Chapter Four

M ark sat fidgeting in his club. It would have been foolish to stay home. He had no desire to see Helen Stringham again or her pet snake. That was if she even came back to his garden. A proper young lady did not do such a thing.

He dropped the book in his hand.

The stocky man in the chair across from him bolted upright, as if he'd been awakened. He rubbed the back of his wrist against his eyes.

Mark stooped over to pick up the book. ‘Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you, sir.'

He yawned, shaking his head. ‘Not your fault. My son is teething and I am getting hardly any sleep at home. Captain Mark Wallace, isn't it?'

Mark suddenly recognised the man sitting across from him was none other than the soldier who had saved his life by carrying him off the battlefield. He was a powerfully built young man with broad shoulders. He'd been an aide-de-camp to General Lord Wellington. ‘Colonel Lord Pelford?'

He smiled. ‘Just Pelford now.'

‘And I'm Lord Inverness... You have a son?'

Pelford's smile widened. ‘Yes. I held him most of the night. The poor lad has three teeth coming through. We are staying with my wife's family for the Season and I needed to go somewhere I could rest.'

Mark remembered the Duke's beautiful and fearless fiancée who had helped nurse him back to life with the help of her red soap. ‘And how is Lady Frederica? I mean the Duchess.'

‘Excellent. She is preparing for her sister's coming-out ball this Friday. You should come. I'll send you a card. I'm sure Frederica would be pleased to see you.'

That was the last thing in the world he wanted to do. Something of his thoughts must have shown on his face, for Pelford laughed out loud. ‘You don't have to come and I promise that I'm not matchmaking. I'll still have my wife send you a card, though. We should go shooting sometime at Manton's.'

Mark hadn't held a gun since Waterloo, but he wasn't about to turn down Pelford's offer of friendship. All his other mates were dead and buried. He held out his hand for the Duke to shake. ‘I should like that.'

He watched the stocky young man walk away and slumped back in his chair. He couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to have a son of his own. Few fathers would have stayed up the entire night with an infant—that was traditionally the role of the nurse or the mother. But Pelford didn't seem to have minded at all. He appeared proud and happy to spend time with his child. Somehow, he'd returned from the war unscathed. Unlike Mark. But to be a father, he would have to be a husband first, which he couldn't be. He didn't have a whole heart or body to give to a wife.

The young Duke didn't act as if some dark cloud followed him around, blocking the sun out from his life. Not that Lady Frederica would have allowed him to. Pelford's wife was a very assertive young woman, not unlike the one who had invaded his garden, Helen Stringham.

Sitting up in his chair, he grabbed his face as it dawned on him. Lady Frederica's surname before marriage had been Stringham. The party she was preparing for was for none other than Lady Helen Stringham. The snake charmer from his garden that had made his skin tingle. But she had not introduced herself as a lady. And the two sisters looked nothing alike, but there was something similar in their mannerisms. How they moved their hands when they spoke, that was the same.

Slowly, he got up and limped to the door.

He had hailed a hack to his home and passed through the workers tearing out the carpet. Opening the back door, he saw that she was already in his garden.

Today, her hair was braided down her back like a long snake. Her long-sleeved cotton dress was appropriately printed with green thorny vines. She wore a wide-brimmed straw hat and was efficiently wielding a pair of sheers at what once had been an enormous bush. The snake she called Theodosia slithered around her and looked at him. Its beady eyes unnerved him a little.

‘Lady Helen.'

She looked at him over her dainty shoulder. She was more beautiful than he had remembered. More fairylike. ‘Just Helen.'

‘Why is the daughter of a duke trimming my garden?'

Helen waved the sheers at him. ‘Because it needs it...and we have a bargain. Theodosia is ready for her likeness to be taken. I could ask for her to stay still, but I can't guarantee it. She's a little shy. And snakes don't do anything that they don't want to do. I envy them that.'

She started to trim the bush again.

Mark took a few limping steps closer to her, intrigued against his inclination. His blood thrumming in his veins. ‘What is it that you do not wish to do?'

‘Be here,' Helen said, pointing to the ground. ‘I had no wish to come to London at all. But Mama insisted and we made a bargain of sorts. If I had a Season, she would let me stay home at Hampford and marry my best friend.'

His heartbeat quickened. ‘And who is that?'

‘A boy I've known my entire life,' she said, unabashedly looking him in the eyes. ‘He's currently the curate of a nearby parish that he will one day be the vicar of. So, you see why titles and position don't mean anything to me. I am like the creatures I study that way: they respect those who are stronger or cleverer than themselves. They care nothing for names or titles.'

‘And what of money?'

Helen turned and continued to prune the bush. ‘I have plenty of my own and, hopefully, more from the sales of my book.'

Mark didn't miss the hint. Pulling out the sketchbook that he always kept in his pocket, he turned to a fresh page before taking a seat on the chair that he'd left outside. He began to sketch. The snake was nearly four feet long. ‘What sort of snake is Theodosia?'

‘A Ball Python.'

‘Is she indigenous?'

Helen shook her head. ‘Oh, no. She is from Western Africa. My father brought her back from his expedition nearly ten years ago. He purchased her from the ship's captain who was using her to keep down the mice.'

He couldn't keep himself from asking the next question. ‘How do you know that she's a girl?'

‘Her size for one thing. Female Ball Pythons can grow to three or four feet long. Male Ball Pythons only reach two or three feet.'

Mark sketched the spots on the snake's back that resembled a giraffe. Carefully, he added the scale-like skin of the body. It was an exotic, beautiful creature. Not unlike its owner. ‘What made you interested in snakes?'

Helen pulled out a weed and tossed it into a pile. ‘My father is a naturalist and, out of his six living children, only Becca and myself took an interest.'

‘Does he like snakes, too?'

‘Papa prefers larger animals to study. But he always returns them to their natural habitats if he can. Some become too domesticated, like our elephant, Sadie, and cannot be released back into the wild. They would not be able to take care of themselves.'

Mark had felt the same way after returning from the war. He needed help now to accomplish the simplest of tasks. ‘I am sorry for your elephant.'

‘Sadie would appreciate that. Animals have feelings just like people do.'

Intrigued, Mark leaned closer to where she was weeding. ‘Really?'

‘You like birds, right?'

‘Birdwatching.'

‘Swans are the most loyal of birds. They mate for life and when their mate dies they do not take another. I often wonder if the human concept of love ever reaches that sort of devotion.'

He felt the blood rushing to his face. A young gentleman didn't typically speak about the mating of animals with an attractive young woman. Not even to an intriguing one like Lady Helen. ‘Hopefully, it does with your curate friend.'

‘Friendship is the purest form of love.'

She returned to her weeding and he to his sketching. Mark tried not to notice how much her very presence affected him, but he couldn't block her out, no matter how hard he tried to. She was like a fierce light in the darkness that refused to be dimmed. He finished his sketch of the snake and then turned the page and began to draw her. Among the overgrown flowers and bushes, she was a fairy in the garden.

‘Your brother-in-law invited me to your coming-out ball.'

Glancing over her shoulder, Helen smiled, her eyebrows raised. ‘You know Samuel?'

‘I fought with Pelford at Waterloo.'

Helen nodded, smiling. ‘And shall you come?'

Mark shrugged, ripping out the picture of the snake and handed it to her. ‘I haven't decided yet.'

‘Oh, don't be a Broody Byron and stay home,' she complained, waving her spade around in the air. ‘That poet's quite gone out of fashion since he was more wanton with his favours than a male lion with a pack of lionesses.'

A laugh broke from him. What would Helen say next? Shaking his head, he said, ‘I will try to look in to your party.'

‘I'll save you a waltz.'

She had no idea how much those words stung.

Mark had only one leg.

He couldn't dance. He wasn't a whole man.

Still, he watched her lift Theodosia over the fence and follow behind her, stepping on a branch with her pruning shears. Helen had been in his garden for but an hour, possibly two, yet it already looked transformed. The dead branches and weeds were gone. He could see new sprouts of life poking through the black dirt, resiliently fighting for life.