Chapter Nineteen

S ipping on her hot chocolate, Helen replayed the previous night in her mind. She knew that she had been breaking every rule of propriety going to Mark's house, but she had needed to speak with him. She'd missed him keenly and how she felt when she was with him. He made her feel as though she belonged with him and, if she was completely honest with herself, she missed touching him. A hand on his arm. A head on his shoulder. His mouth ravaging hers. His hands turning her skin into liquid flame. The need to be even closer to him.

Blushing, she shook away those thoughts.

Mark was her friend.

Who didn't want to be her friend because he liked her too much. Which seemed silly in the light of day. But then he had mentioned Jason and Helen felt a smidgeon of guilt. Jason was also her friend and she enjoyed being in his company, but she didn't have an overwhelming compulsion to touch him at every opportunity. Nor did she long to curl up in a ball on his chest like a snake and feel his warmth and the steady beat of his heart.

How could a person like someone too much?

Helen didn't like very many people at all. Aside from her own family, the list of people she actually liked wouldn't have taken all ten of her fingers.

Mark had called her kisses devastating. Could devastating be a good thing? Or was she missing some sort of social nuance that other people implicitly understood? Samuel and Frederica had talked to her about Mark as if she were a little child unable to comprehend the most basic of explanations.

He doesn't want to be your friend any more.

She needed to let him go. He liked her too much.

Like , Helen decided, was the most annoying word in the entire dictionary. She drained the rest of her hot chocolate and felt the warmth of the beverage spread throughout her body. Helen asked her lady's maid to bring out her blue day dress. It complimented her turquoise snake necklace—something too valuable to wear during the day, but she wanted to butter her grandfather up. She knew he loved her, but she wasn't entirely certain he would give her the money that she needed to purchase the publishing house.

Stepping down the stairs, she found Louisa and all three of her sons waiting for her. ‘What are you doing here?'

‘It's my day to enjoy time with you,' Louisa said, smiling as she patted her large stomach.

Helen was happy to see her sister-in-law, but she couldn't help a sigh. ‘You're here to play nursemaid to me.'

Matt, the second son, pointed at Helen. ‘You're in trouble.'

‘You'll be in trouble if I catch you!'

She chased after him playfully and all her nephews shrieked and ran through the house. The first one she tagged was Grey, the eldest. At eight, he was still only to her shoulder. Turning around, she heard Miles's sweet little giggles from behind the velvet curtain. He was only two years old.

‘Now, where could Miles be?'

The curtain shook with his laughter.

Helen opened the cabinet. ‘Not in here.'

She slammed the door loudly and he shrieked with laughter. ‘Not behind the sofa. Not underneath the table. Not inside the buffet. I suppose the only place left to look is behind the curtains.'

Miles's chortles were high and sweet.

Helen tore open the curtain. ‘Found you!'

He tried to run around her, but she swooped him up in her arms and gave him a kiss on the forehead. He was still giggling when she set his little feet on the floor.

Picking up her skirts, she ran from room to room looking for Matt. He had flaming red hair like his mama, but his personality was just like the uncle he'd been named after. When she arrived at the kitchen, Helen was breathing heavily. She stood still for a moment to listen for noise. Unlike his little brother, Matt was not giggling loudly. But she could hear the sound of someone breathing. Walking as lightly as she could, she followed the steady breathing to the door of the pantry.

She opened both doors. ‘Found you!'

Matt yelled and tried to duck and run around her. But Helen hadn't grown up with a bunch of wild animals and girls for nothing. She grabbed him around the middle and lifted his feet off the ground, growling. He was nearly six and quite unwieldy, but she spun him around anyway. His laugh was as loud and as high as his little brother before she set him down.

‘Can we play hide and seek, Aunt Helen?' he asked, grinning up at her.

She raised her hands into claws and growled. ‘One. Two. Three.'

He gave another shriek and ran from the kitchen. ‘Helen's coming to find us. Hide!'

Helen counted loudly to thirty, before running back through the house to find her three nephews. She'd grown up visiting their London house with her parents, so there wasn't a hiding place that she didn't know about. One by one, she found her nephews.

Matt pulled on her sleeve. ‘Can we play again?'

Smiling down at him, she shook her head. ‘I'm afraid not. We need to go to Great-Grandfather and Grandmother Stubbs's house.'

All three of her nephews grinned. Her grandparents spoiled their great-grandchildren rotten.

‘And then we can play tag at the park,' she allowed, glancing at Louisa who was sitting in a chair beside them. ‘That is if your mother approves.'

Louisa smiled. ‘I think a little fresh air would be wonderful.'

Helen helped her nephews into their coats and hats, before they all bundled into the carriage and rode to Grandfather Stubbs's house.

It was in a less fashionable part of town, but the house was a great deal larger than Helen's home. They were met at the door, not by the butler, but by Grandmother Stubbs. She was a prim and proper woman. Not a white hair was out of place in her chignon and not a wrinkle could be found on her navy-blue dress. Her mouth was not smiling, but her eyes were.

She opened the door wide. ‘I was wondering what to do with all our extra biscuits. I thought we'd have to feed them to the dogs.'

Matt raised his hand and jumped up and down. ‘I'll eat them, Grandmother!'

‘Me, too!' said Miles in his high, sweet voice.

Grey nodded.

‘Come in! Come in!' Grandmother Stubbs said, almost smiling. ‘I might even have some chocolates and sweets that I need help with as well.'

All three boys pushed and shoved their way through the door and down the hall that led to the kitchen.

Louisa walked forward, taking Grandmother Stubbs's hands and kissed her cheek. ‘It is always wonderful to see you, Grandmother.'

The older woman finally smiled. ‘Then you should come more often. Perhaps we could help with the boys when the baby is born.'

‘Wick and I would love that.'

Helen entered last. She tucked an errant curl behind her ear. She'd meant to be dressed properly and behave with perfect propriety. But she had forgotten about all of that while playing with her nephews. She didn't have a mirror, but she was certain that her hair was a mess and that the bottom of her dress was covered in dust from finding Grey in the attic. Or was it Matt in the cellar? Either way, Helen looked exactly like the heedless hoyden her grandmother didn't want her to be.

Stepping to the door, Helen bumped her face against her step-grandmother's cold cheek. ‘Hello, Grandmama.'

There was no smile in her grandmother's eyes now. ‘What is this I hear about you falling asleep during balls? And hiding in the library? Such behaviour will not do. You are a grown woman now.'

Helen nodded, not bothering to defend herself. She was here to beg for money. ‘Where is Grandpapa?'

‘He's in the library,' Grandmother Stubbs said and, if looks could turn people to stone, the stare she was giving to Helen would have turned her into granite. ‘But perhaps you ought to freshen up before you see him.'

She gave her grandmother a stiff nod and went directly to the retiring room. There was a mirror and she brushed out her hair and pinned it back up in a lose bun. Her maid's arrangement had long fallen out. Poor Cartwright! She did such an excellent job on Helen's hair and Helen always managed to destroy it. Helen also tried to wipe out the wrinkles in her skirt and a bit of the dirt. She wasn't successful.

Taking a deep breath, she left the room and headed to the library which was really an office for her grandfather. She knocked on the door.

‘Come in!' he said from the other side of the wall.

Helen opened the door and ducked into the room. Grandfather was sitting behind his desk and she went around and kissed him on the head.

He laughed. ‘Silly girl. I've heard you've been a handful.'

She plopped down on his desk, not bothering with a chair. ‘Did Samuel come here, too, looking for me?'

‘I think Samuel went to every single person who has ever spoken a word to you, trying to find you.'

Helen could only shrug her shoulders and sigh.

Grandfather shook his head. ‘Disappearing like that was badly done, Helen.'

She slumped. ‘I know. I wasn't thinking. I was so tired of the walls and balls and calls. I wanted a bit of fresh air.'

‘You mean fresh rain? At least you could have chosen a sunny day.'

‘You're right,' Helen said, a smile in her voice. ‘One should always run away in excellent weather. No one would have been angry with me at all in that case.'

‘But you didn't come to see me to talk about that,' he said. ‘Why is it that you only visit when you want my money?'

‘That is not true.'

Grandfather Stubbs gave her a look—it was warm and loving, and full of laughter. He might have had a point, she admitted to herself reluctantly. The last few times she'd visited, he'd given her money for her part in the publishing of her book. He'd given her pin money, when she'd lost all of hers swimming in the river. And there was the little matter of bribing an animal keeper to release his employer's snakes into the wild.

Helen nodded slowly. ‘You're right. I am a financial parasite.'

He smiled up at her and patted her hand. ‘You are no more a parasite than you are a snake. Although you like to pretend that you are poisonous, I know that it is only a fa?ade.'

‘I have always been rotten to the core.'

Grandfather shook his head. ‘You've always been misunderstood, like the slimy snakes that you love. People make judgements based on their appearance that have nothing to do with the creature's feelings... I read this manuscript by a rather brilliant naturalist. It was a guide to snakes and the author stated that snakes were not sly by nature, but shy.'

He was talking about her own writing. ‘That must be a really good book.'

‘I can't wait to see it in print, even though I've heard that it will cost me a pretty penny to do that.'

‘Matthew told you already, didn't he?'

Grandfather nodded. ‘Are you here to wheedle four thousand pounds out of me?'

‘Yes.'

Hitting his knees with his palms, he laughed loudly. ‘I've always adored your honesty, Helen.'

‘So that's a yes, then?'

Her grandfather took a deep breath and exhaled. ‘It's not a no.'

‘You're being more confusing than Matthew with a pen and a stack of paper.'

‘I am willing to invest four thousand pounds in a publishing company, on one condition.'

She leaned forward. ‘And what's that?'

‘Matthew told me that you were insistent that your name be on the book as the author. Your full, female name. Why is that?'

‘Because I wrote it.'

He raised both eyebrows. ‘No other reason?'

Helen chewed on her lower lip. ‘Because humans silence their females far too often and it will never change unless brave women speak out. Write their names in books. Demand to be heard and treated as equals.'

‘You think that women are equal to men?'

‘Well, we are clearly their superior, but I don't wish to boast. Grandmother Stubbs would find it unseemly.'

Her grandfather laughed again, but sobered. ‘So, I am to understand that the aim of the publishing company that you want to purchase is to give voices to other women?'

She swallowed. ‘I—I hadn't thought that far.'

‘You need to. Before I will invest a farthing in your company, I want you to write a statement of what your goal is as the owner. Then I want you to give me a detailed plan of how you intend to accomplish your statement. If it is a sound business plan, I will make you a gift of the money outright.'

‘And if it's not?' Helen asked in a small voice.

Grandfather smiled at her fondly. ‘My granddaughter will not fail.'

Helen slid off the desk, feeling decidedly less certain of success.