moved from his neck to his shoulders. “Enough, monkeys. To bed with you.”
“Never,” Alex cried. “You can’t leave, Papa. No more London.”
“You must stay with us.” Callum squeezed.
“I’m here for a while yet.” But he couldn’t ignore the pinch to his conscience.
The boys slid to the ground, and he was left with naught but Louisa in his arms. He kissed her plump cheek, under the ruffle of her nightcap.
“Rest well.” Then he bent to Margaret for a kiss, then Alex.
Callum scowled. “No kisses for me.”
“Fine, then. Off you go to say your prayers.”
The children scattered to their separate rooms.
“Good night, then.” The small voice behind him drew his gaze.
Helena lingered inside the threshold, staring at him. He’d forgotten all about her. How thoughtless. Guilt pricked his abdomen and warmed his earlobes.
“Forgive me. Did you wish to kiss the children? I shall call them back.” His tone was apologetic, but even to his ears the offer sounded weak.
“No.” Her thumbs fidgeted at her waist and she stepped backward, as if in a terrible hurry to escape him.
Little wonder, the way he’d ignored her. “Helena—”
“Good night, my lord.”
“John,” he corrected her, but she had disappeared into the darkness of the hall.
One step forward, two steps back. Lord, help us find ease in this arrangement, before we both come to regret it.
Do not run. You are the lady of this house. You are a duke’s daughter. Helena forced her gait to an appropriate speed as she traversed the hall to her suite of rooms, but her legs quivered with the urge to sprint to her bedchamber. To hide.
And maybe not come out again until the children were grown.
What had she expected? That the children and staff would accept her from the moment John brought her here from the kirk? That she would be included? That she would be forgiven enough to be part of a family again?
She shut her chamber door behind her and sank against it. Barnes wasn’t here, mercifully. She’d ring for her once she’d recovered herself. Shoving off from the door, she crossed to the window and rested her aching head against the cold pane.
You could have joined in the frolics in the nursery, instead of standing there like an outsider.
But she was an outsider. Besides, what could she have done? Climb atop Callum? Ridiculous. She was a lady. The lady of the house. When her parents bid her and her sisters a brief, polite good-night, there was no tangling of limbs, no shrieking like urchins.
Besides, no one wanted her. They’d all ignored her.
And it wasn’t just the children. The housekeeper, Mrs. McGill, was unfriendly because Helena hadn’t hired her niece, that unsuitable Miss Campbell.
A dim light from a handheld lantern bobbed below her window. Helena stepped back. It wouldn’t do for one of the servants to see her staring out the window with a baleful expression. Or hanging from her husband and stepchildren laughing, for that matter. Even if it meant she’d feel this alone for the rest of her days.
You deserve it, Helena. You deserve a lonely, empty life. Mama might never have said the words aloud, but her distant silence before Helena married had said enough. Helena was unlovable. She’d thought if she obeyed her parents and married, Papa would approve, Mama might forgive, and Helena would feel cleaner inside somehow, but marrying hadn’t changed anything, after all. Why should she have expected who she now was on the outside to change whom she was inside?
I thought You forgive, Lord. Was I wrong? What was that feeling of love at the church yesterday? Was it fancy, or is there more for me there if I return? Could You love me?
Then again, why would God love her? Papa, ill as he was, would probably never see her again, but after the wedding, he couldn’t get away from her fast enough.
Helena rubbed her cold arms. Tomorrow she must begin searching for a new governess, and she also had letters to write to her friend Frances Fennelwick and her sisters and Mama, but not her grandmother, who would be furious at Helena once she heard some made-up story from Papa that Helena had become enamored of Tavin’s neighbor and there was no stopping her headstrong ways. She would write of her new home, the weather and the village. She’d say nothing of her feelings.
She should sleep, but her emotions continued to churn inside her, making her limbs quiver. She paced to shake them out, but it only seemed to make the matter worse. Should she ring for Barnes and tea? She wasn’t thirsty. Mayhap if she had something to read, she’d relax. The library would have something tedious to dull her senses, no doubt. And it was far preferable to fretting over her thoughts. She took up the lone candle sputtering at her bedside and returned to the hall.
It was dark and empty—how long had it been since she’d escaped the nursery? Longer than she thought. Her candle cast grotesque shadows as she tiptoed down the hall and around the corner. Her sisters, Maria and Andromeda, would have clung to Helena had they been here, certain Comraich’s dark, damp stones held ghosts. Silly widgeons—
Another pang of loneliness tightened Helena’s stomach. Would her sisters ever be allowed to visit her here?
Of course not. There would be excuses based on the distance, but the truth was, her parents wouldn’t want the girls influenced by their wayward elder sister.
Did the Bible say anything about being lonesome? Wasn’t there a woman in its pages who had been uprooted from her home by marriage? Whither thou goest, I will go, too, or something like that? Had the woman’s husband loved her? Or had she been as alone as Helena would always be?
Her desire for a musty tome disappeared. Mayhap John had a Bible in his library.
A cry rent the hall’s stillness. One of the children.
She hurried to the nursery, where a single lamp cast a comforting, gold glow over the walls. The boys’ door was ajar, and Helena rushed inside.
One of the boys sat up in bed, his hands over his mouth. Iona whimpered at his feet, while Agnes patted his shoulder as one might thump the head of a large dog. “Go back to sleep, Master, ’afore you wake the others.”
Alex.
Helena had never ministered to a frantic child before. Perhaps she should leave.
Instead she rushed to Alex’s bed. “Poor dear.” She rested her hand on his miniscule knee. A quick glance assured her Callum slept on in his bed, which was no doubt for the best.
Agnes’s fists flew to her hips. “Now look what ye’ve done, Master, but gone and disturbed ’er ladyship.”
“Nonsense, Agnes.” Helena perched on Alex’s bed, her thumb tracing lazy circles over his kneecap. Did her touch bother him? She only did what she would have wanted done to her, but it was difficult to tell, the way he stared at her, gasping through his fingers.
“Now then. Does something ache? Or was it a bad dream?”
Alex hiccupped and nodded. Helena wiped his eyes with the lace-edged handkerchief she kept tucked up her sleeve.
“What happened in your dream?”
“I was in the water. There was a kee-ask who pulled me doon and I could nae breathe.” He lifted his knees and buried his head between them.
“A what?”
“Kee-ask.” Curled as he was, his words were muffled. “I knew I shouldna gone