To Beguile a Beast (Legend of the Four Soldiers #3)(78)

“I noticed…” Lady Vale hesitated delicately. “I couldn’t help but notice that Sir Alistair has come all the way to London for you.”

“He has been very kind to my children,” Helen said. “I think he may’ve grown fond of them.”

“And of you?” the viscountess murmured.

“Perhaps.”

“In any case, I think he must have an opinion about the matter.”

“He doesn’t like the idea, naturally.” Helen looked frankly at the viscountess. “But should that even matter? My children need me. I need them.”

“But if he can rescue them?”

“And then what?” Helen whispered. “What kind of life might I have with him? I don’t want to be another man’s mistress and yet there doesn’t seem to be any other way that I can be with him.”

“Marriage?”

“He hasn’t mentioned it.” Helen shook her head and smiled slightly. “I can’t believe I’m discussing this so bluntly with you. Don’t you disapprove of me?”

“Not at all. I did send you to his castle in the first place.”

Helen stared at the other woman. Lady Vale had a slight frown between her straight eyebrows, and one hand was rubbing her middle. But at Helen’s glance, she looked up and smiled very slowly.

Helen’s eyes widened. “You… ?”

Lady Vale nodded. “Oh, indeed.”

“But… but his castle was so filthy!”

“And I take it not anymore,” Lady Vale said complacently.

Helen huffed. “Most of it. There are still corners that I’m not going into without boiling water and good lye soap. I cannot believe you sent me there knowing how awful it was.”

“He needed you.”

“His castle needed me,” Helen corrected.

“Sir Alistair, too, I think,” Lady Vale said. “He struck me as a very lonely man when I saw him. And you’ve performed a miracle already—you’ve got him to journey to London.”

“For my children.”

“For you,” Lady Vale said softly.

Helen again looked at the teacup in her lap. “Do you truly think so?”

“I know so,” the viscountess said promptly. “I saw the way he looked at you in my sitting room. That man cares for you.”

Helen sipped her tea, saying nothing. This was so personal, so new and confusing, and she wasn’t sure yet that she wanted to discuss it with another, even someone like Lady Vale, who had been so kind to her.

For a moment, both ladies sipped tea in silence.

Then Helen remembered something. She set down her teacup. “Oh! I forgot to tell you that I’ve finished copying out the fairy-tale book about the four soldiers.”

Lady Vale smiled in pleasure. “Have you, indeed? Did you bring it with you?”

“No, I’m sorry. I quite forgot in…” She was going to say in worry over the children, but she simply shook her head instead.

“I understand,” the viscountess said. “And in any case, I need to find someone to bind it for me. Perhaps you can hold it for me and I will write when I have an address for you to send it to?”

“Of course,” Helen murmured, but her thoughts had already returned to Abigail and Jamie. Were they warm and safe? Did they cry for her? And would she ever see them again in this life?

The tea suddenly tasted like bile in her mouth. Please God, let me see my children again.

“THE EARL OF Blanchard is giving a luncheon party in honor of the king,” Vale said. “And Lister is an invited guest.”

They were still in the sitting room, and Vale was on his third glass of brandy, though he seemed to show no ill effects.

“Blanchard.” Alistair frowned. “Wasn’t that St. Aubyn’s title?”

Reynaud St. Aubyn had been a captain in the 28th Regiment of Foot. A good man, a great leader, he’d survived the massacre at Spinner’s Falls only to be captured and later killed at the Indian camp. Alistair shuddered. St. Aubyn was the man he’d told Helen about—the man who had been crucified and set alight.

St. Aubyn had also been Vale’s good friend.

Vale nodded now. “The man who has the title is a distant cousin, a widower. His niece acts as hostess for his parties.”

“When is it?”

“Tomorrow.”

Alistair stared down into the empty glass in his hand. Tomorrow was when Etienne’s ship would dock, but only for a few hours. Would he be able to see both the Duke of Lister and Etienne in the same narrow period of time? In all likelihood not. If he went to the luncheon, he faced the real risk of missing Etienne’s ship. Yet, if he were to weigh the children against information about the Spinner’s Falls traitor, the children would clearly win. How could they not? They were life where the traitor was death.

“Is that a problem?” Vale asked.

Alistair looked up to meet the viscount’s perceptive gaze. “No.” He set aside his glass. “Are you invited to this grand luncheon?”

“Alas, no.”

Alistair grinned. “Good. Then you can do something else for me while I invade Blanchard’s luncheon party.”

Chapter Seventeen

Every night the sorcerer would come to the knot garden and smile and gloat over the soldier he had ensorcelled. But by day, the sorcerer closed himself in his castle and thought up evil schemes.