“Nor did I.”
“I gather you were very ill last year. I’m relieved to see you looking so well.”
“Am I?” she asked, and for a terrible moment she thought she might cry. They had been engaged for five years, but for all that he was nearly a stranger to her. “I’m sorry,” she went on. “It’s only that I’m rather tired. My aunt and I just arrived from Paris yesterday.”
“Of course. You’ve been at art school.”
“Yes.”
“I’m glad to hear it. You were so talented. I ought to have tried to encourage you more, but I was a selfish idiot. Couldn’t see past the nose on my face.”
It was true, but he’d had other worries, too. It would be unfair of her to fault him on it now. “How is Lady Cumberland?” she asked instead.
“Do call her Charlotte. She detests the title. For obvious reasons. My mother, you know . . .”
“Of course. How is Charlotte, then?”
“Very well. Busy with her work, and the children, too.”
“How old are they?”
“Laurence is four, and Eleanor is two and a half. We didn’t bring them to the service, but you might have seen them running around before breakfast.”
“I did. I thought they were very sweet.” Laurence, she recalled, was a serious little boy, with dark hair and a quiet manner. His sister seemed his opposite, with fair hair and an engaging and rather precocious way about her.
“There was another child,” she said, remembering. “A little girl with ginger hair. Is she Lilly’s?”
“Yes. Her name is Charlotte, which never fails to delight me. She’s just two now, and soon to have a sister or brother, as you may have noticed.”
“Lilly seems very content.”
“She is, yes. She and Robbie earned their happiness. But then, haven’t we all?”
They were silent for a moment, and then they both started to talk at once, their words tangling together.
“No,” she said. “You go first.”
“I didn’t know,” he began, and he met her gaze unflinchingly. “The gossip, that is. The things people said after I broke our engagement. I was in . . . well, I was in a state, to be honest. I was pickled with drink and out of my mind with pain and self-pity, and I did a pretty good job of ignoring the world around me. I only realized what had happened months later, when Lilly told me.”
“Oh,” she said, not knowing how else to respond. She’d never expected him to do anything, of course, but it did help to know he was sorry for it.
“I wasn’t sure what to do. I worried it would stir up bad memories if I wrote to you, or approached you in any way, and so I said nothing. For that I am truly sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault. You did your best, and we both survived. You mustn’t feel guilty. I don’t blame you, or Charlotte, for any of it. Not one bit. Not least because you’d have made me very unhappy, and I you.”
“I hope . . . I do hope you’ve been happy,” he said. “In spite of things.”
“I have been, especially this past year. I was very happy in Paris.”
It was true. She had been happy there, really and truly content. She’d had work that sustained her, friends that understood her, and at the heart of it all had been Sam.
THE RECEPTION HAD ended, and Helena and her aunt were the sole passengers in an enormous automobile, driven by Vincent, that was conveying them back to her parents’ house.
“Are you ready? Are your bags packed? We need to get you on your way.”
“I’m ready, but I must speak to Mama and Papa before I go. I wanted to earlier, but there wasn’t time.”
Helena found her parents in the sitting room that connected their respective bedchambers. “May I come in?”
“Yes, do,” her mother answered. “Come and sit next to me. I thought you looked very well today. Didn’t she, John?”
“Yes, dear. Very well.”
“Thank you. I have something to tell you,” Helena began. “It’s actually several things.” Her parents exchanged apprehensive glances, but didn’t interrupt.
“First of all, I’m not certain when I will return to London, or even if I will return at all. I love you dearly, and I will miss you, but I have been very happy in Paris and I wish to return there.
“Before that, however, I am going to America. I’ve, well, I’ve fallen in love with an American man, a friend of mine from Paris, but I made a mistake, and I let him leave without telling him, and—”
“Is this the American that Amalia met? The steel baron’s heir?”
“It is, although that has nothing to do with—”
“Are you going alone? Without any sort of chaperone?”
“Yes, Mama.”
Her mother swallowed, pressed her lips together, and then nodded. “If that is what you wish.”
“Papa?”
“Is he a decent sort of man?”
“He is the very best sort of man, Papa. I promise.”
“Then I suppose you must go.”