The Sleeping Beauty

by Jacqueline Navin

  Adam knew this for a fact to be untrue.

  “You should come stay with me. London’s the place, then out to Greenwich for a jaunt.”

  Helena stiffened. “I couldn’t leave Father. He loves the country life. You know that.”

  “Hmm.” Howard cast a look at Lord Rathford. “Seems like he does nothing but drink and sleep, which he can do much more comfortably in London, I daresay. But I suppose he’d miss his hunting. He still loves his horses, I assume. Does he ride, or is he…you know. Unable.” To illustrate the reason for his doubt, Howard pantomimed tippling motions.

  There was an awkward silence. Adam considered the swell of protective anger that welled up inside him. When he glanced at Helena, she was giving him a look meant to quell any retribution he might wish to dole out on her behalf. He wondered how she could have known his strange reaction when he never would have guessed it himself.

  Adam leaned back in his chair as his plate was cleared away and asked, “Are you interested in horses, Howard?”

  “No, my good man. Filthy creatures. Beasts of burden, that’s all there is to it, and anyone who aggrandizes them as more is a twit.”

  Without missing a beat, Adam replied, “Love them, myself. They are like poetry in motion. Beautiful and powerful and full of personality—each one as unique as you or I. Ah, when one is astride a swift mount, racing over the meadow, dashing into the copse…it is incredibly invigorating.” He took up his fork again and attacked the slice of pie that had been placed in front of him. “At least to us twits.”

  “Dessert, Howard?” Helena interjected.

  The man shook his head, having gone a shade paler.

  The sound of cutlery stirring coffee and clinking against pie plates dominated once again.

  Howard was settled in a guest suite. Mercifully, he retired early, as did Helena. Adam was irritated at not having a chance today to speak to her alone.

  They had to settle this thing. He had to persuade her to consummate their marriage.

  London was waiting. He felt as if he were putrefying here in the countryside.

  Now, of all times, to be kept away when he finally had the means to walk among them as an equal…No. Perhaps not an equal. He’d never be that. His father had been a tobacconist, a gambler and a drunk—not that most of Adam’s friends couldn’t complain of the latter two in their own patronage. But his father was a common man.

  What money Adam had came to him from his mother’s side, wrapped up tightly in a trust that had been protected from his father. It had ensured Adam an excellent education. He had attended Oxford, guiltless and unaware of his father’s plunging fortunes, and while the tobacco shop was being sold for debt collection, he was enjoying himself among the English aristocracy and foreign royalty without the slightest idea of how dire things had gotten. He blamed himself for that later. He should have known, but youth is impetuous and rash, and he was having a grand time.

  He was the kind of man other men liked having around, both for the fact that women liked him—and therefore were attracted in droves—and that he excelled at their masculine interests of boxing and cards. His friends, therefore, didn’t mind his poverty. They cheerfully included him in their follies and never made mention of his lack of coin. It was an equitable arrangement—he spared none of his charms to win the favor of women they sought to impress, and his friends spared no amount of coin in their entertainment of those women, and him as well.

  Adam hated that he required their good graces to get along. He resented every time they absently tossed a handful of coins on a tavern table to cover their night’s carousing. It gnawed at him when they’d order a flurry of new coats, or make a whimsical wager they were sure to lose, or when they’d dash off to this place or that with no thought to expense. Oh, he was always included. But he never belonged.

  But luck finally visited him. It came in the form of an idle conversation one evening at White’s when, sitting around the tables in front of the bow window after a depressing night of bad cards, someone had made mention of the Sleeping Beauty of Northumberland. Adam had lit on it like a bee to nectar. A rich, reclusive beauty of noble blood without a betrothal?

  Surely luck—so lacking in all these years—could not be so generous as to provide so succinct a solution. But it had and he’d wedded her. He had married an heiress—been elevated both by her money and her family’s position so that he was one of them now. No more the poor mouse lagging after the generosities of his “betters.”

  He’d be damned if he were going to rot away at Rathford Manor as Helena seemed content to do. But how to bed a reluctant wife?

  She was hotter than a forge about Trina. Whatever intimacies he’d been able to coax from Helena before were gone now. She was not going to allow him within a stone’s throw of her, he knew that for sure.

  He came up with no ideas on how to get past her reluctance as he undressed. Forgoing a nightshirt, he stripped down to his drawers and sprawled across the bed, one bare foot still on the floor. He fell asleep like that, vowing that in the morning he’d once again apply himself to solving the conundrum.

  Music woke him.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Adam sat up, rubbing his hand briskly over his face as the strains reached his ears. It was lively, almost manic, and played with effusive joy. He climbed out of bed, his bare toes curling against the cold floor. Wrapping his arms around himself against the night chill, he didn’t waste time searching for a shirt but quickly lit the lantern and went directly to the door.

  Helena’s playing was magnificent, once again.

  He knew where she was. He had searched out the music room after the last incident of midnight music and made a mental note so that he could find it easily. He went there straightaway, but was puzzled to find the melody grow fainter as he neared.

  It dawned on him that Helena had the pianoforte moved after the last time. He had mentioned he had heard her, and she must have wanted to avoid discovery. Damn.

  He stood in the darkened hallway in just the loose-fitting drawers he had slept in. Making a quick decision, he went back upstairs and turned down the corridor where Helena’s rooms lay.

  The music grew louder.

  He slipped inside her bedchamber, but she was not in there. Coming out again, he went to the end of the corridor, to find a winding staircase leading upward through a turret of sorts. Yes, here she was. The music was coming from up there.

  Clever girl. She must have thought it would be too far away for anyone to hear. Adam climbed the stairs, treading silently on the wooden boards. The small tower opened onto a large room. He was now on the third floor, directly above her rooms.

  By the light of the lantern in his hand, Adam made his way carefully, inspecting his surroundings. There were several desks lined up, one large and a few smaller ones. A blackboard was smeared with dust and old chalk. A large map of the world was tacked up on a wall. Its edges were yellowed and curling.

  He supposed this was a schoolroom, or a nursery. He turned about, inspecting the place. A globe, a low shelf stacked with books…There was a door beyond this, with a thin crack of light showing along the floor.

  The light from his lantern caught on a sea of faces, and he hissed sharply in shock, stumbling back. The lantern jostled, casting revolting images helter-skelter around the room. He blinked and swallowed against a tight throat. Before him were placid, blank faces. Dolls. Only dolls. Many of them, lined up and staring like sentinals. The light caught their glass eyes, making them glitter with flat malevolence.

  Unmindful of his encroachment, Helena played on, the music louder and stronger now, with flat chords tolling softly. The sound of her voice greeted him as well, soft and plaintive. She keened a song of mourning to match her playing.

  Adam moved to the far end of the room. He pushed open the door. She was dressed in a white night rail and seated at the pianoforte. Her hands danced swiftly over the keys; her head was bent, her eyes closed.

  As if welded to the sp
ot, he watched her. She sang of longing, and it was so sweet he felt a lump come up in his throat.

  Opening the door further, he winced as a hinge protested. The tiny squeak was loud enough to bring Helena to a sudden halt. Hands poised, body utterly stiff, she whipped her head around.

  Adam stepped into the room. “Don’t stop,” he said.

  She stood. The bench she had been sitting upon screeched as she knocked it backward in her haste, and her hip brushed up against the instrument, almost sending the candelabra toppling over.

  “What’s wrong?” Adam said, advancing. My God, she looked terrified.

  “Why did you come up here?” she demanded. “How dare you! Leave.” Her face crumpled, furrowing. “Please.”

  “I heard you playing.” He held his hand out to her. There was something terribly fragile about her right now. Her whole body was tense. “Come and play some more. Play something for me.”

  Helena couldn’t move. She couldn’t speak, she couldn’t think.

  He was naked.

  He wore only a pair of drawers drawn loosely about his hips, but everything else was completely revealed. Had he no shame?

  His chest was bathed in the light of the three candles set upon the pianoforte—broad, hard, sculpted with strong shoulders and deep grooves where muscle met muscle. She couldn’t keep her eyes from it. His arms flexed in a smooth contraction of sinew as he held out his hand to her, indicating the bench.

  “Please? It was beautiful.” His voice was soft, like the brush of velvet on warm, dry skin.

  Beautiful. He was beautiful, possessed of the masculine sort that stole her voice and thickened her blood so that she could actually feel its clumsy spurts through her veins.

  “I c-can’t,” she stammered at last. “I cannot sing for anyone anymore.”

  “I am your husband, not just anyone.”

  Her husband. Her husband.

  “I cannot.”

  He took a step closer and she had to draw upon every shred of courage she had in her not to flinch. His gaze flickered downward, taking in the thin cotton of her night rail, and she was suddenly aware of the flimsy barrier.

  He didn’t lay one finger on her, but her breasts began to tingle in the most shocking manner as his dark eyes lingered there before moving back up to her face. She crossed her arms over her chest defensively, and the pebbled hardness of her nipples brushed against the back of her hands.

  “You have a beautiful voice,” he said, “and your talent at the pianoforte is extraordinary. I don’t understand why you hide it.”

  “I…I can’t explain.”

  He angled his head at her. “Another secret? Does it not get tiring, Helena, having so many?”

  He stepped closer. She could smell him now. Her nostrils flared and a tight string in the pit of her belly suddenly spasmed with pleasure.

  “Would you kindly back away?” She refused to look at him. All that naked flesh directly in front of her… “I can barely breathe.”

  He chuckled. She didn’t know if it was her imagination that made it sound diabolical. “My being near you makes it difficult to breathe?”

  “You are too close,” she countered, putting her hands up to push him away. Too late, she realized what she had done. Her palms splayed flat onto his wide chest.

  Before she could retract her hands, he captured her wrists and held them where they were. “Helena,” he murmured. “Such a formal name. It doesn’t suit you.”

  “I never liked it,” she said.

  “Shall I give you another? A pet name?”

  She had to giggle. It was a vaguely hysterical sound, fed by the feverish rush stealing over her. “I fear you will call me Eve. You are rather bad at names.”

  “I suppose that means you’ll have to choose the names for our children, then.”

  She hissed in a breath and her heart exploded at once into an ache.

  Children?

  The idea melted her insides, bringing her temperature up. Children. Babies of her own, to love, to cherish and nurture—and she would be a good mother! Not like her own.

  She’d not be so alone if she had a child.

  Children.

  He leaned forward, bending her hands back at the wrists. On his mouth, a dangerous smile quivered, and his eyes danced darkly. She tried to remind herself of all the reasons she must resist him. Bemused, she wondered what was happening to her, why wasn’t she stomping her foot and putting him in his place. She felt paralyzed, caught as surely as the proverbial fly.

  A husband of nobility would be disgusted by her curiosity, but Adam—Adam was a man of a different sort. He was not disposed to delicate sensibilities or starched reserve. He attacked life with vigor. He laughed loudly; he ate voraciously. How, then, would he approach the marriage act?

  The flesh under her hands seemed unbearably hot.

  “I believe I’m going to kiss you. Would you object too much?” Adam asked. She stiffened, but with anticipation, not displeasure, and waited. Wanting surged up and held her still and breathless, and for a miserable moment, when he didn’t do it right away, she recalled the laughter in his voice and thought perhaps he were merely joking. Her eyes searched his and she saw that he was joking. But he was still going to kiss her. His bent head lowered and his mouth touched hers, brushing lightly at first.

  She heard him sigh, as if he were releasing a great amount of pent-up tension, and then he gathered her tighter. She found herself pulled fully against all of that splendid naked flesh as his lips pressed firmly against hers, taking her up and away and into heaven.

  The erotic spark he’d been kindling exploded. His hands cupped the back of her head, holding her as he opened her mouth and dipped his tongue inside the sweet recesses of her mouth.

  The taste of him was like a drug, sending her whirling helplessly out of control.

  She reached around and felt the wonder of the muscled back, shamelessly touching the warm skin. The feel of him was incredible—hard under the smooth skin, shifting muscle as he slid his hands over the sides of her hips in a caress that was exquisitely possessive.

  A loud bang, like the sound of something toppling over, crashed through the silence. A male voice muttered a curse. Howard’s voice. “Blast it, I can’t see a thing. Helena? Are you in there?”

  Helena reacted violently, jerking herself out of the kiss with a cry of alarm. Her eyes locked with Adam’s, wide and startled as her own must be, before she whirled toward the door, her hands clutching at the modest neckline of her night rail.

  “What is going on here?” Howard, holding a single candle in one hand and rubbing his shin in another, peered in through the door. He frowned at them from under his pointed nightcap. “I heard noises. Music.”

  Helena backed away, waving vaguely at the pianoforte. Her other hand came up to cover her swollen lips. “The…I was playing.” After a short pause, she declared, “The pianoforte, I mean!”

  “Good God, Helena. What is that thing doing in the nursery?” As he entered, she saw he was dressed in his nightclothes, with his bandy legs showing from under his nightshirt, his feet stuffed into slippers with curled-up toes like the silly footwear one associated with a jester. With a flowing silk wrapper overtop, he looked like a refugee sheik.

  “I had it moved here, so I wouldn’t disturb anyone. I play at night. When I can’t sleep.”

  “Madness!” he declared. “This place has gone to rot since Auntie’s death.” He squinted at them, finally registering their state of undress. “Dear God, I hope you weren’t…that is to say, I trust I didn’t interrupt.”

  Breaking out of her shock, Helena shot forward, almost knocking Adam over as she brushed past Howard to get to the steps. “You did. You both did. I shall play no more.”

  The shadows swallowed her whole. Howard frowned, staring after her before turning back to Adam.

  “I knew it. She’s gone completely and utterly out of her mind. A veritable loon,” he pronounced, shaking his head. Then he disappeare
d as well.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Kimberly came in while Helena was fixing her hair the following morning.

  “Yer cousin is preparing to leave this afternoon, as soon as he concludes his business with yer father.” Her small, watery blue eyes shifted briefly to the bed. Helena noticed how she covertly inspected the neatly folded counterpane and barely creased linens, then gave Helena a narrow look.

  “I am sure they will be busy all morning.” Helena gazed at the woman through the pier glass, keeping her poise with an effort. “Is Adam…is Mr. Mannion in meeting with them?”

  Kimberly’s freckled forehead creased. “What would yer husband have to do with the running of the estates? He didn’t come here lookin’ to make money, girl, but to get some to spend.”

  The sour reminder sat like lead in Helena’s stomach. She set about pulling on her stockings. “He’ll have plenty to spend, I should think. Father was uncommonly generous with him. No doubt our London solicitors will have an apoplexy when Howard hands them the papers.”

  Howard was her father’s protégé in the running of the Rathford holdings, which was only proper, as he would eventually inherit the title. The son of George’s cousin, he was the only male relative eligible to receive the few entailed estates, most of which still yielded a modest income, as well as the right to the heraldic arms. This house, however, was not the family seat. It had been built by Helena’s parents early in their marriage from the funds her father had furnished through some excellent business investments in India. Therefore, Helena knew that, by provision of her father’s will, it would always be her home.

  “Aye, he’s got a fine fortune now. I wonder what he’ll do with it, do ye think?”

  “No doubt,” Helena said bitterly as she slid her leg into a stocking and secured the garter, “my husband is eager to spend it on his various pleasures and his plump and pretty birds of paradise.” She jerked so hard she tore a small hole in one stocking and had to toss it in the dustbin and fetch another.

  Her eyes stung. Damn the man. He had kissed her like…like she was a trollop. He had no right to do that. He was nothing but an unprincipled opportunist, a mercenary, a cad—even if he was her husband!