Page 48 of The Matrimonial Advertisement

“But elsewhere?”

She saw no reason to deny it. She had the sense that they’d reached the end of the road, the two of them. The moment of reckoning. “Yes. On my arms and wrists.”

“And your neck?”

Her fingers fluttered to her throat. She had a visceral memory of how she’d felt when it happened. Despite all the indignities she’d suffered thus far, all the threats and abuse and betrayals, that act had terrified her as nothing else had before. “That was my Uncle Edward.”

“The Earl of Castleton.”

He knew who her uncle was then. Of course he did. It would have been one of the first things Mr. Glyde would have told him. “Since last September, yes. That’s when he inherited the title.” She paused, her heart thudding heavily. “What else did he tell you?”

Justin shook his head. “I want to hear it from you.”

He was regarding her with unwavering intensity. Helena had been on the receiving end of just such a look from the doctors her uncle had hired. It made her want to scream in frustration. It made her want to shout that shewas not mad.

But it never worked to simply blurt it out. She must speak to him calmly. She must explain the circumstances without emotion.

She returned his gaze with what she hoped was equal solemnity. As she did so, some small part of her brain registered the absence of his coat and cravat. He was clad only in his shirtsleeves and a pair of black trousers. It was outrageously intimate.

“Until two years ago, my father was the Earl of Castleton,” she said. “When he died, my brother Giles ascended to the title.”

“The brother who perished at the siege of Jhansi.”

“Yes,” she said. And then, “No.”

Justin’s brows lifted slightly, but he said not a word.

She wasn’t helping her cause, she knew it. And her appearance couldn’t be helping much either. Her wet hair was matted and wild all about her. She must look like a veritable madwoman, even if she didn’t sound like one.

“The British army believes him dead. Another officer gave an eyewitness account. It was evidence enough for my uncle to succeed to the title. But the army never found Giles’ body. Without it—without some physical proof—I couldn’t accept that my brother had died. And that…” She took a breath to steady her voice. “That’s when this whole nightmare began.”

Helena attempted to explain it to Justin as clearly and succinctly as she could. It was an impossible feat. She couldn’t speak of such things in a dispassionate manner. Not about the loss of her brother. And certainly not about what came after.

“I took the news of Giles’s death very hard,” she said. “For weeks, I kept to my room. I wept unceasingly. When the solicitor came to Grosvenor Square with my brother’s will, I could scarcely bring myself to attend the reading. My uncle was there. He didn’t take any notice of me. Not at first. But when the terms of Giles’s will were revealed, he reacted…rather badly.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, the events of that day materializing as clear as crystal in her mind. The blinds had been half-drawn in her brother’s study. The footmen had arranged chairs in front of what had once been his desk. She’d been seated in one of them, a veiled mourning bonnet on her head and a black lace handkerchief clutched in her hand.

“The property belonging to the earldom is entailed,” she said. “The family seat in Hampshire, the hunting lodge in Wiltshire, and the townhouse in London all went to my uncle, along with a dozen other properties. But the money—the bulk of it, anyway—was my brother’s to do with as he liked.”

Comprehension flared in Justin’s gray eyes. “He left it to you.”

“All of it. Free from any encumbrance. I didn’t pay attention to the legal whys and wherefores. I was too distressed. It was then my uncle turned to me. He saw I was weeping behind my mourning veil. Weeping more than the occasion deserved, or so he said.”

“You were close to your brother.”

“He was my best friend. I loved him dearly. Perhaps I did grieve overmuch. In other circumstances it wouldn’t have mattered. But my mother behaved in just such a fashion after Giles was born. The excessive weeping and low spirits. It only worsened after I arrived. She fell into a melancholy from which she never recovered. My father… He had her put away.”

“Into an asylum,” Justin said bluntly.

“Yes. A private asylum in Highgate.” She lowered her gaze to her hands. “It was an awful place. They confined her to a room with nothing but an iron bedstead. She was subjected to treatments. I don’t know the extent of it. I was just a child. But my father made us visit her. And every time I saw her, she was worse. They made her worse. And I couldn’t—” Her voice broke.

Justin leaned toward the bed. “You don’t have to say any more.”

“I must. Else you won’t understand why—”

“I do understand.”

“Not everything.”