Helena stood alone in the vast drawing room, feeling the sting of Sabine’s casual cruelty.
She had been dismissed, weighed, and found wanting.
It was a familiar feeling, but it had never felt quite so sharp.
That evening, a carriage arrived bearing not a malicious society beauty, but an ally.
Lady Levenia, the Dowager Duchess of Blackwood, Marcus’s great-aunt, swept into Ravensdale like a cleansing storm.
She was a woman in her late seventies, small and birdlike, with eyes as bright and sharp as a hawk’s.
She took one look at the cold, silent hall, another at Helena’s pale face, and a third at her nephew’s grim expression, and made a small sound of disapproval.
“Good heavens, Marcus,” she declared, her voice surprisingly robust. “This house feels like a tomb, and you look like its chief mourner. It has been six months. Edward would not have wanted this.”
She turned to Helena, and her sharp eyes softened just a little.
“And you must be Helena. Come here, child.”
Helena approached, and the old woman took her hands.
Her fingers were bony but surprisingly warm.
“A pretty thing, but you are too pale, and that dress is entirely the wrong color for you. We will need to see to that. I am Levenia.”
Over the next few days, Lady Levenia’s presence began to subtly alter the atmosphere of the house. She insisted on fires being built up in every room. She had the dust covers removed from the furniture in the drawing room.
She ordered Hemlock to use the smaller, more intimate dining parlor for their meals, declaring she would not shout down the length of that absurd banqueting table.
She talked.
At dinner, she filled the silence with stories, sharp observations, and questions that demanded answers. She drew Helena out, asking about her family, her upbringing, and her interests, and she prodded at Marcus, chipping away at his silent reserve with a persistence that he could not entirely ignore.
One afternoon, she found Helena in her sitting room, staring out at the rain-lashed gardens.
“He is watching you, you know,” Levenia said, settling into a chair opposite her.
Helena started.
“Who?”
“Marcus. He watches you when you go out on your walks. He watches you with that horse.”
Helena said nothing.
“That horse was Edward’s,” Levenia continued softly. “Edward adored that animal. He was the only one who could handle him. After the boy died, the horse became wild with grief, just like his master.”
She paused, her gaze keen.
“And now you, a quiet girl they all dismissed, and the horse lowers its head to you. It is a thing of note, Helena. Do not underestimate it.”
Levenia’s words were a comfort, a small point of warmth in the cold, but they were also a warning.
She was becoming a person of note in a house that preferred ghosts.
The Duke did not countermand his great-aunt’s changes.
He seemed to retreat even further into himself, a silent observer in his own home.