Helena held her book up, turning the title toward him.
He wrinkled his brow. Did he fail to recognize Argand’s name? Or was it her reading selection he found exception with? “Are you familiar with Argand’s work, my lord?” she asked, opting for the former.
“I am not.” He settled back in his chair, eying her through those splendidly thick golden lashes.
“He is a mathematician,” she said and warmed to a topic that she could actually speak with some familiarity and comfort on. “He is responsible for the geometrical interpretation of complex numbers.”
The marquess flared his eyes wide. “You are a bluestocking.”
She jutted her chin up at a mutinous angle. “Do you disapprove of a woman of knowledge?”
“Why do I expect you already believe you know the answer?” he returned, waggling his eyebrows.
Because she already did know the answer. Men of all stations and classes had but one desire in a woman, and beyond her face and body, those men saw little use or purpose. “Do you know?” he murmured, leaning forward in his chair so their knees brushed. “I believed it was just me whom you’d taken umbrage with.” He lowered his voice to a hushed whisper. “But I am finding you are suspicious of everyone’s motives, Helena.”
She angled her chin up another notch. What did he know of it? “I’ve been given good reason to be suspect,” she said, boldly meeting his gaze.
He held her stare for a long while, and lingered his gaze on her scarred cheek. Helena curled her toes into the soles of her slippers. Long ago she’d ceased to care about the marks on her body. She’d come to accept them, celebrate them as badges of courage and strength as her brothers had called them. How humbling to be proven a liar before this man’s intense scrutiny. She did care about those jagged white marks and what they said about her story. Wordlessly, he sank back in his chair. “I too have been given,” he lifted an eyebrow, “how did you say it? ‘Good reason to be suspect’?”
Questions spilled to the surface, killing her momentary descent into self-pity. He had reasons to be suspicious? She scoffed. “Fortune-hunting ladies?” she put forth.
His gaze darkened, and the scornful words on her lips died a swift death. The dark emotion glinting in his cerulean-blue eyes, she’d seen too many times reflected back in her own mirrors. “I said we’d speak of our interests, Helena, not our pasts.” His warning meant to deter only cast a lure of further questions about the demons he himself battled.
Helena gave her head a slight shake. It hardly mattered what he’d known in his life. Having been born the son of a duke, destined to a title just a step below royalty, he could never have known the pain and suffering faced by people who dwelled in the streets. “I enjoy mathematics,” she conceded, swiftly diverting their discussion to far safer, far more courting-couple, discourse than any mention of his or her pasts.
“Do you ride?”
“No.” First there had been no funds, and then there had never been a need.
“Do you paint?”
“Poorly.”
He grinned, and that honest turn of his lips was so vastly different than that practiced grin, and somehow more potent. Her heart tripped several beats.
“Do you enjoy the theatre?”
“I have never been.” Life had ceased to exist outside the walls of the Hell and Sin Club.
“Never?” he repeated with some surprise.
Helena shook her head. Never inside. As a young girl, begging the lords and ladies entering those splendorous buildings, she’d hovered at the steps with her hands outstretched.
“You’ve systematically eliminated riding in the park, visits to museums, and trips to the theatre.”
Ah, so that was the purpose of his questioning. “Just because I do not paint or know how to ride doesn’t mean I would not enjoy a trip to a museum or a stroll in Hyde Park.”
With the piercing intensity of his eyes, she stilled, alarmed he might see through her to all the secrets she carried and the hopes she’d once had.
“Fair enough. We shall begin with a trip to Hyde Park tomorrow afternoon,” he said, climbing to his feet.
An inexplicable rush of disappointment filled her as she quickly stood. “You are leaving.” It should hardly matter if he left. His presence here was a mere façade meant to trick and deceive potential suitors desiring of her company and dowry. Still how to account for this . . . regret?
As if on cue, a servant entered bearing a silver tray. Helena’s personal maid trailed in quickly behind. Eyes lowered, the young servant found a chair in the corner of the room.
Robert rescued her gloveless fingers and Helena had an urge to yank her scarred hand from his flawless, olive-hued ones. As she made to draw back, he retained his grip and drew her wrist to his mouth. His breath fanned her flesh as he placed a fleeting kiss upon her skin. “It was a pleasure, Helena.” He dipped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Given the nature of our . . . relationship, I expect you should call me, Robert,” he said, running the pad of his thumb over the sensitive flesh of her inner wrist.
Forbidden shivers radiated from the point of his touch, racing along her arm, and sending heat unfurling through her entire body. Helena managed a jerky nod, and tugged her fingers once more. This time, he allowed her that freedom. Which felt like the very hollowest of victories. “Robert,” she said, hating the breathless quality of that word, his name.
That faint, triumphant smile on his lips hinted at his knowing. “And Helena?”
Flutters danced within her belly.
“You were wrong. I do not.”
She cocked her head.
“Disapprove of a woman with knowledge. Quite the contrary.” Then with an infuriating calm, he dropped a bow, and took his leave.
Helena closed her eyes, never needing the calming effect of numbers more than she did in this moment. She fixed on the ticking porcelain clock atop the mantel, concentrating on those rhythmic beats marking the passing moments. Anything but her muddied thoughts from the faintest touch. A touch that had conjured a long-ago morning in her bedchamber.
Frenzied footsteps sounded in the hall and she looked up at once as the duchess stepped into the entrance of the room. “Lord West . . .” The duchess’s words trailed off and the false smile on her lips withered into a scowl. She cast a furious glance about the room. “Where is His Lordship?”
Helena went still. “He left a moment ago, Your Grace,” she murmured.
The woman tightened her mouth, contorting her pretty features into something quite ugly. “But . . . where is Diana? Has His Lordship escorted her to the park?”
Fiddling with her skirts, Helena at last looked at this particular meeting the way the Duchess of Wilkinson would. Her seventeen-year-old daughter, the model of English ladylike perfection: there would be no more ideal a candidate for the role of future duchess. Oh, bloody hell. Helena picked carefully around her thoughts. “Lord Westfield was . . . paying me a visit,” she said, as the other woman turned to go.
Mayhap she’d let the matter rest.
Mayhap . . .
In an uncharacteristic display of spirit, Her Grace spun about. “Wh-what?” she sputtered. She glanced at Helena, peering down the length of her nose at the by-blow in her residence. “Surely you jest?”
Helena looked to the maid in the corner, who pressed herself against the back of her chair. Did she wish to make herself invisible? In this particular moment of cowardice, Helena well identified with that sentiment. “I do not jest.” The detail she would omit about the marquess’s shocking suit was the whole bit about it being nothing more than a put-on, concocted by Helena, that Lord Westfield—Robert—had agreed to help her in.
If looks could kill, Helena would be the charred ash of tinder at this woman’s noble feet. Then . . . the duchess tossed her head back with a humorless laugh.
Helena stiffened under that condescension. Pretend courtship be damned along with rank and title, she’d not be mocked by this woman, or any
one.
“The marquess wouldn’t pay a visit to you out of anything beyond politeness. There is no secret in Society about the eventual connections between the Wilkinson line and the Somerset one. My husband,” not your father, “and the current duke have been friends since Oxford.”
Two ducal families, uniting kingdoms and empires. Since she’d developed her scheme to avoid suitors with the marquess’s partnership, hesitation stirred. The gentleman had made no mention of Diana. With the families’ connection going so far back, what if there were feelings on her sister’s part?
“Is Diana . . . in love with the duke?” If she were, Helena would swiftly end her plan, cut the marquess free, and deal with the suitors hunting her dowry in some other way.
“Love.” The woman all but spat that word. “You plebeian.” She scraped her gaze over Helena’s too-tall form. “We do not deal in matters of love. We deal in the practical. Wealth. Power. Prestige.” Those callous words turned Helena’s blood cold. Many times, she’d lamented her brothers’ inability to show feeling, but there had never been the emotional deadness that marred this woman’s black soul. “Furthermore,” the duchess went on, “it matters not whether—”
“What are you two ladies so passionately discussing?” A voice sounded at the front of the room, filled with amusement. They looked to the doorway where the portly duke stood, smiling his ever-present smile. “Hmm?” he asked, coming forward. “Could it be a certain marquess?” He waggled his bushy eyebrows. “Paying you court is he, Helena?”
When she’d concocted her scheme and enlisted Robert’s support, she’d seen only the deterrent he’d pose for interested fortune hunters. Not being part of this world, she’d failed to properly consider the enemies she’d earn herself by gaining the attention of a future duke . . . Always think a plan fully through . . . Her skin burning under the force of the other woman’s glare, Helena gave a slight nod.
How many times had that rule been hammered home by Ryker? She’d made the misstep in forgetting those rules applied to all, but the perils in being trapped by a fortune hunter were far greater than a duchess’s displeasure.
The duke settled his hands on his pea-green jacket, smoothing his paunch. “Westfield has always been a good boy.” Despite the thick undercurrent of tension blanketing the parlor, Helena smiled. With the marquess’s powerful physique and command of a room, there was nothing boy-like about him. “He’d make an excellent match, wouldn’t he, Nerissa?”
The duchess flushed.
“And I always thought to see my family tied to Dennington’s.”
A strangled choking sound escaped the duchess, and without a word, she spun on her heel and stormed from the room.
My family.
This man who’d chosen another over Helena’s mother, and failed to acknowledge his by-blow’s existence, saw her as . . . family? Helena stared bewildered at the man whose blood she shared.
The duke patted her on the arm. “Never mind her. She’s merely overcome with joy at the prospect of you marrying Westfield.”
And if her situation hadn’t become incredibly muddied by the connections shared by these two powerful ducal families, Helena would have laughed.
As it was, she’d seen the hatred glinting in the duchess’s eyes and knew she’d found an even greater enemy in the woman.
Three months.
She’d but three months, and then she’d be free of it all.
Chapter 11
Rule 11
Never be lured by a pretty face.
Arriving at his father’s townhouse a short while after his first meeting with the spitfire Helena Banbury, Robert dismounted his horse. As he dismounted, and turned the reins of his mount over to a waiting servant, a shiver of apprehension brought his shoulders back. With a frown, he looked about his father’s fashionable Mayfair Street home. Brushing back the irrational response, he strode up the steps.
The butler pulled the door open and Robert shrugged out of his cloak.
A footman rushed over to collect the garment.
With murmured thanks, Robert looked to Davidson. “Davidson, my father . . . ?” he asked, tossing over his hat.
“Is in his office, my lord,” the man said, easily catching the article in his fingers.
Inclining his head, Robert started down the hall. The sting of visiting that loathsome office to see his fiancée rutting with his grandfather still burned. This dreaded march reconjured the evil of that day. It had driven him to seek out a bachelor’s residence, and set himself up away from the pain of it. With time, the pain of Lucy’s treachery had faded from these walls. Instead it lived deep inside, in a place borne of caution. As the late duke had correctly proclaimed, Robert hated the bastard still, but he was grateful for the lesson imparted.
It was why he didn’t know what to make of Helena Banbury with her palpable hatred for his title, and, if his ego would allow—for him.
Then given the state she now found herself in, hating polite Society and missing the previous life she’d lived before his interference, it certainly explained away her sentiments. A smile pulled at his lips. Nevertheless, her faint, breathless words had hinted at a woman not wholly unaffected by him.
Robert reached his father’s door, and not bothering to knock, pressed the handle and stepped inside. “Father.”
The duke glanced up from his ledgers, heavy surprise coating the older man’s features. “Robert,” he greeted, his pen frozen over his books.
Following their exchange a month ago, after his discovery that his father had tried to manipulate him into marriage, they’d settled into an uneasy existence. Assured his father was, in fact, very much alive and well, Robert had sought out his bachelor’s residence once more.
“I am surprised to see you,” he said quietly when his son still said nothing.
Yes, Robert had quite carefully avoided his father following his charged statements about Robert’s worth a month prior.
“You are well?” the duke gently prodded. He searched his stare over his son’s face. Did he think to find the answers to the questions of what brought Robert here?
“I am,” he said tersely. “And you are also well?”
Something flashed in his father’s eye. There one instant, and gone the next, so Robert thought it was merely a trick of the light.
“Aren’t I always,” his father said in amused tones. White lines of strain formed at the corners of his mouth.
Perhaps there was guilt there after all for the older man’s attempt to manipulate Robert into marriage. There was no solace in that. All his life, he’d been at the clever machinations of others: Lucy, his grandfather, his father. It made a man wary.
“What brings you round?” his father asked, setting aside his pen and sitting back in his chair.
Robert claimed a spot at the foot of the broad mahogany surface. His gaze snagged on that piece of furniture that had carved an indelible imprint in every aspect of Robert’s life. Involuntarily, he curled his hands over the arms of his chair.
His father followed his stare, and a wistful look stole over his sharp features. “I should have seen to the commission of another desk,” he said quietly.
Robert tensed his mouth. The day he was in possession of that desk, he’d have it carved up and burned as firewood. Even from the grave, the late duke still retained a hold on this household, and his son. How peculiar. The ton saw in the current Duke of Somerset a powerful, indomitable nobleman who proudly carried on the legacy of his esteemed sire. They did not see the unshakeable grip that bastard had exerted—a man who’d cut out his own daughter. “What do you know of Wilkinson’s daughter?” he said, shifting the discussion away from talks of the dead duke.
“Lady Diana?” His father steepled his hands before him. “She is seventeen, nearly eighteen. Wilkinson said she is quite a skilled artist.”
. . . Just because I do not paint or know how to ride doesn’t mean I would not enjoy a trip to a museum or a stroll in Hyde Park . . .
“His illegitimate daughter,” he said impatiently cutting across a cataloging of the young woman his father had been neatly trying to steer him toward since the summer.
“Ah.” The duke tapped his fingertips together. “After the girl and her mother went missing, Wilkinson believed both had perished.” He turned his palms up. “At his last visit, he was quite . . . effusive in his happiness at Helena’s reemergence.”
Yes, animated, garrulous, and quite surprisingly free in sharing his emotions, the Duke of Wilkinson would never fit with anyone’s expectations of a staid, proper duke. “Is it possible she is an impostor?” he asked with a blunt jadedness that came from life. Given her presence at the Hell and Sin Club, there was reason to be wary.
Only the woman who’d ordered him about, and spoken of hating polite Society, was clearly one who wanted no part of the ton.
“An impostor?” his father repeated back with surprise. He scratched his head. “I expect not,” he said with far too much trust. “Wilkinson knew Helen when—”
“Helena,” he amended.
“Yes, yes. Helena . . . Her mother was his mistress and he knew the girl for . . . Oh,” he waved his hand. “Five or six years, I believe. He kept them in a townhouse.” His expression darkened. “Then she disappeared, and Wilkinson was deeply . . . affected,” he settled for. “He loved her,” he said simply.
Having loved his late wife, and then supported his sister after she’d been exiled for her disadvantageous match, the current Duke of Somerset had proven himself romantic in ways that men of his stature generally were not. That generosity of spirit and sentiment had then extended to his niece, whom he’d taken in to his home when she’d fled scandal years back. Still for that defining part of the duke’s character, he spoke of the sentiment as though it were the single-most defining marker.
Had the lady by chance found another protector who’d promised her more, but had left her with an uncertain future, and little security for her daughter? “He loved her so much and yet she simply . . . vanished?” Robert couldn’t keep the cynicism from creeping into his tone. Women had proven themselves remarkably inconstant with their affections, driven by a hungering for wealth.
The Rogue's Wager (Sinful Brides Book 1) Page 14
