Lord Garson’s Bride (Dashing Widows 7)

“Exactly, Fen.” Caroline sent the pretty blonde in the plain gray dress a grateful smile. “Trust our resident dragon to puncture my sentimental bubble.”

Helena, slender and elegant in her widow’s weeds—Caroline envied her friend’s ability to create style from crepe and bombazine—watched her thoughtfully, not noticeably gratified by the declaration. “Nonetheless your seclusion ends next month. No wonder you’re champing at the bit.”

Horsy terms littered Helena’s conversation. She was by reputation a punishing rider, although bereavement had curtailed her exercise.

“Aren’t you?” Caroline crossed to extend her delicate Meissen cup for more tea.

“Devoting a year of my life to the memory of a brute like Crewe is hypocritical at the very least. Not to mention an infernal waste of time in the saddle.”

“Seclusion must chafe when you didn’t love your husband,” Caroline said, taking a sip.

Helena’s gaze didn’t waver. “You didn’t love yours either.”

Caroline wanted to protest, but the sad truth was that Helena was right. Freddie had been a stranger when she’d married him, and their years together hadn’t done much to increase the intimacy. Marriage was a cruel yoke, uniting such an incompatible pair. Even crueler that she’d been forced to follow Freddie’s dictates as to where they lived and what they did. Mourning him was the last obligation she owed her late husband. Once the year was over, she meant to enjoy her independence and never surrender it again.

“Helena!” Fenella said repressively as she refilled the other cups. “We both know Caro was fond of Beaumont.”

Helena’s laugh was grim. “The way she’s fond of a dog, Fen?”

In the stark afternoon light, Fenella’s beauty was ethereal. “You’re unkind.”

Helena shook her glossy dark head. “No, I’m honest. Surely after all these months, it’s time we spoke openly to one another.” A trace of warmth softened her cool, precise voice. “Because you’ve both proven my salvation, too. I would have run mad without you to remind me that other people have feelings, Fen. Caro, I never have to pretend with you. And for some reason you both seem to like me anyway.”

Helena generally steered clear of emotion. This was the closest she’d ever ventured to confidences. Surprised, Caroline studied her, seeing more than she ever had before. At last, she glimpsed the deep reserves of feeling lurking beneath that self-assured exterior.

“Mostly,” she said in a dry tone, knowing Helena would take the response the way it was meant.

“So did you love Frederick Beaumont?” Helena persisted.

Poor Freddie, saddled with a weak constitution and an unloving helpmeet. Hatred would have been a greater tribute than his wife’s indifference. How sad for a decent, if tedious man to die so young. Sadder that nobody in particular cared that he’d gone.

“No,” she said hollowly, at last voicing the shameful truth. “Although he was a good man and he deserved better from me than he got.”

Freddie should have married a stolid farmer’s wife, not a restless, curious, volatile creature who dreamed of the social whirl instead of milk yields and barley prices. By the end of Caroline’s ten years in Lincolnshire, she’d felt like she drowned in mud. She sucked in a breath of London air, reminding herself that now she was free.

“Well, Crewe deserved considerably less than he got from me,” Helena said sourly. “He wasn’t even any good in bed. If a woman must wed a degenerate rake, the least she should expect is physical satisfaction.”

Fenella was blushing. She always looked about sixteen when she was embarrassed. “Well, I loved Henry. And he loved me.” She sounded uncharacteristically defiant. “I’ll always miss him.”

Fenella’s happy marriage always filled Caroline with a mixture of envy and disbelief—and guilt that she couldn’t mourn Freddie with an ounce of the same sincerity. But if she needed an example of the dangers of a close union, she merely needed to glimpse the sorrow in Fen’s fine blue eyes.

Helena regarded Fenella with fond impatience. “You were lucky to have a good man, Fen. But Waterloo was five years ago, and you’re still wearing half mourning. Isn’t it time to start living again?”

Fenella paled at Helena’s unprecedented candor. She rarely heard a word of criticism. Caroline had long ago noticed that Fenella’s air of fragility made people treat her like glass, ready to shatter at the slightest rough treatment.

“You don’t understand. It’s different for me,” Fenella stammered.

“Because of your son?” Caroline asked, wondering for the thousandth time how different her marriage might have been if God had granted her children. Would she have felt so trapped, so frustrated, so useless? Who knew?

“Brandon’s only ten. He needs me.”

“And you’re only twenty-nine,” Helena retorted. “You need to look for love again.”

“I don’t want love,” Fenella said stiffly. She bit her lip and turned a tragic gaze on her friends. “It hurts too much to lose it.”

With that stark statement, confirming Caroline’s doubts about even a loving marriage, the spate of confidences slammed to a shuddering halt. A desolate silence descended on the luxurious room. Only the crackling fire and a spatter of raindrops on the windows broke the quiet.

Eventually Helena smiled, but Caroline saw the effort it took. “I’m sorry, Fen. I’m as blue-deviled as Caro. It must be the weather. I have no right to harangue you.”