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“I hadn’t thought to wear them here,” Helene said, startled.

“That you will,” Saunders stated. “I’m not having a light-heeled wench come out more elegantly dressed than the countess herself.”

“I’ve met Rees’s friend, Saunders. She’s very young.”

Saunders narrowed her eyes. “Face paints as well.”

Helene sighed. “In that case, we should probably begin unpacking, because Rees generally eats the evening meal at an earlier hour than we’re used to.”

In truth, she was only barely ready when a dull gong downstairs signaled the dinner hour. Helene looked at herself in the slightly cracked glass of a dressing table that Leke had obviously found in the attic and slung into her bedchamber. She had chosen a simple gown of white muslin, embroidered at the hem and around the sleeves with gold thread. Its great secret was that the muslin was as light as thistledown and constructed in such a way that the hem rippled out around her ankles, and even fell to a small train in the back that floated behind her. The bodice wasn’t low, nor were the sleeves uncomfortably small. It was comfortable, airy, dignified—and yet, ravishing, as the Earl of Mayne might say.

Helene smiled at herself. Thinking of the way Mayne had called her enchanting, and then touched her cheek, she found the courage to go downstairs.

If the truth be told, Helene had had very little contact with strumpets. She knew they wore garish colors on their cheeks, and gowns that barely hid their nipples. She knew that they pleasured men. She had met Rees’s opera singer two years ago, when Rees brought her to the opera and to their box. Helene shuddered at the mere memory. She had made stilted conversation with Rees, while Major Kersting conversed with the singer.

As Leke opened the door to the sitting room, Helene had to pause to collect herself. Lina McKenna had changed. This was no untried green girl.

Sitting next to Rees’s brother was one of the most beautiful women Helene had ever seen in her life. Her hair was swirled on top of her head in a gleaming mass of brown curls; Helene felt an instant stab of pain for the loss of her own hair. Her eyes were glowing with intelligence, curiosity and laughter. And her evening gown was neither outrageously revealing nor did it exhibit more décolletage than might any young woman in polite society. But she was obviously endowed with a bosom that rivaled Esme’s.

Helene nearly turned and ran straight back to her room. How could she sit in the same room with this ravishing creature—she, a dried up old stick? Why, if Miss McKenna were brought out as a debutante, she would have been judged a diamond of the first water.

But then Rees looked up and saw her. It was just a glance, but his eyes dropped from her hair to her toes. Helene couldn’t read his reaction, but she didn’t have to. He would be disdainful. Why should she care if she presented an unappetizing contrast to his mistress? After all, in comparison to the Earl of Mayne’s sleek beauty, Rees’s shaggy hair, great burly body, and all those heavy muscles were most unattractive.

She walked into the room and Rees’s brother jumped to his feet and came toward her, holding out his hands. “Helene,” Tom said, kissing her hand quickly, “you look exquisite.”

She beamed at him. He had the same sweet brown eyes that she remembered from the first year of her and Rees’s marriage. Truly, he was a very good-looking man: rather like Rees, except he was groomed and civilized. “It’s lovely to see you again, Mr. Holland.” And she really meant it.

“Please call me Tom,” he said, squeezing her hands. “Are you quite certain that you wish to be here under these circumstances?”

She smiled again, but knew that this smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Rees and I have an understanding,” she said, turning to the couch.

Miss McKenna had risen as well. The better to show off her remarkable figure, Helene thought to herself sourly. “Lady Godwin,” she said, dropping into a curtsy that would have sufficed when meeting the Queen, “may I say that it is a surprise to meet you?”

Helene nodded in reply. “I find myself in the grip of something like amazement as well.” She could not curtsy to her husband’s mistress; she simply could not. Instead she sat down and found that she was shaking. She gripped her hands tightly, in her lap.

“I’ll bring you a brandy,” her brother-in-law said in a low voice. “I’ll be right back.”

Helene never drank spirits, but she swallowed the whole glassful and concentrated on the burning liquid running down her throat. If she had had any idea that Miss McKenna was so beautiful, Rees would have had to drag her on the back of his horse before she agreed. When she met Rees’s opera singer two years ago, Miss McKenna was a mere lass, a tongue-tied girl, whereas now she was formidable.

The brandy settled in her stomach, giving her Dutch courage. I can do this for one month, Helene told herself. One month, that’s all. One month. She and Esme had decided that Rees had to be recruited to do his husbandly duty once a day. For a month.

Tom brought her another glass of brandy, and Helene drained it, sending another path of raw fire blazing down into her stomach. “Steady now,” he said in a vicarish type of voice.

He truly was a sweet man. “What a shame that I didn’t marry you,” she said, with a little hiccup. “You have the same dark hair and eyes as my dissolute husband over there, and you would never—never—”

“Probably not,” Tom said, patting her hand again. “But I don’t know a thing about music either.”

“Oh,” Helene said. “That’s a shame.” She was beginning to feel altogether more cheerful. So what if her husband had a ladybird next to him on the couch? Why should it bother her? She could have had the Earl of Mayne or any number of others offering her compliments, if she so wished.

She got up with just the slightest stumble and walked back over toward the fireplace. “I forgot to say hello to you,” she said to Rees.

“Helene,” he said. Far from cuddling up to his mistress, he was scribbling on a piece of paper and looked utterly unaware of the tensions circling through the room.

Helene seated herself next to Lina, ignoring Tom’s little gestures of anxiety. “We probably should discuss a few things,” she said, trying very hard to remember what they were.

Lina’s eyes were bubbling with amusement in a way that reminded Helene of Esme. Not that Esme was an improper woman. No. No indeed. She’d lost track of her thought again.

“I believe we should have supper now,” Tom said, rather desperately. “Rees, why don’t you summon Leke and tell him that we must eat?”