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“He knows a lot about other brothels, too,” Olivia said proudly, and the women erupted in laughter. Olivia colored again, probably realizing how her comment sounded. “I just meant that he keeps track of places that can mistreat women and children. It’s part of his job as a member of Parliament,” she corrected swiftly, her cheeks still burning.

“Don’t worry, dear,” Lavinia said with a smile. “We wouldn’t have laughed if we truly thought that Jarvis visits the brothels for the sake of entertainment. We know how much he adores you.”

Helen lowered her eyes, her hands fumbling with the folds of her gown. An adoring husband would never visit a brothel. Everyone said so. She suppressed the ache in her heart.

The truth was, the fact that Jarvis was openly discussing brothels with his wife said a lot about their relationship. And being the caring, and honest person Jarvis was, if he said that the brothel was safe, it was probably true.

What Olivia didn’t understand, however, was that it wasn’t easy to just stumble into a brothel and find yourself a lover. Well, maybe it was for some people. But it was unlikely those people were in love with their husbands which Victoria obviously was.

Olivia glanced at Helen thoughtfully, her face still as red as the sky at sunrise. She bit her lip as if thinking through the next thing to say, then shook her head and turned away, probably deeming her topic of conversation inappropriate.

Was she going to suggest Helen visited the brothel? They’d had a similar conversation before, and Helen found it rather disarming that her cousin-in-law was still thinking about it.

If a brothel was not a perfect solution for the radiant princess, perhaps it would be for a woman who could barely leave the house.

Perhaps a brothel—no, not any brothel, the brothel, the one that was safe even by Jarvis’s standards—would help her answer all the questions about passion she’d ever had.

Helen shook out her thoughts and concentrated on the conversation at hand.

This was a crazy and rather useless line of thought.

She would never seriously consider going to a brothel anyway.

Chapter 6

Helen was seriously considering going to a brothel.

She couldn’t pinpoint the moment when her mind had switched and she’d suddenly decided she’d do it. After all, just a few days ago, she was convinced this was never going to happen. And if someone had asked her a few years or even months ago if she’d ever consider something as audacious, she would have scoffed in their face.

Normally, she would never think about such a thing.

However, these were not normal circumstances.

Helen’s life was passing her by, and she felt it slipping away through her fingers. She was six and twenty, and she had spent half of her life—no, a lot more than half—hiding away.

She was living in a house that was not her own, she’d had a husband who spent nights with other women, and she had a daughter who—as much as she loved her—was not of her womb. And she had never done anything in her life that one would consider brave or audacious.

She was often sick and the intervals between her illness she spent at home. Alone.

And the sensation that her life was passing by unnoticed was strangling her.

She wanted to feel something except pain and grief. And she needed to do it now. Then if it was her time to go, at least she’d be able to tell herself that she’d lived this life to the best of her ability.

This wasn’t the only opportunity she wanted to seize. She was excited to visit the women’s shelter and start helping people. But so far, Jarvis had not found a way to escort her and Victoria.

She found it rather ironic that she was waiting for her cousin-in-law’s say so to attend a respectable women’s shelter during the day, and yet, she was contemplating running away in the middle of the night to a scandalous brothel. But she couldn’t tell him—or anyone for that matter—of her wicked ideas.

At first, it was just a thought at the back of her mind, but as it often happened with these things, now everything around her started reminding her of this opportunity.

It was as if the stars were lining up in order to facilitate her rebellion.

Firstly, a new book called The Scoundrel came out and instantly became the talk of the town. It was a gothic romance novel about a shy woman who had been kidnapped by a sinful scoundrel and was kept in his lair. In the book, the heroine explored the adventures of the dangerous lifestyle of living in the hell, becoming fast friends with harlots, and by the end, she found passion with her captor.

The book was instantly criticized by many for lacking decorum. It was called sinful and immoral and was banned from many bookstores. As a result, only a few copies were known to exist in the world and they were passed down from hand to hand in secret.

Helen hadn’t gotten the chance to read the book yet, and she wasn’t certain she wanted to, as the subject matter brought traumatic memories. However the talk about hells and brothels seemed to intensify around London, reminding Helen of her insidious idea.

Secondly, after being kept busy with Parliamentary work, Jarvis received a letter saying that there was flooding at one of his estates. So their outing to the women’s shelter had been postponed once again, as he left Olivia and Helen, hurrying to take care of his tenants as soon as he could. Which, for many people, would not be a sign, exactly. But for Helen it was.