The Dark Days Club (A Lady Helen Novel) Page 7

  He was leaving. With her mother’s portrait. No!

  “Lord Carlston, I do hope you will visit us,” she blurted, stopping his withdrawal. Beside him, Mr. Brummell paused in his own bow, eyebrows raised at her impropriety. “I mean,” Helen continued doggedly, “will you do us the honor of calling on us tomorrow? Since we are family.” She dragged up a smile as tight as a fist.

  “Helen!” her aunt said.

  The amusement deepened in Lord Carlston’s eyes, bringing a sudden warmth to their flat scrutiny. “Since we are family, Lady Helen, I would be delighted to call tomorrow. As would Mr. Brummell.”

  Mr. Brummell smiled, but Helen could see the irritation buried within it. “Yes, a pleasure, madam. Until tomorrow, then.”

  It seemed that even the mighty Mr. Brummell bowed to Lord Carlston’s will.

  “Tomorrow,” Aunt Leonore echoed faintly.

  The two men withdrew, the crowd parting around them.

  Helen clenched the fan, keeping track of Carlston’s straight back through the shift of bodies and undulating feathers. Never before had she felt such a strong desire to slap someone. Or worse, to scream her outrage.

  “What on earth has possessed you?” Aunt Leonore demanded. “The last thing we need is a call from that man. Your uncle will be most aggrieved.”

  Andrew would be unhappy too—she had not kept her distance. But it went against all rightful feeling to let Carlston walk away so smug and victorious.

  “He will bring Mr. Brummell,” Helen said shortly, watching as that gentleman’s fair head bent to look at something in Carlston’s hand. Her miniature.

  “Well, there is that,” Aunt conceded. She brightened. “In fact, you have held Mr. Brummell by your side for a good ten minutes. There can be no question of your success now.”

  Helen nodded, but her attention was once again fixed on Lord Carlston. Instinct told her he would look back. He would not be able to resist gloating. There—he was turning. And for once his expression was easily read.

  Anticipation.

  AS AN EARL’S daughter, Helen numbered as one of the privileged Entrée company, and so was called into the Royal presence first, along with the others of noble and diplomatic rank. As she and her aunt made their way through the crowd to the Grand Council Chamber, she saw Mr. Brummell again across the room, conversing with Lady Conyngham, the famous dark-haired beauty who Aunt had wagered would be Prinny’s next favorite. Lord Carlston, however, was nowhere to be seen. Stealthily she rose onto her toes to view the entrance hall far behind them. Perhaps he had gone. Hopefully he would be finished with his strange game tomorrow and return her miniature when he made his morning call. A game was the only explanation she could find for his behavior. Why else would he take the miniature and not give her secret away? Unless he was unbalanced. Even so, that did not explain Mr. Brummell’s complicity. She shook her head, as dizzy from the unanswered questions as from the prospect of finally making her curtsy to the Queen.

  “Helen, stop making yourself taller.” Aunt Leonore caught her arm and tugged her down from her toes, then steered her firmly toward the open doors of the Grand Council Chamber.

  A last glance found Millicent near the windows, waiting for the general company to be called. She was scanning the crowd too. Look to the left, Helen silently urged, look to the left. Finally Millicent did. Helen saw her smile and lift her hand, like a benediction, and then she was obscured by the plumes of the other Entrée girls and their sponsors.

  It was an easy step across the threshold of the Grand Council Chamber, and yet Helen felt as though she had crossed an abyss. The sudden rise of tension in the room was almost tangible, like a thickening in the air. A large fire in the grate—a concession to the Queen’s advanced years—added to the stifling atmosphere. The chatter of the State Room was gone, replaced by soft whispers and the rustle of silk as those with the Entrée ranged themselves around the throne.

  “Remember to keep your chin up,” Aunt Leonore whispered, passing back Helen’s presentation card. “And don’t wobble. You occasionally wobble when you sink into your curtsy. And when you gather your train, do it in one movement. Don’t flail your arm around like a fish on a hook.”

  “I wobble?” How could her aunt be telling her that now?

  “You will do well,” Aunt added. “I’m sure you will do well.”

  The clear tones of the Lord Chamberlain cut through the muted conversations to announce the start of the presentations. Helen watched a dark-haired girl pass by, train draped over her arm, thin face set with concentration. The throne, overhung with a red velvet canopy, was surrounded by a wide semicircle of courtiers and guests blocking any view of the Queen or the Princesses Mary and Augusta. Another immense crystal-drop chandelier hung from the ceiling. Its glow and the watery sunlight through the windows shimmered across the diamonds that circled necks and wrists, and cast the noble gold lion and unicorn above the throne into sharp relief. It was all quite dazzling.

  An usher approached and bowed. “Lady Pennworth, if you will please join the other sponsors,” he said, indicating a group of pale-faced ladies at the edge of the semicircle. His attention shifted to Helen. “My lady, please follow me.”

  Another neat bow, and he led her across the carpet to a cluster of twenty or more girls, all in pale satins, pearls, and bugle beads. Aunt Leonore was already in the midst of the sponsors, her rank shifting a few of the lesser ladies into tight-mouthed retreat.

  Helen suppressed a smile and took her place beside a plump girl in billowing white tulle heavily bordered with pink silk rosebuds. Her round face was flushed and slightly dewed with perspiration along her carefully curled hairline—the poor girl was close to combusting with the heat. A name hovered at the edge of Helen’s memory. Elizabeth. They had been introduced at a pre-Season assembly. She saw the same recognition brighten the girl’s protuberant blue eyes. Yes, Lady Elizabeth Brompton. Called Pug behind her back for those eyes, but also for her relentless good nature.

  “Lady Helen.” Lady Elizabeth dipped into a curtsy.

  Helen ducked her head and murmured a response, aware of the retreating usher’s bloodless lips pursing in disapproval at the exchange.

  “Gad, I swear I will faint any minute now,” Lady Elizabeth continued in an overloud whisper. She cooled the large expanse of her décolletage with a vigorous flapping of her own presentation card. “It is so hot in here, but I dare not open my fan. Isabelle Rainsford over there”—her plumes tilted toward a girl with tear-reddened eyes—“opened hers for a moment, and a flock of chamberlains descended upon her like ravens upon a carcass. ’Twas most entertaining.” She leaned closer, her voice finally dropping to an undertone. “Apparently, Her Majesty is irritated by the flapping.”

  “I am glad you warned me,” Helen said, wondering if she should mention that a white card used as a fervent fan might irritate Her Majesty just as much. She decided against it. Lady Elizabeth’s color was so high that she probably needed the extra air. She looked down at her fan, the tiny piece of blue riband still caught between the sticks. Carlston’s theft of her miniature was an outrage, but at least she no longer had to worry about concealing it from her aunt. Or juggling it along with her hoop and train as she made her curtsy before the Queen.

  Before the Queen.

  A cold realization crawled across her scalp and along her bare shoulders. Good Lord, if the miniature had still been attached, she would now be holding the portrait of a suspected traitor in the Queen’s presence. How could she have been so stupid? Only seeing her own path, like a blinkered coach horse. She felt the sudden press of a hundred accusing eyes upon her, but when she looked up, the room was unchanged: all attention still focused on the throne, the ushers crossing the carpet in their age-old trajectories. Was that why Carlston had taken it? Helen frowned, trying to fit such a benevolent motivation to the man. No. He had taken it for his own reasons, and she wou
ld wager they were not chivalrous. Still, he had saved her from her own foolish shortsightedness.

  Lady Elizabeth leaned closer, her whisper hot against Helen’s ear. “I believe you are a friend of Miss Cransdon’s, are you not?” Her eyes bulged even more with curiosity. “Miss Delia Cransdon?”

  Helen braced her feet a little more deeply in the thick carpet. “I am.”

  “Is it true what they are saying? That she ran away with a man who killed a tavern maid and then himself?”

  A tavern maid? The story was building into a massacre. “I have heard no such thing,” she said, allowing the firm denial to cover both crimes. “Who told you such a story?”

  Lady Elizabeth’s stubby hand flapped. “It is all about the room. So, it is not true, then?”

  Helen was saved from an outright lie by the arrival of a young usher at Lady Elizabeth’s elbow. “My lady, if you will follow me.”

  “Finally,” she whispered, adjusting her train over her arm. “See-ho, away!”

  Helen watched Lady Elizabeth’s hoop set into an ungainly swing as she hurried to keep up with the usher. For all her rompish ways, Pug was not known to be a tattle-monger. Yet she had seen fit to repeat the tavern story. It did not bode well for Delia. Nor did the addition of a murdered tavern maid to the tale. Of course, it might not be an addition: perhaps Aunt had not heard all of the story. Helen glanced across at the group of sponsors. Her aunt was in close conversation with another lady, but Helen’s attention was caught by the expression on a face behind them—a fine-boned lady with dark hair who watched Aunt with hard intensity and a frown that spoke of distrust. She must have felt Helen’s attention, for she looked up, but her eyes slid away.

  Helen turned back to the presentations. Lady Elizabeth was next in line, her fingers picking at the rivet of her fan as two gentlemen-in-waiting busied themselves around her plump figure. The younger man lifted the folds of the heavy train from her arm and spread it on the floor behind her in a sweep of white damask and pink silk rosebuds. The older, his eyes fixed on the activity before the throne, kept Lady Elizabeth in place with a tilt of his gray-powdered head. The poor girl’s high color had paled into a mosaic of pink-and-white blotches across her chest and face. At least it matches her gown, Helen thought, then immediately felt uncharitable. Pug was not to blame for the tattle-mongers’ zeal. At some unseen sign, the older gentleman stepped back and bowed, opening up the pathway to the throne. With name card held out stiffly, Pug took a deep breath, cast one last look back at her train, and marched forward.

  And so it was for all the girls ahead of Helen. At first she watched each preparation—the deep breath, the nervous check of the train—but after six girls had disappeared into the gap and reemerged radiant with relief, she found her attention turning inward. What if the Queen actually did ask about her mother? Her heart took up a hard rhythm, each beat rising into her throat. And her innards seemed to have pushed themselves low into her bowel. She concentrated on one of the gold fleurs-de-lis that bordered the carpet, and slowly deepened her breath through the damp constriction of her stays. A long exhale helped steady the dizzy lightness in her head. There was still time for one last rehearsal of her answer, but the words she had practiced for the Queen were gone. She could not even remember how to start. All she could see in her mind was her uncle’s bloated face snarling, Best outcome.

  “My lady, if you will please follow me.”

  No. She was not ready. What if she wobbled?

  “My lady?”

  Helen focused on the polite face of the usher. A glimmer of impatience crossed his sallow features.

  “Yes, of course,” she murmured, and forced herself forward.

  Ahead, the two gentlemen-in-waiting broke apart from a whispered exchange.

  “Lady Helen, may I present Sir Desmond Morwell,” the usher whispered, indicating the older gentleman. “And Sir Ian Lester.”

  The two men bowed. Even through her fear she noted the weariness in the older man’s face and the younger one’s flicking of finger against thumb. They had a long day ahead of them.

  “Allow me to take your train, Lady Helen,” Sir Ian said, lifting the heavy drape of satin from her left arm. The release of weight brought a settling of cooler air. A moment of reinvigoration. She could not help but look behind as he spread the broad sweep out on the carpet.

  “Please have your card ready for the Lord Chamberlain,” Sir Desmond said. For all his weariness, he had a gentle face beneath the old-fashioned gray-powdered wig of office. And large brown eyes—absurdly large for a man—that lent him an air of great kindness. “You may start your walk to the throne once he has announced you.”

  She met his level gaze and found a measure of calm in his matter-of-fact tone. Thousands of girls had done this without catastrophe. So could she.

  Sir Desmond bowed and stepped away, opening the path to the Queen.

  One after another, curious faces turned and whispered. Now she understood the need for that deep breath, that one last look at the train. She walked forward, chin up, although every part of her longed to look down at the swaying brush of her hem. What if she tripped? She passed through the crowd, the blur of faces suddenly focusing into one familiar smile: the Duke of Selburn, her brother’s friend, his plain, long-boned face transformed into a lifeline of warm support. Always so kind, and now winking to give her some courage. Next to him, the stately Lady Cholmondeley. She smiled too. And, of course, Aunt Leonore. Dear Aunt, with her teeth clamped into her lower lip and a prayer in her eyes.

  Helen handed her card to the Lord Chamberlain.

  “The Lady Helen Wrexhall,” he announced.

  The throne seemed so far away. The two Princesses stood behind their mother like pale shadows, their famed beauty lost against their mother’s presence. Helen caught an impression of gray hair dressed high, abundant blue ostrich feathers, and powdered jowls, and then all her attention was on crossing the carpet before the assembled world. Fifteen steps: she counted them. She reached the throne, stopping on the dull mark in the thick pile that had been flattened by so many other slippered feet. She had never seen Royalty this close before.

  Her Majesty had become stout, like her son, and the tragedy of her husband’s long illness had etched deep lines into her face that dragged at her mouth and creased her forehead into grim sufferance. Her famous snuff habit was stained into the edge of her broad nostrils, the yellowed skin visible beneath thick powder. Yet her widely spaced eyes were bright with interest, and she leaned forward, expectantly.

  Helen tucked her left knee behind the right and lowered herself into her curtsy, head bowed. It was smooth, no wobble. She exhaled—Aunt would be happy. At eye level, the gloved Royal hand clasped the carved armrest. A rustle of blue silk and Her Majesty’s corsage, stitched with gold stars and sprinkled with brilliants, came into view as she bent to give the Royal kiss. Helen raised her face into a sweet smell of cloves and a flash of diamonds on age-spotted skin. Then the gentle press of dry lips on her forehead.

  “You are the daughter of Countess Hayden?” Her Majesty asked in a pitch so low that it was little more than warm breath against Helen’s skin. She had asked, after all. Helen’s throat closed. All she could do was nod.

  “Child, do not believe everything they say about your mother.”

  The soft words wrenched Helen’s gaze upward. For one long moment she was caught in the intent, pale stare of her Queen. What did she mean? But there were no clues in the sagging face above. It wore the impenetrable mask forged from a lifetime at Court. Her Majesty drew back and nodded a gracious dismissal. Or was it a nod of satisfaction?

  A gentleman-in-waiting ducked behind Helen and deftly gathered her train, bundling it over her arm in a billow of satin. It took all of her focus to bow her head to the Princesses and the Queen, rise from her curtsy, and back away from the throne.

  Six

  Friday, 1
May 1812

  AUNT LEONORE TWITCHED the thin pages of The Times into a sharp snap and placed the open newspaper on the breakfast table. “So galling,” she muttered.

  Helen collected a soft brioche from the silver serving basket offered by Barnett and let the comment pass. There had already been two other such mutterings. She broke open the roll and breathed in the sweet, yeasty warmth. There was something so comforting about the smell of fresh bread, and she needed some comfort after a sleepless night spent reconstructing her encounters with Lord Carlston and the Queen. She still did not know why Carlston had taken her miniature. Nor what the Queen had meant by her extraordinary statement. It had sounded like an obscure denial of Lady Catherine’s treason. Yet Helen could not be sure, and she could hardly ask Her Majesty for clarification.

  Still, if there was any chance that her mother had been unjustly accused, it was her duty to discover the truth. Perhaps she could even redeem her mother’s name.

  She busied herself away from those foolish hopes by cutting a square of butter. She would not even know where to start. And what if she did start, and found that the reality was worse than the rumors? A few years ago she’d had a taste of the harsh truth from Andrew: he had told her that some of those times when Mother had joined them suddenly at Deanswood Hall had actually been enforced retreats to the family estate to avoid the heat of a new scandal.

  Aunt stabbed a piece of toast into her cup of tea, but did not lift the sagging result to her mouth. Instead she turned back to the offending page: a description of the previous day’s Royal Drawing Room. “So galling,” she said again, “to be overlooked for the Prince Regent’s evening party.” She dropped the soggy toast onto her plate. “It is your uncle’s doing, you know. If he was not so outspoken about the degeneracy of the Carlton House set, we would have been invited.”

  Helen looked up from buttering the roll. It was unusual for Aunt to risk criticizing Uncle, even in the relative privacy of the small breakfast room.