Tail, she told herself as heat scalded her cheeks.
He has a very big tail.
Good Lord. What was wrong with her? Stephen was her nemesis, not her lover. The last thing she should have been thinking about was his…tail.
“Who was that?” he asked.
“None of your business.” She stepped away from the door and leveled a cool, unblinking stare at him. “We’re both adults, Stephen. Surely, we can come to a mutual agreement without unnecessary theatrics or shouting.”
“You’re the one who swung a poker at me,” he pointed out.
She lifted her chin a notch. “A lady should always be ready to defend herself.”
“I am not going to hurt you, Helena,” he scowled.
Her smile was soft, and a little sad. “Haven’t you already?”
“I…” Uttering a muffled curse, he went to a window and braced his arms on the edge of the sill, his towering frame one long, lean line of tension. “You broke your promise. Not me. If there’s hurt to be had, you’re the cause of it.”
How could something be so completely true and so utterly false at the same time? Faced with Stephen’s back, she couldn’t help but wonder how things might have turned out differently if she’d been able to keep that promise.
Would she and Stephen be together? Would they be married? Would they have children? As she imagined a little girl with her red hair and his blue eyes, her lips curved, and she let out of a quiet, wishful sigh just as he turned around.
Stephen froze, and the unexpected flash of fierce possessiveness in his gaze rekindled the lust she’d been trying unsuccessfully to shove down deep. As he slowly lifted his eyes from her mouth, she saw his confusion…and his desire. That vulnerable flare of yearning called to her own sense of longing…and of loss. Of what might have been, and what could never be.
“Stephen…?” Her fingers curled inwards, nails biting anxiously into her gloves as he continued to look at her with a mixture of anger, bewilderment, and need.
“Helena.” He took one step towards her, then another. The room seemed to shrink around them. And even though it was impossible, she could have sworn she smelled the faintest hint of wisteria. On a sharp inhalation of breath, he closed the distance between them and brushed his knuckles against her cheek.
“We can’t,” she whispered even as she leaned into his touch.
“I know,” he said raggedly even as his thumb traced the outer curve of her ear.
They gazed into each other’s eyes with both wonder and regret. Passion and pain. Love and loathing.
Helena was so very tempted to take that final step. To stand on her toes and grab onto the lapels of his jacket and pick right up where they’d left off in the garden. As if no time had passed at all. But old injuries were not easy to forget, and old hurts were hard to forgive, and with great reluctance she shook her head.
“We can’t,” she repeated. “It wouldn’t do either of us any good. Whatever reason you have for being my patron, I’m grateful for it.” As difficult as those words were for her to say, she meant them. Truly. Without Stephen’s support, she could only imagine where she’d be. Working as a governess, if she were lucky. On her back in a brothel if she weren’t.
“It was wrong of me to cut you off without a penny after my father died. I was still angry with you. Furious, really.”
“And now?” she whispered.
“Now I don’t know how I feel, if I’m being honest.” His crooked smile tugged at something deep inside of her heart. Something she’d done her best to keep hidden, along with all the other secrets she dared not bring to the light. “But I do know I cannot be bound to you any longer. Not even in anonymity.” He searched her face. “I’ll settle a large sum in an account of your choosing, of course. Enough to keep the house in Berkley Square, if you so choose. Although I might recommend curtailing some of your…extracurricular spending.”
“I do enjoy shopping,” she admitted.
“I know,” he said wryly. “I’ve the mountain of notes to prove it.”
As they shared a grin, it struck Helena how easy it was. To be with him again. To smile with him again. To share a jest with him again. But she didn’t want it to be easy. She didn’t want it at all. Not the hope, or the heartbreak. Not the love, or the loss. Because if there was another lesson that she’d learned the hard way, it was that you couldn’t have one without the other.
Which was why she wanted neither.
“I’m sorry,” she said, taking a step back. “I-I need time to think.”
His brows gathered. “About what? The money? I can assure you; it is insignificant to me.”
But am I insignificant to you?
She backed further away. Away from Stephen. Away from her feelings. Away from questions she could never ask, for if she did, it would reveal how much she still desperately cared for him. And if she told him how she felt, how she really felt, then she’d also have to tell him what she’d done. What she’d really done.
“You should leave,” she said flatly.
“Helena–”
“Leave,” she insisted. “Right this minute. I’ve nothing else to say to you.”
Confusion flickered in his gaze. Then his expression hardened. “You want more, is that it?”
“I don’t want anything from you, except for you to get out!”
“Do you know, for a second I almost believed you’d changed.” His eyes narrowed. “But you’re still the same selfish, conniving bitch you’ve always been. Ah,” he said, a jeering smile contorting his mouth when she visibly flinched. “The truth hurts, doesn’t it, lamb?”
“You wouldn’t know the truth if it hit you upside that inflated skull of yours!”
As the temporary peace they’d managed to find fractured straight down the middle, Helena and Stephen squared off like two boxers preparing to step into the ring. She put her hands on her hips. He curled his into fists. She glared. He glowered. They both seethed.
And they both hurt.
“I’ll let myself out,” he said at last. “I’ll see you again soon.”
“Is that a promise or a threat?” she demanded.
“That’s for you to decide, lamb. But know this – unlike you, I always keep my promises.” He gave a mocking bow and then he was gone, leaving Helena to wonder what the devil she was supposed to do now.
Chapter Seven
Percy was waiting for Helena in the parlor.
“Who was that?” she asked, her eyes as big as dinner plates.
Helena took a deep breath. “That was my deplorable stepson. And the only man I’ve ever fancied myself in love with. I need a drink,” she decided. Crossing to the liquor cabinet on the other side of the room, she helped herself to a bottle of brandy. When she held up two glasses, Percy shook her head, and with a shrug Helena filled up both of them for herself.
“I – I really don’t understand.” Biting her lip, Percy followed Helena over to a pair of chairs turned towards the fireplace. She perched delicately on the armrest of one while Helena threw herself into the other.
“Neither do I,” Helena said broodingly. She drank her brandy. It burned on the way down, but pooled pleasantly in her belly with an aftertaste of warm honey. “His name is Stephen Darby. He was a viscount when I met him. Now he’s the Earl of Cambridge.”
“Oh. I see.” Percy paused. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t see at all. You loved him? But I always thought–”
“I was incapable of loving anyone?” Helena muttered into her drink.
“Of course not. It’s just…well…” The duchess twisted her fingers together. “I don’t know how to say this politely.”
“I’m a cantankerous witch who skewers any man who dares approach her?”
Percy’s cheeks reddened. “Yes. That – that does sum it up.”
“I wasn’t always this way.” She took another sip of brandy before setting both glasses aside. It was, after all, only half past one in the afternoon. Another four hours and she
could drink to her heart’s content. Until then…until then she would be forced to confront her past with a clear mind and an aching heart. “I told you I married the Earl of Cambridge to save my sister from having to do the same. What I didn’t tell you was that I met Stephen before I was ever engaged. Before I even knew who Cambridge was, let alone that he had a son.”
“I’m sorry,” Percy whispered.
Helena flicked her a glance. “I haven’t even told you the worst part yet.”
“Yes, but I can tell it’s coming, and I wanted to give my sympathies in advance.”
“You’re a dear friend, Persephone.”
“And you’re the best friend I’ve ever had,” the duchess said earnestly. “You and Calliope. If I were to never fall in love, I do believe I would be quite content, for who needs men when you have sisters?”
“You can’t kiss your sisters,” Helena pointed out.
“No, but then sisters can’t break your heart…or your bones,” Percy said softly as she touched her nose, her fingers trailing self-consciously over a tiny bump in the middle of it. A tiny bump that hadn’t been there before she met her husband.
“He won’t find you here.” Helena knew she was repeating herself, but she did not know how else to reassure Percy of her safety. She supposed they could flee to the Highlands or take a ship to the Americas. Change their names and live as vagabonds with no true home. But what sort of life would that be?
Percy might have been in hiding, but she was still a duchess. Why should she have to change her name and flee the country when her husband paraded openly around London with his mistress, dining on champagne and caviar?
Helena was sick and tired of men always getting whatever they wanted, while the women they’d professed to love were cast aside like broken toys as soon as their usefulness had expired.
It was more than unfair.
It was wrong.
“But Lord Cambridge found you here,” said Percy.
“What?” Helena blinked, having lost herself in her thoughts.
“Lord Cambridge. He found you here, didn’t he?” Sliding off the armrest, Percy stood up and walked to the fireplace. She picked up a small porcelain bird off the mantle and ran her thumb across its beak, then set it back down. “Unless you invited him.”
Helena snorted. “I definitely did not invite him.”
“Then if he can find you, surely Andrew could find me.” A puzzled line creased Percy’s temple. “Although I’m confused as to why Lord Cambridge is here. From what little I observed, it was quite obvious the two of you are not…erm…”
“Lovers?” Helena suggested.
“Oh, I didn’t–”
“It’s all right. I was just having a bit of fun.” Crossing her legs at the ankle, Helena slid even farther down into her chair. She toyed with a loose tendril of hair, wrapping it round and round her finger as she conceived of the best way to share her convoluted relationship with Stephen.
“We really only knew each other for one night,” she murmured. “We met at a ball. It was my second season. My mother was determined I was to make a match, and after I tired of dancing with one clumsy suitor after another I escaped to the gardens. Stephen discovered me there, in front of a fountain.”
Percy smiled hesitantly. “That sounds romantic.”
“It was. We talked for what felt like hours, and then we did more than talk.” Her mouth curved at the memory. It wasn’t the last kiss she’d had, but it was most definitely the sweetest. “I believed he was different.” Her smile fell away. “As it turns out, he wasn’t. That was the end of it. Until today.”
“But you said you loved him,” Percy reminded gently. “Isn’t his being here a good thing?”
Helena plucked at a loose thread on her skirt. “I thought I was in love with him. When I was a young girl, I also used to think elephants could use their ears to fly. In hindsight, what I felt was surely nothing more than infatuation. He was strikingly handsome, and wickedly charming, and he was the first man who actually seemed to understand me.” Pensive, she reached for the brandy and took a sip, her bottom lip lingering on the smooth edge of the glass. “More than anything, I desperately wanted to be understood.
“The ton saw me as just another pretty debutante, all wrapped up in bows and ribbons and searching for the first wealthy suitor who would have her. But I was more than that.” I am more than that, she reminded herself. “Stephen found me amusing and clever instead of simply beautiful. And perhaps…perhaps I did fall in love with him that night. Just a little. But if I did, it was only love at first sight. It was never meant to last to sunrise.”
“Why not?” Percy asked.
“Because love at first sight is nothing more than fodder for poets.” Tilting her head back, Helena finished the first glass of brandy and reached blindly for the second. “I was a silly girl who didn’t know what I was promising.”
“What did you promise?”
“To wait.” When her chest tightened, she took another swig of brandy. “Stephen was leaving the next morning on his Grand Tour, and he asked me to wait for him. I promised I would.”
“But you didn’t,” said Percy quietly.
“No.” She swallowed hard. “I didn’t.”
“I believe in love at first sight, you know.” Leaving the fireplace, Percy went to the same window where Stephen had stood only a few minutes ago. “Now you think I’m silly,” she said when Helena remained silent.
“No,” Helena corrected. “I think you’re…idealistic.”
“I knew Andrew for eight months before I accepted his proposal.” Though her voice remained light and unaffected, Percy’s spine was as stiff as a board. “We went to the theater together. He took me on long carriage rides through Hyde Park. He dined with my family, and we danced at too many balls to count. I truly believed I knew him. I truly believed we were in love. We were married for less than a week when he struck me the first time.”
“Percy.” A bit unsteady on her feet, Helena nevertheless stumbled to the fireplace and gathered the duchess in her arms like a mother would her child. “I’m so sorry that happened to you. It wasn’t your fault. Any of it.”
“I know that now.” Although a tremble went through her entire body, Percy kept her chin held high just like Helena had taught her. “But my point is that love does not adhere to a certain timeline. You can know someone for eight minutes and love them for the rest of your life. Or you can know them for eight months and end up bleeding in an alley until two angels come to your rescue.”
On a soft laugh, Helena rested her head on Percy’s shoulder. “No one has ever called me an angel before.”
“It’s what you are, for taking me in. Few would have dared risk the wrath of a powerful duke.”
“Men stopped intimidating me a long time ago.”
“Even wickedly charming earls?” Percy ventured.
“Especially those.”
“Do you think he’ll come back, your Stephen?”
“First of all, he’s hardly my Stephen. Second of all…” She thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. His promise/threat notwithstanding, she saw no reason for Stephen to linger. “I don’t think so. I believe he got what he came for, which was to thoroughly humiliate me.”
“How did he do that?”
“By telling me who my benefactor is.”
Percy’s eyes widened. “He did? How could you not tell me this first and foremost! Who is it?”
“Stephen. Stephen is my benefactor.” Just saying the words out loud caused her teeth and belly to ache as if she’d eaten too many sweets.
“But why–”
“Out of some perverted sense of obligation, I suppose” Helena said, interrupting her friend with an irritated huff of breath. “He cut me off completely when his father died, then apparently felt bad enough about it to secretly become my benefactor, and now he’s here to cut me off again.”
“Oh.” Percy’s brow creased. “That’s…”
&
nbsp; “Absurd?” Helena said. “Insane? The most convoluted thing you’ve ever heard?”
“Interesting. I was going to say interesting.” Percy felt for Helena’s hand, then linked their fingers together and squeezed. “But then, men have always done very interesting things for love.”
“Stephen doesn’t love me,” she scoffed.
Percy gave her a knowing look. “And you don’t love him either, right?”
“That’s right.”
“And you wouldn’t mind if he returned London and you never saw him again?”
“Of course not. In fact, I hope that’s precisely what happens.”
But if that were true…why did she suddenly feel so disappointed?
Well, that could have gone better.
As he stared blindly at his tankard of ale, Stephen cursed himself for everything he’d said to Helena during their fractious encounter.
And everything he hadn’t.
The plan had been a simple one. Collect his debt and wash his hands of her. But there’d been nothing simple about the emotions he had experienced when he saw Helena again. There’d been nothing simple about the heat that had filled his loins when he touched her again. There’d been nothing simple about the intense desire he’d felt to kiss her again.
There was nothing simple about Helena, period.
A fact he’d conveniently chosen to forget on this ill-fated quest for revenge.
Grimacing, he tipped his tankard back and drained what was left of his ale, then signaled one of the curvaceous barmaids waltzing around the dark, dingy tavern for another.
“And a bowl of the stew,” he added, belatedly realizing he hadn’t eaten anything since early this morning when he’d left London.
“Anything else, love?” the barmaid purred as she rubbed up against his thigh.
The invitation was obvious.
So was his body’s response.
The Secret Wallflower Society: (Books 1-3) Page 15
