As if a man such as he—an earl who had possessed endless independence from the moment of his birth—could possibly understand.
“I will steer myself in the course I choose,” she informed him coolly. “In the course that is the best for me. Lord Hamish is not my future. I would sooner throw myself from a roof.”
“Your melodrama is tiresome, my lady.” He offered her his arm. “Come. I will see you safely escorted home.”
Of all the men her stupid heart could have chosen to love. Why this one? He was maddening.
Helena ignored his arm, her frustration and desperation superseding all other feelings. “I will see myself home, Lord Huntingdon.”
He frowned. “Of course you will not. Shelbourne would have my hide if I allowed anything ill to befall you.”
The mention of her brother had Helena’s back stiffening. It was like a dagger’s sharpened edge, the reminder that Huntingdon was only here out of a misplaced sense of duty to his friend. Not because he cared about Helena. He had Lady Beatrice.
“If Shelbourne cared about me, he would stand up to my father and insist he cease pressuring me into an unwanted marriage,” she countered.
Instead, her brother had attempted to dissuade Father before ultimately siding with him, telling her she must honor their father’s wishes. Her objections she wanted a love match had met with disapproval. Love, he had told her cuttingly, had nothing to do with one’s happiness or one’s future.
“Shelbourne is right in encouraging you to do your duty,” Huntingdon said then.
Duty.
A hated word, especially in connection to Lord Hamish.
But Helena was tired of arguing. Now that Huntingdon had spoiled her chances of ruination, she needed to ponder her next move.
She bent to retrieve her fallen hat, then placed it upon her head, rearranging her veil. “I have no wish to continue quarreling with you, my lord. I must go home before my absence is noted.”
It was imperative that her father not discover what she had been about. She could not take the risk he would hasten her marriage to Lord Hamish if he feared she would jeopardize the nuptials. She needed all the time she could get to arrange for a scandal.
“Lady Helena,” he said, a warning in his voice.
She ignored him and swept past. “Good day, my lord.”
Out the door she went.
She had arrived by hired hack, and she would leave the same way. Just let him try to stop her.
Chapter Two
For a woman to truly possess her freedom, she must be allowed the rights she deserves.
—From Lady’s Suffrage Society Times
The stubborn chit refused to listen to reason.
Huntingdon had no choice but to follow her. He could not, in good conscience, allow her to disappear into some hired hack. Lord knew how she had arrived. He slammed out of Lord Algernon’s dingy rooms and followed a swirl of silken skirts. Fortunately, he was long-limbed. He reached her on the street. By a stroke of fortune, she was near his own waiting carriage.
His efficient groom saw him and opened the carriage door.
Huntingdon struck with haste, sliding an arm around Lady Helena’s waist and hauling her to the carriage. She put up a fight, as expected.
“What in heaven’s name do you think you are doing?” she demanded, attempting to wrest herself from his grasp to no avail. “Huntingdon, I insist you release me.”
She could insist all she liked, but the cursed woman had caused him enough trouble today. He was not about to allow her to make more.
“I am seeing you home safely, my lady, and that is that,” he told her calmly, even as he stuffed her and all her flounces into his carriage.
“Cease manhandling me, you ogre,” she charged. “This is abduction!”
His groom’s expression remained carefully blank, as if it were an everyday occurrence for Huntingdon to shove a squawking female into his personal conveyance. Thankfully, such instances were rare. This was the first time he had ever had cause to rescue Shelbourne’s sister from the gaping maws of ruination.
But he had a grim feeling it would not be the last.
“Change of plans,” he said calmly. “My companion will need to be discreetly delivered to Curzon Street.”
Huntingdon joined his unwilling occupant, climbing into the carriage and halting her from attempting further escape by seizing her waist once more and settling her upon the leather bench. Her hat was again knocked from her head as the carriage door closed. The warmth of her curves seemed to burn his hands even through her silk, and he wished he did not take note of the charming flush staining her elegant cheekbones as a result of her exertions.
Lady Helena was beautiful and wild and everything he dared not covet. He well understood her father’s desire to see her properly married.
“Cease struggling, my lady,” he told her, nettled by the huskiness of his voice.
He should stop touching her. And he would, just as soon as the carriage went into motion and he could be assured she would not tear open the door and throw herself into the streets.
By God, he did not feel any boning at all. Was she not wearing a corset? If he slid his hands higher, would he be able to… No. He must not think that.
“You are an overbearing oaf,” she accused, still sounding as outraged as a hive of bees which had just been overturned.
Her scent was invading his senses again. He breathed through his mouth to keep from inhaling bergamot and fresh lemons and her. “I will happily play the overbearing oaf to your shrew.”
He was irritated with himself as much as with Lady Helena.
The carriage lurched into motion, and he released her as if she were made of flame, settling on the bench opposite her with a surge of relief. What the devil was coming over him? He had seen, spoken with, danced with lovely women before. Why was this troublesome one driving him to distraction?
He called Lady Beatrice’s brunette beauty to mind and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I was going to take a hack,” Lady Helena huffed.
She was gorgeous in her dudgeon.
He wanted to kiss the pout from her lips. This was why he kept his polite distance from her as often as possible. Why he had never once danced with her at a ball. Why he had not touched her before today. Mayhap that was where the problem lay.
He had felt the supple softness of her breasts pressed against his chest. That ought to have been his first inclination she had not donned proper undergarments. He wondered if she was even wearing drawers beneath that gown of hers.
Self-loathing buffeted him like the gales of a storm.
“I am seeing you safely home,” he snapped. “It is my—”
“If you say duty, I shall stomp on your foot,” she interrupted, quite rudely.
He knew Lady Helena was a hoyden from the stories carried to him by her brother. If he had required more proof, he need look no further. She was laying all bare to him on a silver salver.
Now that was a thought, Lady Helena bare…
No, Gabe. Stop that.
“Obligation,” he said simply, reminding them both of what he had been about to say. “As is extracting from you the promise that you will refrain from doing something so foolish again.”
“That word is hardly any better.” Her eyes were so damned verdant, burning into his, searing him. “And I will not make you any promises of that sort, Lord Huntingdon.”
Stubborn creature. Never mind. He was made of sterner stuff than she.
“Yes, you will.”
Up went her chin again, in that defiant slant he had come to recognize. “No, I most certainly will not. I owe you nothing.”
“You owe me your gratitude for saving you from a wretched fate,” he countered, frustrated with her anew. “Forsyte is a rotter. You have no notion of what awaited you in those filthy rooms.”
The mere thought of her acting with such reckless disregard for her welfare infuriated him. How could she possibly believe
debasing herself with a scoundrel such as Lord Algernon would be preferable to a marriage? Lord Hamish White was a rather loathsome fellow, and that could not be denied. But as Lord Hamish’s wife, she would want for nothing, and she would maintain her respectability. Then again, the notion of her becoming Lord Hamish’s wife also filled him with a maddening disquiet.
“I most certainly will not thank you for your unwanted meddling,” Lady Helena said, as august as any princess. “Nor for your high-handed manner of forcing me into your carriage. How am I going to return home without notice when I arrive in the Earl of Huntingdon’s carriage?”
“How indeed?” he challenged her. “Perhaps I will deliver you to the doorstep myself and have an audience with Lord Northampton.”
The color fled her cheeks. “You would not dare to do something so cruel.”
“It is the honorable thing to do,” he pressed. “You cannot carry on in such a reckless fashion, Lady Helena. If I had not been there to keep you from making the greatest mistake of your life, you would be on your way to a life of penury and heartache.”
That was the truth. She could not possibly expect her father to blithely accept her ruination and suddenly bend to her whims, allowing her to marry as she chose or run wild as any hellion. Society would turn its collective back upon her. No man would wed her. And Northampton…he would no doubt be enraged by her actions.
“I can and will carry on as I must,” she insisted, stubborn to the last. “I refuse to marry a man who believes women should not have a voice in the governing of England. Lord Hamish thinks all women are intellectually inferior to men. Can you credit it?”
No, he could not.
But nor could he change the opinions of such a man. He did, however, have a chance at forcing Lady Helena to see reason and promise that she would never again take such drastic measures to free herself from her unwanted betrothal.
“I am not here to debate Lord Hamish’s political persuasions and hopelessly wrongheaded notions,” he said. “I am here to save you from destroying your reputation. Have you thought of what would happen to you if you were to be ruined? What if there had been issue from your liaison? Where would you have gone if your father had turned you out?”
Thoughts of Lisbeth, never far from his mind, returned to him and he balled his fists. He could not afford to suffer one of his attacks now. He focused instead on Lady Helena.
Her lips tightened, and a small furrow appeared in her brow, both of which suggested she had not considered the ramifications of her actions so thoroughly. “I have been reading a great deal on the subject. I am not as foolish as you believe me, my lord.”
“Reading,” he repeated, sure he was misunderstanding her once more. “On the subject?”
“There are journals to be had which describe the act of lovemaking in excellent detail,” the minx had the daring to reply.
The word lovemaking uttered in her pleasant contralto had more unwanted effects upon him. His damned cock twitched to life. Why was it so bloody hot in this carriage? When the devil had she grown so bold?
“How in heaven’s name did a lady find herself in possession of such filth?” he asked, outraged at his reaction.
Outraged at her, too.
She shrugged. “I found them in Shelbourne’s library. So you see, Huntingdon? I did a great deal of research when I decided upon my course of action.”
Research.
He swallowed against a rush of lust. Base, horrible, unbecoming lust. For his friend’s innocent sister. Then again, just how innocent was she?
You have a betrothed, Gabe.
And yet, Lady Beatrice could not be further from his mind at the moment.
“Reading bawdy books is hardly sufficient preparation for destroying the rest of your life, Lady Helena.” He was gratified at the sangfroid he was able to somehow muster.
One would scarcely guess his trousers were as snug as the breeches of a Georgian dandy.
He disgusted himself.
She twitched her skirts in annoyance, revealing a flash of stockinged ankle in the process. “That is where we differ, my lord. I am not seeking to destroy the rest of my life, but to save it.”
That ankle of hers was not helping matters.
Gabe pinched his nose again, wondering why the hell it was taking so long to get to Curzon Street.
This was the longest carriage ride of her life.
At least, that was how it felt to Helena, who had been miserably lodged within the equipage with Huntingdon for far too long. Train journeys to the country passed with more speed than this small journey home from Lord Algernon’s rooms had.
She had been miserably torn between the urge to kiss the earl senseless and throw one of her boots at him ever since he had unceremoniously shoved her inside his conveyance.
He pinched his nose and glared at her now as if he found her horridly offensive. And still, her stupid heart loved him.
Her life was a study in misery.
“I suppose we shall have to accept we are at a stalemate,” he said.
Had his gaze just slipped to her lips?
She dashed the fledgling hope.
Also stupid. Infinitely more stupid than mere stupidity. Utterly ludicrous.
“Yes, I suppose we shall,” she agreed, not without a touch of bitterness.
“No more of this foolishness,” he commanded, as if he had a right to make demands of her. “You will cease all future attempts to debase yourself.”
“You cannot dictate what I do, Huntingdon,” she told him, injecting some frost into her voice.
His countenance turned grim. “Yes, I can.”
Even with the mien of a man attending a funeral, he was beautiful. Why had her brother chosen to become friends with the Earl of Huntingdon during their school days? Why could he not have chosen someone who was bald-pated and overly fond of cakes?
“No,” she argued, “you cannot.”
Huntingdon was imperious and austere, but surely he had to realize he possessed no true sovereignty over her. He was neither her brother nor her father. And he most certainly was not her betrothed.
If he had been, she would not be doing everything in her power to flee the entanglement. Instead, she would have prepared her trousseau and requested a hasty wedding.
His nostrils flared in displeasure. It was a habit of his she had taken note of long ago. Helena studied him at dinner parties and balls and at every opportunity. For an entire season, she had hoped he would not honor his long-standing engagement with Lady Beatrice, and she had made every excuse to arrange chance encounters with him. But the earl had always been preoccupied with making his escape, and he had always paid attention to everyone but her. The most she had ever managed was a striking connection of gazes on a handful of occasions.
“If you do not promise me to put this nonsensical notion of yours to rest, I will have no choice but to approach Shelbourne and Lord Northampton with my discovery,” he said. “Indeed, I would not be surprised if they had already been made aware by another. Lord Algernon was making no secret of his intentions.”
His assertion gave her pause. What a henwit she was for failing to realize Lord Algernon’s inability to keep from shamelessly boasting about himself every sentence would extend to mentioning her. How she would like to box his ears for the muck he had made of her excellent plans.
“You may as well resign yourself to the notion you are not my Sir Galahad,” she told Huntingdon. “I will do as I wish, without your further interference.”
He gritted his teeth. “You will most certainly not.”
Her patience wore thin. “And how do you propose to stop me, my lord? If you go to my father and brother with tales, I will have no choice but to tell them you are the man who ruined me. That I went there expecting to meet Lord Algernon, but found you instead. I will tell them you took me in your arms and kissed me passionately, and then you raised my skirts and undid the fall of your trousers and released your…”
Here, the lew
d word for his manhood she had read in one of her brother’s naughty books escaped her, and she allowed her words to trail off as her mind frantically sought the correct term.
“Damn it, Helena,” Huntingdon ground out. “That is the outside of enough.”
She had shocked him sufficiently with her outrageous claim—all of it a bluff fashioned loosely of material from Shelbourne’s wicked literature. But because the word chose that moment to worm its way back into her mind, she said it aloud.
“Prick,” she stated, fire licking over her cheeks. Even her ears went hot, but she carried on. Because to the devil with him, that was why. “I shall swear that you took your prick and—”
“Not another bloody word!”
His infuriated growl rapped through the carriage like the report of a pistol at dawn. Helena blinked, all the filthy things she had been about to say vanishing from her mind in the face of his unmitigated fury. Well, mayhap she had gone too far. On an ordinary day, she would never dream of repeating aloud the lewdness she had only read about. But this was not an ordinary day, and each passing hour, minute, second, dragged her mercilessly closer to the day she would marry Lord Hamish and lose her freedom forever.
She had no doubt Huntingdon would think her a madcap jade after he had caught her attempting to ruin herself, and then she had done her utmost to scandalize him. But a perverse part of her rather enjoyed the expression on his countenance at the moment.
The carriage slowed at last.
“I hope I did not shock you with my candor, my lord,” she said lightly, as if she were paying a social call.
When in fact she had just crudely informed him she would tell her brother and father he had taken her virtue himself. And in the most vulgar fashion she could manage.
“Where did you hear such language?” he asked.
The smile she gave him was equal parts regretful and sincere. “I read it.”
She peered out the carriage window, gratified to discover they had stopped on the wrong side of the street, several houses down. Thank heavens this endless carriage ride was over at last. She scooped up her forgotten hat and arranged her veils. Rising, she opened the carriage door herself.
Lady Reckless (Notorious Ladies of London Book 3) Page 2
