Heart’s Temptation Series Books 4-6

by Scott, Scarlett

  They stood practically in unison and rushed to greet her, ringing her in a half circle of sisterly support.

  “You’re getting married?” Tia echoed. “Good heavens, to whom?”

  “Lord, you’re drenched,” Cleo noted with a frown of disapproval, ever the mothering hen even though Helen was the eldest of them all. “Your dress is quite ruined, though I daresay it didn’t look its best to begin with. What is that on your hem, dearest?”

  “Whoever can it be? Is he horribly dashing?” Bo asked, clapping her hands. Finishing school hadn’t done the minx a bit of good.

  “I’m so very sorry, Helen,” Bella offered with a wince.

  Helen glanced down at her hem to discover that the horse dung wasn’t limited to just her left shoe. A whiff of stables made its way to her nose. Could the day get any worse?

  Theo cried then, as if on cue.

  She was tempted to join him.

  “I’ll answer your questions in the order in which they were received,” she announced instead, looking to Tia first. “I’m marrying Levi Storm. I’m drenched because my hired hack went lame, the offensive smear on my hem is horse manure, and it’s also on my left shoe if you must know. Bo, he is horribly dashing and horribly arrogant and at the moment, altogether horrible in general. And Bella, you needn’t be sorry. You aren’t responsible for your husband. He, however, will be on the receiving end of a lengthy harangue from me at the first opportunity.”

  She sighed. Theo continued wailing. “He is soaked, Cleo. Can we have him changed into a dry gown and blankets?”

  Cleo was mother to two boys, her youngest less than a year older than Theo, and from the looks of things, she appeared to be breeding yet again. There had to be scads of baby necessities tucked away.

  “Of course!” Cleo rang for a servant and requested her sons’ nurse be brought round to take temporary custody of Theo and make him warm, dry, and happy once more.

  “Helen darling, I thought the roué was marrying that horse-faced heiress?” Tia put a sisterly arm around her shoulder. She and her husband, the Duke of Devonshire, had offered to take Helen in when she’d turned to them for aid, telling them everything. Well, almost everything. Helen would always be grateful to them for their kindness that day and in the days that followed.

  “He was, and both you and I know that she wasn’t horse-faced in the slightest,” Helen admonished, thinking again of Miss VanHorn’s engraving. She had been unmistakably lovely, and Helen was fiercely glad that Miss VanHorn had not become Mrs. Storm in the wedding of the century after all. “But he didn’t wed her. Perhaps Bella knows more than I, since Mr. Whitney is such dear friends with Mr. Storm?”

  If she said the last with a trace of bitterness, well, it couldn’t be helped. Bella appeared to take it in stride as any proper honorary sister would.

  “I’m sorry to say I know very little on the matter.” Bella’s tone was contrite. “My husband and Mr. Storm weren’t corresponding regularly after…well, anyway, all I know is what I read in one of Jesse’s papers. Miss VanHorn broke the engagement and married another. I wanted to tell you, Helen, but I didn’t know if the information would be welcome to you or not.”

  Ah, so it had not been Levi’s doing, then, but his betrothed’s. Helen begrudged the stab of disappointment that sliced through her. Of course he would have married Miss VanHorn and her millions and her heart-shaped face and her twenty-inch waist. How foolish, how silly, how unutterably stupid for a tiny part of her heart to have hoped that Levi had somehow cried off because of her. No, the news that he had been thrown over by beautiful, rich, wasp-waisted Miss VanHorn would not have been welcome. Not at all.

  Tia sniffed the air then. “Lud, but you smell foul, Helen. Perhaps someone ought to change you as well. Cleo is right. Where did you find that dreadful gown?”

  “One of the ladies made it for me.” She gave Tia her most severe look. “You ought to be ashamed, calling it dreadful.” She had sold every last one of her fine dresses, and in addition to being a budding reader, Ruby was also a dab hand with needle and thread. Helen knew her dress didn’t compare to the gowns she’d once donned without a second thought, but Ruby had worked very hard on it for her.

  “I’m ashamed alright,” Tia drawled, “but only that my sister is gadding about wearing a sack lined in donkey manure.”

  “It isn’t a sack, and I’m quite sure the manure in question came from a horse.” Helen stared down her sister. Tia was like a butterfly, beautiful and bold, but Helen was the eldest, and even if her circumstances had been dramatically reduced by her own poor decision-making, it didn’t mean that she couldn’t still browbeat her younger sibling. Even if said sibling was a duchess who outranked them all.

  “You know Heath and I would give you anything,” Tia returned. “You needn’t live as a pauper and an outcast.”

  It was true that Tia, Cleo, and Bella had all offered Helen assistance. They had offered to help her with money, shelter, whatever she needed, and regardless of the potential scandal she could bring upon them. She had refused them all in the end, choosing to live her life on her terms. She’d discovered a great deal about herself in the last year. She’d realized that she was capable of surviving on her own, and she was fiercely proud of that.

  The nurse arrived to take Theo from Helen, a stout woman with steel-gray hair and a kind smile, and Helen relinquished her son with great reluctance. She’d entrusted his care only to herself or Maeve thus far, and being separated from him at all induced a strong sense of anxiety. If she held on to him a moment longer than necessary or polite, she couldn’t be blamed. She turned to watch Theo’s little white cap and gown disappearing out the drawing room door in the arms of someone else.

  “You needn’t be so territorial,” Cleo admonished when the door closed once again. “Evans is the finest nurse to be had, I assure you. Theo is in wonderful hands.” She caught Helen’s elbow and dragged her to the ornate settees and Louis Quinze table laid out with an impressive array of tea, muffins, and scones. “Do sit. You look as if you require sustenance. Do you wish for something stronger than tea? Wine? Whisky? Thornton has an excellent stock.”

  Helen didn’t know what she required. Whisky was tempting indeed. Anything to calm the jagged edges of her nerves. She sat dutifully, the odor of her befouled hem and shoe wafting up to her. She wrinkled her nose in distaste. Perhaps Tia wasn’t that far off the mark with her suggestion.

  Cleo, Tia, Bo, and Bella all sat as well. With their grand gowns and elaborate coiffures, Helen felt as out of place as a goose in a pond filled with gorgeous swans. She hadn’t allowed herself to venture to any of her sisters’ homes after her pregnancy had become evident for fear of tainting them with her scandal. She had to admit that she had missed this, not the finery but the camaraderie, the sisterhood. Sisters spoke to each other’s souls. They understood each other in a way no one else ever could.

  “Tell us everything,” Bo ordered. With her vibrant auburn hair and flashing blue eyes, Bo was a true original. Though her outer beauty was undeniable, it was her vivacious personality that made her blindingly beautiful. She was giving, loving, naïve to a fault, and never failed to make Helen laugh. “Helen, dearest, you don’t look happy. Is he not a fluent kisser?”

  Cleo spit the sip of tea she’d just taken all over her cup and saucer. “Boadicea,” she sputtered, indignant.

  “It is a valid question,” Tia pointed out with a wicked grin.

  “Quite,” Bella agreed, her cheeks pink. “Kissing is most important.”

  Dear, sweet heavens. This lot was going to be no help to her whatsoever. Three of them were hopelessly in love with their husbands and the fourth was a rapscallion in skirts.

  “Boadicea, what do you know of kissing anyway?” Helen demanded, because she was oldest and she felt responsible. She was certainly no model for her youngest sister to pattern herself after, though that didn’t seem to matter in the moment. Yes, Levi was a fluent kisser. Everywhere. Helen was very wisely i
nclined to keep that knowledge to herself.

  Bo blinked and attempted to school her features into an expression of demure innocence. “I’m sure I don’t know a thing, sister dearest.”

  “Clearly, I’ll have to tell our mother to do a more thorough job of scrutinizing your suitors,” Helen said, her brow raised.

  They all knew quite well that their parents were a bit unorthodox. Well, perhaps very much so. Mother hadn’t blinked an eye when Helen had delivered the news of her pregnancy. She’d simply asked her if she wished to go abroad or send her maid to the pharmacy. Don’t be silly, the countess had said, waving a careless hand in the air. You can’t believe you’re the first to ever require such a solution? Helen, of course, had chosen neither the former nor the latter.

  “Angels in heaven, he isn’t attempting to force you into this, is he?” Cleo asked suddenly, her gaze far too shrewd as it narrowed upon Helen. “You needn’t go through with it, you know. Thornton would gladly take up the cudgels for you if need be.”

  Somehow, Helen doubted that even Thornton, solid example of English masculinity that he was, could best Levi in a fight. Levi was taller, for one. And his muscles…she had forgotten how splendid and strong he was beneath his waistcoat and shirt. But when he’d held her against him earlier, she had remembered. She had remembered everything.

  Much to her shame.

  Cleo’s offer was appreciated nonetheless. Was Levi forcing her? He had been very angry with her, yes. He had threatened. He had raged. And yet, she knew that he would never hurt her, not physically. And she knew, too, that much of what he’d said had been the product of his anger. He would never make her wed him. Nor would she allow him to force her into a union that was unwanted. She was strong enough to stand on her own. She’d been doing so for a year and could continue for the rest of her life. No, then, he was not forcing her. Nor, if she was brutally honest with herself, was the union entirely unwanted.

  The thought gave her pause.

  Still, that didn’t mean that she was going to simply take up where they had left off. She wasn’t a meek and mild miss easily influenced by a handsome face and a wicked mouth. She’d been very careful to enumerate all of her requirements prior to agreeing to the marriage. Now that she’d had her taste of freedom, she found that she didn’t wish to lose it, even while she knew that protecting Theo by marrying Levi was the right thing to do. She was marrying Levi because she chose to, plain and simple.

  “He isn’t forcing me.” She took a sip of her tea at last and wished it was far stronger, perhaps with a dram of the whisky Cleo had so recently extolled. “He was rather irate with me for not informing him about Theo. We had quite a row, and he threatened to take Theo back to New York City without me. But in the end, I suppose he calmed down enough to reason with me. And I realized that it isn’t fair to punish Theo with a life of shame because of my own foolish actions. He can’t help the circumstance of his birth, but I can do my best to rectify it for him. I will rectify it. I owe him that as his mother.”

  “Oh my,” Tia said. “Mr. Storm sounds like a veritable beast.”

  “He’s not a beast,” Helen defended quickly. Too quickly, for she caught her sisters’ knowing smiles.

  “You care for him,” Cleo observed.

  “You love him,” Tia chimed in, smiling gaily. She and Devonshire were almost sickeningly in love, and so of course she assumed everyone else must also be suffering from the selfsame malaise.

  “Oh dear, I think this is all my fault,” said Bella.

  “Old Helen has finally met her match,” crowed Bo.

  Helen glowered at the four miscreants before her, all of them beloved, all of them irksome indeed. “I am not old, you incorrigible minx. And I do not care for him or love him. But Bella, I must confess that you are, in part, responsible for the sad state in which I find myself, for Mr. Storm was your guest.”

  “Of course you’re not old.” Bo blinked, the picture of innocence yet again.

  “Of course you don’t love him,” Tia added, rolling her eyes skyward.

  Oh, they were too much, these sisters of hers. They saw too much. They knew too much. They said too much. Helen’s shoulders sagged.

  “Perhaps I do care,” she acknowledged. “Just a bit.”

  “Only a small bit, I’m sure,” Cleo said agreeably. “You know, dearest, men are a most exasperating species. Ingratiating themselves to us in one deed and vexing us in the next.”

  “But they aren’t ever vexing for long,” said Bella.

  “Oh no,” agreed Tia with a secretive smile. “Not for long.”

  “How can they be exasperating when they kiss so wonderfully?” Bo asked.

  Helen, Tia, Bella, and Cleo all groaned.

  Perhaps, Helen thought, she wouldn’t be the most scandalous of all her sisters after all. What had they taught Bo in finishing school, anyway? That she ought to be kissing every suitor who came across her path? Surely not. Helen sniffed the sour air once more. Oh, fiddle. Mayhap she would need to change anyway. That horse dung was proving most unshakeable.

  Most unshakeable indeed.

  Chapter 13

  She hadn’t allowed him to kiss her on the mouth, and it rankled Levi even now as their carriage hurried through the streets of London, taking them back to Helen’s House of Rest to gather her belongings and little Theo. The ceremony had been succinct. A far cry from the lavish affair that would have brought the cream of elite New York City society together to watch him wed Miss VanHorn. Helen had deserved such a splendid and ostentatious showing. She deserved orchids and roses and an orchestra and a blue-blooded prince among men. She’d gotten instead a hasty marriage, no flowers, no sweeping orchestral accompaniment, and a commoner who had bribed the Registrar to record their marriage with the wrong date after wedding them by License.

  That part didn’t sit well with him, but he’d had little choice. He didn’t consider himself an unethical man, had never succumbed to the temptations of Tammany Hall corruption like some of his contemporaries. In his youth, he had stolen, sometimes to feed himself and other times simply because he could. In war, he had wounded and killed, bound by his oath as a soldier.

  It had been during that very war, the war that had torn apart a nation and ravaged his youth, that he’d realized the true meaning of honor. He could take pride in knowing he had never committed another crime since his time in the Army of the Potomac until today. But for Helen and his son, he was more than willing to take that black mark against his soul. He wanted the Marriage Notice Books to reflect the story he would tell the world hereafter, that Theo had been born after his parents’ marriage and not before. He’d pay any price to protect his wife and his son.

  Wife. Strange word, foreign word to tie to the woman he’d wed. A title, a benediction. For a year, he had thought of her with longing and bitterness, with regret and anger and the driving fear that he’d made the greatest mistake of his life in letting her slip through his fingers. He’d kept her hat, had carried it with him to Paris and then on the long journey back to New York City. An albatross indeed. Now, their time apart was almost as if it hadn’t been. The annals of history, certainly, would never know otherwise.

  “Happy anniversary, Mrs. Storm,” he told her drily, watching her on the well-appointed bench opposite him. She held herself stiffly, even in the swaying conveyance. Her gown was simple and plain beneath her equally plain redingote. She, however, was not. Her golden hair had been wound into a heavy knot of basket plaits at her nape, putting the elegant beauty of her features on display. Mrs. Storm. She was his wife now, and the knowledge sent a sudden surge of something strong and sharp straight through him. Something he couldn’t define.

  “We haven’t been married for a year, and it was wrong of you to lead a man into sin merely to absolve ours.” Her gaze, trained to the small window to her right, swung to his at last.

  His eyes slipped to her lush mouth, the mouth she had denied him. “If he was that easily led into sin, I’m afraid t
his isn’t the first time he’s danced with the devil, my dear.”

  The good man suffered from a gambling addiction. Levi didn’t make a practice of underhanded business dealings. But he wasn’t a fool. He had always been adept at finding his opponent’s weaknesses and using them against him however he could. However he must. And in this instance, his desire to protect had been tantamount. Theo would never be known as a bastard now, and that was all that mattered.

  “I hadn’t realized the two of you were old friends,” she said pointedly, and then looked out the window once more.

  She could imply he was the devil all she liked, but it wouldn’t change a damn thing that had happened this day. They were married in the eyes of God and man now. And regardless of how angry he was with her for keeping Theo from him, regardless of her insistence that their union be in name only, and regardless of the murky circumstances surrounding their abrupt nuptials, taking Helen as his wife felt right all the way to his bones.

  “You married this devil,” he reminded her, wanting to needle her a bit, to rattle her out of the frigid poise she’d displayed since she had stepped into his carriage earlier that day.

  “For the sake of my son,” she retorted.

  “Our son,” he corrected.

  “For the sake of Theo,” she amended, “that he be afforded the life he deserves.”

  “Our son.” He wanted to hear her say it. “Our son, Helen.”

  “Very well, our son.” She turned to him once more, her eyes flashing with fire. “You win, Levi. There, are you happy now? You always win.”

  “No,” he said slowly. “I don’t.”

  No indeed, he did not always win, else he wouldn’t be in a carriage with the only woman in the world that he wanted, a woman who was his wife, goddamn it, and who didn’t want him to touch her.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” she said quietly. “You didn’t win your heiress after all, did you? I understand she jilted you. That must have been quite a blow to your pride.”