Sherry Thomas: Ravishing the Heiress

Isabelle. The first girl he’d kissed. The only one he’d ever loved.

He tucked away the note and opened his newspaper again. A maid came to take away Lady Fitz’s plate.

A thought occurred to him. “Bring me the plate.”

The maid looked at him uncomprehendingly.

“The plate in your hand.”

His wife had left behind some scrambled eggs, which was most unlike her: One served oneself at breakfast and she never took more than she could eat. To the maid’s surprise, he picked up a piece of the scrambled eggs with his fork.

And would not have been able to swallow it without the help of his coffee. He knew she liked her eggs salted, but this was less scrambled egg than scrambled salt. He’d have to speak to her about it next time he saw her: This much salt in the diet must be injurious to the health.

As unthinkable as it had been eight years ago, they’d become good friends. And friends watched out for one another.

M illie met Helena, Fitz’s twin, as the latter came out of her room. The twins did not look alike. Fitz, with his black hair and blue eyes, bore a much greater resemblance to their elder sister Venetia. Helena, on the other hand, had inherited their maternal grandmother’s auburn hair and green eyes.

This morning Helena was in a hunter green velvet jacket and a matching skirt. Between the lapels of the jacket, the front pleats of her white shirtwaist were as crisp as morning air. A cameo brooch at her throat, featuring not a woman’s profile in ivory, but an onyx Roman eagle, completed her ensemble.

Venetia was considered the great beauty of the family, but Helena was lovely in her own right, not to mention confident, capable—and more devious than any of them had suspected.

At the beginning of the year, Fitz’s best friend, Lord Hastings, had found out that Helena was having a clandestine affair with Mr. Andrew Martin. Mr. Martin was a nice young man and Millie did not doubt he adored Helena as much as she adored him. The problem was that he’d adored Helena since they first met years ago, but never had the courage to defy his mother and the long-standing family expectation to marry his third cousin.

Millie understood the force of first love—she herself firmly remained in the grip of her own. But Mr. Martin was a married man and Helena, by taking up with him, had placed her reputation in grave peril. Millie and Venetia had whisked Helena to the other side of the Atlantic as soon as they could, in the hope that by distancing Helena from Mr. Martin, she might come to her senses.

The American trip had not been entirely wasted—a series of events begun there had culminated in Venetia’s unexpected but deliriously happy marriage to the Duke of Lexington. But unfortunately, in Helena’s case, absence only made her heart grow fonder of Mr. Martin.

Helena was both of age and financially independent; her family could not coerce her to give up Mr. Martin. But since January, they’d kept a constant eye on her. Helena never went anywhere without either Venetia, Millie, or her new maid Susie, hired expressly for this purpose, keeping her company.

Susie had already left earlier, so that when the Fitzhugh carriage dropped off Helena at her small publishing firm on Fleet Street, she’d be there, waiting. Then she would sit outside the door of Helena’s office, to make sure Helena did not slip out in the middle of the day for an illicit rendezvous with Mr. Martin.

This incessant surveillance was taking a toll on Helena. She looked restless and just shy of miserable. Millie hated having to be one of her jailors, but she had no choice. If Helena wouldn’t think of her future, then her family must do the thinking for her.

“Helena, just the person I want to see,” she said brightly. “Remember you are to attend Lady Margaret Dearborn’s at-home tea this afternoon.”

An affair was no reason to stop appearing at functions designed to introduce her to eligible young men—or it would look like her family had given up all hopes of marrying her off. And that would never do.

Helena was not pleased at the prospect of the at-home tea. “Lady Margaret Dearborn runs with the horse-and-hound set. Her guests never talk about anything but the fox hunt.”

“You’ve published a memoir on fox hunting, if I recall.”

“Published on commission at no risk to me, or I’d never have taken it on.”

“Still, that gives you something to talk about with the horse-and-hound set.” Millie raised herself to her toes and kissed Helena on her cheek. “Your carriage awaits, my love. I will see you in the afternoon.”

“Wait,” said Helena. “Is it true what I hear? That Mrs. Englewood is back in England?”

Mille ignored the pang in her chest and nodded. “Fitz will be calling on her this afternoon. Quite a momentous day for them, isn’t it?”

“I imagine.” The question in Helena’s eyes, however, was not about Fitz, but about Millie.

Millie was never possessive, never effusive, and never demonstrative. Her even-tempered approach to her marriage should have been enough to convince everyone that she admired, but did not love, her husband. Yet for years now, his sisters had suspected something else.

Perhaps unrequited love was like a specter in the house, a presence that brushed at the edge of senses, a heat in the dark, a shadow under the sun.

She patted Helena on the arm and walked away.

T he garden had come to life.

The grass was as green as a river bank, the trees tall and shady. Birds sang in the branches; the fountain trickled and murmured. In a corner of the garden, purple hydrangeas were in bloom, each flower head as big and bright as a nosegay.

Have a garden , Mrs. Graves had counseled Millie on her wedding. A garden and a bench .

Millie spread her fingers on the slats of the bench. It was simple but handsome, made of oak and varnished a light, warm brown. The bench did not belong to her; it had been here for as long as she’d been Fitz’s wife. But at Henley Park, there was an almost exact replica, which Fitz had given her a few years ago, as a token of his regard.

And she’d seen it as such a sign of hope—more fool she.

“I thought you might be here,” said her husband.

Surprised, she looked over her shoulder. He stood behind the bench, his hands lightly resting on its back—the same elegant hands that had turned music for her while his words had turned her inside out.

Now on his right index finger, he wore a signet ring the crest of which bore an intaglio engraving of the Fitzhugh coat of arms. The ring had been a present from her. The sight of it on his hand had stirred her then and stirred her still.

She wanted to touch it. Lick it. Feel its metallic caress everywhere on her body.

“I thought you’d already left.”

From her perch upstairs, she’d watched him stroll away. It was early yet, hours from his meeting with Mrs. Englewood. But as he’d turned the corner, he’d swung his walking stick a full circle in the air. That, coming from him, was the equivalent of another man dancing in the streets.

“I realized I will be going past Hatchard’s today,” he said. “Would you like me to check whether your order of books has come in?”

“That’s very kind of you, but surely, you have a busy day ahead and—”

“It’s settled, then: I’ll have a quick word with the bookseller.”

“Thank you,” she murmured.

He smiled. “My pleasure.”

She’d mentioned the special order she’d put in at Hatchard’s once, days ago. That he’d remembered and offered to check for her would have thrilled her another time—she’d have taken it as yet another sign that they were growing ever closer.