“So I was right.”
“You were.”
“But you are not leaving.”
“I could never leave you here,” Mary said. “This estate is grand and beautiful, but you need someone at your side who knows you.” She paused. “Speaking of which — did I see you and His Grace taking a walk together this morning?”
Helena looked away. “Yes. Before he went to meet with his steward, he and I walked around the lake. It was very?—”
“Pleasant?” Mary said. “I saw the two of you laughing.”
“He said something amusing. He has always had a healthy sense of humour. I have always appreciated it.” She paused. “Huxley never made me laugh. Not after the first few meetings, and even then it was more out of politeness.”
Mary’s smile widened considerably. “You do this often these days. Comparing His Grace to your former husband.”
She had known she was doing it. She had not been aware she was doing it out loud, in front of Mary. Had she been doing it in front of anyone else?
“Do not fret,” Mary said, as though reading her thoughts. “I only notice because I know you better than anyone. But you are not wrong to compare them — if only to show yourself what a good man His Grace truly is.”
“I know it.”
“Lord Vale would never have attempted to make daisy chains with you.”
She laughed at this. She could not help it. “No. He never would.”
“Did you notice that the one you made together is hanging in his study?”
She had, in fact, noticed that. “Yes,” she said. “He tries very hard to be kind to Lavinia. I do not think he will make a bad father figure to her at all.”
“He is not only trying to be kind to her,” Mary said. “He is trying to be kind to you. And I think you know that.”
“I do,” she admitted. “I really do. But we can never be anything more than what we are.”
“Why? Because of the past? Because Lord Vale was a dreadful husband?”
The memory of her time with Huxley pressed in on her, uncomfortable and unwelcome. She shook her head, trying to clear it.
“I was mistaken once,” she said. “I was under the illusion that he loved me, and I was wrong. This time I know better.”
“Do you?” Mary said. “Or are you judging a man who might be a truly wonderful husband by the actions of a man who was, by all accounts, a very poor one?”
She wet her lips. “Huxley was not always bad. When he chose to be charming, he could be very charming indeed.”
“No,” Mary agreed. “He was not always bad. But I saw the other side of him. That side I have not once seen in your current husband.”
She was quiet.
“In any case,” she said at last, “even if I were to consider making our marriage a real one — he has made it clear that he does not want that. He was hurt by Cassandra. He does not believe in love any more than I do.”
“That is the thing about love,” Mary said. “You do not always have to believe in it for it to find you. Sometimes it finds you whether you believe in it or not. All I am saying is — do not shut out the possibility of it because of old wounds.”
Helena swallowed. She knew Mary was right. She knew she ought not to judge him by her past. But knowing it and following through on it were two different things.
“By the way,” Mary said, and pointed to a trunk in the corner. “Has he told you about this yet?”
“No. What is it?”
“Gothic novels. Apparently he came across them in the village — a man who was moving away and had intended to start a circulating library but had received a better offer elsewhere. He left the entire trunk, and His Grace paid him handsomely for it, because they are almost all of them Gothic novels, which he knows you like.”
