Loving Helen (23 page)

Samuel sighed and removed the watch from his vest to check the time. Another hour to go at least. He wasn’t certain he could endure that long.

Helen approached him after the end of a dance. “You look rather like your grumpy neighbor Lord Sutherland tonight,” she said, coming to stand beside him. “I do not think you care for balls very much.”

“I used to,” Samuel said, trying to remember that time. “Going home alone is always a painful reminder of the past.”

She placed her hand on his arm. “Tonight you are not going home alone. And there is no need to stay for the entire evening. We have accomplished what we came to do.”

“Almost,” Samuel said as he heard the strains of violins begin. “One dance more, and then we will leave. He took her hand in his. “This is the closest thing we will get to your personal waltz in Mrs. Ellis’s ballroom.”

He held her hand and led her easily through the dance steps as they twirled about the ballroom in the midst of the other couples. Helen’s smile never faltered, but she did not seem to be looking at him as she had earlier.

“What is wrong?” he asked on their third turn about the room.

“I am thinking of your wife,” she confessed. “And feeling so sad.” Her eyes shone bright with unshed tears.

“Don’t be sad for me,” he commanded rather urgently. “Aside from the fact that Mrs. Ellis will tell everyone that I am a brute who made you cry in public …” This solicited a tiny smile. “You must not worry over me. I have Beth. We are quite happy.”

“I know.” Helen sniffed loudly but did not elaborate on what else might be troubling her.

Samuel held her as close as was decently possible and tried to offer comfort. When next he attended a ball — if he ever chose to again, which was doubtful — he would not have her at his side. But he would remember this evening and the enchantment that first Grace, and now Helen —
especially Helen
— had cast upon him. How blessed he felt to have known them each, if only for a short time. How grateful he felt to have been the one privileged enough to help them on their ways to happiness.

The dance ended, and Samuel tucked Helen’s hand into the fold of his arm. They left the ballroom and claimed their wraps without so much as a word between them. When they climbed into the sleigh for the ride home and still had not spoken, it seemed that their night was to end as silently as it had begun.

The horses were off, the sleigh gliding through the snow. Their breath frosted in the cold air, and Helen snuggled closer. It seemed the most natural thing in the world when Samuel put his arm around her and pulled her near. She leaned her head against his shoulder and sighed.

“A sigh of contentment, I hope?” he said.

“As close to contentment as I am likely to ever get.” She tilted her head to look up at him. “Thank you for a lovely,
personal
evening, Samuel. Thank you for showing me what I have been missing. And thank you for helping Grace.”

For a minute, he had hoped — before she’d mentioned her sister — that Helen would say something else. But that was his foolishness for imagining things that were not there. “You are most welcome.”

She rested her head again on his shoulder. He willed the sleigh to move slowly through the night and tried to be grateful for the evening they’d had and a memory he would cherish forever.

It was with reluctance that Helen took Samuel’s hand and stepped from the sleigh. The ride home from the Ellises’ had been far better than the ball itself; she had enjoyed every minute seated close to Samuel and was sad to see their evening come to an end.

They went into the house, and the butler took her cloak. She brushed snow from her hair and waited as Samuel was helped from his coat as well. He offered her his arm, and together they started up the stairs, her steps dragging with reluctance. At the top they would part ways, she to the east wing and her waiting lady’s maid, he to the west, where his rooms and Beth’s lay.

“Good night, Samuel,” she said as they paused in the hall. “Thank you for a lovely evening.” Helen relinquished her hold on his arm.

“Wait — please.” He caught her hand, brought it to his lips and held it there.

She gazed at him curiously, breathlessly.

Samuel lifted his head but did not release her. He stepped closer. “May I — would you —”

Yes?
Anticipation thrummed through her.
Something wonderful is about to happen.

He closed his eyes briefly, his lips turned down and brow wrinkled as if he was caught in some sort of inner debate. After several seconds his features smoothed and he looked at her once more, though in not quite the same way.

Somehow she felt keenly disappointed at the change.

“Will you come to the nursery with me to check on Beth?” he asked. “She is quite the different child when she is asleep. You really should see her.”

“I am rather enamored of the awake version,” Helen said, trying to keep the disappointment from her voice. “But all right.” He still kept her hand, and she followed him down the hallway and felt somewhat scandalous for behaving thusly, so late at night.

Nonsense. I spend time in the nursery every day.

Beth’s door was closed, but Samuel turned the knob with his free hand and slowly pushed it open. “I check on Beth every night and have yet to waken her nanny. I believe she sleeps rather soundly.”

Evidence of such came in the form of muffled snoring from the room adjoining the nursery. Helen and Samuel exchanged guilty smiles at hearing Nanny Mary’s snores. Ignoring these and the continued thought that she should not be here, Helen entered the room behind Samuel.

Moonlight poured in from the bay window, bathing the nursery in a soft glow. Helen pulled her hand free of Samuel’s and crossed to the bed where Beth lay, curled up with one of her dolls clutched tightly in her fingers.

Samuel was right. She appeared different in sleep — serene and a little bit older.
More innocent than during the day, when she is almost always up to some mischief.
For some reason Beth’s changed appearance made Helen sad. Carefully she sat on the edge of the bed and touched Beth’s cheek. “She is growing up.”

“She will be four soon,” Samuel whispered. “Has she told you how many days must pass before her birthday?”

“Every day — several times a day,” Helen said, smiling.

“And to think she did not know much of numbers or counting until you taught her,” he remarked.

“She is very intelligent,” Helen said, stroking Beth’s hair.

“So is her tutor.”

Helen turned to him and caught him gazing at her with a look of such tender affection that at first she thought it must be for Beth.

But no. He is looking at me.
Their eyes locked, and Helen again felt the same anticipation and hope she’d had moments earlier, at the top of the stairs.

“The night is not quite over,” Samuel said. “There is time yet for one last dance, a waltz I think.”

This time Helen did not hesitate but rose and accepted his hand. He led her to the moonlit circle before the window, and they faced one another. As before, he placed his other hand at her waist, and she laid hers on his shoulder. This time they did not count out loud. There was no need. They simply looked at one another, and their dance was begun.

Instead of swirling her about the room, Samuel led them in a tight circle, slowly and quietly. They did not speak, but the silence felt comfortable as it had on their sleigh rides to and from the ball. His brown eyes had grown serious, as if considering a weighty matter. But Helen felt only light, a buoyant kind of happiness lifting her soul as Samuel held her close.

Outside the snow had begun to fall again, tiny flakes floating down on an already laid carpet of white. The fire in the grate burned low, yet the room felt perfectly warm.
She
felt perfectly warm whenever Samuel held her close.

The imagined song came to an end far too quickly, as Samuel slowed their already leisurely pace until they were stopped in front of the window and stood facing one another.

Helen’s breathing seemed much too shallow and quick for the little exertion their dance had required, and she worried the ruby necklace rising and falling would give her away, in spite of her best effort to calm herself.

But this is not fear. I am not afraid.
Her eyes met Samuel’s, and his appeared as searching and inquisitive as hers.

What are you thinking?
There were too many possibilities that could crush her fragile hope, so she dared not ask. To hear him mention his wife at this moment would be her undoing, when all Helen could think of was how far past pretending she had strayed.

Care for me. Just a little.

It seemed he might, for when her hand slid from his shoulder he caught it and held it over his heart, beating every bit as quickly as her own.

“Helen —”

A great snort came from the adjoining room, and Helen and Samuel sprang apart, staring at the door apprehensively. The noise came again, and she brought a hand to her mouth to stifle laughter. Samuel was not so successful, and a sort of choking guffaw escaped.

New sounds — feet on the floor and a match being struck — came from the nanny’s chamber. Light flared beneath the doorway as Helen began backing her way out of the room.

“Who’s there?” Nanny Mary’s voice sounded frightened.

“Only me,” Samuel said, composed once more and sounding defeated. “I came to check on Beth. My apologies for disturbing you.”

Helen continued her retreat and made it safely to the hall. Samuel had not followed but still stood as she had left him, alone in a circle of moonlight.

“Goodnight,” she called to him softly.

He looked at her a long moment, then nodded and turned away, his expression appearing almost as troubled as it had been that first morning in the garden. She waited, expecting Samuel to say something or come over to her, but he remained where he was, staring out the window. Helen took a step forward, longing to go to him, to put her arms around him and lay her cheek against his back and offer comfort. But something held her back.

If he wanted my comfort he would ask for it.

Instead, Helen felt as if she had been dismissed. She stood at the threshold of the nursery, longing to go in and be a part of the family on the other side. But she had not been invited and was not really part of it at all.

I have only been imagining. It has all been pretend.

“I’ve been thinking,” Samuel began at dinner the following week.
Far too much about you.
“And I feel we must not continue on this way. Reuniting Grace and Nicholas is taking too long.”

Helen, about to take a bite, stopped her fork halfway to her mouth. “Too long?” There was no mistaking the hurt in her voice.

Do not look at me that way.
Samuel cleared his throat uncomfortably. “What I mean to say is that we are not accomplishing what we set out to do. The longer Nicholas is apart from Grace, the more difficult it will be to make him see the necessity of taking her back.”

“What do you suggest?” Helen set her fork down, bite uneaten, though she appeared to swallow with difficulty anyway.

“We must present the evidence to Nicholas in person.” Samuel took a deep breath, committing himself to the course he’d been considering for the past few days. “We must invite him here.”

“Will he come?” She sounded skeptical rather than nervous, and once again Samuel found himself in awe of the transformation he’d witnessed in her the past month. If nothing else, their charade had helped her.
And hurt me.
Now, it seemed, he had not only Beth’s feelings to worry over if Helen left, but his as well.

“I do not believe that he will accept my invitation,” Samuel said, “unless we provide a compelling reason for him to do so.”

“A reason?”

As her brow furrowed, her nose wrinkled, as he’d noticed it did when she was concerned. He wished to kiss the wrinkle away and tell her not to worry. He wished he could spend the indefinite future easing her worries.
I am a fool to imagine it.