Page 121 of Terms of Trade (Trade Wind 4)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Four days later, Helen awoke to clear evidence she was not with child.

Months of wishing for my monthlies to come!Yet this time…

This time, she found herself crestfallen at their arrival. She lay in bed, stunned by the purity and intensity of her reaction.

I’m heartbroken.

She had promised herself she would find it within herself to rejoice in either outcome. If she were with child, she would endeavor to release any resentment about the circumstances forcing her hand. She would give herself fully to her fate and embrace her new family.

If she were not with child, she would celebrate her freedom and embark on her new life alone. It wouldn’t be with the fortune she’d hoped for, but she promised she would take care of herself, just as she always had. Even if she didn’t know how yet, she’d find her way.

Butthisdidn’t feel as though she had gained freedom; it landed like a loss.

You're unnerved by fear is all. Be brave, as you have been before. You’re not trapped!

She curled into a ball, waiting in vain for relief to follow the news.

Now that you know your fate, arrangements must be made.

She forced herself to begin her day. When she couldn’t eat more than a few forkfuls of breakfast, she gave up, turning instead to the difficult task of writing to Nicholas. Staring at the blank parchment, she struggled, searching for words. She ought to convey the news and bid him farewell.

But she couldn’t.

If she were to share the full truth, she would write of her grief over the news. Reveal that she was questioning her own decisions.

But she couldn’t.

She spent over an hour at the desk, anguishing, before her maid entered to remind her that she needed to depart soon to meet Mr. Hughes.

“Yes, I’m just finishing this correspondence. I’ll need it delivered to Mr. Irons’s offices.”

Impulsively, she penned but a single sentence.

I am not with child.

Breathing hard, she stared at the terrible words. She couldn’t write any more. Not a salutation, a closing, nor even a signature. This wasn’t a lighthearted letter, nor a formal missive. It was only a message to convey a fact. Adding any more truth to it would lay her heart completely bare, and she wasn’t ready. She had promised to notify Nicholas of any news, and so she would. The rest would have to wait until she could figure it out herself.

Surrounded by greenery and in the company of kind-hearted Mr. Hughes, Helen quickly discovered all she needed to know. She had never met Sing Hoo, yet she had come to feel as though she was familiar with him through Mr. Hughes’s stories. Listening to another, she knew the man would do anything—anything at all—to have even one more day with his beloved.

When Helen explained to Mr. Hughes that she needed to go to Nicholas’s offices urgently, he did not seem surprised in the slightest, and he accompanied her all the way.

∞∞∞

Two hours later, Helen returned to her townhouse, crossing the threshold breathlessly.

“Is Mr. Irons here?” she asked Farnworth.

“No, Mrs. Gray. You do, however, have a visitor awaiting. A Mr. William Dawes from the bank.”

An hour after that, she sat on the settee across from the painting of her brother, wondering what to do next.

When she had arrived to Nicholas’s office, his clerk confirmed that he’d received her missive but was no longer there. The clerk did not know where he’d gone when he left, so she went straight to his house, near hers, and happened upon laborers carrying out furniture. His butler, overseeing the work, explained that Mr. Irons had sold the house and was residing elsewhere meanwhile.

What have you done, Nicholas?

She shifted the letter away from her lap before her tears fell and stained the ink. Mr. Dawes, the bank official, had brought the correspondence to her, along with the records for the newly formed account in her name only, in which a small fortune had been deposited. Blinking away tears, she re-read Nicholas’s letter.

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