“Find a house in a decent part of London,” he urged her. “Don’t go to the East End.” He was a man of the world. He knew what lurked in the dark corners of every city. He had seen and heard it all before as a boy. It wasn’t something he wanted her exposed to.
She pursed her lips, reaching behind her back to tug her laces. “I’m afraid we don’t have the luxury of finding a Mayfair mansion. You see, a miserable cad bought the newspaper that was our primary method of raising funds to aid our cause. Our articles brought us the attention of benevolent benefactors.”
Well, now they truly had come full circle once more. But he had been inside her, had tasted the most delicate and sensitive part of her, and his world as he knew it was beginning to shift in a way he couldn’t comprehend. He tired of watching her struggle with her laces and went to her, shooing her hands away as he performed the task as efficiently as any lady’s maid could. He’d fastened his fair share of corsets over the years, but never had the task affected him the way tightening up the laces for Helen did.
Even if she had called him a cad. He deserved that, and more than she knew.
“You didn’t think me so very miserable last night,” he reminded her softly as he finished her laces and tied a perfect knot. “Why not have your father, the earl, fund your efforts? Surely he can afford to offer aid?”
“He doesn’t approve of my work because the ladies come from houses of ill repute. He gives me my pin money and little else.” She spun about to face him, looking like a goddess in her half dress, her breasts threatening to spill over the top of her corset. “You really must go, Levi.”
Yes. The light filtering through the curtains grew stronger. Servants would most certainly be about now, and he gambled with scandal and fate by tarrying. “Promise me you won’t risk your fool neck by going to the East End today.”
“Why do you care when you’ll never see me again?” she demanded.
He could no more refrain from seeing her again than he could stop breathing. He didn’t know what that meant for him. Not yet. But all he did know in that moment was that he had to see her again. Had to touch her again. Once was not enough.
“I will see you again, sweetheart,” he promised her, unable to resist tracing her full lower lip with his thumb. And then he laid claim to her in the only way he knew how, by sweeping her into his arms and kissing the hell out of her.
When he finally withdrew, her mouth was red and swollen with his kisses, her eyes dazed. “Don’t go to the East End today, Helen,” he ordered.
He slipped on his trousers and his shirt from the night before, not bothering with the buttons. At the moment, he didn’t give a damn who saw him in dishabille. He felt like a grizzly bear who’d just gotten a rude awakening during hibernation. He took one last look at her to find her standing precisely where he’d left her, watching him with wide eyes.
“For the first time in your life, listen to reason and do as I say, woman.” With that, he stalked from her chamber and into the hall.
* * *
He had gone.
Helen raised a hand to her tingling mouth, still feeling the possessive kisses he had given her. The arrogance of the man. He thought he could order her about because she’d allowed him into her bed? He thought he could commandeer her reform journal and turn it into a business paper and then demand that she stay away from the East End? Of course she was going with Gussie in spite of what he’d said. Perhaps because of it.
Do as I say, woman.
Obviously, Mr. Storm had no idea that those were the last words he should have uttered to a proud Harrington sister. Now she was more determined than ever. The intimacies between them did not mean he had any right to decree what she could and could not do.
But the thought of what they had shared heated her body all over. Good heavens, the things he had done. He’d brought out sensations she hadn’t even known existed, had made her aware of her body and all its longings. Part of her had been shocked when she’d woken nude to find him still sharing her bed. Part of her had wanted more. And yet another part of her had been embarrassed, feeling hopelessly gauche. She had no idea what to do, what to say, how to act.
So she had resorted to distance. Perhaps it had been enough. Perhaps it hadn’t been.
I will see you again, sweetheart.
The words, half promise and half sensual threat, sent a frisson of desire down her spine. Oh dear. It wouldn’t do to stand about daydreaming as if she were a lovelorn girl straight from the schoolroom. She wasn’t a girl. And she most assuredly was not lovelorn.
She rang for her lady’s maid and finished dressing. If Willet was surprised to find her mistress partially dressed and already laced in her corset, her expression didn’t reflect it. Helen didn’t say a word, simply thanked the loyal retainer and went to breakfast as though she hadn’t spent half the night in wicked abandon with the most handsome and thoroughly maddening man she’d ever known.
Of course he was not at breakfast, but Helen was pleasantly surprised to find her hostess already seated. They completed their morning greetings and as Helen settled in, she couldn’t help but notice how lovely Bella looked. From her lustrous dark hair to her stunning, blue morning gown, she was perfection, as though she had spent all night in restful slumber rather than hosting a crush of a ball. Helen felt a bit bedraggled by comparison. Levi had kept her up very late and had woken her quite early. A slow knot of desire unfurled in her belly at the reminder, but she tamped it down. She would not allow him to barge in on her every thought.
“You are certainly the picture of sunshine for one who was up all night dancing away,” Helen pointed out good-naturedly. “Indeed, I’m shocked you’re up so early.”
“My darling little Virginia decided that I must wake at the first light of dawn this morning. She was most insistent about it, so here I am. Anyway, my dear, I might say the same of you.” Her friend delivered the kind of searching look one of Helen’s own dear sisters would surely give her. An honorary Harrington sister Bella was indeed. “I saw you dancing with Mr. Storm.”
Despite herself, she flushed. Dear heavens. She hoped she didn’t appear half as guilty as she felt. “I danced with a number of gentlemen,” she offered in a noncommittal tone before taking a sip of tea.
“I daresay you did.” Bella’s arch tone made it clear that she was not fooled.
Helen remained undeterred. “It was so nice to see an old family friend like Lord Denbigh again.”
Bella dismissed the servants before turning back to her with a conspiratorial air when they were alone. “You didn’t have eyes for Denbigh, and you know it.”
Helen sighed, wishing Bella hadn’t taken lessons in prying from Cleo. “Did my sister train you or have you always been this thoroughly invasive?”
Her friend laughed. “I believe I’ve always been this way, but I do confess that having you Harrington girls about has taught me a thing or two.”
“Lovely,” Helen gritted.
“Dearest, if I’m prying it’s only because I care about you and because Cleo has ordered me to watch over you in her stead.” Bella took a demure sip from her cup.
“Watch over me?” Helen sniffed at that. “I’m your elder, you ninny. I’m her elder too, for that matter.”
“By a scarce few number of years.”
“A good six years,” she pointed out.
“Cleo would have my head if anyone broke your heart,” Bella blurted.
“The Earl of Denbigh won’t break my heart.” Helen gave her friend and hostess her most forbidding frown.
“Oh, pish. You know very well I’m not speaking of Denbigh. I’m talking about Mr. Storm.” She paused. “I could have sworn I saw you on his arm, and then you both seemed to disappear from the ballroom. Please tell me nothing untoward occurred, dear.”
Oh drat it all. Levi had been wrong. Someone had seen, or at the very least she had noticed their absence long enough to question it. Helen didn’t relish the prospect of misleading her friend,
but neither did she wish to reveal the raw truth to her.
“Nothing untoward occurred,” she lied, redirecting her gaze to the bounty of food upon her plate and treating it as if it were the most intriguing sight she’d beheld all morning. Not true, for the most intriguing sight she’d beheld all morning had been Levi’s lean body without a stitch of clothing to hide it.
Bella gave a small harrumph reminiscent of her formidable mother, the dowager marchioness. “Something tells me not to believe you, Helen.”
“Perhaps you ought to inform whatever that something is to mind its own business,” she suggested with a sunny smile.
“I’ll send it a letter posthaste.” Bella grinned at that. “You’re quite a curmudgeon when your heart is in peril, you know.”
“My heart is not in peril.”
“Better your heart than your virtue,” her friend said primly. “If so much as a breath of scandal should find its way to your sister, she’ll leave her lying in and swoop down upon us all like an avenging angel.”
“More like a scandalous angel,” Helen grumbled. “It’s rich indeed for Cleo to be so protective when she created the scandal of the century herself. I’m hardly the sister to be worrying over. We won’t even get into how Tia wound up wedding Devonshire.”
“Be that as it may, I’ve been charged with your wellbeing, dearest Helen,” Bella said. “I would be remiss if I didn’t warn you I’m not entirely certain Mr. Storm’s intentions are honorable. My husband counts him a true friend, but the man is something of an enigma. I cannot quite figure him out just yet.”
Of course his intentions weren’t honorable. They were passionate and sinful and altogether wrong yet altogether wonderful. But it was too late for Bella’s sermon and concern both. The dye had been cast. Maybe she’d made a mistake. By the grim light of day, it certainly seemed that she may have. Still, she didn’t regret a moment of their time together. Not one single moment.
She wasn’t sure what that meant, any of it, and for the nonce, she didn’t care to examine it any further. Helen stood. “I appreciate your concern, truly I do, however it is quite misplaced. I’m a spinster firmly and happily on the shelf. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Lady Bella, I have an important call I must make to Gussie at the House of Rest.”
Without waiting for her friend’s reply, she sailed from the room and from Bella’s unnerving observations both. By the time she reached her waiting carriage, her emotions were as jumbled and messy as a bag of yarn scraps that had been savaged by a kitten. As a servant handed her up into the carriage, she was so caught up in her thoughts that it took her by complete surprise when she realized she wasn’t alone.
“Levi.” She almost turned around and left the conveyance. Didn’t he realize he couldn’t simply ride in an enclosed carriage with her? It wasn’t done. Belatedly, she observed that this carriage did not belong to the Whitneys. It must be his.
He caught her elbow and pulled her the rest of the way inside, unsmiling. The door closed behind her. “Sit.”
Helen seated herself on the bench beside him, wishing the carriage was not so cramped. Her skirts brushed his muscled thigh and when she faced him, they were nearly nose to nose. The urge to kiss him was strong but she would not, could not give in.
“Have you gone mad? What are you doing in this carriage?” she demanded.
His expression remained impassive as ever. “I expect I have. Lord knows there are a hundred things I’d be better served by doing this morning than playing guardian angel.”
The nerve of the man would never cease to amaze—or vex—her. “Then why are you not off doing those hundred things instead of importuning me in my carriage?”
“Because I cannot in good conscience allow you to go traipsing about the rookeries where anything can happen to you. And also because this is not, in fact, your carriage. It is mine.”
Oh, blast him. He had a point there. And he had known she wouldn’t listen to his high-handed decree. “You haven’t the right to allow me to do anything, Mr. Storm.”
He flashed her a thin smile that showed his even, white teeth. “We will have to disagree on that count, my dear.”
But Helen wasn’t done. “The servants will talk belowstairs. Everyone will know that I’ve been spirited away with you.”
“I’m not spiriting you anywhere, and the servants will not talk. They’re my men, and they’re loyal to a fault. A decent wage will do that for a man.”
Perhaps his servants were loyal, but she knew the rules. It was one thing to sneak about in the darkness and quite another to flagrantly travel the streets of London alone with him. “Have you any idea of how improper it is for you to ride in this carriage with me?”
“Surely not any more improper than traipsing about brothels with your reformer friend,” he drawled. “Or inviting me into your bed.”
His blunt observation had her flushing. “You came to my chamber.”
“You didn’t turn me away.”
No, she hadn’t. Nor would she if he somehow turned up at her door again tonight. How deflating. When it came to this man, she possessed not a jot of resolve. He had invaded her life and her senses just as surely as he’d invaded the carriage. Like a plundering army, taking all her defenses with him.
“Why are you really here?” she asked instead of responding to his observation. “Aren’t you ordinarily at your offices by now, busy turning the Beacon into a glowing beast?”
“Someone has to protect you from your foolishness,” he snapped.
Her foolishness indeed. The greatest foolishness in which she was currently engaged involved him, not any trip to the East End with Gussie. “No one has been protecting me for thirty years and I’ve managed just fine.”
“Someone damn well should have.” His tone was clipped. “Your brother ought to be dragged behind the nearest carriage for failing you the way he did.”
She stiffened. “I prefer not to speak of it, if you don’t mind. Besides, I don’t wish anything ill of Bingley.” Well, perhaps that was doing it a bit brown. What she truly meant to say was that she didn’t wish anything painful and potentially life-threatening to happen to her brother. But if in one of his drunken stupors he accidentally received a sound knock to the head or fist to the jaw, she may have deemed it fitting.
“Helen, I’m trying to keep you from getting hurt,” Levi said, sounding much aggrieved. He took her hand firmly in his. “I cannot right the wrongs done to you in your past, but I’ll be damned if I stand idly by while you put yourself in danger.”
Somehow, the mere squeeze of his large hand around hers, burrowed in the pleats of her serviceable visiting gown, melted some of the ice she’d built around her heart. Emotions she’d been doing her utmost to repress all morning rushed over her.
She swallowed, wishing very much that she hadn’t donned gloves, and clasped his hand as if it were a lifeline. He may be arrogant, but he cared. He cared or he would not have eschewed his plans for the day to accompany her. Perhaps she had melted some of his ice in return.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
He appeared surprised by her capitulation. “Am I hearing right? Gratitude instead of a thorough dressing down?”
Helen smiled at last. “I can deliver a stinging dressing down if you’d prefer it.”
“I can think of better uses for your mouth, sweetheart.” With his free hand, he cupped her face. His thumb swept over her lower lip in a broad stroke.
In an instant, the air between them changed. She kissed his thumb, gazing boldly into his eyes. Every part of her rational mind knew she shouldn’t very well be sitting so near to him in an enclosed carriage, let alone allowing him to touch her so freely. But hadn’t they already gone far beyond the lines of propriety? wondered a wicked inner voice. Yes, they had. His body had claimed hers. What could be the harm in one more kiss? One more embrace? A slow, pulsing yearning began at the juncture of her thighs and radiated outward, over her entire body.
His mouth slanted over
hers and she gave in to what they both so desperately wanted. More of the forbidden. She opened for him and his questing tongue. He tasted of coffee. The kiss deepened.
The carriage stopped.
They sprang apart just as the door opened to reveal they had arrived at Gussie’s House of Rest for women in need of shelter. Perhaps it was a fortuitous interruption, but Helen dearly wished she could’ve gone on kissing him for just a few moments more. Their arrival reminded her that there was work to be done. If nothing else could come of the day, she hoped that at the very least she might convince Levi to assist them in their efforts. He was not an unkind man. After he met the women and girls, she had no doubt that he would understand why she felt so strongly about their cause.
She descended from the carriage and took his arm in silence as they climbed the stairs to the front door. It was not an imposing edifice. Indeed, it was small and nondescript, though tucked into a decent neighborhood far enough from the brothels the women had once called home. Gussie herself greeted them at the door.
“Helen dear, do come in.” Smiling, she stepped back so that Helen and Levi could enter. She wore an apron and her hair had been wound in a serviceable bun. “Forgive me my appearance. I’m afraid I was helping in the kitchens this morning.”
Although Gussie had been born a lady, she was not afraid to roll up her sleeves and work alongside anyone, and it was one of the many traits Helen admired about her friend. “Gussie, may I introduce you to Mr. Storm? He is the new owner of the Beacon. Mr. Storm, this is Mrs. Augusta Bennington.”
“I’m sure I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, sir,” Gussie said with considerably less enthusiasm and warmth than she had previously displayed.
If Levi noticed, he didn’t show it. “The pleasure is mine, Mrs. Bennington. I hope you don’t mind the intrusion. Lady Helen has convinced me to assist you and your cause in any way that I may.”
She had? Helen looked at him askance. He ignored her, imperturbable as always.
Gussie beamed once more. “Oh, how wonderful. Our Helen is an angel on Earth, and I just knew that if anyone could persuade you how important our mission is, it would be sweet Lady Helen.”
Heart’s Temptation Series Books 4-6 Page 13
