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
