The last person Gabe expected to cross paths with on the pavements outside Lady Beatrice’s father’s townhome was his wife. But there was no denying it—just as he was striding up the cement, she was sailing down it. They met halfway.
Her vibrant eyes went wide, her hand flying to the base of her throat, until she realized it was he before her on the path. “Gabe!”
“Helena.” He bowed formally, his guts still churning with the horrible revelations Elijah Decker had made, his knuckles throbbing with the aftereffects of his call upon Lord Algernon. The pain had been worth every bit of the satisfaction of watching his fist connect with that bastard’s jaw, however. “I did not expect to find you here.”
“Nor I you.” Her hand lowered, revealing the creamy elegance of her throat. “What are you doing here?”
Was any woman’s neck as delectable as hers? Gabe could not summon an image of one to his mind. The day was gloomy, the skies gray with the ominous portent of rain, and yet she shone like a beacon.
He recalled her query and swallowed, trying to gain control over his tumultuous thoughts. “I met with Lady Jo’s husband, Mr. Decker. He had a great deal to say, all of which was disturbingly enlightening. The only course of action seemed to be to confront Lady Beatrice and let her father know the deviousness and treachery his daughter has been about.”
That was putting it mildly.
But Gabe could not face the full implications of Lady Beatrice’s plans for Helena. Not if he wished to continue functioning. Not if he wanted to confront his former betrothed and make her pay for what she had been plotting to do to Helena.
“I just met with Lady Beatrice myself,” Helena said softly. “I do not think an interview with her on your part is necessary, though if you deem it such, I shan’t offer any opposition.”
Her graciousness in this, as in every matter of their marriage thus far, could not be denied. He had been searching for the perfect countess, the wife who would never betray or disappoint or hurt him. The wife who would be loyal and true. And all along, he had been looking for her in the wrong place. He had seen her in the wrong woman.
Because as he gazed upon Helena, Countess of Huntingdon, this magnificent lady he had married, he knew with sudden, undeniable clarity, that the woman who was the perfect wife for him in every way was the one he had wed.
Grandfather had been wrong, and breaking his vow to wed Lady Beatrice had been the best decision Gabe had ever made. A sudden rush of peace traveled over him, profound and sweeping.
He had to swallow against a knot of emotion rising in his throat. “I am sorry, Helena. So damned sorry.”
For more than he could say.
“I am not nearly as concerned for myself as I am for you and what it would have meant for you had their plotting come to fruition.” Helena’s gaze upon him was unbearably tender. “And I am sorry for ever aligning myself with such a hopeless blackguard. If I had not arranged for that assignation, I never would have lost my necklace.”
He reached out, grazing his fingers over that stubborn chin of hers. “But then, you would have never wed me, and I, for one, am heartily glad you did.”
Her lips parted. “You are?”
He could kick himself anew for being a cad. “I am.”
There was no mistaking the sadness in her eyes. “But I am nothing like the woman you would have married before I came along and ruined your plans.”
“Thank God for that,” he said with great feeling. “What did you say to Lady Beatrice? I want to be certain she will never cause further problems for you. I had intended to see her father, to inform him of everything his daughter has been about.”
Helena smiled. “I told her about a handkerchief now in my possession, one embroidered with her initials and with her favorite flower, which her co-conspirator managed to filch from her. I warned her that if she ever attempts to interfere in our marriage or cause trouble for us, I will use the handkerchief against her in the same manner she would have used my necklace against me.”
He ought to have known she could handle herself. She was the smartest, bravest woman he knew.
“When Decker’s ruffians met with Lord Algernon, they managed to get him to surrender the necklace and the handkerchief?” he asked, impressed, though he knew he ought not to be surprised.
Mr. Elijah Decker was a man of cunning and grit, and he had built his empire upon both. Gabe was once more grateful Helena possessed such good friends. But here was a reminder of the fact that she had not come to him, her husband. Instead, she had sought the aid of others.
“They did,” Helena confirmed, grinning. “Lady Beatrice was not impressed with the notion of her actions spreading all over London. I do believe her days of meddling and consorting with Lord Algernon are decidedly over.”
“They had better be, or she will answer to me,” he growled, a protective surge for his beautiful wife hitting him.
Helena clasped his hand, holding it to her cheek. “Thank you for wanting to defend me.”
“You need not thank me for that, Helena.” He frowned at her. “I also paid a call upon Lord Algernon, and I can assure you he will never trouble you again without fear of further retribution. I am your husband, and shielding you from all harm is my duty.”
The moment the word left his lips, he regretted it, but it was too late.
Helena released his hand and took a step away from him. “Of course. Shall we travel home separately, my lord? I left in such a hurry that I neglected to ask that my carriage be brought round.”
He hated the distance she had put between them. Hated too the conflicting emotions inside himself. But there was one thing he knew for certain—he was not about to send his wife home in a separate carriage.
“We shall go together in the brougham.” He offered her his arm. “I will see that the other carriage is notified.”
Helena placed her hand on his elbow, and they made their way to the waiting conveyance.
Chapter Twenty-Four
There can be no true happiness until our objective is achieved.
—From Lady’s Suffrage Society Times
Silence pervaded as the brougham rumbled through the London streets, taking Helena and Gabe to Wickley House. Her husband’s posture was stiff, his jaw tense, as if something weighed heavily upon him. She knew the feeling.
Finally, Helena could bear no more of the quiet, so she broke it. “Did you mean what you said?”
His arresting gaze seared her. He was so beautiful, her heart hurt.
“I meant everything I said, Helena. And far more.”
She swallowed. “You are truly pleased to have me as your wife?”
“More than I can properly convey in words.” He held out a hand to her. “Come here.”
The only place for her to go was his lap.
So Helena went, settling herself gingerly upon his broad thighs, no easy feat given the encumbrances of her skirts and tournure. “I shall crush you.”
“Hush.” He removed his gloves and then cupped her face. “You are light as a bird, and I cannot bear to have you sitting on the other side of this bloody carriage when you could be right here, where you belong.”
Where she belonged? Yes. Oh, yes. She liked the sound of that.
Helena plucked the hat from his head, placing it on the bench at his side, before positioning her hands on his broad shoulders. As always, his warmth and strength seemed to sear her palms. The love she had been carrying for him all this time surged. She could not keep it to herself any longer. But how to tell him, when he believed love was the source of anguish and ruin?
Her heart gave a pang.
“Thank you for dashing off to see Lady Beatrice on my behalf,” she said, instead of saying those three terrifying words just yet.
His deep-blue gaze searched hers. “Helena, I will always defend you. As your husband, it is my—”
She pressed a finger to his lips, silencing him. “Pray do not say duty again. I do not want to be your obligation, Ga
be.”
He kissed her finger, then plucked it away from his lips so he could continue speaking unimpeded. “I was going to say that as your husband, it is my honor to defend you. I will do anything and everything in my power to protect you and keep you from harm, always. That is my solemn vow to you.”
He would defend and protect her, but would he ever love her? Could he ever love her? Helena did not dare to hope. Her love could be enough for the both of them.
“I can defend and protect myself,” she told him in lieu of making any dangerous confessions.
“I have no doubt of that.” There was a note of pride in his voice that settled into the deepest recesses of her heart. “You are the most daring, brave, strong woman I know. But I am here for you, always. You need never take on the world alone or seek the aid of others instead of me. I am yours.”
Hers.
She liked the sound of that as well. Indeed, she had spent years longing for him, wishing, hoping.
“Mine,” she repeated, scarcely trusting the word or the implications behind it. Scarcely believing the Earl of Huntingdon could possibly be hers and hers alone. “Truly, Gabe?”
He caught her wrist in a grip that was firm yet gentle and flattened her hand over his heart. Beneath the layers of his clothing, his heart hammered a steady, reassuring thud-thud-thud.
“Yours,” he said again. “Forever yours, Helena. Only yours.”
She froze, staring at him. Surely he could not mean what her foolish heart hoped to hear? Gabe was not telling her his heart was hers.
Or was he?
“But you wanted to marry Lady Beatrice,” she protested shakily. “I forced you into marrying me.”
“No one could have forced me to marry you, darling.” He caressed her cheek, the expression on his handsome face filled with a new tenderness. “I wanted to marry you. At the time, I was too stubborn to see it for myself. I was also blinded by my past and a promise I never should have made.”
She could not look away. He had called her darling. He had said he had wanted to marry her, Helena Davenport. Not Lady Beatrice Knightbridge, the paragon.
“But I lied to Shelbourne,” she reminded him.
“You were desperate,” he countered, “and I was an idiot.”
Tears stung her eyes. “You have never been an idiot.”
“Yes, I have.” He caressed a path of fire down her throat and slid his hand around to cup her nape. “I was too stupid to realize the perfect wife for me was the one I was chasing all over London. The one I couldn’t seem to stop touching or kissing or yearning for. The one who found her way into my heart.”
Did he just say what she thought he had said?
His heart? Thump, thump, thump it went beneath her splayed palm. Hers joined, meeting it beat for beat. The time to tell him had arrived. It was now, here, this moment.
This man. This man she had loved for so long.
She took a deep breath. “Gabe, there is something I must tell you.”
He caressed her nape, that same expression of profound affection upon his countenance, making her weak, giving her hope. “It is not that you are going to flee for Shropshire without me, is it?”
She smiled at his jest. “No, of course not. If I am ever off to Shropshire, I promise to bring you with me, my lord.”
“Nor is it that you regret marrying an oafish prig?” His tone was teasing, but his expression was serious, his eyes intent upon her.
Did he truly hold himself in such low regard? How could he not see he was everything she had ever wanted, the only man for whom she had ever longed?
Helena pursed her lips. “Fortunately, I escaped the fate of marrying an oafish prig by ruining myself so that I would not have to spend the rest of my life tied to Lord Hamish.”
“I should have thrown you over my shoulder after your first attempt at ruination and married you then.” He leaned forward, bringing their lips deliciously near and yet refraining from kissing her as she so desperately wanted him to do. “It would have spared us both a good deal of trouble and hurt. I ought to have made love to you in this carriage and bound you to me forever.”
His words, coupled with his nearness, the warm flow of his breath over her lips, his scent surrounding her, his heart beating beneath her palm, his heat searing her, all combined to make the flesh between her thighs throb. She wanted him there. Wanted him again and again. Wanted to straddle his hips, release him from his trousers, and sink down upon his cock. Wanted him to erase the awfulness of the past two days. To banish the specter of what could have happened.
“Perhaps you should rectify that error in judgment and make love to me now,” she dared.
He brushed his lower lip tantalizingly over hers in the most decadent half kiss. “Tell me first.”
Her ability to think had been impacted. “Tell you?”
He rubbed their lower lips again. “You said you had something to tell me.” And then he punctuated his reminder by kissing the upper bow of her lips.
Oh. So she had. But first, she never wanted this kiss to end.
He deepened the kiss, his heart beating faster now. She kissed him back with all the desire and love she felt for him, trying to show him with actions what she had yet to admit in words.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
He nipped her lower lip. “I know you do.”
Had she made her confession aloud? Helena jerked her head back, tearing her mouth from his. “I beg your pardon?”
He held her gaze, unwavering. “I know you love me.”
She noted the other half of that particular equation was absent. He had not told her he returned her love. The hope which had been building inside her, gathering air and buoyancy like an ascension balloon, went abruptly flat.
It sank all the way to her toes and then fell out of the carriage entirely, to become macerated on the roadway beneath the carriage wheels. What had she expected? A great soliloquy? An earnest declaration from a man who believed marriage should be loveless in order for it to succeed?
Stupid Helena. When will you learn your lesson? The Earl of Huntingdon will never, ever love you.
She swallowed down the lump rising in her throat, willing the tears that threatened her vision to dissipate before she humiliated herself even further. “How do you know?”
Had she somehow given her secret away before now? Had she whispered her love for him in her sleep? There had been the time she had almost revealed her feelings to him when they had made love, but she had stopped herself in time, had she not?
“Shelbourne told me,” he admitted. “Do not be angry with him, darling. He told me to aid our union, I suspect, not to cause you any embarrassment.”
Embarrassment? Her cheeks were positively aflame. How humiliating. She was going to box her brother’s ears for this. She was going to dump all his bawdy books into the nearest water closet. She was going to…
Drat it, Helena. Plot your revenge later. This is important.
“When did he tell you?” she asked, needing to know for the sake of her own pride.
Good Lord, had he always known? Since before they had wed? Humiliation churned through her. How long had he been aware of her pathetic feelings for him without entertaining even the slightest inkling of love for her? And after they had shared so much of themselves with each other, all those endless nights of passion?
“Since I met with him to calm the waters of our friendship,” Gabe admitted.
“Since almost the beginning of our marriage,” she translated, her mind working out the timing for itself. “You mean to say you knew I loved you all this time?”
“Yes.”
One word from those sensual lips of his. Curse him, why did he have to be so dratted handsome? It made holding on to her irritation dreadfully difficult. Nigh impossible, really.
“And yet you felt nothing?” she prodded, needing to know the answer.
“I felt everything.” He pressed a kiss to the corn
er of her lips, the gesture at once sweet and thrilling. “I was terrified of what you made me feel, and I was doing all that was within my power to hold tight to my restraint. To keep you from burrowing so deep into my heart there would be no removing you, regardless of the dangers you presented me.”
Helena frowned. “You make me sound as if I am an invasive creature stealing into your garden rather than your wife.”
He grinned at her, making new heat flare to life. “Never an invasive creature. I was merely not prepared to accept what you did to me. What you do to me, hellion.”
What did this mean? Stupid, fruitless hope was at it once more, trying to rise like a loaf of bread no one would ever slide into the oven. Useless, these feelings. Foolish for her to entertain them. She seized upon the one thing she could, settling for taking him to task.
“I ought to take umbrage at your continued use of that sobriquet,” she told him, nettled with herself for the shakiness in her voice.
“Helena, sweet.” His other hand cupped her cheek, his thumb traveling over her cheekbone with painstaking affection. “You are a hellion. My hellion. And I love you for it.”
She stilled. Her hand remained over his heart, and it was pounding now with furious insistence. So was hers. Once more, words fled her mind. Her lips parted. Sound was reluctant to emerge.
So she breathed in this moment, the carriage swaying around them, her settled in Gabe’s lap, his strong hands upon her with such caring, his sky-blue eyes devouring her, his lips so near to hers. This was a moment she would never forget, a moment she had scarcely dared to dream could exist.
“You…love…” Oh, blast. There were the tears, blurring her vision and gathering on her lashes.
She blinked furiously to clear them, but it only sent them rolling down her cheeks in fat trails.
“You, Helena,” he finished for her. “I love you. Completely and utterly, in every way, more deeply than I could have fathomed possible.”
“But you do not believe a marriage ought to involve love,” she could not help but to protest, even as part of her was inwardly shouting at her to keep her concerns and fears to herself. To settle instead for his avowal. For his words of love to be enough.
Lady Reckless (Notorious Ladies of London Book 3) Page 26
