Normally Helena loved breakfast. She’d never been a picky eater, and Baldwin’s cook was talented in every way. But this morning, she found that everything before her tasted of sawdust and even the smells turned her stomach. But the reason had nothing to do with the quality of the food.
She glanced down the table and watched as Baldwin leaned toward one of the eligible misses who currently surrounded him. His prospects, as she knew he called them. The women from whom he would pick a bride. Including her cousin, despite all his arguments to the contrary.
And today he seemed determined to connect with those women. She wasn’t angry. Of course she understood. But oh, how it hurt to look at it. To see him talk with those women and know that one day he would touch one of them the same way he’d touched her.
“Miss Monroe, you do look lovely today.”
She jolted and turned to look at Baldwin’s mother. The Duchess of Sheffield had taken a place beside her a few moments earlier, but had been engaged in conversation with the Duchess of Abernathe until this moment. Now she smiled at Helena.
“Thank you, Your Grace,” Helena said with a blush. Her dress was not as pretty or fancy as some of the other ladies’ gowns. By design, she supposed. Charity was very stingy about hand-me-downs. She generally only gave Helena the plainest items in her closet. Still, she liked the color, a happy blue with a spring-green overlay.
“My daughter and her friends speak so highly of you,” the duchess continued. “Charlotte has so enjoyed having you here.”
“Her Grace is very kind,” Helena said. “I very much enjoy spending time with her and the other duchesses.”
“Tell me more about yourself,” the Duchess of Sheffield pressed. “Charlotte says you are a great reader.”
“I do enjoy a good book, yes. To be taken away to a whole other world, to lose oneself for a few hours. It is my favorite thing.”
The duchess nodded. “I’ve always felt the same way. We will have to compare reading lists, as I am in the mood for something good.”
“Certainly,” Helena said. “I’d be happy to share. Actually, I finished a very good book on the trip out to Sheffield. My cousin is not a reader, so if you’d like it…”
The duchess gave her a warm smile. “That would be lovely, thank you.” She shifted slightly and her gaze moved to Baldwin. There was no mistaking the worry she felt. The pressure. All of Helena’s warm feelings faded as reality returned, as it always did.
“You are…concerned for your son?” she asked carefully.
The duchess looked at her slowly, one eyebrow arched. “Am I so obvious?”
Helena shrugged. “Only if one is observant.”
Now the duchess held her stare. “And you are when it comes to Baldwin, I think.”
Helena’s breath hitched. It seemed she wasn’t the only observant one. She thought they had been careful, but the shift in the Duchess of Sheffield’s demeanor told her it wasn’t careful enough.
“I’m a bit on the fringes, that is all, Your Grace,” she said. “I notice everyone.”
The duchess nodded, but her expression remained as focused as before. Helena had not diffused its intensity or understanding. “I’m a mother,” the duchess said slowly. “It is my prerogative to worry about my children. Charlotte is so happily settled now, so I’m afraid my concerns all shift to Baldwin.”
“I should not have pried,” Helena said softly. “I apologize.”
“No, it’s clear you are a…you’re a very good woman,” the duchess said. “No one could spend a moment with you and not like you. You seem to care for my children, as well, so I appreciate that.” She looked off at her son again. “Baldwin has responsibilities, Miss Monroe. Life is often not fair in that way, but it is what it is. We must accept. We must…we must accept it.”
Helena stared down at her plate, the food now turning her stomach even further. The duchess wasn’t just talking anymore. This was a statement directed at Helena. A gentle statement, yes. One kindly put, but it did its job nonetheless. She was discouraging Helena from a pursuit of Baldwin.
She felt the sting of tears in her eyes. The discomfort of embarrassment. The faint resonance of loss. But she could not let those things show. As always, she had to pretend.
In fact, the only place where she didn’t have to pretend were in those stolen moments with the very man she had just been told could not be hers. And time was running out on what they could share.
Which made her desperate, indeed.
Baldwin stretched his back as he entered his chamber, where he actually smiled at his bed. What he wanted more than anything was to sleep off what had turned into very long day. He’d spent his entire afternoon with the prospects. His mother had made certain of that. She hadn’t even been particularly subtle about it.
And they were fine. They were all fine. Nothing truly wrong with a one of them, save perhaps Charity, who he didn’t like at all. The rest had one common issue. They weren’t Helena. Helena, who he kept looking for in every crowd. Helena, who had been kept just as busy as he had, by her wretched uncle and cousin. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought his mother and Helena’s family had coordinated their efforts to keep them apart.
Only his mother wouldn’t work in league with Peter Shephard. She had some standards, even in her desperation.
He moved to ring the bell and call his valet, but before he could do so, there was a rustling behind him. He turned and was shocked when Helena, herself, stepped from the shadows in the corner of his room.
Her face was pale, her eyes wide and her hands trembled at her sides as she whispered, “I—should I have come?”
He didn’t answer, not with words. He could find none when his emotions and his desires were swelling up inside of him. Instead, he crossed the room in a few long strides, gathered her against him and kissed her. She immediately softened, winding her arms around his neck, gasping when he caught her backside and drew her even closer.
“I have great hopes that this isn’t a dream,” he murmured against her lips.
She smiled. “It isn’t,” she reassured him as he began to kiss her neck. “But it isn’t quite reality, either.”
He drew back and looked down at her. So lovely and so perfect and yet so out of reach. He cleared his throat. “Then let’s celebrate the fantasy while we can. But first, a question.”
She nodded. “Of course.”
“What about your cousin?”
“Charity is snoring in her bed, believing with every fiber of her being that I am asleep on the settee in her dressing room. She’s never been one to get up in the middle of the night, so we are safe in that regard.”
“Good,” he said, backing her toward his bed slowly. “Then I can keep you all night. Or nearly so.”