Page 89 of The Matrimonial Advertisement

Helena took her time responding. She had a sense that his question had more to do with his own demons than with hers. “Yes, I do. Fear and anger shouldn’t be the guiding principles of one’s life.”

“What’s the alternative? To forgive and forget?”

“Ideally.”

His gaze rested on her face. “Can you forgive your uncle for what he’s done to you? Can you forgive Mr. Glyde?”

“Mr. Glyde? Definitely not. But my relationship with my uncle is rather more complicated. He wasn’t always the man he is today.”

“No?” Justin sounded skeptical.

“Indeed. When I was a girl, I thought him a jolly fellow. Whenever he came to visit, he’d hide treats in his pockets for me to find. He was always bringing me little presents. A paper fan or a miniature horse carved out of ebony. Once, when I was very small, he even brought me a spaniel puppy.” Helena smiled slightly to recall it. “My father objected, of course. He didn’t want anyone to spoil me. But Uncle Edward insisted I be allowed to keep her.”

“You have fond memories of the man.”

“Despite everything, yes. I do.”

“But you can’t forgive him.”

“No,” she said. “Not yet. Possibly not ever. But I must find a way to get past it and go on living. I can’t allow the pain they’ve inflicted to pull me down into the mire.”

“It won’t. You’re too strong for that.”

“I’m not strong, Justin. I’d already half given up by the time I met you. The night of the storm, when you found me on the cliff’s ledge, I was quite prepared to die.”

“You were terrified. And understandably so.”

“Yes,” she acknowledged quietly. “But I can’t continue being terrified. Even if there’s cause. I have to find a way back to the person I was before this nightmare began. If I don’t, my uncle and Mr. Glyde will have won.”

That night, they visited the Haymarket Theatre. The only production Mr. Finchley had been able to procure tickets to on such short notice was a new play entitled The Lamented Friend. It was billed as a comedietta, but there were not many scenes which inspired humor. The storyline featured an unhappy widow who, though lately married to a marquis, did nothing but lament the loss of her dear departed first husband. The audience hissed their displeasure far more than they laughed or applauded.

With Jenny’s help, Helena had dressed carefully in an evening gown of blue glacé silk with deep triple flounces and short laced-trimmed sleeves. The heart-shaped neckline was fashionably low, revealing a greater expanse of her bosom than she’d ever displayed in Justin’s presence—unless one counted the night he’d stripped her out of her wet clothes.

It was nothing more or less daring than what she’d worn on previous visits to the theatre, but it nevertheless made her feel vaguely self-conscious.

“I’d be more comfortable with a bertha,” she’d told Jenny. A lace bertha collar was wide and round, attaching at the throat and covering the neck and shoulders. Many ladies paired them with their dresses.

“Why? Your bruises have faded well enough. The ones that haven’t are well-hidden by your gloves and your sleeves.”

“It’s not the bruises that concern me. It’s my modesty. I’d prefer to cover up.”

“And have everyone remark on it?” Jenny had shaken her head. “No. It’s bad enough you have no jewelry. I’ll not have people say you’ve become a dowd.”

Seated in the second tier private box that Mr. Finchley had managed to obtain for them, Helena didn’t feel very dowdy. Even so, she had no doubt that people were talking about her. In the light of the gas lamps and the glittering pendant chandelier, she’d seen many a pair of opera glasses trained on her—and on Justin, too.

“They’ll drop in at the interval,” she said. “They’ll want to meet you.”

Justin appeared unperturbed by this information. In his black evening coat and trousers, a cream silk cravat knotted at his neck, he looked perfectly at home among the throng of well-dressed gentlemen and fashionably clad ladies. He also looked remarkably handsome. “It’s what we’re here for.”

She looked at him a moment longer, a queer ache of longing twisting in her chest. When he turned and caught her gaze, she offered him a faint, rueful smile. “Do you wish you were back in Devon?”

“At the Abbey?”

“You have so much to do there. Mr. Boothroyd must be at sixes and sevens without you.”

“He’ll manage,” Justin said. “Besides, where in King’s Abbot could we have had an evening such as this?”

Helena opened the delicate paper fan she wore on a silken cord at her wrist. Its leaves were painted with an elaborately detailed scene of a grand house in the country set in a scenic landscape. Giles had purchased it for her from the celebrated fanmaker M. Duvelleroy when they’d visited the Crystal Palace so many years before.