She stroked his face, speaking to him in a low, soothing voice.
Here, with this broken creature, she did not have to be a duchess. She did not have to be a bartered bride.
She could simply be Helena.
She felt eyes on her and looked up toward the house. In one of the tall windows of the library, a figure stood watching.
The Duke.
A dark silhouette against the glass.
He was too far away for her to read his expression, but she knew he was there.
He was watching her break his command, and he was doing nothing.
This became their new, unspoken dynamic.
She would visit the horse, and he would watch from the library window, a silent, distant observation.
The long, cold dinners continued. The formal, empty greetings in the corridors continued.
But something had changed.
The silence was no longer entirely vacant.
It was now filled with his awareness of her.
A week later, a new element arrived to disrupt their fragile, strange equilibrium.
A carriage, far grander than the one that had brought Helena, swept up the drive. It was a high-perch phaeton of gleaming black lacquer and brilliant yellow wheels, driven by a lady with a fashionable feather-plumed hat.
Helena watched from her sitting room window as the lady handed the reins to a groom with an air of careless authority and swept toward the front door.
She was beautiful even from a distance, with a confidence that seemed to radiate from her.
A few minutes later, Hemlock appeared at her door.
“Lady Sabine Finch has called, Your Grace. She is in the drawing room.”
The name was vaguely familiar. She had heard the maids whispering it.
A neighbor.
A frequent visitor before.
Before.
Helena smoothed her plain brown day dress and went downstairs.
She entered the drawing room to find the visitor standing before the fireplace as if she owned it.
Lady Sabine was a vision of London fashion. Her gown was a vibrant sapphire blue, exquisitely cut, her blonde hair arranged in an elaborate cascade of curls.
She turned as Helena entered, a bright, assessing smile on her perfectly painted lips.
“Your Grace,” she said, her voice as smooth and sweet as honey.
She executed a flawless, graceful curtsy.
“Sabine Finch. We are neighbors. I simply had to come and offer my welcome. We were all so surprised to hear of the Duke’s sudden marriage.”
The word surprised was laden with meaning.
It meant shocked.
It meant appalled.
“Lady Sabine,” Helena replied, her voice even. “How kind of you to call.”
“Oh, it is my pleasure. Ravensdale has been so dreadfully grim these past months. We have all been so worried for Marcus.”
She used his given name with a casual intimacy that was clearly designed to sting.
“He has shut himself away entirely. It is a relief to know he will have some company.”
Her eyes swept over Helena’s simple dress, her unadorned hair, her quiet demeanor.