Marrying Winterborne (The Ravenels #2) - Lisa Kleypas Page 0,117

curving the tiny fingers around the heated china.

The girl sampled it, smacked her lips, and looked at Helen with a wondering smile. She continued to drink it in birdlike sips, trying to make it last.

“I’ll be right back, darling,” Helen murmured. “I have to wake up my sleepyhead sisters.” Calmly she walked to the door. Once she was in the hallway, she ran like a madwoman to Cassandra’s room. Her sister was deep in slumber.

“Cassandra,” she whispered, patting and shaking her shoulder. “Please wake up. Help, I need help.”

“Too early,” Cassandra mumbled.

“Mr. Vance is coming within the hour. He’s going to take Charity away. Please, you must help me, I need to leave Ravenel House quickly.”

Cassandra sat bolt upright, giving her a befuddled glance. “What?”

“Get Pandora, and come to my room. Try to be quiet.”

In five minutes, the twins were in Helen’s bedroom. She handed them the note, and they read it in turn.

Pandora looked wrathful. “‘The matter is now out of your hands,’” she read aloud, a flush climbing her cheeks. “I hate her.”

“No, you mustn’t hate her,” Helen said softly. “She’s doing the wrong thing for the right reason.”

“I don’t care about the reason, the result is still revolting.”

Someone tapped quietly on the door. “Lady Helen?” came the housekeeper’s voice.

“Yes, come in.”

The housekeeper entered with a stack of neatly folded clothes. “All washed and mended,” she said. “There’s not much left of the stockings, but I patched them as well as I could.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Abbott. Charity will enjoy wearing nice clean clothes.” Helen gestured to the child on the bed, reminding them all that she could hear every word. She gave the note to the housekeeper and waited until she had read it before murmuring apologetically, “I wish I could explain the situation more fully to you, but—”

“You’re a Ravenel, my lady,” came Mrs. Abbott’s staunch reply. “That’s all I need to understand. What are you planning?”

“I’m going to Waterloo Station, to take the next train to Hampshire.”

“I’ll tell the driver to ready the carriage.”

“No, that would take too long, and they’ll notice, and we’d never be allowed to leave. I have to go to the main road by way of the servants’ door and take a hansom cab to the station.”

Mrs. Abbott looked alarmed. “My lady, a hansom—”

“Don’t worry about that. The problem is that when Mr. Vance realizes I’m not here, he’ll follow me to the station. It’s fairly obvious that Eversby Priory is the only place I could take Charity.”

“We’ll stall for you,” Pandora said. “We’ll lock your bedroom door and pretend to be helping with Charity.”

“I’ll speak to one of the footmen,” the housekeeper said quietly. “Mr. Vance’s carriage will be missing a perch-bolt when he tries to leave.”

Impulsively Helen snatched up her hand and kissed it.

Mrs. Abbott seemed slightly unnerved by the gesture. “There, there, my lady. I’ll send Agatha back up to help you dress.”

“We’ll take care of the rest,” Cassandra said.

The next few minutes were a strange, mad scramble of feverish activity and quiet murmurs. Helen had already donned her chemise and drawers by the time Agatha came to the room, and was struggling with her corset. In her haste, she couldn’t match the front hooks up correctly.

Agatha came to her, reached for the top of the busk, and began to hook it deftly. “My mum always says, ‘fast is slow and slow is fast.’”

“I’ll try to remember that,” Helen said ruefully.

After finishing the corset, the maid went to the wardrobe.

“No, don’t,” Helen said, realizing what she was looking for. “I’m not going to wear a bustle.”

“My lady?” the maid asked, looking shocked.

“Just pin up the loose parts of my traveling skirts in back,” Helen insisted. “I can’t walk in tiny steps today, I have to move.”

Agatha hurried back to her with a black traveling skirt and a white blouse.

On the other side of the room, Cassandra dressed Charity with remarkable speed, telling her with a smile that she was going on an outing with Helen. “Pandora, she has no bonnet or coat. Will you fetch her a shawl or something?”

Pandora dashed off to her room and returned with a shawl and a small, low-crowned felt hat trimmed with cord. Since there was no significant difference between girls’ and women’s hat styles, it would work well enough.

After helping Helen to don her black traveling jacket, Agatha asked, “Shall I run to the pantry and fetch something for you to take, my lady?”

Cassandra answered from the window, where she had gone