Wedded in Scandal (33 page)

“She was Chandelle’s madame, once upon a time. Quite a beauty, too. Used to run three houses with twenty girls each.”

Helaine gasped, her eyes going back to the shut door. “She pulled girls into this life? Into—”

“Don’t judge,” he said quickly. “The girls would be taking men either way. Best they do it in a clean, safe place where they’re paid for their service.” He turned to her, and
in his eyes she could see that he wanted her to understand, to see the women beneath the job.

“Of course,” she said slowly. She well knew the desperate straits a woman could face. She would not judge any woman who chose that path. But what about the woman who paved the road? Who trapped others into the life? In her mind, they were all like Johnny Bono, taking advantage where they could in service to their own base needs.

She felt his hand on her chin, encouraging her to look him in the eye. “This is a place for women to come and die with dignity. Or to heal from wounds, like Nettie. She was stabbed by her customer because he didn’t want to pay. Chandelle mans the door, and only she can ask what happened to bring them here. I don’t care. Can you understand that, Helaine? I don’t care who they were. Only what I see before me: sick women who need a little care.”

Helaine swallowed, ashamed of her own prejudices. She never would have thought that Robert would have a better understanding of the poor and the weak than she. She never would have thought he would prove to be kinder than she. But he was. This place proved it.

“Show me the rest, Robert. Let me see it all.”

His smile showed relief and joy, and before long, she was peeking in on ten ladies, plus Chandelle and the children. And then on the topmost floor was one last room, which he proclaimed his sanctuary. Pushing it open, she saw a ratty desk piled high with notes, another table of bottles containing what must be medicines, a plate of cold chicken and wine—their dinner, she presumed—and a large, comfortable bed stacked high with pillows.

“Please come in, Helaine,” he said. “There is but one thing more, and then you shall know it all.”

“All, my lord? Everything there is about you? If there is one thing I have learned this evening, it is that there are always more layers to you than I imagine.”

He shrugged. “My heart, then, Helaine. You shall learn my true heart.”

Robert swung the door wide and watched as she crossed
the threshold into his sanctuary. No woman had ever come in here. Doctors and apothecaries aplenty, but they were always men. Even Chandelle never dared breach this place. In truth, he had needed all that time this afternoon just to clean up the room to make it habitable for her.

And now she was here. His Helaine, looking about with wide eyes. “I don’t understand,” she said softly, turning back to him with an apology in her eyes.

“Of course not. I haven’t explained.” He took her hand and drew her forward to his desk. He pulled out a large ledger and opened it up to a random page. “This is my recording of all the patients who have passed through these doors. Their ailments, their medications, and how they fared.”

She reached forward, gently turning page after page. “There are so many.”

“I have been doing this since I was sixteen.” He flipped the pages back to the beginning. At sixteen his handwriting was less neat, more rushed. Some lines weren’t even straight,
but it was undeniably his hand. “Half of the women died in that terrible time, but half did not. Many of those who survived have gone on to other employment, other lives. See here. Martha became a maid and eventually married a footman she met there. They have children now. One of them is apprenticed as a clerk at the Home Office.”

“Truly? That’s remarkable!”

He nodded. He was especially pleased with how well Martha had done. “She’s one of my favorites. Others have not been as strong.”

He was flipping through pages, remembering the women who had come through these doors. He had treated them all, tried to help them all. But he stopped when Helaine’s fingers touched his. “Did you pay for his education? Martha’s boy?”

“Some.” It was a lie. He had paid for all of it and counted it money well spent.

“And all these women who became maids. That was off of your recommendation, wasn’t it?”

“God, no! I am just ‘Sir’ here. I couldn’t give them recommendations, but I could coach them. I could tell them what to say, how to appear, and…um…”

“How to forge recommendations?”

He shrugged. “Perhaps. I have a friend in an employment office. He understands the nature of what we do here and has been willing to help.”

She shook her head. “That was quite a risk. What if one of them had begun thieving? What if a woman went back to her old life? Your friend would not help you anymore.”

“There have been some bad choices,” he said slowly. “But Chandelle tells me when the girl is ready,
if
she is ready. Truthfully, that is more her work than mine.” Then he grabbed Helaine’s hand and took her to his array of herbs and medicines. “
This
is my work. Teas, herbs, medicines. I have discovered some wonderful things for coughs. This herb when mixed with butter is amazingly soothing on lesions. It doesn’t cure them, of course, but it calms the itch and that helps it heal.”

He continued to point out bottles, even showing her the ledger where he recorded recipes that he had discovered. He was about to show her a grimoire he had found in an old bookshop. He hadn’t cared for all the magical occult things, but the tracts on tinctures were most interesting. But as he was reaching for the book, she started to laugh. It started as a chuckle that she tried to cover but failed. Within a moment, she was chortling while he straightened with a look of mock affront.

“Are you laughing at me, Helaine?”

“No, Robert, actually I am laughing at…well, at this place, at these ledgers, all this study. And yes, I suppose I am laughing at you, but only in the best possible way. My God, Robert, you do realize that I understand almost nothing of this.”

He frowned. “But it’s simple really.”

“As is stitching a straight line, but I cannot seem to do it.” And when he just looked at her, she took his hands and drew them to her heart. “I don’t understand it, Robert, but I think it’s wonderful. You are like a little boy here, excited, focused, and so happy you can barely contain it.”

He smiled, trying to see the room as she might. It was a wonder she did not think him a madman. “I love this,” he said honestly. “If I were born a laborer, I would have apprenticed myself to a surgeon. I would have learned medicine from him, and then—”

“But surely you could do so now. There are lectures and the like for other men of science, aren’t there?”

“Yes, yes, and I attend as often as I can. But you don’t understand. As a boy, I was already trailing about after the surgeon. I helped with the cattle, you know, and had even begun following him to the village and the like. But my father didn’t think that was appropriate work for an earl. And besides, there was so much else to do. The family finances were a mess. I didn’t realize the extent of it at first, but I learned. Quickly. And the more I did, the more my father handed over to me.”

“Oh,” she said, and he could tell she was beginning to
understand. “So you turned your mind to your responsibilities.”

“To management, Helaine. That’s all this is,” he said as he gestured about the room. “Management of medicine. Records and experiments. How do you know why one crofter is doing better than another? Why does this cow produce more milk than that one? Why does this mine prosper over another? You don’t know unless you keep records, Helaine. And from the records, you can glean the answer. Maybe the crofter is lazy or maybe he is using the wrong manure. Maybe the cow is sick and maybe the manager of the mine is a self-aggrandizing fool.”

She looked around. “You are keeping records, then. Of medicine.”

“What better thing to manage than humanity’s ailments?”

She smiled at him, her eyes going soft and her body shifting closer to his. She touched his cheek. “Your mind is amazing, Robert. It takes my breath away.”

He shifted his face to press a kiss into her palm. “So you understand? Do you see why I brought you here?”

She remained silent, but he was so absorbed in the feel and smell of her hand that it took him a moment to realize it. Then when he did, he lifted his head to look at her. “You don’t understand, do you? Not yet.”

“Robert, this place is amazing. And I can see that it is indeed where your heart lies. But why—”

“I watched you today,” he said. “I watched how you ordered clothing, how you discussed laces and reticules and hats. Good God, I thought I would go mad from all the details surrounding hats!”

She chuckled, and he could feel her laughter against his skin. “Well, hats are rather complicated.”

“They’re beyond complicated. They’re diabolic. And yet you know just what will suit and what will not.”

“But—”

“Don’t you see, Helaine? You are doing your passion. I never really comprehended it until I saw you this afternoon. Your father was a damned idiot and your life has been very
hard. But in this one thing, he gave you a blessing. You are doing your passion, Helaine. Dress design, hats and ribbons, it is all what you love and you are doing it every day.”

He watched as her expression went from confusion to awareness then to clarity. “You envy me,” she gasped. “You envy my life! Oh, sweet heaven, you are an idiot!”

“No,” he said as he pulled her into his arms. She went willingly, and for that he was grateful. He needed to hold her as he explained. He needed to touch her skin and feel her close as no one had ever been this close to him before. “Well, yes, I envy you. That you can do the work of your heart every day.”

“I do it because I need to pay for my supper.”

“But you love it, too.”

She smiled. “Yes, I love it.”

“Which makes your life enviable.”

She shook her head. “It’s not all perfect, you know.”

“It never is. The point is that I see it now. I see how good you are at fashion and how much you love it. Just like I love all of this.” He twisted her in his arms to indicate the room. “And I would never do anything to stop that. I could never interfere with someone’s love like that.”

She laughed, the humor shimmering from her into him. Or maybe it was the other way around. He didn’t know anything except that she was smiling at him. “And that makes you one big idiot. Robert, this is what you had to show me? This is your heart?”

He sobered, his mind stuttering over the plans he’d made, the thoughts he’d had. Suddenly it didn’t seem so important, so urgent. “I—uh—yes, I thought so.”

Her laughter bubbled up again, but it didn’t last long. Not when she was looking at his very sober face. “Robert?”

“I’d give it up,” he whispered. “I’d give it up for you.”

“What?”

“I had to show you this. I had to take you in here to show you everything that I am. And I guess I had to realize that I want you more.”

She pulled back, but his arms tightened around her. “Robert, you’re not making sense.”

“I know I’m not. It’s because I just now figured it out. I haven’t been in here for a long while, not because I didn’t want to, but because I…I was thinking about you. And even when I was here, it was because of you. I…You’re more important to me than this.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I can’t be.”

He frowned, his mind still churning with his thoughts, his emotions. But in the end, he straightened up enough to look her in the eye. “Helaine, you are as important to me as all of this. More even, though that thought terrifies me in a way you can’t even imagine. A woman more important than what I have wanted my whole life?” He shook his head. “Inconceivable.”

“Robert—”

“But it’s true. I swear to you, it’s true.”

She pulled backward, not quite out of his arms, but she put more distance between them. “You’re getting carried away.”

“I know!” he cried, half alarmed, half incredulous. “And I never get carried away! Helaine, what have you done to me?”

She threw up her hands. “I have done nothing but tell you no. Over and over.”

He laughed. “You know that’s not the reason. Scores of women have refused me over the years.”

She released her own sharp bark of laughter. “Scores? I hardly think that’s likely.”

“Well, dozens at least. At least one dozen.”

“Robert, you are being foolish. Come now,” she said as she pushed at his shoulders. “Release me.”

He shook his head and slowly tightened his grip. He didn’t have to force her. She was reluctant, not refusing. “I don’t want to let you go, Helaine.” Her head was down, but he could put his mouth next to her cheek. He coaxed her gently to lift her face to his. “I want to keep you close forever.”

“I never thought you one for pretty lies, Robert.”

“That’s just the thing,” he said as he closed his eyes. He stopped trying to tempt her and just held her, breathing in
her essence and feeling her glorious warmth. “They’re not lies.”

“Of course they’re lies,” she said. “Even if you mean them right now.”