Dangerous Decisions Page 3

  At the sound of her name Nicholas drew back. He saw her cast a bewildered glance at him over her shoulder, but then she was inside the carriage, the coachman was flicking his whip over the backs of two splendid grey horses, and they began to trot away.

  Helena could only sink back against the plush seats of the coach and avert her burning cheeks. As her father began to recount his earlier visit to the National Gallery, she scarcely heard a word. Any confusion she had ever previously felt was as nothing compared to the chaos of her emotions now. What had happened back there? That sense of connection, even of intimacy with a man who was almost a complete stranger. He had felt it too – of that she was certain. Helena lowered her eyelids, not wanting anything to disturb her thoughts. Such vivid, evocative images; even now she could see his eyes, so brown, warm and expressive, the set of his mouth, those broad shoulders …

  Oliver’s voice came as if from a distance. ‘Are you quite well, Helena?’

  As she looked across at him, her first thought was: he is so fair, so different from … ‘Just a slight headache,’ she said. ‘It’s disappearing already.’

  ‘But you are looking forward to the performance?’

  ‘Yes of course.’ Helena doubted whether she would be able to concentrate on a single moment.

  Chapter Four

  A few evenings later, Helena was enjoying being with a good-looking young Lieutenant, despite the fact that she considered he had the intelligence of a flea. He was funny and charming. Already he had proposed to her twice – not that she had revealed this to Beatrice – but she had no intention of accepting him. ‘I think, Tristram,’ she was saying with suppressed laughter, ‘that you think more of that horse of yours than of anyone else. And whatever made you call him Gladiator?’

  ‘Because he’s got such powerful shoulders – am I talking of him too much?’ He gave a rueful smile. ‘You know I’m not very successful with young ladies.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she smiled up at him. ‘You’re terribly good-looking, you know.’

  He brightened up. ‘Really? Then …’

  Helena shook her head. ‘No, Tristram. Please don’t ask me again. Besides …’

  ‘Yes, I know. I don’t stand a chance against— Oh, glory, here he is.’

  She turned to see Oliver walking stiffly towards her. ‘There you are, hiding away in here. Your father and aunt have already gone in to supper.’

  Helena heard the edge in his tone, and said swiftly, ‘Sorry, I hadn’t realised the time. You know Tristram Wade of course?’

  ‘No, I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure.’

  ‘My fault – I’m afraid I kidnapped her,’ Tristram said good-naturedly.

  ‘Did you?’ Oliver’s voice was chilly. ‘Well, I can’t allow that, can I?’

  Helena felt a surge of resentment. She was not engaged to him and even if she was, she had no wish to be owned by anyone, something she had once declared to Beatrice. Her aunt’s reaction had been one of ridicule. ‘A woman stands before God on her wedding day and vows to love and honour and obey her husband. That’s the natural order of things and has been for hundreds of years.’

  If so, then Helena sometimes wondered whether she wanted to get married at all. However, as society and the church dictated that if a woman wanted to have children and a home of her own – and Helena did – then she had no other choice. Although why it should mean a woman relinquishing her right to an independent mind … She gave Tristram a brilliant smile. ‘You know I was a willing captive.’

  His answering grin faded as Oliver, with a granite expression, offered his arm to Helena. ‘Don’t you think we should join the rest of our party?’

  Even though she acquiesced, Oliver could sense a chill in her manner. He frowned to himself. It had been unwise to forget that independent streak; he must be more careful – at least for the next few months.

  Oliver felt his first flash of jealousy. Whether it was sheer protectiveness of his future plans, or simply seeing Helena with a young Lieutenant, he didn’t bother to examine. He only knew that having come to search for her in the Conservatory the scene before him had filled him with an unreasoning fury. He had been aware that as an heiress Helena would have other suitors, but it was the delight in her expression, the flirtatiousness in her manner that so startled him.

  Oliver took a deep breath, forcing himself to remember that she was only eighteen and her reaction to flattery was simply a natural one.

  Three weeks later, on her last evening in London, Helena sat before the triple oval mirror on her dressing table. Tomorrow morning they would be leaving for Lichfield, and Oliver, who had accepted Jacob Standish’s invitation to visit Broadway Manor, would follow as soon as he had attended to some pressing estate matters.

  With a sigh, Helena rose from her velvet-covered stool knowing that she finally had to accept that she was unlikely ever to see the intriguing dark-haired doctor again. Since that night at the opera, not an evening had she let pass without standing at the window to gaze hopefully down into the square. She may never discover his name, but she knew that she would always remember him.

  Slipping off her peignoir, Helena lifted the already turned-down silken coverlet on the bed, slid beneath the sheets, turned out her light and for a long time stared into the darkness.

  There was no explanation for it, none at all.

  In a less than salubrious area of London, Nicholas Carstairs was examining a child with a severe case of scabies. He glanced around at the filthy room knowing that the bedding should be boiled in order to kill off the mites that caused the condition; but from their appearance, the thin and grubby sheets were only fit for the dustbin, while the ticked flock pillows bore no sign of any covering. He looked down again at the weeping sores on the small girl’s legs, with the rash spreading over her buttocks and back. Cleanliness, soapy water and fresh air were a desperate need throughout all these tenement blocks, but Nicholas had seen too much abject poverty not to know that it bred first despair and then apathy.

  ‘I’ll give you some lotion to relieve the itching,’ he said to the child’s mother. ‘But if you could manage to provide a sheet or a pillowcase …’

  She looked at him with empty eyes in a grey tired face, a frail baby suckling at her breast. Nicholas, knowing that the situation was hopeless, struggled with an urge to leave a few coins behind. Experience had taught him that it would be a foolish and idealistic gesture. Word would swiftly spread that he was a ‘soft touch’, resulting in an increasing and often needless demand for his services. Instead, with a feeling of reluctance mixed with shame, he took the meagre coin offered in payment and made his way down the steep dark stairs and out into the welcome daylight.

  He attended both the wealthy and the poor, and it never ceased to amaze him that each class had so little knowledge of, or even interest in the other. We live in a truly divided and unfair society, he thought wearily as he trudged back to his rooms. He was longing for a bath; it was always his fear that he would pick up some infection, but how was he to treat the sick without exposure to the bacteria that caused their condition?

  Later, unable to concentrate on a book, Nicholas read again a letter he had received a few days before. He was not an impulsive man, preferring to give careful consideration to anything that might affect his professional life. This offer from a Harley Street physician was unexpected, apparently arising from the gratitude of a barrister who six months ago had collapsed in Kensington High Street when Nicholas had been on a rare shopping expedition. He’d been swiftly on the scene and diagnosed a heart attack, his decisive action saving the man’s life. It seemed that the barrister’s brother was this prominent physician.

  He knew that he could learn much from working with a respected man such as Dr Andrew Haverstock, but he was wary, suspecting that his own interest in the care of what he thought of as the ‘more
unfortunates’ might not be viewed with equal sympathy. With his practice in that field becoming established did he really wish to accept an extra responsibility, however influential in advancing his career?

  Determined to keep his independence, his freedom to practise medicine as he wished, he read the letter again, finding it rather ambiguous. If it was merely an offer for him to work with Dr Haverstock on an ad hoc basis, assisting him in certain cases, then it could prove to be an attractive proposition indeed. And that, he thought as he got up and propped the letter on the mantelpiece of the mahogany fireplace, is the crux of the matter.

  But now, he would go upstairs to slide beneath pure cotton sheets, and thank the Lord that he had the good fortune not to have been born in one of those wretched areas only a few miles away. That young woman in those cramped rooms, already with two children, could not have been much older than Helena. Yet the gulf between them was such that they might have been born a different species.

  Nicholas closed his mind against even her name. He could not risk another sleepless night, lying awake to stare into the darkness, wondering whether he should try to see her again, knowing that it would simply be futile. The carriage with its connotations of wealth, the assured man who had ushered her inside, the fact that the London season was coming to its end – the scene told its own story.

  Even if she was not yet engaged it was crazy to be thinking along those lines. Had those hazel eyes robbed him of his intelligence? What could he offer? He had neither social standing nor an established income, but Nicholas knew that he wasn’t going to find it easy to remain true to the decision that he’d reached; to relegate his ‘girl in the window’ to nothing more than a poignant memory.

  A few weeks later, on the morning when Helena’s suitor was due to arrive at Broadway Manor, the Servants’ Hall was buzzing with curiosity.

  ‘I bet he’s really handsome,’ Annie said.

  ‘And what makes you think that he’ll notice the likes of a scullery maid?’ Cook snapped.

  But Annie was used to such caustic comments. Mrs Kemp’s bark was always worse than her bite. Not that Cook had ever been a married woman – her title was an honorary one. ‘Just think – what if he proposes while he’s here?’

  Molly, who was a quiet dark-haired girl, leaned forward. ‘What I’m wondering is, who will she take with her if she gets married and goes to live in Hertfordshire? As a lady’s maid, I mean.’

  ‘Miss Helena is of an age when she will need her own maid, whether she marries or not.’ Enid Hewson was a thin, harassed looking woman of forty with pretensions of gentility, and crooked her little finger as she sipped at her tea. ‘It was hard work in London, I can tell you, with two of them to take care of. Looking after Miss Beatrice is what I’m paid for.’

  ‘Do you think you could train me up?’ Molly said, with more hope than conviction. ‘I’m a quick learner.’

  Enid drew her thin eyebrows together. ‘It’s not as simple as all that, you know. There is the question of age. Some lady’s maids are older than me, never mind you.’

  ‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’ They all turned to look at Ida, whose round face beneath her white frilled cap was flushed with indignation. ‘As head parlourmaid, I’m senior to Molly. If anyone should be trained up it should be me.’

  ‘But you’re sparking with that corporal at Whittington Barracks,’ Molly protested. ‘You’re not going to want to leave him behind. After all,’ she gave a sly glance at the others, ‘he might be your last chance.’

  Ida glared at her. ‘I’m fully aware of that, thank you very much. But that’s my decision to make.’

  The butler, sitting at the head of the long kitchen table as the staff took their mid-morning break, glanced up from his written notes for the forthcoming visit. ‘Don’t forget that it’s possible a new member of staff might be brought in, someone already experienced.’

  ‘Still, if Ida does decide against it, and you think there’s a chance, would you speak up for me?’ When Molly had joined the household six years ago at the age of fourteen, she had never expected the daughter of the house to become her secret friend. It still astonished her that no one at Broadway Manor had guessed that she and Miss Helena, especially in the first two years, had spent so much time together, even meeting in the vast grounds sometimes. There, when Molly had a half day, they would sit beneath one of the large oak trees and read aloud to each other from a current romantic novel.

  Molly gazed at Miss Hewson. She had always envied her, the way everyone treated her with respect. To accompany Miss Helena when she got married, to go and live in another part of England – now that really would be exciting. She had no doubts of her abilities; learning to dress hair and care for beautiful clothes couldn’t be that difficult, could it? It would be a damn sight better than everlasting dusting, polishing and making beds.

  ‘Well there’s one thing for sure,’ Annie said, and they all turned at the bitterness in her voice. ‘It’s a job I’ll never be able to do.’ When she was a child Annie had been jostled near a bonfire on Guy Fawkes Night, and lost her footing. Despite being hauled swiftly from the hot coals, she had suffered severe facial burns and an ugly puckered scar disfigured her right cheek. She knew, as they all did, that despite her hard work and quick mind, her appearance would preclude her from ever being promoted to work ‘upstairs’.

  ‘Never mind all that.’ Cook folded her hands across the stiff white apron that covered her ample body. ‘While this Mr Faraday is here I shall expect all hands to the pump, because if I’m not mistaken, we’ll be doing a fair bit of entertaining.’

  ‘I think we can all rely on that.’ The quiet valet who looked after their master was already rising to leave. He rarely joined in servants’ gossip, preferring to read in his room.

  Molly looked around at them all. ‘I bet Miss Helena’s that thrilled. I mean it’s really romantic, isn’t it?’

  Chapter Five

  Oliver travelled to Broadway Manor in his first motor car. His chauffeur and valet kept to themselves in the front, and Oliver, seated in the back, was pleased to find the journey far more comfortable than travelling by coach.

  When at last they turned into a long avenue of lime trees he leaned forward to see that the graceful manor house built of red brick appeared to be less than two hundred years old and certainly lacked the grandeur of Graylings. However, it did offer a warm welcoming appearance, with the grounds immaculately tended and the portico entrance fronting a magnificent mahogany door.

  The noise of the engine brought two black Labradors racing around the corner from the back of the house, barking fiercely. ‘Caesar, Nero, quiet!’ The dogs retreated as Jacob, followed by a silver-haired butler, came out to welcome his guest personally – a measure of the importance he placed on this visit.

  Oliver swung his long legs out of the car and grinned ruefully. ‘Sorry about the racket.’

  Jacob was walking around the four-seater Daimler with intense interest. ‘Have you had it long? What horsepower?’

  ‘Just a few weeks, and it’s six. She’s a beauty, isn’t she?’

  Jacob placed one hand on the bonnet of the car to feel the engine’s warmth. ‘She certainly is.’

  ‘Shall we take your bags directly to your room, Sir?’ Bostock beckoned a young footman to assist Oliver’s valet and then directed the chauffeur to drive the car to the back of the house, murmuring, ‘You’ll find your accommodation above the stables.’

  Jacob began to usher Oliver into the house. ‘Anything you need, refreshment or such, just ask Bostock. If you would care to join us for drinks in the drawing room about seven-thirty? I know Helena is looking forward to seeing you. She and Beatrice have been making all sorts of plans.’

  ‘She’s not around?’

  Jacob shook his head. ‘Changing for the evening, I believe. You were expected rather earlier.’


  ‘Yes, I apologise for that. The journey took longer than I thought.’ Oliver followed the butler up a broad staircase carpeted in sage green and panelled in a honey shade of oak to where it divided into two separate landings. They went along a corridor to the right and entered a spacious bedroom with its windows overlooking green parkland. He began to think that his stay at Broadway Manor was going to be a more enjoyable one than he had anticipated. There was a tranquil feel to the house and unlike some he had visited, there were none of the gruesome stags’ heads on the walls, no gloomy family portraits where the oils had darkened with age. Maybe there was something to be said for marrying into the nouveau riche, although in Oliver’s opinion, nowhere could compare with his beloved Graylings.

  Helena was in a tizzy of apprehension. ‘I don’t know, Hewson. I really don’t.’

  ‘Miss Helena, I have your aunt to dress after you, so if you could please make a decision …’

  ‘Gosh, I’m sorry, I didn’t think.’ Helena pointed to a silk gown in soft rose.

  ‘Might I suggest pearls?’

  Once the maid had dressed her hair and left, Helena moved restlessly around the room. Why did she feel so nervous about meeting him again? She was terribly worried that away from the glamour of London, she might not feel the same physical attraction. Even more crucial, would spending more time together dispel those strange doubts she seemed to have? It was the fact that she had no basis for them that she found so disconcerting.

  Helena was aware of her father’s expectations; he had made no secret of the fact that he favoured the match. Aunt Beatrice, who was constantly singing Oliver’s praises, would never understand Helena’s misgivings and she had no wish to be dismissed as foolish and fanciful. Nevertheless, she thought as she descended the wide staircase, I shall be the one spending the rest of my life with him, and the final decision is mine and mine only.