To Beguile a Beast (Legend of the Four Soldiers #3)(85)

“Jamie.” Papa cleared his throat. “Ah. Well.”

Papa’s Christian name was James. Helen waited to see if he’d say anything more, but he seemed a little stunned.

“How are my sisters and brother?” she asked, her tone formal.

“All married, Timothy just last year to Anne Harris. You remember her, don’t you? Lived two houses down, had a terrible fever when she was but two years old.”

“Oh, yes. Little Annie Harris.” Helen smiled, but it was bittersweet. Annie Harris had been only five— Jamie’s age—when she’d left home to live with Lister. She’d missed an entire lifetime out of her family’s daily life.

Her father nodded, on firmer ground now that he had something familiar to discuss. “Rachel is married to a young doctor, a former student of mine, and expecting her second child. Ruth married a sailor and lives in Dover now. She writes often and comes to visit every year. She has but one child, a girl. Your sister, Margaret, has four children, two boys, two girls. She had a babe stillborn two years ago, another boy.”

She felt tears closing her throat. “I am sorry to hear it.”

Her father nodded. “Your mother fears that Margaret still grieves.”

Helen took a fortifying breath. “And how is my mother?”

“Well enough.” Papa looked at his hands. “She does not know I’ve come to see you today.”

“Ah.” What more could she say to that? Helen glanced out the window. A dog was napping in the sun on the inn doorstep.

“I should not have let her send you away,” Papa said.

Helen turned to stare at him. She’d never guessed that he hadn’t been completely in agreement with Mother.

“Your sisters were not yet married, and your mother worried for their futures,” he said, and the lines on his face seemed to deepen as she watched. “Also, the Duke of Lister is a powerful man, and he made it plain that he expected you to go to him. In the end, it was simply easier to let you go and wash our hands of you. It was easier, but it wasn’t right. I’ve regretted my decision for many years now. I hope you can forgive me someday.”

“Oh, Papa.” Helen went to the other side of the carriage to hug her father.

His arms were strong when they wrapped around her. “I’m sorry, Helen.”

She pulled back and saw that there were tears in his eyes.

“You can’t come home, I’m afraid. Your mother will not budge on that point. But I believe she’ll look the other way if you write me. And I hope that I can see you again someday?”

“Of course.”

He nodded and stood, briefly touching Abigail’s cheek and the top of Jamie’s head. “I need to go now, but I’ll write you in care of Sir Alistair Munroe.”

She nodded, her throat swelling.

He hesitated, and then said gruffly, “He seems like a good man. Munroe, that is.”

She smiled, although her lips trembled. “He is.”

Papa nodded and then he was gone.

Helen closed her eyes, her hand at her trembling mouth, on the very edge of breaking down in tears.

The carriage door opened again and rocked as someone climbed in.

When Helen opened her eyes, Alistair was scowling at her. “What did he say? Did he insult you?”

“No, oh, no, Alistair.” And she got up for the second time and crossed the carriage to kiss him on the cheek. She drew back and looked into his startled eye. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

Chapter Nineteen

Princess Sympathy gathered all the magical things she could—spells, potions, amulets that were said to convey power—for she knew that if she were to face the sorcerer, she would need to be armed. Then she set off at night, all alone and without telling anyone in her father’s castle. It was a long and dangerous journey back to the sorcerer’s castle, but Princess Sympathy had her courage and the memory of the man who had saved her to guide her.

At last, after many weary weeks, she arrived at the grim black castle just as the sun rose on a new day. . . .

—from TRUTH TELLER

It took over a week to return to Castle Greaves. A week in which Helen and Alistair shared one tiny inn room after another with the children. She wouldn’t let them out of her sight, and he would’ve thought less of her if she had. Which was perhaps why, the very moment the clock struck nine on the night they returned, he was out of his room and pacing toward hers.

There was an urgency to his step not entirely explained by delayed lust. He wanted, needed, to reestablish his relationship with Helen. To make sure that all was the same as before the children had been stolen. He needed her on some basic level, and he didn’t want their time together to be over yet. He admitted this weakness to himself, and it only sped his steps.

Then, too, he was aware that she no longer had an external reason to stay with him at Castle Greaves. She had no need of employment, at least for the foreseeable future. Not with the cache of jewels she’d shown him one night in an inn. Lister, the bastard, had provided enough pearls and gold to last her a lifetime if she were frugal. And with Lister’s guns spiked, she need no longer hide from him, either.

Which begged the question, When would she leave him?

Alistair shook the depressing thought away, halting at Helen’s door. He gave the door a faint scratch. In a moment, it opened and she stood there in her chemise.