“You aren’t French, either.”
“Nope. My accent give me away?” He grinned at her.
“Well, yes. That and . . . I suppose you just look like an American.”
“Huh. I guess I’d better take that as a compliment.”
He clambered out of his motorcar and walked over to look at her bicycle. It was a wonder he’d even fit in the coupe, for he was well over six feet tall, and broad-shouldered besides. He wore a linen suit, rather crumpled and dusty, and his shirt was open at the neck. On his head he sported a long-billed American cap, but he pulled it off and tossed it in the car, revealing short-cropped auburn hair.
“Why don’t I see what the problem is, Duchess?”
“I’m not—” Helena began, but stopped short when she realized he was only teasing her. In vain she tried to think of something amusing to say, but her mind remained stubbornly blank.
Crouching by her bicycle, he pulled at its chain, muttering a little under his breath. He sat back on his haunches and began to rummage about in the grass. “I need a stick, nothing too big . . . here we go.” Using the stick as a guide, he looped one end of the chain over the rear cog, and then eased it around to fit over the front chain ring. He then grasped the nearside pedal and turned it slowly round until the chain clicked into place.
“There. Fixed.”
“Really? I tried that half a dozen times but I couldn’t get it to stay on.”
“You’d have probably got it on eventually. Using the stick helps.”
“Of course. That’s, ah, that’s terribly helpful. Thank you so much, Mister—”
“Howard. Sam Howard.”
“Well, thank you, Mr. Howard. I’m Helena Parr.” She wondered if she ought to offer her hand for him to shake, but remembered, just in time, that it was dirty. Of course his hands were dirty, too, so it really ought not to matter.
“Do you need any more help, d’you think?”
“No. You’ve done more than enough. I mustn’t keep you.” She winced at the sound of her voice, so prim and starchy compared to his unaffected friendliness.
“So long, then. Perhaps I’ll see you around town.” He smiled then, really smiled, and she saw that he had a dimple in one cheek and a sprinkling of freckles across his nose and cheekbones. She’d never known a grown man with freckles, or perhaps she simply had never noticed before.
“That would be very nice.” What was wrong with her? Very nice? Even as a green debutante of eighteen she’d been capable of conversation that was ten times as sparkling.
“It was good to meet you, Miss Parr. You’re sure you don’t need me to stay? Just to make sure you’re fine?”
“I’m sure. I mean, I’m sure that I’m fine. Really, there’s no need to stay. Thanks ever so much.”
“As long as you’re sure, then,” he said, and smiled at her once more. It made his eyes crinkle at the corners in an awfully endearing fashion, and it also made her notice, rather unwillingly, just how handsome he was. “Good-bye.”
He returned to his car, somehow managed to fit his long legs into its cockpit, or whatever one called the driving compartment of a motorcar, and drove off in a cloud of dust and exhaust.
By the time she got home, a half hour later, Helena was grimy, terribly thirsty, and suffering from a tremendous headache. Leaving her satchel in the studio, she hurried upstairs to the bathroom, praying there would be enough hot water left in the cistern for her to have a modest bath. She opened the hot water tap all the way, and went to look at herself in the cheval mirror while the tub filled.
It was even worse than she’d imagined. Her frock, fortunately an old one, was streaked with bicycle grease and dust from the road. Her face was nearly as dirty, and her hair, which now reached to her earlobes, was standing on end. She might have been one of the urchins from Fagin’s den of thieves. Her laugh echoed in the tiled room—no wonder Mr. Howard had been grinning at her. Between her disheveled appearance and her tongue-tied responses, she must have come across as decidedly strange.
The tap began to clamor and clank; that was the end of the hot water. She added a splash of cold, so she wouldn’t scald herself, and poured in some lemon bath essence. She would wash her hair, wash every inch of her person, and then she would swallow two tablets of aspirin and take a short nap. When she awoke, she would be perfectly rested and ready for a pleasant evening with her aunt and the Murphys—and then, maybe tomorrow, she would locate her wits and what little dignity she still possessed, go into town, and find Mr. Howard to thank him properly for his help.
Chapter 5