Malia Martin (28 page)

He could not stand a moment more of the happy buzz that pervaded the Hall. Trevor used the back stairs and struck out for the stables to take Lucky for a nice long ride.

Trevor leaned low over Lucky’s neck, pushing the stallion to a full-out gallop. The wind whistled by his ears and tugged at his hair, and he felt free for a few precious moments. Trevor rode toward the mill, just to see it again. Robbie had fixed the place up nicely in the last month, and after their trip into town for supplies, they would be able to start production.

The thought sent a shiver of anticipation up Trevor’s spine. He had never worked before. He had never been part of a team before, truly. And now he felt a sort of kinship building between himself, Robbie, and Lyle as they worked together on this project. Trevor came up over a rise and saw the mill in the distance.

He was so intent on the mill, he nearly ran right over the couple lying on the grass beneath a tree. But at the sound of a feminine shriek, Trevor pulled up Lucky with a tight yank of the reins.

Lucky pawed the air for a moment, turning his head this way and that, but Trevor soon had him under control. He patted the stallion’s neck and murmured soothing words before looking over to see who it was he had nearly mowed down.

“Your grace!”

Trevor blinked at Helen and Mr. Goldblume. They stood far apart from each other, hands behind their backs, but a rather large piece of grass dangled from Helen’s blonde hair, and they both had red, soft-looking mouths.

Trevor cleared his throat a few times, not sure exactly what he should say. Truly, he did not know what to think, either. He knew that he felt nothing deeper than embarrassment.

Helen finally stepped forward, her clear blue gaze on his. “It is my fault, your grace. I asked him to meet me here today.”

Trevor wished to God that he had worn a hat. Something to pull over his eyes, hide his face, as Helen watched him with that uncanny look of hers.

Mr. Goldblume sputtered at Helen’s declaration. “But I came, your grace. It is my fault, truly it is.”

Trevor dismounted quickly, striding toward the two. Mr. Goldblume quit blubbering in mid-sentence, obviously petrified. Helen did not move.

“What have I interrupted here?” Trevor asked. “Are you lovers? Do you dally with the promised bride of the Duke, sir?” Trevor looked right at Mr. Goldblume.

The man’s eyes widened, and he began to sputter once more. Helen interrupted him. “We are in love, your grace, but we are not lovers. And it
is
my fault. While you were gone this last month, I have forced my attentions on Mr. Goldblume. I have loved him for years—since we were children, in fact. I thought that if I could get him to realize his love for me, he would fight you for me.” She said all this in a level, composed tone.

“Fight me?”

Mr. Goldblume looked ready to expire on the spot. “I would never, sir, never!”

“If you marry me today, your grace, you marry someone who will forever love another.” She stood straight, looking him right in the eye. Poor Mr. Goldblume turned a mottled shade of red.

An amazing woman, this young girl Helen had turned out to be. He hoped Mr. Goldblume would not spend his entire life cowed by the chit. Trevor shrugged and took up Lucky’s reins. “Come, then—we will have to break this news to your mother.” Trevor mocked a shiver. “And I daren’t do it alone.”

“Your grace.” Rachel came to the parlor with a smile. “What a lovely surprise.” She faltered a bit when she saw Helen sitting near Mr. Goldblume on the sofa. “Helen, you were gone early this morning.”

“Yes,” Trevor said, figuring they might as well get it all out quickly. “She was out this morning with Mr. Goldblume.”

Rachel drew in a sharp breath, looking quickly at her daughter.

“It seems, Mrs. Biddle, that your daughter does not wish to marry me at all,” Trevor said.

“That does not matter!” Mrs. Biddle cried. “You compromised her. You must marry her.”

Trevor felt Helen’s eyes upon him, and he returned her gaze for a moment.

“I will not marry him,” she said without looking away.

“What?” Mrs. Biddle jumped up from her seat. “What are you saying, Helen?”

“I am saying that I’m in love with Mr. Goldblume. I have loved him for as long as I can remember, and I am not going to marry the Duke.”

“Dear Lord.” Mrs. Biddle crumpled back into her chair. She looked old sitting there, her long fingers covering her face.

“I would not be happy married to the Duke, Mother. I do not love him.”

A sound of disgust emanated from Mrs. Biddle, and she looked up from her hands. “You would be the Duchess of Rawlston, girl!
Of course
you would be happy!”

“No, Mother, that is what
you
wanted. I did not. I never did. I grew up the bastard daughter of the Duke of Rawlston, and it was awful. Do you think now I want to be the wife of the Duke of Rawlston? Why would I want that? Why would I want to put myself in that position? People whisper now behind their hands as I pass by; they would whisper still, if I married the duke, “That is the bastard daughter of the Duke. She married his heir!’” Helen shook her head, a small smile playing about her lips.

“You are better than they. You could show them that if you married the Duke.”

“No, I can show them that no matter who I marry. But I want more than anything to be
Mrs. Goldblume, the shopkeeper’s wife.”

“But . . .”

“Mother,
you
have spent your life wishing to be married to the Duke. I haven’t.” Helen went to her mother and took the woman’s hands in hers. “You have also spent your life unhappy, kept from the man you love. Do you wish that for me also?”

Rachel and Helen stared silently at one another for a long time. Trevor shifted in his chair, uncomfortable witnessing this moment between mother and daughter. Finally Mrs. Biddle shook her head.

“I wish for your happiness, Daughter,” she said.

Helen squeezed her mother’s hands. “Then give me your blessing on my marriage to Seth.”

Mrs. Biddle glanced over at Mr. Goldblume, who blinked large, guileless brown eyes at her. Trevor wasn’t sure he’d want his daughter marrying the boy. He was harmless, really, but he did not possess the strongest of backbones. Perhaps Helen could help him with that.

“I grew up a merchant’s daughter.” Mrs. Biddle turned back to her daughter. “It is hard, Helen. People of quality look down on you.”

“Then they can’t be people of much quality.” Helen patted her mother’s hand. “And I am used to others looking down on me.”

“Exactly!” Rachel curled her fingers around Helen’s. “I wanted to put you in a position
where they would have to look up from now on.

Helen closed her eyes for a moment, then gently shook free of her mother’s hold and went to Mr. Goldblume’s side. She took the man’s hand and sat beside him. “I will be happy, Mother. That is the position you should wish for me.”

Mrs. Biddle sighed deeply. She glanced at Trevor, then back at her daughter. “I do wish you happiness, Helen. I thought I was giving it to you by making it possible for you to marry the Duke.”

Helen just shook her head.

“All right, then.” Mrs. Biddle shrugged. “I will give my blessing to your union with Mr. Goldblume.”

Helen turned and threw her arms around the man. Mr. Goldblume’s eyes widened, but he closed his arms around Helen’s waist.

“Shall we get a special license, Mr. Goldblume?” Trevor asked. “We have the ceremony all planned. You two could marry this evening.”

“Oh, no!” Mrs. Biddle cried.

“I insist.”

Helen smiled at him with her wise smile. “That would be lovely, your grace.”

“With you as the bride, yes, it shall,” Trevor said.

“But the people are going to be very disappointed that you are not marrying, your grace,”
Helen reminded him. “They are planning quite a party, since they believed you would finally break the curse.”

“I still have three weeks.” He grinned at the people in the room. “I think I could find someone suitable in three weeks.”

“He should have gone to London.” Sara scribbled another name on a sheet of paper. “The London season has begun and there are many young women who would jump at the chance to be the next Duchess of Rawlston.”

“There is a bit of a taint to the name,” Rachel said from her seat behind Sara.

Sara scowled. They were wary friends still, she and Rachel. “Because you had me jailed, dearest Rachel, there is a taint on the name.” Sara sprinkled sand over her missive and blew.

Rachel snorted, but said no more.

Sara sighed, folding her letter and standing. “Give him this. It will help him.” She shoved the paper at Rachel.

The older woman stared at the letter for a moment before taking it and resting it upon her lap.

When she did, Sara sat upon the settee opposite Rachel and propped her feet upon a footstool. “At least I am glad to hear of Helen’s happiness.”

Rachel smoothed the list of names Sara had just given her against her knee. “She is happy.”

“But you are not?”

Rachel did not answer.

They sat in silence for a long time before Rachel finally said, “And you, Duchess, are you happy?” The woman looked up and met Sara’s gaze.

Sara felt as if her heart may cave in on itself. Such a simple question, but even to think of answering made Sara bite at her bottom lip.

Rachel smiled, an empty movement of lines on her face. “Now you see what a terrible question that is to ask.”

Sara closed her eyes and turned her head so that she rested against the arm of the settee. “But, surely, Rachel, the pain dulls.”

“Dulls? Yes,” the woman said quietly. “Leaves? Never.”

Sara’s hand went automatically to caress her still flat stomach.

“Still,” Rachel continued. “I do not understand why you cannot go to him now. You shall have his child. You will give him an heir.”

Sara opened her eyes and turned to look at Rachel. The woman sat stiffly in a chair, her once beautiful face creased with bitterness. Sara could only pray that she would not let heart-break do the same to her.

“You will not believe it, Rachel. I do not wish to be Duchess of Rawlston.” Sara sighed. “I did it once, and I have no desire to do it again.”

Rachel huffed a disgusted sound of disbelief.

“The new Duchess of Rawlston should be young and fertile with the promise of many
children.” Sara laughed without merriment. “I have but this one chance at motherhood.” She did not voice her fear, though, that this chance was small. She had been at this point of pregnancy at other times in her life. And yet she was still not a mother.

Rachel stood and strode away from her, facing out one of the large windows that looked out at the cliffs and rough seas beyond. “He loves you,” she said simply. “He would leave it all for you. You could go to Paris with him. Live the life he led before. You would be the Duchess of Rawlston in name only.”

“I could never do that, Rachel. You know I could not.” Sara smiled. “And I would never ask that of Trevor. He must succeed as Duke of Rawlston. For himself, he must.”

Rachel nodded without turning around. “Yes, of course. I knew you would say that.”

Her voice broke on the last word, but she did not move or turn around.

“Rachel?”

“There are moments . . .” Rachel took a deep breath. “There are moments when I wish I had been as strong as you.” She turned then, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “It would have been better of me to put others’ feelings before my own.”

Sara blinked. It was an apology, or the closest thing to it.

“Oh, but I loved John so.” Rachel shook her
head and waved her hand in the air. “I thought I would die without him.”

“I know how you felt.”

The two women stared at each other in silence. And then Rachel smiled, and Sara smiled back. They were true smiles, a common bond of pain linking them, finally.

“Yes, well.” Rachel pressed her palms against her waist. “I shall not have you dying on my watch.” She bustled over to the door. “Lily?” she cried. “Is the tea about ready?”

Sara heard her maid clanking about in the small kitchen. “Yes, Mrs. Biddle, ’tis just about ready.”

“Good then,” Rachel came back, took a pillow from the other side of the settee and settled it behind Sara’s neck. “Tea and rest, dearest, and you shall be a mother right soon. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. If you have a daughter, run for the nearest hills before she grows up, becomes smarter than you, and marries a dress-maker with the spine of a jellyfish.”

It had been two weeks, and he still had not found a bride. As if he had the time for such nonsense. Trevor spent all day at the mill, as they were shearing the sheep. And they were all learning how it was done, even him. Especially him. He wanted to know how to do every aspect of this new endeavor. Unfortunately, most of the men were in dull spirits because Trevor was brideless. They felt their hard work
would be for naught if Trevor did not marry and break the damned Gypsy curse.

It seemed the only Rawlston inhabitants in good spirits were Mr. and Mrs. Goldblume. Helen worked in Seth’s store every day, the brightest smile in all Christendom upon her face.

Trevor dumped a glass of scotch down his throat and sat back in his chair, listening with half an ear as Lyle read through the business of the day. He was tired and cross, and he wished that Sara would come back to help him find a wife. He could not do it alone.

But Sara, it seemed, had dropped off the face of the earth. No one knew where she had gone. Trevor sighed and massaged his temples. He had never thought to do any of this without Sara somewhere nearby.

Trevor heard someone knock at the front door. It was rather late for visitors, and the only people who seemed to come anyway were girls with their mothers, so Trevor stayed where he was. He heard Filbert’s cane tapping down the hallway and then murmuring as he spoke to someone.

Finally he heard Filbert make his way to the study. Trevor scowled. He was absolutely in no mood to deal with some simpering young thing and her overbearing mother.

“Your grace,” Filbert shoved the door open without knocking. “A letter for you.” He held out a piece of paper folded over for mailing.