Marrying Winterborne

“He wouldn’t want us here anyway,” Pandora had said in a monotone. “He’s never cared beans for either of us.”

Taking pity on her young sisters, Helen had gone to embrace and kiss them both. “I’ll stay with him,” she had promised. “Go say a prayer for him, and find something quiet to do.”

They had left gratefully. Cassandra had paused at the threshold to steal one last glance at her father, while Pandora had walked out in a brisk stride without looking back.

Going to the bedside, Helen had looked down at the earl, a tall, lean man who appeared shrunken in the vast bed. His complexion was gray-tinged and waxen, his swollen neck obscuring the shape of his jaw. All his great will had burned down to the frailest flicker of life. Helen had reflected that the earl seemed to have faded slowly in the two years after Jane had died. Perhaps he had been grieving for her. Theirs had been a complex relationship, two people who had been bound by disappointments and resentments the way others were bound by love.

Helen had dared to take the earl’s lax hand, a collection of veins and bones contained in a loose envelope of skin. “I’m sorry Theo isn’t here,” she had said humbly. “I know I’m not the one wanted with you at the end. I’m sorry for that, too. But I can’t let you face this alone.”

As she had finished, Quincy had entered the room, his deep-set black eyes gleaming with tears that slipped down to his white-whiskered jowls. Without a word, he had gone to occupy the bench at the window, determined to wait with her.

For an hour, they had watched over the earl as each strained breath grew softer than the last. Until finally Edmund, Lord Trenear, had passed away in the company of a servant and a daughter who possessed not a drop of his blood.

After the earl’s passing, Helen had never dared to talk to Theo about her parentage. She felt certain that he must have known. It was why he had never wanted to bring her out in society, and why his attitude toward her had held echoes of his father’s contempt. Neither had Helen been able to bring herself to confide in Kathleen or the twins. Even though she hadn’t done anything wrong, she felt the shame of her illegitimate birth acutely. No matter how she tried to ignore it, the secret had lurked inside like a dose of venom waiting to be released.

It bothered Helen a great deal that she hadn’t yet told Rhys. She knew how he loved the idea of marrying a daughter of the peerage. It would be incredibly difficult to confess that she wasn’t a Ravenel. Rhys would be disappointed. He would think less of her.

Still . . . he had a right to know.

Sighing heavily, Helen packed the rest of the journals into the trunk. As she cast a cursory glance at the empty bookshelf, she noticed a little pale bundle wedged in the dusty corner. Frowning, she lowered to her elbows and reached into the bookcase to pry it loose.

A wad of writing paper.

Sitting up, she opened the crumpled mass carefully and discovered a few lines of her mother’s handwriting. The words were more widely spaced than usual, sloping downward within their sentences.

My dearest Albion,

It is foolish, I know, to appeal to your heart when I have come to doubt its existence. Why has there been no word from you? What of the promises you made? If you abandon me, you ensure that Helen will never be loved by her own mother. I watch her sob in the cradle and cannot bring myself to touch her. She must cry alone, uncomforted, just as I must now that you have forsaken me.

I won’t observe the decencies. My passion cannot be commanded by reason. Come back to me, and I swear I will send the baby away. I will tell everyone that she is sickly and must be raised by a nurse in a warm, dry climate. Edmund won’t object—he’ll be only too glad to have her removed from the household.

Nothing has to change for us, Albion, as long as we are discreet.

There was nothing more. Helen turned over the unfinished letter, but the other side was blank.

Helen found herself laying the wrinkled rectangle of paper on the floor and pressing it flat with her palm. She felt hollow, distanced from a host of feelings that she had no desire to acknowledge or examine.

Albion.

She had never wanted to know her father’s name. But she couldn’t help wondering what kind of man he had been. Was he still alive? And why had Jane never completed the letter?

“Helen!”

The unexpected cry caused her to start. Blindly she lifted her head as Cassandra raced into the room.

“The mails have been delivered,” Cassandra exclaimed, “and there’s a crate from Winterborne’s! The footman is carrying it into the receiving room downstairs. You must come directly, we want to—” She paused with a frown. “Your face is all red. What’s the matter?”

“Book dust,” Helen managed to say. “I’ve been packing away Mama’s journals, and it made me sneeze dreadfully.”

“Won’t you finish that later, please, dear Helen? We want to open your presents right away. Some of the boxes are marked ‘perishable’ and we think there may be sweets inside.”

“I’ll come down in a few minutes,” Helen said distractedly, sliding the letter beneath a fold of her skirts.

“Shall I help you with the books?”

“Thank you, dear, but I would rather take care of it myself.”

Cassandra heaved a sigh and said wistfully, “It’s so difficult to wait.”

Helen’s gaze remained on her sister, as she noticed that Cassandra had recently lost the gangly, coltish look of childhood. She bore an astonishing resemblance to Jane, with the immaculate prettiness of her bone structure and bow-shaped lips, the sunlight-colored curls, and heavily lashed blue eyes.