Beauty Like the Night

by Liz Carlyle

  But what choice had she had? She had been but seventeen, alone with the memories of a place—and yes, of a love—which had been taken from her. One did what one must. She had been young, yes, but the pain had been all too real.

  And yet, the beauty of the scene—indeed, the beauty of the man beside her—still called out to Helene’s every instinct. How often had her soul ached for the serenity of this place, and for the quiet, steady companionship of this man? With measured reluctance, Helene tore her gaze from his face. She stared down across the green swath of grass which bordered the river, and reminded herself of how Cam had wounded her with his reprehensible offer.

  The cows had disappeared around the bend now. In the late afternoon sun, Ariane continued her happy games, pitching her bits of flotsam into the lazy current. To all outward appearances, the three of them might easily have been a family, enjoying one last burst of sunshine before autumn’s end. The sadness that had gnawed at Helene for the last several days grew ever sharper at that thought.

  Helene shifted away from Cam. “Your apology is accepted,” she finally forced herself to say. “And I give you mine. Let us speak no more of it.”

  Seated on the blanket beside her, Cam drew one leg toward his chest, then leaned pensively forward to rest his forearm atop his knee. With his face relaxed into gentler lines, he looked unexpectedly boyish again. Not quite seventeen, perhaps. But for an instant, Cam looked very like the young man she had once loved.

  He turned to study her, his eyes drifted over her face for what seemed like an eternity. “Together, we make a dangerous pair, Helene,” he finally said, as if reading her thoughts. “I daresay we always have, but we were simply too foolish to recognize that danger.”

  She turned to stare at him. “What on earth do you mean?”

  Cam shrugged his shoulders, and the motion became an uneasy stretch, as if his coat were uncomfortably tight. “I think you know,” he said softly, his jaw set at a grim angle. “I’m speaking of us, Helene. We can hardly afford to ignore the effect we have on one another. How mad and irresponsible I still become when I look at you. How wildly passionate you are.”

  “Oh, for pity’s sake, Cam!” Helene narrowed her eyes.

  Cam ignored her. “Do you never think about our parents, Helene? How reckless, how volatile, they were?” He exhaled sharply. “Blood runs true, Helene. Perhaps we have been fortunate to escape their fate.”

  His measured warning and its implicit censure stung Helene. “What drivel,” she snapped. Perhaps a wiser woman would have been frightened by the dark emotion in his face, but seized by the very recklessness she had just disowned, Helene’s sharp tongue overcame her. “Is that what you truly believe? Indeed, is it the fear of what you might become that so torments you? Mon Dieu, Camden! Anyone can see how unhappy you are.”

  Cam caught her gaze, his eyes hard and glittering. “Have a care, Helene,” he answered in a dangerous voice. “I would have peace between us, yes. But Ariane is your only charge. I have no need of your help.”

  “No small blessing, that,” she retorted, lifting her gaze steadily to challenge his. “For I find that your obsessions are exceeded only by your arrogance.” Helene sat rigidly, her weight borne back on her arms, her hands flat upon the blanket.

  Slowly, the blaze of anger died in Cam’s eyes, only to be replaced by what looked like weary resignation. Helene felt a stab of sudden disappointment. Dear heavens! Had she wanted to quarrel with him? Perhaps she had. When they were young, she had sought every opportunity to challenge him, and to goad him beyond restraint. Helene felt a flush of shame.

  But Cam had dropped his gaze. “You speak of my obsessions,” he said quietly, reaching out with one fingertip to stroke her wrist, “but perhaps you are my obsession, Helene. I am, after all, my father’s son.”

  His simple, unexpected caress made her skin quiver with pleasure. Angered by her response, she jerked her hand away. “This conversation is nonsense,” she said flatly. “You are no more your father than I am my mother.”

  “I wish that were true, Helene,” he said, his voice as soft as silk. “But with you, I’d soon make my father look like a saint.”

  Helene forced herself to look away again. Had he been his father—or any other man, come to that—she would have considered such a comment little more than flirtatious repartee. But Cam’s words had the ring of a confession. She fought the urge to reach out to him, to quicken to his touch again, and to tell him that he was right; that she was reckless and he was mad. And that neither circumstance mattered, for she wanted him, and always had.

  But she could not touch him. She dared not prove him right. “We are neither of us like our parents, Cam,” she softly insisted, perhaps as much to herself as to him. “If I cannot believe that of myself, if I cannot have faith that I am my own person, then I am nothing.”

  “Admirable words, Helene, but can you not see that you have this way about you ... ?”

  “What way—?” she returned.

  Cam leaned incrementally closer, and ever so briefly, she ceased to breathe. “Ah, Helene—! You can make a man’s blood run wild.” He paused to run one hand down his face, then dropped it to the blanket again. “Good God, I do not know what came over me that night. It seems I forgot my daughter’s needs—and thought only of my own.”

  “Cam,” she said impatiently, “is it not natural for a man to feel desire? Desire which may test even the most—”

  He interrupted as if he had not heard. “Ariane needs you as her governess, while I—” he interjected a bitter laugh, “—have absolutely no business with you as my mistress.”

  The words stung. But Cam’s apology, as well as his confusion, seemed perfectly sincere. Yet inexplicably, she was hurt by his explanation. How foolish. What had she wanted him to say? Abruptly, Helene jerked her pelisse tighter to her chest. “You have apologized, my lord. Let us drop the matter.”

  He obviously noted her return to formality. “I—yes, of course.” His gaze held hers, wary and uncertain. “But there is just one more thing which I must ask. Something of utmost importance.”

  Helene stared. “By all means,” she replied coolly.

  Cam swallowed uncomfortably. “Just this, Helene. Please keep your distance from Bentley. I am warning you. It is for the best.”

  “Warning me—?” she echoed. Helene forced herself to stare down at the riverbank, her eyes never leaving Ariane as the child continued in her play. Anger, followed fast by a cold panic, spread through her chest. Her heart began to pound.

  Had Bentley said something? Had a servant seen her in his embrace? It was a governess’s worst nightmare, and one’s innocence in such circumstances accounted for little. She drew a sharp breath and set her shoulders rigidly. “What, precisely, are you saying?”

  Cam exhaled on a hiss. “My brother is young, Helene, despite the fact that he looks to be five-and-twenty. Moreover, he is exceedingly foolish. A woman like you is far too much temptation for such a ... a ...”

  “For such a what, Cam?” she bit out, suddenly angry again. Damn it, she had done nothing wrong! “Do you imagine your brother to be some sort of innocent? Indeed, I can scarce imagine him a neophyte to the ways of iniquity and vice. Nonetheless, you may rest assured that I shall resist all temptation to initiate him.”

  “Helene,” he growled impatiently, his hand lashing out to capture her wrist. “You willfully choose to misunderstand me. I know my brother. I just give you fair warning; keep your distance.”

  Abruptly, Helene jerked to her feet. “I begin to understand you, Cam,” she said, staring coldly down at him. “But no matter what you may think me, I have no interest in being seduced by a mere boy. Nor by anyone else.”

  Cam bristled. “I think I learnt that lesson well enough two nights past, Helene,” he said grimly. “And I did not suggest you have designs on my brother. But Bentley is rather less principled.”

  Helene laughed bitterly. “I fancy I know how to handle randy young bucks,”
she retorted, her voice brittle. “I learnt it in hard school, for I had little choice.”

  “Then I am glad to hear it,” he rasped, moving swiftly to his feet to lace one hand tightly about her arm. He pulled her closer to him. “And I hope I may conclude, then, that you can manage to keep the good rector from swooning at your feet?”

  “The rector—?” Helene yanked her arm from his grip.

  Cam still leaned into her. “I know damned well Lowe means to call on you again,” he said darkly. “I think the fool is besotted. And he sent you a gift this morning. I saw the footman bring it.”

  Helene sucked in her breath sharply. “Ma foi, Camden!” One hand balled into a tight fist. “My choice of friends is not your concern. Not unless it affects my work. And it does not, does it?”

  Cam glowered. “No.”

  “And it shan’t,” she sharply retorted. “You are Lowe’s benefactor, for pity’s sake! He merely wishes me to befriend his sister. And I rather think your energies would be better spent in improving your relationship with your brother.”

  Cam looked as dark as a thunderhead. “On my relationship with Bentley?”

  “Dear heavens, Cam!” Helene touched her fingertips to her temples, her headache pounding now. “Can you not see that the boy needs your help? Why do you think he behaves so wickedly?”

  “Perhaps because he is wicked. God knows he got it honestly. Now sit down, Helene. Ariane is watching.” He tugged roughly on her arm and, to her own surprise, Helene sat obediently back down on the blanket.

  Cam was right, of course. It wouldn’t do for Ariane to see them quarreling. But if she were honest, she would admit that she felt far more vibrant, far more alive, when she and Cam sparred.

  “Please, Cam,” she finally said. “What your father was has nothing to do with who you and Bentley are. Yet you assume the worst of him. Must you assume the worst of me as well?” She extended one hand to touch him plaintively, then feeling the tension and strength in his arm, sharply drew it back.

  10

  In which Lord Treyhern throws Caution to the wind

  As the heat of her fingers slid away from his forearm, Cam ceased to hear Helene’s words, despite the fact that her eyes kept flashing and her lips kept moving. He wanted to explain to Helene that she had misunderstood; that he knew precisely what his young rakehell of a brother wanted from her, because he wanted it, too.

  A part of him wished to lash out at her, to tell her that it was she for whom he worried. Helene’s good intentions might not protect her from Bentley’s clever seduction. Yet, to his utter exasperation, Helene was still raving, talking on and on about brotherly love, and virtue, and understanding.

  Inexplicably, he wanted to grab her, and kiss her mouth until she shut up. He wanted to lace his fingers around the long, pale column of her neck, force up her chin with the strength of his thumbs, and silence her in another way altogether. With his hard mouth, and with his ... oh, good God, what was wrong with him?

  He had brought Helene here with every intention of apologizing. Yet in the course of fifteen minutes, they had proceeded to quarrel again—not once, but two or three times. He’d literally lost count. And now, watching her luscious mouth and flashing eyes, and feeling his own breath grow shallow, the only clear intention he seemed to be furthering was not in his head, but between his legs.

  Dear heaven, the awful truth was that Cam could not bear the thought of his brother—nor of any other man—touching Helene. And now, despite his anger and concern, Cam throbbed with an urgent need to push her down into the rough grass, shove up her skirts, and rut with her in broad daylight like an animal.

  He dropped his head with shame and forced himself to look away from her. Had the past taught him nothing? Had his encounter with Helene two nights past taught him nothing?

  No, came the answer. Absolutely nothing.

  “Does it ever occur to you, Cam, that perhaps you are a little too rigid?”

  Rigid? That one word finally broke through his stream of lust and self-loathing. Cam’s head jerked up, and he stared at her, momentarily unable to ascertain her meaning. But the woman was still arguing on his brother’s behalf. Suddenly, he wanted to snort with disgust. God forbid she learn just how rigid he was.

  Uneasily, Cam adjusted his coat as Helene droned on in her firm, cool, governess voice. “Indeed, one cannot always be in control of every given situation, Cam. One must often make—”

  “Helene!” He interrupted her sharply, his voice sounding hoarse and oddly foreign.

  One slender finger elegantly raised, she paused and looked directly at him. “Yes?”

  “Could you—would you—be good enough to just ... hush for a moment?”

  Helene frowned as Cam struggled to recapture some thread of their conversation and to ignore the throbbing discomfort between his legs. “But Cam,” she protested, “I am just trying to point out to you the simple fact that Bentley has never known a mother’s love. And I rather doubt your father was of any benefit in that regard.”

  Cam stirred to indignation at that. “What are you saying, Helene? I have always taken care of Bentley, and of Catherine, too. My brother knows that I love him. That I would lay down my life for his, were it necessary.”

  Helene flashed him a look of aggravation. “All Bentley knows is that you want what you think is best for him.”

  “It would appear, then, that you have spent far more time in Bentley’s company than I realized,” he said coolly, his discomfort shifting to aggravation. “Indeed, you seem to have formed an opinion of his character inside and out.”

  Helene’s chin came up but she made no comment.

  Cam puffed out his cheeks in exasperation, then exhaled slowly. “Very well, Helene. What would you have me do? Are you suggesting that I permit Bentley to run roughshod over the countryside, making love to whomever he chooses? Doing naught with his life?”

  “No, I just think—”

  “And gaming away his allowance?” interjected Cam. “Good God, Helene! He is not yet eighteen.”

  Helene folded her arms over her chest. “What I am suggesting, Cam, is that you show Bentley that you love him. Does anyone ever listen to him? Can you not give him the benefit of your ear rather than the razor’s edge of your tongue? Eventually you must admit that you simply cannot control Bentley, and everything around you.”

  “Yes, so you have said,” he answered, in a clipped tone.

  “Control and love are not the same, my lord,” she answered.

  “I collect that you mean to lecture me, Helene,” he said, glowering at her. “But little matter how lacking in sense you think me, recollect that I am not your student.”

  An angry silence followed, until suddenly, Cam leaned toward her and covered her hand with his, holding it fast to the blanket. “Oh, for pity’s sake, Helene, let us not quarrel! We must work together, you and I, for Ariane’s benefit.”

  Helene suppressed a shiver of awareness as the warmth of Cam’s grip spread across her hand, to run up her arm, and become an insidious, traitorous heat. Reluctantly, she slid her fingers from beneath his. “I—yes, you are right.”

  They fell silent again. Cam’s eyes still held an odd expression, but when he finally spoke, his voice was considerably softer. “I brought you here to ask your forgiveness, Helene. And I’ve tried. Now, I should like to talk about Ariane. How do things go on between you?” There was no animosity in his voice or expression now.

  “It goes well, I think,” she answered, grateful for his effort at conciliation. She forced away her frustrations over Bentley, and spent the next quarter-hour explaining her initial assessment of Ariane. Cam raised several important points, and did not hesitate to question the things he did not understand. Clearly, he was determined to give his child every opportunity. Finally, Helene laid out her plan for using drawing, painting, and music as a means of emotional expression. And soon, she hoped to initiate rudimentary lessons in counting and lettering.

  At last, he s
eemed satisfied. “I must admit,” he said slowly, “that Ariane seems to have taken to you quite easily.”

  Helene forced a weak smile. “She was a bit ill-at-ease after you left yesterday, but Ariane is a bright, delightful child.”

  “Then you are the first governess to have said so,” he answered grimly.

  “Oh, do not lose hope, my lord! Perhaps Ariane cannot be taught by conventional means. Not yet. But I begin to feel more confident of her aptitude. By the time I am gone, I have every hope that she will have learned at least some sort of communication skills.”

  “By the time you are gone, Helene?” he echoed, his brows snapping together. “But Ariane shall require a governess until she leaves the schoolroom.”

  Helene shook her head. “Oh, I thought you understood ...” she weakly began. “It is true that Ariane will need a teacher for some time. But not the sort I am. If Ariane improves, you’ll have no need to pay my exorbitant salary. A regular governess will suffice.”

  “How long?” he asked, in a voice that was oddly constrained. “How long will I—will she—need you?”

  Perplexed, Helene studied him for a moment. “It is hard to know. A year? Perhaps two? I have never stayed longer in any position.”

  Cam shook his head as if to argue with her. “I cannot pretend to understand you, Helene... all this moving about. Do you not wish to settle? Do you not wish for a life of your own?”

  Helene regarded him sardonically. “A governess does not settle, Cam. And she has no life. Not of the type which you mean.” She failed to suppress a soft sigh. “I find this hard to explain. Let us speak of something else. Let us talk of happier times. “

  “Happier times,” he repeated, holding her gaze for a long moment. “Do you know, I think that my happiest times were spent with you, Helene. And yet, to confess that one derived such pleasure from indolence and mischief can hardly be admirable.”