An Exquisite Marriage (17 page)

Helene, of course, could not live alone for even a brief period. Therefore, she moved in with Miss Sewell. Adele and Madelene professed a certain amount of jealousy that she would get to be a permanent part of their chaperone's free and easy household. But as the date of the ball moved closer, they were there so often, they might as well have been permanent guests.

Indeed, they were so much in one another's pockets that it came close to being awkward, because it made it that much more difficult for Helene to sneak away to Marcus. Adele continued to be utterly delighted at the idea they were to become sisters. She was already sketching dresses for the wedding. Despite this, Helene was not quite ready to confess to her friend that she was engaged in frequent, illicit, and magnificent rehearsals of the marital act with Adele's older brother before the marriage had officially occurred. There were some places where even the most intimate of friendships simply could not go.

With all this whirlwind of activity and delight, the season flashed past Helene. She found herself waking up one morning amid a nest of blankets and notebooks, to realize with a start their ball was only six days away.

***

Helene glanced at the case clock in Miss Sewell's hall as the housekeeper helped her off with her bonnet and pelisse. Adele had just dropped her off back at No. 48 from the final fitting with their modiste. She had just enough time to change and take a little refreshment before she was due to meet Marcus at the Academy of Ancient Music. Although they would not announce their engagement yet, Marcus had coaxed her into agreeing that they should be seen together in public more often. That way, when they did make the formal announcement, their engagement would seem entirely natural and expected.

“Such a sacrifice on your part,” she'd whispered to him last night as they waltzed at Lucy Dalgleish's debut. “To venture out only to be ogled over and have unsuspecting young things thrown at you.”

“And they're being thrown that much harder these days,” he murmured back. “The matchmaking mamas know something's in the wind.”

Indeed, she could feel the heat of a dozen pairs of disappointed eyes watching from the edges of the dance floor. “They know the prize is about to be snatched away. I truly feel sorry for them.”

“You are far too generous.”

“Thank you. For that you may kiss me, as soon as we are alone.”

“Oh, I will do far more than that,” he murmured.

And he had. Oh, he had.

Helene sighed in satisfaction at that particular, burning memory as she climbed the stairs to Miss Sewell's spare bedroom. Only six more days. Then, she, Adele, and Madelene would show the whole of society that they were women of worth. Their cherished secrets could be brought out into the sunlight, and they could dare the world to disapprove. James Beauclaire had returned just in time from Paris, with the result that Adele vanished for a full day and Helene had to tell Mrs. Kearsely that Adele had come down with a sudden cold and was in bed at Miss Sewell's. It seemed the least she could do for her future sister-in-law.

Madelene had been to visit Lord Benedict's father and older brother and had come back glowing in the warmth of their approval of her. Her own family was still proving difficult, but Lord Pelham was a canny and tenacious man and had promised Madelene and Benedict they would have all the weight of his rank and power on their side.

Helene smiled at herself in the mirror. “Well done, Lady Helene,” she told her reflection. “You may take a bow.” And she did.

A soft scratching sounded on the door to signal the arrival of Miss Sewell's housekeeper. Helene turned to tell her where to set the tea tray down, but her hands were quite empty.

“Excuse me, Lady Helene,” said the housekeeper. “There's a . . . woman downstairs. She insists on seeing you.”

“A woman? You mean a lady?” It was not yet time to dress for dinner, but it was past the confidential hour for calls. No one should be visiting at this time.

The housekeeper made a face. “I would not say a lady. And certainly she's no friend of Miss Sewell's.”

“What name does she give?”

“Mrs. Darington.”

“Mrs. Darington?” said Helene as she entered Miss Sewell's green parlor. “I am Helene Fitzgerald. How do you do?”

The woman got to her feet and bobbed an awkward curtsy. She also twisted her fingers together. “You must forgive me, Miss Fitzgerald, for calling on you like this. I almost did not, but I did not know what else to do.”

“Please, sit down.” Helene gestured to one of the tapestry chairs. The woman did. She was clutching a very rumpled handkerchief, and her eyes were red around the rims.

The housekeeper had been correct in saying that she was probably not a lady, although she was well-dressed. However, after spending most of a season with Adele, Helene had become fairly conversant with the subtleties of dressmaking and fashion. Everything about Mrs. Darington was expensive, but it was all a little too loud and a little too bright. More flash than fire, Adele would have said. The rouge on her cheeks and her lips was just a little too heavy as well, and the style of her hair with its thick lovelocks and pink ribbons was too young for her.

Helene smiled in what she hoped was a polite and reassuring fashion. “You will forgive me for not offering you refreshment. I was not expecting anyone else this afternoon.”

“Oh no, I don't want anything. That is . . . you are very good, and I . . .” She pressed her handkerchief against her nose.

Helene frowned, but only briefly. She did not want the woman to think she was growing impatient. “You are clearly distressed. Do please try to calm yourself and tell me what I can do to help.”

“It is not me I am worried for, you understand. It is my children. I have three, two daughters and a son, and . . .” She put her hand to her bosom. “May I show you?”

“I'd like that,” said Helene. This explained things. “Mrs.” Darington must be in need of help from one of the committees for the betterment of unwed mothers that Helene had begun working with.

Mrs. Darington drew out a golden locket, which she opened to reveal a miniature of three young children. The girls were dark, like their mother. The slightly frail-looking boy, though, was fair, with heavy black brows. There was also something familiar about him, but Helene could not quite put her finger on what.

“They look like a fine family,” she said politely.

“They are my world. Let me tell you their names. This is my Marius, and this Beatrice, and this my little Angelica.”

“What of their father?”

“It is about their father that I must to speak with you.” She pressed her hand against her eyes. “I am so sorry, Lady Helene! I would not have come, only everyone knows how kind you are and all your good works, and I could not, I could not . . . I . . .”

Helene pressed the woman's hand briefly. “Please be calm and tell me. Take your time.” Maybe she should ring for tea after all. A cup of tea seldom failed to calm the nerves and clarify the thought processes.

“I came to London as a young woman, from Dorsetshire. I knew no one. I meant to find work. My family was so poor, they could not afford to keep me, you see.”

“It is a common story. I imagine you met a man?”

She nodded.

“And he could afford to keep you?”

“He was so kind, so handsome. I was not a fool, at least I thought I wasn't. I insisted we be married, and we were. I was so happy. I thought I'd reached my dream. I had a lovely home, dresses, a maid, everything I could want. And when the babies came, he seemed so pleased.”

A slow chill was spreading through Helene's limbs, and a growing sense of danger. She could not account for it. It was as if she'd been blindfolded.

“And then you found out . . . ?”

“The marriage was not legal. He'd paid a false clergyman. I was defrauded and degraded. My children, my children were bastards.”

Closer. It was coming closer. Helene knew it. She felt it. It was beating against her thoughts, trying to get in, and still her mind would not move.

Mrs. Darington lifted her eyes. “He was not cruel. He supported us, for a time, but now, he has said he will end that support.”

“What reason does he give?”

“He intends to marry. He says he cannot afford two families. He says . . . he says I can find myself another man if I need keeping.”

“If it is a matter of money or education for your children, there are several charitable groups . . .”

“It is not that, or not only that. It's . . .” She paused and looked down at her hands. “The father of my children is the Duke of Windford.”

Marcus stood on the steps of the Academy of Ancient Music and tried to resist the temptation to look at his watch a fourth time. It was only half seven. The performance would begin at half eight. Around him, crowds of people in silk cloaks and many-caped coats streamed through the doors, eager to find their seats in time to have a good look at the audience and a fine gossip about what they saw before the evening's official entertainment could begin. He'd nodded to many acquaintances and associates from the worlds of business or politics. But he had not seen the one face he was so anxious for. Where was Helene?

“Calm down, Marcus,” said Adele beside him. “Anyone would think there was a fire under your . . . boots.”

“I am perfectly calm,” he answered. Adele pulled a face.

Marcus smiled at himself. He was as bad as a schoolboy with his first crush. Just yesterday, he'd been with Helene under far more interesting and intimate circumstances. Here, he wouldn't be able to so much as hold her hand. But still, he could not wait. He wanted to see her smile. He wanted to hear her laugh and talk with her and hear her opinion of the music and the musicians.

He wanted to tell her he'd had a letter this afternoon, confirming his appointment to talk with Lord Rutherford about accepting a post with the naval office.

A new and rather obviously hired carriage drew up in front of the steps. The door was opened, and Marcus's heart leapt. Miss Sewell, wearing a plain but tasteful cloak of blue silk, stepped out. He craned his neck to see past her, to catch a glimpse of another dainty foot descending onto the step, another gloved hand reaching out for the driver to help.

The driver folded up the step and closed the door.

“Where's Helene?” murmured Adele.

“Hello, Adele.” Madelene Valmeyer came up through the crowd, with Benedict Pelham on her arm and the old marquis right behind, a sight that was giving rise to an increased level of murmuring around them. “Lord Windford. We came to . . . Good evening, Miss Sewell,” Madelene broke off as that lady approached.

“Is Helene not with you this evening, Miss Sewell?” said Marcus.

“Lady Helene is home with a sick headache,” said Miss Sewell. “She sends her apologies, but she does not believe she will be able to join us this evening.”

She spoke smoothly, but her words were hard and flat as paving stones. A warning bell sounded low in the back of Marcus's mind.

“She's ill?” he said. “Has anyone sent for an apothecary? She was fine . . .” He stopped. “Yesterday evening.”

Miss Sewell looked right past him. “Lord Benedict, Lord Innesford, will you do me the favor of escorting Lady Adele and Madelene inside? I need to have a word with Lord Windford.”

“Miss Sewell . . .” Adele began, but Miss Sewell stopped her with a glance. Under other circumstances, Marcus might have been impressed. He'd never been able to do as much.

“Yes, yes, of course,” said Benedict's father. The Marquis of Innesdale was a bluff, blunt man, the epitome of the English country gentleman. “Lady Adele, if you'd do me the very great honor?” He held out his arm.

Adele took the arm he offered and went in beside her friend, but only with several backward glances that Marcus found he had neither the time nor the patience to endure. He seized Miss Sewell's arm and drew her off to a corner of the steps.

“Something is wrong,” he said. “What is it? What's happened to Helene?”

Miss Sewell just drew herself up to her full height. “You will let go of me right now, sir.”

“I apologize.” Marcus did as she said. He also bowed. “But there is something wrong?”

“Yes, there is, and I'm very worried. I've only seen Helene act like this once before.”

“Is she sick? Is there a fever? Should I have my physician . . .”

She held up one hand. “It is nothing of that kind. But she has taken to bed and will not tell me the cause.” She looked him directly in the eye, and her own eyes were hard as emeralds. “I only came to see if you might know the reason for this sudden indisposition.”

“I?” Marcus drew back. “Why . . . ?”

“Lord Windford, please do not take me for a fool.” Miss Sewell spoke softly and quickly, but the edge to her words was impossible to mistake, or ignore. “I know you and Helene have been conducting a liaison. I've allowed it to continue despite certain misgivings. But if there has been a quarrel, or if you have broken off any promise . . .”

“No. There has been nothing of the kind. You have my word of honor.”

She nodded. “Then I am at a loss.”

“You said Helene had acted this way once before?”

“Yes. The night of Mrs. Wrexford's ball, when she had her encounter with the Marquis of Broadheathe.”

Marcus's thoughts all reared like startled horses and then raced ahead frantically, uncontrollably. “I need to see her.” If Broadheathe had gone near her . . . if he had threatened her . . .

“She does not want to see you. That much she was very clear about. She said you were not to worry about her.”

Yes, of course she did. She would. “Miss Sewell,” said Marcus. “I am going to No. 48, and I am going to see Helene, and I am going with you or without you.”

The corner of her mouth curled up, but Marcus could not tell whether the accompanying flash in her eye was approval or challenge.

“Then I suppose it is as well I have not sent the carriage away.”

***

Helene stood in the quiet street and stared up at the neat brick residence in front of her. It was a new building, well situated, in a broad street in one of the shining new neighborhoods that were being built out on the western edges of London. Despite the darkness, Helene could see it becoming fashionable in the very near future.

The bell was answered by a footman in tasteful livery. He admitted her to a well-lit foyer. The sound of a pianoforte and much laughter rose from the room on the right, and a great confusion of voices, all of them male.

The footman took her card and courteously bid her to wait in the small blue parlor on the left, which she did, while he disappeared into a noisy drawing room.

Helene lifted her veil. It was the same one she'd worn when she first went to her rendezvous with Marcus. It was the only one she owned.

The door opened again. This time, it was to admit a dainty woman in a grand gown of sparkling white and cut glass beads. It took a great deal of presence to wear white when one was no longer young, but this woman carried it off with tremendous flare.

“Good evening, Lady Helene,” she said.

“Good evening, Madame d'Arnau.” Helene's voice had a ragged edge. She swallowed to try to smooth it away. “Thank you for agreeing to see me.”

“It is quite the surprise, I confess. Won't you sit down?”

“Thank you.” Helene perched on the edge of the nearest chair.

“May I offer you something to drink?”

“No, thank you.”

“Well. I cannot believe you are here to ask after Broadheathe. So what is it, I wonder, that brings you to my door?”

“I believe you may have some information I require.”

“And here I thought you knew everything worth knowing.”

“I have little time, Madame d'Arnau. If you wish to mock me, I would rather you completed the process now.”

“But it will surely be a very long process.”

“Then you had better get on with it.” Helene snapped open her watch where it hung on the chain around her neck. “I believe we may allocate a full ten minutes to your humiliation of me. You may begin when you choose.”

This elicited a long, contemplative pause. “You have changed.”

“I was forced to.”

“It is a change for the better. You should thank me.”

“Thank you,” she replied blandly. “Eight minutes.”

Madame d'Arnau sighed. “I think your watch must be fast. However, we will let that go. It seems I do not have ten minutes' worth of mockery for this new Lady Helene. We may proceed to your reasons for being here at all.”

“I am here because I am seeking information about a woman named Bernadette Darington.”

It was the hardest thing Helene had ever done to sit still while the smallest surprised smile played across Madame d'Arnau's lovely face. It was plain Madame knew the name, and there was no doubt in Helene's mind at all that she knew why Helene would be interested in it.

“Why would you come to me with such an inquiry? I've never exhibited any kindness toward you.”

“I do not require kindness. I require facts.”

“I could lie to spite you.”

“You could. But I think you will not. You are, after your fashion, honest.”

“When it suits me to be.”

“And I happen to know that you are no longer . . . under the protection of Broadheathe.”

“No, that is true. I finally became too faded in his sight to be worth keeping.”

“Therefore, he is unlikely to pressure you to lie to me for his sake.”

Madame d'Arnau made a languid gesture, indicating she conceded the point. “Very well. I do know Bernadette. The demimonde is not so very large a world as is sometimes thought, and since society does not welcome us, many of us form our own little associations.”

Helene said nothing.

“Mrs. Darington, as she styles herself, lives not very far from here. I could give you her address. It is a fine house, and she keeps herself in excellent style. Her protector has been most generous.”

“Who is her protector?”

“There she has been less forthcoming. She does not name him, but only one man has been seen coming and going from her house.”

Helene waited. She meant to speak, but she could not. She had no words left in her. Perhaps she would never speak again.

Madame d'Arnau cocked her head. “Do I need to tell you the name?”

“No,” said Helene. “I suppose not. Is . . .” Helene's voice broke. She cleared her throat. “Is it known if the duke is the father of her children?”

“She has said so.”

“To you?”

“Not to me, but she has said it to people I trust to be able to discern the truth.”

“Thank you.” Helene got to her feet. “I will take up no more of your time. You may return to your guests.” She started for the door.

“I'm sorry,” said Madame d'Arnau behind her. “You may not believe it, but I truly am.”

Helene did not even bother to turn around. There was no reason for this woman to witness the humiliation of her tears a second time.

***

In the end, Helene did not cry. The coachman drove the hired carriage at a sedate pace, and she endured the jostling and the bumping with a straight spine and dry eyes. In fact, she felt nothing at all. Not the cold of the evening, not the breath in her lungs, not the beating of her heart. It was as if that organ had been entirely removed from her body. Which may have been for the best. It had proven itself to be a deep inconvenience, not to mention a singularly poor advisor.

There was a light on in the parlor of No. 48. Helene did not wonder at this. The housekeeper would make sure the house was ready for the return of her mistress. Helene paid the driver. Helene gathered her hems in her gloved hand and walked up the steps. Helene unlocked the door and let the housekeeper take her coat and bonnet.

Helene turned and looked up and saw Marcus standing in the doorway to the green parlor.

“I was worried, Helene,” Marcus said. “Miss Sewell told me you were ill, and then when we came here and the house was empty.” He stopped. “Dear God, Helene, what's happened?”

Helene stared at him, the man she loved. The man who had turned her life over and filled it with delights. He'd poured love into her wounded heart with love and took away the endless gnawing fear for herself and her siblings. He'd made her believe she could trust him with every part of herself.

The man who fathered three bastard children and tossed them aside when they became inconvenient, who left their mother to go begging.

Who might have already fathered another bastard. They'd taken no precautions. There'd been no reason to. They were going to be married. Why would they need to be careful?

This was the man who stood here, concern filling the storm blue eyes that she had gazed into so many times. He reached out to her with hands that had known her body so intimately.

“What's happened?” he asked.

“Get out,” she said. It seemed she still had a heart after all, because it was thundering, storming, raging. Breaking. “Get out. Get out! GET OUT! GET OUT!”