Dear Reader,

One of the questions writers often receive is “Where do you get your ideas?” In the case of The Untamed Heiress, the story simmered at the back of my mind for so long, I’m not sure where or when the idea originated. I just knew that someday, when the publishing world permitted, I wanted to write Helena’s story.

Growing up in a cruel isolation imposed by her father, Helena Lambarth is a wild creature who comes to London with absolutely no preparation for entering the highly structured world of Regency England. Wary of society and even more wary of men, she goes her own way with fierce independence. Until Adam, Lord Darnell, her reluctant host and sponsor, begins to touch her heart by demonstrating that men of honor, courage, integrity and compassion do exist. If only he hadn’t already pledged his hand to the wealthy, oh-so-conventional Priscilla Standish….

I hope you will enjoy as much as I did watching Adam melt the walls of ice Helena has erected around herself—even as her untamed spirit inspires him to find a way to meld duty with passion.

Happy reading!

Julia Justiss

Praise for the books of Julia Justiss

The Courtesan

“With its intelligent, compelling characters, this is a very well-written, emotional and intensely charged read.”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub, Top Pick

“These delightful lead protagonists display honor and loyalty…a solid secondary cast adds to a wonderful gender-bending Regency romance.”

—Harriet Klausner

Wicked Wager

“Unique true-to-period characters, intrigue and up-to-snuff action make for very enjoyable reading.”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub

My Lady’s Honor

“Julia Justiss has a knack for conveying emotional intensity and longing.”

—All About Romance

My Lady’s Pleasure

“Another entertaining, uniquely plotted Regency-era novel…top-notch writing and a perfect ending make this one easy to recommend.”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub

My Lady’s Trust

“With this exceptional Regency-era romance, Justiss adds another fine feather to her writing cap.”

—Publishers Weekly

The Proper Wife

“If The Proper Wife is not a perfect love story, it comes darn close.”

—The Romance Reader

“A spirited Regency-era romance that far outshines the usual fare…Justiss is a promising new talent.”

—Publishers Weekly

Julia Justiss
The Untamed Heiress

To my editor, Margo Lipschultz, for helping to mold

this story so that Helena’s wild spirit shines free

The Untamed Heiress

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER ONE

THE SHRIEKING WIND whipped her tangled black hair into her eyes as the sea crashed and foamed onto the rocks behind her. Ignoring both, Helena Lambarth kept her face turned inland toward the two laborers in the field beneath the cliffs, digging steadily into the stony soil.

The grave was almost ready.

Euphoria sent her spirits swooping like gulls on an updraft. A joyous burst of laughter trilled from her throat as she finally let herself believe it.

He was truly dead. She was free.

Though she knew any sound she made should have been lost in the cacophony of surf and cawing seabirds, one of the grave diggers paused to glance up. As he raised his arm to point, the second man saw her. A look of fear passing over his face, he crossed himself and batted his companion’s hand back to his shovel. An instant later the two men went back to their task with renewed vigor.

Did they think her a ghostie? Helena wondered, her lips curving in a wry smile. Or did they remember her from that grim morning nine years ago when she’d managed to escape Lambarth Castle and flee to the village, only to have a group of townsmen, deaf to her pleas for help, quickly return the “poor, mad girl” to her father.

For a moment the memory engulfed her: standing, barefoot and sobbing, within a circle of wary onlookers who murmured to each other as they took in her torn clothing, dirty face and disheveled hair.

“Such a wee lass…”

“Mind’s completely gone, her papa says…”

“Her mother’s fault, running off like that…”

Her lip curled as a familiar fury coursed through her. Papa’s lies would keep her a prisoner no longer. Today she would leave this accursed place and search for the mother from whose side she’d been ripped just as they were about to leave her father’s land. The mother who, Helena believed with all her heart, had never stopped loving her.

A movement in the distance brought her attention back to the present. The grave diggers stood, shovels in hand, as the funeral procession picked its way down the narrow track from the castle to the small graveyard. Its listing markers and barren, windswept grounds were a picture of neglect but for this new grave and one other, just inside the rusted iron gate.

A pang pierced Helena’s chest as her gaze rested on that still-unsettled mound of dirt hugging the boundary wall, its occupant an interloper in death as she had been in life. If “Mad Sally,” the old hermit medicine woman dead two months now, had not lived in Lambarth’s woods, Helena mused, she probably would not have survived her captivity.

Would Sally have been happy for her today? Helena wondered. Though the old woman babbled nonsense most of the time, in her occasional lucid moments, she’d displayed a shrewd perception. Along with some of the villagers, who crept into the woods begging Sally’s help when the local doctor’s efforts failed, Helena had also prized the woman’s uncanny talent as a healer.

Others believed the chanting crone possessed dark powers and avoided her—which was why her father, ever the coward, had let the woman live on his land undisturbed. Helena, though, had never known Sally to use her skills except to succor and heal.

Another pang squeezed her heart. Vacant-headed or not, Mad Sally had been her only friend, and Helena still missed her keenly.

She took a deep, steadying breath. With the demise of her father, Helena hoped that the patrol he’d set to monitor the perimeter of Lambarth land would also have departed. But whether or not she met resistance from armed guards, she vowed, only her own death would keep her another night at Lambarth Castle.

Thus sworn, she watched the funeral procession file into the graveyard. Two farm workers carried the coffin, followed by a man whose flapping black robes identified him as the vicar, and Holmes, her father’s baliff.

Not expecting any other mourners, Helena was surprised to discover another person trailing the coffin. A man, Helena realized as the muffled figure drew nearer. Someone she’d never seen before.

The vicar’s assistant, perhaps? Since she’d not been off Lambarth property in nine years, there were probably several newcomers to the village she hadn’t met.

The man’s odd demeanor, though, held her attention. Rather than focusing on the preacher, whose moving lips over the open prayer book indicated he’d begun the funeral service, the man’s gaze roved up, down, around the barren graveyard, as if he were searching for something.

Or someone. A moment later his questing eyes met hers. Defiantly, Helena held his gaze. After regarding her steadily for several minutes, he nodded.

Curious now, she nodded back. The stranger gave her a brief smile, then turned back to the preacher.

While Helena watched the minister continue to read the service, her mind raced back to something Mad Sally had told her shortly before her death. Not daring to place any credence in so unlikely a possibility, Helena had dismissed as another of the old woman’s crazy mutterings the claim that Helena’s mother had sent someone to watch over her. Someone who’d been waiting in the village for years for her father to grow ill or incapacitated enough for it to be safe to approach her.

Could Sally’s message have been true? Might this man be the one?

She mustn’t let excitement carry her away, she told herself, trying to rein in her rioting imagination. However, since she intended to set off in that direction anyway, it wouldn’t hurt to trail the man back toward the village—assuming her expectations were correct and no armed guards remained at their posts to prevent her leaving.

The service concluded, the minister waited only until the two mourners had each tossed a handful of stony soil over the coffin before wrapping his robes about him and hurrying out of the graveyard, shoulders hunched against the wind. Without glancing at her again, the stranger followed, leaving the two grave diggers to their work.

Watching from her rocky perch as the group dispersed, Helena hugged her thin arms around the worn bodice of her outgrown dress. Since she’d long ago grown inured to the cold of the coastal wind and mist, the shiver that passed through her frame must be hope.

“I’M SO SORRY, MY DEAR.”

As if the words made no sense, Helena sat staring over the desk at the kindly visage of Mr. Pendenning, Mama’s London solicitor. Except he wasn’t Mama’s solicitor anymore. Mama was dead.

The man at her father’s funeral, Jerry Sunderland, had not known, the lawyer told her. He’d been sent to the village years earlier, after her mother’s attempt to rescue her failed, with instructions to settle quietly, pursue his trade and wait until such time as he judged it safe to approach Helena with Mr. Pendenning’s message.

Somehow, all through the long journey from the coast to London, she’d sensed it, though she’d forbidden her mind to even consider the possibility. Along with the lawyer’s note, Jerry had given her money enough to make the trip in easy stages, but that amorphous, unnamed fear in her heart had driven her to travel night and day without rest. Oblivious to wind, rain and chill, she’d ridden much of the way on the roof of the mail coaches, unwilling to wait and reserve an inside seat on a later run. With that inner cadence pounding in her ears—hurry! hurry!—she’d done little more than numbly note the marvelous variety of terrain and the many occupations being practiced by the folk they passed on their route.

Exploring the wonders of the world now open to her was for later. Ignoring the pain in her ankles from the stiff shoes and the scratch of the rough wool cape Jerry had provided, she had clutched in her hands the slip of paper with the solicitor’s address, her mind fixed on a single imperative: get to London. Find Mama.

But Mama would not be found, in London or elsewhere. For more than a year, Mr. Pendenning had just told her, Mama’s brilliant smile and joyous laughter had been entombed on a small Caribbean island half a world away. The place where Gavin Seagrave, the man she’d loved and fled to, had settled after being forced to leave England.

There would be no reunion. The goal that had sustained her through beatings and isolation and deprivation, that had given her hope and steeled her to persevere, had vanished like snow in a hot noon sun.

For the first time in her life, Helena felt truly alone.

“What am I to do now?” she whispered, unaware she’d spoken the words out loud.

“Live your life, my child,” Mr. Pendenning said gently. “I corresponded with your mother for years and can with confidence, I believe, offer you the advice she would have given. After her health began to fail and she accepted the painful fact that she would probably not outlive your father, it became her single goal to arrange her affairs so that once you were free, you would have the means to do whatever you wished. And though I haven’t yet received the particulars from your father’s attorneys, as his sole heiress as well as your mother’s, you will find yourself an extremely wealthy young woman.”

Helena had been listening listlessly to the lawyer’s recitation, but at this, her head snapped back up. “I want nothing to do with anything that was my father’s.”

The lawyer ran a sympathetic glance over her thin form. “Though you did not hold him in affection, that does not alter the fact that you are still his legal heir. In addition to cash reserves, there is—”

“No!” Helena interrupted with such vehemence the lawyer fell silent. “I want nothing that belonged to him. Not one handful of earth from any property he owned. Not a penny of his wealth. I’d rather live in the streets.”

The lawyer smiled. “There’s no chance of your having to do that. However, you must consider that part of your father’s estate consists of the land and capital that was your mother’s dowry. The rest of his assets you could sell, perhaps, and invest the proceeds.”

“Whatever was Mama’s I will keep,” Helena replied. “But nothing of my father’s. Nothing. Do you understand?”

Though he gave her a dubious look, the lawyer nodded. “As you wish. But what of Lambarth Castle? It was your home and your mother’s. If you do not wish to live in it, remote as the property is, I expect a buyer can be found.”

“I should like the books from the library shipped to me. As for the castle itself,” Helena said, turning the full force of her dark-eyed gaze on the lawyer, “I wish it to be torn down, stone by stone and beam by beam, and the rubble cast into the sea.”

The lawyer’s face blanched and he swallowed hard. “I…I see. And the servants?”

“By the time Papa died, only Holmes and his wife remained.” Helena recalled with loathing how the two had delighted in enforcing her father’s cruelty. “I suppose I cannot negate any bequests made to them in my father’s will? Then they may have whatever Papa left them and not a penny more. I am a wealthy woman now, you said?”

“Extremely wealthy.”

“And I may spend this wealth as I choose?”

“Your mother named me as trustee to advise you, but otherwise you may spend as you will.”

“Then I should like to do one more thing at Lambarth Castle. Erect a marble monument in the burial grounds.”

“To mark the grave of your father, I expect?”

Helena gave a harsh laugh. “Certainly not. The crows are welcome to him. No, the marker is for an old woman, Sally—I don’t know her last name. She was a healer, and my…my friend,” Helena concluded, her voice breaking.

The lawyer’s face softened. “I know this must have been a terrible shock to you, leaving the only place you’ve ever known and traveling so far, only to find the one you were seeking forever lost to you. We’ve spoken of financial matters, but nothing specifically of what you will do today, tomorrow and in the coming weeks. Will you allow me to make some suggestions?”

Suddenly, Helena felt the weight of the long hours of travel with little sleep and less food. Swaying, she put a hand on the lawyer’s desk to steady herself. “I…I would be grateful,” she murmured.

Mr. Pendenning poured a glass of wine from a crystal decanter on his desk. “Here, sip some of this. I’ll touch briefly on what I think you should do, and then you must rest.”

Helena took the glass with trembling hands. “Thank you. I should be glad of some rest.”

“Your mother left quite specific instructions, should all the personages she mentioned be living and amenable to her wishes. After so many years confined by your father, she wanted you to be able to travel. To study with the best tutors whatever subject you wished—music, dance, art, literature. But most especially, she wanted you to reclaim a place in Society as part of a loving family, the sort of family your mother remembered from her own childhood.”

Helena’s throat tightened. “While Mama was with me, we were a loving family.”

The lawyer smiled. “From all that your mother wrote me and the tender regard she displayed for you all these years, I am sure you were. She would like you to have that closeness again. And so she wished for you to go live with her cousin and childhood friend, Lillian Forester.”

Helena’s eyes brightened. “Cousin Lillian! I remember Mama speaking of her when I was a little girl.”

“She felt she could entrust her cousin—she’s Lady Darnell now, by the way—to advise you on the purchase of a suitable wardrobe, to arrange whatever tutoring you might wish and, in general, to smooth your way into Society as the cultured, independent young woman she knew you would be.”

To have a home…with a woman who had been dear to her mother, had known her growing up…Helena blinked back the sudden burn of tears. It would never fill the awful void left by her mother’s loss, but the terrible loneliness that had devastated her when she learned of her mother’s death eased a fraction.

“I think I should like that. However, what if…if Lady Darnell does not wish to take me in, or we find we do not suit?” She gave the lawyer a small smile. “I have been alone so long, I may not make a…comfortable guest. In that case, do I have funds enough to set up my own household?”

“Should it come to that, you have funds enough to set up a household in every city in England! But I don’t think that shall be necessary. I took the liberty of notifying Lady Darnell that you were on your way to London. After we finish chatting, I shall send her another note letting her know you’ve arrived. I expect she’ll immediately dispatch her stepson, Lord Darnell, to welcome you into the family.”

Helena stiffened. “Lord Darnell? Why would cousin Lillian not come herself?”

The solicitor sent her a cautious look. “I expect you will not be pleased to learn this after your experiences, but in English law and custom, nearly all matters relating to wealth and family are handled for ladies by the masculine head of their household. In Lady Darnell’s case, that would be Lord Darnell, the eldest son of her late husband. She resides with him.”

Helena’s rosy vision of a congenial family unit faded. “In that case, I should like you to advise me on setting up my own establishment. I do not wish to be part of any man’s household ever again.”

The lawyer nodded sympathetically. “Though I can appreciate your caution, I assure you Lord Darnell is an excellent young man—a well-respected former army officer who served during the Peninsular Wars and at Waterloo, where he performed with great gallantry. You should at least meet him before refusing out of hand the possibility of living with your cousin. It is what your mama wanted.”

But for that fact, Helena would have rejected the suggestion without further consideration. She sat in silence for a long moment, frowning, torn between the wistful hope of recapturing something of her mother—and the hard-earned dread of being under any man’s control.

“If I meet him, even agree to live under his roof, and later change my mind, I will be free to leave at any time?”

“Of course. From now forward, you are mistress of your own life.”

After a moment Helena nodded reluctantly. “I suppose I can at least meet him, since that was what Mama wished.”

“Excellent.” Mr. Pendenning nodded his approval. “Now, I’ve saved the most special part for last. All the years of your separation, your mother wrote you frequently. Knowing your father would likely destroy the letters if she sent them to you, she forwarded them to me for safekeeping.”

From a drawer in his desk, the lawyer removed a wooden box. “I have them all here, kept for you just as she wished. On top is her last letter, written when she knew she would never have the joy of seeing you again. In her final note to me, she asked that you read that one first.”

He reached beside him to tug on the bellpull. “My assistant will show you to a room where you can be private. I’ll rejoin you with Lord Darnell when he arrives. Now, can I offer you anything else?”

Numbly, Helena shook her head. “No, thank you. You’ve been very kind. May I have them?” She held out her hands.

Smiling, Mr. Pendenning handed her the box. “Enjoy them, my dear. Your mother loved you very much.”

The precious box clasped in her hands, Helena followed the young man almost without seeing him, her heart too full of anguish, joy and confusion to speak.

Mama was lost to her forever…but her voice had not been silenced. In her hands Helena held tangible proof of the never-failing affection she’d believed in with all her heart through ten long years of separation. A priceless treasure trove of love, enclosed in a simple wooden box.

She could scarcely breathe for the emotion weighing on her chest. Tears threatened, but she held them back.

She had a story of devotion to read and she wanted to see every word clearly.

Once alone in the room to which the clerk directed her, she sat in a corner chair by the window, set the box on a table nearby and drew out the topmost letter.

My dearest Helena, I can hardly write this for the grief I feel, knowing most likely I shall never again set eyes on your precious face, clasp you in my arms or feel the beat of your heart against my breast. But I must stem my distress and persevere, for as great a burden as it is to know I will be forever parted from you, my dearest child, still more terrible would it be for you to win your freedom and have no word from me to ease your sorrow when you discover that I am gone. And so, my darling, let me tell you what I would say now, if we could be together…

By the time Helena reached the end of the letter, the words were blurring on the page and her hands shook too badly for her to refold the sheet. Somehow she managed to place the note back in the box on top of the others, stacks and stacks of letters tied in bunches with string.

Only then did she allow the anguish to wash over her in a flood of the tears she’d suppressed for so long. She wept until, limp, exhausted and desolate, she craved only rest. After tugging the curtains from their holders, she tucked her feet up under her skirts in the quiet of the now-darkened room, curled herself into a ball, buried her face under her arm and slept.

CHAPTER TWO

ADDING THE BILL TO the stack on his desk, Adam Darnell dragged his fingers through his chestnut-brown locks. He’d almost rather be back with Wellington, preparing to charge the French lines, than here in London trying to figure out how to salvage his estate from the depravations suffered during his father’s long, ultimately fatal illness.

Perhaps he’d best accept the inevitable, follow his solicitor’s advice and find an agreeable heiress to marry. A rapid series of knocks on the library door pulled him from contemplating that gloomy prospect.

“Adam, may I come in?” The door opened slightly and his stepmother peeked in, the ribbons on her ruffled mobcap dancing. “I hate disturbing you, but ’tis urgent!”

Wondering indulgently what new crisis had occurred to distress his flighty relative—a lost pair of eyeglasses, a dead sparrow on the garden path—Adam rose and waved her to one of the wing chairs beside the desk. “Do come in, ma’am, and save me from dealing with this pile of bills.”

“Oh, those!” Lady Darnell waved an airy hand. “Burn them! ’Tis what your dear papa always did.”

Which was precisely why the estate was now in such disarray, Adam thought. Biting back so unfilial a reply, he said instead, “How can you be distressed when you look so charming? Like the sun itself in that fetching gown.”

Lady Darnell smiled and her china-blue eyes glowed. “Aren’t you the gallant one! I must say, the moment the dressmaker showed me the yellow silk paired with this blond lace, I knew it would be perfect for me.”

His widowed father’s second wife, previously the relic of a baronet of very large fortune, was hopelessly extravagant, Adam thought with an inward sigh. But so tender of heart and unfailingly cheerful of spirit that it would be as churlish as it was useless to chide her for her expenditures. Nor, with him away in the army, could he ever repay the debt he owed her for abandoning all her cherished London pursuits to remain beside his ailing father during his long, slow decline into death.

Such a sunny spirit didn’t need to be burdened with the details of debts and mortgages. He’d just have to make economies in other areas—and look for an heiress whose dowry could refill the family’s financial well.

“The matter is urgent,” his stepmother said again, recalling him to the present. “Please let me do the proper thing!”

“What is amiss?”

Lady Darnell held out a letter. “I’ve just received this from the solicitor who manages the property of my late cousin Diana, saying that her daughter, now orphaned, is on her way to London. He writes that it was Diana’s particular wish that the child come to live with me.”

Adam frowned. “Your cousin was the girl’s mother? Surely it is the directions left for her care in her father’s will that shall determine her guardianship.”

“I suppose, but that is a matter for the solicitors to resolve. In the meantime, the little girl needs a home.”

It sounded like a muddle that might require several weeks to work out. Still, housing a child for that short a time shouldn’t put too much additional strain on his purse. “Do you wish to take her in? I don’t want you to let a sense of duty force you into playing nurse-maid.”

“Oh, I should love to have her! But—” Lady Darnell hesitated “—before you agree, I must inform you that Diana was involved in a rather dreadful scandal some years back. Not that anyone should hold the poor child responsible, but you know how people are. With you on the look for a wife and Charis’s Season beginning, I shouldn’t want some infamy committed by a connection of mine to…limit your choices.”

“Then there’s nothing to worry about, as I’d not consider anyone who would hold the transgressions of a mother against her child. Nor, I am sure, would Charis. So how old is the girl, and when is she arriving?”

“Soon, the lawyer said. As to her age, I cannot say. You know I am hopeless with figures! After Diana and Vincent Lambarth married, he bore her off to the family castle in the wilds somewhere, and there she remained. Lambarth never again permitted her to come to London, not for the Season and not even to bring the child for a visit. So, although naturally one cannot condone what she did, ’tis hardly surprising, what with Lambarth keeping her a virtual prisoner in that dreary place. Right on the coast, ’twas bound to be excessively damp, do you not think?”

Adam’s lips twitched, but Lady Darnell was in such grave earnest, he resisted the urge to laugh. “Just what did this dampness lead her to do?”

“Well, first you must understand that in her debut Season, Diana conceived a passion for a most ineligible young man. Though ’twas nothing ineligible about his birth—the youngest son of Viscount Seagrave—but from his earliest years, he showed himself to possess the wildest, most ungovernable character. He was expelled from Oxford the spring Diana met him, and though Lambarth had been courting her for months, once she met Gavin, she had eyes for no one else. Her family tried to dissuade her, of course. Then after being challenged by a jealous husband, Gavin killed the man in a duel and was forced to flee the country. Diana was heartbroken. But Lambarth still wanted her, so she gave in to his urging and married him.”

“The union didn’t prosper.” And small wonder, Adam thought. What fool would torture himself by marrying a woman he knew loved another man?

“I suppose not. In any event, after more than a decade immured at Lambarth Castle, Diana…ran away. We heard she’d sailed in a fishing boat to Ireland, then taken ship to the Caribbean, where she joined Gavin at the estate he’d settled. Lambarth refused to divorce her, though, so they were never allowed to marry under English law.”

Lady Darnell paused, a pensive look on her face. “I sometimes wondered if she’d regretted leaving her husband, forced as she was afterward to live as an outcast and give up her daughter. We were close growing up, but when she married Lambarth, we lost touch.”

And what of the most innocent victim of this family tragedy? Adam thought. “The poor child.”

“Indeed. It must have been dreadful, losing her mama, then living so isolated before her papa died, as well.”

“And you want to comfort her?” Adam asked.

Lady Darnell gave him a tremulous smile. “It’s always been my greatest sorrow that I was never blessed with children. Not that you and Charis are not extremely dear to me, but by the time I married your papa, you were both nearly grown. Yes, I would very much like to care for my dear cousin Diana’s poor little daughter.”

This was not sounding like a “temporary” measure, Adam thought. Still, he could hardly fault his stepmother’s concern, and how much could a little girl eat? By the time she needed a wardrobe full of gowns and a dowry for her come-out, she’d either have moved on to her paternal relations—or he’d have the Darnell fortunes mended.

“So when do we collect this waif?”

A dazzling smile illumined Lady Darnell’s face. “Oh, Adam, I knew your compassion could not fail! I shall reply to the solicitor immediately to fix a time.”

Adam rose to escort his stepmother out. As he bent to kiss her fingertips, she pulled him close for a hug.

“Thank you, my dear,” she murmured. “Your kindness will be rewarded, I’m sure. A child is always a blessing.”

Recalling some of the exuberant students who had enlivened his sojourn at Eton, Adam made a noncommittal murmur. As his stepmother hurried out, he hoped the long-motherless child he was about to introduce into his well-ordered household would turn out to be a sweet, timid thing rather than an undisciplined hellion.

ONLY TWO HOURS AFTER FIRST learning of the orphan’s existence, Adam found himself driving his curricle into the city to the address supplied by Lady Darnell. To their surprise, the footman returning his stepmother’s note to the lawyer had brought back a second missive informing them the child had just arrived. However, as there were legal issues involved which might take some time to work out, Mr. Pendenning had suggested that rather than have Lady Darnell wait while the men un-tangled the niceties, the head of the household could come alone to fetch the girl.

And so, driving the open vehicle he hoped a child would prefer to the lumbering coaches she’d probably been shut up in during her journey and bearing the beribboned doll Lady Darnell had charged him to present as a welcoming gift, Adam prepared himself to spend the afternoon armwrestling with lawyers for the dubious privilege of adopting a child entirely unknown to him.

He certainly hoped his stepmother would be happy.

This unforeseen addition to his household underlined the imperative to get the Darnell fortunes in order, he told himself as he drove. But since he’d first considered the matter this morning, he’d had an inspiration that he hoped might spare him the humiliation of having to barter his ancient name and lineage for the hand of some newly rich cit’s well-dowered daughter. As long as luck and his old childhood friend Priscilla smiled upon him, anyway.

Having been abroad for the war with France and then having leased out Claygate Manor, the Darnell country estate that bordered her father’s lands, he’d not seen Miss Standish in some years. But she was still unmarried, he knew. If the plump, cheerful lass who’d loved to trail behind him on his youthful escapades, hanging adoringly on his every word, had not changed too much, he reasoned, he would have as much chance of finding marital harmony with her as with any of the other carefully coifed, capped and costumed chits about to be paraded on the Marriage Mart.

He’d have to look into calling on Miss Priscilla Standish as soon as he settled this business of the orphan.

Half an hour later he was escorted by a clerk to Mr. Pendenning’s private salon, where, the young man informed him, the lawyer would join him shortly.

Knowing there would be lengthy paperwork to sort out, Adam suppressed his irritation at the delay. The salon to which he’d been shown was dimly lit, the curtain of the single window drawn against the light. While his eyes adjusted from the bright sunlight of the brisk late-winter afternoon he’d just left, he scanned the room, his gaze settling on a newspaper left atop a side table.

He was striding to pick up the paper when a rustling noise in the corner of the room distracted him. His vision of welcoming a small, grieving moppet into the family embrace was shaken when what he’d dismissed as an assortment of black rags piled in a chair, suddenly unfolded its length and rose phoenixlike to face him.

The image of a woebegone child died altogether as the Creature approached. Sticklike legs and narrow bare feet protruded below a faded black gown more than a foot too short for her emaciated frame—which was nearly as tall as his own. Adam’s shocked impression was of a walking scarecrow, until the Creature halted before him and extended one bony hand.

The girl’s nose protruded beaklike from her thin face. With her sharp cheekbones, lusterless, tangled black hair and the feral dark eyes fixed intently upon him, Adam was put forcibly in mind of a bird of prey about to attack.

When the Creature’s lips curved into a mocking smile, he realized he’d been simply staring at her, mouth agape, his face no doubt clearly mirroring his thoughts.

Painfully conscious of having, for the first time in his almost thirty well-bred years, failed to summon polite words of greeting, he felt hot color flush his skin. Before he could get his lips working, the Creature withdrew the hand he’d not managed to shake and made him a curtsey.

“You must be Lord Darnell,” she said, her voice low-pitched and husky. “How…charming to meet you.”

CHAPTER THREE

THOUGH THE GIRL WAS the least attractive example of femininity Adam had ever beheld, her curtsey was graceful. Moreover, the sardonic look in those snapping black eyes and the irony in her greeting told him she was shrewd enough to have guessed what he thought of her appearance.

Rather than being embarrassed, though, she seemed to derive a scornful amusement from his discomfiture as he stood, still staring, the frilly doll in one hand.

Before Adam could decide whether he was more offended or diverted by the girl’s antagonism, the door opened and a short, bespectacled gentleman hurried in. Seeing the two of them facing each other, he halted abruptly.

“Oh, dear! Lord Darnell, I had hoped to discourse with you privately before…well, I see ’tis too late for that. Arthur Pendenning, sir, at your service,” he said with a bow. “You’ve introduced yourselves, Miss Lambarth?”

“His lordship and I have indeed met,” the girl replied. “As you insisted. Now, if you and I could finish our consultations, I’ll be on my way.”

“There’s no need to hurry,” Mr. Pendenning said. “Knowing that you have just finished an exhausting journey, I’ve ordered some refreshment. Shall we not sit together and chat while we partake of it? Please, Miss Lambarth. Lord Darnell, you will remain with us, I trust?”

Rather against his will, Adam murmured a polite acceptance. Far from appearing a grief-stricken waif in need of her relatives’ support, the girl seemed almost hostile—and entirely undeferential, either to him or the lawyer. He struggled to resist the urge to let his initial shock at her appearance turn to dislike at her rudeness.

He shouldn’t judge her too harshly, he reminded himself. After all, she’d had no mother to guide her for years and, Lady Darnell had warned him, by the time of his death, her late father had become practically a hermit. She probably wasn’t to blame for what appeared to be a decided lack of proper maidenly deportment.

“Ah, here is the tray,” Mr. Pendenning said. “Lord Darnell, Miss Lambarth, if you would both sit?”

While the servant removed the cover before bowing himself out, Adam deposited himself on the sofa and Miss Lambarth walked with obvious reluctance to perch on the edge of an adjoining wing chair.

Did she think he would bite? Adam wondered with a touch of humor, watching as she covertly watched him from the corner of her eye. She seemed less wary with the lawyer, who seated himself near her and began pouring tea.

Adam was about to make some light remark to try to set her at ease when suddenly she turned toward the teapot, sniffing the air.

Mr. Pendenning extended a cup to her. Cautiously she accepted it, holding the delicate china at arm’s length and inspecting the contents, then bending to sniff the liquid.

The awful suspicion that perhaps the girl was not all right in the head had begun to form in Adam’s mind when, just as suddenly, she smiled. A passionate intensity lit her face, briefly imbuing her thin features with an attractiveness Adam felt almost like a shock.

Before the shaken Adam could begin to wonder at his unexpected reaction, she turned her expressive eyes on the lawyer. “Tea, is it not?” she asked Mr. Pendenning.

“Yes, my dear. Have you drunk it before?”

“Not since Mama left. But I remember it was good.”

“Taste it and see what you think.”

She took a sip. “Oh, yes! It is good!”

“Some people prefer it with a bit of cake or biscuit. Should you like some?”

She put down the cup and inspected the tray he offered her. “Cake. It is…sweeter than bread, isn’t it?”

“Have you not eaten that, either, since your mama went away?” Mr. Pendenning asked.

“No. Is bread and water not the normal fare for prisoners?” she asked, a bitter note in her voice. “Augmented occasionally, when I managed to slip out and visit Mad Sally, with wild berries from the woods.”

“I think you will find the cake even sweeter than berries. Do try some.” Though Mr. Pendenning’s tone remained light, as Miss Lambarth reached for the proffered slice, he glanced at Adam and shook his head, outrage in his eyes.

Beginning to comprehend now what the lawyer was attempting to demonstrate, Adam watched her intently, astounded by Miss Lambarth’s delighted exploration of food so ordinary most Londoners of her class would scarcely have given it a second glance.

His heart contracted with pity as she tasted the cake. Once again he felt an odd sizzle of contact when another brilliant smile lit her face. “’Tis wondrous good!”

“Eat as much as you wish, my dear. You must be famished after so long a journey.” Something about the lawyer’s tone led Adam to think the man was referring to more than Miss Lambarth’s recent trip to London.

After nibbling the cake, she tasted the biscuits. Then Mr. Pendenning uncovered another dish and gestured to it. “Have one of these, too, if you like.”

Giving him a quizzical glance, she picked up one of the round objects and rolled it between her fingers. “So smooth,” she said, and lifted it to her nose. “Smells sweet, like berries. Does one eat the whole?”

“No, one peels it first.” Mr. Pendenning demonstrated how to section out the fruit. “It’s called an orange.”

Her totally unexpected, musical peal of laughter startled Adam. “Of course! Like the color. I’ve read about them, but the book had no illustration, so I didn’t know what the fruit looked like.”

“Take a bite, my dear. ’Tis somewhat sweet, like a berry, but different.”

Her dark eyes alight with curiosity now, she took the piece of fruit the lawyer sectioned off for her and bit into it, laughing again as juice spurted onto her chin and she brought up her other hand to catch the drip.

The hand that, until this moment, she’d kept within the folds of her shabby skirt. As she wiped her chin, Adam stared in horrified fascination at the jagged scar that ran from the base of her thumb to her wrist.

The lawyer, Adam noted, was staring, as well. In the sudden silence Miss Lambarth darted a glance at Adam, then Pendenning. Her smile faded and her face flushed as she quickly shoved the damaged hand back into her lap.

Adam heard Pendenning’s soft hiss of an explicative. “Please, do have some more, my dear,” the lawyer entreated.

“Thank you, I’ve had enough. I’ll finish the tea.”

“You’ve had barely half a slice of cake and only a bite of the biscuit. I thought you said you hadn’t eaten since arriving in London this morning,” the lawyer said.

“I’ve had nothing since yesterday, but this was quite sufficient. I’m used to eating…lightly,” she said, irony once again coloring her tone.

Lord in Heaven, Adam thought, glad that Mr. Pendenning seemed able to carry on the conversation without him, for the almost unbelievable conclusions flooding his mind rendered him speechless. Suddenly he was fiercely glad that Lady Darnell had been called upon to receive her cousin’s child. After what he’d just seen and heard, even if the girl had possessed two heads and a tail, Adam would have felt compelled to take her in.

Miss Lambarth finished her tea and set down the cup. “Thank you, Mr. Pendenning. That was wonderful.” She gave him a wry look. “As I’m sure was rather evident, ’twas more variety of sustenance than I’ve had in a decade.”

“That, my dear, is something we shall shortly correct,” the lawyer said, fervency in his tone. “As I hope you will agree, Lord Darnell?”

“Absolutely.” Adam spoke up at last. “Although your cousin had a rather imperfect recollection of your age, Miss Lambarth,” he said, indicating with a grin the doll he’d placed on the side table, “it is her most ardent wish, which my sister and I share, that you will do us the honor of agreeing to join our household.”

Interest sparked in her eyes. “You have a sister?”

“Yes. Charis is eighteen—about your age?”

“I’m turned twenty,” Miss Lambarth replied. “A sister…” she repeated, her gaze drifting off. “Oh, that would be wonderful,” she murmured, almost to herself.

“Since Charis is as sweet as she is lovely, I believe you would find it so. Won’t you make us all happy, then, and come live with us?”

Miss Lambarth looked up, staring straight into his eyes. “Are you sure you want me?” she asked bluntly. “You’ve seen what I look like and garnered some idea of how I’ve lived. I…I’m not sure I would fit into an elegant London household. As tempting as it is to contemplate living with my cousin, perhaps even having a sister, I think ’twill be better if I live on my own.”

Mr. Pendenning’s protest echoed Adam’s. “No, my dear, that would not do at all! In our Society, unmarried young ladies do not live alone.”

Miss Lambarth lifted an eyebrow and shrugged. “I am quite able to take care of myself, I assure you.”

“I expect you are. That isn’t the point. For a single female to live alone just isn’t done.”

Miss Lambarth stiffened. “You told me I could set up a household in every town in England, if I wished.”

“’Twas only a figure of speech. Having the means to set up a household and doing so on your own are two very different matters.”

“Mr. Pendenning, I have lived as a prisoner in another man’s house for the last ten years. I intend never to be restrained by anyone again. And I care not a jot whether society approves my mode of living.”

After what he’d seen and heard, Adam couldn’t help but understand her reluctance. But all his protective instincts aroused, he searched his mind for some other argument to persuade Miss Lambarth to reconsider.

Before he hit upon anything, the lawyer said, “I’m sorry, I have not explained the situation very well. Naturally, one could not expect you to care about the opinion of persons you have never met. But as you are closely related to Lady Darnell, Society will expect her to offer you shelter and protection—whether or not you need them. If you do not reside with her, she will be considered shockingly remiss in her duty to you. So you see, if you choose to live alone, you will subject your cousin to severe criticism.”

Although Adam didn’t see why that should matter to the girl, either, her silence and the frown creasing her forehead indicated that, for whatever reason, this argument affected her. “I should not want to harm the reputation of Mama’s cousin,” she said after a moment.

Turning to Adam, she continued, “If I do consent to live with you, you must understand that if the…experience is not successful, I shall feel free to leave whenever I wish. Hopefully, we can rub together long enough for me to determine what I wish to do and where I want to live. I think I should like to travel, so perhaps if I leave you to set off to Europe, Cousin Lillian will be spared the censure of her peers.”

“We shall just have to make sure you find residing with us more enjoyable than the prospect of taking your own house,” Adam said, determined to show this waif who had been so badly treated what a blessing living with one’s family could be.

She regarded him gravely. “Do you have a large library?”

Surprised once again by her abrupt change of topic, Adam said, “As it happens, my father was a bibliophile, so I believe you will find it quite extensive.”

“I intend to have my books sent up from Lambarth. Will I have rooms to use at my discretion?”

“A bedchamber and private sitting room will be placed at your disposal. The library, drawing rooms and dining parlors you would share with the rest of the family.”

She nodded. “If I come, you must also agree that I will pay all my own expenses. No!” she interrupted when Adam started to protest. “I absolutely insist upon that. There are certain comforts I must have and I do not intend to be beholden to you for providing them.”

Thinking he’d never had so odd and blunt a conversation in his life, Adam couldn’t help asking, “What sort of comforts, if I might inquire?”

“I wish to keep a fire burning in my rooms night and day. I’ve been cold half my life and don’t intend to be so ever again.”

He had a sudden vision of a small thin girl locked in a frigid room. “You may keep your fires stoked as hot as you wish,” he promised, the urge to heal and protect once more tightening his chest.

A little smile played about her lips. “I want a bed with a feather mattress so soft, when I lie down I will feel like I’m floating on air. A turkey carpet on the floor so thick, my feet will sink up to the ankles, as if in a pair of fuzzy slippers. Oh, and speaking of slippers—” she turned to Mr. Pendenning “—if those instruments of torture that Jerry Sunderland provided me in the guise of footwear are representative of what I can expect in shoes, I shall remain as I am, barefoot.”

The lawyer chuckled. “Not knowing your size, poor Jerry grabbed the only pair the cobbler had ready. I promise you, my dear, that the bootmakers of London can put on your feet slippers so soft and supple you would swear you were still barefoot.”

“Very good,” Miss Lambarth said. “I shall feed those shoes into the first fire I kindle in my room. And this gown, as soon as a replacement can be found.”

“I’ve already summoned a dressmaker to wait upon you here,” Mr. Pendenning said. “She is bringing several gowns that can be quickly altered to fit. For the rest, I’m sure Lady Darnell will take you to her own mantua-maker and assist you in purchasing as many gowns as you like.”

Adam had to laugh. “I can assure you she will! My stepmother positively delights in shopping. I expect my sister will also petition to join such an expedition.”

“I want pretty colors,” Miss Lambarth stated. “No black. And soft fabrics, like the material of this sofa.”

“I’m sure Lady Darnell will be able to find you something that pleases you. So,” Mr. Pendenning said, “you will go with Lord Darnell, as your mother wished?”

Miss Lambarth looked back at Adam. “A big library?”

“Quite large.”

“A thick feather mattress?”

“Soft as a cloud.”

“Warm rooms?”

“You can make the wallpaper curl.”

At that moment a knock sounded and one of the lawyer’s assistants stepped in. “Mr. Pendenning, you wished me to let you know when the seamstress arrived.”

The lawyer looked over to Miss Lambarth. “Are you ready for that new gown?”

That smile transformed her face again. “Absolutely!”

“And you will accompany Lord Darnell to meet your cousin when it is done?”

After a pause she nodded. “I will go with him.”

“Excellent.” He beamed at the girl. “Show Miss Lambarth and the seamstress to the back office and see that they are not disturbed,” he instructed his assistant.

“I’ll wait here for you, Miss Lambarth,” Adam told her as she walked to the door.

She paused on the threshold to look back at him. “I hope neither of us regrets this.”

Something about her fierce independence sent a rush of awareness through Adam. ’Twas just compassion for her plight and anger at the unspeakable treatment she’d suffered, he told himself as he assured her, “I’m certain your stay in my home will be a pleasure for us both.”

CHAPTER FOUR

AFTER THE YOUNG MAN escorted Miss Lambarth out, Pendenning turned to Adam. “Will you join me for a brandy? After the, ah, surprise of meeting Miss Lambarth, I expect you could use one. I know I could.”

“I would be grateful,” Adam replied.

The lawyer poured the brandy and handed Adam a glass. “I imagine you have questions for me.”

“Indeed! My stepmother told me that Miss Lambarth’s mother left nearly a decade ago. Am I to understand from what I’ve just witnessed that from that time until his recent death, her father kept her a…a prisoner?”

His face setting in grim lines, Pendenning nodded. “As horrifying and incredible as that may seem, ’tis true. How much of my client’s story do you know?”

“Only that Lady Lambarth apparently had a…prior attachment before she married, and when after some years together, she found life with Lord Lambarth insupportable, she left him and the child and fled to her former lover.”

Mr. Pendenning shook his head. “It wasn’t that at all. I suppose your stepmother informed you that Gavin Seagrave is a bit of a rogue?” When Adam nodded, he continued, “His attachment to Diana Forester was as strong as hers to him. When he learned from various sources that her marriage to Lambarth—a man he’d always disliked—was unhappy, he determined to rescue her and the child. He put men on station near Lambarth Castle, and when the opportunity presented itself one day as the two were riding, they seized them. Lady Lambarth’s cries were quickly silenced once she learned who had taken them, but Lambarth chanced to be inspecting a farm nearby, heard the commotion and rode up. Her mother they carried off, but he managed to retrieve Helena.”

Adam shook his head. “It sounds like a scene out of a Minerva Press novel.”

“And might be equally entertaining, were the circumstances not so dire. Needless to say, my client was devastated to have her precious child trapped under the control of a man she both disliked and feared. Six months later she and Seagrave attempted another rescue.”

“It was not successful, I gather.”

“No. Since Helena was forbidden to venture beyond the castle gardens after her mother’s flight, Lambarth discovered them before they were able to spirit her away. As he held the struggling girl, Lambarth shouted to her mother that he would see the child dead before he would let her go and that, should he ever again find strangers on his land or even in the village, he would kill her. My client believed him.”

“So the child was punished for the mother’s sins?”

“I’m afraid so. After that second failed attempt, Lambarth no longer allowed Helena outside the castle, even to accompany him to church. He apparently imprisoned her within the walls, meanwhile putting it about the village that, grieving for the mother who had abandoned her, the child had lost her wits—insuring that if Helena somehow did manage to escape, no one would believe her pleas for help. He also stationed guards around the perimeter of his land and had them make periodic inspections of the village and report to him if there were any newcomers.”

“If she was barred from approaching her daughter, how did Helena’s mother know what was happening?”

“Lady Lambarth’s maid was a local girl who returned to the village after her mistress’s disappearance. One of Seagrave’s agents trailed the girl to London when she went to visit relations there and contacted her. They persuaded her to bring back with her a man who would pose as her cousin. Another of Seagrave’s men, Jerry Sunderland. He settled in the village and practiced his trade, sending what information about Helena he was able to gather and waiting for some chance to help the girl escape. Unfortunately, Lord Lambarth insured there wasn’t any.”

“And so she remained a prisoner until his death.”

“Yes. But though I knew she’d been close confined, even I was shocked by her appearance. I shall severely chastise my clerk for showing you in before I had a chance to warn you what to expect.”

Since there was nothing Adam wished to reveal about his initial reaction to Miss Lambarth, nor could he explain the intense, fleeting response her smile had generated, he remained prudently silent.

The solicitor took a swallow of his brandy. “What she so innocently revealed during tea was even more chilling. I can only thank a merciful God that her mother never suspected the full extent of her suffering at Lambarth’s hands. Truly the man’s revenge was complete—to withhold from the woman who’d scorned him the child she prized almost beyond life, imprisoning the girl in such a way that her mother did not dare try to free her.”

“The child he punished was his own, as well, though,” Adam pointed out.

“Yes—which just illustrates the character of the man. One hesitates to speak ill of the departed, but I’m reasonably certain in the case of Lord Lambarth, it wasn’t through the Pearly Gates that he entered the Hereafter. Thus, I hardly need tell you that after her treatment at her father’s hands, Miss Lambarth views male authority with great suspicion. I thought at first I should not be able to convince her to try living with your family at all.”

Adam stiffened. “I assure you, Mr. Pendenning, that Miss Lambarth will be treated with nothing but kindness while under my care.”

“I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise, my lord. And, quite frankly, before I ever suggested the arrangement to Helena, I made sure that your character was such that I need have no qualms about introducing her into your house.”

“Did you!” Adam exclaimed, not sure whether to admire the lawyer’s thoroughness or resent the investigation into his background.

Obviously understanding his mixed feelings, the lawyer grinned at him. “Naturally, everyone to whom I made inquiries had only praise for your excellence. But after what Miss Lambarth has suffered, I had to be sure.”

He supposed he couldn’t fault Mr. Pendenning for being prudent. “I am relieved to hear it,” he replied, a bit stiffly.

“Which brings us to the matter of finances. Helena is adamant that she discharge all her own expenses while she remains your guest. As I’m hoping this ‘trial period’ of living with you will lead to her finding a place within a warm and loving family, I do not wish to put her on the defensive by arguing that point.”

“Are we to total up the cost for her soup and the washing of her linens?” Adam asked wryly.

The lawyer chuckled. “I trust she can be persuaded to let you fund the everyday necessities of life. But she will insist on paying for all her purchases outside the home. Please assure me you’ll allow that.”

Adam felt a guilty pang of relief. Since a young woman of Miss Lambarth’s age would be much more costly to outfit than a child, he could only be grateful she was set upon bearing those expenses herself.

“If she insists. But I see a greater problem. Given Miss Lambarth’s age, she should have been presented several years ago. Although, praise God, she seems quite well-spoken, despite the privations she’s suffered, from what you’ve told me of her background, she has had absolutely no training to prepare her to enter Society.”

“That is a problem indeed. For the present, she desires only to join your family. Perhaps, as she adjusts to that, your stepmother can tutor her in the behavior that would later equip her to be formally presented. As you and I both know, my lord, if she is ever to have the truly normal life her mother wished for her, she will have to be found a husband to give her status and protection.”

Recalling the girl’s bluntness and hostility toward men, Adam shook his head dubiously. “That’s asking quite a lot—of Miss Lambarth and my stepmother.”

“True,” Mr. Pendennning admitted. “If she does eventually agree to a presentation, ’twill require a good deal of vigilance on your part. She’s a very considerable heiress, and you would need to ensure that anyone who courted her valued Helena for herself, not just her fortune.”

Given the girl’s odd upbringing—and unfortunate appearance—Adam doubted even a large dowry would prompt a proposal from any suitor he would consider acceptable. But as he could hardly voice so unchivalrous a comment, he had still not replied when the lawyer waved a dismissive hand.

“But all such speculation is borrowing trouble from tomorrow, which our Lord warns us quite particularly not to do. For the present, let us get Helena adjusted to living in your household. Understanding her special background, you will take her in and treat her gently?”

“We shall do our best.”

“I can ask nothing more. Thank you, my lord.” The lawyer held out his hand.

Adam shook it. “Thank you for being so strong a champion for her.”

While Mr. Pendenning returned the brandy decanter to the sideboard, Adam recalled the brief spark of attraction he’d felt for the girl. If anyone could work the miracle of coaxing that spark into a flame bright enough to make Miss Lambarth capable of catching a husband, it would be his stepmother. But a miracle it would be. He was by no means sure he wished to commit his stepmother to attempting it.

But, as the lawyer said, such concerns were far in the future. He had no doubt that regardless of the girl’s deficiencies, for the love Lady Darnell still bore Helena’s mother, his stepmother would receive her gladly and lavish her with affection.

At that moment a knock sounded at the door and Miss Lambarth walked back in. Though the modest blue round gown hung loosely on her bony frame and thin arms, her legs were decently covered and the color made her face look less sallow. A plain straw bonnet capped her tangled black hair, which still appeared in dire need of a comb’s ministrations. Apparently the dressmaker had not thought to bring shoes or gloves, for the girl had on what could only be the crude farmer’s boots she’d complained about and had tucked her damaged hand within the folds of the gown.

She curtseyed to them. As he bowed in return, Adam noted again the grace of that motion. Apparently her late mother had had time to teach the girl at least something of proper behavior. Perhaps the task of making her presentable might not be as impossible as he feared.

“I expect I’m ready—if you still wish to take me home with you,” she added, looking to him.

Did he detect a hint of anxiety in her tone? Adam gazed steadily into Helena’s dark, black-lashed eyes—undoubtedly the girl’s best feature—and smiled. “Of course I do. I expect by now Lady Darnell will have worn a hole pacing the carpet, so anxious is she to welcome you.”

Helena lifted an eyebrow dubiously before turning to Mr. Pendenning. “How can I thank you, sir, for all you have done for Mama and me?”

“It was a privilege to serve so loving and devoted a lady,” Mr. Pendenning replied. “Having now met the courageous lass who inspired that devotion, I don’t wonder at it. If I can do anything more for you, Helena, call on me at any time.”

The girl nodded, her concealed hand fidgeting with a pleat of her gown. “Do…do you suppose I might come see you from time to time?”

“I shall be very offended if you do not visit me often!” He walked over to her and took the unblemished hand she offered. “It will be all right, you will see,” he said softly. “Your mother was a very wise lady. She would not entrust your future to someone unworthy of the task.”

Swallowing hard, the girl nodded. “I’m not so sure I am worthy of it.”

Before Adam could add his reassurance that all would be well, she turned to him, her diffidence vanishing beneath the cool demeanor she’d exhibited at their first encounter. With a trace of the same irony in her tone, she said, “Shall we go then, Lord Darnell? I shouldn’t wish to keep my impatient cousin waiting any longer.”

HELENA TRIED NOT TO let her spirits sink as she followed the tall, broad-shouldered Lord Darnell from the room—leaving the sanctuary of the man who’d known and served her mother for a doubtful reception by a dimly remembered relative who lived in a wholly unfamiliar world.

Head high, Helena Lambarth, she told herself. Lord Darnell might have the muscular frame of the soldier he was reputed to be, but she could defend herself if necessary. She’d faced down worse bullies. And unlike her father and his baliff, he had no idea what she was capable of if cornered.

He certainly appeared attractive enough, with his handsome face, wavy hair the color of ripe chestnuts and clear green eyes. She’d even felt some…sensation pass between them, something that sent a shiver to her stomach, though it didn’t seem menacing.

Still, her father had been handsome, too, in his way. She better than anyone should know how little appearances meant. Except that Lord Darnell’s face also looked kind—not something she ever could have said about her father.

Besides, she was free now—free. Though custom might say Lord Darnell could dictate her actions, he had no legal authority to compel her to do anything. It would take her some time to learn the passages of the house to which he was conveying her, but she was sure she could figure a way out of its confines if she had to, just as she had ferreted routes out of the stone tomb of Lambarth Castle. Unlike her miserable years at Lambarth, however, if she should need to escape, she had no doubt that Mr. Pendenning would stand her advocate.

Besides, as the lawyer had reminded her, Mama had chosen these people to care for her. Her trust in Mama’s love and wisdom had sustained her for years. She didn’t intend to start doubting it now.

So she had no reason to be apprehensive as she set boldly out on this new adventure—or so she tried to convince the small child inside who, though she refused to acknowledge it, hungered desperately for acceptance.

To distract herself from her nervousness, once Lord Darnell’s curricle set off, she bent her intellect to carefully observing every detail of the London scene. After she returned monosyllabic answers to his first few comments, Lord Darnell transferred his attention back to his restive horses and let silence reign between them.

The horses were magnificent, she noted with approval. Having learned to ride from practically the time she could walk, Helena had sometimes wandered down to the castle stables during the nights when she escaped her barred room. Mad Sally had taught her that animals could communicate with humans, if one had an eye to see and an ear to listen. Helena’s visits with these fellow wild creatures, penned up as she was and forced to do a master’s bidding, had always brought her solace.

She would be able to buy her own horses now, she realized, the thought cheering her.

If it became necessary for her to find her way out of London, however, escape would be more difficult. From the moment she’d caught her first glimpse of the city from atop the mail coach as it rounded the heights, she’d marveled at the sheer size and complexity of it. As Lord Darnell drove, she noted again what a twisted tangle of streets, carriages, laden wagons and scurrying pedestrians it was.

The library at Lambarth Castle had contained atlases of the globe. Surely there were maps of this city, as well. She made a mental note to obtain one on her next excursion.

For the trip to the Darnell town house, she’d put back on the stiff leather shoes she’d worn from Lambarth—which she intended to remove at the first opportunity and feed to the fire. And though the blue dress she now wore was softer and warmer than the rag she’d arrived in, she anticipated with great eagerness being able to enter an elegant shop like the ones they were now passing and order a whole wardrobe of shoes and gowns made to fit her alone.

The humiliation she had forbidden herself to feel when Lord Darnell first saw her, revulsion writ clear on his face, heated her now. She’d not see him again, she vowed, until she looked presentable. Or at least as presentable as someone of her thin, bony frame and plain face could.

Although the first purchase she made would be a comb and brush, she decided, fingering the twisted mat of hair beneath the straw bonnet. After deciding to declare his daughter “mad,” to further bolster that claim, her father had thrown her mother’s silver set off the cliffs.

With a bittersweet smile, she remembered her disappointment the first time she’d managed to escape the castle and make her way to Mad Sally’s hovel. She’d hoped to tidy herself, but found the old woman was as much a stranger to grooming as Helena had been forced to become.

Small wonder the villagers had stared when she stumbled into their midst a short time later.

Undoubtedly her aunt also possessed a tub in which she could bathe, as had Mama. Oh, to feel truly clean again! Whatever the cost of having servants bring up the necessary containers of heated water, she would pay gladly.

She was still imagining the delights of hot water and scented soap when Lord Darnell’s voice interrupted her.

“We’re arriving now in St. James Square,” he said as he signaled his horses to a walk. “Darnell House is third from the left on the northwest side.”

Despite her brave resolutions, Helena’s stomach dipped as she studied the brick building with its elegant inset pilasters. A moment later Lord Darnell pulled up the horses, a livried servant coming to their heads.

After a footman helped her to alight, Helena took the arm Lord Darnell offered her and ascended the steps to the front door—which was opened before they touched the handle by yet another servant attired in formal black dress.

“This is Harrison,” Lord Darnell said as the man bowed them in. “Without his supervision, our household would cease to function.”

“Thank you, my lord, and welcome, Miss Lambarth. The ladies are expecting you in the south parlor.”

While Helena marveled at the quantity of servants employed in the Darnell household, an older lady bearing a vague resemblance to Mama rushed into the hall. “Oh, Adam, I just couldn’t wait—”

Catching sight of her, the woman stopped in mid-phrase. As her gaze traveled down Helena from the cheap straw bonnet to the stiff leather shoes, her smile faded, her cheeks paled and her eyes widened.

“Lord in Heaven!” she exclaimed. Then she swayed, her eyes fluttering shut, and crumpled to the floor.

It was a scene out of Helena’s worst fears: Lord Darnell leaping to catch his stepmother before she hit the marble paving, Harrison calling out for assistance, an elegant young lady who must be Lord Darnell’s sister rushing into the hallway to stop short in dismay.

Perhaps the sister will swoon, too, Helena thought, trying to ignore the pain that lanced through her as her vague hopes of a warm reception dissolved like Lady Darnell’s welcoming smile.

Crossing her arms over her bosom, Helena looked at Adam, staggering under the burden of his semiconscious stepmother, and raised her eyebrows. “Are you still sure you wish to offer me a home, Lord Darnell?”

CHAPTER FIVE

THE YOUNG LADY, WHO HAD pale blond curls and her brother’s warm green eyes, turned to her. “Of course he does! I’m Charis, Lord Darnell’s sister. Let me escort you out of this confusion while Adam attends to Bellemere.”

There was no mistaking the sincerity of the girl’s tone. Prepared to offer a waspish reply, Helena was left with nothing to say. A gratitude she didn’t want to feel warmed her chest and angrily she blinked back tears.

Promising herself she would exit this dwelling as soon as possible and make her way back to Mr. Pendenning’s office, Helena let the girl escort her into the parlor.

“Please, will you not sit? Though I shouldn’t wonder at your wishing to bolt for the door, thinking you’d arrived at a house out of bedlam!”

There seeming nothing else to do; Helena took a chair.

“Let me apologize for so appalling a welcome,” Miss Darnell continued as she seated herself. “Lady Darnell has the sweetest of temperaments, but a very nervous disposition that sometimes overwhelms her—and she has been beside herself all afternoon with impatience for your arrival. Pray, do pardon her! When she recovers, she will be mortified at having made such a scene.”

Not sure what she should answer, Helena simply nodded.

“Should you like some tea? We didn’t know whether you would be hungry when you arrived.”

“Mr. Pendenning gave me refreshments at his office.”

“Are you tired, then? Adam said you had a very long journey—from Cornwall, was it? Oh, but here I am, chattering on when you must be wishing only to rest until dinner. Shall we go upstairs, then?”

Not sure she could bear an interview with the “recovered” Lady Darnell, Helena knew she should take her leave immediately. But the short nap at Mr. Pendenning’s office had refreshed her very little. The idea of having a place to temporarily lay her head held such appeal she was not able to refuse it.

“I should like to rest,” she admitted.

“Let me take you up straightaway, then. Adam is the most delightful of brothers,” Miss Darnell continued as they left the room and began mounting the stairs, “but he is a man.” Miss Darnell glanced back at Helena with a mischievous look. “I’ve often longed for a sister. Oh, I do hope we shall become great friends!”

Though Helena returned her gaze searchingly, once again she could read nothing but sincerity in the girl’s open manner and friendly smile. Too weary to worry over the matter any further, she entered the bedchamber to which Miss Darnell conducted her, conscious only of the clarion call of sleep.

“Ring the bell when you’re ready and a maid will escort you back downstairs,” Miss Darnell said as she pulled the curtains closed. “Now, rest well, for I warn you, when you join us again, I shall be full of questions!”

To which, Helena thought as she sank gratefully down on a bed as soft as Lord Darnell had promised, she was not sure she had any answers acceptable for the ears of a sheltered young maiden.

THOUGH HELENA HAD INTENDED only to close her eyes for a few moments, when she reached consciousness again, she was dismayed to find the room in almost total darkness. She sprang up, a little fear darting through her. If what happened in the next few minutes solidified her determination to leave, would she be able to find her way back through the tangle of streets to Mr. Pendenning’s office? Would anyone even be there at such an hour?

Before she could decide whether or not to tug the bellpull, her chamber door opened and a maid peeped in.

Spotting Helena standing by the bed, the girl bobbed a curtsey. “Begging your pardon, miss, but mistress wished me to see if you was awake yet. The ladies be waiting for you downstairs. If ye be ready, I’ll show you the way.”

“Mistress” presumably being Lady Darnell, Helena hesitated. She might as well get the meeting over with. If ’twas unpleasant…well, she’d already determined to leave. But she would do so properly, after expressing her gratitude to Mama’s cousin for her courtesy—not sneaking out like a prisoner breaking parole.

Mentally armoring herself for the confrontation, Helena followed, then paused on the threshold while the girl announced her. Taking a deep breath, she walked in.

She found Charis Darnell sitting on the sofa beside her mother’s cousin. Before Helena could utter a word, Lady Darnell jumped up and hurried to her.

“My dear Helena, please forgive me! My wretched nerves. I had worked myself into such a state waiting for Adam to return with you that when I perceived you at last, such a look of poor Diana about you, I was quite overcome!” Lady Darnell held out her hands. “Please tell me you’ll pardon an old woman’s foolishness and let us start over.”

Hesitantly, Helena offered her hands. To her surprise, the woman seized them and pulled her into a hug.

The soft brush of blond curls against her cheek…a scent of roses…the warmth of a rounded female form holding her close…All these touched something deep within her, flooding her with memories of a loving embrace.

After a moment of shocked surprise, Helena returned the pressure of the older woman’s arms. She clung fiercely to Lady Darnell, the contact fulfilling a craving for closeness she was only just realizing she possessed.

After several moments Lady Darnell loosened her grip and moved Helena to arm’s length, gazing with loving intensity at her face. “You do have the look of Diana about you,” she said softly.

“Do I? I always thought I looked nothing like her. I am so dark and she was fair, like you.”

“’Tis not so much coloring as in the way you carry yourself, your profile, the tilt of your chin.”

Still not quite sure she dared believe it, Helena said, “You do want me to live with you, Lady Darnell?”

“More than anything! But ‘Lady Darnell’ makes me sound like some sort of forbiddingly strict chaperone, which I assure you I do not intend to be. Adam and Charis call me Bellemere, after…something French, I believe.”

“‘Belle-mère’—stepmother,” Helena supplied. “Or ‘beautiful mother,’ which is even more appropriate.”

Lady Darnell dimpled with pleasure. “How sweet of you, child! I’m glad to see Diana taught you something of languages before she…” Coloring a little, Lady Darnell rushed on. “Well, I do not doubt it, for she was very clever! When we were girls, I always looked on your mama like a sister. I would be very pleased if you would call me ‘Aunt Lillian.’”

“You must call me Charis and I hope you will let me call you Helena,” Lord Darnell’s sister said as she came to join them. “We are so thrilled to have you here.”

Amazingly, it seemed they really did want her—despite her ungainly form and unattractive face, her mangled hand and tangled hair.

Mama had been right after all.

Swallowing the lump that clogged her throat, Helena at last managed to reply, “I should be honored to call you Aunt Lillian and Charis.”

“Good, that’s settled!” Charis said. “My brother shall be Adam, but I don’t expect we’ll see much of him. Once Bellemere announced her intention to summon an army of linen drapers, bonnet makers, cobblers, dressmakers, hairdressers, glove makers and such, he told us he expected to be frightfully busy for at least a month!” She grinned at Helena. “Sit down and let us start planning.”

“Yes, please do,” Aunt Lillian said as she led Helena to the sofa and took the seat beside her. “I had Cook hold dinner, not knowing when you would wake. While it is prepared, you must tell us what you wish to do.”

It had been so long since anyone had asked Helena what she wanted that for a moment she was too surprised to reply. A rush of gratitude filling her, she said, “Since I know virtually nothing of how to conduct myself in Society, I shall need you to teach me. I should like tutors, too, for the pianoforte and history and literature and all those subjects I have not been able to study since Mama left. Of course, I wish to have gowns and shoes and all such necessities made up as soon as possible.

“But first, I waited so very long to be reunited with my mother, only to discover I will never see her again. Please, Aunt Lillian, would you tell me about Mama? Everything you remember, from the very beginning!”

Lady Darnell gave her a tremulous smile. “Of course, my dear. We first met when Diana just five years old…”

AFTER HIS STEPMOTHER’S disastrous reaction to Helena Lambarth, Adam had borne the afflicted woman to her bedchamber. Leaving her maid to minister to her, he’d hurried back downstairs to be told by the butler that both Charis and Miss Lambarth had retired to rest until dinner. Realizing there was nothing further he could do for the moment, Adam headed for the library.

Although Helena appeared to better account in the blue gown than she had in the rag she had been wearing when he’d first cast eyes on her, the impression she made was still startling. Lady Darnell’s fainting fit was his own damn fault, he acknowledged with a gusty sigh as he sat behind his desk. He should have anticipated such a strong reaction from his sensitive relation and, while waiting at the lawyer’s office for Helena to have her dress fitted, sent his stepmother a warning.

Too late for that now. Still, he knew Lady Darnell’s desire to take in the girl was heartfelt and genuine. Hopefully once over the cataclysmic shock of meeting Helena, she would deal better with her.

He certainly hoped so, for otherwise he had no idea what he would do with her. Though he’d promised her a warm welcome, he could hardly insist that his stepmother care for someone she held in abhorrence. Nor could he, in good conscience, send the girl away to live alone in London.

Pushing that worry aside, he opened his account books to tackle the more immediate problem of finding somewhere the money to make the repairs his agent had written were essential for the tenants at Claygate Manor.

His humor soured further as he played that financial shell game. Several hours later, after resolving the matter as best he could for the moment—and promising himself he would look into the courting of Miss Standish with all speed—he closed the ledgers and headed to the parlor to see if his stepmother had recovered enough to present herself for dinner.

Pausing on the threshold, he spied the three ladies on the sofa, Miss Lambarth and Charis sitting to either side of his stepmother and leaning toward her as she spoke.

“Lord Lambarth pursued your mama from the moment she appeared at her first ball,” Lady Darnell was saying. “Diana liked him well enough…until Gavin Seagrave arrived halfway through the Season. Oh, the look on her face when she saw him—and he her! I was standing right beside her, and knew with dismaying certainty that very instant that theirs would be a Fatal Passion!”

“Why dismayed?” his sister asked. “The Seagraves are connected to an earldom, are they not?”

Adam shifted his gaze to Helena. Her lips parted in a half smile, her eyes glowing, her whole face and body radiated the dynamic intensity that had struck him when she smiled at him in the lawyer’s office. A vibrancy so luminous one actually did not notice the thinness of her face and frame.

But more than that, she looked happy. A deep sense of satisfaction settled in his gut and he offered a swift prayer of thanks that despite their inauspicious beginning, the ladies were obviously now on cordial terms.

Quietly he retraced his steps. Since he was promised to dine at his club anyway, he’d leave Helena to bask in Lady Darnell’s memories of her mother and consult his stepmother about her future later.

HALF AN HOUR LATER, Adam entered White’s. His return from the army was still recent enough that several gentlemen, former Oxford mates or London acquaintances whom he’d not yet seen, came up to greet him, slowing his progress to the dining room where his best friend Bennett Dixon awaited him.

Dix rose and tossed down his newspaper as Adam approached. “At last! I’d about given you up!”

After shaking his friend’s hand, Adam threw himself into the chair opposite. “Sorry. I was skirmishing with the account books and lost track of time.”

Beckoning to a waiter, Dix nodded. “Devil of a job, bookkeeping. Hope you won the battle.”

“Barely. Johnson wrote informing me that the roof of the dining parlor at Claygate leaks. Not wishing to scare off the new tenants who will soon arrive, ’tis imperative to repair it. I can’t afford to lose the rent.” Sighing, he shook his head. “And to think, I used to believe all I need do was get my carcass back to England before some Frog dragoon skewered it, and all would be well.”

After ordering dinner, Dix looked back at Adam, sympathy in his gaze. “A bloody shame, your father wasting away as he did. Stands to reason everything went awry, with no hand on the helm for so many years.”

“Enough bleating about finances. Let me tell you the most exceptional news.” After pausing to sip his wine, Adam recounted the circumstances behind the arrival of Helena Lambarth. “So,” he concluded, “after collecting her from the lawyer a few hours ago, I conveyed her home.”

“How old did you say she is?”

Adam swallowed another sip. “Twenty.”

“Twenty! And unmarried?” Dix’s eyes immediately brightened. “Is she attractive?”

Adam recalled the response she’d briefly sparked in him. Still, he could hardly describe her as a Beauty. “I doubt she’ll ever be accounted a Diamond, though I’m confident her appearance can be improved. You see—” he glanced around to confirm that no one was near enough to overhear “—the poor girl has been ill-nourished and badly treated. Indeed, my stepmother about had palpitations when she first saw her. However, learning that she must assist the chit in acquiring a complete new wardrobe soon rallied Bellemere’s spirits. We don’t yet know whether the girl will wish or be able to go about in Society, so don’t mention her existence to anyone just yet.”

Dix nodded. “You can rely on my discretion.” After suspending the conversation while their waiter served dinner, he continued, “No wonder you’re in a pucker, having this additional charge placed on your income.”

Adam chuckled. “Not a bit! Apparently the chit has been left quite a lot of money, which she insists upon using to purchase her own kit. Rather an…independent sort,” he said, having difficulty finding words to adequately convey Helena’s unusual essence.

“An heiress, eh? Maybe I need to take a look! Unless you have an interest there yourself.”

Dismissing the brief flare of warmth that question generated, Adam laughed outright. “Heavens, no! Even if I did, ’twould hardly be fitting, with her practically my ward. Nor would I encourage you to dangle after her. Helena’s father treated her with such severity that, at the moment, she’s very wary of men. No, the solution to my financial woes will have to come from some other quarter. In fact, I have someone in mind and wish your opinion.”

Dix nodded. “Hate to see anyone forced into leg shackles, but one can’t allow the family holdings to be sold off. So, who is the heiress you’re considering?”

“Miss Priscilla Standish.”

Din gave a low whistle. “Setting your sights rather high! Rumor says Miss Standish has refused a number of eligible offers these last few Seasons. Don’t know the chit myself—I don’t run in the elevated circles her family frequents! Her parents are said to be regular Tartars, especially the mother, but since the girl’s fortune exceeds that of any other maiden in the Marriage Mart, I suppose they can be particular. What makes you think you’ve a chance to win this female Golden Ball?”

Adam shrugged. “We were neighbors growing up. She always had a fondness for me.”

“A childhood attachment—that’s an advantage no other contender can boast,” Dix approved. “That might do it, for even the officious Mrs. Standish can’t fault your breeding. And the chit’s fortune is certainly large enough to offset your lack of one. Am I to wish you happy, then?”

Adam laughed. “That would be a bit premature! I’ve not even called on her yet, and I haven’t seen her in years. She, or Mrs. Standish, may show me the door—for being the fortune hunter I am.” Adam feared his light tone wouldn’t entirely mask his bitterness at being forced into that role.

“It isn’t ‘fortune hunting’ when the suitor is well-born, handsome and of superior character!” his friend returned loyally.

“Thank you,” Adam replied, the sting slightly eased. “But ’tis what I am for all that. Still, if I can steel myself to perform my duty with dispatch, I may be able to provide enough of a dowry that Charis, at least, will not have to concern herself with finances when ’tis her turn to choose a mate. And it will be satisfying to see Darnell land restored to what it was in my grandfather’s day.”

Dixon nodded again. “Might as well look to the positive. So, when do you begin the siege?”

“Tomorrow. In the meantime, though, I must postpone the trip to the card room I promised you earlier and return to consult Lady Darnell about our new houseguest.”

Their meal finished, the two friends stood and shook hands. “Let me know if there is anything I can do to help,” Dix offered. “And promise me I’ll be the first to meet your mysterious guest, once you judge it possible!”

“You’ll be bid to her very first dinner.” Running through his mind one more time a vision of Helena as she appeared at the lawyer’s office, he added, “But don’t expect the invitation anytime soon!”

AFTER RETURNING FROM WHITE’S, Adam went in search of his stepmother. After discovering she was in her sitting room, he proceeded to the door and begged leave to enter.

Lady Darnell greeted him from the secretary, where she’d been writing notes. To his relief, her eyes were bright, her cheeks their normal pink hue, and her smile welcoming. Apparently she had recovered from the distress occasioned by her first glimpse of Miss Lambarth.

He walked over to kiss her hand. “You are looking much better than when I left you, dear ma’am. I’m so sorry to have foisted Miss Lambarth on you unprepared.”

“And I must apologize for acting such a looby! I didn’t mean to be so hen-hearted. ’Tis only that I was horrified to see how badly she had been neglected.” As she said the words, tears welled up again in her eyes.

Adam patted the hand he still held, his concern for her returning. “Are you sure you wish to undertake her care? You are in no way bound to do so, you know. ’Tis not a frightened child we are talking about, who could be cosseted and tucked away in the schoolroom, but a young woman who, by right of birth, ought to be out in Society. Given her total lack of preparation for such a thing, it seems impossible that she could be schooled in the proper behavior by the start of this Season. You spent years at Papa’s bedside. I would not have you exile yourself from Society again. We can hire tutors for Miss Lambarth.”

Dashing her tears away with one hand, Lady Darnell shook her head. “Turn the poor child over to strangers, when she’s just found her family? Certainly not! If I could bear standing by, watching your dear papa dwindle into a shriveled husk of the man he’d once been, I can tolerate Helena’s appearance now. Despite all that she went through, she is a bright, clever girl. She will learn how to get on quickly enough, and with proper nourishment, her looks should improve. Her mama was quite the beauty.”

“If anyone can make her appear to best advantage, ’tis you!” Adam said, encouraged by Lady Darnell’s assessment. “Still, as you know far better than I, the rules of the ton can be a trap for the unwary. I shouldn’t wish you to suffer for the social lapses that she will inevitably make, inexperienced as she is.”

Lady Darnell waved a hand. “One of the benefits of age, my dear, is the freedom to ignore the opinions of Society. My friends, who will all know her circumstances, will understand, and I care nothing for the rest. That is, as long as you and Charis aren’t embarrassed by it.”

“Since I have no doubt that Charis will capture some discerning gentleman’s affections long before Helena is ready to make her appearance, and I may be on my way to being settled myself, you needn’t worry on our account. I only wish to make sure you are assuming this burden not out of a sense of duty, but because you truly wish to.”

It was a testament to his stepmother’s absorption with Helena Lambarth that she didn’t immediately task him for details of how he meant to get “settled.” Oblivious to all else, she continued, “’Twill be a challenge to my skills—and a delight. While you were working, I sought her out to apologize for my rude reception. We had a very pleasant chat. Oh, how I do see Diana in her! Teaching her proper deportment may be easier than you imagine, for she has already begged me to instruct her.”

Lady Darnell patted her eyes one last time. “When I think of what Lambarth made Helena suffer, Diana’s kin all unknowing! No wonder the child wants nothing to do with any of her father’s family.”

“It shall be as you wish, then. Mind, she and her lawyer insisted that all expenses for her upkeep should be paid from the proceeds of her mama’s estate, so you needn’t be outfitting her from your pin money.”

Lady Darnell’s enthusiasm faltered. “Oh, dear. Must I follow a strict budget?”

Adam chuckled. “Quite the contrary. From the figures I was shown, the girl might just be the wealthiest young woman in England. Buy whatever you think needful.”

Lady Darnell clapped her hands and gave Adam one of her most brilliant smiles. “Excellent! Mark my words, Adam, when I am done with Helena, you shall not even recognize her!”

CHAPTER SIX

EARLY THE NEXT MORNING Helena left her chamber to share breakfast with the two ladies who had been so welcoming. After experiencing the confusing array of tastes and scents at dinner the previous night, she was happy to discover that the first meal of the day consisted of toast and tea served informally in the breakfast room.

More than her cordial reception, Lady Darnell’s stories about Helena’s mother had established between them the intangible link of kinship. Feeling more loved and accepted than she had since the loss of her mother, Helena vowed to do her utmost to fit into Aunt Lillian’s world.

Eager to begin that process, as they sat sipping tea, Helena asked, “Shall we go to the dressmaker today?”

As she spoke, both women’s gazes went to the damaged hand she had unconsciously brought up to support her cup.

Deciding the first step in her resolve would be to set their minds at rest about her hand, Helena tucked it back in her skirt and said, “As I expect you’ve noticed, I also have an immediate need for gloves.”

After a glance at Aunt Lillian, Charis said tentatively, “Does…does the thumb still pain you?”

“No. The accident happened long ago. But it left the hand rather unattractive. I should like to conceal it as soon as possible.”

“And so you shall,” Aunt Lillian said sympathetically. “Rather than go to the shops in person, however, Charis and I agreed it would be better to have the merchants call upon you here. You can then make your first public appearance after you’ve had your hair styled and your new wardrobe completed, and have had some schooling in the behavior that will be expected of you as a young lady in London. I’m afraid you will find the rules a bit more restrictive than those you have been used to in the country.”

She would have to be exiled to the polar reaches of the planet to move in an environment more restrictive than that from which she’d escaped, Helena thought sardonically. But her kindhearted aunt didn’t need to learn that. “Please, do instruct me,” she replied. “I don’t wish to make errors and embarrass the family.”

Though the teeming city just outside beckoned beguilingly, Helena told herself she could tolerate being confined for a few more weeks. Should her resolution falter before Aunt Lillian pronounced her ready to greet the ton, she need only recall the shocked revulsion that had wiped the polite greeting off the face of Adam Darnell.

She intended to carefully avoid that particular gentleman until she could be sure that the response she evoked in him at their next meeting was more positive.

“We shall be happy to tutor you!” Lady Darnell said, pulling Helena from the humiliating memory. “I have already dispatched a note requesting my favorite mantua-maker to wait upon us this afternoon. Before she arrives, Charis and I will go to the shops and bring back a selection of shawls, gloves, shoes and undergarments from which you may choose. And I shall tell Harrison to contact his usual employment agency to find you a lady’s maid.”

The last item in this list drove the smile from Helena’s lips. “I’ve always waited upon myself, Aunt Lillian. I don’t wish to have a stranger.” And she had a compelling reason not to bare herself before one, as well.

“Helena, a maid is a necessity!” Charis said. “The simple round gown you are wearing now is…adequate, but your new clothing will require someone to adjust and pin it properly, to lace you in and out of your gowns and stays.”

Inspecting the morning gowns worn by her two companions, Helena realized Charis was correct. The bodice of the gowns closed in the back with tightly drawn laces extending from the high waist to the neckline. It would be impossible for her to manage lacing them alone.

“You mustn’t worry,” Aunt Lillian said. “Any candidate the agency sends will have excellent references.”

Any candidate with excellent references would likely be contemptuous of an employer who knew as little as Helena did about gowns and fashion. To say nothing of the other…

“I would rather employ someone just starting out, as I am. Could not one of the maids already here serve?”

Aunt Lillian frowned. “I suppose if you would feel more comfortable being assisted by someone within the household, Harrison might assign one of the housemaids until you feel ready for a proper lady’s maid.”

Perhaps she might request to have the maid who had summoned her for breakfast, Helena thought, brightening. The girl appeared young enough, perhaps, to not immediately recognize the deficiencies in Helena’s upbringing, and her merry smile suggested a sunny disposition. But she, too, would probably be shocked when she saw Helena unclothed.

That sobering thought extinguished the delight Helena had been feeling at the prospect of a new wardrobe. “Must I disrobe to be measured for gowns? I have not undressed before anyone since my mother left.”

Both women looked at her in surprise. “Surely you had some female to assist you,” Aunt Lillian said.

Helena shook her head. “My father did not risk exposing me to anyone with feminine sensibilities,” she said dryly. “The sole servant I saw after Mama left was the baliff who…helped enforce my father’s dictates.” The less said the better on just what those dictates had been.

“You’ve existed since your mother’s departure with no female company at all?” Charis asked, clearly taken aback.

“None at all.” A more pleasant memory intruded and Helena smiled. “Except for the old medicine woman who lived in our woods—a hermit who’d been there as long as anyone could remember. However, as she dressed all by guess, she was of no assistance in matters of fashion.”

“You poor child,” Aunt Lillian said, her voice shaking a bit. “But you mustn’t worry. In this house, you need do nothing that makes you uncomfortable. The seamstress can measure you in your shift and your maid need only assist you into your gowns. You can manage a night rail alone.”

Relieved, Helena nodded. “Thank you for understanding, Aunt Lillian. But my shift is so old and worn I should be embarrassed to meet the dressmaker in it. Might it be possible for you to purchase something for me before she arrives this afternoon?”

“Of course. Right after breakfast, Charis and I shall proceed to the corsetiere and order a selection of garments to be brought here for you to inspect, while we continue on to the glove and shoemakers. Before Madame Sofie arrives, you shall feel presentable in shift, gloves and slippers.”

Helena rose to hug her aunt. “How can I thank you?”

Lady Darnell kissed her forehead. “By enjoying yourself. We want you to be happy with us, child.”

Emotion rose to choke her throat and for a moment Helena could not speak. For nearly as long as she could remember, the intent of those closest to her had been to make her as unhappy as possible. She almost needed to pinch herself to believe she was awake and this was real, not the dream she’d dreamed every night of the life that would be hers when at last she was with her mother again.

That would never be possible now, but Mama, dearest Mama, had arranged something almost as wonderful. Grief and gratitude swelled in her chest.

“I shall do my best to be happy,” she said at last, “but you must do your parts. Mr. Pendenning assures me that Mama has left me the vastest of fortunes. It would delight us both for you two to choose new garments, too.”

Charis gave a peal of laughter. “Since Bellemere loves nothing better than new fashions, I expect we shall all be blissfully happy.”

Lady Darnell rose. “Come, Charis. If Helena is to be ready to meet Madame Sophie this afternoon, you and I must get to work.” She turned to Helena. “Should you like to rest in your chamber until we return, my dear?”

“Might I go to the library, ma’am?”

“’Tis Adam’s domain, but since he is to be out most of the day, you may certainly inspect it if you wish.”

“Are you a great reader?” Charis asked.

Helena paused, trying to frame the most innocuous reply. “I spent my happiest hours after Mama left in the library,” she said. Which was true enough.

“I do love the works of Mrs. Burney,” Charis said, and sighed. “The events were exaggerated, of course, but oh, how brave were the heroes and how fiendish the villains!”

Once again, Helena hesitated before answering. Heroes truly were the stuff of fiction and as for villainy…The images flashed into mind before she could stop them: the restraints, the whip, the airless, lightless priest’s hole where she had nearly lost her wits.

Shaking off the memories, she replied, “Isolated as we were, Mama taught me to love reading, but she preferred Scott, Shakespeare and the poets. Also the French philosophers—Pascal, Montaigne, Voltaire. Though truly, I read almost everything—travel journals, philosophy, mathematics. I would love to explore foreign lands.”

“You sound like quite the bluestocking!” Charis said. When Helena looked at her, uncomprehending, she explained, “A lady of vast education is known by that term—not a very complimentary one. I’m afraid it isn’t considered admirable for a lady to be too learned.”

Helena widened her eyes. “Society values ignorance?”

“Not precisely. I’m making a muddle of this.” Charis looked to Lady Darnell. “Could you explain, ma’am?”

“Of course a young lady can’t be ignorant,” the other lady replied. “She must be able to manage a household, stitch and embroider competently, and deal with servants and tradesmen. ’Tis desirable that she sing and perform pleasingly on the pianoforte or the harp and play well at cards. Some competence in reading French or Italian is also permissible, but a lady shouldn’t fatigue her mind with too much book-learning.”

Helena laughed ruefully. “Then I’ve acquired almost no useful knowledge at all. I haven’t set a stitch in years and have no idea how to get on in Society or manage a household. But if learning is so despised, why does anyone keep a library?”

“Oh, ’tis quite acceptable for gentlemen to be educated. But the gentler sex isn’t equipped to comprehend foreign tongues or study ancient literature—gods and goddesses cavorting about in the most unseemly fashion! And gentlemen don’t admire a lady who seems too…knowing.”

That she could believe, Helena thought acidly.

“You are far braver than I,” Lady Darnell continued. “I do not stir from London without two grooms to ride post and John Coachman on the box with his blunderbuss! To think of you traveling all alone on the mail coach is enough to give me palpitations, to say nothing of envisioning you in heathenish foreign lands!”

She shivered. “Pray, do not speak of it again. Having just found you, it is our earnest hope that we can make you so comfortable that you shall never wish to leave us. But enough,” she concluded as Helena sat mute, overwhelmed for the second time by Lady Darnell’s generous affection. “We must be going, Charis, if we are to complete our commissions and return betimes.”

After the ladies left, Harrison led her to the library. For the next hour, Helena explored with delight the treasures of this well-stocked room.

What a marvelous retreat this would make! she thought, selecting several volumes from the shelves. However, if this were Lord Darnell’s domain, she would not have unlimited use of it. She would have to ask Harrison every morning about his master’s schedule for the day.

Her inventory of the library’s holdings complete, she gazed around the room, taking in the sofa and two wing chairs before the hearth and the massive desk in the corner. Adam Darnell’s desk, of course.

Though her first impression told her this man would not be her enemy, best to learn as much as possible about the master of the household in which she now resided. Curiously she walked over to inspect his desk.

A stack of ledgers occupied one corner; an inkstand, quills and nibs were set at the center above several sheets of blank paper. To the other side was an assortment of books—Plato, Cicero and Voltaire, along with The Compleat Farmer and An Account of Operations at Holkham Estate.

If the desk were an indication of the character of the man who used it, Adam Darnell was neat and organized, a careful landlord and something of a scholar. He was certainly handsome, she recalled, some unnameable something stirring within her at the memory, and he seemed kind.

Still, it might be wise to explore the remainder of the house before the ladies returned. One never knew when a speedy exit might become imperative, and in such an event, one could not count on using the front entry.

However, with a dressmaker coming this afternoon, Helena’s most pressing need was to determine if the friendly parlor maid would be suitable to serve her. Even if the maid never saw her without her shift, at some point in the apparently laborious dressing process, that garment might slip—and the maid who viewed her back would need to be prepared and staunchly loyal to her service.

Leaving her chosen volumes for later, Helena exited the library and followed the hallway to a door that led to a flight of service stairs. As she expected, these ended on the ground floor next to the kitchen.

Within that ample room, a mob-capped woman tended a pot over a large iron cookstove while two other women chopped vegetables at a center table. At a smaller table to one side, Harrison sat across from an older lady in a dark dress with a set of keys pinned to her apron.

Conversation ceased and every occupant of the room turned to stare as she walked in. She sensed immediately that she had trespassed outside her proper domain.

Harrison jumped to his feet. “Excuse me, Miss Lambarth, I didn’t hear you ring. What do you require?”

“Excuse me, all of you, for coming here uninvited, but I have a bit of a dilemma that I hope you can help me solve.” Helena addressed herself to the dark-robed woman. “You are the housekeeper, Mrs. Baxtor?”

“Yes, miss,” the woman replied, curtseying.

“As I did not bring one with me, I need a lady’s maid. I should prefer not to hire some unknown person out of an agency and wondered if I might instead speak with the girl who waited on me this morning—Molly, I believe?”

The butler and the housekeeper exchanged glances. “Harrison takes care of hiring help, miss,” the housekeeper replied. “Molly is just a lower housemaid and hasn’t been trained for such work. If you step up to the parlor, I’m sure Harrison can discuss your requirements.”

Harrison bowed. “If you will follow me, miss?”

Nodding to acknowledge the curtseys of the staff, Helena dutifully left the room. So much for her distant memories of going with her mama to the kitchen to sample Cook’s fruit tarts, she thought ruefully. Not only had she obviously stepped out of place, she had stumbled into a hierarchy that did not readily admit change. Housemaids, apparently, did not turn overnight into ladies’ maids.

She would find no allies among that lot, Helena concluded, recalling the startled and mildly disapproving faces. But then, the household would go as the master dictated, as she ought to know well enough by now.

She must try a different tack, she decided as she trailed Harrison into the parlor. It would probably be better anyway to hire an outsider beholden to Helena alone for her position. But not, she was adamant, an experienced woman who would know instantly how out of place Helena was.

As Helena seated herself, Harrison said, “You would like me to inquire about a lady’s maid, miss?”

“Mr. Harrison, let us be blunt. My error in invading the kitchen must have confirmed what a man of your stature probably saw at first glance—that I wasn’t trained as befits one of my station. Lady Darnell will be helping me address those deficiencies, but while she does so, I do not wish to engage a dresser who would immediately note my inexperience. I should like to talk with Molly and see if she has a relation I might hire. I hope I could then rely on your guidance in instructing a new girl in her duties.”

Harrison nodded. “Better to bring in a newcomer than raise a maid here above her station. Naturally, I shall assist anyone you hire. I’m sure Mrs. Baxtor will, too.”

“You will have Molly sent to me, then?”

“Yes, miss. I expect Mrs. Baxtor can spare her from her work for a few moments.”

After pronouncing the last without a quiver of irony, Harrison withdrew. But as Helena waited for the maid to appear, memories of a conversation overheard on the way to London suddenly sparked another, better idea.

In addition to allowing her to personally select her employee, this alternative would insure that the person she chose would owe her position to Helena alone—and probably be grateful enough for the opportunity that she would work hard and ask no questions.

Best yet, Helena would be able to see at least a little of the city immediately. Indeed, by slipping out to hunt for a maid now, she could enjoy a freedom of movement that, based on what Aunt Lillian had just told her, she would probably have to forfeit once she’d been transformed into a young lady of fashion. A thrill of delicious anticipation energized her.

At that moment Molly entered and curtseyed. “Baxtor says you was wanting me, miss?”

“Yes, Molly. I have an errand to do and require a companion familiar with the city. Do you know how to get to St. Marylebone?”

“St. Marylebone?” the girl echoed. “’Tis rather far north of here, not near the shops or nothing. Are you sure that’s where you was wishful of going?”

“There’s a…business there I need to visit. You can show me the way?”

“I can, but you’d best be ordering out the carriage. ’Tis rather long a walk for a young lady.”

“I shall not be going as a fine young lady—at least outwardly. Lady Darnell does not want me to go about until my wardrobe is complete, but this matter cannot wait. If you can procure me a plain cloak with a hood, I can go there and back without attracting any notice. I will compensate you well.”

As the implications of Helena’s traveling incognito registered in the girl’s mind, her friendly smile faded. “I don’t think Lady Darnell or Mrs. Baxtor would look kindly on me, iff’n they knowed I helped you sneak out.”

“If anyone should discover us—which they will not—you need only tell Mrs. Baxtor that I ordered you to take me. She already knows I am a bit…odd.”

Molly giggled. “My, what a to-do it was, you coming down to the kitchen without a by-your-leave! John the footman told me ol’ Baxtor’s eyes was as big as dinner plates!” As if suddenly recalling to whom she was speaking, she blushed. “Meaning no disrespect, miss!”

Waving off the girl’s apology, Helena said, “Just before dark, while Lady Darnell is resting and the staff prepares dinner, we will slip away. Can you go today?”

Molly shook her head. “Oh, no, miss. Not today.”

A sympathetic anger uncurled inside Helena. “Does the master keep you confined here? Is he harsh?”

Molly looked at her uncomprehending. “You mean—Lord Darnell? Oh, no, miss! He’s been ever so kind every time I’ve seen him, even when he come up behind me one morning as I was bringing Eckles—that’s his valet—his shaving water and I dropped the pitcher and it shattered all over. But he was sweet as honey on a biscuit about it, and wouldn’t even let Eckles scold me, saying it was his own fault for startling me so.” The girl sighed. “He’s terrible handsome, too.”

So he was, Helena thought, remembering the odd little quiver he’d evoked in her. Relieved to have her innate distrust put to rest and her favorable first impression of Lord Darnell confirmed, she said, “Can you take me tomorrow?”

“I couldn’t get away until my half-day on Thursday.”

“Shall we say Thursday, then? If you come to my room before dinner tonight, I will give you money to make the preparations and reimburse you for working on your half-day. We shall have an adventure!”

Molly looked as if she did not find the idea of an adventure especially appealing. “I reckon I can do it, miss, but you…you’re sure we won’t get in no trouble?”

“None at all, I promise,” Helena said, giving the girl her most persuasive smile. She considered adding that the homemade knife she always kept strapped to her thigh—and her ability to use it—would guarantee a trouble-free trip. Judging by what she’d seen of London so far, however, such expertise was probably unusual among young ladies. No sense having Molly find her odder than she’d already shown herself.

After setting a time to meet the girl later, Helena dismissed the maid and went to fetch her book from the library. How much she’d accomplished in a single morning! The process of acquiring a wardrobe had begun, she’d discovered the room she would make her personal retreat and soon she would find a personal servant to be her ally in the household. Best of all, in a very few days she would embark on her first excursion.

Suddenly life seemed more exciting and full of opportunity than she’d ever imagined possible back at Lambarth or in the dark hours after learning of her mother’s death. A pang of sadness muted her enthusiasm as she remembered the lady whose wisdom had led her to this household—and to a family that actually seemed concerned about her happiness. To this household whose master, she thought, recalling Darnell’s handsome face and kind eyes, might just prove that honorable men existed after all.

CHAPTER SEVEN

WHILE HELENA ACQUAINTED herself with his home and staff, Adam made a number of business calls, ending with a visit to the Standish mansion on Grosvenor Square. Though the ornate drawing room was full of guests, Miss Standish looked up and smiled when she heard him announced.

The heiress would never be described as a Beauty, but Adam was pleasantly surprised to discover that the plump little girl who’d followed him about like an eager puppy had grown into an attractive young woman, her smile engaging, her pale blue eyes intelligent, her blond hair charmingly arranged. Her wealth was revealed by the excellence of her gown’s cut and fabric rather than by a showy effusion of trimming or a superfluity of jewels.

His first impression favorable, after paying his respects to her mother, Adam walked toward the sofa where she sat surrounded by guests. To his gratification, upon seeing him approach, she waved him to a chair.

If, while she made polite chat with her other guests, the young lady occasionally slid him a glance under her lashes, Adam was also covertly inspecting her. Some of the anxiety that had tensed his shoulders and settled in an ache at his temples eased, for not only was her appearance pleasing, her behavior was exemplary.

He observed none of the capricious airs or haughtiness of manner often exhibited by a young woman who knew herself to be a sought-after matrimonial prize. On the contrary, she gave equal attention to both the young men paying her court and two prosing dowagers. While deftly parrying the fulsome compliments of several highborn peers, she also offered a few kind words to a stammering young man from a minor family whom she might have snubbed with impunity.

Adam’s impression of Priscilla’s mother, stridently directing the conversation around her, was less positive. But Mrs. Standish had already been a stiff, overbearing woman in Priscilla’s childhood—which was why her daughter had escaped Standish Hall to follow Adam whenever possible.

If he discovered that he and Priscilla still suited, they’d not be living under her mother’s thumb anyway, Adam reminded himself. Waiting for an opportunity to move closer, when the dowager at Miss Standish’s elbow said goodbye, Adam swiftly commandeered the vacant seat.

Turning back from bidding another guest farewell, Miss Standish saw him and smiled again. The odd impression struck him that, though pleasant enough, even up close her smile lacked the magnetism of Miss Lambarth’s. He shook off the thought as Miss Standish addressed him.

“Captain Darnell—or I suppose I should say ‘my lord’? I understand you’ve left the army. So sorry about your poor papa, by the way. He was a fine gentleman and you must feel his loss keenly.”

“Thank you, Miss Standish, I do. But now that Bonaparte is corralled at last, ’tis good to be home.”

“And your friends must delight to have you here unharmed. Though I applauded the bravery that had you mentioned in the dispatches, I did fear for your safety.”

So she’d kept track of him. Despite himself, Adam was touched. “That was kind of you—given that more often than not, when you were scolded for some mischief when we were children, ’twas I who’d led you into it.”

“Ah, but the adventure was always worth the scold,” she replied, her smile deepening and a glow in her eyes.

Adam had been the recipient of feminine admiration often enough to recognize it in Miss Standish. Heartened by that excellent sign and seeing no reason to proceed by half measures, although she had just refused several other supplicants this favor, he continued, “If you dare risk your mama’s censure again by driving out with a gentleman whose only claim upon your kindness is an attachment from youth, let me escort you to the park this afternoon. I regret that the war and the…exigencies of my family led to our losing touch, and should like to reestablish our bond.”

There could be no mistaking his intent. For a moment, the little group around her fell silent—doubtless marveling at his temerity. Her smile fading, Miss Standish simply stared at him, and Adam feared he might have been too bold.

But his circumstances were urgent, he told himself as he awaited her answer. If she felt herself above renewing their relationship, better to find out right now.

Despite that brave conclusion, he was relieved when Miss Standish finally replied, amused reproof in her tone, “I see that time has taught you neither patience nor prudence, Lord Darnell.”

“No, ma’am. War rather teaches a soldier to value audacity and surprise.”

She laughed outright. “Two qualities I would have thought you amply supplied with from the beginning! Very well, Lord Darnell. I will drive with you.”

Ignoring the mutters of disapproval from his vanquished rivals, Adam fixed a time. Hardly daring to believe he had progressed so far in a single morning call, he bid Miss Standish and her mother goodbye and departed.

Given the partiality the heiress had just shown him, if in the relative privacy of his curricle they were able to reestablish the easy camaraderie of their childhood friendship, he thought exultantly, he might wrap up this courtship business and have Claygate on the road to recovery sooner than expected.

LATER THAT MORNING, Helena put aside her book to receive the corsetiere’s assistant. Marveling at the fineness of the garments, she fingered each one with delight as the girl lifted them from the boxes: feather-light linen shifts, petticoats and stays embroidered with tiny bows and blossoms, night rails of silk whose lushness whispered against her skin. Rejecting only the flannel items, she told the shopgirl she would take all the rest.

After nuncheon, Lady Darnell and Charis returned with new treasures: gloves of kid, chamois and net in every shade of the rainbow; slippers and half boots of French kid; twilled silk and Norwich wool shawls; fans of wood, bone and ivory with intricate painted panels. The ladies also brought a few hats that could be trimmed to match her gowns and would do until she could visit the shops herself.

Soon after, the mantua maker arrived with her samples. Determined after years of rough homespun to drape herself in the softest and most delicate of weaves, Helena was persuaded only after much argument to accept some sturdier cotton cloth for day wear.

Helena then further distressed her aunt by rejecting all the material in the white and pale shades they informed her were the colors considered most suitable for young ladies. She instead selected cloth in gold, scarlet, deep blue and coral hues. Worse yet, in her aunt’s opinion, after reviewing fashion plates, Helena refused to consider any style cut low over the back or bosom.

In vain did Lady Darnell argue that though the designs might seem a bit immodest to a girl who was country-raised, in London such gowns were worn by ladies of every age. As ashamed of her scarred back as she was of her mangled thumb, Helena could not bring herself to tell the kindhearted Lady Darnell the real reason she refused to consider more revealing styles. Saying that such shoulder-baring gowns would make her cold, the only plausible excuse she could think of to try to placate her aunt, Helena then traced over the styles she liked best, proposing alterations.

After considering Helena’s suggested changes, Madame Sofie became her unexpected ally, holding up a hand to silence Lady Darnell’s renewed protest. “No, your ladyship, the young miss speaks truth. The neckline just so, in this gold silk, will be different from what others wear, but will much become mademoiselle, with her elegant taille. She will not follow fashion, she will lead it.”

Fortunately—since Lady Darnell still looked skeptical—Charis agreed with Madame Sofie. “’Tis brilliant, Bellemere! Helena’s gowns shall be of the prevailing style, not in it, and completely unique. Beside her, all the ton Beauties will look insipid!”

Helena cared nothing about setting fashion. She only hoped that when she met Lord Darnell again, wearing one of her lovely new gowns, she would see approval, rather than disgust, in his eyes.

Despite Charis’s agreement and the dressmaker’s firm support, Lady Darnell continued to wring her hands at the thought of dear Helena throwing away the chance to display her youth and beauty to best advantage. Only by insisting they had spent time enough on Helena’s needs and must now discuss new garments for Charis and Lady Darnell were they able to turn her thoughts in a more cheerful direction. The rest of the afternoon passed agreeably in that endeavor, with Madame agreeing to have several designs completed for Helena within the week.

After the dressmaker’s departure, Harrison brought in the tea tray, bending low to murmur to Lady Darnell before bowing himself out. Frowning, her aunt turned to Helena.

“My dear, Harrison just told me you paid a visit to the kitchens today in search of a temporary maid.”

She was about to be chastised for her sins, Helena thought, armoring herself against the coming scold and resentful of Harrison for immediately reporting her breach of decorum. But then, what had she expected?

A frisson of dismay dissipated her annoyance. Having once again demonstrated just how untutored she was, would Aunt Lillian’s warm affection for her cool?

Ready to suffer any punishment to retain her aunt’s good will, she replied in her most penitent tone, “Yes, ma’am, I did, and I do apologize. From the staff’s reaction, I saw immediately that I had made an error.”

“You should have let Harrison handle it.”

“So Mrs. Baxtor informed me. I tried to leave as quickly as I could once I realized my error, but I’m afraid the housekeeper must think me rather odd. I am sorry, Aunt Lillian. I didn’t mean to upset the household.”

To Helena’s immense relief, Lady Darnell patted her hand. “Don’t refine too much upon it, my dear! I suppose it must have seemed quite logical for you to inquire about it yourself. But such things are not done directly.”

“So the housekeeper also informed me,” Helena said.

Lady Darnell chuckled. “Mrs. Baxtor is a bit tart-tongued, but vastly efficient! You must treat servants fairly and with respect, but at a distance. Although it might seem otherwise, if you are too familiar, they will think you do not know your place and disdain you for it.”

Helena smiled wryly. “They are right. I do not.”

“But you soon will! Harrison said you made quite a good recovery. You mustn’t fault him for reporting the matter to me, for if you had not already won his respect, he would not have done so! He told me that with a bit of guidance, he expects you will make an excellent mistress. Which is quite a tribute, my dear, considering you have been with us barely a day.”

“I hope I will ever follow your guidance.”

“I am sure you will,” Lady Darnell replied, squeezing Helena’s hand. “Now, shall we have our tea?”

Having armed herself to suffer serious chastisement, it took Helena a moment to realize that Lady Darnell considered the matter settled. Still rattled by the encounter, Helena sipped her tea silently, unable to remember when she’d last made any error for which she’d not been severely punished. A bit more of the hard shell in which she’d had to encase her emotions softened as a wave of gratitude flooded her.

While she pondered the marvel of her aunt’s forbearance, Charis and Lady Darnell discussed the various entertainments offered by the Season and how much Helena would enjoy them when, several weeks hence, she was gowned, coifed and confident enough about her mastery of ton etiquette to attend. A riot of contending emotions roiled in her chest as she listened—awe at the easy dismissal of her error, surprise at Harrison’s unexpected championship, relief that she had not altered Lady Darnell’s affection.

Just then Charis mentioned a dinner the two ladies were to attend that coming Thursday. Recalling what she had planned for that day, Helena felt a pang of guilt.

A moment’s reflection, though, convinced her that it was essential she follow through with her engagement. ’Twas fortunate, then, she reflected as she sipped the rest of her tea, that she’d had years to perfect her skill at evasion, for if Lady Darnell were to discover the nature of this coming excursion, her sympathetic aunt would doubtless be much less understanding.

WHILE THE LADIES WERE TAKING tea, Adam was calling in Grosvenor Square to take Miss Standish to the park.

The lady first impressed him by keeping him waiting only a few minutes. Then, garbed in an unadorned carriage dress of medium blue that intensified the hue of her eyes, blond curls peeping out from under a fetching bonnet that framed her oval face, her understated elegance and modest demeanor again elicited both his admiration and approval.

After he’d handed her up and remounted himself, he signaled the horses to start and turned to her. “I must thank you for overlooking the impetuosity of my request and agreeing to drive out with me anyway. You would have been quite justified in putting this upstart in his place by refusing, if only to gratify your other suitors.”

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