Chapter Seventeen
Helena sat in the quiet of a parlor hidden in the back of the house. While the others were napping after yet another day of fun and frolic before they prepared for supper, she was enjoying a book.
Well, enjoying might be too much to say. She was holding a book, she was looking at it. But all she was thinking about was Baldwin and the night before. That sweet, sweet night where he’d made love to her over and over. Pleasure had known no bounds, and she ached from it.
“Oh, Helena, I didn’t know you were up and about.”
Helena shook her head to clear the thoughts of Baldwin, and rose as Adelaide entered the room. Her blonde hair was done loose, as usual, and she wore a blue gown that matched her eyes perfectly. She was gorgeous, but it wasn’t just her pretty face. She had so much confidence.
But Helena knew what Baldwin had said about her. That she had been assaulted, though she was saved before it had gone too far. Somehow Adelaide didn’t show the aftereffects.
Helena wondered if Graham helped Adelaide forget, as Baldwin had done for Helena last night.
“Are you well?” Adelaide asked, her face suddenly lining with concern.
“I’m sorry,” Helena burst out, cheeks filling with color. “I was just staring at you like a ninny.”
“No apologies,” Adelaide assured her as she moved forward to catch Helena’s free hand. “I interrupted your reading. I can go if you’d like to continue it.”
“No,” Helena said, setting the book aside. “I would much enjoy your company if you are offering it.”
Adelaide smiled and they sat together on the settee. She picked up the book. “Oh, Emma wanted to read this one. She keeps going on about it.”
“I’ll pass it on to her as soon as I’m finished,” Helena vowed. “Perhaps I’ll even convince her to write me what she thinks—I’d love to talk to someone about it.”
Adelaide set the tome aside and tilted her head to examine Helena more closely. “Do you think it’s possible you might see more of Emma, of all of us, once you return to London?”
Helena pursed her lips. “If I am accompanying Charity to events where you are present, of course.”
“That isn’t what I meant,” Adelaide said softly.
Helena got up and paced away. “I don’t really belong in your circles, Adelaide, though you’re all so kind to include me. We all know the truth of it, don’t we? We can’t pretend it forever.”
“That’s poppycock,” Adelaide snorted. “And it still isn’t what I meant.” Helena turned toward her, and Adelaide gave her a look. “I’m asking about you and Baldwin.”
Helena’s lips parted. “You duchesses are relentless.”
Adelaide laughed. “We are that, yes. So if you know that, why don’t we stop beating about the bush? What is it between you?”
Helena sighed and returned to her seat. She held Adelaide’s gaze evenly and said, “Nothing.” Once again Adelaide snorted and Helena threw up her hands. “Very well. More than nothing. We are…we’re closer than I ever thought we could be. But it can’t happen, Adelaide, no matter what we want.”
Adelaide’s expression grew troubled. “When you first said that to me, I thought you were being coy. Trying to distance yourself from the kind of feelings so many before you have felt. But—but it’s more than that, isn’t it?”
Helena nodded, and relief and disappointment crested through her at once. “It is.”
For a moment, Adelaide hesitated. Then she inched closer and reached out to take Helena’s hands. The comforting warmth of that touch was a shock to Helena’s system, after so long without true friendship to buoy her.
“We are new friends, I know, but I hope good ones. Would you like to talk about it, Helena?” When Helena didn’t answer right away, Adelaide sighed. “I know from experience how hard it is to face these sorts of things without a confidante. I did the same when it was Graham and me, and it was trying.”
Helena’s lips parted. She could not imagine that anything could ever be hard between Northfield and Adelaide. They obviously loved each other deeply. She could also not imagine that her friend hadn’t been surrounded by support. But then, she knew so very little about all of the duchesses. There was implied struggle in all their pasts.
“I can’t speak to all the reasons that separate Baldwin and me,” she said. “Some are not my secrets to tell.”
“But if you want to say the ones that are,” Adelaide pressed. “I’m a friendly ear who only wants the best for you.”
Helena bent her head. “Baldwin said you might…you might understand. You’d been through something similar.”
Adelaide leaned closer. “Something similar?”
She lifted her gaze and stared at Adelaide. “I don’t want you to think differently of me.”
“I couldn’t,” the duchess assured her gently. “I promise you.”
Helena squeezed her eyes shut, and the words began to fall from her lips. Like she had with Baldwin, she told Adelaide all of her past. It was only when she was finished that she looked at the duchess again.
And found her staring back with understanding on her face. “That is the scandal,” she said softly. “That drove you from Boston.”
Helena nodded slowly.
Adelaide shook her head. “People are bastards. To blame you for an attack you didn’t cause, it makes my stomach turn.” Helena drew back from her harsh tone, from the defense she hadn’t asked for. Adelaide leaned in. “But my dear, you cannot think that those facts would keep Baldwin from you. You don’t think he’s the kind of man who would judge that?”
Helena gasped. “Oh, no! No, not at all. He’s been nothing but kind and gentle and accepting. He encouraged me to talk to you or to Emma since you two had—”
“Have a similar past.” Adelaide squeezed her hand. “Emma and I were very lucky. James stopped her attacker. Graham nearly killed him when he came for me. But yes, we both know a tiny glimpse of the terror you must have felt in those moments.”
Helena sucked in a breath, and then she felt the tears begin to fall. She reached up to cover them as shock flowed through her. She had put all this away long ago. And yet having support…it was like she was allowed to remember that she had been hurt. That she had been wronged.
Adelaide clucked her tongue and drew her in for a hard hug. “You cry, love. You just cry all you need to. You’ve earned that.”
Helena relaxed into the embrace, and for a moment she allowed herself the weakness she had fought against for so long. The pain she’d been denied. She sank into it and gave herself the gift of mourning the past, of what she’d lost.
And when she could finally breathe again, Adelaide smiled down at her. “It makes it a bit better, doesn’t it? Like a pressure valve that’s been released on the heart.”
“Yes,” Helena agreed through a thick throat. “It does.”
Adelaide smoothed a lock of hair away from her face. “But if you say Baldwin doesn’t judge you for that, then why do you believe you can’t be together?”
Helena straightened up a fraction and sighed. “I can only tell you that my past is not my only failing. I just cannot…be what he needs. It is the way of our world. I must—I must accept it. I must accept it and move forward.”
Adelaide’s face crumpled just a little. Helena couldn’t believe it. This was this woman’s empathy for her, her gentle heart that broke for what Helena had endured and would endure.
It meant everything to her to see it.
“I hope you’re wrong,” Adelaide said at last, and reached out to hug her again. “I truly hope you and Baldwin can find the happiness you so sorely deserve. Life is far too short for anything less.”
From behind them, Helena heard someone clear his throat. She and Adelaide turned together, and Helena’s heart sank. Her uncle and Charity stood in the doorway to the parlor. Both of them looked annoyed. Angry, even. And she had to steel herself for the consequences of what they’d seen.
“Your Grace,” Uncle Peter said, his tone cool.
Adelaide stood, Helena right behind her, and said, “Mr. Shephard, Miss Shephard. Good afternoon.”
“You can call me Charity,” Charity said, her tone sharp and laced with jealousy that made Helena squeeze her eyes shut.
Adelaide nodded. “Of course. I was just having the loveliest conversation with Helena. You have a gem in her, Mr. Shephard. I hope you appreciate it.”
Her uncle’s jaw set and he ground out, “Quite. Actually, Charity and I were just talking about our little…gem. Do you think we might have a moment alone with Helena?”
Adelaide turned toward her, one fine eyebrow arching. “If you feel we are finished with our conversation?”
Helena knew the message in her friend’s expression, questioning if she would be all right with her family. The truth was, she didn’t quite know the answer. But denying them would only make it worse in the long run.
“Perhaps we can continue it later,” she suggested gently. “Over supper?”
Adelaide smiled. “I will make sure we are seated next to each other. Perhaps Emma could make a third near us. I would enjoy that very much. I shall go talk to Charlotte and make the arrangements right now.”
Helena nodded and Adelaide squeezed her hand before she smiled tightly at Charity and Uncle Peter. She left the room.
The moment she did, Helena’s uncle reached behind and shut the door with a loud swish.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” he asked, his rage barely contained. She felt it bubbling below the surface and saw it in the snap of his gaze.
“Doing?” she repeated as she backed up a step from him out of pure instinct.
“We saw you…hugging the Duchess of Northfield,” Charity spat out. “Completely out of your place.”
Helena shook her head. “The duchess was offering a friendly ear,” she said. “I did not cross a line.”
“Of course you did,” her uncle blustered. “You did, and it isn’t the first time since our arrival in London that you’ve done so.”
Helena caught her breath. Uncle Peter and Charity didn’t know the half of the lines she’d crossed…or did they? She and Baldwin had been careful the night before, but anything was possible.
Charity stepped toward her. “This trip is supposed to be about me, Helena! When I suggested you come along, I never thought that you’d ingratiate yourself to the most important people in England. That you’d wheedle your way into their hearts and push me out into the cold.”
Helena’s lips parted. She heard hurt in Charity’s tone, not just anger and it set her on her heels. “I never intended to do that. Oh, Charity, my friendships with these people are totally separate from your own. They have no impact on you, I assure you.”
“Don’t they?” Charity snapped. “Since we came here, and especially since we came out to the Sheffield estate, you have gotten all the attention. You’ve been danced with more than I have, talked to more than I have, consoled more than I have.” Charity’s voice caught and she folded her arms. “And—and you shirk your duties, too.”
Helena shook her head. “I’ve been available every time you sought me out.”
Charity placed her hands on her hips. “Last night I came looking for you and you weren’t in your part of the chamber.”
Helena’s heart stopped. Oh God, this was about Baldwin. They knew. They knew and everything was about to be shattered.
“Charity told me about your absence this afternoon,” her uncle said. “And it was the last straw. Where were you?”
“I was not tired,” she said carefully. “I didn’t want to disturb you by tossing and turning on the settee in the attached room, so I got up to walk around a bit. Hoping it would make me tired.”
Charity and Uncle Peter exchanged a look, and then Charity shrugged. “Still,” she said. “You are crossing the line.”
“You were brought here on the sole balance of my benevolence, girl, don’t you forget it. If Charity hadn’t insisted and I hadn’t agreed, you would have been out on the street in Boston. Your family knew you were a whore who’d worn out whatever purpose you had left. You owe me everything.”
Helena flinched, but before she could respond, the door to the parlor opened and Baldwin stepped in. But it wasn’t a Baldwin she’d ever seen before. Gone was her gentle lover. Gone was the careful duke.
Standing before her was a raging bull, his face red and his eyes narrowed. And all that anger was focused squarely on her uncle.
Baldwin could hardly breathe as he burst into the parlor and came face-to-face with Helena and her family. What he’d overheard in the hallway, Shephard’s sharp and cruel berating, that was bad enough. But coming into the room and seeing Helena’s pale and pained face and the way she was edged up into a corner, trying to make herself as small as possible…
It was enough. He forgot prudence. He forgot propriety. He forgot that she was not his.
He forgot it all and strode into the room in three long strides. “Just what the hell is going on in here?” he growled, pleased he had found enough control to make coherent words.
Shephard jolted in surprise, and Charity took a step back. Helena remained in place, her shoulders still hunched. She glanced at him, her expression a combination of shock and relief and also stark terror.
And he wanted to sweep her up and ride away with her. Ride away from everything that kept them apart. Ride away and never, never come back.
“This is a family matter, Your Grace,” Shephard said with another glare for Helena. “I suggest you stay out of it.”
“When you are talking to one of my house guests in such a tone in my parlor, I will not stay out of it,” Baldwin said. He moved forward a few more steps. “Miss Monroe is a lady, sir. I suggest you keep that in mind.”
Somehow he had expected that Shephard would step down at that admonishment. That he would show a little decency. He was to be disappointed. Instead, Shephard leaned in and laughed. “A lady! Is that what Helena has convinced you that she is? Well, let me disabuse you of that notion, Your Grace. My niece is anything but a lady.”
Charity gasped and Helena turned her head, her cheeks flush with humiliation. Baldwin lunged forward, and now he was towering over Shephard, ready to swing if need be. Barely containing himself from doing just that.
“Don’t test me, Shephard,” he said softly.
Shephard was not unaffected. Baldwin swelled with pride at the way the other man trembled ever so slightly. The way a thin sheen of sweat broke out on his upper lip as he stared up into Baldwin’s face.
But then something shifted. The fear ebbed, replaced with a nasty smugness that turned Baldwin’s stomach.
“No, boy,” the other man said, poking his finger into Baldwin’s chest. “Don’t you test me.”
They held their stare for a moment, for too long. Then Baldwin pointed to the door. “Get out of this room, sir. Or I shall have you removed.”
Shephard chuckled as he motioned to Charity. “Come along, dear. And you, Helena.”
“She stays,” Baldwin snapped. “There is no way she will go anywhere with you until you think about your behavior toward her.”
Shephard sent her a nasty look, then caught Charity’s arm and all but dragged her from the room, leaving Baldwin alone with Helena.
He spun on her, but she was not looking at him with gratitude. She didn’t look happy at what he’d done. She was shaking her head, over and over, and her face was pale and sick.
“Helena,” he said softly.
She caught her breath on a sob and said, “You shouldn’t have done that, Baldwin.”