Page 83 of A Season for Scandal

There was no answer. Cursing, I readied the lock picks again.

“Lucy?” A voice came from behind us, and both Lucy and I swung round to see a young woman standing at the top of the stairs, looking at us in shock. She had the same build as Lucy, the same brown eyes, but her hair was darker, pulled ruthlessly back into a tight knot, her features sharper. She wore a narrow dove-grey skirt and matching waistcoat, a white shirt and a black tie. She was the picture of a fashionable, modern Frenchwoman.

“Helene!” Lucy cried, and she threw herself into Helene’s arms.

Three things became instantly obvious: first, we had found Oliver’s sister; second, she had not been murdered; and third, Helene and Lucy were far more than friends.

“Lucy, Lucy!” Helene said through muffled laughter. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought you weredead!” Lucy buried her face in Helene’s neck and burst into tears. Helene’s round eyes looked over the top of her head to where I stood frozen, still holding my lock picks, with every appearance of breaking into her apartment.

“Hello,” I said with a weak smile. “I’m Marigold Bloom. Perhaps we can talk inside.”

Helene blinked, her arm tightening round Lucy’s waist for a second. “Of course,” she said finally, in an English accent that still held a faint trace of Yorkshire.

“Why don’t I make some tea?”

Twenty minutes later, we were sitting in Helene’s sunny kitchen, steaming cups of tea in front of us as Lucy and I explained the whole story.

Helene’s face was pale. “You’ve been pretending to be me?” she asked.

Lucy nodded miserably, her hand tightening in Helene’s where they were clasped on top of the table. “Yes. I’m so sorry. My parents…”

“Your parents” – Helene’s face darkened – “should be locked up.”

“And this time they will be,” I said calmly.

Lucy made a small sound of distress, but Helene nodded firmly. “It’s time, Lucy. They’ve gone too far. But I don’t understand their plan,” she said. “They really want to kill me? So that Lucy can inherit in my place?”

“It seems to be the case,” I said, though I too was confused about the Browns’ plan. They had left the hotel some time ago – so where were they now? How exactly did they plan to poison Helene? I shook my head. “But it doesn’t matter any more. We have found you, this place is locked up tight and you know their plan. You are safe from them now, and there is absolutely no reason for us to hold off from turning them in any longer. I expect once they realize that we’ve tracked you down, they will try to make a run for it. There is nothing for them now that you disprove Lucy’s claim.”

“I can’t believe my brother is here in Paris,” Helene said, her eyes drifting to the window.

“Will you see him?” I asked.

She looked down at the cup of tea in front of her. “Miss Bloom,” she said, her voice steady, “may I ask you a question?” When I nodded, she hesitated before finally speaking again. “Oliver… What sort of man is he?”

“What sort of man?” I asked, confused.

“Yes.” Helene’s gaze sharpened. “When I last spoke to him, he was eleven years old. In the three years before that I hardly saw him at all because he was away at school. I know the boy he was, but after our mother…” She paused, swallowed hard. “After our mother passed away, he was left alone to be raised by our father – a man who was cruel and brutal. So, I am asking you, what sort of man is Oliver Lockhart?”

I blinked. “He is … a bad-tempered recluse with a healthy dislike of people,” I said at last. “He is grumpy and stubborn and ferociously loyal to the ones he cares about, and he cares deeply. He is handsome, funny, generous. He can be charming. He is clever and creative. He is kind. I think under it all he might be the kindest person I’ve ever met.”

“You are in love with him,” Helene said quietly.

“Oh, no!” I blustered at once, taking a hearty sip of my tea. “I – I have only been playing a part.”

“Very convincingly too,” Lucy added with just a hint of mischief.

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. Helene smiled. “He sounds like the brother I knew.” She exhaled. “I’m glad. I’m so glad. Yes, I will see him.”

I felt something in my heart crack wide open. “Is that why you didn’t come home?” I asked curiously. “After your memories returned, I mean. You were afraid that Oliver might be like your father?”

Helene took a moment to consider it. “You have to understand,” she said finally, “when I remembered who I was, my father was still very much alive. I knew I would be sent back to him, and Mother had given everything – had ended up giving herlife– to get us away. I was ten years old and my only thought was that I couldn’t go back. The Lavignes had taken me in, and from the beginning they loved me as their own. It didn’t take long for me to return that affection. They have been parents to me, the best of parents, and I wouldn’t leave them. By the time I found out my father had passed away, I was living here in Paris.” She gestured around the flat. “I have built a life here; I have a job that I love, working as a journalist. Everyone believed Ellen Lockhart was dead. It seemed foolish to stir up the past unnecessarily – particularly when I didn’t know how Oliver would react to the news I was alive, or that I had stayed away all that time.”

Here, she fiddled with the brightly patterned tablecloth. “I always felt guilty. That I had left Oliver there alone. With him.”

“You should talk to him about it,” I said gently. “But I know that he doesn’t blame you. He said that he wanted you to leave.”