The Dark Days Club by Alison Goodman
“Helen!” Andrew’s hand closed even harder, pulling her away from the fence.
In a blur, she saw Selburn vault over the barrier and run toward the horse, past Carlston, who was watching it all from his mount.
“For Christ’s sake,” Andrew said in her ear, dragging her back a few more stumbling steps. “Are you mad?”
She tried to rip her arm free, but his weight anchored her to the ground. She turned in his grasp and saw Selburn catch the bridle and bring the horse to a shivering, dancing stop.
“What do you think you are doing?” Andrew wrenched her around again. His face, so close, was flushed with effort and fury. “Everyone is watching.”
Helen blinked, the unused energy in her body surging into a wave of nausea. She swayed, knees buckling. Andrew’s hold changed from restraint to support.
“I don’t know,” she said, gasping. “I’m sorry. It was the horse—I wanted to help the horse.”
“Help? How could you have possibly helped?” He glanced at the small crowd that had gathered around them. “Come, I’ll return you to Aunt. You must go home. Compose yourself.”
With a hand firmly between her shoulder blades, he ushered her onto the path, glaring at a plump woman who tut-tutted behind a blue-gloved hand. Helen burned with humiliation.
“You don’t look at all well,” Millicent said, hurrying to her other side. She searched Helen’s face, frowning at what she found. “Here, lean on me.” She smiled sweetly at Andrew, her voice rising enough to carry to the onlookers. “Lord Hayden, your sister is not well. Perhaps you could fetch her reticule? She dropped it in the excitement.”
Andrew bowed as Millicent urged Helen forward. “It’s all right.” Millicent patted her arm, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Not many people saw. Most eyes were on the horse.”
Helen looked over her shoulder, searching for Selburn. He was leading the bay back to its rider, who, it seemed, had come to no harm. He bowed and passed the reins to the groom, the lady thanking him with fluttering hands and exclamations, the coo of them reaching Helen across the short distance. It was true: Selburn had been most heroic. Although not in any danger. In fact, none of them had been in any danger. The realization came in a dizzying collision of what had just happened with what would have happened. She clutched Millicent’s arm for support. Somehow she knew, with absolute certainty, that the horse had lost its momentum by the time the Duke had reached it, and would have shied from the fence anyway. And before that, she had seen in her mind’s eye exactly how to stop the beast.
How could she have known all that? Yet it was as certain as the hand on the end of her arm.
She looked wildly around the park, forcing herself to focus on a group of children. There, that boy playing with the hoop: it would collide in less than five seconds with the gentleman inspecting a flower, sending his hat flying into the bushes. With her heartbeat hard in her ears, she saw her prediction play out, the gentleman clutching futilely for his headwear. She focused again. Beyond the children, a young lady walking briskly with her mother would misstep and fall in less than three seconds. Helen gave a small moan as the girl staggered and sprawled onto the ground. How did she know it would happen? Holy star, could she prognosticate now?
She felt a prickle across the nape of her neck—a gaze that was more than just curious—and turned around. Further along the track, Lord Carlston watched from the saddle. His expression was unreadable: a flat observation that held no emotion. She lifted her chin. Why did he just sit there, looking? He had not even attempted to stop the runaway horse.
He smiled—not at her, she realized, but at some private satisfaction—then pulled on the rein and turned his mount, urging it back into the procession. Helen watched his back as he rode away, unable to shake the frightening impression that he knew more about her—far more—than she did herself.
Nine
AUNT LEANED ACROSS the footwell of the coach to peer into Helen’s face. The cabin’s two outside lamps did little to illuminate the darkness of the quarter-moon night.
“Are you sure you are up to this?” she asked, raising her voice over the grind of the wheels. “You look pale. If you are not well, we can always turn around. It is only the Howards after all.”
“What? And miss seeing Lord Byron?” Helen forced a playful note into her voice. She added a reassuring smile. “I am perfectly well, Aunt. It was just the shock of the horse running at us, and His Grace going after it like that. I am over it now.”
It was the almost-true story that Andrew had told Aunt and Lady Gardwell, with Millicent’s firm corroboration, as they handed Helen into her guardian’s tender care. Thankfully, neither of the older ladies had seen the actual incident, but Aunt had immediately decided to take Helen home. One could not be too careful about a shock to the nerves. Helen had stifled her protestations and tried to smile her thanks to her brother, but he would not meet her eyes as he bowed and took his leave. He did not even offer to escort them home. She had never seen him so furious, and she still felt almost as ill from that as from her own stupidity. What had she been thinking? A lady did not run after a horse. The Duke must think her an absolute hoyden.
Aunt pursed her lips. “Yes, indeed. It was very brave of the Duke to do such a thing.”
“Quite,” Helen said, ignoring the note of inquiry in her aunt’s voice.
No doubt if Selburn even looked at her again, Aunt would have them married in her mind, with a parcel of children for good measure. It was plain to Helen, however, that in her case he was simply being kind to his best friend’s sister. It was a little mortifying, but she still liked him for his kindness—a virtue that seemed in short supply these days.
On that, her thoughts inevitably turned to Lord Carlston: the epitome of a man who did not know the meaning of kindness. She shivered, remembering that last look of cold appraisal he had given her at the park. What was it that he knew? She had to find out.
“Are you cold, my dear?” Aunt asked.
“A little,” Helen said, and the Earl was pushed from her mind in the subsequent flurry of rearranged rugs and heated foot bricks.
They soon drew up to the portico of the Howard house. Philip handed her out of the carriage, then had to run to catch her silk shawl as a gust of wind blew it from her grasp onto the gravel drive. “Good Lord, we will be blown away,” Aunt said as they hurried up the marble steps. “Helen, is my ostrich feather still upright?”
They gained the safety of the large foyer without further incident, and Helen quickly located the cloakroom, calling a maid over to anchor the large blue plume more firmly in her aunt’s turban. With repairs complete, they ascended the staircase to greet their host and hostess, and then made their way through the crowded rooms, nodding to acquaintances. Although the party had been touted as an informal soirée, it seemed most of London was in attendance.
The chatter in the overflowing salon was strangely muted. Helen quickly saw the reason why. A suite of pink sofas and chairs had been pulled into a loose semicircle around a dark-haired gentleman who was talking with an eye-catching intensity. Every seat was taken by a young woman, and every one of them was leaning toward him, silently rapt. A number of young men stood behind the ladies, equally intent upon the speaker. Helen could not hear what he was saying—the low level of conversation around the room was enough to mask his voice—but he held his audience enthralled.
“Lord Byron is holding court,” Aunt whispered. “Go, see what all the fuss is about—Ah! Lord Alvanley, it must be a se’nnight since we last met.”
As her aunt moved into a circle of conversation, Helen edged into a space between the murmuring groups, finding a better view of the dark-haired gentleman.
So this was the famous Lord Byron. She had read his poetic masterpiece, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, and savored the glorious, heartbreaking grandeur of its tragedy. Like the rest of society, she had wondered if the au
In contour and form, Lord Byron’s face was quite beautiful: a broad brow with black hair curling across it, luminous skin, sensuous lips, a firm chin with a cleft in the center, and large, expressive eyes the color of coffee. Yet even such attractive modeling of muscle and flesh could not explain the mesmerizing draw of the man. Every woman in the circle had her fingers curled at the base of her throat, or touching her hair, or pressed against her mouth. Helen recognized a few, but the most obviously enthralled was Lady Caroline Lamb. She sat beside Byron on the sofa—the queen to his king—clad in white, her hand almost touching his on the pink silk. If Lord Byron was dark, cool sensuality, then Lady Caroline was bright, hot fervency. Helen frowned. Caro Lamb had always been frail and delicate, but in the month since Helen had last seen her at a ball, she seemed to have burned down to bone. Beneath the signature cropped blonde hair bound by pearls, her small white face was all points and angles. Everything was pale upon pale except for the shifting green and brown of her overbright eyes, and the dark blue shadows beneath them.
She and Lord Byron were lovers. Helen repeated the word in her mind, tasting its scandalous heat. Lovers. It was known by everyone, and it was easy to see why. Lady Caroline made no effort to hide her feelings: she was caressing his hand, her fingertips tracing the line of his knuckles. Helen had heard that even Caroline’s mother-in-law, Lady Melbourne—a woman notorious for her own discreet string of lovers—had been moved to remonstrate about such public displays. Discretion was everything, but Lady Caroline did not try to disguise her affair from anyone, least of all her poor husband. Was Sir William in attendance and seeing this? Helen hoped not. At least, there was no sign of him in the crowded salon.
She turned back to her study of Lord Byron. He was beautiful, without a doubt, and quite possibly a genius, but what else was there about him that made so many women, and, it seemed, some men, prostrate themselves? It did not take long to find out. He paused midsentence, his long index finger resting for a moment on the fullness of his lower lip, and took in his audience from under his brow. It was a look with so much vice in its dark sweep that Helen felt heat rise to her face and her body sway. His every movement seemed to bring with it the sensation of fingertips sliding across skin, lips brushing against hair, soft breath hot against the nape of a neck. He made her think of that obscene card, the man bent over the woman, and she had to look away to find her footing again.
“You appear quite flushed, cousin,” a deep voice said.
Lord Carlston. Standing close behind her. She’d had no expectation of seeing him, yet here he was, the sound of his voice sending a rise of shock across her skin. “Is it Lord Byron’s poetry that moves you to such high color, or something else?” he asked.
She turned to face him. His mouth, just as full as Byron’s, was curved into a knowing smile. She found herself staring at it and forced her eyes upward. More heat crawled across her scalp and settled in her cheeks as she met the abominable amusement in his eyes.
“It must be the warmth of the room,” she said, curtsying.
His evening dress was impeccable, tailored to make the most of his height and muscular breadth. His hair had been cut since the afternoon, shorter than the current fashion for tousled curls and waves. Nevertheless, Helen admitted, its close modeling suited the strong, tanned planes of his face far more than the elaborate Windswept style or the Brutus that was so prevalent amongst the men in the room. It also showed the pale jag of an old scar that ran from his right temple down into his sideburn. Whatever weapon had made the injury, its leaving had been brutal. He was not a soldier, but it looked as though he had been in battle.
“Have you fully recovered from this afternoon’s excitement?” he asked. “His Grace, the Duke of Selburn, was most heroic, was he not?” Although it was said blandly, he was watching for her response. But then, he was always watching.
“Indeed,” she said, keeping her expression just as dispassionate. “I feared for his safety.”
“Really? I was rather hoping the horse would trample him.”
Helen fought back a surprised laugh, but she could not let him mock the Duke. “He acted most nobly and at great risk to himself,” she said crisply, “while others, just as near, sat on their horses and did nothing.”
Carlston tilted his head, his mouth lifting to one side as if her jibe had been weighed and found wanting. “You and I both know that he was never in any danger. We both saw it all play out well before it ended, did we not?”
The words roared in her ears, the chatter and perfumed glitter of the room suddenly gone from her consciousness. All that remained was Lord Carlston, standing before her, calmly acknowledging that her strange certainty had been right. Not only that: he was also acknowledging that he had the answers she so desperately needed. “What do you mean, play out?”
“I mean exactly what I said. You saw, as I did, that the horse had lost its impetus ten feet away from the fence and would not have jumped.” A passing gentleman bowed and murmured a greeting, jolting Helen back into the busy room. Carlston nodded to him, a salute and dismissal in one, then returned his gaze to her own. “Perhaps you did not realize as early as I, but you knew that there was no danger. I did, however, enjoy your attempt to vault the fence.”
Helen’s skin heated again. “You knew too? Then tell me, how was I so certain?” she whispered. “How did I know?” Her hand closed around her fan, trying to hold back the flood of terrifying questions. Mad questions. Could she see into the future? Or did she make things happen with her mind? She felt as though she might scream with the need for answers.
Carlston must have seen it in her eyes, for he gave a small shake of his head—Not now, not here—and said, “Allow me to find you a seat, cousin.”
He cupped her elbow in his gloved hand and steered her past the clusters of talking guests to a pair of elegant gilt chairs beside one of the windows. They had been arranged opposite each other, ready for a private tête-à-tête, but he shifted one to an angle that was almost intimate. Helen hesitated. Her aunt would take a fit if she found her sitting in such a way with Carlston. It looked so particular.
“Your aunt cannot see us from her current position, cousin.” He pointedly looked down at the chair.
Helen sat—she could do nothing else. She had to know, even if it set tongues wagging. He took the other chair, long legs stretched before him.
She leaned forward, closing the distance, knowing that it was a little too close for strict propriety. But surely everyone’s attention was on Byron. “Tell me, please.”
“Not yet.”
“I beg your pardon?”
He lifted his hand, holding back her outrage. “You need to cultivate patience.” He glanced around the room, but it was no casual study. Helen could see the intense scrutiny behind it. He fixed on someone for a moment—an older gentleman in a canary-colored waistcoat and tight crimson jacket who was making his way toward the circle around Lord Byron. Helen recognized him: Sir Matthew Ballantyne, one of the more eccentric fops. She had danced with him at the Hertfords’—a most amiable gentleman, despite his dubious taste in fashion. The Earl, however, did not seem pleased to see him.
He turned from his study of the man. “I believe your household has recently, and suddenly, lost a member of staff,” he said. “Is that correct?”
She stared at him, nonplused at the sudden change of subject. “How do you know that?”
“Am I correct?”
Helen hesitated, trying to collect her thoughts. Would he ask such a thing if he had himself abducted Berta? It seemed unlikely, but perhaps it was a way to muddy the waters. “One of our housemaids went missing six days ago,” she said, watching him carefully. “Why do you wish to know?”
There was no flicker of foreknowledge in his eyes. But then, he was a master at hiding his expression.
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“Yes, she has already sought recommendations and written to the registry office.”
“Which one?”
“Mrs. Barnaby’s, in King Street.” She clasped her hands together, trying to contain her frustration. “Lord Carlston, you fire these questions at me, but you do not answer mine. Tell me how I knew about the horse.”
He did not answer, his attention on Sir Matthew again. The man had joined the circle around Lord Byron and was edging his way closer to the poet. Carlston watched his progress for a few moments, then said, “No doubt you are aware that Lord Byron and Lady Caroline are lovers.”
Helen frowned. Was he introducing this untoward subject to divert her from her own questions? “I don’t know what you can possibly mean,” she said primly.
He gave that half smile again. “You know exactly what I mean, Lady Helen. I want you to tell me what is in the hearts of our new literary genius and his paramour. I want you to read them.”
So he knew she could read faces too. A sudden realization squeezed all the breath from her chest. “This is all some kind of test, isn’t it? What is it all about? Tell me now.”
The light from the candle sconce beside them shone across his eyes and lit their flat darkness with flecks of deep gold. He dropped his voice, making her lean closer. “Do you want answers?”
She nodded.
“Then do as I ask.”
She drew back at the cold command in his voice. “Why?”
His eyes flicked back to Sir Matthew, then to another man—stocky, with a prominent jaw that gave him a pugnacious air—who lounged against the wall and seemed just as interested in the fop. “I cannot stay at your side for the whole evening, madam,” Carlston said. “Is it yes or no?”
She sucked in a furious breath. Yet if she wanted an explanation, she would have to do as he asked. She gave one stiff-necked nod.