She nodded once, and his fingers tightened.
“Don’t come in, Marcus,” she begged. “I think we’ve had enough drama for one day.”
“Do I still look so murderous?” he asked ruefully.
“More than ever.”
His hand clenched, and he forced it to relax. “I suppose it might be better if I stay out of the way tonight. You’re right. I’m far too angry for polite conversation, and if I even see that nasty little weasel again, I’m liable to beat him to a pulp. Which will help nobody and offend Lady Overton’s hospitality besides. But would you not be more comfortable with me there?”
“No, I can manage now,” she assured him with a quick smile. “This is my territory, and these are my friends. I am quite capable of looking after myself here.”
“I know you are. Then take care, and I will call in the morning, quite in command of my temper.”
“Marcus?” she said, clinging to his hand when he would have released her. “Thank you for coming for me.”
“I’d cross the world for you and more,” he said. “I’m only sorry I let you go in the first place.”
His words warmed her, even as he released her and she hurried up the front step, shivering. She could not help glancing behind her as the footman closed the front door, just to get a last glimpse of him as he drove away.
“I hope we haven’t held up dinner,” Helen said to the maid, whipping off her muddy cloak and bonnet before they could be seen by too many people.
“No, Miss, there’s time to change still,” the maid assured her.
By then, Eliza, Horatio, and George were all but tumbling downstairs to greet her. At least they remembered to be polite to the Marshalls before they hauled her away by the hands, all talking at once.
The children’s welcome and their company did most of all to restore her to a feeling of normality. But once at her chamber, she shooed them back to their own quarters, promising to say goodnight to them after dinner. For she needed to wash and change before seeing Lady Overton.
Her evening gown had been cleaned since she had seen it last, and she donned it with some relief before brushing and pinning her hair. That done, she felt human once more and was just blowing out the candles when a knock at the door heralded a maid with a message from Lady Overton.
“Her ladyship would like to see you in her morning room at your earliest convenience.”
“Thank you,” Helen said. “I’m just coming.” When returning from anywhere, with or without the children, Helen always reported first to Lady Overton. Her ladyship’s summons was unusual. She could only suppose she wished to discuss Carla’s health, or she had somehow got wind of her abduction. Either way, now was the time to tell her all. She just hoped her ladyship would not imagine she had encouraged Philip in any way.
When she entered the morning room, Lady Overton’s back was to her as she gazed out of the window into the darkness. She held a letter at her side.
“My lady,” Helen greeted her. “Miss Robinov appears to be on the mend. Her mother gave me this letter for you.”
Lady Overton turned and held out her hand.
Obligingly, Helen crossed the room and gave her Mrs. Robinov’s letter. “How are the children? They seem well and lively.”
Instead of answering, Lady Overton held out the open letter in her other hand. The usual amiable if vague welcome was absent from her eyes, leaving them anxious and oddly cold. “Is this your writing, Miss Milsom? Did you truly pen this?”
Helen took the note, frowning. It was short, a mere few lines in a hand quite similar to her own. However, the oddity of this didn’t strike her just at first because the epistle began, “My dear Marcus.”
Her gaze flew back to Lady Overton’s, and she thrust the paper back. “No, I have never written to Sir Marcus in my life. I do not wish to read his letters.”
“But it is your writing, is it not?”
Helen glanced down at the note in her outstretched hand. “No,” she said, bewildered now as to where this was all going. “It is somewhat similar, but I could not have written this.”
“That is what I said when I first saw it. Miss Milsom could not have written this, could not have done this.”
“Done what?” she asked.
“Read it,” Lady Overton commanded.
Reluctantly, she drew her hand back and gazed at the letter. Although she forced herself to concentrate, the words didn’t seem to make any sense. They declared love in a florid and explicit style that would have made Helen blush even if they hadn’t been aimed at Marcus. And they invited him to elope with the writer by picking her up on the main Brighton Road from Finsborough, where she would be waiting for him with impatient desire, for she could not wait to settle in their love nest.
No, none of it made sense. Least of all, the fact that it was signed, yours in desperate love, Helen.
The letter fluttered to the floor as Helen stared at her employer in consternation.
“Did you meet him on the Brighton Road this afternoon?” Lady Overton’s voice, like her eyes, contained both hope and dread. She did not want to believe this, which gave Helen hope.
“Well, yes, in fact, we did meet there when he came—”
Lady Overton let out a cry of disappointment that cut Helen’s explanation short. “I would not have believed this of you! We have relied on you, made you quite a favorite in our house. My children love you, my married daughters treat you as a friend, and yet you were deceiving us this whole time, searching out a rich gentleman to entice, not even into marriage but into an illicit relationship. I suppose that was all a man of Sir Marcus’s stature would offer you!”
She could not allow that. “Sir Marcus is far too much the gentleman to offer such an arrangement to any gentleman’s daughter, let alone one in my vulnerable position. Your ladyship must—”
“Then it was you who initiated this, who did the enticing, the seducing!”
Helen’s face flamed. “Of course not!”
Lady Overton stared at her with something like confusion. “Well, you cannot have it both ways. I do not know now whether I am glad or sorry that Mr. Marshall brought you back here. I am disgusted to have to deal with it, and yet I wanted to give you this chance to defend yourself.”
“Wait,” Helen exclaimed, staring at her. “What did you just say? That Mr. Marshall brought me back here?”
“In the teeth of Sir Marcus’s opposition after the brute hit him.”
This was like some nightmare where all the elements of truth were there but twisted around somehow to mean something quite different.
“It wasn’t like that,” Helen said with an odd feeling of helplessness.
“Sir Marcus did not strike Mr. Marshall?”
“Well, yes, he did, for abducting me!”
“She told me you would claim that,” Lady Overton said bitterly.
She. Helen’s lips parted in shock. Though she shouldn’t have been surprised. A woman who stole from her hosts and calmly planted her loot in the chamber of a young man, ruining his life simply to further her own perverse schemes, would think nothing of lying to Lady Overton. Of getting revenge on Helen for the ruining of her pet project to marry Anne to Marcus for his money. She had even forged a letter as proof.