Page 1 of The Haunted Duke

Prologue

“Well, do you not look so very pretty!”

Helena flicked her green eyes up to the mirror and smiled when she saw her mother. She turned around, making sure the skirts of her favorite pink taffeta evening gown billowed out a little.

Lady Robinson smiled warmly at her as she moved closer, but Helena still noticed the slight sadness in her mother’s eyes. It had been there for the past four years.

“Your talent with a needle has become remarkable,” Mary-Anne noted, her voice trembling slightly.

She reached out to the small expanse of skirt where a tear had been. Now, an embroidered pink-and-gold flower bloomed completely over it.

“Well, after a little bit of practice, I have discovered that mending is no more difficult than embroidery,” Helena replied triumphantly.

Her sunny smile slipped a little as she raised her white-gloved hands and saw the tea stain near her wrist.

“Stains, though…” she sighed. “Stains are still a mystery to me. I have tried lye, salt, and sand. Yet I still fail. No matter, though,” she added cheerily. “I will find a solution in time. For now, it is nothing a good accessory cannot disguise.”

She shook her head, her smile returning as she reached for her small, matching reticule, the strap of it covering the stain perfectly.

Mary-Anne laughed softly as she shook her head and cupped her daughter’s rosy cheeks.

“Oh, my girl, how I wish we could afford new gloves like we used to.”

Helena gently grasped her mother’s hand.

“There is always a solution, Mama. The task is simply to find it. You taught me that, remember? Now, would you mind helping me pin up my hair? I will be visiting the opera. Mr. Winterbourne was kind enough to procure tickets, and I do not wish to be late.”

Mary-Anne gently patted Helena’s cheeks before letting her go and encouraging her to sit down. As she styled Helena’s long, thick, wheat-blonde hair into an elegant updo, Helena picked up her nearly empty porcelain jar of lip balm. She carefully removed her stained, nearly worn glove and used her pinky to scrape out the last of the product, smoothing it over her full lips.

She tried not to worry about using the last bit of it as she pinched her cheeks to give herself a little more color. It was not as if she had run out of something she needed. They had far more serious things to worry about.

Her heart twinged at the thought. So much had changed since they had lost her father. At one time, their family had owned several estates throughout England. Their staff had been large, and with overflowing coffers, Helena and her mother had spent a good bit of their time shopping for the latest fashions and lunching with the other wealthy ladies of the ton.

When Lord Robinson had been declared dead, the vast amounts of money in his accounts had gone. It would have been more than enough for them to survive on, but it had all seemed to vanish at the same time he had.

Snapping herself out of the spiral of forlorn thought, Helena smacked her lips together with a loud pop and then grinned at her reflection.

“Do you like it?” Mary-Anne asked tentatively.

“It looks perfect, Mama,” Helena promised, gently patting at the pretty bun her mother had formed.

She rose from her seat and turned to hug her mother tightly. Again, she felt another bout of worry as she wrapped her arms around her mother’s small form. Neither of them had ever been robustly shaped, but with their recent financial restrictions, their figures, including her little brother’s, seemed to grow a little smaller with each passing month.

“I am so happy you have such good friends to take you out despite our situation,” Mary-Anne said as they pulled back and held one another’s shoulders. “Do enjoy yourself, but please be careful.”

“Of course, Mama. We will be properly chaperoned,” Helena promised as someone knocked on Helena’s door.

“Are they already here to fetch me?” Helena called through the door.

“No, Miss,” her maid, Aggie, called from the other side. “It is Lord Ingram. He is here to request a visit from her Ladyship. Is she with you?”

Beneath her palms, Helena felt her mother’s shoulders tense immediately.

“She is,” Helena called. “Would you please give us a moment?”

Helena did not wait for Aggie’s response, knowing the young woman would respect her wishes, and she focused on the anxious look clouding over her mother’s pretty face.

“Mama, what is Lord Ingram doing here again? Does he not know it is past the appropriate hour for social calls?” she asked. “He has been coming more and more frequently as of late.”