got Margaret to return her gaze, but oh how it crackled, like a log catching fire, sparking and hot. “May I go inside the house to wash my face, Lady Ardoch?”
Helena ignored the sarcastic tone. “By all means. And then we may start again.”
But Margaret was already stomping toward the house.
It was a relief when Papa approached, a familiar face among the strangers. Behind him, some sort of dance began, with the fiddle and fife growing louder. Papa would not dance, of course, but the tiniest bit of her wished he would dance with her on her wedding. For one person to be happy. Other than Louisa, that is, who’d been sweet enough once the mouse was out of her dress.
“Papa, isn’t this a lovely party?”
“Just so,” he said in a tone that implied the opposite as he stared at a toddler attaching himself to her new husband’s legs. “Alas, I must take my leave.”
“It has been a long day.” Helena’s feet ached. Or rather, one ached. The other—the one she’d twisted last week—throbbed. And Papa must be exhausted, too. He hadn’t been well. “What time shall we expect you to call tomorrow?”
As his head shook, a thin lock of faded blond hair fell over his forehead. “Tomorrow I return to London.”
Oh. Her eyes stung, but she’d not allow tears. “When will I see you again?”
If ever? As if on cue, Papa coughed. She reached out but didn’t allow herself to touch him. He wouldn’t want it.
This spell was blessedly short, however. Within a few moments he took a steadying breath. “I do not know. I’m certain your mother desires a letter from you, once you are settled.”
“I shall write to her on the morrow.” It would be pleasant if he waited to deliver it himself, but clearly, he had no desire to stay any longer than he’d had to. He hadn’t been well, true—
“How could Mrs. Knox permit you to wear that?”
“Wear what?” Was her hem ripped? Did she drip punch on her bodice?
“That gown. ’Tis a good thing no one we know from London can see you—can you imagine what my brother would say?”
“Uncle Cecil?” Papa’s younger brother and heir presumptive was a stickler and looked down his nose on others even more than Mama did, and he’d no doubt disapprove of Helena’s marriage once he learned of it. But why would he care about her dress?
“If your mother had been here, she would have seen you dressed properly.”
“Mama suggested I wear this gown today.”
“Then she was rendered daft by grief, for your gown is a disgrace.”
The bodice was modest, not at all alluring, as Papa had accused her of dressing after Frederick—after that terrible day. “Is it too showy?”
Papa’s lips twisted. “It is too white.”
“White is fashionable.” The words tumbled out. All unmarried ladies—and many married ones—wore white.
“’Tis also symbolic.”
Of course it was. Was the church altar not dressed in white at Easter and Christmas and all the other happy feast days? “White is the color of joy.”
“And purity, a quality you lack, so there is little joy today, either. You could have made a dazzling match. Stayed close to us in London. Now you’ve lost everything.” His eyes moistened, which made her eyes sting and her hands tremble to reach out to him, but before she could move, he shook his head. “No, daughter, there is no cause to wear white this day.”
With that, he left her alone. A few guests approached, expectant smiles on their faces, forestalling her from fleeing into the house and doing something shameful, like giving in to tears. She forced herself to freeze: smile, posture, proud tilt of her chin.
I am ice. I am ice. And if I am not careful, I will crack.
Helena ambled onto the grass behind Comraich, the site of yesterday’s wedding celebration. All evidence of her nuptial feast had disappeared from the scene, like a dream dissolving at first light. One might well wonder whether it had happened at all.
But the ring on her finger and the children trailing behind her were real. This was her life now.
She cupped the wooden ball in her hands, judging its weight. No heavier than a large apple, it should be perfect for the children. Even Louisa should have no trouble rolling it across the grass for a game of nine pins.
Something whizzed past her ear. Helena spun to where the boys scampered over the grass, swinging rackets. They’d hit the shuttlecock toward her. “Too close, lads.”
Alexander—she knew it was him because his coat was darker brown than Callum’s today—grinned as he bounced the strings of his racket off his fist. “Accident! Sorry, ma’am.”
Callum spun away, his shoulders shaking with laughter.
If it was indeed an accident, the boys thought it a lark of one. Helena’s jaw clenched. She wasn’t certain how to be a mother, but she’d always wanted to be one. To love a child and be loved in return. Surely God had given women some sort of instinct to care for them, too. Things should get easier once she spent time with them, shouldn’t they?
At least she would be hiring the new governess today to help ease things along. She should have asked why the children currently lacked one, but there hadn’t been time, with all the wedding guests clamoring for their attention yesterday.
She’d hardly slept in her new chamber—Catriona’s chamber, with its heavy, dark draperies that begged to be replaced with lighter fabrics, although she’d not intended to change anything. But it was her room now, separated by a sitting room from John’s.
He kept his promise and left her alone, but she hadn’t slept anyway. Her ankle pulsated all night, as did her head, with thoughts of Papa and Margaret and white gowns and Frederick until her maid, Barnes, brought her a tray of tea and toast at eight o’clock this morning. She’d forced down a bite and dressed, determined to start being a mother.
Surely Papa would have approved of her primrose yellow gown and matching pelisse. She’d not wear white ever again. Still, her parents frowned at her in her imagination, and her forehead ached.
The smack of the shuttlecock against a tree trunk dragged Helena to the present, where Louisa, held in the nursemaid Agnes’s arms, sucked her thumb and gripped a well-loved doll. Beside them, Margaret stared at the clear heavens, a bored expression on her fair, cosmetic-free face.
“Right,” Helena said, clutching the ball as if it held her sanity within it. “Who wishes first crack?” She lifted the ball in a gesture of offering.
The children stared at her. Dear God, help.
She took a deep breath before trying again. “Please set up the pins, Margaret.
