Sherry Thomas - Beguiling the Beauty

Which was too bad. In fact, when Venetia and Millie commiserated between themselves over yet another failed Season for Helena, they invariably dragged Lexington into the conversation.

She said Belfort wasn’t serious enough.

I’ll bet Lexington is made of solemnity and high-mindedness.

She thought Linwood smirked too much.

A quid says Lexington never experienced a lecherous thought in his life.

Widmore is too much of a fuddy-duddy. Helena is convinced he’d complain about her endeavors.

Lexington is modern and eccentric—a man who digs fossils wouldn’t object to a woman who publishes books.

They were not quite serious. Lexington in reality was probably arrogant and awkward, as reclusive eccentrics often were. But as long as he remained beyond introduction, they could look to him as a faint beam of hope in their increasingly demoralized endeavor.

That it had been so difficult to find Helena a husband mystified everyone. Helena was lovely, intelligent, and personable. She’d never struck Venetia as unreasonable or particularly hard to please. And yet since her first Season, she’d dismissed perfectly likable, eligible gentlemen out of hand as if they were a passel of murdering outlaws who also defecated on the lawn.

“You’ve always wanted to meet Lexington, haven’t you, Venetia?” asked Millie.

Interesting how Millie, with her quiet, trustworthy demeanor, made the most convincing liar of them all. Venetia took her cue. “He likes fossils. That’s quite enough to endear a man to me.”

They were cutting across the grounds of the law school. The bare trees shivered in the wind. The lawns were invisible beneath the previous day’s blanket of snow. The main lecture hall, rotund and Romanesque, had probably been a revolt against the rest of the university’s severely rectangular architectural uniformity.

A group of students coming toward them slowed to a halt, gaping at Venetia. She nodded absently in their direction.

“So you plan to attend the lecture?” asked Helena, looking over the flyer. “It’s more than a week away.”

“True, but he has been impossible to meet at home. Do you know, I hear he has his own private natural history museum at Algernon House? I should be like a cat in cream, were I the mistress of that manor.”

Helena frowned slightly. “I’ve never heard you mention a particular interest in him.”

Because she had none. But what kind of a sister would she be if she didn’t make sure that the most eligible—and possibly the most suitable—bachelor in all of England was introduced to Helena? “Well, he is a good prospect. It would be a shame to not meet him when I can. And while we wait for him, we can begin our sightseeing. There are some lovely islands off Cape Cod, I hear. Connecticut is said to be very pretty, and Montreal is just a quick rail journey away.“

“How exciting,” seconded Millie.

“A little rest and relaxation before the Season begins in earnest,” said Venetia.

Helena pressed her lips together. “The duke had better be worth the trouble.”

“A man rich in both pound sterling and fossils?” Venetia pretended to fan herself. “He shall be worth every trouble. You’ll see.”

I have a letter from Fitz,” said Millie.

Helena was in the bath, and Venetia and Millie were alone in the parlor of the cottage they’d leased for their time at Radcliffe College.

Venetia moved closer to Millie and lowered her voice. “What does he say?”

In January Helena had gone to Huntington, Lord Wrenworth’s country seat, chaperoned by her friend Mrs. Denbigh. Fitz’s best friend, Viscount Hastings, had also been in attendance. Hastings left the house party early and called on Fitz and Millie at their seat, where Venetia also happened to be visiting. He told them that while at Huntington, for three consecutive nights he’d seen Helena walking back to her room at four o’clock in the morning.

Venetia had immediately set out for Huntington, showing up brimming with smiling apologies for missing her sister too much. There were still rooms at Huntington, but she’d insisted on sharing one with Helena and made sure never to let Helena out of her sight.

Then they’d squirreled Helena out of the country as quickly as they could, and left Fitz to ascertain the identity of Helena’s partner in sin.

“Including Huntington, she’d attended four house parties since the end of the Season—five, if you count the one at Henley Park that Fitz and I hosted. Hastings was at four of them—but he is obviously not our suspect. Lady Avery and Lady Somersby were at four of them, including the one at Huntington.”

Venetia shook her head. “I can’t believe she’d carry on with those gossips under the same roof.”

Millie went down the list. “The Rowleys were at three of the parties. So were the Jack Dormers.”

But Mr. Rowley was fifty-five. And the Jack Dormers were newlyweds devoted to each other. Venetia drew a deep breath. “What about the Andrew Martins?”

A number of years ago, Helena had developed a tendresse for Mr. Martin. All evidence pointed to her sentiments being fervently reciprocated. But in time Mr. Martin had proposed to and married a young lady who had been intended for him since birth.

Millie smoothed the folds of Fitz’s letter, her eyes worried. “Come to think of it, I have not seen the Andrew Martins together in a while. Mr. Martin came by himself to three parties. And at each house, he requested an out-of-the-way room, citing his need for peace and quiet in order to work on his next book.”

All the more convenient for conducting an illicit affair. “Does Fitz suspect anyone else?” Venetia asked without much hope.

“Not among those at Huntington.”

If Helena’s lover was indeed Mr. Martin, this would not end well. Were they to be discovered, the Fitzhugh family wouldn’t even be able to pressure him to do the honorable thing by Helena—for Mr. Martin remained very much married, his wife as robust as a vintage claret.

Venetia rubbed her temples. “What does Fitz think we should do?”

“Fitz is going to exercise restraint—for now. He is worried that he might do Helena more harm than good by confronting Mr. Martin. What if Mr. Martin is not the one? Then word might leak that Helena was out and about when she ought not to be.”

A woman’s reputation was as fragile as a dragonfly’s wings. “Thank goodness Fitz is levelheaded.”

“Yes, he is very good in a crisis,” said Millie, slipping the letter into her pocket. “Do you think it will help to introduce the duke to Helena?”

“No, but we still must try.”

“Let us hope the duke does not fall for the wrong sister,” said Millie with a small smile.

“Pah,” said Venetia. “I am nearly middle-aged and almost certainly older than he is.”

“I’m sure His Grace will be more than willing to overlook a very minor age difference.”

“I’ve had more than my share of husbands and plan to be happily unmarried for the rest of my—”

Footsteps. Helena’s.

“Of course I shan’t bestow my hand freely,” Venetia said, raising her voice. “But if the duke woos me with a monster of a fossil, who knows how I might reward him.”

Helena listened carefully. Venetia was in her bath. Millie had gone to change out of her walking gown. She should be safe enough.

She pulled aside the curtain and opened the window of the parlor. The boy she’d employed to take her letters to Andrew directly to the post office was there, waiting. The boy had his hand extended. She set a letter and two shining copper pennies in his palm and quickly closed the window again.

Now on to the letters that had arrived for her in the afternoon. She looked for any that had come in Fitzhugh & Co.’s own envelopes. Before she’d left England, she’d given a supply of those to Andrew with the instruction to have her American address typed on the front once he had it. Then he was to draw a small asterisk under the postage stamp, so that she might know it was from him and not her secretary.

Except on this particular letter, he did not put an asterisk, but a tiny heart beneath the queen’s likeness. She shook her head fondly. Oh, her sweet Andrew.

My Dearest,

What joy! What bliss! When I called at the poste restante office in St. Martin’s le Grand this morning, there were not one, not two, but three letters from you. My pleasure is all the greater for the disappointment of the past two days, when my trips into London bore no fruits at the post office.

And as for your question, the work on volume three of A History of East Anglia comes along slowly. King Æthelberht is about to be killed and Offa of Mercia soon to subjugate the kingdom. For some reason I rather dread this part of the history, but I believe my pace should pick up again when I reach the rebellion thirty years later that would restore independence to the Kingdom of the East Angles.

I’d like to write more. But I must be on my way home—I am due to call on my mother at Lawton Priory and you know how much she deplores unpunctuality, especially mine.

So I will end with a fervent wish for your early return.

Your servant

Helena shook her head. She’d instructed Andrew never to sign his name on his letters. That precaution became moot when he referred to both his book and his mother’s house by name. But this was not his fault. If he were capable of subterfuge, he wouldn’t be the man she loved.

She was tucking the letter into the inside pocket of her jacket when Venetia returned to the room, smiling. “What do you say we make a foray to Boston tomorrow, my love, and see what their milliners have to offer? Those hats you’ve brought are perfectly serviceable for speaking to professors and lady students. But we must do better for meeting dukes.”

“He will have eyes only for you.”

“Balderdash,” said Venetia firmly. “You are one of the loveliest women I know. Besides, if he has any sense, he will know that the best way to judge a woman is to observe how she treats other women. And when he sees you with your plain hat from two Seasons ago, he will immediately conclude that I am a selfish cow who ornaments myself like a Christmas tree and leaves you dressed in rags.”

If Venetia wanted Helena to believe that she was interested in the duke, then she shouldn’t have spent the four years since she became a widow for the second time cordially turning down every proposal that had come her way. In fact, Helena was convinced Venetia would swim the English Channel before she took another husband.

But Helena would play along, as she’d played along since Venetia unexpectedly turned up at Huntington. “All right, then, but only for you, and only because you are getting on in years and soon will only have gentlemen callers when they mistake your door for their grandmother’s.”

Venetia laughed, spectacularly beautiful. “Piffle. Twenty-nine isn’t that old—yet. But it’s true I might not have another chance of becoming a duchess if this one goes by. So you’d better have a proper hat.”

“I will allow you to select one for me that looks like a carnival.”

Venetia placed her arm around Helena. “Wouldn’t it be marvelous if you met the perfect man this Season and accepted his proposal? Then we could have a double wedding.”

I’ve already met the perfect man. I won’t marry anyone else.

Helena smiled. “Yes, wouldn’t it?”

She was dressing—buttoning her combination, pulling on her stockings, stepping into her petticoat, her motions unhurried, dancerlike. Her back was to him, but the vanity mirror provided an unobstructed view of the rest of her. He remained in bed, his head propped up on his palm, and watched the ripple and sway of her dark, unbound hair.

Outside, a woodpecker tapped diligently. Inside, the late afternoon sun receded from the room, the wedge of dappled, coppery light on the ceiling growing ever more indistinct. Her twilit beauty was less precise—as if she had been turned into an Impressionist painting, brushstrokes of color and shadow. He could look at her without feeling as if he must shield his eyes or risk damaging them.

He reached out, took a loose curl of her hair, and wound it about his fingers, bringing her closer to him.

She acquiesced easily, sitting down at the edge of the bed and looping an arm around his shoulders. “Haven’t you had enough of me?” she asked, smirking.