‘A jade, just like her mother,’ the woman added.
Helen closed her eyes. Now she recognised her. Mrs Albridge, Lady Dunwick’s best friend and one of the nastiest gossips in England. Everything that transpired in the next few minutes would be broadcast to the whole of Brighton by tomorrow and London by the next post.
She opened her eyes in time to see Lady Dunwick wave the woman back. ‘Be quiet, Amelia.’ She turned her stout indignation back to the Duke. ‘What is happening here, Your Grace? You are obviously travelling with Lady Helen. Are you indeed eloping with my daughter’s friend?’
The Duke glanced at Helen, the moment between them stripped back to the awful realisation that her future lay within his next words.
She curled her fingernails into her palms. Only she was in peril — a man’s reputation did not turn upon the axle of purity. Yet only his answer had any bearing upon the course of her life. If he said no, she was utterly ruined — a wanton lost to all decent society. And if he said yes — and he was going to, for it was in the sweet, possessive smile dawning upon his face — they would be, for all intents and purposes, man and wife.
‘Lady Helen and I are betrothed.’
She released a shaking breath, finding her hands suddenly caught within Pug’s excited hold.
‘I knew it!’ Pug squealed. ‘Oh, my goodness!’ She squeezed Helen’s hands, then stepped back and swept a curtsey. ‘Your Grace! How well that sounds.’
‘No,’ Helen breathed.
Pug frowned. ‘What do you mean? Oh, I see!’ She giggled. ‘Well, it will be Your Grace soon enough.’
‘But why are you travelling at night in such a hurried and illicit —’ Lady Dunwick stopped, her jaw tensing. Apparently a reason had presented itself. She regarded the Duke with narrowed eyes. ‘I shall be writing to Lord and Lady Pennworth at the earliest opportunity tomorrow to congratulate them upon the betrothal of their niece,’ she said, steel in her voice.
‘I am sure your congratulations will be received with pleasure,’ the Duke said. ‘Lady Helen, the horses have been changed. We are ready to go.’
Yes, she had to get away — she could not bear Lady Dunwick’s horrified stare, or Mrs Albridge’s malicious glee, or even worse, Pug’s beaming smile of congratulations.
She thrust the tankard into the hand of the old ostler, then walked stiffly across the cobbled yard. She must concentrate upon the task at hand. With every minute passing, Lord Carlston and the journal were drawing further and further away from them. They must continue. She could feel a pain building in her chest and knew that it was made of two words. Amore mio.
‘It is so romantic,’ she heard Pug say.
‘Be quiet, Elizabeth,’ Lady Dunwick snapped.
Helen stared straight ahead as they left the posting inn and turned right to take the road out of Crawley, the last pink remnants of dawn disappearing into the clear blue of the new day. She had not spoken since she had hobbled away from Pug and her companions and swung herself up into the curricle again. It was, perhaps, not fair upon the Duke to have stayed so silent — a thank you, at the very least, should have been offered — but she could not even voice that simple courtesy. All words were gone; lost in overwhelming humiliation and the awful impossibility of the situation.
The Duke glanced across at her now and again, but made no comment as the shops and houses gave way to high-edged banks covered in dense tangles of hazel. He was keeping the fresh team to a smart trot, partly because the winding route out of Crawley hid the oncoming road, but mostly, Helen knew, to hear her response. She twisted her fingers together. She had too many responses, none of them coherent.
‘I could not see any other way forward,’ he finally said.
She summoned her voice. ‘No.’
‘It was presumptuous, but that Albridge woman will have the whole affair across society by tomorrow evening.’
‘Yes.’
‘Will it be so bad?’ he asked.
She heard the note of injury in his voice and could not ignore it.
‘Your Grace —’
‘Selburn now, I think,’ he said with a brief smile. ‘Or perhaps even Gerard.’
She stared down at her hands, twisting her fingers tighter together. The offer of his first name was too much. Too intimate. ‘Selburn, what you did was most gallant, but you know I am not a normal woman. I cannot live a normal woman’s life. Besides, marriage is forbidden by the Dark Days Club’s oath.’
He dismissed the oath with a wave of his whip. ‘That will not apply to us.’
‘You do not understand. I cannot be a wife, especially not the kind of wife that your rank requires. In truth, I can barely be a woman. I must dress as a man, go into places that no lady would even know existed let alone visit, and fight unearthly creatures. I have killed a man with power that I do not understand.’ She stopped for a moment, the enormity of that statement squeezing all of the air from her lungs. She gulped for a breath, pushing past the sob in it. ‘Yes, I have killed a man. He was a horrible man, but I killed him and — merciful heaven — I think I was glad.’
He regarded her, face drawn tight with shock. ‘Then all the more reason for me to be at your side. You cannot do this alone. You should not do it alone — it is too much to ask of a young woman.’ He checked the off-side leader, bringing the horse’s gait back into line with its partner, then glanced across at her again. ‘We have friendship and respect, Helen, and now a mutual purpose. Many successful marriages are built upon much less. Besides, you will be at the pinnacle of society. What could be better for a Reclaimer?’
He was right: most marriages of their rank were financial transactions with not even a basis of friendship. He made it sound so reasonable. So useful. So inevitable. Yet she could feel herself resisting, as if something deep within her was curling away from him.
Apparently he could feel it too, for he said curtly, ‘You are thinking of him, aren’t you?’
She rubbed at her forehead. ‘I do not know what I am thinking. Right now it is all too much.’
‘I will tell you what you should be thinking. He is mad, he killed his last wife, and he is still considered married.’
She gripped the edge of the seat. ‘He did not kill Lady Elise.’
‘Even if that were the case — and I assure you it is not — he is definitely the other two.’
They stared ahead again. Helen rubbed her chest. It was as if her heart hurt.
‘Beyond Carlston and your own obvious hesitation, a hard truth remains,’ he added. ‘Our betrothal has been witnessed by Lady Dunwick and her companions, and will be advertised to the world in short order. If you want to have any currency within decent society, if you want to save yourself and your family from further ignominy, then we must be married.’
He sent the whip over the team, springing them into a gallop.