The Secret Wallflower Society: (Books 1-3)

by Jillian Eaton

  Helena’s lip curled in a sneer.

  She still remembered the last time she’d spoken to Stephen. It had been several weeks after her betrothal to his father had been announced in all the papers. Her parents and Cambridge were trying to decide on a wedding date, and she’d been dragged along to participate, even though she had made it clear she would rather die than marry a man four times her age. Not to mention it was his son she’d fallen in love with, not him.

  On the night she and Stephen had met, she hadn’t known his father was the Earl of Cambridge. She also hadn’t known Cambridge had an eye for young girls. And she’d certainly had no idea that while she and Stephen were flirting in the gardens, Cambridge’s eye had landed on sweet, innocent Dahlia inside the ballroom.

  Over the following days, all three of those things had become clear. What had also become clear was that if Helena did not offer herself up in Dahlia’s place, her little sister would be forced to marry a monster.

  Dahlia, who trapped ants in glass jars and carefully carried them outside to set them free unharmed when they found their way into the kitchens. Dahlia, who dreamed of being whisked away by a dashing knight and living in a castle in the clouds. Dahlia, who was so terrified at the prospect of becoming a child bride, she’d fainted when their parents told her of Cambridge’s proposal.

  Helena had been furious at both her parents and Cambridge, but after her fury got her nowhere but locked in her room, she’d realized what she needed to do. What she had to do. It had taken some tremendous acting – her stomach still turned whenever she thought of the lengths to which she’d gone – but she had managed to turn Cambridge’s attention from Dahlia to herself. Lord and Lady Holton truly didn’t care which daughter they married off to the obscenely wealthy earl, and they’d been more than willing to yank Dahlia off of the sacrificial pedestal and shove Helena on top of it. Which was how she came to find herself at Cambridge’s country estate on the day Stephen returned home from his travels abroad.

  Pinned between her mother and father while Cambridge feasted on her with watery brown eyes and licked his lips as if she were a particularly scrumptious rack of lamb, she hadn’t even looked up when Stephen first entered the drawing room. Her gaze pinned to her lap, she’d assumed he was a servant bringing in refreshments. Or an assassin come to put her out of her misery. But then he spoke, and the second that deep, husky voice reached her ears, her head snapped around with such suddenness she felt a pop in the back of her neck.

  It embarrassed Helena to this day that her first thought upon seeing Stephen was relief. In those precious moments when her gaze had frantically sought his, and she willed him to see inside of her head where the truth lay, she’d believed he was there to rescue her. That he had somehow heard of the engagement, cut his Grand Tour short, and come to save her from the pits of hell.

  But then, his eyes had frosted over, and his mouth had twisted in a smile sharp enough to slice flesh, and she’d realized just how wrong and naïve her assumptions had been.

  “Miss Holton,” he said, a brow arching up towards his carelessly tousled mane of dark chestnut hair. He looked exactly the same as she remembered. A little leaner, perhaps. Harder around the eyes. But beneath that shark’s smile, she still saw the charming scoundrel her heart had fallen for.

  “Lord Ware,” she replied cautiously. “You look…well.”

  “And you look like a tramp the cat dragged in.”

  Lady Holton gasped. Lord Holton stiffened in his chair. Helena, never taking her gaze off of the man who had kissed her in the moonlight, refused to give him the satisfaction of a reaction. But on the inside she struggled not to weep.

  It had been difficult enough, to endure the betrayal of her parents. They’d raised her. Cared for her. Loved her – or so she’d been led to believe. Then they’d stabbed a knife in her back and held another to her sister’s throat if Helena didn’t comply with their wishes. That pain…it had almost broken her. But she’d stayed strong, for herself and for Dahlia. Because she knew if didn’t, no one else would.

  Now Stephen’s icy contempt felt like another abandonment, and she wondered how much more she could endure before she shattered.

  “See here–” her father began, only to immediately fall silent when he experienced the full weight of Stephen’s formidable glare.

  “Yes?” Stephen said coldly.

  Lord Holton glanced at his wife, then at Cambridge, then down at the floor. It was telling he didn’t feel the need to look at his daughter. “I, uh, that is…nothing of importance, Lord Ware. I meant no offense.”

  Helena let out a strangled laugh. She couldn’t help herself. Not even when Cambridge looked at her with eyes narrowed in disapproval.

  “Do you find something humorous, my love?” he asked.

  My love.

  As if his black heart was capable of such an emotion.

  “Yes.” Ignoring the sharp warning nudge of her mother’s elbow, she levelled her gaze at everyone in turn. They all looked away, even the earl.

  Only Stephen held her stare and the sheer loathing she saw in his expression was enough to steal her breath.

  Let him think what he wants, she thought harshly. His opinion doesn’t mean a damn thing.

  Except it did. Of all the people in the room, his opinion mattered the most. And it hurt, more than she could put into words, that he was capable of casting her in such a poor light after what they’d said to each other. After what they’d done. After what they’d promised.

  “I’ll wait for you. Be it eight months, or ten, or twenty. I’d rather wait an eternity for someone I want than settle for someone my mother thinks I need.”

  “Then there’s only one thing left to do.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Give you a kiss worth waiting for.”

  Clearing her throat, she forced her gaze away from him. “Yes,” she repeated. “I find it humorous indeed that my father is afraid of offending Lord Ware, when he has made it clear he has no such fears when it comes it his own daughter.”

  “Helena,” her mother said sharply. “Do not start.”

  “Why not?” she demanded, shaking off Lady Holton’s hand as she rose from her chair. “Clearly you are not going to speak on my behalf, which means I must. Furthermore–”

  “Surely, we can discuss more pleasant things than petty family squabbles,” Cambridge interrupted. He dragged his tongue between his lips, reminding Helena of a lizard. One with a large, fleshy underbelly and empty, soulless eyes. “Do sit down, my dear. We have the wedding to discuss.”

  “Ah, yes, the wedding,” Stephen drawled. “It seems I’ve missed quite a lot over the past six months. Pray tell, when are the happy nuptials to take place? I wouldn’t want to miss anything else.”

  Helena bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to draw blood. She sucked furiously on the tiny cut, angry with the earl for exerting his power in such a horrific way and even angrier with Stephen for choosing to believe the worst in her.

  How could anyone, least of all Stephen, honestly think she would willingly marry this…this lecher? He should have been defending her, not damning her! They’d only met once, it was true, but surely, he knew her better than this. She had told him things she’d never told anyone else. Silly things, like her favorite color. And deeper things, like her fear of never meeting her mother’s expectations. He’d kissed her lips and touched her heart, and there hadn’t been a day gone by that she hadn’t thought of him. Missed him. Yearned for him.

  Now she was stuck in a nightmare, except no matter how many times she pinched herself she couldn’t wake up. In three months – two, if her parents had their way – she would become the Countess of Cambridge. Three unfortunate souls had borne the title before her. All dead now, two in childbirth – Stephen’s mother among them – and one from wasting sickness. No surprise, as Cambridge seemed to favor young brides. At nineteen, Helena was poised to be his eldest wife.

  And there was nothing she could do.<
br />
  “I need fresh air.” Wrenching free of her mother’s grasp, she ran out of the room, down a long hallway, and burst out a servant’s door onto the side lawn of the earl’s large estate.

  A light misting rain fell from a gray, restless sky, mixing with the tears that threatened to spill down her face. She wiped them violently away, scrubbing at her eyes until they were as raw and aching as her heart. When her vision cleared, she looked up, startled to see Stephen looming over her. He’d moved silently as a cat, and she gasped and shrank back when he brushed his knuckle across her cheek.

  The touch was unexpectedly tender.

  The words that followed were not.

  “Poor sweet lamb,” he said quietly, his breath stirring the hair tucked behind her ear as he leaned in close. “Tell me, is wealth and a title really worth the price of your soul?”

  Helena jerked away as if she’d been slapped. “How can you ask me that?”

  “One more month,” he said through clenched teeth. “One more month, and I would have returned. But you didn’t even wait a week before you turned to my father, did you?”

  “I tried to–”

  “Yes,” he sneered, cutting her off. “I can see by the engagement ring on your finger just how hard you tried.”

  She followed his glare to the large sapphire on her left ring finger. Cambridge had shoved it on himself, and no matter how many times she twisted and pulled, she’d been unable to remove it. Like a wolf with its paw in a trap, she’d considered gnawing off her own hand, such was her revulsion for the piece of jewelry that had been forced upon her. Because it wasn’t just a ring. It was a collar. It was a cage. It was a prison sentence for which there’d been no trial.

  “You don’t understand.” And she wanted Stephen to understand. She dearly, desperately wanted him to. Daring his wrath, she gently placed her hand upon his chest, searching for the heart she knew was in there, somewhere. “I didn’t want this. I don’t want this. My parents–”

  “Do you think to play me for a fool?” he asked, knocking her arm aside. “On the night we met, I knew there was something special about you. I just didn’t know it was your remarkable acting skills. Tell me, was this your scheme all along? Seduce the son, and marry the sire?”

  “No!” she cried. “That isn’t what happened at all. If you’d just let me explain–”

  “I have all the explanation I need,” he interrupted.

  Helena parted her lips to argue, only to be struck with a wave of inexplicable exhaustion. She was tired of fighting. Tired of yelling. Tired of beating her fists against a wall. What did it matter if Stephen saw her side or not? It was clear he’d already made up his mind. Clearer still that their kiss had never meant as much to him as it had to her.

  “Please go away,” she whispered, closing her eyes. She was being made to marry Cambridge, but there was no reason she had to stand here and take the abuse of a man she’d once fancied herself in love with. If Stephen’s only intention was to hurt her, then he could go to the devil along with his father. In that moment she hated both of them equally, and she wished she’d never met either one.

  “Go away!” she shouted, driving the heel of her shoe into the soft, wet ground when Stephen refused to move. “I’ve nothing else to say to you. I wish I didn’t even know you.”

  “That makes two of us,” he sneered.

  “I honestly believed you were different.” The words spilled out before she could stop them. Green eyes glassy with unshed tears, she jabbed a finger at his chest. “I thought you were kind, and genuine, and that you understood me. More than anyone else ever has. But you’re just like the rest of them. No, that’s not true.” She shook her head with such vehemence an auburn curl came loose and bounced across her temple. She shoved it behind her ear. “You’re even worse than the rest of them because you pretended to be different. But it was all a lie.”

  He gritted his teeth. “You’re one to lecture me on lies.”

  “Do you really think I want this?” Short of beating him over the head with it, Helena had no idea how she was supposed to make Stephen see the truth. Arrogant, stubborn bastard. Why couldn’t he just listen to her? “Do you think I want to marry a man who could be my grandfather? Do you really think that little of me?”

  He studied her; his cold blue eyes impossible to decipher. Then his shoulders lifted in a careless shrug. “Truth be told, I haven’t thought that much about you at all.”

  A gunshot would have been kinder. At least then she’d be put out of her misery in one fell swoop, instead of enduring one painful cut at a time. As her bottom lip threatened to wobble, Helena made herself lift her chin. She might have been breaking on the inside, but she’d be damned if she let Stephen see a single crack.

  “You’re nothing more than a bully,” she said loudly. “Just like your father.”

  A muscle leapt in his jaw. “I am nothing like my father.”

  “Oh, really?” she taunted. “You certainly could have fooled me.”

  “I’m done with this. I’m done with you.” After one last, hateful glare, he turned on his heel and started to walk away.

  But before Helena had taken a single breath, he whipped around, and she let out a startled squeak when he stalked up to her with all the ferocity of a tiger about to sink its fangs into its next meal.

  She backed up instinctively, her courage wavering in the face of such bristling animosity. She didn’t think Stephen would ever raise his hand to her. But then she’d never thought he would break her heart, either.

  Crawling ivy, wet from the rain, tickled her neck as she backed up against the side of the manor. She had nowhere else to go. Nowhere else to run. Nowhere else to hide. Nothing to do but confront the blue-eyed devil in front of her.

  “Stephen–” she began.

  “Why couldn’t you have waited seven months for me?” he said hoarsely, and the raw torment she saw in his gaze tugged at her own wounded heart. “I would have waited seven lifetimes for you.”

  She swallowed hard. “We’re both here now.”

  For a moment, he softened. For a moment, she thought he finally saw the truth.

  Then his eyes flashed with contempt, and his mouth curled in a sneer, and she knew she’d lost him.

  If she’d ever really had him to begin with.

  “Feeling regret, are we? Good.” He reached out and grabbed her arms, his hands closing like steel manacles just above her elbows. “You should be. But never forget this is what you chose. This is who you chose.”

  Her breasts threatened to spill free of her bodice as she struggled to break his grip. Head thrashing from side to side, she gasped when he caught her chin. Freezing beneath the intensity of his icy gaze, she inadvertently glanced down at his mouth, and they both stiffened as a new potent emotion entered the fray.

  “No,” she whispered as his other hand began to slowly glide up her arm. Like a bow string drawn taut, she quivered when he pressed his thumb just beneath her ear. “No. This – this isn’t what either of us want.”

  “Isn’t it?” he said silkily.

  Yes. Oh, yes.

  She’d waited months to kiss him again. Months that now felt like years. Years that felt like small eternities. Being this close to him again, touching him, breathing in his scent…it should have been heaven after so much hell. Instead, it was only a cruel reminder of everything she was giving up.

  Because Stephen was who she would have chosen if she’d been given a choice.

  And if she kissed him now, it was going to kill her.

  “Let me go,” she said, closing her eyes. “I – I don’t want you.”

  The lie tasted bitter on her tongue. She didn’t know if Stephen would believe it, but then he released her and stepped back.

  “But of course,” he said, his voice lightly mocking. “Countess.”

  As he walked away into the mist, Helena realized two important facts. The first was that Stephen was far more dangerous than the man she was being forced to marr
y. And the second…she was still helplessly, hopelessly in love with him.

  On a long, heavy sigh, Helena opened her eyes. Her mood pensive, she carried the vase filled with yellow flowers up the stairs and into her room. Ives was gone, and even though she hadn’t expected him to linger, the pang of loneliness she felt as she was confronted with her empty chamber came as a surprise.

  This was what she wanted, wasn’t it? To be by herself. To direct her own destiny. To control her own future. Although a point could be made it was her benefactor who really controlled her future. Money might not have bought happiness, but it had bought food and clothes and charming little townhouses in the middle of Berkley Square.

  She placed the vase beside her bed, then sat down on the edge of the mattress, chin cupped in the palm of her hand as her fingers drummed along her cheekbone. She supposed she should be grateful she didn’t know the identity of the benefactor, for surely, it would only breed complications. But there was another part of her – a far more hardened part – that was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Because if there was one thing she had learned about men, it was that they never gave anything away for free.

  There would be a price to be paid.

  She just didn’t know what it was yet.

  Chapter Three

  Stephen Darby, Earl of Cambridge and Viscount Ware, knew all about prices to be paid.

  And debts to be collected.

  He kept track of everything he was owed in a slim leather-bound ledger that never left the inside pocket of his favorite tailcoat. The majority of the arrears noted within were for small, inconsequential things. A five-pound note Lord Gately owed him from a wager he’d lost. A particularly old bottle of brandy Mr. Harrison had broken in one of his drunken stupors. A ten-acre parcel of land abutting a neighboring duke’s property that had been in dispute for decades.