The clocks were striking half past eight when Helena tripped from her house, her shawl wrapped around her against the crisp morning air.
“Good morning, Your Grace,” she sang as she stepped in front of the Duke of Ashford.
He was tall, but Helena was tall for a woman, so she did not have to tilt her head back much to study him. Dark hair curled from under his hat, and gray eyes as frosty as a late autumn morning met her gaze. He had shaved—she smelled the soap—but his cheeks and chin were shadowed, his hair so dark his valet could never completely scrape the color away.
Ashford halted, always polite, even if his eyes were forbidding. “Mrs. Courtland.” He gave her a well-mannered bow and then made to move around her.
Of course. His precious schedule. He’d want to be in his offices at the ministry at nine precisely.
Helena again stepped in front of him, determined not to let him flee. Lewis’s letter had touched her heart. She’d do anything to wipe the bleakness from the little faces of Ash’s children, poor mites. The duke had shut himself off when Olivia had died, and finding a wife for him was just the thing to open him up again.
“I shall call ’round this evening,” she said. “I wager you know what about. There aren’t many young ladies in Town at the moment, but we will come up with a strategy. If I can’t have you married off by Christmas, I am certain I can when the Season begins.”
Ashford’s focus sharpened as Helena spoke, and now he leaned to her, making her heart beat faster. Goodness, but he was a large man—in a strong way. Nothing of the corpulent about him.
“Mrs. Courtland,” he said in clipped tones. “You will not speak to me or to my children on this matter again. You will forget all about it. Do you understand me?”
Helena met his gaze. Difficult, because there was such rage in his eyes. Behind the rage she saw frustration, unhappiness, and pain.
“I understand you quite well,” she said. “Good morning, Your Grace.”
Ashford stared at her a moment longer, then he straightened, tipped his hat, and marched away.
Helena watched as he strode along the square and down Berkeley Street toward Piccadilly, and she shook her head.
“I certainly will not forget all about it,” she said to his distant back. “We will get you married by hook or by crook, Your Arrogant Grace. I shall dance at your wedding and laugh very hard.”
Helena kept her gaze on Ashford’s tall body and steady gait until he disappeared from sight. Determination and anticipation tingled through her, making her more animated than she’d been in years.
Now—where to begin?
Chapter 2
It wasn’t done for a lady to call upon a gentleman unless he was a relation or they had business to discuss.
Helena did not let this stop her as she settled her three-plumed turban on her head and took up the shawl she used for late calls. Nothing so formal as what she wore to the theatre or balls during the Season, but nothing so casual as to be insulting. Helena, constantly sought after for her sage advice or to chaperone ingenues, knew exactly what to wear when, though she’d agonized a bit over how to dress to confront the Duke of Ashford.
She waited until ten minutes past nine—she knew His Grace read to his children until nine o’clock—and rang the bell at the house next door.
The duke’s abode was the mirror image of Helena’s—her fan-lighted front door lay to the right of her main rooms; his lay to the left.
The ground floor was for the public—drawing rooms that could be opened into one grand room for dancing. Not that Ashford had hosted anything like a ball or at-home in years. The ground floor was dark and silent, like Helena’s.
The footman who answered the door was disinclined to let her in. “I’m sorry, madam,” he said, his young face unhappy under his old-fashioned white wig. “His Grace is not receiving visitors.”
“Nonsense, Henry. I am expected—His Grace must have told you. Besides, you do not want me informing your mother about what I saw you and Alice doing on my back stairs a few days ago, would you?”
The kiss had been innocent, and a bit touching, but Helena kept her voice firm. His mother would be most displeased, and Henry knew it. Looking even more unhappy, he yielded.
“His Grace is upstairs, madam. Not to be disturbed.”
“I know. You’re a good lad, Henry.”
Helena patted his cheek and hurried up the stairs. One hurdle past. The formidable Edwards, Ashford’s valet, looming on the landing above her, would be a more difficult obstacle.
To her surprise, Edwards, gray-haired and imposing, stood aside and stared into space as Helena climbed the stairs, pretending not to notice her slide past him. Well, well.
His Grace’s study was on the second floor, above his private dining room. The duke’s bedchamber was the next floor up, she knew. He slept well above the street and exactly beneath the nursery.
Helena tapped on the door of the study and admitted herself when she heard Ash’s distracted, “Come.”
Helena entered a chamber lined with bookcases, books piled across the tops of those already filling the shelves. She’d always known the duke was a reader, though when he found the time, she could not imagine. He did read to his children, they had told her. Interesting books too—an admirable trait in an otherwise inflexible man.
Ashford did not look up from the papers he read at his desk, so Helena said brightly, “Good evening, Your Grace.”
Ashford jerked his head up then came to his feet with comical rapidness, his hard face turning as red as Henry’s. “What the devil? Madam, these are my private rooms and you have no appointment.”
He was struggling to remain civil and barely winning the fight. My, my—would he stoop to bodily pushing her out of his house?
And could Helena stop him? Not really. He’d be considered wholly justified in ejecting an intruder, and there were those who found Helena a bit forward for a woman.
She should fear him—she’d observed his strength—but she did not. Strange. Helena might be foolish in her courage, but so be it.
“I believe I told you I would call this evening,” she said. “We must discuss your children’s request. Not a bad thing, Your Grace, for you to find a wife. I grew up with only a father for many years, and it was a relief when he wedded again. Indeed, my stepmother and I have become great friends.”
“I know.” Ashford’s lips thinned. “The pair of you natter at the theatre. I hear you—your box is next to mine.”
“I only natter, as you call it, when the play is deplorable. When we have fine actors and excellent singing, we listen most attentively. Now.” Helena removed a paper from her reticule and bravely approached the desk. “I would not presume to push you into encounters with these ladies without your approval, so I have made a list for you to look over beforehand.”
“Mrs. Courtland.”
Helena looked up to find His Grace standing tall and stiff beside her. “Yes?”
“You will take your list and your good self and remove both from my house. My son had no business approaching you, and you will forget all about this foolishness. I will explain to him why he is wrong.”
Helena pictured young Lewis as his father sternly instructed him to stay out of his affairs. The lad would be humiliated, embarrassed, hurt. Her resolve increased.