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Helena merely smiled from the chaise and absently rubbed her belly, unconcerned with the outburst. ‘Don’t tell me you’re afraid after all these years. The girl I went to school with didn’t care what anyone thought, least of all a room full of old peahens.’ Helena knew how to throw down the gauntlet.
‘I still don’t. I’d just rather they keep their thoughts to themselves instead of talking about me as if I’m not there, as if I cannot hear them when I’m standing right in front of them.’ Sofia unfastened the diamond-and-sapphire choker at her neck and set it reluctantly on the vanity. She might not have made it through the wedding if it hadn’t been for Viscount Taunton. He’d left her no choice but to endure. After he’d dared to sit with her, she couldn’t have paid back his effort by running out. And in truth, it had been easier to endure with an ally beside her.
Sofia reached for a hairpin, determined to take down the elaborate coiffure. The sooner she was undressed the sooner she could put this pretence that she was going to the ball behind her.
‘Taunton will be there,’ Helena announced as the maid moved through the chamber laying out her own finery for the ball.
‘Of course. He is a close family friend,’ Sofia replied coolly, careful to show no reaction. She eyed her friend in the mirror. What was Helena up to?
Helena rose a little clumsily from the chaise and began her own preparations. ‘Taunton will dance with you, Frederick will dance with you. With the notice of two decent men, others will come. You won’t be alone. I thought you liked Taunton?’
‘I am considering conducting business with him on your father-in-law’s recommendation, that is all.’ Sofia didn’t like the look in Helena’s eye. It wouldn’t be the first time Helena had tried to play the matchmaker. The maid slipped a green-silk gown with large painted roses patterned on the fabric over Helena’s head.
‘Taunton’s a good man. Frederick will vouch for him.’ Helena’s dark head popped through the dress.
‘We’ll see if he has any business sense. Alpacas aren’t the norm when it comes to investing.’ Sofia watched Helena smooth her skirts over her belly and turn in front of the mirror, critically eyeing her growing silhouette. She felt a stab of envy for her friend. Helena had the perfect life: a loving husband, domestic comfort and security, children and another baby on the way to love. It was only natural Helena would want the same for her. But it couldn’t be that way for her; she’d lost that chance the moment she’d married Il Marchese and she’d sealed any hope with her divorce. No decent Englishman married such a ruined woman due to the legal implications alone.
There were other, more emotional implications, too. She’d never give her freedom, her very life, to a man again. But how did one make a woman like Helena, with everything she could wish for, understand that?
‘I do not think dancing with Taunton is a good idea.’ He was exactly the sort of man the matchmaking mamas coveted for their own daughters: handsome, well-mannered, pleasant and titled. They would hate her especially for taking up the attentions of such a specimen. To make her point, Sofia pulled out another pin, feeling the coiffure loosen.
Helena speared her with a stern look that said she was done cajoling. This was serious now. ‘If not Taunton, who? When? It’s been three years, Sofia. Surely, you don’t mean to entomb yourself for the rest of your life?’ Helena’s eyes flashed, reminiscent of the tenacity that had won her a duke’s heir.
‘Surely, I do mean just that and the sooner you accept it, the sooner we can move past this,’ Sofia replied with the determination that had seen her through four years of a finishing school that had thought a country gentleman’s daughter beneath them and ten years of a marriage marked by darkness.
Helena softened. ‘You’re too young for such absolutes, my dear friend. You’re also too young to be alone. You should remarry and start again.’
‘Not with a man like Taunton. He can’t afford me.’ They both knew she didn’t mean the reference monetarily. A titled Englishman with any ambition socially, politically, couldn’t afford the scandals that came with her.
Helena averted her gaze and fussed with her skirts. Even Helena couldn’t deny the truth in that. Perhaps there was a quiet country widower out there who could take her on without damaging the back half of his life overmuch, if she was ever interested in marriage. But a titled man? No. Helena didn’t go down easy, however. ‘Taunton isn’t much for town. He’s only up a few weeks a year to look after paperwork. He much prefers country life at the family seat.’
‘He’s inherited the title now, that’s bound to change whether he wills it or not.’ Sofia turned aside Helena’s subtle riposte.
‘Taunton is a man not easily swayed in his convictions.’
A knock at the door interrupted whatever offensive manoeuvre Helena was mounting. ‘Guests are arriving, my lady,’ a footman informed through the door.
Helena gave her appearance a final look. ‘It’s sure to be a girl this time. I’m carrying high, unlike the boys, and I’m so much bigger than usual for six months.’ She held out a hand to Sofia. ‘It’s the very last of the wedding festivities and my last outing for a while. After tonight, I’ll shall be too large to escape notice. Please come, dear friend.’ She gave a soft, irresistible smile. ‘You and I have nothing to lose, not when we stand together.’
Sofia felt her resolve weaken. She’d never been able to refuse Helena anything. ‘All right, I’ll come for just a bit. Let me fix my hair and put my necklace on.’ She would go and support Helena against the gossips who were bound to say she should have retired from society weeks ago. And why not? If she’d meant to baulk, she should have baulked far sooner than this. She’d let things get out of hand. She should not have accepted Helena’s invitation to play the companion during the weeks leading up to the wedding, to attend the wedding, to stay with the family and now to dance at the honeymoon ball before Ferris and his bride set sail for a few months in the Greek isles.
Helena smiled her victory. ‘Try to have a good time tonight.’ Sofia fastened the necklace, hearing the unspoken message. It was the last thing Helena could do for her for quite some time. She should make the most of it before she returned to the anonymity of her Chelsea row house and its middle-class neighbours. She’d not been home in a while and she missed it. No one in Chelsea really knew who she was and they didn’t care. She’d found a bit of happiness there, rebuilding and reshaping her life. She had her work behind the façade of Barnham and she had the charity work allotted to women as well. She helped at the orphanage and at a small school. It was a start towards her larger dreams.
Ready at last, Sofia looped her arm through Helena’s and leaned close as they headed out on to the landing. ‘You’ve been the very best of fairy godmothers to me, Helena, and I do know it.’
But tonight at midnight, the fairy tale of belonging to Cowden’s exclusive world would end. She’d always known it would. Like so much else, it had been an illusion only and a thin one at that. There’d been no illusion about the reception she’d receive and she’d not been wrong. The only surprise had been her reaction to Taunton. But she had herself well in hand and he would not sneak past her guard again with his looks or with his kindnesses.
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