Marrying Winterborne (28 page)

“You're still our sister,” Pandora said. “It doesn't matter to me whether you were sired by our old terrible father, or your new terrible father.”

“I didn't need the extra one,” Helen said glumly.

“Helen,” Cassandra asked, “are you certain that Mr. Winterborne won't want to marry you when he finds out?”

“No, and I wouldn't want that for him. He's worked hard all his life to rise above his circumstances. He
loves beautiful, fine things, and he deserves a wife who will elevate him, not lower him.”

“You could never lower him,” Pandora said in outrage.

Helen smiled sadly. “I'll be connected with ugliness and scandal. When people see me with Charity, they'll assume she's my bastard child, and I must have had her out of wedlock, and they would whisper about how Mr. Winterborne's wife is a strumpet. And they would pretend to be sorry for him, but they would take malicious delight in shaming him behind his back.”

“Whispers can't hurt you,” Pandora said.

Cassandra gave her twin a chiding glance. “Whispers can gut and fillet you like a haddock.”

Pandora scowled but conceded the point.

“The fact is,” Helen continued, “I'll ruin Winterborne's image.”

“The man or the store?” Cassandra asked.

“Both. His store is about elegance and perfection, and I would be a chink in the armor. More than a chink: Charity and I would be a large, gaping hole in the armor.”

“When will you talk to him?”

“Tomorrow, I think.” Helen put a hand over her midriff as she felt a little stab at the thought of facing him. “Afterward I'll take Charity to Eversby Priory, and we'll stay there until Kathleen and Devon return from Ireland.”

“We're coming with you,” Cassandra said.

“No, you'll be better off in London. There's more to do here, and Lady Berwick is good for you. She wants very much to make a success of you. I've disappointed her terribly, and she'll need you to lift her spirits and keep her company.”

“Will you live with Charity at Eversby Priory?” Cassandra asked.

“No,” Helen said quietly. “It will be better for all of us if Charity and I live far away, where no one knows us. Among other things, it will lessen the chance that my disgrace might harm your marriage prospects.”

“Oh don't concern yourself about that,” Cassandra said earnestly. “Pandora's not going to marry at all. And I certainly wouldn't want a man who would scorn me just because my sister was a strumpet.”

“I like that word,” Pandora mused. “Strumpet. It sounds like a saucy musical instrument.”

“It would liven up an orchestra,” Cassandra said. “Wouldn't you like to hear the Vivaldi Double Strumpet Concerto in C?”

“No,” Helen said, smiling reluctantly at her sisters' irreverence. “Stop it, both of you—I'm trying to be morose and tragic, and you're making it difficult.”

“You're not going to live far away.” Pandora put her arms around her. “You and Charity are going to live with me. I'll start earning money soon, lots of it, and I'll buy a big house for us.”

Helen reached out to hug her close. “I think you'll be a great success,” she murmured, and smiled as she felt Cassandra's arms go around the both of them.

“I'm going to live with you too,” Cassandra said.

“Of course,” Pandora said firmly. “Who needs a husband?”

H
ELEN AWAKENED AS
A
GATHA,
the lady's maid who attended her and the twins, entered her bedroom with a breakfast tray.

“Good morning, my lady.”

“Good morning,” Helen said sleepily, stretching and turning on her side. She was briefly surprised to be confronted with the face of a sleeping child.

So it hadn't been a dream.

Charity was so deep in slumber that the slight rattle of teacups on the approaching tray didn't cause her to stir. Helen stared at her with a touch of wonder. Despite the child's pitiful spareness, her cheeks were babyishly rounded. The lids covering her large eyes were paper-thin, with delicate blue veins, thinner than human hairs, etched on the surface. Her skin was poreless, translucent over her pulses. It frightened Helen to realize how vulnerable this small person was, a fragile construction of delicately joined bones, flesh, veins.

Sitting up carefully, Helen let Agatha settle the tray on her lap. There was a steaming cup of tea, and a silver pot of chocolate next to an empty cup.

“Did the little one sleep well, my lady?”

“Yes. I don't think she stirred all night. Agatha . . . I didn't ask for tea in bed this morning, did I?” She
usually took her tea and breakfast downstairs in the morning room.

“No, my lady. The countess bade me to bring it to you, and chocolate for the girl.”

“How kind of her.” At first Helen thought it was a peace offering, after the uncomfortable scene last night.

She was soon to learn otherwise.

Discovering the sealed rectangle partially tucked beneath the saucer, she picked it up and opened it.

Helen,

Upon reflection, I realized the obvious solution to the muddle you are in. The child, and all responsibility for her, belong to my nephew. It is finally time for him to solve one of the problems he has created. I have already sent word this morning that he is to retrieve his daughter forthwith, and do with her as he sees fit.

The matter is now out of your hands, as it should be.

I expect Mr. Vance to arrive within the hour. Have the child dressed and ready. Let us try not to make a scene when it comes time for her departure.

This is for the best. If you do not realize it now, you will soon.

Helen set the note down, breathing shallowly. The room seemed to revolve slowly around her. Vance
would come, because he wanted Helen to marry Mr. Winterborne, and Charity was an obstacle to his plans. And if he took Charity away with him, the child would die. He wouldn't kill her, but he would leave her in a situation in which she couldn't survive. Which was more or less what he had already done.

You will take her over my dead body
. Picking up the tea, Helen tried to swallow some, finding it difficult to guide the shaking rim to her lips. A splash of hot liquid fell on her bodice.

“Is something amiss, my lady?”

“Not amiss,” Helen replied, setting down the cup, “but Lady Berwick has requested that I have Charity dressed and ready for the day, in very short order. We need the clothes that were washed for her last night. Would you ask Mrs. Abbott to bring them to my room right away? I need to speak to her.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Take the tray, please, and set it aside.”

After Agatha had left, Helen slid out of bed and ran to the wardrobe. She pulled out a velvet tapestry bag, took it to the dresser, and began to toss articles into it: a hairbrush, handkerchiefs, gloves, stockings, and a jar of salve. She threw in the tin of neuralgic powders—although she wouldn't take one while traveling, she might very well need it by the time she reached her destination.

“Helen?” Charity sat up and regarded her with big, bright eyes. A hank of hair had sprung up near the top of her head like a bird's plumage.

Helen smiled in spite of her suffocating panic, and went to her. “Good morning, my little chick.” She hugged her, while small trusting arms clasped her waist.

“You smell pretty.”

Helen released her with a fond stroke on her hair, went to the breakfast tray, and poured chocolate into the empty cup. Testing it with the tip of her pinkie finger, she found that it was warm but not too hot. “Do you like chocolate, Charity?”

The question was greeted with perplexed silence.

“Try it and see.” Helen gave her the cup carefully, curving the tiny fingers around the heated china.

The girl sampled it, smacked her lips, and looked at Helen with a wondering smile. She continued to drink it in birdlike sips, trying to make it last.

“I'll be right back, darling,” Helen murmured. “I have to wake up my sleepyhead sisters.” Calmly she walked to the door. Once she was in the hallway, she ran like a madwoman to Cassandra's room. Her sister was deep in slumber.

“Cassandra,” she whispered, patting and shaking her shoulder. “Please wake up. Help, I need help.”

“Too early,” Cassandra mumbled.

“Mr. Vance is coming within the hour. He's going to take Charity away. Please, you must help me, I need to leave Ravenel House quickly.”

Cassandra sat bolt upright, giving her a befuddled glance. “What?”

“Get Pandora, and come to my room. Try to be quiet.”

In five minutes, the twins were in Helen's bedroom. She handed them the note, and they read it in turn.

Pandora looked wrathful. “‘The matter is now out of your hands,'” she read aloud, a flush climbing her cheeks. “I hate her.”

“No, you mustn't hate her,” Helen said softly. “She's doing the wrong thing for the right reason.”

“I don't care about the reason, the result is still revolting.”

Someone tapped quietly on the door. “Lady Helen?” came the housekeeper's voice.

“Yes, come in.”

The housekeeper entered with a stack of neatly folded clothes. “All washed and mended,” she said. “There's not much left of the stockings, but I patched them as well as I could.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Abbott. Charity will enjoy wearing nice clean clothes.” Helen gestured to the child on the bed, reminding them all that she could hear every word. She gave the note to the housekeeper and waited until she had read it before murmuring apologetically, “I wish I could explain the situation more fully to you, but—”

“You're a Ravenel, my lady,” came Mrs. Abbott's staunch reply. “That's all I need to understand. What are you planning?”

“I'm going to Waterloo Station, to take the next train to Hampshire.”

“I'll tell the driver to ready the carriage.”

“No, that would take too long, and they'll notice, and we'd never be allowed to leave. I have to go to the main road by way of the servants' door and take a hansom cab to the station.”

Mrs. Abbott looked alarmed. “My lady, a hansom—”

“Don't worry about that. The problem is that when Mr. Vance realizes I'm not here, he'll follow me to the station. It's fairly obvious that Eversby Priory is the only place I could take Charity.”

“We'll stall for you,” Pandora said. “We'll lock your bedroom door and pretend to be helping with Charity.”

“I'll speak to one of the footmen,” the housekeeper
said quietly. “Mr. Vance's carriage will be missing a perch-bolt when he tries to leave.”

Impulsively Helen snatched up her hand and kissed it.

Mrs. Abbott seemed slightly unnerved by the gesture. “There, there, my lady. I'll send Agatha back up to help you dress.”

“We'll take care of the rest,” Cassandra said.

The next few minutes were a strange, mad scramble of feverish activity and quiet murmurs. Helen had already donned her chemise and drawers by the time Agatha came to the room, and was struggling with her corset. In her haste, she couldn't match the front hooks up correctly.

Agatha came to her, reached for the top of the busk, and began to hook it deftly. “My mum always says, ‘fast is slow and slow is fast.'”

“I'll try to remember that,” Helen said ruefully.

After finishing the corset, the maid went to the wardrobe.

“No, don't,” Helen said, realizing what she was looking for. “I'm not going to wear a bustle.”

“My lady?” the maid asked, looking shocked.

“Just pin up the loose parts of my traveling skirts in back,” Helen insisted. “I can't walk in tiny steps today, I have to
move
.”

Agatha hurried back to her with a black traveling skirt and a white blouse.

On the other side of the room, Cassandra dressed Charity with remarkable speed, telling her with a smile that she was going on an outing with Helen. “Pandora, she has no bonnet or coat. Will you fetch her a shawl or something?”

Pandora dashed off to her room and returned with a shawl and a small, low-crowned felt hat trimmed
with cord. Since there was no significant difference between girls' and women's hat styles, it would work well enough.

After helping Helen to don her black traveling jacket, Agatha asked, “Shall I run to the pantry and fetch something for you to take, my lady?”

Cassandra answered from the window, where she had gone after hearing a noise from outside. “No time,” she said tersely. “Mr. Vance's carriage has arrived.”

Agatha gathered Helen's loose locks, twisted them with a few violent jerks, pulled a few pins from her own hair, and anchored a simple knot high on Helen's head. Pandora snatched a hat from the wardrobe and tossed it to the maid, who caught it with one hand and fastened it just above the knot of hair.

“Do you have money?” Cassandra asked.

“Yes.” Helen strode to the tapestry bag, took out some gloves, and closed the top. “Charity,” she asked, shaping her mouth into a smile, “are you ready to go on an outing?”

The child nodded. With the hat covering the ragged mop of her hair, and the shawl concealing most of the orphanage uniform, she looked tidy and presentable.

Cassandra glanced over Helen. “You seem so calm.”

“My heart's about to burst,” Helen said. “Quickly, let's say good-bye.”

Cassandra kissed her cheek. “I love you,” she whispered, and crouched down to hug Charity.

Pandora followed suit, kissing Helen and bending to take Charity's face in her hands. Apparently assuming that Pandora wanted to inspect her teeth, as she had the previous night, Charity opened her mouth to display her lower incisors.

Pandora grinned. Nudging the small mouth closed
with a gentle finger, she kissed the child's nose. Standing, she gave Helen a businesslike nod. “We'll buy you as much time as we can.”

Picking up the tapestry bag, and taking Charity's hand, Helen followed Agatha from the room. Immediately after she crossed the threshold, the door closed, and the key turned decisively in the lock.