Helena stopped.
He was very close. His gaze was lowered, fastened on her lips, which felt suddenly dry. So dry she had to lick them, which she did. And saw her mistake.
It was hard to say what changed, precisely. There was just something in his look that…deepened. She knew that look. She had once known the look of desire on a man’s face—on many men’s faces. They were as frequent as the admiring glances and ready smiles that had welcomed her whenever she was at a party or mixing with her mother’s friends. But none of them had ever affected her like this.
Deep inside, some nether region of her innards rattled. That was what it felt like—rattling. Humming, vibrating, rattling—she couldn’t tell which. It felt wonderful, as if silver threads of pleasure were woven throughout her body, and were being plucked by some unseen hand, like an angel expertly playing a harp.
She felt a bit dizzy of a sudden. Her eyelids felt heavy.
“It is less than a fortnight until our wedding,” Adam said thickly. He kept looking at her mouth, intensely studying it. Without seeming to move an inch, he somehow was closer. “Not long…”
“No. Soon.”
Her brain reacted to these inanities, but she kept perfectly still. She hardly dared to breathe for fear of doing something to break the spell.
He seemed to be moving closer. His head lowered by degrees. He was going to kiss her, and she could do nothing but stand there, frozen on the spot, and wait for the touch of his mouth.
Slowly at first, his mouth moved over hers, coaxing gently until she responded. She didn’t want to, didn’t mean to, but the heat that touch evoked stole up from some secret part of her and set flame to every nerve ending in her body. Timidly, she tilted her head, afraid of the fire and afraid of what he might do next if this—this brush of his mouth to hers—could leave her so devastated and raw.
She had good reason to fear, she soon learned, for when he slipped his arms around her and held her tightly against him, his kiss deepened, rougher now and demanding something that touched a primitive part of her she had not known before. His tongue ran along the seam of her lips, coaxing them open to the rough play of his tongue. It was utterly shocking, but she didn’t stop it. She let him open her mouth. She let him taste her.
She grasped his shoulders as a tidal wave of reaction poured through her body. Molten pleasure rippled like the surface of a glassy lake after a disturbance, only it didn’t dissipate but grew in intensity, leaving her breathless and clinging to him with clawed fingers.
When he stopped, he pulled back only inches, just enough to look into her eyes. His seemed bottomless, dark as pitch and just as inscrutable. He hesitated, as if undecided for a moment, and then he straightened.
A hot sense of loss scalded her. She was so bemused by what had just happened, she couldn’t think straight.
He stepped away from her, as if craving distance. And all she wanted to do was fling herself back into his arms. Getting hold of herself, she breathed against the ache in her and swallowed back the ragged, hitching sounds that trembled in her throat.
He said, “It’s late. You’re probably tired.” He wouldn’t look at her.
“I…yes, it is late. I’m an early riser, so I should go…to bed.” It was strangely embarrassing to be saying those words, as if that kiss had heightened her awareness of all things sexual.
Belonging to Adam…It wasn’t as bad a thought as she had once imagined.
That kiss…
“Good night, then.”
She blushed hotly. He was dismissing her.
“Good night, Mr. Mannion.”
His head snapped around. “What happened to Adam?” At her questioning look, he said, “You called me Adam a few moments ago. It was very nice. It made us…well, if not precisely friends, then less each other’s adversary.”
“Oh.” She hesitated. “Very well. Good night. Adam.” He grinned and those little crinkles appeared at the corners of his eyes again. “Good night, Helena.”
Chapter Twelve
Adam stared at Helena’s portrait.
The wedding was ten days away and he was nervous, of all things.
Nervous of what? he asked himself more than once. It was exactly what he wanted, what he’d come here for. He should be elated. All the arrangements were made to receive the money, and he’d already had his solicitor send a portfolio of prospective investments. When his first quarter’s stipend arrived, he’d be ready to funnel it into worthy venues.
So what was there to make his heart pound and palms sweat every time he thought of actually marrying Helena?
Pensively, he stared at the portrait some more.
Curiosity burned white-hot within him. He wanted to know. And yet he didn’t. Was he afraid?
Yes, he was afraid. Afraid of what he might find out about Helena. Afraid that it was something dreadful and irrevocable. How would he feel then? He knew damned well how he’d feel—it would kill him to think she was never going to look at the world again like she did in the painting, with that slight haughtiness. It wasn’t at all contemptuous, he decided after staring at her expression for a good long time—just as the parson had said. Rather, she looked as if she silently communicated her softness, her mystery even while she posed in daughterly duty for the portrait her mother had commissioned.
The fact that this was Althea’s Helena poised for posterity was about all he knew of that “dark time” that was part of the shroud that hung over this place. He had gotten that much out of the servants, at least. Mrs. Kent, who had taken a liking to him, had related a few sparse facts until she remembered herself, and that was the end of that.
And yet Adam could see his Helena looking out at him from that perfectly composed face.
His Helena? Since when had she become his Helena?
The entrance of the footman rescued him from having to ponder that disturbing notion too long.
“Someone to see you, Mr. Mannion,” the head footman said.
“In the front parlor, Jack.”
It was the habit of all wealthy families to refer to their servants by the impersonal address of “John Footman” no matter what their Christian names. Adam refused to do this, but as the head footman’s name was John, he had christened him “Jack” to differentiate from the aristocratic tradition. Jack seemed to like this affectation and always smiled broadly when addressed by his new name.
Adam went around the back way to the fancy parlor—there was a door cut out of the paneling that the servants used—arriving just before his visitor was shown in.
“Hello, Adam,” she said, amusement dancing in her eyes at his shocked reaction.
The appearance of his mistress—his former mistress—was enough to steal his faculties for a good long time, during which Trina Bentford smirked triumphantly and waited for him to recover. Finally, he was able to say, “You cannot think this is in any way appropriate.”
“What?” she cooed, gliding across the room with an airy wave of her hand. “Aren’t you pleased to see me? Is your new wife so wretched she doesn’t allow you to entertain old friends?” She paused, tapping a well-manicured nail against her cheek. “Oh, but she isn’t your wife…yet. Is she?”
“This isn’t a game. You should leave.”
“Money is well and good, Adam, and I gather you are getting a lot of it to be putting up with all of this,” she stated, her outstretched arms indicating the gloomy old house around them. “But, honestly, you cannot allow it to control you. I never thought I’d live to see the day when Adam Mannion was a puppet to a wife whose purse strings doubled as a marionette’s wires.”
His teeth clenched. He knew he was a bastard, he knew he was marrying Helena for her money and using her mercilessly, but he hated like the devil to have anyone say a thing about it. “What do you want, Trina?”
“Just to talk. That’s all.” She was coy. That wasn’t all, and she was letting him know it in that sly, indirect way opportunistic people had. She was just going to play cat
and mouse for a bit longer.
She was punishing him, he realized. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end and he pulled himself up stiffly.
“I’ll call Jack to take you to the front door.” He moved to the portal in the paneling. “It was nice of you to come to see me.”
“Don’t you dare!” she shrieked with a stamp of her foot.
He paused, donning a bored look as he waited. Getting Trina’s goat had always been ridiculously easy.
“You…you…you were beastly! How dare you write to cast me off, as if I were no better than a street-walking doxy you’d picked up on the docks? I am good and mad at you, Adam Mannion, and I think you owe me an apology.”
“I wrote you a very courteous letter,” Adam said patiently, “in which I explained that I felt it best to inform you immediately of my plans to marry so you would not waste time waiting for my return.”
She tried a brazen smile, eyelashes fluttering. “But you are being so silly. I mean, I know you are worried about my feelings.” He stayed stock-still as she pranced up to him, trying to look sullen. “But I don’t care,” she went on. “It wasn’t like I ever pressured you to marry me. We just had fun together. There’s no reason why it can’t continue.”
He grabbed her wrist when she reached up for him. He didn’t want to be cruel, but he was acutely aware of where they were. This was Helena’s house, with Helena’s servants and Helena’s father and Helena, and he would be hanged for a fool if he would allow himself to be caught coddling his former mistress in the parlor a week before the nuptials.
“Trina,” he said, making his voice soft, “I don’t think you understand. It wasn’t Lady Helena’s request that had me send you that letter. I did it because I wanted to.”
“Oh, I don’t believe that. We were always so good together.”
“No, we actually were not very good together.”
“I never refused you when you…when you wanted to…you know.”
He smiled. That put the problem quite succinctly. “You can’t even say it—when I wanted to make love? No, Trina, you were quite docile, and very generous in allowing me to make love to you when I wished. But I never got the idea that you liked it very much.”
“Adam! Why, you are a most virile man and quite generous…in…in that…in that regard.”
It wasn’t his virility he had ever questioned. “And you are a gorgeous woman with a great deal to offer a man. I wish you well.”
“Well, it’s not fair. I could have had other men. Richer men than you, Adam Mannion. I stuck by you when you had nothing.”
He was stung. “You never complained before.”
“I love you, that’s why.” He doubted that, but he wasn’t going to get into a useless argument with her. She stuck her hands on her hips. “And I don’t see any reason why our arrangement has to end just because you are getting married. You’ll have a wealthy wife now, and plenty of money to spend. Think of all the fun we could have. What fine figures we will cut this coming season. And how jealous they will all be at our fall of fortune.”
His head came up as the truth hit him. She was after her share of the Rathford money!
The idea of spending Helena’s money on another woman made him feel vaguely sick. He wondered why. This sort of thing was done all the time.
It was that thought, and only that thought, that kept him from throwing Trina out without another word. Controlling his temper, he said, “I’m sorry you came all the way up here for nothing, Trina. Our affair is over. You’d best find another protector.”
Then he reached for the doorknob. When he felt Trina’s clawlike hand on his shoulder, he sighed. He didn’t want for this to get ugly. Turning around with reluctance, he stopped as his gaze caught the figure poised uncertainly in the doorway.
Helena stood there, her face inscrutable.
He didn’t even look at Trina. “Please go. You will understand if I do not make the proper introductions.”
Trina—whatever she had been about to say now forgotten—had seen Helena as well. Trina looked about her a bit desperately for a moment, and he could almost hear the gears clicking in that scheming brain of hers, calculating her options. She was not without intelligence and must have soon deduced that those options didn’t exist, for she departed without a word of protest, cutting a wide swath around her rival. Helena watched her, held her head high as the other woman gave her a sneering perusal from head to toe and made a face to say she pronounced her weak competition.
The silence in the wake of this inauspicious exit was as thick as aspic. Then Helena said, “The next time you want to avail yourself of a whore, make arrangements to see her in the village. I don’t want them defiling my home.”
She turned on her heel and was about to walk out the door when he dashed forward to cut her off. “Don’t. I can explain.”
“I am not interested.”
There were tears in her eyes, he was surprised to see. He felt a flush creep up to singe the tips of his ears. My God. He was actually embarrassed.
He said, “It’s not what you think. She’s not…well, she was…an old friend.”
Helena cocked her fists on those slender hips and jutted out her chin. “She never shared your bed?”
Damn. “She did,” he answered honestly. “She was my mistress.”
Her face congealed in a mask of bitterness. “How dare you.”
“I didn’t invite her here. I didn’t—” He broke off, appalled at himself for the blundering apology. No, it was more like groveling. “Helena,” he said more steadily, “if you would care for an explanation, I would be happy to provide one for you. However, despite how it looks, I have done nothing dishonest or in bad faith.”
“If my father knew what a liar you were, I wonder if he would be so keen on this marriage?” She turned her face away, but didn’t move otherwise. “I don’t want to ever see that trollop or any other of your…old friends again. It is disrespectful to me. I can hardly tell you what to do, since ours is not a conventional marriage by any means. But I will not abide such flagrant indiscretion.”
It was strange, the cold disappointment that settled in his chest, almost as if her dismissal of his offer to explain actually hurt him. She was right. There was no reason why she should trust him.
Helena continued, “I cannot tell you how to spend your money. If you weren’t a wastrel and a ne’er-do-well, you wouldn’t be so desperate to marry a withered and scrawny wife like myself.”
That hurt. Even so, he was aware that she was hurting as well. He reached out for her. “Helena—”
The moment he touched her, she spurred into action, whirling out of his grasp so that his fingertips barely brushed her shoulder before she rushed out of the room.
He felt a keen sense of loss, and wondered at it. He tried to tell himself it was just a misunderstanding, that was all.
But it didn’t seem to him a small thing. It seemed like something had been broken between them.
Chapter Thirteen
It didn’t mend, not that day or any of the next. Therefore, it was with stiff formality and icy reserve that Adam and Helena exchanged wedding vows in the small cathedral in Strathmere.
Helena had wanted to hold the ceremony at the house chapel, but her father wouldn’t hear of it. Nor would he heed her argument that this marriage was a dreadful mistake and he ought never to have forced her into it. She cited her fears that Adam would make a laughingstock of her by openly parading his birds of paradise. Lord Rathford listened patiently, his old, rheumy eyes taking in the sparkle that lit her face—even if it was from rage—and the animation that moved her once gaunt body in bold, telling gestures. He seemed to waver for a moment, weighing her feelings carefully against whatever it was he found meritorious in this ridiculous union. In the end, however, he had stood firm.
She wondered why she didn’t just defy her father and send Adam packing herself. There was no answer, except perhaps that she had been obedient for so long under her moth
er’s dominion that it didn’t seem as if she had any other choice but to do as her father wished.
At the reception, held in grand style at Rathford Manor, Adam showed himself to be in no better a mood than she. He handed her a plate heaped with canapés. When she placed it on a table, untouched, he accused her of having lost weight again and frowned at the ill fit of her gown.
He couldn’t have wounded her more deeply than if he had said outright he found her wanting. No doubt he pined after that bloated cow who used to warm his bed.
Looking down, Helena felt suddenly dowdy. This morning, when she had dressed in the mint colored silk dress, she had felt like a princess. Mrs. Stiles had done an impeccable job with it. The fault lay with Helena’s still too thin form.
His disapproval made her cross and she found herself snapping waspishly at him for the rest of the afternoon. From the looks on the faces of the few guests, she was behaving badly.
One of those who frowned deepest was the tall, elegant Duke of Strathmere. Jareth found her by the refreshment table and with a few clever maneuvers got her by herself down by the end.
His dark eyes regarded her with intense scrutiny. “Helena, I’ve never seen you like this. It is supposed to be a happy day.”
She realized her error in indulging her temper, a new luxury but a troublesome one, it seemed. She hadn’t intended to attract this kind of attention. “It is,” she said blithely, but her smile refused to stay put on her lips.
“Did you and Mannion quarrel?”
“We…we had a disagreement, yes.” Her eyes scanned the room nervously.
“Surely you can put it behind you, today of all days.”
She sighed. She could trust this man, after all they’d been through. “Jareth, I thank you for your concern, but I don’t think Adam and I will ever be able to put our differences behind us.”
Her impending confession was prevented by Adam’s appearance. He bowed to Jareth, his broad shoulders insinuating themselves between herself and the duke with the gesture. “Your grace, you are monopolizing the bride.” He slipped one of his big hands around Helena’s waist. She could feel the heat of it through the material of her dress and had the sensation that he was making some kind of territorial gesture, as if staking his claim to her—his wife, now.
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