Her husband nuzzled her neck as they made their way up the first step.
A frisson skated down her spine.
“Mmm,” he murmured against her neck. “You smell so bloody good. Is it witchcraft? Shorcery? That is to say, sorcery?”
Another two steps and Huntingdon’s hand crept up from her waist, sliding to cup her breast. She nearly toppled backward at the jolt that ran through her at the touch. Her corset and all her layers of silk and linen kept his hand from what she wanted most, his long, elegant fingers curling over her bare skin.
What would it be like for him to touch her there, in the absence of barriers, in the privacy of her chamber or his? No watching eyes hovering in the wings, no staircase to fall down and break her foolish neck? Grimly, she reminded herself that with the manner in which their union had begun, she would likely never know.
“It is hardly sorcery, Huntingdon.” Up several more steps they traveled. “It is my perfume.”
“It makes me wild.”
His confession, in perfect, crisp English with nary the hint of an inebriated slur, was uttered into her neck. The fingers on her breast moved higher. Until his hand connected with her bare flesh.
Was it possible to be seduced on the stairs?
Helena wondered if any of her friends who so recently wed—the Countess of Sinclair or Lady Jo Decker—ever had found themselves at their husband’s handsome mercies on such an unfortunate architectural feature.
Guard your heart, Helena. He did not want to marry you. He does not trust you. He will never love you. He does not know what he is saying.
Likely, in the morning, he would not remember a word he had spoken or a single shuffled step up the staircase beside her. He would simply rise, see his packed valises loaded into a carriage, and make his forbidding way to Euston Square Station and from there, Shropshire. Far away from her.
Where he could forget all about the unwanted burden of the bride he had never intended to take. If he had married Lady Beatrice, would he have drowned himself in all manner of spirits before coming home to snore in the library? Helena thought not.
The reminder of her husband’s former betrothed—the paragon—was just the impetus she needed to guide Huntingdon up another flight of stairs until they reached the floor where the lord and lady’s apartments dwelled.
Down the hall they went, Huntingdon becoming more of a dead weight with each step. He was leaning on her, kissing her throat. Nibbling her ear. Sucking on her flesh, then scoring her with his teeth. Whispering sweet, sinful words to her. Some which made sense. Others which did not.
By the time they reached his chamber, Helena was breathless from a combination of exertion and Huntingdon himself. Drat him, drat him, drat him.
She managed to close the door at their backs. The warm glow of the lamps bathed his apartments, illuminating the strange new territory. For a moment, the realization hit her. She had never been in a man’s private room, aside from Lord Algernon Forsyte, and then he had not been present. Only Huntingdon had.
But that had been different. She had been a bundle of anxiety, needles, and pins. Nervous about what she had been about to do. And then, it had all been for naught. The sole man in attendance had been Huntingdon himself.
Being in his chamber now was different. Far more intimate. Because he was her husband, and he was at her side, still kissing her throat. Dear sweet Lord and all the angels above, was that his tongue?
Yes, yes it was. And it was marvelous, curse him.
“You taste better than the finest dessert.” He kissed her ear again. “Everywhere.”
Everywhere?
She thought of the moment he had slid his knowing fingers inside the slit of her drawers. When he had touched her in the lady’s withdrawing room. There.
“I tasted my fingers that night,” he said, seeming to read her thoughts.
Helena’s cheeks were ablaze. “My lord, you must not speak such improper thoughts.”
He licked the sensitive hollow behind her ear, nibbled at a particularly responsive cord on her neck. “Do you know what is improper, hellion? Truly improper? Every last fucking thing I want to do to you.”
His sensual growl curled deep inside her, reaching a place she had not previously realized existed. And she knew his vulgarity and coarseness should have repulsed her. At least, that was what she had been taught. But when had she ever liked doing what she was supposed to do? When had she followed rules or cared for propriety?
She forced herself to tamp down the longing rising within her. To tamp it so far down. To ignore it. At least for tonight. At least until she knew where she stood in this new marriage of hers. With the man currently wreaking such havoc upon her senses and her ability to resist him.
“You need to go to bed, my lord,” she told him.
“Yes,” he agreed, swaying into her once more. “That is preshishly what I need. Ahem. Precisely. What. I. Need. You. But not you. No, indeed. I do not need you. I cannot trust you, hellion. You lied to me and forced me into this godforshaken…godforsaken union.”
She had forced him, yes. And it was for the best that he had seized that moment to recall it, for the both of them. Because he was desperately drunk. And she was just…desperately, pathetically in love.
She disengaged herself from him, knowing that no good could come of this evening. Not when he resented her and was so thoroughly inebriated. Not when he intended to leave her so soon. Not after everything that had come to pass between them.
He swayed, then sank into a wingback chair with a lusty sigh.
Even his sigh affected her.
Helena debated ringing for his valet. This was decidedly not the manner in which she had imagined she would spend her wedding night, and she knew next to nothing about properly preparing a gentleman for bed. But then…how difficult could it be?
“Hellion.” Her husband’s eyes fluttered closed. “I cannot stop seeing those perfect, pink lipsh…lips. Do you know how many times I have imagined them wrapped around my cock?”
Oh dear.
He was speaking inappropriately once more.
It seemed that whilst sober Huntingdon was a rather staid affair, intoxicated Huntingdon was a wanton rakehell who uttered all manner of wickedness with nary a hint of a flush. Helena wished she could find his decidedly inappropriate speech detestable. Instead, all it did was fuel her hunger, her ardor.
Images settled into her own mind, mingled with the images already present after having read those bawdy books she had filched from Shelbourne. Images of her lips on her husband’s magnificent manhood. What would he look like, freed from the fall of his trousers? What would he feel like, taste like? Her mind whirled with everything she should not wonder.
He looked raffishly handsome in repose, his long legs spread wide as he sprawled in the chair. Difficult—nay, almost impossible—to believe this man was her husband now. But not hers yet. Not truly. Mayhap not ever. As irritated as she wanted to be with him, she could not deny the sudden rush of tenderness that swept over her as she began to undress him.
First, his coat, which he aided her by shrugging out of. Then, his waistcoat. She found the buttons of his shirt, plucking the line from their moorings. As she worked, she bit her lip, trying to keep unwanted feelings from overwhelming her. Her fingertips grazed his heated bare skin, and she was suddenly flushed all over from the mere touch.
No matter how much she wanted to remain impervious to him, she could not.
She became aware of his regard, scorching her, searing her from the outside in.
She paused in the act of unbuttoning his shirt. “I ought to call for your valet.”
“Not yet.”
His denial gave her pause. “My lord, I know nothing about helping a gentleman disrobe.”
“I want you,” he argued stubbornly.
Of course, he was not saying the words in the sense she wished to hear them. But just the same, they filled her heart with stupid, incipient warmth.
“I s
hall do my best,” she relented, continuing her task. “But you must help me.”
Together, they managed to divest him of most of his attire, right down to his smalls. Helena could not escape the observation that every part of her husband was handsome. Even his feet.
She led him to his bed, and he fell into it like a downed tree.
“Mmm, hellion,” he muttered. “Don’t go.”
As she tucked the counterpane around him, he began to snore. Helena studied his profile, noting the dark prickle of whiskers shading his strong jaw, the slope of his nose, his well-defined lips. Those dark lashes that were too long for a man, his rakishly ruffled hair.
And slowly, inspiration struck. Along with it came a plan.
Chapter Thirteen
There is nothing more infuriating than someone who refuses to accept reason.
—From Lady’s Suffrage Society Times
Gabe woke to a throbbing head, a roiling stomach, blinding white light, and the voice of an angel.
Strike that. The voice did not belong to an angel at all, but rather to the gorgeous bane of his existence.
Helena.
“Thank you, Bennet. Would you be kind enough to see a tray brought up for his lordship?” she was asking his valet.
He had no idea why she would be arranging anything on his behalf with his own manservant. Where was he? What time was it? And why did he feel as if an omnibus had run over his entire body, from head to foot?
Most importantly of all, why was he not on a train bound for Shropshire?
Bloody hell, his travel plans.
Remembrance washed over him. The wedding. Helena was his wife now. The breakfast. That interminable barouche ride to Wickley House. His flight to his club. Drowning himself in Moselle and champagne and everything else. Had he dreamt that she had helped him to bed the night before?
He had not consummated their union, had he?
He sat up and instantly regretted the haste of his movements. His stomach lurched, and he feared he was going to cast up his accounts. Helena swept toward him across the Axminster of his chamber, a gleaming ray of sunlight catching in her golden tresses. A goddess at any hour, curse her.
The window dressing had been pulled aside to invite the unusual brightness of the day. Even his soul cringed at the offending light.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “What time is it?” he asked, taking note that she looked far too beautiful for her own good this morning.
Or mayhap for his own good. He had to continue his campaign of resistance, damn it. Supposing he had not already dismantled it the night before, that was. The sight of her in an afternoon gown of light-green silk that served to heighten the vibrancy of her emerald eyes did not help the matter. Her lush curves were on glorious display, and although he still felt as if he had been dragged through the streets beneath an unforgiving pair of hooves, an answering spark of awareness lit within him.
“It is half past one in the afternoon,” she informed him blithely.
Impossible.
He must have misheard.
He frowned, but the movement of his forehead inspired a fresh spate of pounding in his skull until he softened his expression. “I beg your pardon?”
“Half past one.” She reached his bed and settled her rump upon it, arranging her tournure so it fanned out behind her in an elegant wave of silk. “How are you feeling? You look rather green.”
Fitting that he should match her dress and her eyes.
And she had repeated the same time. His train had already left the station by now. But he was not on it. Instead, he had been slumbering away in his bed. Which begged the question…
“Bennet knew what time I wished to wake this morning in preparation for our journey to the station.” He narrowed his eyes at her, but this, too, created more physical agony. At this point, the roots of his hair hurt. “Why did he not wake me? Why did he not pack my trunks and satchels in preparation for leaving?”
Helena reached out then, her cool fingers kissing his feverish brow. “I told him to let you sleep. You were resting so peacefully.”
She had told Bennet to refrain from waking him for his journey? And his valet had listened to her?
“Damnation, Helena. I have missed my train!” He winced after issuing the exclamation, for it was louder than he had intended and set off a salvo of pain in his head.
“You were in no condition for travel this morning.” She stroked his sweat-damp hair back from his forehead in a tender motion.
Her wry observation was not wrong, he had no doubt. For he was still not in any condition for travel. However, that was beside the point.
He gritted his teeth. “Stop petting me as if I am a lost mongrel you are attempting to comfort. You went against my plans, curse you.”
Her lips pursed, and she withdrew her touch, settling her hands in her lap instead. “I was acting in your best interest, my lord, as is my place as your wife. Someone had to do so. Mr. Bennet was going to wake you at dawn. The hour was unconscionably early.”
“The hour was early so that I would not miss my bloody train,” he growled, doing his utmost not to mourn the loss of her caresses. “Which I have now done, thanks to your interference.”
It was not the first time the vexing minx before him had interfered in his life, causing a diversion from his predetermined path. He had a distinct feeling it would not be the last.
“Actually, if you will but think upon it, I do believe you missed your train because of your own foolish actions yesterday,” his wife dared to correct him.
Her tone was gentle, the sort she might employ upon a child.
Her scent chose that moment to curl around him.
Why did she have to smell so damned good? Why did she have to be so beautiful? So tempting? Why had he poured all that damned Moselle down his throat? Had there been gin as well? He rather thought there had, more fool he.
“On the contrary, my lady,” he countered tightly. “I missed my train because you instructed my valet not to wake me as previously planned. You gainsaid me. Just as I did not marry my betrothed because you informed your brother that I had gotten you with child. Will your manipulation know no end?”
He was being a churl, and he knew it. But the bile was rising in his throat, his head was aching, his mouth felt as if it had been stuffed with a sour pair of stockings, and his plan to escape the wife he could not keep himself from wanting had been dashed. He was not in an excellent mood.
“You missed your train because you spent the evening drowning yourself in spirits instead of joining me for dinner. I delayed it for hours, waiting for you until I finally gave in, only to find you in the library, snoring and soused on a chaise longue.” Her eyes had darkened, the swirls of stormy gray hidden within their vibrant depths coming to life. Twin spots of color stained her cheeks. “And after your poor treatment of me on our wedding day, I still helped you up the stairs and into bed. You are welcome, my lord.”
Her tone was biting.
When she phrased it thus, he was being a cad. But she had forgotten an important part of their unfortunate circumstances.
“I left you yesterday because I could not reconcile myself to the fact that I was tricked into a marriage with you,” he countered, snarling.
She flinched, her expressive face showing just how deeply his awful words had cut her. And although it had been his intention, his own cruelty gave him no pleasure.
A subtle rapping at the door interrupted the tenseness of the moment.
Helena rose from his bed. “Enter,” she called.
Bennet had arrived with a tray in tow. Huntingdon had not had cause to over-imbibe so egregiously since the days of his youth; he was not a man given to excess. However, on the rare occasions when he had, Bennet had always proven a boon. Nothing like a bath and a shave, along with some restoring tonic, to have a man feeling human again.
Helena glanced in his direction, her expression unreadable. “I will leave you in Bennet’s capable hands,
my lord. You can find me later in the library, should it please you.”
It did not please him to find her anywhere. Not the library, not in his life. Most especially not in his chamber.
Actually, that was a dreadful lie. He wanted her everywhere. However, there was lust and there was common sense, and he knew which one he ought to heed most.
He watched her sweep from the chamber. If only he knew which one he would heed.
She ought to have poured the rest of the whisky on Huntingdon’s head last night when she had the chance. Indeed, she ought to have left him to rot on the chaise longue so he could awake with a stiff back and neck.
Helena stalked the length of the library once more, a practice which had done little to distract her or lessen the sting of her fury as she awaited her husband’s presence. If he deigned to join her, that was.
Should he appear, she would be sorely tempted not to toss a book at him.
Although her plan had worked and he had not abandoned her in favor of Shropshire just yet, he had been not only rude when he had risen this afternoon and realized she had thwarted him. Indeed, he had been cutting and cruel.
Part of her could not blame him. She had no doubt he had felt perfectly dreadful after the spirits he had consumed. However, any sympathy she would have felt in that direction waned the moment she recalled he had been drinking himself to oblivion on their wedding day.
To avoid her.
His words from earlier returned, bitter and needling. I left you yesterday because I could not reconcile myself to the fact that I was tricked into a marriage with you. But that was not entirely fair, was it? She had hardly tricked him. She had merely gone to her brother with the truth—a truth which she had admittedly stretched in a moment of panic.
“You will wear the carpets threadbare if you continue pacing like that, and then I shall have to buy new Axminster in addition to another set of train tickets.”
The grim baritone had her spinning about to face the subject of her ire.
“My lord.” She dipped into a perfunctory curtsy, noting that he was unfairly debonair after an evening of carousing.
Lady Reckless (Notorious Ladies of London Book 3) Page 13
