Moonlight Over Paris(83)

That was the problem—she was a girl, only just eighteen, and the same age Helena had been when her engagement to Edward had been announced. If not for the timely intervention of the war, she would have shared her niece’s fate of marriage to a near stranger and a lifetime of being bullied by a Gorgon of a mother-in-law.

The groom was Edward’s brother, George, who had been a gangly adolescent the last time Helena had met him but was now a rather awkward and red-faced man in his mid-twenties. He was a barrister, which presumably meant he had some brains between his ears, and he did seem fond of Rose, which was a good sign. Helena feared her niece would bore her new husband silly, but perhaps, as neither knew to expect anything more, they might contrive to be happy. It was a lowering way to look at it, but truthful enough.

The ceremony and reception were exactly the same as every other wedding she’d ever attended, featuring the same readings, the same music, and the same homily from the same chinless vicar who had been at St. Peter’s Eaton Square for donkey’s years. The breakfast afterward had gone on for far too long, with interminable and very dull speeches, and ostentatiously prepared food that had left her hungry for the unpretentious fare of Chez Rosalie.

If Amalia had been there, it would have been ever so much easier, but Peter was ill with a painful case of shingles and her sister had stayed behind at their country house to care for him. That was why, as soon as the wedding breakfast had finished, Helena had slipped out into the garden for some time to herself. But she’d been followed.

“May I join you?”

Looking up, she saw the man she hadn’t been alone with since the day they had ended their engagement. Edward.

“Please do,” she said, and she moved aside to make room for him on the wrought-iron bench. “How are you?”

“I’m well, thank you. Happy to be away from prying eyes. I hoped we might have a chance to speak, but I didn’t want to set tongues wagging.”

“Nor did I.”

“I gather you were very ill last year. I’m relieved to see you looking so well.”

“Am I?” she asked, and for a terrible moment she thought she might cry. They had been engaged for five years, but for all that he was nearly a stranger to her. “I’m sorry,” she went on. “It’s only that I’m rather tired. My aunt and I just arrived from Paris yesterday.”

“Of course. You’ve been at art school.”

“Yes.”

“I’m glad to hear it. You were so talented. I ought to have tried to encourage you more, but I was a selfish idiot. Couldn’t see past the nose on my face.”

It was true, but he’d had other worries, too. It would be unfair of her to fault him on it now. “How is Lady Cumberland?” she asked instead.

“Do call her Charlotte. She detests the title. For obvious reasons. My mother, you know . . .”

“Of course. How is Charlotte, then?”

“Very well. Busy with her work, and the children, too.”

“How old are they?”

“Laurence is four, and Eleanor is two and a half. We didn’t bring them to the service, but you might have seen them running around before breakfast.”

“I did. I thought they were very sweet.” Laurence, she recalled, was a serious little boy, with dark hair and a quiet manner. His sister seemed his opposite, with fair hair and an engaging and rather precocious way about her.

“There was another child,” she said, remembering. “A little girl with ginger hair. Is she Lilly’s?”

“Yes. Her name is Charlotte, which never fails to delight me. She’s just two now, and soon to have a sister or brother, as you may have noticed.”

“Lilly seems very content.”

“She is, yes. She and Robbie earned their happiness. But then, haven’t we all?”

They were silent for a moment, and then they both started to talk at once, their words tangling together.

“No,” she said. “You go first.”

“I didn’t know,” he began, and he met her gaze unflinchingly. “The gossip, that is. The things people said after I broke our engagement. I was in . . . well, I was in a state, to be honest. I was pickled with drink and out of my mind with pain and self-pity, and I did a pretty good job of ignoring the world around me. I only realized what had happened months later, when Lilly told me.”

“Oh,” she said, not knowing how else to respond. She’d never expected him to do anything, of course, but it did help to know he was sorry for it.

“I wasn’t sure what to do. I worried it would stir up bad memories if I wrote to you, or approached you in any way, and so I said nothing. For that I am truly sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault. You did your best, and we both survived. You mustn’t feel guilty. I don’t blame you, or Charlotte, for any of it. Not one bit. Not least because you’d have made me very unhappy, and I you.”

“I hope . . . I do hope you’ve been happy,” he said. “In spite of things.”

“I have been, especially this past year. I was very happy in Paris.”

It was true. She had been happy there, really and truly content. She’d had work that sustained her, friends that understood her, and at the heart of it all had been Sam.

THE RECEPTION HAD ended, and Helena and her aunt were the sole passengers in an enormous automobile, driven by Vincent, that was conveying them back to her parents’ house.