There was nothing thrilling about sleeping on the floor on the threshold of the woman he…
Well, it was ridiculous and rash, and rather uncomfortable.
So, he’d fallen asleep the moment they’d been situated in the carriage, despite wanting to spend as many moments with Helen as he could steal.
And now to see the drawn expression she’d worn when she thought herself unobserved, to hear that she was confused by the variations of himself she had been privy to, to feel ashamed of himself for not being able to remove her concerns, to relieve her anxieties, or to do anything remotely resembling the things he wished…
He was a spy, had seen more of the world than he’d cared to, felt guilt and torment and fear to untold degrees, and yet nothing in his past had prepared him for this.
He watched Helen now, marveling at her beauty in the morning light, loving that she chose not to wear a bonnet today. There was nothing to obstruct his view of her impeccable bone structure, her glorious hair, or those brilliant eyes of hers.
His own eyes drank in the sight of her as if he had never seen her before in his life.
Clearly, he had slept poorly indeed; he had no control of himself.
Helen’s brow furrowed a little, her eyes lowered, her mouth turned down, and he wondered at it.
“Why the frown?” he asked, tilting his head. “What’s wrong?”
She looked up at him, then smiled in a way that he almost believed. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”
He smirked, recognizing a proper attempt at defenses when he saw it. “Too bad for you, I did. Let’s hear it.”
Her mouth tightened. “I don’t think so. It’s not seemly.”
“When has that stopped you?” he queried.
Helen’s jaw dropped. “How dare you…”
Jeremy rolled his eyes. “Come on, Helen, you know I didn’t mean it that way. You and I both know that you are not a meek little miss who always behaves with exactness. You’re bright, vivacious, and bold without being brazen in any way. It’s one of the things that drew me to you in the first place.”
Her eyes widened, and he could see every single breath she took.
That hadn’t exactly been what he’d intended to reveal, but it wasn’t something he could take back, and he didn’t particularly feel like doing so.
“So,” he went on with a slight clearing of his throat, “while your maid here is sound asleep and won’t have any idea how unseemly you are being by confiding in a gentleman of quality…”
Helen snorted loudly, surprising him.
He gave her a warning look. “Go on and tell me what makes you frown and furrow so.”
She stared at him for a long moment, and he was half convinced she would refuse him, but something told him to hold steady the course, so he continued to stare back.
Finally, Helen heaved a heavy sigh and seemed to wilt before him. “I’m lost, Jeremy.”
“Hmm,” he mused, looking out of the window. “I’d say we’re still in Cambridgeshire somewhere.”
A sharp whack across his shins drew a pained laugh, and he quickly tapped his boot against hers, making her smile.
“As I was saying,” Helen went on pointedly, “I’m feeling a bit lost. I was always the lively one in my group of friends, the one that was spritely and bold, as you said, and it was thought that I lived an exciting life.”
Jeremy watched in wonder as her throat worked on a swallow.
“I don’t,” she half-whispered. “I’ve never been as interesting as Margaret or as talented as Rosalind.”
“For what it’s worth,” he replied, smiling kindly. “I think you are.”
She didn’t seem to hear him. “Margaret has lived everywhere. I’ve never even been to Brighton. Rosalind is dark, captivating, and musical. I can’t carry a tune in a bucket, and my skills at the pianoforte haven’t improved since I was twelve. All I am is rich.”
“Oh, now that’s a shame,” Jeremy retorted.
She glared darkly, clearly ready to kick him again. “Stop that! I’d much rather be poor and pretty than rich and plain.”
Plain? Jeremy scoffed once. “You are not plain, and you know it.”
Helen rolled her eyes and folded her arms. “Rich and boring, then.”
He smiled knowingly. “Not boring.”
Her mouth screwed up in irritation, and she exhaled sharply. “Fine! Then rich and unhappy!”
Jeremy smiled at her, nodding his head. “Now, I think, we are getting somewhere.”
The attempt at humor fell flat, but Helen smiled sadly. “I’m not anything like my friends, Jeremy, and because of that, I won’t have anything that they have. Lovely, passionate, breathtaking marriages to their absolutely perfect counterparts, living happily forever no matter what else comes…” She shook her head slowly. “I wasn’t supposed to be left behind.”
“Who says you’re left behind?” he murmured, moving closer to her. “Who told you that you wouldn’t have what they do?”
Her eyes welled up with tears, and the sight arrested him. “It’s obvious, isn’t it?” she whispered.
Jeremy reached out and took one of her hands, tucked tightly against her, and smoothed his thumbs over the back of it. “Not at all obvious, or I wouldn’t ask it. Helen…”
She looked up and met his eyes. “What?”
He felt his mouth curve up into a crooked smile. “There is no reason in the world why you can’t have what your friends have. Why you can’t have more, even. You speak as though the three of you ought to be perfectly identical in every way, your lives perfectly laid out in synchrony.”
Helen sniffed weakly and made a soft sound of protestation.
He pressed her hand gently. “Helen… You’re not like your friends, but why should that leave you behind?” He gave her a thorough look, smiling further. “I’m rather of the opinion that you are forging your own path, charging on ahead.”
“It all sounds very brave when you say it like that,” she replied, sounding stronger already.
“Isn’t it brave?” he asked. “What you’re doing?”
She shook her head at once. “Not in the least. Pathetic, weak, simple, lonely…”
“Well, it’s always lonely at the top.”
She stopped, giving him another look.
Jeremy chuckled and smoothed his thumbs over her hand again. “Stop comparing yourself with anybody else, Helen, love. You’re not like any other person in this world, let alone any woman, or any of your friends. But I’ll be damned if that means there is anything at all lacking in a single part of you.”
He drew the hand he held to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss to her gloveless hand.
He caught her faint gasp of breath, and knew he’d gone too far, either in word, or in his attentions.
But he’d also be damned if he cared.
He laid her hand in her lap and slid back over to the far side of his seat, clearing his throat. “Quick, think of something else for us to talk about before I become yet another character to confuse you with.”
Helen said nothing at all, and he glanced over at her as furtively as he could.
She stared at him with confusion, eyes wide and luminous, her full lips parted slightly.
He could have kissed her senseless and received a similar expression.
And suddenly, the idea had too much merit for his taste.
He shifted his attention out the window again. “It looks like rain. Fancy that, in England.”
Helen coughed weakly. “What… what is your middle name, Jeremy?”
Jeremy grunted and felt himself smile, much to his relief. “Tiberius, unfortunately. Mother hoped it would make me the grand sort.”
“Or at the very least scholarly…”
He glared at her in mock-consternation. “I’d like to kick you for implying I’m not.”
Helen cocked her head at him. “So, do it.”
Jeremy scowled. “I can’t kick you first. It’s unseemly.”
Helen’s lips quirked, and she seemed to laugh to herself.
Then he felt a kick against his shin, far less sharply than any before.
“There,” she giggled, grinning broadly. “Have at.”
And at that moment, Jeremy Pratt fell in love.
He stared at her as the sensation settled on him, and then retaliated the kick, much to the delight of his companion.
Chapter Seven
He loved her?
That was the worst sort of thing that could have happened to him during this whole affair. What a thing for an operative to have to admit, falling in love with the person he was tasked with protecting, minding, and escorting.
Lord above, Gent would have his neck…
If not several other parts of him.
Jeremy swallowed harshly, his hands gripping the reins he held more tightly. He’d jumped at the chance to venture outside when it was time to change the horses, eagerly inquiring if he could drive once more. Mullins had been only too pleased to have a rest, and Jeremy had been fully ready to move on when Helen had, yet again, heaved herself up into the seat beside him.
God was working a very twisted sense of torment on him, as though Jeremy had done the Almighty some dreadful wrong.
He couldn’t immediately think of anything that ought to have earned him this, but he was no saint. The temptations warring within him now that Helen was sitting beside him were certainly evidence of that.
He exhaled slowly, trying to rein himself in as he could rein in the horses.
It would be fine. He’d only had a shock, a jolt of keen affection that had turned him slightly sentimental, perhaps maudlin, and he’d twisted that into thinking it was love. At that weak moment, he’d thought that the only way to describe it. But surely it wasn’t.
It couldn’t be.
Love was supposed to make one pine and moan, and ought to feel like bloody agony. He’d seen it in both Gent and Rogue when they’d been tossed about, and even Cap had shown signs of it, though he’d been a right coward running away from his wife in fear. They’d all suffered a great deal being in love.
Jeremy didn’t feel as though he were suffering. He felt rather gleeful and euphoric, when he wasn’t panicking.
Panicking wasn’t pleasant, but it was to be expected under the circumstances.
He couldn’t be in love.
So, the panic was uncalled for.
“I thought you said it was going to rain,” Helen said in a teasing tone that sent sharp tingles into his toes.
Well, that was painful, so it could be love, he supposed.
Yet he smiled, just as he had done when she teased him before.
This was all very confusing.
“I said it looked like rain, Helen,” he retorted sharply, noting how fine it was to say her name.
Had it been so pleasant before?
“Oh yes,” Helen drawled with dramatics, “a fine clarification, that.”
He turned his head to glare at her a little. “It changes the nature of your complaint entirely. I do not claim to know the weather, but I do know that when clouds look like this, it rains. Does it always do so? Of course not. But occasionally, it does.”
“Ah,” Helen mused softly. “So, there is one thing you cannot do?”
Jeremy chuckled and shook his head. “Cheeky. There are several things I cannot do.”
Making sense of his own mind and heart was one of them.
Understanding the woman that he may or may not love was another.
Helen hummed, and he felt the vibration of it through his entire left side. “Well, we’d best not get into that. No sense in you castigating yourself just to prove a point.”
“Thank you, that’s very gracious,” he muttered.
She laughed again, and he heard a symphony of sound in it.
He was going mad. Stark, raving mad.
He’d write a resignation letter the moment they reached the inn tonight.
If they reached the inn tonight.
“Tell me about John,” Helen said suddenly, sighing as she leaned back slightly in her seat.
If she’d said she wanted a bedtime story, she couldn’t have surprised him more.
He cleared his throat and adjusted his hold on the horses. “Why the hell do you want to know anything about John?”
Her soft giggle irritated him for the first time ever. “Well, you refuse to tell me anything about yourself, so I might as well ask questions about the Pratt brother with fewer secrets.”
Jeremy barked a hard laugh. “Fewer secrets? My dear Helen, John has more secrets than the Knights Templar, the book of Isaiah, and Parliament all rolled into one. And he wouldn’t do for you at all, anyway.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Jeremy,” Helen scoffed, “I’ve no desire to pursue your brother simply because I can’t get a straight answer out of you. I know my preferred Pratt, and it’s the one I actually know. I’m only being conversational.”
He stiffened and kept his gaze fixed straight ahead, the grooves in the road creating invisible lines in his eyes as well. The trees they passed moved at the exact pace of his heart.
One… Two… Three… Four…
Exhale….
Lord, Jeremy…
Her voice in his head shook him as much as her words had, as though Helen were suddenly everywhere and everything.
Perhaps this was the madness of love after all.
But on the off chance it needed more room to grow…
“Your preferred Pratt, eh?” he repeated, letting himself smile as wryly as he ever had. “How many Pratts have you analyzed to find one so preferential?”
Helen sighed very dramatically, even for her. “So many. So very many. I’m quite exhausted by Pratts.” She paused, then made an amused sound. “Well, perhaps not entirely.”
Jeremy glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “No?”
She looked over at him, and her full lips pulled back into a devious smile he instantly adored. “No. Not yet, at any rate.”
“Yet?” he protested, even as his heart thudded against his ribs. “What do you mean, yet?”
Helen shrugged a shoulder. “Well, one never knows. I may tire of that one. If he remains mysterious, the attempts at improving the acquaintance might prove rather tiresome.”
Now it was Jeremy who rolled his eyes and huffed a little, growling under his breath. “If you’d ask me questions, I might answer them satisfactorily.”
“Who said I was talking about you?” she shot back. “I might be in love with your cousin Lester.”
“I doubt that,” he informed her at once. “Lester’s got horrid teeth and a hump.”
Helen kicked him as best as she could from beside him, and he, of course, reciprocated in kind.
Then, they both burst out laughing.
“Lord, Jeremy,” she giggled breathlessly, far outstripping the version he’d heard in his head. “Tell me you don’t truly have a cousin named Lester.”
“I don’t,” he assured her. “At least not that I’m aware of. There was that rather bizarre uncle we lost track of, so I just might.”
Helen shook her head and put a hand to her cheek. “Let us hope that, if he exists, he is hump-free and in possession of decent teeth.”
“Indeed. I’d hate to be related to a degenerate cripple of that sort.”
“Ugh, Jeremy…” she groaned. “What if he was a good-hearted man with the best soul?”
He made a face of consideration. “Then I’d procure him a lovely tower to live in so I could visit when I felt like being ashamed of myself and more fortunate for my circumstances.”
“Jeremy!”
“What?” he asked with a laugh as he turned to her. “I’m no saint, I already told you, and you wanted honesty and answers.”
Helen covered her face, laughing helplessly. “Lord…”
Jeremy chuckled, flicking the reins absently. “Yes, I’m afraid I tend to send people to prayers with some regularity. Always have done. Eve
n those without religious tendencies.”
She spread her fingers and gave him a derisive look through them. “I don’t doubt that for a minute.”
“Still think I’m the preferred Pratt?” he asked as he leaned towards her, quirking his brows with an unmistakable suggestion.
Helen’s hands dropped, and she gave him a very frank look. Her eyes were so vibrant when she looked at him that way. They changed nearly to the color of the sky on a clear spring day; just as stirring, mesmerizing, and perfectly arresting.
“Yes,” Helen said firmly, her eyes trained on his. “Yes, Jeremy, I do.”
He grinned, breathless again, and wondered what pains of love anybody ever talked about.
Being in love was a rather pleasant sensation, in his estimation.
And he greatly looked forward to feeling more of it.
Well, that was surely well done.
Admitting to Jeremy that he was the preferred Pratt, which was a ridiculous statement in and of itself, as she clearly only knew the one, but to actually admit that she preferred him…
Shameful behavior, that’s what it was, and her mother would have been ashamed of her.
Proud, certainly, but definitely ashamed as well.
And yet, Helen Dalton did not feel the least bit ashamed, as her admittance had led to the most fun and flirtatious conversation they had perhaps ever had, including anything in London.
It amused her that she could catch little glimpses of the deeper aspects to Jeremy in their bantering, even if the topics were unimportant. It didn’t matter to her, so long as she could continue to spend time with him, converse with him, see him as he was.
She believed him when he’d said that this was the true version of himself, and she was thrilled by the opportunity to know him as best as she could.
He was full of surprises.
Jeremy was a very intense man, which ought to have been clear from the days in London and in Society, but with all of the finery, it had been missed. Stripped of all of that, it was as clear as the road before them.
She loved that intensity.
He found humor in nearly everything, which was rather contagious, and spoke of the sort of outlook that would be rather encouraging for a person. Not that it was all good humor, for truly, some of the things were quite dreadful or downright shocking.
By Hook or By Rook (London League, Book 4) Page 8
