Page 63 of The Scandalous Deal of the Scarred Lady
The clutter of trinkets and jewels seemed suddenly strange as so many things had. How then had she amassed many possessions? “Honestly, Father, I am not sure. I suppose I simply wondered.”
Harcourt set the brooch on the table next to him and then turned to take one of her hands in his, warming her cold fingers between his own. “My girl, it is normal to wish for gifts and trinkets from the person you love. If you are concerned about the Duke…”
Helena’s face flamed for the second time that night. “No! Not at all! I was only thinking out loud!” she exclaimed, not wishing to explain what was only a vague suspicion.
He chuckled. “You simply need to be honest with him. Do not let that brooch nor any arrangements stand between you. The Duke cares for you, Helena, as much as you care for him. You only need to trust yourselves, and more importantly, each other, and you will see what I mean.”
The Duke of York lurched to his feet then. “Now, it seems we have missed the evening meal with all of this nonsense. Shall we see what Bridget can find us for dinner?”
Helena shook her head, still looking at the glass jar.Trust herself. Trust him.Would not this entire courting process be easier if her skin were free of blemishes? What if the only barrier to her true happiness lay in something so small, that a simple lotion could erase the marks from her skin? “I am not really that hungry.”
“Are you carrying on about your looks again?” Harcourt asked, tapping the glass jar upon the lid. “I wish you would leave off that nonsense. Those creams only seem to make the rash worse.”
“Aunt Phoebe assures me that this is the solution to all of my problems. That I will never need another lotion again!”
The Duke snorted. “It sounds like utter rot to me.”
“But were I to be more like… well, other girls, would everything change?” Helena asked, lifting her eyes to meet his. “Does it not make a difference?”
“Child,” he placed a hand on her shoulder, bending to look at her, to make sure that she, in fact, was looking at him. “I loved your mother because she had a beautiful soul first and foremost. That she was attractive was impossible to miss…but to me, it was always what was inside her heart that counted more.”
“That sounds like something a father would say,” Helena complained and bit her lip, for even if it were true, her heart hadn’t been particularly attractive ever since she’d coerced a duke to court her.
Harcourt shook his head. “That is something that a man of quality knows instinctively. I doubt he ever noticed your blemishes.”
“But if I had no blemishes at all,” she said thoughtfully, turning the lid and removing it, “then it would be easier for him to love me…” A gentle hint of strawberries wafted up to greet her. “How thoughtful of Aunt Phoebe to always make sure my lotions smell like strawberries, though the scent is rather overpowering on this one, is it not?” She laughed a little as she lifted the jaw to her nose to inhale deeply. “She knows how much I lo—”
Helena faltered in her words. The scent not only filled her nose but her throat as well - she was choking, finding it hard to breathe.
“Helena? What is happening? Helena!”
But Helena could not answer her father’s frantic cries. The jar tumbled from her grasp, rolling under the settee. She clutched at her throat, coughing and choking and unable to catch her breath. Bright lights danced across her vision. She felt herself falling. Hands reached out to catch her.
From far away she thought she heardhisvoice.James.James had come back like he’d said he would.
Helena tried to smile but could no longer control those muscles of her body. Darkness took her as she heard him cry out her name.
Chapter 43
“You are not coming with me, and that is final!” The storm had stopped, but the temperatures were still near frigid. In no way, James was going to risk Lucy out in that cold.
Except Lucy wasn’t going to listen to him any better now that he knew she was his mother than she had as his governess. She sat, arms crossed under a multitude of blankets in the cutter, that she somehow had managed to arrange in the few moments James had taken to dress warmer for the coming trek back to the home of the Duke of York.
“We would waste less time if you were actually in the cutter with me, rather than standing out in the snow,” Lucy suggested her tone at once sweet and hard as steel.
“I thought you were dying,” James muttered as he climbed into the conveyance, all the while thinking that there was little he could do to salvage his good name as the Duke of Anywhere, save to fire his entire staff and install his mother as the Dowager Duchess and be done with it. Not that things could actually work that way.
James shuddered. Please tell me they cannot work that way…
Actually, now that the truth had come out — and it would come out after tonight, of this he was certain — maybe there was some way he could legitimize Lucy, that would remove her as a servant from his household and install her instead as a beloved family member. IF this escapade didn’t kill her first.
“How is your heart?” he asked, leaning over to adjust her blankets as the vehicle rocked in heavy ruts that lay just beneath the new-fallen snow.
“My heart would be more sound should my boy find a bride worthy of him,” she said, a hint of sharpness in her words, but her voice had lost something of the strength it had always had.
“And you think Lady Barrington is worthy?” he asked, pretending he hadn’t noticed this, and wishing he had had her carried bodily back into the house rather than allow her this excursion.
“I knew she was when I met her, and she suggested that I take that brooch home with me,” Lucy said with a cheerful smile that tugged at his heart.
