Jade Lee - Wedded in Scandal

She stopped dead in her tracks, her mind working too slowly. “So I wasn’t wrong. This is…It was…”

“Yep,” inserted Chandelle as she came forward. “It were, but it ain’t been that for a long time now. Go on,” she said as she gestured them upstairs. “Go on and show ’er what you really do when you come here.” Then she released a cackle. “Well, that’s when I ain’t got him doing bedpans.”

Helaine gasped. “You…you empty bedpans?”

He gave her a rueful look. “On occasion.”

“Ha!” Chandelle inserted. “I makes sure ’e does ’em once a week just to keep ’im humble.”

Helaine felt a smile curve her lips. “I’m afraid it’s not working very well, then. Perhaps you should increase the frequency.”

Robert groaned. “Lord, Helaine, I didn’t bring you here to get me in trouble.”

“Twice a week it is,” confirmed Chandelle. “Now go on up! Afore the rats get yer dinner.”

Robert arched a brow in mock challenge. “I thought you said the mama cat was a great mouser.”

“She’s only one cat!” Chandelle exclaimed. “She can’t get them all. Now shoo! You know the children won’t go to bed if yer around to play with.”

At that Robert extended his hand to Helaine. She took it and they began to climb. It wasn’t a long way to the upper floor, but she spent the whole time sorting through what she’d seen and what she’d guessed. It started with Gwen. “Your sister has no idea about this, does she? Not what the Chandler was or what you’ve made of it.”

“It mortifies me to think that she’s heard of this. I will have to explain it to her, so she knows not to be blurting it out.”

“Why haven’t you already?”

He grimaced as they topped the last step. “Because it is none of her business!” he groused. “This is my place. Every gentleman should have a place to go for some peace. This is mine.”

“Most men pick gaming clubs.”

He snorted. “Betting on a roll of the dice has always seemed singularly useless to me. The stakes are too low. Money, pshaw! Trying to find the cure for the pox or a bad knife wound, now that is a puzzle for a man.”

Helaine had no answer for that, and while she sorted through those words, he squeezed her fingers. “Forgive me, but I really need to check on the baby. His mother died a few days ago. We’ve found a wet nurse, but one can never tell if the babe will take.” So saying, he knocked lightly on the nearest door, waiting until it opened. There stood a woman with full breasts and a milk-stained gown.

“Just got them both down, sir. Sleeping like a dream.”

Robert tiptoed inside to look down at two cribs, the first with a girl who had the nurse’s light brown hair. But the second was a tiny boy with dark hair and the tiniest little face Helaine had ever seen. He couldn’t be more than a couple weeks old at most.

“So he’s feeding?” Robert asked the woman.

“Oh, yes, poor mite. Took a bit o’ coaxing, but he’s all right and tight wi’ it now.”

“Thank you, Nan. You make sure to tell Chandelle if you need anything.”

“We be right perfect, we is. I can’t thank you enough for letting us stay here. We were in a right poor way, me and my Missy.”

Robert held up his hand to stop the effusive thanks. “That was Chandelle’s doing, not mine.”

“But you paid fer the doctor—”

“Chandelle did. Good night, Nan.” And with that, he backed out of the room.

Helaine snorted. “Liar,” she whispered after he had shut the door.

He spun around. “What?”

“You are paying for this. For everything.”

His lips quirked, but he shook his head. “Chandelle manages it all. I merely visit from time to time.”

“To clean bedpans.”

“Yes. And to…I’m sorry. One moment more.” He tapped on another door, opening it when a quavering voice bade him enter. Inside was an old woman, clearly bedridden, but with eyes that warmed to light honey when she saw him.

“Sir!” she cried, then she descended into a bout of coughing that left her weak and pale.

He crossed to her quickly, supporting her body as she gasped for breath, then helping her drink from a glass of water when she was done. “It is not helping, is it?” he asked when she was finally back against her pillows, her breath shallow but steady.

“It’s my time, sir. Ain’t no medicine…can stop it now.”

“No, Miss Mary, it isn’t. We shall find—”

“Stop!” she said with as much force as she could muster. “This your woman?”

“I—,” he began, but his words were cut off as Miss Mary waved Helaine forward.

“Come, come. Let me see…who ye finally picked.”

Helaine stepped in. “Hello. My name is Mrs. Mortimer, and yes, I am certainly a friend of—”

“Sir,” he said quickly, cutting her off. “I am simply ‘Sir’ here.”

She arched her brow, but showed her understanding with a slight nod. “We are friends, he and I. Besides, I begin to think you ladies are his real love.”

The woman laughed at that, her mouth opening to a toothless grin, but she hadn’t enough breath for a real laugh. In the end, she settled with a pat on Robert’s hand as she caught her breath. “He ain’t brought…no one here. Nor took…any woman. We all offered.”

“You took sick,” said Robert as he pressed a kiss to the back of Miss Mary’s hand. “Otherwise I would have tumbled madly in love with you.”

Miss Mary smiled, but her eyes were on Helaine. “Hurt ’im,” she said, “an’ I’ll haunt you. Your hair’ll go white. Teeth rot. Haunt you—”

“I shall not hurt him,” Helaine said.

“Swear it.”

Robert patted the woman’s hand, trying to distract her. “There’s no need—”

“I swear I shall do everything I can to see him happy,” she said, surprising herself with her words. But even as she said them, there was a rightness to it. Whatever else Lord Redhill was, he was a good man. Any man who could create a place like this—a home where women and children lived in happiness—was a worthy man in her eyes. His Grosvenor Square home showed the privilege of his rank. But this place, with the poor and the dying, was something else entirely. This showed his true heart.

Miss Mary held her gaze for a long while, impressing her will upon Helaine. It was odd getting this steely a gaze from a dying woman, but there was strength in Miss Mary despite her frail body, and Helaine had no doubt she could make good on her threat to haunt anyone who hurt her “Sir.”

In the end, the woman was satisfied. Miss Mary let her eyes drift closed as she patted Robert’s hand. “Go. Be young. Make babies.”

“I shall talk to the doctor tomorrow about your medicine. We shall find something to help.”

Miss Mary didn’t answer except to wave him away. He nodded to her, though she couldn’t see it, and tiptoed out. Helaine followed a half step behind. He didn’t speak again until after the door was pulled tightly shut.

“She was Chandelle’s madame, once upon a time. Quite a beauty, too. Used to run three houses with twenty girls each.”

Helaine gasped, her eyes going back to the shut door. “She pulled girls into this life? Into—”

“Don’t judge,” he said quickly. “The girls would be taking men either way. Best they do it in a clean, safe place where they’re paid for their service.” He turned to her, and in his eyes she could see that he wanted her to understand, to see the women beneath the job.

“Of course,” she said slowly. She well knew the desperate straits a woman could face. She would not judge any woman who chose that path. But what about the woman who paved the road? Who trapped others into the life? In her mind, they were all like Johnny Bono, taking advantage where they could in service to their own base needs.

She felt his hand on her chin, encouraging her to look him in the eye. “This is a place for women to come and die with dignity. Or to heal from wounds, like Nettie. She was stabbed by her customer because he didn’t want to pay. Chandelle mans the door, and only she can ask what happened to bring them here. I don’t care. Can you understand that, Helaine? I don’t care who they were. Only what I see before me: sick women who need a little care.”

Helaine swallowed, ashamed of her own prejudices. She never would have thought that Robert would have a better understanding of the poor and the weak than she. She never would have thought he would prove to be kinder than she. But he was. This place proved it.

“Show me the rest, Robert. Let me see it all.”

His smile showed relief and joy, and before long, she was peeking in on ten ladies, plus Chandelle and the children. And then on the topmost floor was one last room, which he proclaimed his sanctuary. Pushing it open, she saw a ratty desk piled high with notes, another table of bottles containing what must be medicines, a plate of cold chicken and wine—their dinner, she presumed—and a large, comfortable bed stacked high with pillows.

“Please come in, Helaine,” he said. “There is but one thing more, and then you shall know it all.”

“All, my lord? Everything there is about you? If there is one thing I have learned this evening, it is that there are always more layers to you than I imagine.”

He shrugged. “My heart, then, Helaine. You shall learn my true heart.”

Robert swung the door wide and watched as she crossed the threshold into his sanctuary. No woman had ever come in here. Doctors and apothecaries aplenty, but they were always men. Even Chandelle never dared breach this place. In truth, he had needed all that time this afternoon just to clean up the room to make it habitable for her.

And now she was here. His Helaine, looking about with wide eyes. “I don’t understand,” she said softly, turning back to him with an apology in her eyes.