Something else Lord Vale would never have done.
Mary patted her arm and left, leaving Helena alone with the trunk. She opened it. Inside, she found several of her favorites, along with many she had never read but had always intended to. Her chest warmed, and the warmth spread until she could feel it throughout her entire body.
He was trying so hard. And she had been judging him for things that were not his fault at all.
She had been wrong to do so.
She got up and made her way out of the library. Her footsteps were swallowed by the heavy carpet as she walked down the corridor, a smile pulling at her lips. She was going to thank him. She was going to thank him for the books, and for his kindness, and she was going to suggest that they take breakfast together in the mornings as well as dinner — with Lavinia, properly, as a family. She would like that. And Gideon? She was almost certain he would be delighted.
She came down to the main floor and walked through the portrait gallery, past the ancestors Gideon was only loosely connected to, toward the dark back corner where his study was situated.
The door flew open before she reached it — flew open with such force that the handle cracked into the wall and ricocheted back, very nearly catching the man who was stepping out.
“This is not the end of it, Your Grace,” the man said. “I will not be dismissed in such a manner.”
“You will most certainly be dismissed in such a manner,” Gideon replied, “because you have thoroughly deserved it. I will not suffer such mismanagement on my estate.”
“Your predecessor was ten times the man you are.”
“Well then it is a considerable shame that he got himself killed in a curricle race, is it not? Though I dare say the farmers will be rather the better for it, given how thoroughly you have been robbing them on his behalf.”
“Corrupt? I will not be spoken to?—”
“In fact, you will, and you have been, and now you are dismissed.” His voice rose to something she had never heard before — a low, hard roar, his right arm extended, one finger pointing toward the door. “Get out.”
The man turned. He spotted Helena pressed into the corner where the two walls met, and faltered for a moment.
“Excuse me, Your Grace,” he said, and then walked quickly down the hall and out of sight.
“Helena,” Gideon said, when he saw her. His voice had dropped. “What is the matter?”
“I do not like that manner of conduct,” she said. Her voice was very quiet.
“Neither do I,” he said. “He was out of line. He has been stealing from us — from the farmers — mismanaging?—”
“No,” she said. “I mean — the way you raised your voice. The way you spoke to him. The anger.” She pressed her back against the wall. “I do not want that in my house.”
“The anger?” He looked genuinely taken aback. “You heard how he spoke to me. Was I simply to stand there and let him say whatever he pleased in my own home?”
“No,” she said, and even as she said it she knew it was unreasonable, knew that her reaction was not about him and not about the steward — and yet her body was rigid and she could not stop the words coming. “But I do not want that behaviour. Not here.”
“Lavinia is nowhere near,” he said. “And I would never raise my voice to her, or to you, or to anyone who did not thoroughly deserve it. He was stealing from us. He was stealing from our tenants?—”
“I do not care,” she said. “I do not want it.”
She slipped past him and walked quickly down the corridor, her heels ringing against the exposed boards before the carpet swallowed the sound. She was almost to the stairs when she heard him behind her, and then his hand closed around her wrist — not hard, not painful, but enough. The panic surged through her before she could catch it. She spun around and yanked her hand free, and stood staring at him, breathing fast.
His face had been full of frustration. But when his eyes met hers, all of that changed at once, and what replaced it was something else — a look of slow, dawning, and appalled understanding.
CHAPTER 26
HELENA
“Helena,” he said. “I have not raised my voice at you.”
He let go of her arm as he said it, because he could see that she looked utterly frightened, and that alarmed him considerably more than her anger had.
“Are you afraid of me?” he asked.
