Page 31

They continued the tour in relative silence. Maggie was the one speaking the most, and Victoria the one asking most of the questions.

The house, which looked so tiny from the outside, had a lot more rooms than Helen had imagined. Everything had its own place, and every little nook was used for something practical.

As it turned out, most women used this shelter as a place to get childbed linen and then return it once they had no more need for it. The women who were staying here were in the direst condition. Women who had nowhere to go, and no way to take care of themselves.

They earned their keep by cleaning the house, cooking, and the most talented ones by sewing more childbed linen from scraps and old blankets or fixing clothing and sorting donations that came through.

Victoria quickly grew comfortable in the place, asking question after question, conversing with everyone, and making everyone feel included and comfortable. As the household bustled around her, Helen could not deny that Victoria brought sunshine into the house, an energy that Helen was not capable of. The entire place seemed to come to life around her.

“I don’t mean to be insensitive,” Victoria said as she moved closer to Maggie. “But if it’s so difficult to care for the children, why not just give them up?”

Maggie put on a strained smile. “I don’t know how it works in the upper classes, but here, if they give the baby up, it will most certainly die. The foundlings’ home and the Lykai orphanage are overcrowded. There is not enough food, and the conditions are not as stellar as ours. I know stories of women who gave up their babies and then wanted them back once they got to their feet. But those babies who hadn’t died had been sold to work in factories. Others had run away. A worse fate had greeted the others. Not a lot of mothers get to reclaim the babies they’ve given up. At least, I haven’t heard of stories like that.”

“The mothers sometimes want their babies back?” Helen asked, her brows furrowing.

“Oh, yes. Depending on why they gave them up, many regret it.”

Helen paused in her tracks.

Did Laney’s mother regret it?

That thought had never entered Helen’s mind before. Laney came to their house a week or less after being born. She was a tiny little thing. But she was wrapped in a beautiful blanket, carefully put in a basket, and left on the doorstep of a viscount’s house.

The mother cared enough not to dump the babe in the streets.

“Do you feel it, too?” Victoria whispered as she came closer to Helen.

“Feel what?”

Victoria took a step and glanced out the window. “As if someone is watching us.”

Helen smiled. “The women in this place must be intrigued at the idea of a princess visiting them. But they’re probably too shy to come out and say it.”

Victoria maintained her frown. “Perhaps.”

She shrugged and walked closer to Maggie, requesting to speak to the inhabitants of the house.

Helen could not keep up with the young princess. After half an hour of lively conversation with the women, she slowly drifted to the back so as to not attract attention to herself. After an hour, she was ready to beg for a cup of tea or any drink, really. After an hour and a half, she was ready to collapse to the floor, her limbs getting heavy, her joints aching, and her throat dry.

Helen slowly backed away, step by step, until she quietly sat in the corner, trying not to draw any attention to herself. A headache buzzed in her temples, and her head felt too heavy for her delicate neck. She needed a rest and a drink.

The thought barely formed in her mind when a glass of punch appeared before her face. Helen blinked and raised her eyes.

“You looked parched,” Lord McAllistair said with a wink.

Helen took the glass in her hand and took a few sips, her eyes closing briefly as the cool liquid traveled down her throat. The headache eased, and Helen relaxed in her seat.

Lord McAllistair leaned his back against the wall next to her. “And I did promise you a drink, did I not?”

Helen choked on her sip and coughed into her sleeve.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t take it personally,” he said with a charming smile.

Helen threw a side-eyed glance toward him. He was leaning against the wall, his long legs crossed at the ankles, his hands hidden in his pockets, looking relaxed, nonchalant.

After their dance at the Payne ball, Helen had tried really hard to remember Lord McAllistair prior to the article fiasco. And this wasn’t how she remembered Lord McAllistair at all.

The few times she’d seen him before, he was drunk out of his mind, swaying as he walked and slurring as he talked. The man who now stood before her was not a careless drunk.