Chapter 21: Disaster Looms

Had it not been Callie relating that afternoon's events, Percy might not have credited the story, so contrary did it run to all expectation. "They were laughing together?"

"Yes, and chatting very amiably. If anything, Hartshorne looked more than usually pleased with Helena. Too much so, in fact," she added soberly. "He overplayed his part."

"You think it was a performance, then?"

"Undoubtedly. It was a calculated show of support, a signal to the ton that he is unconcerned by the gossip and continues to hold Helena in the highest regard. It had the desired effect, too. People took notice, and, from what I saw and heard, the tide of public opinion has started to turn." Callie shook her head in helpless admiration. "I have to give the man his due: Hartshorne may have singlehandedly quashed the gossip and restored Helena's reputation."

"He has the standing for it," Percy granted. "I have to admit, though, I'm surprised he used his influence on Helena's behalf. He's always struck me as someone who's content to hang back and let others sink or swim as they may. I may have misjudged him."

Callie nodded. "I've gained a new respect for him, myself. Now, it just remains to be seen how much good his backing accomplished."

The first indications were all promising. At the Darlingtons' ball that evening, Helena might, as ever, have filled her dance card twice over and was met at every turn with warm smiles and cordial greetings. Percy had taken the precaution of arriving early so as to be on hand should Helena need support and was as a result able not only to secure himself a dance but to have his choice. "The supper dance is free," Helena had offered, her cheeks flushing a delicate pink at her boldness.

"You're not reserving it for Hartshorne?"

Her color deepened. "No, his lordship was obliged to leave Town. There's some business at his Hampshire estate that cannot wait. He shouldn't be gone more than a matter of days."

"He'll be back, then, in time for your ball?"

Her lips thinned in a tight smile. "He said I might rely on it."

Until that moment, Percy had been so entirely focused on the threat the gossip posed to Helena's happiness and the steps he might personally take to minimize the damage that he had failed to appreciate the opportunity it had afforded him. Had Helena's reputation suffered an irreparable blow, more impressive suitors would have bowed out and, with their withdrawal, Percy's more modest suit would have stood a far greater chance of being favored.

If he was late to this realization, such was not universally the case. "You have my sympathies," Beryl Stanhope told him as they moved through the figures of a quadrille. "Had Hartshorne not decided to act the white knight, you would be in prime position to win the fair Miss Damerel. Oh!" she said on a throaty laugh when Percy made to protest, "You need not try to deny it! Your face betrays you whenever you look at her. Indeed, the scandal, if one might call it such, was so much to your advantage, one might almost suspect you of starting the rumors. But, of course," she concluded carelessly, "you would never be so devious."

The dance forced them to separate, and when it brought them together again, she carried on, "I will say Hartshorne's chivalry surprised me. Frankly, I'm at pains to understand it." She slanted him a sideways look. "Perhaps you might enlighten me, my lord. Why is it discerning men like yourself and Hartshorne fall at Miss Damerel's feet? She is wealthy and beautiful and not without charm, but so are many others."

"Yourself foremost among them," Percy said.

She did not mistake the gentle mockery in his tone but seemed rather to appreciate than resent it. "You flatter me," she said, on the same dry note. "Even so, for all my superior qualities, it appears I am not on her level. Why is that, my lord? Can you explain what makes her so beguiling? I do not see it, myself."

"You might, if you were better acquainted."

"Ah! I should befriend her, then, and all will be clear, is that your meaning? Thank you, but no. I admit to being curious, but that's more trouble than the answer's worth to me. If you cannot tell me, let us leave it at there's simply no accounting for taste."

As he escorted her off the floor, she delivered one final parting shot. "I do hope," she said, "your friend Devlin has not wagered too great a sum on Hartshorne's backing out. It appears to have been a bad bet." She treated him to a faux-compassionate smile. "Better luck next time."

The exchange left a sour taste in Percy's mouth but, fortunately for his temper, the double pleasures of dancing with Georgie and Helena were still before him and by the time dinner was served, his spirits had rebounded. As they sat together partaking of the sumptuous dishes on offer, Percy and Helena spoke of a good many things, but principle among these was the gossip that had threatened to shred her reputation and Hartshorne's timely intervention to preserve it. The marquess, Helena recounted, had presented himself at Storborough House not, as she'd apprehended, predisposed to believe the rumors but quite the opposite. He'd asked for form's sake that she address the allegations and when she'd complied, he'd pronounced himself fully satisfied. He'd then insisted on their joining the afternoon carriage parade in Hyde Park so that the ton might witness his support for her and contempt for the gossip. "I am profoundly grateful to him," Helena said in conclusion. "He put an end to what was fast becoming a nightmare."

"I am glad for it," Percy said, sincerely. He could have wished he'd been the one to rescue her and restore her peace but seeing her happy and relieved of care was all his heart desired. It mattered little who received credit.

He felt a light touch on his sleeve, and turned to see a smiling Helena directing him with a discreet tip of her head to look further up the table. There, heads bent closely together over their plates, sat Georgie and Walter Flavell engaged in what looked to be a most pleasant conversation. Georgie's cheeks were rosy red and her smile dazzling. Flavell, as well he might, looked starstruck. "You danced with Georgie earlier," Helena said. "Did she not strike you as different tonight? More lively? More gay?"

"She did, indeed." Georgie had beamed at him throughout their set, her eyes alight with happiness, her dancing light and joyful. "I don't know that I've ever seen her in higher spirits."

"Nor I. She is quite transformed." Helena nodded again toward the couple. "Might it be on Mr. Flavell's account, do you think? It appears he's finally caught on to what a treasure she is, and not before time!"

Georgie had hinted as much, when, as they were quitting the dance floor, she made a point of thanking him. "I don't know, precisely, what it was you said to Walter, only that, whatever it was, it made a great impression. So, thank you, Lord Percy, so very much!" To Helena, he said, "If he's won her regard, he's a fortunate man. What of Mrs. Harcourt, though? Do you think she'll approve his suit?"

"Oh, yes! She'll be over the moon! Walter's been such a constant presence in Cavendish Square, he's already like one of the family. And Will, of course, will be delighted."

Later, in the comfort of his rooms in the Albany, Percy reflected with satisfaction on the evening. The storm which only yesterday had threatened to burst over Helena's head had been sapped of its force and she was once again, as she deserved to be, high in Society's favor. Georgie, too, in her own way, was on top of the world. Their charade had achieved its desired aim, and, while Percy reveled in the happy outcome for Georgie's sake, he was no less glad for his own. In his deliberations as to if and when to offer for Helena, he at least needed no longer worry about embarrassing Georgie by appearing to desert her. He'd held up his end of their bargain and was free of further responsibility. It only remained for him now to determine his course of action. Hartshorne was, decidedly, still in the picture. Had the marquess' galant behavior caused him to rise in Helena's estimation? It could hardly have done otherwise. Enough that she'd be better inclined to accept him? Percy replayed their conversation in his mind, trying to recall the exact tone of her voice and every fleeting facial gesture. Had she spoken of Hartshorne with greater tenderness, or was it his anxious mind playing tricks? He could not resolve the question, and it continued to nag at him until, in the early morning hours, he sought his bed and relief in sleep.

He awoke the next morning well-rested in body if somewhat less so in spirit. The previous evening's questions rose again to the forefront of his thoughts and he was pondering them over a late breakfast when his manservant appeared bearing a calling card on a tray. He saw at a glance that it bore his sister Enid's name and, beneath it, in her familiar scrawl, the letters P C E U which he knew to stand for Please call earliest urgent. He took up the pasteboard square and frowned at the message. Enid was given to drama and had made mountains of molehills often enough for Percy to question the emergency, but the only way to be certain was to answer the summons. Within the half hour, he was on his way to Portman Square.

He arrived to find Callie there before him, both she and Enid wearing expressions of concern. They greeted him with something like relief, their demeanor brightening as if, with his coming, they already felt the weight of care lifting from their shoulders. He crossed the room to them, wending his way around the tables, plant stands and foot stools in his path. "What is it?" he asked. "What's happened?"

Instead of replying, Callie said, "Those rumors about Helena, did you have any luck finding out who's behind them?"

The question caught Percy off guard. "No, I made no headway at all. Why do you ask? I'd've thought it a moot point now that the gossip's died down."

"But that's just the problem," Enid put it. "He - or she — is at it again! There's new talk making the rounds, and it's just as wicked as before!"

"Are you certain?" At Callie's admonishing scowl, Percy rushed on, "It's just that, last night at the Darlingtons', there wasn't so much as a whisper against her. She was fully restored to the ton's good graces."

"Well, that will be a short reprieve if Helena's nemesis has her way. She — I'm convinced it's a woman — seems absolutely set on bringing Helena down."

Callie and Enid having settled back into their seats, Percy dropped onto the edge of a nearby chair. "What's this new rumor, then? Where did you hear it?"

"It was at the theater, during intermission. Enid and I were strolling in the lobby, stretching our legs, when that horrid little busybody Emma Cowper came straight up to me and asked if it were true that Helena was the granddaughter of the infamous Lady Steeple."

"Lady Steeple?" Percy echoed blankly.

"Lady Damerel's mother. The name won't mean anything to you now but thirty years ago, it was the by-word for bad ton and depravity. The Steeples were part of the rackety set around the Prince Regent and Lady Steeple, in particular, was held to be shockingly fast. It was a reputation she well-deserved. By all accounts, she was entirely self-centered and cared only for living the high life. She was repeatedly unfaithful to her husband and was so indiscreet about it that, in the end, Sir Francis was driven to divorce her."

"You had all that from Emma Cowper?"

"No, only some of it," Callie admitted. "The rest I had from my mother. She remembers Aurelia Steeple very well. She was a notorious figure, so regularly pointed out for derision and censure that Mama couldn't help but take note of her. She recalled being repelled but also, to a certain degree, fascinated by Lady Steeple's complete disregard for propriety."

"She's a blot on the family name, then," Percy conceded. "But that's ancient history, surely."

"To us, it is," Enid said, "but that's not the case for people our parents' age or older. This talk will jog their memories and there are some — women whose lovers she stole, or husbands she took up with — who will not remember her kindly."

"And what's that to do with Helena? Is she to be made to pay for her grandmother's sins?"

Callie and Enid exchanged a trouble glance. "Not quite," Callie said. "It's being said — truthfully, according to my mother — that Helena bears an almost uncanny resemblance to her grandmother. Like Helena, Aurelia Chiltoe, as she was then, was her Season's most sought-after debutante. All the gentlemen were mad for her, and Sir Francis thought himself the luckiest of men to have beat out all her other suitors." She gave him a pointed look. "You see the parallels."

"They're clear enough," Percy allowed, "but what, exactly, am I to make of them? You're never going to suggest that, because she resembles her grandmother physically, she must be like her in character, too!"

"But that's precisely what's being implied!" Enid said. "That she inherited both her grandmother's beauty and her wanton nature."

"But, that's absurd! Helena's been the very model of propriety. Not even the very highest stickler could fault her behavior."

"It's all part of an act to secure a rich husband," Callie said, playing devil's advocate. "As with her grandmother, it'll only be after she's safely wed that her true wicked character will be revealed."

Percy gave his head an exasperated shake. "That makes no sense. If this 'taint' is passed down the maternal line, it stands to reason that Lady Damerel must be affected, too. Helena favors her strongly, so she must take after Lady Steeple as well. Logically, being more closely related, she ought to incline even more to immoral behavior than Helena, and yet she's an exemplary wife and mother. There's never been so much as a breath of scandal attached to her."

It was Cassie's turn to shake her head. "That's where you're wrong. Lady Damerel proved herself her mother's daughter, but it was so long ago, few people remember."

"I know nothing of this!"

"Yes, you do," Callie insisted. "It's just slipped your mind. Simply put, she scandalized the ton by marrying Lord Damerel, who, at that time, had such a reputation as a wastrel and degenerate, he was no less a social outcast than Lady Steeple. It was a match that shocked the ton, for, of course, Damerel was no suitable parti for a proper young miss, unless, that is, she were at her very last prayers which Venetia Lanyon was not. She had other, respectable suitors, but she freely chose, instead, to wed a disreputable rake. In the end, the only way the ton could explain it was to see it as proof that, like her mother, she lacked all feminine delicacy and was likely debauched herself."

Enid, her face thoughtful, said, "Lord Damerel is such an excellent husband and father, and is so highly respected a man, I find it hard to picture him as a dissolute rogue. What was it he did to earn so black a reputation?"

Enid was to have a thorough answer to her question as, over the next two days, Damerel's sordid past joined Lady Steeple's in being the talk of the ton. She was treated to breathless accounts of his having eloped with an older, married woman, a step so iniquitous that his upstanding father, on learning the news, had been felled by a stroke. There had followed months of a nomadic life abroad, culminating, finally, in his mistress' deserting him for a wealthy Venetian nobleman, and Damerel's demanding satisfaction of the man in the form of a dawn meeting with pistols at twenty paces. Subsequent years had seen him leading an aimless, dissipated life, squandering his fortune on the ruinous pleasures of excessive drink, mercenary bits of fluff and high-stakes gambling. He'd been all but bankrupt, financially and morally, when he'd returned to England.

The rest of Damerel's story — his complete reformation and readmission to society — could not compete for titillation with his unsavory youth, and was so often omitted in the chatter about him, his transformation might well never have occurred. Damerel was not without his defenders; the Earl of Hendon and Lord Flavell, among others, protested their friend's being tarred with misdeeds he'd committed some thirty years before and never since; to no avail. The tales of the Wicked Baron Damerel continued to circulate, growing ever more outrageous and dark with each retelling.

The effect of these stories was to cast Helena as having descended on both sides of her family from disreputable individuals, and to make her once again the object of the ton's suspicion and disfavor. With Helena's peace again in jeopardy, Percy forgot his own concerns and concentrated solely on providing her whatever support his company might supply. He was not alone in this; when he would have taken Helena driving at the fashionable hour in his phaeton, George and Enid had argued for the four of them driving out together and in the Carstairs' far more showy barouche. Lady Hendon had lent Lady Damerel and Helena her considerable credit by accompanying them to Mrs. Layton's Venetian breakfast and remaining protectively by their side for the event's duration. Simon took an evening away from a pressing investigation to attend the Carmichaels' ball and dance two sets with Helena. What was more, he'd recruited additional help in the form of his and Callie's step-brother, Patrick, a captain in the 95th rifles briefly home on leave. Percy, watching his tall, trim cousin in his smart dress uniform waltz Helena around the floor, found he could not regret the man's imminent return to his regiment.

Venetia's Harcourt and Hendred cousins were also active in taking the Damerels' part, as was Walter Flavell, and, taken all together, these various interventions on Helena's behalf served to insulate her from a great many of the slights and snubs directed her way. They did not entirely prevent her, though, from glimpsing the stares fixed rudely upon her, or from hearing the excited whispers that broke out as she passed by. She'd had acquaintances casually turn their backs to avoid returning her greeting and others avert their faces as they hurried on past. She'd even chanced to overhear the poem penned at her expense by her erstwhile, and apparently bitter, suitor, Mr. Anstruther. It ran:

The beauteous Miss Damerel

Was fathered by a known rakehell.
As for her Steeple ancestress,
She was a famed adulteress.
Possessed of such a pedigree,
How worthy can our Beauty be?

Helena might have missed these and other signs of the ton's disfavor, but there was no avoiding the brutal evidence that arrived twice daily in the post. A trickle of regrets for the Damerels' ball had swelled into a stream and finally into a torrent; fully a quarter of the expected guests had sent their excuses and who knew how many more would simply absent themselves without notice? Her official debut, so long and eagerly anticipated, for which her father had spared no expense, and whose every detail her mother had overseen with care, was poised to be so poorly-attended as to be humiliating. All Helena's happy expectations of an evening to shine and make her parents proud were dashed, her pleasure ruined.

Callie, upon having these developments relayed to her, had taken Helena's hand in hers and given it a heartening squeeze. "You will have all your family and all your true friends about you," she said in rallying tones. "And we shall all be so merry and gay, you will scarcely notice the smaller number."

Helena mustered a small smile in answer, but it was a token of gratitude only, not comfort. Her dejection so pierced Percy's heart that could he, in that moment, have laid hands upon her adversary, he might cheerfully have wrung his neck. It sickened and astounded him that someone could be so relentlessly cruel as to orchestrate an innocent young woman's downfall and all, as far as he knew, to avenge some ancient indignity suffered at her father or grandmother's hands or for the petty satisfaction of toppling her from her pedestal. He'd previously been inclined to suspect her enemy was a youngish person, one of the Season's overshadowed debutantes, perhaps, incensed by Helena's far greater success. Now, though, his — or her — acquaintance with a long-buried past suggested an older individual, someone of his parents' or even his grandparents' generation. There might be any number of persons still living with a long-held score to settle; matrons whose husbands Aurelia Lanyon had lured away, mistresses Damerel had discarded, disgruntled heirs on Sir Lambert's side, even those worthier suitors rejected in Damerel's favor, any of them could be bent on revenge. If such were the case, his chances of identifying the miscreant and putting a stop to his mischief, chances he'd once imagined very good, were negligible, and, in any event, it was too late; he'd brought about the damage he craved. All that was left, now, was to limit its extent as much as possible.

In that regard, the most urgent concern was to salvage the Damerels' ball, somehow. There was neither time, nor did Percy have the influence, to persuade those who'd reneged to change their minds, but he could, at least in part, compensate for their absence by supplying alternate guests. He broached the matter to Helena, saying, "If you'll permit, I'll extend invitations to your ball to some of my family. My sister, Elaine, for one, will be glad to attend, and my brothers might as well."

"What a capital notion!" Callie said. "Patrick must come, too, and, if you've no objection, I'll ask my aunt and uncle Jarvis. Oh! and Harold and Gwen Carstairs are up from the country and staying with George and Enid. Such charming people! They will love to be included."

Helena could not help but smile at Callie's enthusiasm. "Then, Enid and George must bring them. As for the rest, you may invite whoever you like. Any one of your friends and relations — indeed, anyone you vouch for — will be more than welcome. Only," she added, wagging a finger at them in playful admonition, "do not exceed sixty invitations, or we shall not be able to accommodate them all."

Percy smiled at the jest, quite as if he fully appreciated the impossibility of their achieving so much and in so little time. In his heart, though, he'd formed a resolution. "Fifty or sixty, at the most," he said, on the same joking note. "Understood."