Cautiously, Helena took a sip of the liquid and the burn took her by surprise. She no longer had to feign tears. Her eyes burned with them until her vision blurred. It was still clear enough to see the other younger gentleman gently pick up the delicately-pretty blonde and carry her up the stairs. Who was she? Helena mused on that question as a vicious need to see the woman suffer filled her. For herself, she had never been liked. Helena was not the kind of woman people liked. She was the kind of woman they desired or envied. Those sweet-natured creatures that others felt compelled to cosset had always been held in contempt by her. This one was no different.
Everyone seemed so concerned for the other woman. And yet, given the circumstances, Helena knew that it was she who should have captured their attention. She had made certain of it. While she had numerous bruises on her body from Albie’s latest attentions, visible bruises on her face, those that would garner sympathy and lend credence to her tale, had been harder to come by. She’d demanded that one of the footmen strike her and he’d simply walked out. The man had literally left the house without a backward glance. Ultimately, she’d managed it herself by repeatedly hitting her cheek against the bed posts. They weren’t overly serious but they only had to be convincing, after all.
“My dear Lady Vale, please forgive me for the upheaval I have caused in your home! I was desperate for help and after seeing Lord Ambrose’s carriage travel this way—” Helena broke off abruptly, descending once more into broken sobs. She had considered what she would say very carefully, laying all the blame on Harrelson and none on Albie, at least for now. It would all be worth it. Watching the little blonde’s heart break right before her very eyes because dear, honorable Alexander was no longer a free man had already made it more than worth her efforts. Taking her hands from her face, she drew a deep, fortifying breath and made a great show of gathering her composure. “I apologize for being so emotional! You just cannot know the relief I feel to finally be free of that wretched place!”
“You were imprisoned in a townhouse in a fashionable part of Bath. I’d hardly call it wretched,” Alex pointed out.
Helena’s eyes cut to him sharply. “You are so cold, Husband! Have you not searched for me? Have you given no thought to where I have been or what I may have suffered while away from your protection?” She knew that feigning ignorance of the ruse of her death was her only way forward. Immediately, Alexander fell to stony silence, that same muscle working in his jaw as he bit his tongue and attempted to be all that was right and proper. How she despised him for that!
“You are unaware that the world believes you dead? That a woman beaten beyond recognition, but wearing your gown and your wedding ring, was discovered on Lord Wolverton’s property?”
The question had been posed by the older gentleman. Naturally, Helena had taken an instant dislike to him. He was too shrewd, his expressions too unreadable. She’d never been one to tolerate a man she could not easily manipulate. “How would I know such things, sir? Lord Harrelson, more wicked than I could ever have imagined, locked me away and I have not exchanged a word with anyone in my family, nor seen a newssheet in all that time! The servants barely spoke to me and then it was only to issue orders! Oh, Alexander, how you must have mourned thinking me dead!”
“I was preoccupied with proving my innocence of your murder,” Alex replied, his tone clipped and the chill of it all but tangible. “Sadly, I failed in that task. While not convicted of the crime, in civil court all of my assets were stripped from me and then summarily handed over to your uncle-by-marriage.”
Helena smiled then, using the beauty of it to her advantage. “Well, that can all be undone, my darling… here I am, alive and well and returned to you. We have only but to petition the courts!”
And there it was, Helena thought with a smile, watching the realization sink in on him. He could accept her as his wife once more and have all of the lovely money he had so longed for to put his estates to rights, or he could disavow her, forfeit it all, and live in poverty with his miniature blonde. “Alexander, please take me to your room.”
“Lord Wolverton is not staying in chambers appropriate to your station, my lady,” the older man said. “And under the circumstances, I can only think that you might enjoy some private time without having to attend to a husband. I shall vacate my room immediately and have it prepared for you. I think it will be much more to your liking.”
Helena smiled, though her jaw tightened and her teeth clenched tightly together at being thwarted on such a minor point. She would not have Alexander running free through the house to make advances on the tiny trollop that had so captured his heart. “But I have missed you so, my darling. I don’t care where we stay as long as we are together.”
“You need a doctor and rest,” Alex said. “As we never shared a chamber before your disappearance, I hardly think doing so now would be beneficial to your recovery. Excuse me. There is something I must attend to.”
Helena watched him sweep from the room and noted that everyone’s sympathetic gaze followed him. But it was her they were supposed to pity. To that end, she began weeping again, softly, as if her heart were broken. “Alexander does not love me anymore! His affections are engaged elsewhere, are they not?”
The younger of the two women remaining in the room turned to her then. There was something familiar about the girl. Helena frowned as she tried to place her.
“Lady Wolverton, I see you are struggling to recall how we know one another,” she said. “I am Elizabeth Masters. We were neighbors and, for a time, your brother, Freddy, courted me rather ardently. That is, until he went to London and found himself engaged to another.”
Helena smiled to camouflage her clenched teeth. Of course, he had. Freddy had needed to bag himself an heiress and that still hadn’t gotten them out of debt to Harrelson. Only the inheritance left to her by her maternal grandfather could do that. It was that dire need for funds that had given birth to the elaborate scheme to fake her death. Harrelson had promised that if they did so, the funds granted to Wolverton as part of the marriage contract would be wrested from him and returned to her family. It had all seemed so simple when he laid it out. But they hadn’t dreamed that she’d need to stay “dead” for quite so long. Alexander had surprised them all by not ending his own miserable life after being spared the indignity of hanging. Now, here she was, once more playing wife to the miserable bore while being silently judged by Freddy’s jilted lover.
“Miss Masters, of course, I remember you,” Helena said sweetly. “I am terribly ashamed of my brother’s abominable behavior toward you!”
“Oh, being jilted by him and utterly ruined wasn’t nearly as horrible as him soliciting Lord Harrelson to have me abducted so that he might keep me as his unwilling mistress,” Miss Masters replied coolly. “You’re a liar, Lady Wolverton, born of a family of them it would seem. I have no notion what you are playing at here, but I will not see my betrothed’s sister wounded by you, nor anyone else in this house, including your poor husband.”
Helena drew back as if she’d been struck. In truth, she found herself rather admiring Miss Masters and her forthright manner. “Your betrothed? Have you snared yourself an aging bachelor then?”
“My betrothed is Lord Benedict Middlethorp, Viscount Vale… also taken from his home as a child and his life upended by your uncle, Lord Harrelson,” Miss Masters continued. “You may claim you are his victim but, for my money, you will have to prove it, because I remember you far better than you remember me, it would seem. You, Albert, and Harrelson were as thick as thieves, the lot of you, with Freddy always floating around the periphery. I’ll have a footman show you to your room. I find I am rather fatigued now. Excuse me.”
When the woman left, Helena looked back at Lady Vale who had stood silently through it all. “Well, your daughter-in-law-to-be is quite free with accusations and taking command of your house, Lady Vale.”
“It is her home. I am happy to have my son in it with me once more and betr
othed to a woman he adores. I trust Miss Masters completely and have found her opinions and perceptions of others to be both accurate and invaluable. You are remarkably calm, Lady Wolverton, for someone who just escaped after being held captive for a year. As a woman who has shed more than her share of tears in life, I found yours to be a bit too pretty. It does quite stretch the bounds of credulity. Good evening, madam.”
Left alone, everyone in the house having turned away from her, Helena felt panic rising. They were supposed to have believed her. Everyone always had believed her, no matter how wild the tale. She’d been lying and scheming her entire life and it had never failed to produce the desired effect. Until now. It was something else to lay at Alexander’s door, and perhaps that of the pretty blonde, as well. Lord Vale’s sister, if she had inferred correctly from what Miss Masters had said.
Fury swept through her, but she tamped it down. It was not the time to have a tantrum, not when everyone was already so set against her. She needed to gain their sympathy first and as the woman scorned, that shouldn’t be difficult.
“Is my room ready? I am so very tired,” she said to the nearest footman.
“I’ll help you up to it, m’lady.”
*
He’d fled the drawing room and Helena’s presence because his temper would not allow him to remain. She had utterly ruined his life with her deception, and he had little doubt that she had been party to whatever schemes Harrelson and Hamilton had concocted. Now, she had managed to ruin him once more by returning. Fury was too mild a term to describe what he felt, but it was all that he could lay claim to in that moment. It appeared she had robbed him of sense, as well. If there were any possibility that Helena was being truthful—but, of course, that was impossible. Helena had lied with the same casual ease with which she drew breath. From the moment he’d met her, it had been one elaborately concocted tale after another. And all of it, it seemed, had been driving toward that very moment. Had they planned to fake her death from the outset? There were answers he simply did not have, and more questions seemed to arise with every passing second.
Running his fingers through his hair in a gesture of impatience, Alex paced the hall as he tried to make sense of it all. When he had finally managed to amass enough proof to clear his name and be free of all the chaos and destruction she had wrought in his life, she had returned to once again decimate any chance at happiness for the people surrounding her. There had been a chance, slim as it was, that he would have found himself in a position to actually pursue a woman he desired, a woman that, if he were to be honest, he loved. Mary Mason had invaded every fiber of his being, but there was no longer any possibility of having her in his life in an honorable fashion.
Alex turned again, stalking across the narrow hall. He paused outside Mary’s door, his hand poised only a scant inch from knocking. What could he say to her? He didn’t even fully understand what was happening himself. How could he, after all? Helena was alive. He didn’t believe for even one second that Harrelson had held her prisoner. It was obvious that whatever scheme they’d been about had collapsed with Harrelson’s death and she was simply scrambling.
He stood there for a long moment, debating whether to knock, debating whether or not to disturb her when he had no right to do so. Reluctantly, Alex dropped his hand and stepped back. He would not dishonor her by making declarations of his feelings for her while the woman he was bound to for the remainder of his days waited below stairs. Bitterness rose up in him, bitterness and resentment so consuming that it nearly overwhelmed him. Along with it came the shocking realization that he’d have rather lived out his days as a reputed murderer, shunned by society, than to spend another day as Helena’s husband.
Turning, he crossed the narrow distance back to his own room. Alex’s hand closed over the door handle to his own modest chamber, but before the door could swing inward, the one behind him opened. He heard her voice, and closed his eyes as regret washed through him.
“Lord Wolverton?”
He closed his eyes and prayed for strength. It was a test of his will not to simply turn and take her in his arms, knowing that it would be the very last time. “Forgive me, Miss Mason, I did not mean to disturb you.”
She let out a laugh, but it was not a happy noise nor was there any sort of amusement in the sound. It was hard, brittle and full of the very same feelings that now consumed him.
After she had composed herself to some degree, she admitted with a rueful note to her voice, “I am afraid I cannot help but be disturbed… your wife—”
“I beg you, do not call her that,” he implored. It only underscored the hopelessness of his current situation and the unhappiness of his future. “I cannot abide the sound of it.”
“Helena, then,” she conceded. “No doubt referring to her by your title would be just as distressing. I must confess that I am deeply shocked by her presence here. I understand that yours was not a happy union.” Her voice was soft, tinged with regret, with empathy and with a tenderness for him that made him ache. “But I’ve given it a considerable amount of thought in the last quarter hour—heaven knows it feels as if it’s been so much longer than that—and I’m glad of her return. I’m glad that you will be able to finally restore your reputation and that your honor will no longer be called into question by every person you meet. It isn’t happening in the way you envisioned, but it is what you wanted, after all.”
What he wanted. Alex shook his head. “If there is one thing that her return has brought me, Miss Mason, it is clarity. And I understand now that, until it was taken from me in its entirety, I had no idea just how much I wanted something else.” He paused, drew a deep breath and met her gaze levelly. He could see the tears in her eyes, the tracks of them upon her cheeks. Were they for him? “I had paused just a moment ago, persuaded myself that I should not knock upon your door because I am not free to do so. But there are things I must say to you, and I know that I will never have the opportunity again—”
She held up her hands, pleading with eyes still damp with tears. “Lord Wolverton, I beg of you—”
“No, Miss Mason. I may not be free to have what I want, but I will acknowledge that I wanted it,” he said firmly. Whether it was to her benefit or detriment, he did not know, but he would not let her go without telling her the truth of his feelings for her. “In the days I have spent with you, indeed, from the very moment I first laid eyes upon you, I’ve desired you. Even when I knew it was wrong, when you were at your weakest and most vulnerable, it shames me to admit how much you stirred me. But that is nothing compared to what I felt when I kissed you that first time. But it isn’t simply a physical attraction. I feel it to the very depths of my soul, and there is nothing I will regret more in this life than that we will never have the option to explore that, to build something from it.”
She shook her head. “We should not say such things to one another… not now, when nothing could ever come of it.”
“If I do not say them now, they will never be said. I offer them with no expectation other than that. When I kissed you, I did so because I could not do anything else. It was never my intent to trifle with you, or to take advantage of our situation.”
“I know that,” she replied insistently. “Of course, I know it. Given the situation that we found ourselves in, and given that my own behavior was hardly beyond reproach—if it is a time for confessions, Lord Wolverton, then here is mine! I am even now cursing you for your honor. I am cursing you because I wanted so much more than just a few stolen kisses… and I am cursing your wife. It marks me a wicked person to admit it, but I do wish her dead. I wish that had not simply been some fabrication! And I fear for you because I do not believe that she was kept from you unwillingly. I think she is a liar and a manipulator, and I fear what she may have in store for you.”
Alex felt his gut clench, his breath knocked from him as surely as if she had struck him. To know that she would have willingly granted him all the liberties he had so desired to take was bot
h a blessing and a curse, one that would haunt him eternally. “I have no faith in her innocence either, but I am at a loss as to how to proceed. I wish that I were free to tell you that I love you.”
“I will not tell you that I love you either. But we will both know it just the same,” she admitted softly. “I’ve tried to deny it, to dissuade myself from it. We haven’t known one another long enough. We met in such extreme circumstances. We’ve had such forced intimacy in our relationship that it’s given rise to the illusion of feelings—I’ve told myself all of those things. And I believed them, until I heard her name, and knew that you belonged to someone else. I’m leaving for London tomorrow. Benedict is making all of the arrangements because I cannot stay here under the same roof as your wife.”
“We will leave. I will take Helena and return to Wolfhaven Hall tomorrow. You need not put yourself through such a rigorous journey simply to avoid our company,” he replied. It was too soon for her to travel such a great distance and far too dangerous given her recent illness.
“You cannot. You will have the magistrate to deal with, and you’ll need to contact your solicitors and begin the legal proceedings. It’s better this way,” she said. “I wish you well, Lord Wolverton, as much as I wish your wife to the devil, as apparently I have a sinner’s heart.”
She moved to retreat to her room, but he could not allow it. He wasn’t ready to watch her walk away from him for the last time. Reaching out, Alex grasped her wrist and pulled her back to him until her body was pressed to his and all he had to do was dip his head slightly to be able to capture her lips.
The Mystery of Miss Mason (The Lost Lords Book 5) Page 18
