Read Chapter 5: A Convenient Fiction

The Aldersgate townhouse sat in Grosvenor Square like a dowager duchess at a village dance—grand, immovable, and quietly judging everyone who approached it. Helena paused at the iron railings, smoothing the sky-blue merino of her traveling dress and wishing she had thought to bring gloves that did not smell of the carriage horse.

“Lady Helena,” her father murmured, offering his arm. “You look as though you are about to face a firing squad, not a drawing room.”

“I would prefer the firing squad. At least that is honest.”

Lord Ashworth’s mouth tightened, but he said nothing. They had rehearsed the story twice on the journey from Whitbury: a call of courtesy upon the Dowager Countess of Aldersgate, whose late husband had been a dear friend of Helena’s mother. It was true enough, insofar as any of it was true. Helena’s mother had once attended a garden party at Aldersgate Court. That was the full extent of the friendship.

The butler who admitted them had the polished neutrality of a man who had seen a thousand hopeful visitors and forgotten all of them by supper. He showed them into a front parlor done in shades of sage and cream, where a woman sat behind a silver tea service like a general behind a field table.

Lady Aldersgate was not the powdered fossil Helena had imagined. She was perhaps sixty, with sharp grey eyes that missed nothing and a mouth that had not decided whether to smile. She assessed Helena for exactly the length of time it took to pour a cup of tea, then set the pot down.

“So. You are Cora’s girl.”

Helena’s breath caught. Her mother’s name had not been spoken in company for years.

“Yes, my lady.”

“You have her chin. And her stubbornness, if the gossip from Whitbury is any indication.” The dowager’s eyes flicked to Lord Ashworth, who had the grace to color. “Sit down, both of you. I have no patience for people who hover.”

They sat. Helena accepted tea she did not want, because refusing would have been rude, and because she needed to occupy her hands before they betrayed her by twisting in her lap.

“I understand you have come to London for Lord Marsden’s gathering,” the dowager said.

“Yes, my lady. My father—” Helena paused, remembering the other part of their rehearsed fiction. The part that had not been her idea, exactly, but which had grown in her mind like a weed on the journey south. “My father wished to see me settled before the season begins in earnest.”

“Settled.” The dowager’s brow rose a fraction. “You have a suitor in mind, then?”

Helena’s throat went dry. Her father shot her a warning look, but she had already committed to the path. It was a terrible plan, a desperate one, the kind of lie that could unravel at any moment. But Julian Ashford had the advantage of money and masculine confidence, and she had nothing but her wits and the fading hope of Aldersgate patronage.

“As a matter of fact, my lady,” she heard herself say, “I expect to announce an engagement very soon. To Lord Eastman. A neighbor of ours in Whitbury.”

The name came out of her mouth and hung in the air like a bad smell. Lord Eastman. A widower of sixty with a fondness for port and a racing stable that had not produced a winner in a decade. He had once asked Helena’s father for her hand, and had been sent away with a flea in his ear.

But the dowager did not know that.

“Eastman,” she repeated slowly. “I knew an Eastman in the West Indies. Pockmarked fellow with a squint.”

“This is a different Eastman,” Helena said, with a serenity that surprised even her. “A finer specimen entirely.”

Lady Aldersgate studied her for a long moment. Then, to Helena’s relief, she smiled—a thin, knowing smile that did not quite reach her eyes.

“Well. Congratulations are in order, I suppose. A woman with an engagement ring is always more . . . acceptable.” She set down her cup. “You may tell your young man that the Aldersgate Stakes breakfast will be looking for a patroness to crown the season. If you wish to be considered, you will attend the next assembly at Marsden House with your ring clearly visible.”

Helena’s heart kicked against her ribs. “We would be honored, my lady.”

“Don’t be honored. Be punctual.”

They remained for the proper ten minutes, exchanging pleasantries about the weather and the state of the roads. Helena smiled so hard her jaw ached. When the butler finally showed them out, she felt as though she had run a race and won by a nose.

But she had barely set foot on the pavement when a voice she recognized all too well cut through the spring air like a blade.

“Lord Eastman.”

She turned. Julian Ashford stood against the railing of the house next door—a rented residence, she thought, or perhaps his London base—with his arms folded and his expression unreadable. He must have been waiting for her. He must have heard everything.

“Mr. Ashford,” she said coolly. “What a surprise.”

“Is it? You seemed to have taken up residence at the center of my thoughts, Lady Helena. I could hardly let you have the Aldersgate woman to yourself.” He stepped forward, and she caught the scent of expensive soap and something sharper beneath it. Cigar smoke, perhaps, or rage. “Tell me, how long have you been engaged to Lord Eastman? It must be very recent, given that you were quite clearly unattached when you called me a blackguard in my own drawing room four days ago.”

“My affairs are none of your business.”

“On the contrary.” His voice dropped, low and dangerous. “Everything you do in London is very much my business. We have a wager, in case you have forgotten. First to secure the dowager’s patronage claims the estate. And you, Lady Helena, have just told her the most audacious lie I have ever heard from a woman who was not on a stage.”

Helena felt heat climb up her neck, but she refused to look away. “It is not a lie. Lord Eastman and I are . . . considering our options.”

“You are no more considering Lord Eastman than I am considering a nun for a bride.” Julian moved closer, and now he was near enough that she could see the flecks of gold in his dark eyes, the slight tightening at the corner of his mouth. “I was at the Whitbury assembly two years ago when Eastman proposed to you in the punch room. You slapped him so hard he lost his spectacles.”

Helena’s stomach dropped. “You were not there.”

“I was,” he said simply. “I had come to look at your father’s horses. I saw the whole spectacle. And I know—as surely as I know the sun will rise—that you would rather marry a horse than Lord Eastman.”

She said nothing. There was nothing to say. He had caught her out completely, and they both knew it.

Julian studied her for a long moment, and something in his expression shifted—not softening, exactly, but sharpening into something more focused. More dangerous.

“I will not expose you,” he said finally. “Not yet. Not for free.”

“What do you want?”

“I want you to understand what you are playing at.” He was very close now, close enough that she had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes. “You have told Lady Aldersgate you are engaged. She will expect to see this Lord Eastman. She will expect a ring. She will expect a wedding date. And when your fiction collapses—as it will—you will look like a liar, and the Aldersgate patronage will go to me by default.”

“If you think I will let that happen—”

“I think you will do whatever it takes to save your father’s estate,” Julian said quietly. “And I respect that, Lady Helena. I respect it more than you know. Which is why I am offering you a way out.”

She waited, heart pounding.

“I will support your fiction,” he said. “I will tell the dowager that Lord Eastman and I are close friends, that he has told me of his intentions, that it is a match of genuine affection. I will make your lie credible.”

Helena stared at him. “Why would you do that?”

“Because I want you to owe me,” Julian said, and smiled—a thin, wolfish smile that did not reach his eyes. “When the wager is won, and I own the land, I want you to remember that I helped you when you needed it most. I want you to know, beyond any doubt, that you lost to a man who played fair.”

“You think you will win.”

“I think,” Julian said, stepping back and tipping his hat, “that you have just made this season far more interesting than I ever expected. Good day, Lady Helena. I shall look forward to seeing you and Lord Eastman at Marsden House.”

He walked away, leaving Helena standing on the pavement with her heart hammering and her lies piling up around her like snow.