She pushed back her chair and made for the door, abandoning Delia, Mr Hammond and Lady Margaret to each other’s disgruntled company.
Upstairs, Geoffrey stood at his station outside the salon. He bowed as she approached and reached for the door handles, but Helen stopped him with a shake of her head. She needed a moment to prepare, to ensure her mind was upon the matter at hand — Darby and their bonding ritual — and not lurking with foolish thoughts about his lordship.
With a conspiratorial smile at the footman, she stepped closer to listen through the oak. Her Reclaimer hearing distinguished the thud of two pairs of feet on the floorboards at the far end of the room, the creak of a chain, and quick breathing. Even after only a few weeks of training she recognised the sounds: Darby and Mr Quinn working on tackles using the stuffed hessian bag that hung from the ceiling. Her maid must have already been to Martha Gunn and returned. Did that mean she had her appointment?
She stretched her Reclaimer hearing and found the breath of another person near the front windows. Yes, she recognised that slow steady rhythm: Lord Carlston. And the rustle of thin paper too: he was reading the London Gazette. Not the action of a man still angry from the previous night. Mr Hammond was right: his lordship was not one for holding a grudge.
‘Why don’t you come in, Lady Helen?’ It was his voice, pitched for her Reclaimer hearing.
She stepped back, surprise breaking into a smile. Although an oak door and half a room separated them, she had heard him as if he stood by her side. He must have been listening for her tread up the stairs.
‘Thank you, I will,’ she murmured, knowing he, in turn, would hear it.
She nodded to Geoffrey, who opened the doors.
His lordship sat beside the window, legs stretched out before him, newspaper angled towards the sunlight. He had removed his jacket, the muscular length of his body enhanced by the unbroken line of plain buff waistcoat and buckskins. The light cast his profile into relief, the bold classical symmetry of straight nose and broad cheekbones softened by the curve of his lips that still held some of the smile that had been in his voice. His attention, rather pointedly, was on the paper, not on her entrance.
She studied him for a moment longer, something jarring about his apparent composure. A tenseness beyond his normal ready manner. She twitched her shoulders. Here she was again, her thoughts on an impure path, and as guilty as Lady Margaret of over-watching the man.
She walked into the room, remembering her male stride, and bowed. ‘Good morning, Lord Carlston.’
Lord Carlston folded the paper and placed it on the small table at his side. ‘Mr Amberley.’ He rose smoothly from his chair and executed his own bow. ‘You may be interested to know that the Committee for Secrecy has been elected.’
It was one of his tests. Well, she would show him she was prepared.
‘Indeed? And is Mr Wilberforce amongst their number?’ She strolled over to the paper and picked it up, every nerve abuzz with the sense of his eyes upon her, and glanced at the page. Twenty-one names listed, including Wilberforce and Mr Canning. ‘Ah, I see it is the case. The Luddites do not stand a chance against his fervour.’
He regarded her with his half-smile. ‘Yes, nicely done. Manner and voice are excellent. I would have no trouble believing you to be a young gentleman with an interest in national security.’
She placed the paper back on the table, returning his smile. She would take it as a conciliation of sorts. Perhaps he too felt he had been unfair last night.
At the corner of her eye, she saw that Darby and Mr Quinn had broken from their exercise and were watching with interest. The stuffed hessian sack swung gently from its creaking chain behind them. Mr Quinn had built it to resemble the size and weight of a man, a heavy wooden cross embedded within the sawdust and wool stuffing to mimic bones and skull.
She faced their scrutiny, forcing some nonchalance into her voice. ‘How goes Darby’s training, Mr Quinn? Do you think she will be ready to make the Terrene bond soon?’
‘I do, my lady,’ Quinn said with a bow. He brushed selfconsciously at the dust on his jacket. ‘If Miss Darby keeps training this well, she should be ready in time for the next full moon.’
‘Surely we could bond sooner than that?’ Helen smiled, trying to mask the urgency behind the question. ‘I am keen to get it done.’
Carlston stretched his arms behind him, driving the sitting kinks from his long body. ‘Both of you need to be ready, Lady Helen.’ She flushed at the implication that she was even less ready than Darby. ‘There is, to a certain extent, a union of mind as well. A sense of each other’s essential self that informs the partnership. It is best to perform the ritual during a full moon when the earth’s energies can be used to produce the strongest bond in both mind and body.’
‘Surely it can still be done without the full moon?’ Helen persisted.
‘It can, but the exchange of strength is not as complete,’ Carlston said. ‘I want Darby to have the best chance of a complete bond.’
‘Aye,’ Mr Quinn agreed. ‘And Miss Darby still has a way to go. She’ll need to have me down and tied before I let her go out into the world as your Terrene.’
Helen bit down on her disappointment. There would be no gain in arguing the point; she did not want them to mark her desperation.
‘Is that a usual method for subduing a Reclaimer, Mr Quinn?’ she asked instead, only half teasing. After all, she had seen him stab Lord Carlston.
The big man’s slow smile appeared. ‘No, my lady. Just between me and Miss Darby.’
‘Nathaniel!’ Darby’s fair skin flushed. ‘Don’t mind him, my lady. His blood’s up is all.’
‘Quite,’ Carlston said. ‘I think it is time for both of you to take some air.’
Quinn ducked his head, smile still in place. ‘As you wish, my lord.’
‘Were you able to complete your errand?’ Helen asked Darby as she prepared to leave.
‘Yes, my lady. Two days hence.’ She met Helen’s eyes for an eloquent moment, then curtseyed and took Quinn’s offered arm.
Helen nodded. Martha Gunn had agreed to see her on Friday. The first part of her plan was in motion.
His lordship watched the door close behind the two servants, the nail of his forefinger flicking hard against his thumb. He had clearly not realised the extent of Quinn’s and Darby’s affection for one another and it troubled him. Well, it troubled her too. Perhaps here was the opportunity to use Delia’s ill-gotten information.
‘I believe Mr Quinn and Darby are well on their way to a deep attachment,’ she said carefully.
‘I had not realised it had gone so far.’ He picked up the paper, looked at it distractedly for a moment, then tossed it back onto the table. ‘Fool. He should know better.’
‘Know better?’
‘He saw what I went through after my wife disappeared. I should have thought that by itself would have been an adequate deterrent.’ He glanced at her, the jut of his chin a challenge. ‘No doubt you have heard some version of the story.’