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‘I do not believe it would be a good thing for you to dance with Lord Coleridge too often,’ Mrs Henderson said, coming up to her.
‘He is a perfect gentleman, Helene, and well liked—but you must not set your heart on him. He mixes in circles that we shall scarcely enter, my dear.’
‘I am very certain he would not do for me, Mama,’ Helene replied primly, though a little voice at the back of her mind told her that she was not telling the whole truth.
She did like Lord Coleridge, more than she was prepared to admit, but of course it would not do at all. He was a member of the aristocracy—and she had vowed long ago that she would never give her heart to anyone who might break it as her mama’s had been broken.
Anne Herries lives in Cambridgeshire, where she is fond of watching wildlife and spoils the birds and squirrels that are frequent visitors to her garden. Anne loves to write about the beauty of nature, and sometimes puts a little into her books—although they are mostly about love and romance. She writes for her own enjoyment, and to give pleasure to her readers. She is a winner of the Romantic Novelists’ Association Romance Prize.
Recent novels by the same author:
MARRYING CAPTAIN JACK
THE UNKNOWN HEIR
THE HOMELESS HEIRESS
THE RAKE’S REBELLIOUS LADY
A COUNTRY MISS IN HANOVER SQUARE*
*A Season in Town trilogy
And in the Regency series The Steepwood Scandal:
LORD RAVENSDEN’S MARRIAGE
COUNTERFEIT EARL
And in The Hellfire Mysteries:
AN IMPROPER COMPANION
A WEALTHY WIDOW
A WORTHY GENTLEMAN
www.millsandboon.co.uk
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Author Note
This is the second in my A Season in Town mini-series. Amelia Royston has invited Helene to stay with her for the season. Helene knows that she must marry well, and she is very attracted to Lord Coleridge, but she does not think he could possibly be interested in a girl like her. However, it seems that someone is bent on causing him harm, perhaps taking his life, and Helene is instrumental in preventing one such attack. Can she and Max discover who is behind these attempts, and can they find happiness together?
Amelia is feeling a little low, because it seems that Gerard has forgotten her and the love they once shared. She will have to settle for living alone and inviting her friends to stay, because she could not contemplate marrying anyone else.
Book Three is Amelia and Gerard’s tale. I hope you will enjoy these stories, and I thank all my readers for their continued support. Please keep writing to me at linda@ lindasole.co.uk
Chapter One
‘Oh, no, you don’t!’ Max Coleridge said as the urchin attempted to pluck a kerchief from the pocket of his companion. His hand shot out, grasping the dirty boy around his wrist with a grip of iron. ‘That is thieving, my lad, and it will land you in prison. You will end with your neck stretched at the nubbing cheat if you continue this way.’
‘Let me go, guv,’ the boy whined. ‘I ain’t done nuffin’ bad, honest I ain’t—but I ain’t had nuffin’ ter eat fer a week!’
‘Indeed?’ Max’s right eyebrow arched. ‘Should I believe you, I wonder? And what should I do with you supposing that I do?’
‘Let the ruffian go and be done with it,’ Sir Roger Cole advised. ‘I dare say he deserves to be handed over to the beadle, but it requires far too much effort.’
‘Your trouble, my friend, is that you are too lazy,’ Max replied with a smile that robbed his words of any offence. ‘No, I shall not let the boy go—he would simply rob someone else and eventually he will die in prison or at the rope’s end.’ His grasp tightened about the lad’s arm. ‘Tell me your name, lad. I shall take you home and tell your father to keep you off the streets.’
‘Me name’s Arthur,’ the boy muttered sullenly. ‘I ain’t got no home nor no farvver or muvver neivver. Ain’t got no one. Let me go like the gent said, sir. I won’t trouble you no more.’
‘No family at all?’ Arthur shook his head and Max sighed. ‘Unfortunately, if I let you go, you would trouble my conscience far more than you imagine. I shall take you with me. You are going to school, Arthur—whether you like it or not.’
‘School? Wot’s that?’ Arthur asked and wiped his running nose on his sleeve. He eyed the large man suspiciously. ‘You ain’t one o’ them queer nabs, are yer?’
‘I am certainly not,’ Max denied with a wry smile. ‘If you are hungry, you will like school—you will be fed three times a day, if you behave yourself.’
‘Food fer nuffin’?’Arthur stared at him suspiciously. ‘Wot’s the catch, guv?’ As to be a catch. No one does nuffin’ fer nuffin’…’
‘No, I dare say they do not where you come from,’ Max said. ‘In return, you will have to give up a life of crime—and grime—and learn a trade…’
‘I ain’t goin’ up no chimneys!’
‘Good grief, I should hope not,’ Max said. ‘You might like to be a carpenter or a groom, perhaps—or even a politician?’
‘You shouldn’t put ideas into the boy’s head, Coleridge,’ Sir Roger said. ‘A politician, indeed!’
‘He could not do much worse than those we have in power at the moment,’ Max replied wryly. ‘But I would advise an honest trade—perhaps a baker?’
‘I like cake,’ Arthur said, his eyes suddenly bright. ‘I pinched some orf a baker’s stall once on the market.’
‘There you are, then,’ Max said, hiding his smile. ‘The future looms brighter already, Arthur—a baker you shall be.’
‘You are mad, quite mad,’ Sir Roger said and grinned. ‘It is hardly surprising that you are not married, my dear fellow. I do not know whether any sensible woman would have you.’
‘I dare say she wouldn’t if she knew my habit of picking up boys from the streets,’ Max replied and smiled at his friend. ‘Excuse me, I have a rather dirty ruffian to scrub before I present him to someone who will teach him a few manners…’ He neatly avoided a kick from the struggling urchin. ‘I should give up if I were you, Arthur. I could always change my mind and hand you over to the constable, and then you might never eat cake again.’
Helene eyed the chimney-sweep wrathfully, one hand on the shoulder of the small boy at her side. Her eyes just now were the colour of wet slate, her normally generous mouth pulled tight in an expression of disgust.
‘You will go and you will leave Ned with me,’ she said, her voice strong and fearless despite the knots tying themselves in her stomach as she faced the great brute of a man she had caught beating his climbing boy. ‘You are lucky that I do not call the magistrate and have you arrested for cruelty. This child is too ill to do his work.’
‘Lazy ingrate that’s what he be,’ the sweep muttered. His hands were ingrained with soot, his face streaked with it. He had a fearful scar on one cheek and he squinted with his left eye. He was scowling so fiercely that Helene’s courage might have deserted her had she not seen the scars on a previous climbing-boy’s back. Jeb had died of his injuries. She was determined that it would not happen to Ned. ‘I bought the brat from the workhouse. He belongs to me—and that’s the law. You can’t take him from me, miss.’
‘What did you pay for him?’ Helene was haughty as she faced her much larger opponent across the kitchen of her uncle’s home. She knew that the sweep could fell her with a blow of his huge fist, but she refused to feel afraid. ‘Tell me and you shall be paid.’
‘I paid ten gold guineas for him,’ the sweep growled.
Helene knew that he was lying. No one paid so much for a boy from the workhouse. However, she understood that she must pay the price if she wished to take the child from him.
‘Very well, you shall be paid,’ she promised. ‘You may go. I will send the money to your wife tomorrow.’
The sweep scowled at her, anger flashing in his eyes. ‘If you don’t send the money—all of it!—I shall come and take him back,’ he muttered and went off, stomping out of the kitchen in a temper.
‘You’ve landed yourself in a pickle again, miss.’ Bessie stared at her. ‘Where will you find ten guineas to pay him? And what are we to do with the lad now we have him?’
Helene felt the lad tremble beneath her hand. ‘Don’t send me back to Mr Beazor, miss,’ he said, sniffed and wiped the back of his hand across his nose and then on his disreputable breeches, smearing more soot on his face in the process. ‘He’ll kill me sure as hell is full of the devil.’
‘You watch your language,’ Bessie warned him sharply. ‘Speak respectful to Miss Henderson. She just saved you from a terrible beating.’
‘Please do not scold him, Bessie,’ Helene said and smiled at the maid she thought of as her best friend. Bessie was her mama’s only servant and had helped Helene out of scrapes many times when she was a girl. ‘I think he needs a bath and something to eat.’
‘He could certainly do with a bath,’ Bessie agreed. ‘He doesn’t smell too sweet.’
‘What’s a bath?’ Ned eyed them suspiciously. ‘Does it hurt?’
‘Lord bless him!’ Bessie laughed. ‘We’re going to put you in a tub of hot water and wash all the soot and grime off you, lad.’
‘Nah…don’t fancy that…’ Ned backed away from them nervously.
‘I promise you it won’t hurt,’ Helene told him. ‘Afterwards, I shall put some ointment on your back and then you can eat your meal.’
‘What’s to eat?’ Ned looked round hopefully, a sign of interest in his eyes now.
‘You shall have a hot meat pie and some cake,’ Bessie said, seeing the gleam and smiling inwardly. ‘But you’ve got to be clean. I can’t have dirty boys in my kitchen.’
‘Are you certain it don’t hurt?’ Ned’s nose twitched as the smell of pies baking reached his nostrils.
‘I promise,’ Helene said and turned as one of the other servants entered the kitchen. ‘Jethro, will you fetch the tub from the scullery, please? We are going to give this lad a bath.’
Jethro nodded. ‘I saw Beazor looking like thunder. He’s a bad man, miss. He’s already done for two workhouse lads. He’s been warned that if it happens again he won’t get another.’
‘Is that all they can think of to threaten him with?’ Helene’s eyes flashed. ‘In my opinion, a beating is the least he deserves. He has killed boys and no one does anything to stop him.’
‘Yes, miss, a few of us were thinking the same,’ Jethro said, his expression grim. ‘I’ll fetch the tub and give you a hand with him, Bessie. Your uncle was looking for you, Miss Henderson.’
‘Yes, I know he wished to speak with me,’ Helene said. ‘I shall have to ask him what we should do with Ned.’
‘You can leave him to me, miss,’ Jethro said. ‘I need a lad to help out in the yard. He’ll do with me. No need to bother Mr Barnes.’
‘No, I would rather not…’ Helene thanked him, told Ned to be good and hurried away to keep her appointment with her uncle. Edgar Barnes was a fair-minded man. He had taken his sister and her child in when Helene’s father died from a fever after a fall from his horse. However, he was not a wealthy man. He had promised to do something for her, and she knew that he had summoned her to his library to talk about her dowry that morning. She had been offered a Season in town by a good friend of her mother’s. Her uncle had already given her fifty pounds towards her spending money in town, but the dowry would need to be a more substantial sum if she were to stand a chance of making a good match. Especially in view of what some might see as her unfortunate background.
Helene could ill afford to give Beazor the ten guineas she had promised him, but she must do it. Her mother had spoken of Miss Royston being very generous, but Helene was not perfectly sure what that meant, though she knew they were to be guests at Miss Amelia Royston’s town house. Neither her uncle nor her mother could have afforded to give her a London Season and she felt very grateful to the lady she remembered only vaguely. It was very kind of Miss Royston to send such an invitation.
Helene hesitated outside her uncle’s door, then took a deep breath, knocked and opened the door. He was writing at his desk, but looked up as she entered and smiled.
‘Ah, Helene, my dear. I am pleased to see you. Come in, niece, and sit down. I want to talk to you about your visit to town.’
‘Yes, Uncle. I am sorry I am a little late, sir.’
‘No matter…’ He waved his hand in a dismissive manner. ‘I am sure you understand your great good fortune and the opportunity this visit affords you?’
‘Yes, Uncle. I am very grateful to Miss Royston for inviting us.’
‘You must make the most of it,’ Uncle Edgar told her, his fingers touching as he placed his hands in the steeple position and looked serious. ‘I have two sons to see through college and I must do something to secure the future of my younger boy. Matthew wants a set of colours and that is an expense I can scarcely bear. I had thought I might give you fifty pounds a year, but some of my investments have failed miserably and I am no longer able to make the commitment.’
‘I am sorry for your loss, sir,’ Helene told him, her heart sinking. Without a dowry she would stand little chance of making an advantageous match. The fact of her maternal grandfather having been in trade was a disadvantage in itself, though Helene herself was proud of being Matthew Barnes’s granddaughter. He had fought his way up from lowly beginnings to become a man of some fortune, which accorded well with her notions of equality. Unfortunately, a quarrel between Helene’s mama and her father had meant that Mrs Henderson had been left a mere competence. Helene had nothing at all, for she had not been born when Matthew Barnes died. ‘Then I have no dowry at all?’
‘I can give you a hundred pounds extra now and that is all,’ Uncle Edgar said with a sigh of regret. ‘I am sorry, Helene. It is fortunate that your mother has a good friend in Miss Royston.’
‘Yes, the visit will be pleasant, though I think I may not be able to oblige Mama by making a good marriage…’
‘Miss Royston understands the situation and she is giving you five thousand pounds as a dowry.’ Helene gasped at the news and her uncle smiled. ‘Yes, it is a very large sum, Helene. It should help you to make a good match. All the more reason why you should make sure you please your benefactress. You must strive to be on your best behaviour and to make the most of your chances. You must not be too particular, Helene. Do not expect a great match, my dear. He should be a decent man, of course—and you must not go against the wishes of Miss Royston. However, I know you to be a sensible girl…most of the time. But I shall say nothing of your little lapses, which I know come from your heart. You care about others and that is not a bad thing, but sometimes you are led into the wrong paths by impulse.’
Helene wondered if he had heard anything of the scene in his kitchen earlier, but she did not ask. Her uncle would not want to be involved in the quarrel, for he always took the line of least resistance if he could, and he would probably say that Ned should be returned to his master. He certainly would not approve of paying ten guineas to the sweep!
‘I do try to be sensible, Uncle,’ Helene told him. ‘It is just that I cannot stand cruelty in any form.’
‘I do not like it myself, but sometimes one has to look the other way, Helene.’
‘Yes, Uncle. I shall try to remember.’
Helene’s thoughts were very different to her words. She and Bessie had done what they could to save the climbing boy who had been beaten so badly that he died. The sight of his emaciated body, the bruises and the way he had just turned his face to the wall and died had lived in her mind, because she had known that his spirit was broken, too. If she’d had a little money of her own, she would have set up a school for poor boys and alleviated the worst of their suffering. However, even then she could help only a few, and she had often thought the answer lay with men like her uncle. Edgar Barnes was not wealthy, but he had standing in the community. He and others far more powerful should put a stop to the barbaric laws that allowed children to be bought for a few shillings, half-starved and forced to work for their bread.
However, she knew better than to voice her opinion on the matter. Most gentlemen believed ladies should be seen and admired, treated with utmost gentleness, but their opinions seldom counted for anything other than in the matter of the household they ran. Such attitudes might have made Helene angry had she not understood it was simply the way of things. Because she might otherwise have said too much, Helene had fallen into the habit of saying little in the company of her uncle’s friends. They were all older men, gallant, charming and entrenched in their traditions. To challenge their longheld beliefs would have been rude. As a result she was deemed to be a quiet girl, pretty enough but perhaps a little shy?
As Helene left her uncle’s study, her thoughts returned to the problem of the sweep. She decided that she would consult Jethro in the matter of payment. She would give him the money and trust him to pay what was necessary. Anything he saved could be spent on some decent clothes for Ned. She could hardly expect him to support the boy entirely from his own pocket.
As she went upstairs to her bedchamber, Helene mentally reviewed the gowns she was taking with her to London. She had four new evening dresses, one morning gown and one for the afternoon; all the others had been worn several times before she went into mourning for her father. Would they be enough to see her through the Season? If her uncle gave her the hundred pounds he had promised, perhaps she might purchase a few extra gowns, for she was certain they would be needed if they were invited to some modest affairs. It was hardly likely that she would attend the most prestigious balls taking place in the houses of the aristocracy—although her father had been a gentleman, he had never possessed a vast fortune or a title.
Helene decided that she would wait until she got to London before purchasing more gowns. It would not be long now and she might not actually need them. The money would be better saved for more important things…
Helene stood just behind her mother, as their hostess received them. The house was a three-storey building in an elegant square in the heart of London, beautifully furnished and quite large.
‘Marie—how lovely to see you. You are looking very well,’ Miss Royston greeted them as they were shown into the comfortable parlour, which they had been told was used for private afternoons. ‘And this is Helene, I believe? You have grown, my love. I knew that you would be a young lady by now, but I did not think you would be so very pretty!’
Helene’s cheeks turned to a delicate rose. She felt a little uncomfortable as she bobbed a respectful curtsy. ‘You are so very kind, Miss Royston,’ she said. ‘Indeed, Mama tells me you have been extraordinarily generous. I do not know how to thank you, ma’am.’
‘Please call me Amelia when we are private together,’ Amelia said. ‘I need no thanks, Helene. I shall enjoy having friends to stay—and as for the other—’ Helene lowered her gaze, feeling slightly embarrassed ‘—please do not feel under any obligation, my dear. I was very fortunate in being left a great deal of money by my aunt, far more than I could ever need, in fact. Helping my friends is a great pleasure to me. I do not wish you to feel you owe me something, for I have known what it is like to be beholden to others.’
‘Mama told me that you were not happy in your brother’s house,’ Helene said and raised her eyes to meet Amelia’s. ‘Uncle Edgar has been kind to us, but I must admit it is not like living in your own home.’
‘No, it cannot be,’ Amelia replied. ‘I have asked my dressmaker to call in the morning, Helene. We all need new gowns and it will be amusing to choose them here. We can look at patterns and materials together…but I am forgetting my manners. This lady is Emily Barton. She is my friend and my companion. I am not sure what I should do without her—she completely spoils me!’
Helene turned her gaze on the lady standing silently by the fireplace. She had dark blonde hair and the saddest eyes that Helene ever remembered seeing.
‘Miss Barton,’ Helene said and dipped a curtsy, ‘I am pleased to meet you.’
‘I am pleased to meet you,’ Emily replied. ‘Shall we sit together on the sofa?’
Helene went to sit by Emily. Amelia Royston turned her attention to Mrs Henderson, drawing her to a comfortable chair near the fire and offering refreshment.
‘Would you care for tea—or something a little stronger? A glass of wine, perhaps, to keep out the chill of the day. It has turned a little cold for the time of year, do you not think so?’
‘How kind,’ Mrs Henderson said and sat down near the fire. ‘I should not mind a glass of wine, Amelia. The roads were terribly rutted in places and we were rattled so in my brother’s carriage. I thought we should break a pole or lose a wheel, but we arrived safely. Edgar talks of buying a new carriage but his sons are at college and he cannot afford such luxuries for the moment.’
‘When you go home, you shall be taken in my carriage,’ Amelia told her. ‘Had I known, I would have sent it to collect you, Marie. Forgive me for not thinking of it.’
‘Oh, no—you have already done so much.’
‘Really, it is very little to me,’ Amelia assured her with a gentle smile. ‘I am glad to entertain my friends, you know. I am not lonely now that I have Emily, but we both like to have friends to stay.’
‘In the matter of Helene’s clothes…I have some money,’ Mrs Henderson began, a slight flush in her cheeks, but Amelia shook her head.
‘We do not need to speak of it. My seamstress will send her bills to me and we shall talk about this at the end of the Season. If we are fortunate and Helene secures a good husband, neither of you will have to worry about money again.’
‘Yes…’ Mrs Henderson looked doubtful. ‘You look…beautiful, Amelia. Scarcely older than when I last saw you.’
‘Oh, I hardly think that,’ Amelia said on a laugh. ‘I am approaching my twenty-seventh birthday, Marie.’
‘No one would know if you did not tell them.’ Mrs Henderson arched her brows. ‘Have you never thought of marriage yourself?’
‘I thought of it some years ago, but my brother did not approve…’ Amelia frowned. For a moment her expression was sad, pained, but then she raised her head in a determined fashion. ‘I fear I am past the age for marrying now, Marie. You were no more than nineteen when you married, I believe?’
‘Hardly that,’ Mrs Henderson said and sighed. ‘It was an imprudent match, for my William did not have sufficient fortune and it caused a breach with my father. In his anger he struck my name from his will. Papa did not hold with the aristocracy—he thought them proud and arrogant. I believe he would have reinstated me later, but he died suddenly, just before Helene was born, and I was left with a fraction of what might have been mine. I do not regret my marriage, for my husband was a good man and I loved him, but I have regretted the lack of fortune for my daughter’s sake. I had hoped her uncle might do something for her, but he finds himself in some financial difficulty, I believe.’