“Unexpectedly,” Lady Berwick said in a soft undertone, “my husband’s heir has come to meet you. You need say very little to him. Straighten your spine.”
With no more preparation than that, Helen found herself pulled into the receiving room.
“Lady Helen,” the countess said evenly, “this is my nephew, Mr. Vance.”
Chapter 23
HELEN FELT AN ALL-OVER sting, as if she’d been dropped into a flash-fire. Then she couldn’t feel anything at all except the brutal pounding of her heart, like a fist beating against a closed door. She curtsied without lifting her gaze.
“How do you do?” she heard him murmur. A pleasant voice, dry and smooth, not too deep.
Some outside force seemed to be guiding Helen’s actions. She entered the room and went to a chair near the settee, arranging her skirts by force of habit. After Vance had occupied the settee, she brought herself to look at him.
Albion Vance was singularly handsome in a way that made her skin crawl. She had never seen anyone who looked like him, his complexion white and incongruously youthful, his eyes pale gray-blue, his cropped hair snow-colored and gleaming like the inside of an oyster shell. His honed features reminded her of the thin-nosed wax heads in barbershop windows, set out to display the latest hairdressing styles. He was an average-sized man, lean and compactly built, his legs crossed with feline grace.
With an unpleasant shock of recognition, Helen saw that his brows and lashes were dark, just as hers were. Oh, how peculiar this was—she was grateful for the unearthly calm that had settled over her, muffling every sensation.
Vance regarded her with a detached stare. There was something corrupt and magnetic about him, the sense of an icy flame animating a self-interested spirit.
“You remind me of your mother,” he observed. “Although you are more delicate.”
Perfectly aware that she had instantly been assessed and found lacking, Helen asked, “Were you acquainted with her, Mr. Vance? I don’t recall having seen you at Eversby Priory.”
“From time to time I saw her at social events, when she was at town.” He smiled, revealing a perfect row of small white teeth. “A captivating beauty. Childlike in her impetuosity. She loved to dance and couldn’t keep her feet still when music was playing. One time I told her that she reminded me of that charming tale, the one with the red shoes.”
Helen had always hated that story, in which a little girl who had dared to wear red shoes to her confirmation had been doomed to dance in them until she died. “You’re referring to the one by Hans Christian Andersen? It’s a morality tale about the wages of sin, is it not?”
His smile faded, and his gaze returned to hers, now appraising rather than dismissive. “I confess, I don’t recall the moral of the story.”
“No doubt it’s been a long time since you’ve read it.” Helen made her face into the inscrutable mask that had always annoyed the twins and provoked them to call her a sphinx. “The red shoes become instruments of death, after a girl yields to temptation.”
Vance regarded her suspiciously, clearly wondering if that had been a deliberate dig. “I was sorry to learn of your mother’s passing, and more recently, of your father and brother. These have been tragic times for the Ravenels.”
“We hope for better days ahead,” Helen said in a neutral tone.
Vance turned to Lady Berwick with an unsettling, foxlike grin. “The Ravenels seem to be recovering nicely. Our clever Kathleen has certainly wasted no time in snapping up the next Earl of Trenear.”
The countess couldn’t entirely conceal her annoyance at the implication that Kathleen had married Devon out of calculation and opportunism. “It is a love match,” she said shortly.
“So was her first marriage. How convenient for Kathleen that she loves so easily.”
Helen loathed him. There was something polluted about him, something unappeasably cruel. She was appalled that his blood ran through her veins. She remembered what Rhys had said a few nights earlier: Any child of his is demon spawn, and would come to no good. Now having met Vance, she had to agree. How could her mother have fallen under the spell of a man like this? How could Peggy Crewe?
It must be that evil had its own attractions, just as goodness did.
Vance turned back to her. “Lady Helen, I have heard that you are engaged to marry Mr. Winterborne. A pity that you must take a husband outside your appropriate sphere. But still, my congratulations to you both.”
The comment rankled far more than when Lady Berwick had said the same thing in Hampshire. Only the awareness that Vance was goading her deliberately kept Helen from losing her composure. But she was sorely tempted to reply that if he were so concerned about people staying within their “appropriate spheres,” he should have refrained from having affairs with married women.
“I do hope someone has cautioned you,” Vance continued, “that your children may turn out to be a coarse, rebellious lot, no matter how gently they’re reared. It’s in the blood. One might tame a wolf, but its offspring will always be born wild. The Welsh are volatile and dishonest by nature. They lie easily and often, even when the truth would serve just as well. They love nothing more than to spite their betters, and they will do or say anything to avoid honest work.”
Helen thought of Rhys, who had worked ceaselessly for his entire life, and had done nothing to deserve the contempt of a man born to a life of privilege. Feeling her hands begin to ball into tight fists, she forced them to remain folded in her lap. “How have you come to be so informed on the subject?” she asked.
Lady Berwick tried to intercede. “Mr. Vance, I think—”
“Much of it is common knowledge,” he told Helen. “But I also toured throughout Wales to gather information for a pamphlet I was writing. I felt it my obligation to establish the necessity of banishing the Welsh language from their schools. It’s a poor medium of instruction, and yet they stubbornly insist on clinging to it.”
“Imagine,” Helen said softly.
“Oh yes,” Vance said, either missing the edge of sarcasm, or choosing to ignore it. “Something must be done to awaken their intelligence, and it begins with forcing English on them, whether they like it or not.” As he continued, Helen saw that he was no longer posturing or trying to provoke her, but rather speaking with sincere conviction. “The Welsh must be saved from their own sloth and brutality. As things stand now, they don’t even make fit servants.”
Lady Berwick glanced quickly at Helen’s stiff face, and sought to ease the tension. “You must have found it a relief to return to England from your tour,” she said to Vance.
His reply was emphatic. “I would rather be thrown in the fiery pit of hell than return to Wales.”
Unable to tolerate him for another second, Helen stood and said coolly, “I’m sure that can be arranged, Mr. Vance.”
Caught off guard, Vance rose slowly to his feet. “Why, you—”
“Do excuse me,” Helen said. “I have correspondence to attend to.” And she left the room without another word, fighting every instinct to keep from breaking into a run.
HELEN HAD NO idea how many minutes passed as she lay curled on her bed, using one hand to press a folded handkerchief against her streaming eyes. She tried to breathe around the sharp repeated pains in her throat.