Declan took a gamble.
Keeping his face neutral, he said, “Likely you are right, miss. Perhaps you could ask her?”
Camille stared at him a long moment and then said, “Perhaps I could.”
She moved to the door and slipped inside. When she emerged a half minute later, her expression was the slightest bit conspiratorial.
“Go on, then,” she said. “Be quick about it. Madame Layfette is in rare form, thanks to Helena. My sister specializes in giving people fits.”
Declan gave a curt nod and watched the younger woman walk away. When he was certain she’d gone, he edged to the crack in the door.
“My lady?” he whispered.
“Shaw? Come in!”
Declan slipped inside, shut the door, and turned the lock.
Pivoting a half circle, he scanned the room. Lady Helena was on the dais in the corner, her familiar black hair and cream skin a blur in his peripheral vision.
He moved on, seeing bolts of fabric, a trolley of sewing tools, a cat asleep on a cushion by the grate.
“She’s here,” he said, taking the long way to the window and positioning himself sideways to peer out. “I’m certain it’s her. Arrived not five minutes ago. Young. Blonde. Expensive looking. And believe or not, she’s alone. I saw her go into—”
He stopped.
His attention was finally, unerringly, fixed on Helena.
She was half-dressed in loose, diaphanous green silk. Her hair down and her feet bare. He saw the perfect outline of her body through the silk, every shade and texture, every dip and swell. She was a fantasy standing before him.
Declan’s mind went blank.
“What?” Helena asked, baring a shoulder as she stooped to collect a swath of silk and step from the dais. The movement sent lingerie billowing and flowing like froth on a clear sea. Through the fabric, he saw long thin legs, a flat belly, and small breasts with dusky pink tips.
“You saw her go . . . ?” she prompted.
Declan fought to keep up. He fought to remember anything but the overwhelming sight of her, mostly naked, before him.
“But did she go far?” Helena asked. “How did she look? Was she beautiful?”
There is no beauty beyond you, he thought. He could not form the words.
“Declan?” she demanded.
“I . . . I cannot form words,” he admitted.
“What?” she snapped. “But why not? Are you—”
And then she followed his eyes, looking down at the outline of her body in the green silk.
“Oh,” she said. Her head popped up, her eyes wide. Color rose in her cheeks.
“Yes,” she said. Her voice was raspy. “Perhaps it’s not so very bad.” Her nipples hardened into pebbles beneath the thin fabric, and Declan’s mouth went dry.
“Not bad at all,” he agreed. He took a step toward her.
“I’ve told Madame that I hate it. She flew into a rage and they’ve gone to make some change.” She licked her lips, staring at his mouth. “Lucky for us. She’s only been gone five minutes. So we may . . .”
She splayed a hand on her neck, the languid sort of gesture of someone who needed to feel touch.
Declan would kill, he thought, to fulfill that need.
“I’m glad someone will see it, I suppose,” she went on. “I would never wear it in the company of Lusk.”
Declan took another step toward her. His brain snagged on the words Lusk and wear it in the company of, and he heard little else. He was filled with the kind of violent opposition that starts wars.
“Helena,” he breathed.
“Yes?” A whisper.
“Helena,” he repeated. Lust was an iron stake, pinning him to this moment. He saw only her.
“We mustn’t.” Another whisper. She began shaking her head. Her hair swayed down her back in a soft, black curtain. “You made this mandate. In the armory, you said no more. And in the carriage. Every time is the last time—that is what you say.”
“I shouldn’t be here,” he rasped.
“It should be only you,” she said, and Declan’s heart squeezed.
She went on. “I want . . . I want one hour when it is only you and me. A very long, very private hour. But—” She drew a long, ragged breath. “We are less alone in this moment than we’ve been since the beginning. Madame could return any moment.”
“Yes.” He couldn’t look away.
“Yes.” A thoughtful smile. “So . . . let us endeavor to stay on task?”
“Yes.”
She made a purposeful turn, presenting him with a knee-weakening view of her anterior.
She spoke to a nearby chair. “Tell me about Lady Genevieve?”
Declan’s brain still had not caught up. He watched her trudge to the chair and sink into it, gathering the frothy green silk around her like suds in a bath.
In his mind’s eye, Declan saw himself coming to her, dropping to his knees before the chair, dipping a hand into—
“Declan!” she insisted.
Declan spun and faced the wall. “She’s here—yes. Lady Genevieve. In the street. I’ve just seen her.”
“Yes, yes, but how does she look?”
“Ah.” He stared at the wall. “She has a dog.”
“What? A dog? What care have we for a dog? Is she the sort of girl who might appeal to Lusk?”
Declan shrugged his shoulders. “She looked very . . . happy. She smiles unceasingly. She has a bit of a lunatic smile.”
He turned, forcing himself to look only at her face.
“Unceasing, lunatic smile. I need more. I must see her myself.”
She shoved from the chair and began to pace. “But how can I get outside to see her? Madame won’t return my dress until she is satisfied with this . . .” she gathered up a puff of green silk and flounced it, “. . . and I can hardly go out wearing transparent green silk.”
He stared at her, watching the fabric settle around her body.
Helena put a stiff palm over her eyes and blew out a frustrated breath. Speaking slowly, she said, “If you do not say something or plan something, I will sort it out myself.”
“Right,” he said. “Forgive me. I was unprepared for your—”
“Yes, yes, I’m only half-dressed—”
“You consider this half-dressed—”
“Declan!”
“Yes, alright,” he said, snapping to. “Here’s the plan. I’ll find a seamstress and bribe her. We’ll have her bring you something else to wear, a . . . matron’s robe or something loose and shroud-like that won’t require a corset or petticoats. The inventory in this shop should offer several choices.”
“Yes, yes. Thank you.” Her impatience was clear, but she listened.
“When you’ve changed, I’ll steal you into the alley, and you can approach the girl in the stationer’s shop, assuming she’s still there.”
“Very great assumption,” she said. “Good. Fine. Let’s give it a go. But can you really locate something else for me to wear?”
Declan could. He prowled the corridor until he game upon a seamstress. He bribed her with half a crown to produce some suitable dress. Next, he bade the same girl to stand guard at the dressing room while Declan and Helena slipped out. She was to warn any inquirers that Lady Helena was indisposed and not to disturb her for at least twenty minutes. Finally, the same girl agreed to clear the corridor when they returned and allow them to slip back inside without detection.
Every piece of the plan, from the jittery seamstress, to the heavy, gray wool dowager’s gown, to the chance that Lady Genevieve was still nearby, felt tenuous and combustible and highly, highly unlikely. In all his years of stealth and tracking, Declan had never embarked on anything so wildly extemporaneous and risky.
But Helena moved through the motions with a patient, deliberate sense of calm. Her determination was as cold and hard as steel.
Declan had not not believed her so much as hadn’t understood the lengths to which she was willing to g
o. Even her sprint through the rain in front of Lady Canning’s had seemed more like an elaborate show of protest than a high-stakes piece of a larger plan.
Now, as he stole her out the back door and into the muddy alley, her jaw set, her voice light and reassuring to the blotchy seamstress who watched them go, she had the bearing of someone bent on survival. It rivaled his own resolve to exonerate his name or the will of any soldier he’d ever seen fighting to the death on a field of battle.
“You can speak with her inside the stationer’s shop,” he told Helena quickly. “It’s a large shop with a maze of shelves and counters. But you’ll have more time and privacy if she can be drawn outside. Duck between shops or settle on a bench. Say the script, just as you told me. You’ll be brilliant.”
“Or I’ll be laughed from the shop,” she said, and she smiled at him, her green eyes full of excitement and hope. Declan’s heart lurched again. He experienced the strange feeling of slowly ripping in two, the old, self-serving, solitary part of himself separating from the part that was consumed with an untouchable, unattainable woman, so far out of his class.
But now she was gone. The bell on the stationer’s shop door jingled, and Helena and her pile of gray wool trailed into the dim interior.
Declan looked right and left, his adrenaline pumping as if he’d been pursuing a highwayman. He tried to peer into the shop window, but saw only his reflection. He blinked at his face, a man doing a highly reckless, improbable thing on the pretense of exoneration and family. What a liar.
Swallowing hard, he slouched into the subordinate posture of a servant. He strolled past Madame’s window and checked the showroom. The Lark women were clustered around an open box of baubles. Camille Lark looked up, catching his gaze.
Declan took a deep breath and circled back. He returned to the alley and checked the seamstress who stood guard. No one had come.
Again in the street, he made another circuit, taking the long way around, returning to the stationer’s shop from the other direction. When at last the door came into view, he faltered. He could not trust his eyes.
Helena emerged from the shop with Lady Genevieve on her arm. The two young women walked together, their heads bent in conversation. The smile on Lady Genevieve’s face had the sharp, cold point of a scythe. Her expression was so avaricious it sent a chill up Declan’s spine. Behind the duo, the girl’s forgotten dog whimpered and trotted along.
Declan trailed them half a block, keeping back fifteen yards. When they reversed their course, he kept pace in the alley, out of view. He caught sight of them at each gap between buildings. They walked close together, oblivious to passersby.
When he turned the corner at the modiste’s shop, Lady Genevieve was gone and Helena stood by the edge of the building alone.
“What’s happened?” he asked, darting to her.
Helena turned and beamed up into his face. “She’ll do it,” she said. “She very keen to be a duchess—to put it mildly. She wants to have a go.”
Chapter Twelve
Seven Duchesses (Potential)
Happy ✓
The next day dawned cold and gray, with the windy threat of rain. By eight o’clock, the garden outside Helena’s window had been drummed into a wet tangle of gold and red. Undeterred, Helena continued to dress. She would travel to Wandsworth today, she would meet the next potential duchess, she would—
The note came with breakfast, a fastidiously folded rectangle balanced on her tray. She flipped it open with a sigh.
My lady,
How crestfallen we are over today’s inclement weather. Such an unreliable time of year. Because of this, the duke and I are grappling with a postponement of today’s planned outing.
His Grace does look so very forward to squiring you about his Home Farm, but he would not expose you to what is certain to be slow travel on muddy roads, not to mention a cold drenching the moment you step foot from the carriage. I am thinking also of your family.
Would you wait and tour the farm another, fairer day?
Yours,
Uncle Titus
Helena’s scowled at the note. She’d never understood why the duke sent notes back and forth through his uncle. Why didn’t he write himself if he thought it was too wet to ride?
Because he doesn’t want to go, she thought. In any weather.
If they did not go as planned, the day would be shot; they would not go anywhere at all. There were only nine days until “Uncle Titus’s” blasted birthday. She didn’t have rainy days to spare.
Helena had never heard of Wandsworth nor realized that wealthy London aristocrats enjoyed “home farms” on the outskirts of London, but Shaw had known, and he’d made the connection between their tour of Lusk’s farm and another of their potential duchesses, Lady Moira Ashington. Wandsworth boasted a large market, and Lady Moira was a devoted customer of a so-called “healer” who peddled her drafts and poultices from a market stall.
Taking up pen and parchment, she wrote:
Sir,
I am grateful to Lusk for thinking of my comfort. The onset of winter can be an adjustment. However, I am a country girl at heart and undeterred by wet roads.
Pity, too, because the Home Farm tour was of particular interest to me. I can feel hemmed in if I remain in London overlong, and that says nothing of my relentless curiosity of the natural world. Considering this, I can honestly say that I’d prefer a wet tour of the farm to no tour at all. My family is simply happy to be included.
But please do not let my enthusiasm inconvenience the duke. Of course we can wait for sunshine. Or, if Lusk prefers, I am happy to ride to Wandsworth alone. Thinking back, I cannot remember our ever discussing his Home Farm, which leads me to believe he may be ambivalent about the property. Meanwhile, it will be a rare treat for me.
I remain, as ever, His Grace’s humble and willing guest.
Signed,
Lady Helena Lark
She folded the parchment and thrust it at her lady’s maid, Meg.
Be nimble and opportunistic, she thought.
Stay as close to the truth as possible.
Shaw’s advice, combined with her own turn of phrase, elicited a reply from Girdleston within a half hour.
“My warmest cloak, Meg,” Helena told her lady’s maid, tossing Girdleston’s note into the fire. “The trip is on. I’ll need something to keep out the wet. The crimson?”
Her suggestion of ambivalence from Lusk had done it. They would persevere.
A half hour later, Helena was being handed into the lead carriage. Girdleston designated that the future bride and groom should ride alone together except for “one of your dear sisters. Just a small nod to propriety . . .”
And so Camille rode beside Helena, immersed in a book. Outside, rain drummed on the roof of the carriage. Declan Shaw was an outrider on her vehicle; she could see his powerful bicep through her window. She’d just managed to swing out the glass when Lusk climbed inside.
“Your Grace,” she said.
The duke made no answer. He flashed her a resentful look and collapsed onto the opposite seat. In irritated, exaggerated movements, he began to unscrew the lid of a metal flask. He took an elaborate swig, leveling her with flat, tired eyes.
She tried again. “Thank you for pressing on to Wandsworth despite the rain. Perhaps the storm has already passed into the south.”
He took another long swig from the flask and smacked his lips. “Perhaps the storm has passed into the south,” he repeated in a nasally, singsongy voice.
He was mocking her. Helena blinked at the unexpected cruelty. Camille looked up from her book. The duke raised his brows at the two of them, daring a challenge, and then fell back against the seat. He tipped his face to the ceiling.
“I know what let’s do!” he said in an obnoxious voice, too loud for the small carriage. “Let us drag ourselves to the most godforsaken part of London in the freezing rain to look at goats!” He laughed.
Helena looked at Camille. Her si
ster stared back with an expression of confused horror.
As a rule, the Duke of Lusk was not biting or sartorial or even particularly lucid. It occurred to Helena that, for once, he must be sober. Beneath the liquor and snuff, was Bradley Girdleston simply . . . hateful? A cold tremor of anxiety stiffened the back of her neck.
Beside her, Camille slid a gloved hand over her arm. Helena blinked at it, unaccustomed to any show of warmth from her sisters. She smiled at Camille and turned back to the duke.
“How fortunate you are to cultivate your own produce, even in the city,” she said. “But surely you cannot begrudge a property that puts food on your table and wine in your cellar?”
He took another swig from his flask, still staring at the ceiling. “I do begrudge it. Farms? Don’t care. Farm homes? Don’t like. Wandsworth? I’d rather drown.”
Helena swallowed hard, pressing on. “Well, I’ve heard the house is lovely. Perhaps you can find a comfortable spot near a warm fire while I nose around the orchard and hothouses. I’ve been told a stream on the edge of the property runs so thick with trout you can stand on the bank and see them jump.”
“I wouldn’t know,” he intoned in that too-loud voice.
She tried again. “Are you fond of the ale from your brewery?”
“Less talking,” he mumbled. “More not-talking.” He never lifted his head.
Helena nodded and looked away. It was always like this. She’d tried for years to appeal to him about their obvious unsuitability, about the control exerted over him by his uncle, about any earnest topic at all. She’d even asked him why he continued to welcome a fiancée who repeatedly ran away. He’d always ignored her, or deflected the questions, or passed out. There was usually more giggling or belching or pretending he could not hear her, but perhaps he was beginning to feel the pinch of their encroaching wedding. Perhaps the foolishness was being burned away and only panic remained. Certainly, she felt something akin to panic. She’d not expected to find harshness at the core of Bradley Girdleston, but then again, she’d not really known the duke at all.
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