Whatever the reason, she was heartily glad for the opportunity it afforded her to watch and wait for Huntingdon to emerge from his interview with her father the following afternoon. She was hiding in the library, awaiting the earl’s long-limbed strides, face pressed to the crack in the partially opened door.
Her back was beginning to ache from the awkwardness of her posture when, at long last, Huntingdon stalked into view. His expression was grim, the dark bruising mottling his jaw doing nothing to detract from his handsomeness. He looked more serious than she had ever seen him, and she was the source of his bleakness.
Her heart gave a pang.
She rushed from behind the door and seized his arm. “Huntingdon, wait,” she pleaded in hushed tones, casting frantic glances about to make certain no one else was about.
The hall was blessedly empty. But that did not mean Shelbourne was not hiding in the wings, ready to storm out of the shadows with his fists swinging once more. Or, worse, Father coming to hail another barrage of insults upon her. She tugged the earl toward the open library door.
“I need to speak with you,” she told Huntingdon.
“Helena,” he gritted, balking at her attempts to get him to go where she wished him. “What the devil are you doing?”
Being foolish, it would seem. And reckless. But that was hardly a new state for her.
“Hush,” she ordered. “This way, if you please. I must talk to you, and I fear this is the only chance I shall have.”
“There is nothing to be said,” he denied, remaining rooted to the carpets in the hall. “It has been a long day for me as I had to make innumerable sudden plans, and the last thing I wish to do is prolong it any further. I am taking my leave.”
There was everything to say, as far as she was concerned. He was still angry with her, and she could not blame him. She had not expected him to forgive her with haste, of course. But she could not help but to feel that if she did not make another attempt at explaining herself to him now, when the wounds were freshest, that it would be better for the both of them.
“Please, Huntingdon,” she said, pleading with him for the second time in as many days. “I cannot bear to leave things between us as they are now.”
“Curse you, Helena, have you not already done enough damage?” he demanded, his voice curt. Angry.
His words stung, because he was right—she had caused a great deal of damage for the both of them. His blue eyes flashed with fire, and this time it was not the sort derived from passion, but rather from rage. But she would not retreat.
“A few moments of your time,” she pressed. “No one will ever be the wiser. They think I am off in my chamber, napping and hiding from the shame of the last two days. No one is looking for me.”
At least, not as far as she knew. Her mother had been horrified by the impending scandal. She had taken to her rooms with the megrims the day before, and had yet to emerge. Helena suspected her mother’s absence had far more to do with her father’s ever-growing cloud of rage than with Helena herself.
Huntingdon’s jaw tightened, but he cast a look around and then relented. “A moment. No more. But cease touching me, if you please.”
His directive hurt. She withdrew her hand just the same. What choice did she have? If she were in his position, she did not know how she would feel.
Helena ventured into the library once more, all too aware of Huntingdon’s presence at her back. The man simply simmered, whether he was furious with her or not. He could be on the moon, and she would still long for him desperately. All she could do was pray she had not ruined every chance of making a match between them succeed.
Supposing he had formally agreed to offer for her, that was.
She spun about to face him, taking a deep breath. “What have you decided?”
He scowled, keeping his distance. “That is what you wished to discuss? With your actions, you have already stolen the freedom of choice from me. Unless you have so soon forgotten the melee in which I found myself yesterday following your false revelations to your brother?”
“They were not all false,” she defended.
“The worst of it was,” he countered. “Tell me, was this your plan all along, to fool me into keeping you from courting scandal and then seduce me yourself?”
His accusation took her by surprise. “You kissed me, Huntingdon, not the other way around, and if you will recall, I was quite put out with you for interrupting my plans on every occasion.”
He raised a dark brow, eying her impassively. “Or was your outrage yet another act? I confess, I cannot be sure, my lady. All I do know for certain is that I shall soon have a wife who is an excellent actress, instead of the bride of my choosing.”
Relief washed over Helena, along with the accompanying guilt and twinge of jealousy at the reminder of Lady Beatrice. He had offered for Helena, then. There was that. He must have also ended his betrothal.
“My outrage was not an act,” she said, collecting herself. “How can you think otherwise?”
“Your actions leave me with no choice but to question everything I know of you.” His voice was bitter, his expression shuttered.
His revelation struck her with the force of a slap. “Can you not forgive me?”
He remained icy and aloof, a damning stranger who had once kissed her with a lover’s unrestrained passion. “I cannot say, my lady. What I do know is that it will take time. You can hardly expect your lies to be forgotten after a mere night’s sleep.”
He was not wrong about that. Nor had she expected him to so easily move past her actions. But what she had been seeking now was a glimmer of hope that her sins would not forever haunt them. Would not forever taint their marriage.
“I understand it will take time,” she said then. “All I can hope is that you will come to understand the reason for my actions.”
“I can promise you nothing. Now, if you will excuse me, I must go.”
When he turned to leave, she chased after him, heart tight in her chest. She caught his sleeve, intercepting him. “Huntingdon, do not go yet.”
“Damn you, I told you not to touch me,” he snarled, turning back toward her with so much festering anger, she faltered.
“Do you hate me that much?” she whispered, humiliated by the rush of tears in her eyes.
This was misery in its truest form. She finally had what she had always wanted almost within her grasp, but she had ruined it utterly. She had taken what should never have been hers. She saw it clearly now. Huntingdon would not forgive her for this breach. For forcing his hand. For making him betray his cursed sense of honor and duty.
“I do not hate you,” he said coolly. “All I have ever felt for you, Helena, is pure, base lust. It aggrieves me mightily that I was drawn to a woman willing to go to the lengths you have stooped to.”
She flinched. “If you think so little of me, why should you agree to marry me?”
“Because, darling, you have told your entire family you are carrying my child,” he sneered. “Which you and I both know to be a spurious lie.”
“I only told Shelbourne, and I recognized it for a mistake as soon as I uttered the words,” she said truthfully. She still did not know where her lie had sprung from in that wild moment, save overwhelming desperation and fear her father would still somehow find a way to bind her to Lord Hamish. “I cannot convey how sorry I am for what I said and did.”
“Apologies do not make a difference, Helena,” he snapped. “Do you not see? This is not some sort of bloody game. I was engaged to another woman. She was planning her trousseau, and I had to go to her and cry off yesterday. My own inexcusable lack of honor was bad enough, but to allow her to think the worst of me, to hurt her when she has only ever been the soul of virtue, is akin to swallowing a live coal.”
She reeled, for she had not once considered he may have been in love with Lady Beatrice, nor she with him. If he had been, he would not have kissed Helena, would he have? His impassioned response had her more uncertain
of herself than ever. Suddenly, she needed to know.
“Do you love her?” she could not keep herself from asking.
“What I feel for her no longer signifies,” he said. “Just as what I felt for you no longer does either.”
Felt.
Past tense.
He turned to go once more.
Huntingdon had to escape from this bloody library. From her bloody presence.
Because although he despised himself and his weakness for her, and whilst he loathed her lies and machinations, he wanted her still. Damn him to his soul. And damn her, too.
“Huntingdon,” she called after him in her throaty contralto that never failed to curl around him like smoke.
Cloying, he told himself. Irritating.
Seductive, whispered a voice within. Delicious.
And she would soon be his. Not that he could rejoice in that fact now, when he had spent every waking hour in the past two days attempting to right the wrongs they had committed together and against each other. Not that he could rejoice in it ever, he amended. Because Lady Helena Davenport was dangerous. He wanted her too much. Felt too strongly. There was every chance she would lead him to ruin.
He had to do everything in his power to keep that from happening.
“Huntingdon, please.” The swishing of silk and her soft footfalls alerted him to her hurried pace in the moment before she threw herself between him and his only means of egress.
She was pale, and he could not help but to take note of the faintly purple half-moons shading the delicate flesh beneath her glorious emerald eyes. He had never known another female who called to him the way she did. Who made him both want her and despise her for that base need. Who undid him without lifting a dainty finger.
He had spent the last few years desiring her. Now that he would have her at last, he could not help but to feel guilt at his own sinful actions, which had led to his ability to make her his wife. If he had never touched her, never kissed her, he would have been able to look his friend in the eye and swear Helena was lying without a hint of compunction.
It would have been the truth.
But no. He had given in to his base desires.
“What do you want from me?” he ground out, feeling the beginning of a massive headache blossoming.
Ever since his friend had dealt him twin blows the day before, his head had been throbbing at irregular intervals. Being forced to deal with the ramifications of Helena’s revelations had not helped the matter.
Her bright eyes widened. “I…oh, drat you. I do not know what I want, my lord. But what I do know is that I cannot bear for you to be so angry with me.”
“Mayhap you should have considered that before telling Shelbourne I got you with child,” he pointed out, unable to keep the acid from his voice.
He would own all his sins. But he would be damned if he would suffer the consequences for those which he did not commit. Shelbourne was his oldest friend. They had been through much together. Shelbourne had helped Huntingdon through some of his darkest days. Days he would not think about now, lest those memories bring him low once more. He could not afford to be weak in Helena’s presence. Not now. Not again.
“You kissed me,” she blurted, a becoming flush stealing over her cheeks.
He had, and he had done more. And he would do more again. By God, he would do everything. He would have her in his bed, at his mercy. The side he had always kept at bay rejoiced. But the rest of him banished all such notions. The rest of him clung to the tattered shreds of his honor, to the man his grandfather had been proud of, to the man he had tried so bloody hard to be.
“Kissing you is not the same as bedding you,” he told her, not giving a damn if he shocked her. “You cannot get a babe in your belly from a kiss. Did not your bawdy books teach you that, my dear?”
He was taunting her. Throwing down the gauntlet between them. He could not help himself, it seemed.
Up went her chin. “Of course I know the difference. I was merely reminding you that you are not as innocent in this tangled web of ours as you would like to pretend.”
She dared to mock him.
The effect upon him was perverse. Unwanted. His cock swelled to stiff attention, pressed to the fall of his trousers. He had yet to indulge in the paradise he had been charged with enjoying. For a fleeting, mad moment, he thought of leading her to the far wall of the library, of pressing her to the bookcase, taking her lips, kissing her throat. Of raising her skirts to her waist and plunging into her willing heat.
Somehow, he knew she would be ready. He knew she would be slick. Damnation, he already knew the way she felt. He dreamt about it. Ever since he had touched her—and yes, even last night as he lay alone in bed, much to his shame, he had taken himself in hand to the memory of her silken flesh. Had thought about doing far more to her.
It was too much to bear.
Before he knew what he was about, he slid an arm around her waist, hauling her into him. He was awash with a complicated combination of yearning, desire, shame, and anger. Her breasts collided with his chest. Despite the impediment of her corset, her every curve seared him.
“You are a witch,” he said, using his free hand to cup her jaw.
To tilt her head.
Her skin was soft and warm and smooth. Her scent enveloped him.
And he was once more baptized in a pool of flame.
His need for her was stronger than his next breath. The knowledge he was alone with her in the library, that at any moment her father or brother or an errant servant could cross the threshold and catch them alone together, was not enough to stop him. He was beyond control.
She had made him this way, brought him to this.
Sunk him, like a ship tossed upon the rocky shoals off the shore in the depths of the darkest night. In the midst of high winds, storm-ravaged seas. She was the siren, luring him to his painful, inevitable demise. He could not let her.
“We should not,” she said, but her arms had encircled his neck. And her lashes had fluttered against her cheeks. Her head was tipped back, those lush lips his for the taking.
He had not come here for this, for her. But now that she was in his arms, not even his raging anger at her actions could keep him from seizing what he wanted: her lips.
Her.
“No, we should not,” he agreed. “Indeed, we never should have, and that is why we currently find ourselves at this damnable impasse.”
And yet…
His head dipped. Their mouths met. She tasted as sweet as ever. Her lips clung to his. He had known other kisses in his life, but none had held a candle to Helena’s. Mayhap it was the time he had spent longing for her in secret. Mayhap it was the way her mouth moved against his. Mayhap it was merely the woman herself.
Whatever it was, indefinable as it was, she had it. This woman in his arms. This woman he would wed.
She had the power to bring him to his knees. To dismantle everything he had previously believed about himself. He hated the power she had over him. He hated it, and he longed for it. Whilst he resented what she had done, he could not deny the way he felt for her. Or the way she felt in his arms.
Too good.
Perfect, in fact.
He kissed her hard, with almost bruising force, wanting to punish her lips. To punish her. To please her, also. Her mouth opened, her tongue moving tentatively against his. A throaty sound of surrender tore from her throat. He wrapped his hand around the back of her neck, his fingers plunging into her silken hair. Need for her thundered through him. He caught her lower lip between his teeth and tugged.
Another mewl escaped her. He dragged his lips lower, down her throat, finding her pounding pulse, the evidence she was every bit as moved by their embrace as he was. All the doubts which had been eating away at him since his interview with Lady Beatrice gave way. There was nothing—no anger, no fear, no bitterness. There was nothing but desire.
“Helena,” he whispered her name against her neck, then kissed a path t
o her ear, his lips grazing the shell.
“Huntingdon, please.” She gasped when he bit her fleshy earlobe, then almost purred when he licked the hollow behind it.
She trembled in his arms, pressing herself nearer. His cockstand was hard and insistent in his trousers. Not even his self-loathing could abate the swift rush of lust coursing through him. He ought to be better than this, he knew. Lemon and bergamot twined around his senses like the cloying constriction of ivy vines. He was aflame.
The floor of the library creaked as they moved together, the frenzy of their embrace heightening. The sound was a reminder of the reality in which they found themselves. They were not alone. They were not wed.
Good God, they were all but making love in her father’s library when they were already being rushed to the altar to avoid scandal. He was stupid. So bloody stupid. Powerless, at the mercy of his need. Like his father before him.
This would not do.
He had to put a halt to this madness before he took things between them any further. Before they wound up in a tangle on the floor. Before someone caught them. Before the web in which they had been ensnared grew more complicated.
Summoning all the control he possessed, Huntingdon ended the kiss. He tore his lips from hers and set her away from him. As before, her eyes were dazed, cheeks flushed, lips dark. He wanted to despise her for what she had done, for the lies she had told, and yet, he could not.
“We will be wed in one week’s time,” he told her, his voice ragged. “I think it is for the best if we refrain from seeing each other until that day. Prepare yourself as you must.”
Confusion dawned on her expressive face. “But Huntingdon—”
Lady Reckless (Notorious Ladies of London Book 3) Page 10
