sludge and reeking of human waste. “When you become callous to death you don’t know if you’re human anymore. You feel more like a reptile, living by killing.”
“I can’t imagine what you witnessed. How it must have hurt you.”
His laugh was bitter. “I was in Crimea from when we landed in Varna until two years later when a ship arrived to bring us back so we could be paraded before the Queen. I saw every battle, I won a medal, but I don’t have a single scar to show for it.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
He shook his head. “Inside, I’m as unrecognizable as any soldier who had his face blown off. This… this is why I shouldn’t have kissed you. Please, please don’t get close to me now.”
The lovely concern in her gaze weakened him. He wanted her beauty, her lips, her body. He was greedy for them. He strode ahead, putting some distance between them until he could regain his composure.
When she caught up with him, they walked beside each other, unspeaking. The castle wall curved up the hill, but the road narrowed to a stony packed path and continued along the ridge to the next peak. Below the path, the hill descended at a steep angle. Huge rocks protruded from bristly pale grass.
“Why did you go?” she asked.
Theo blew out a low, ragged breath. He had started down this painful trail and couldn’t turn back now.
“My uncles had been in battle with Wellington and my father was a good friend of Lord Raglan—the Commander in Crimea. I knew from the very beginning that I was going to be a soldier. My father was an earl, therefore I was a gentleman—courage and honor were my birthrights. These qualities were in my blood and would naturally manifest themselves on the battlefield.” He gave a derisive snort. “It was never a matter of proper training or experience. Only blood.”