“My Lady? I fail to understand? Do you mean to say you wish me to deliver this message to the Duke of Durham myself?” Tess held the folded missive uncertainly in her hand, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

“Of course not, the weather is absolutely beastly. Have you ever seen such a winter for snow? No, just give it with the rest of the post to Antony, he will see that it gets delivered.” Helena said with a wistful glance at the window, thinking of another storm that had brought so much change into her life.

“You wish Antony to deliver the letter to him, then?” Tess asked, her brows knit as she puzzled this through. “I suppose that makes better sense, though I hesitate to think the interruption now would be a good thing. Begging your pardon, My Lady, but your father was in a right mood this morning.”

That was true enough. Her father had sent her a rather terse message that she was to stay in her rooms this morning until he summoned her, proving that he had not quite forgiven her the events of the previous night just yet. But how it related to the matter of one letter meant for another duke entirely, Helena could not fathom.

“Tess, your confusion has rather cast my own self into confusion. Explain yourself. What is so difficult about the posting of a letter when you have done it at least a dozen times before?” Helena asked finally, setting her pen down carefully and looking hard at the girl.

“Why I should have thought, my Lady, with the Duke right downstairs—”

“Of course, my father is right downstairs. One could hardly expect him to go out on a day such as this. But you must not mean what I think you do. Surely you do not! Has he forbidden me to WRITE to the Duke? Is that what has you all a flutter?”

Helena threw up her hands and paced in the room, nearly upsetting the small desk where she had been working to capture her anxious feelings in her journal. As it was, she did upset the ink pot which overturned, threatening not only her journal but an entire stack of foolscap as well. She dove to right the mess, bumping heads with Tess who had bolted to do the same.

“Oh please, My Lady, allow me to deal with this!” the girl cried, rubbing at her head with one hand, swabbing at the mess with a hastily grabbed cloth from the pocket of her apron with the other.

Helena retreated, still rubbing at her own forehead, which somehow turned into scratching, which of course turned into bleeding and the need to find another clean cloth to stanch the flow. With a sigh, she sat down heavily in the chair next to the fire and watched Tess work. “You have not answered my question. Am I forbidden then? Is this to be my punishment?”

“Punishment? I know not, My Lady. But you are not forbidden letters. I only found it confusing why you would wish to send one when the Duke of Durham was right downstairs.”

Helena bolted to her feet, cloth fluttering forgotten to the floor. “What do you mean? He is here? This minute?” She bolted to the window, trying to see out into the storm. “But I do not see his carriage. Are you sure? The storm is fierce?”

“I believe the carriage was taken to the stable, so the animals would not have to stand out in the storm. At least that is what Harold told me.” A soft blush stained Tess’s cheek.

Harold. It took a moment for Helena to realize that Tess meant the stableman who, according to Bridget, had been getting underfoot more often of late, coming to the house on one pretense or another.

Helena sank back into the chair, too preoccupied with her own romance to worry about Tess’s own trials of the heart, even though the gossip surrounding the many servants of the household had been one of her few entertainments until lately.

“Then my father sent for him?” she asked miserably. “He must have, else why would he be here? Oh, this has turned to a fine state of affairs.” She stared at the letter peeking from Tess’s pocket and wondered if the whole thing might be rendered moot if her father forbade her to have anything to do with her erstwhile suitor.

“I do not know, My lady.” Tess straightened and studied the surface of the desk critically before stepping back with a firm nod, the stained cloth clutched in her hands, staining her fingertips.

“You had best clean yourself up before my aunt sees you. One look at those hands and she will not let you touch my dresses again,” Helena said and bit her lip as she puzzled through this new information, turning it around in her head, wondering just how to proceed.

Tess murmured her agreement and was just reaching for the door when it opened beneath her hand. Tess was forced to jump backward out of the way as Phoebe swept into the room, not even noticing when the letter dropped from her pocket and landed at her feet.

Helena’s aunt saw it though and swept down to retrieve the missive before Tess even saw it there.

Helena started up, motioning for Tess to go before the girl got in any more trouble. The last thing she wanted was for Tess to lose her position — she had lost too many Lady’s maids at Phoebe’s hands, who had exacting specifications as to what a Lady’s maid should be. Tess had become too much of a friend to lose her now.

Tess, white-faced, fled out the door, closing it softly behind her even as Helena started forward, a smile pasted upon her face of welcome. “Aunt Phoebe! How kind of you to stop and visit. Being confined to one’s room can be most trying…”

“As it should be. You are being punished, Helena. Your behavior last night…never mind. I am sure your father will have more to say on the matter. What is this letter?” Phoebe flipped the missive over in her hand, seeing the address on the front and frowning. “You are writing the Duke of Durham?”

“To thank him for the outing last night…” Helena started, wondering if she had committed some faux pas here too.

“To apologize I should hope!” Phoebe replied, sliding her fingernail beneath the seal, breaking it.

“Please…that is for the Duke!” Helena lunged forward, trying to retrieve the letter, but Phoebe held it easily out of reach.

“What can be so important that you fight me to keep me from seeing? Oh, do not look at me like that, if there is truly nothing to hide, then you shall have no difficulty in copying a fresh letter for His Grace. This one had ink spattered across the front. Your girl has been most careless…”

Helena felt her blood run cold in her veins. “It was my accident, Aunt Phoebe. As that is my letter. I must ask that you respect my privacy—”

But Aunt Phoebe was already reading the words.

“‘I must apologize…’ yes, that is a good beginning, but what have we here…” Phoebe read further, lips moving silently until she reached the end. “What is agreement you refer to? Surely you have not done something untoward!”

Helena flinched. “It is nothing.”

“Nothing! You have told the Duke of Durham quite succinctly that he is no longer welcome in your home when you know full well that you do not carry the authority to make such a statement. He is here now, in your father’s study. I have come to inform you that you are to dress for the noon meal, though why I cannot imagine. There is blood running down your forehead, Helena.” Phoebe stared at her in absolute horror.

“But my father said I was to stay until summoned…” Helena faltered, one hand going to her forehead, finding that indeed the scabs she’d scratched off still bled.

“And I am summoning you.” Phoebe went to the fire and cast the letter in. Helena gasped and started toward it, only to stand on the hearth, staring in dismay as the edges of the paper curled and blackened. The entire letter was reduced to ashes in moments what had taken an hour to pen.

“But I cannot…” Helena murmured, thinking how all her resolutions of the night before to end things would come to naught if she were in his presence again. She could never, if she lived to be a hundred, manage to say the things she had in her letter, to his face.

“You must.” Phoebe was stiff and unyielding when she chose to be. She brushed past Helena and went to the wardrobe. “Come now, this is not the end of the world, your suitor awaits, and your father’s anger seems to have burned itself out. Let us find a dress that’s suitable. I shall have to assist you; that girl of yours made a mess of her hands, and there is no way she should be handling fine fabrics.”

Helena flinched. “Yes, Aunt Phoebe,” she said, still staring at the flames, imagining, if she stared long enough, her brave words would imprint themselves upon her heart that she might say what she needed to when the time came.