The Rogue's Wager (Sinful Brides #1)(35)

Life had proven that unkindness was not reserved to a station. Men, in general, had proven themselves wholly selfish, putting their needs before anyone else’s. Once again, the memory of the golden-haired lord who’d stumbled into her chambers and upended her world slid into her thoughts and a growl worked its way up her throat.

“It is impolite to make noises like a street animal,” the duchess snapped, cutting into her thoughts.

Heat stained Helena’s cheeks, and not for the first time she cursed Lord Robert Westfield, rogue without a care. This time for earning her further censure at the Duchess of Wilkinson’s.

A short while later, the carriage rumbled to a stop beside the white stucco fa?ade of the duke’s elegant Mayfair townhouse. Servants rushed forward, drawing the door open, and setting down a step for the duchess. All the pomp and circumstance of such a mundane activity again so at odds with the straightforward life Helena had known—until now.

Helena waited for Diana to exit, but the girl hesitated. Fiddling with her muslin cloak, she worried her lower lip. “If you would like to practice our watercolors together, I might be able to help.” She opened her mouth, but Diana rushed to speak. “I do not presume to be any manner of teacher.” She dipped her head. “I just thought it might be . . . fun,” she finished softly.

Helena tried to imagine what the days must be for this girl who had no hope of change from this staid, stilted lifestyle that she’d welcome even a change that came in the form of a bastard child of her faithless father. “That would be lovely,” she said softly, and the girl beamed.

“Splendid!” With more of a spring in her step, Diana hurried from the carriage.

Bracing for a day of tedium in the form of more lessons and lectures, Helena followed with far greater reluctance. She smiled at the servant, who averted his gaze. Even as Helena felt more comfortable around those in the duke’s employ, amongst the peerage, servants were largely invisible.

Marching up the handful of steps, her skin pricked once again at the stares fixed on her by passersby. Then, it wasn’t every day a duke found a long-lost daughter and brought her to Town for a Season. It was quite the juicy on-dit for people who really didn’t know anything of import outside the cut of their garments.

As Helena stepped inside the foyer, she shrugged out of her cloak and a servant rushed forward to claim the garment. She smoothed her palm over the muslin fabric, her fingers aching for the coarse, familiar brown wool she’d always donned.

The footman waited patiently, and she blinked. Then she opened her fingers with alacrity, the cloak slipping from her hands into his waiting ones.

“Miss Banbury, His Grace is waiting for you in his office,” the duchess snapped, with her hands on her hips. As much as Helena despised this woman for her coldness, there was at least an honesty to the furious wife’s anger that she could appreciate.

Helena dropped a stiff curtsy, and started from the cavernous foyer done in white Italian marble. The tread of her slippers was silent as she made her way through the carpeted corridors. After all, how horrid it must be for a woman so proud to have her husband’s infidelity paraded before the ton. Except that unkindness was not reserved for Helena, but rather bestowed upon her own daughter.

Helena continued striding through the halls, glancing at the hanging portraits of the duke’s relations.

When she’d first arrived, she’d believed she would never learn her way about the more-mausoleum-than-home residence inhabited by the duke and his family. Alas, the only way she’d managed to put some semblance into the lavish townhouse was by assigning portraits specific numbers.

Helena stopped beside portrait twenty-six, and rapped once on the duke’s door. Periodically, she was summoned for the express purpose of assuring the duke that she was, in fact, well.

Which she was. Because with each day she was one day closer to returning home.

“Enter,” the owner of that ever-cheerful voice called out.

Helena pressed the handle and stepped inside. “Your Grace,” she murmured, closing the door behind her. She dropped a curtsy for the portly, bewhiskered gentleman.

Oftentimes when she met him, she searched for some hint of herself in the white-haired, fleshy-cheeked duke. But for his pale skin, she couldn’t see any evidence that she was, in fact, his daughter.

“Helena, Helena, do come in, girl,” he called in his usual jovial tones. He came to his feet, and moved around the desk with his hands outstretched.

Having lived amongst elder brothers who by rule had shared no affection, for the ways in which it weakened you to your enemies, Helena still didn’t know what to make of this man’s warm greetings. So at odds with his frigid wife. Mayhap that coldness was what had driven him to Helena’s kindhearted mother. “Your Grace,” she said quietly.

“None of that, now,” he said guiding her to the chair across from his desk. Instead of claiming the commanding position behind the broad, mahogany piece, he sat in the leather seat closest to Helena. “You are adjusting well?” he asked, tugging his chair closer.

She hesitated, and then nodded. “Quite,” she lied, easily. After all, for all those she held to blame for her being here, Ryker, herself, and that rogue, Lord Robert Westfield, she could never fault or blame this man. He’d attempted to at least do right by her when most powerful peers would have been quite content to leave their by-blow buried in the underbelly of London.