“I’ll be back,” he promised, but the expression on the dog’s face called the promise into doubt. “I swear it.”
God, he was an idiot. But he wasn’t stupid. He knew himself well enough to recognize the slithery feeling in the pit of his belly as old-fashioned—and well-deserved—shame.
He went back into the house. He had a life to get back to, and a fortune to make. In fact, he had lingered here too long already. Opportunities were slipping by every day, and they weren’t going to come to Northumberland. No. If he were going to make his stake in the world, he had to go to London. There was nothing he could do to change that.
The Royal Exchange—that was where he needed to be. His luck at the tables and at the track had betrayed him in the end, but those endeavors relied too heavily on the fickle whims of Lady Fortune and not enough on the power of one’s ability to comprehend, filter and analyze information about the complex world of trade and the burgeoning industries just now venturing out of cottages and into factories. This was his time, long in coming, and he was supposed to be delighted to be leaving this ghoulish old pile of stones and finally seeing his plans through.
“Sir,” Mrs. Kent said, “your valise has been loaded onto the carriage. Was it just the one piece?”
“Yes, thank you.”
He supposed he should find Helena and say his farewells.
A searing heat ripped a straight line from his throat to his gut. Last night, he had won his freedom by making love to her. But he had this feeling he had lost something, too.
He didn’t feel quite himself this morning.
Ignoring the niggling pangs of conscience, he went upstairs to find his wife. He came across her in the hall, looking staggeringly lovely in a violet dress embroidered with pink and yellow sprigs. Her hair was fixed in a very simple, very elegant sweep. Last night, he had sampled how soft it was as it twined around them. His groin tightened and he steered his thoughts to tamer subjects.
“I understand you are leaving,” she said. She sounded very prim, very flat.
“I have to. I have business in London.”
“I see.” Cool, aloof, nearly regal—this was the Helena of the painting in the parlor. She was hurt. The tilt of her head, the clipped words were as easy to read as a newspaper headline. She had a right to be. Suddenly, he was overwhelmed with an absolute conviction that he was the lowliest of worms.
“I’ve been away for so long,” he explained. “I need to talk with my solicitor. You see, he’s my investment advisor as well, and we have to meet about our strategy.”
“I understand.”
“Why don’t you come?” he blurted.
She stared at him, those blue ice-chip eyes of hers thawing. “What?”
Why hadn’t he thought of that before? “Come with me. My apartments are abominable, but I daresay you aren’t so used to better that you’d find it a hardship. Still, they are in a good area of town and my friends would enjoy meeting you, although…” He trailed off when he saw her face.
“I cannot. You know I do not leave this house.”
“Yes. Right.” He looked down, embarrassed by his impulsive enthusiasm. He’d been practically pleading. “It was a foolish idea. Well. I suppose I shall have to content myself to write to you.”
“I should not wish you to trouble yourself.”
He wanted to kiss her, but Mrs. Kent came in just then with a basket covered with a linen napkin. She smiled maternally as she handed it to Adam. “Maddie insisted. She swore you were likely to starve to death in between stops if you didn’t have provisions.”
He peeked under the napkin at the assortment of baked goods nested in the basket. “Thank you, Mrs. Kent. And tell Maddie thank you as well. I’m going to save at least one of each of these to share with my London mates just to drive them wild with jealousy.”
The housekeeper beamed at him. “Very well, sir. Safe journey. Don’t be away long.” She slid a quick glance at her mistress and moved on.
“Carriage ready, sir,” Jack the footman called from the front door.
Helena started, and for a moment her face showed a flash of naked anxiety. She covered it quickly. “Yes, safe journey, Adam.”
“Thank you.”
She lowered her head. How badly he wanted to touch her.
It was ridiculously difficult to move his feet toward the door. Climbing into the carriage, he was keenly afflicted with this strange, most urgent desire to sweep that frail, willowy body into his arms and carry her up to her bedroom and make love to her in the middle of the blazing afternoon.
He would take his time, stroking her, stirring her….
The images this brought on nearly drove him over the brink of madness all the way to the inn where he was to meet the first post.
Chapter Twenty
The dog, Cain, was a bloody nuisance.
Helena squinted at him, her arms crossed, as she decided what was to be done with the mangy looking thing. Not that she would harm him, but he had to be taught to keep away from the house. Adam had spoiled him, feeding him right from the kitchen door that led to the vegetable garden. Now that dog was out there every day, barking like an Irish banshee.
Maddie never complained about him, and Helena suspected she kept the mutt well supplied. But then, she’d feed a band of demons if she thought it would please her beloved Mr. Adam.
Heaving a sigh, Helena decided to use logic to counteract this annoyance. If Adam had trained the dog to come to the kitchen door for food, she would train him otherwise. Gathering a large bowl of scraps from Maddie, she set off to the stables with Cain yapping at her heels.
“You’ll get them, boy. You just have to learn you’ll be fed out here, in the barn.”
She passed Kepper, who grinned broadly at her. “He’s a mite impatient,” he said, indicating the dog.
“Enthusiastic, too.” She glanced down at Cain’s leaping and bounding and other antics spurred by his delirious excitement. “You would think he’d never eaten before. He is as fond of food as his master.”
She placed the bowl down near the barn door, and Cain dipped his head in, snatched a beef bone with scrap meat still clinging to it, and ran off.
“Probably gone to bury it,” Kepper grunted. “Strangest thing, that. Why they want to put the thing in the ground to rot, I’ll never know.”
Then Cain was back.
“That was quick.” Helena watched him take out another item from the bowl, this time a hunk of crust. Without eating it, he ran into the barn. “Odd dog. I suppose he wants privacy.”
“I wonder…” Kepper started out after the dog. Helena followed.
Cain popped out of one of the empty stalls in the back and raced past them, back to the bowl.
“I’ll be damned,” Kepper said, then gruffly apologized for his rough language.
Helena waved away his explanations as she drew alongside him and stared into the stall. A lovely sad-eyed bitch was lying in a heap of straw. Cain’s offerings were scattered around her.
She was either too finicky for such coarse gifts or just plain not hungry.
Helena stepped inside. “Is she sick? See the way she’s panting? Her tongue is kind of lolling. Kepper, is she in pain?”
“Aye, she’s hurting, all right. Come out of there, my lady. The bitch is getting ready to birth. See her belly? And her teats are all swollen. She’s ready to go.”
Cain came back in with another offering and plopped it down with the others. Noticing that his efforts were not being appreciated by the object of his devotion, he barked at her. It sounded astonishingly like a reprimand.
Helena bit back an unexpected giggle. Adam was always after her to eat, too.
Kepper tsked. “And there is the father of the brood, no doubt. Shame. Makes the litter worthless. Makes the bitch worthless once a mongrel gets to her like that. She was one of the last purebreds we have left. Mr. Mannion talked about breeding her to get the pack back up again.”
“Look. Cain’s worrie
d about her.” Helena was amazed. “He’s bringing her food to cheer her up.”
“She’s not going to eat. She’s got some work to do.”
“Well, you better get him out of here. She hardly needs him about while she’s trying to get those pups out. Kepper, do you know anything about helping a bitch along with her pups?”
The man was so flabbergasted he couldn’t manage to get his mouth closed. “Miss, the bitch will be all right. We should go. It’s not a pretty sight, and—”
“Oh, I’m not leaving her. Get me hot water and clean linens.” At his look, Helena threw up her arms. “I feel like I should help.”
The stable master seemed about to object, but then he broke out in a grin so broad it looked like it might split his weatherbeaten face. “Yes, my lady.”
“And get this anxious father out of here.”
She hunkered down next to the panting bitch and reached out a tentative hand. Her pat seemed to soothe.
“There, girl. It will be all right soon. Do you have a name, huh? I’ll have to ask Kepper when he gets back. You’re one of my father’s old pack, aren’t you? You stuck around when the others ran off.” Settling more comfortably, Helena stroked the canine, and the dog looked up at her worshipfully. “That’s right, I’m going to help you. If Adam were here, he’d know what to do. But we’re just going to get along without him. You know, I’m going to have a baby soon, too.”
Kepper arrived with the water and linens, complaining bitterly about Cain, who was evading him quite skillfully and refusing to go. In the end, Helena permitted him to stay as long as he didn’t interfere. Again demonstrating that uncanny ability to understand, Cain stayed by the door, watching everything but never stirring once to make a nuisance of himself.
Five hours and four pups later, Helena stood and dried her hands as she surveyed the wriggling arrivals. “That’s it, then,” she announced.
“That last one was a problem,” Kepper said, straightening. “I was a bit worried.”
“The tiny thing was just twisted, that’s all.” Helena gazed fondly down at the four squirming pups, clambering over one another looking for a teat to suckle. Their mother was cleaning them, looking tired and serene as she presided over her new brood. “She’d eventually have worked it out. I only helped.”
“Look at that one,” Kepper said with a chuckle, indicating Cain. “Proud as any papa you’d care to meet.”
“He is an extraordinary dog,” Helena agreed. Drawn by their talk, Cain looked over at them and gave a single bark.
“He’s thanking you!” Kepper declared.
Helena laughed and gathered up the soiled linens and put them into the empty bucket. “I’m sure everything will be fine now, and I fancy a good soak and a nap.”
On the way to her room, she passed Kimberly. Helena ignored her look of astonishment, never considering the sight she must present. Thrusting the bucket heaped with dirty linens at her, Helena said, “Ask Mrs. Kent to have water boiled for my bath. And have the tub brought to my room.”
The Irishwoman sputtered, her tiny eyes flared wide with rage. “What would yer mother say to see ye right now? Jes because yer married to trash doesn’t mean ye should be actin’ like it.”
“You’ve used my mother to make me afraid of you. Well, I’m not afraid of you anymore, Kimberly. My mother is…is dead, and I am your mistress now.”
Her heart beat wildly. It wasn’t true that she was no longer afraid of her. She wanted it to be true, but she waited with trembling anticipation for what the belligerent servant would do next.
“Ye’ll be sorry ye spoke to old Kimberly like ye did.” She paused, an evil smile lighting her ugly, flat face.
Helena turned away, losing her nerve. The happiness of the pups’ birth evaporated and she found herself wishing Adam were here. She had come to rely heavily on his strength. It was something of a shock to realize just how much.
“My business dealings are going much more satisfactorily than I had anticipated,” Lord Rathford read, “and I am thinking of traveling north for the Christmas holiday.”
The old man looked up from the bold, scrawling script. Adam Mannion’s hand was as brash and unapologetic as was the man himself.
There was a quickening in his heart as he read over that last part to see if he had understood correctly. Yes. The devil take it—the man was coming for Christmas. Reading further, Rathford found his hope swelling.
“I am thinking often of Helena and wondering after her health. Mrs. Kent should watch for signs of her appetite weakening. She also might suggest daily exercise as this, I have found, has remarkable restorative powers.”
He was worried about Helena.
“I promised her I would write, but as she did not seem receptive to this, I have not done so. Perhaps you would be good enough to convey my regards to her.”
The palsy gripped him, shaking the page so violently Rathford could read no more. He put it down and reached for his glass.
The pain was increasing. The drink wasn’t dulling much any longer.
Slowly he drew in a shaky breath and wondered if it were just the delirium of an old, dying man or if what he suspected could possibly be true. It was what he had hoped for but not dared to believe could happen. Could Mannion have developed true caring for his daughter?
The feeling that seized Rathford rivaled the pain, though it filled him with taut joy instead of the racking aches that sent him seeking bottle after bottle to provide relief. The doctor had given him laudanum, but the tincture tasted vile and made him feel ill. Lately, however, he had begun to think he might use it anyway. He was afraid. Afraid of the pain and of leaving his beautiful daughter without another soul to care for her.
He wasn’t a gambling man, but he had gambled mightily on Adam Mannion. With his own death staring him squarely in the eyes, he’d grasped wildly at the one chance he had seen to provide her with the protection she would need when he himself was gone. And Mannion was a good man.
He winced, remembering the lies he had told. Despite his motivations, Adam had been scrupulously honest, and therefore had deserved no less than honesty in return, but Rathford just hadn’t been able to take that chance. For his beloved Helena, he’d lie to the devil himself and trade his soul in the bargain to bring her back to the beautiful, vibrant woman she once was.
Helena had killed Althea, but she, too, had died that day at the inn. Althea’s curse—still controlling her daughter even from the grave.
Not if he could help it. Before he died, he would see Helena happy. He’d see her laughing and ripe with child, and full of blissful, fulfilling life.
Adam Mannion could give all that to her. Mannion would. He cared about her.
Laying his head back, Rathford concentrated on that instead of the pain that was slowly, slowly leaving his consciousness as he drifted into drink-induced oblivion.
Adam Mannion cared about Helena, and everything was going to be all right.
“Tell us about her,” demanded Delrich.
“Is she truly beautiful?” Urland inquired, leaning across the table.
Adam glanced around at the other patrons at White’s, the premier gentleman’s club in St. James. “Keep it down, fellows. I’ll be strung up before I’ll bandy my marriage about like so much gossip.”
More softly, Urland urged, “Well, is she?”
“She’s very beautiful,” Adam admitted.
“And very rich?” Quinlan asked.
He ground his teeth together. “The reports of the Rathford fortune were not exaggerated.”
“La! My good man, you are to be envied. Tell us how you won her.”
“Well, after she tried to slam the door on my foot, I knocked her on her arse and demanded we be wed. Naturally, no sentient woman could resist such tactics, and we were bound together in holy matrimony as soon as the banns were read.”
All four of them gaped at him.
Simpson said, “Really?”
Quinlan was irate. “Of cours
e not, you dolt. No doubt Adam doesn’t want it revealed how he cajoled and romanced the poor girl. God knows no woman can resist his charms once he turns them on to full capacity.”
“Actually,” Adam mused with a half smile, “the woman proved remarkably stalwart.”
“She gave you a hard time, did she?” Delrich exclaimed, his face alight with his love for juicy details.
“Well, she isn’t an idiot, Del,” Adam snapped. He was irritated with the lot of them. Their routine of mischief and various and sundry pointless activities seemed suddenly arduous and completely devoid of attraction. “It wasn’t difficult for her to grasp the fact that it was her fat purse that had me hieing off to the north country and proposing marriage to a complete stranger.”
“Ah, God save you. An intelligent woman, eh? She sounds like a shrew.”
He was genuinely offended. “Indeed not, although if that is the manner in which you define a girl who spots a fortune hunter when she sees one and lets him know she’s got his game, than I cannot argue the charge.”
“I can’t believe you actually went through with it. It was such a wild idea. Only you, Mannion, could make it work, by Jove. Blast you, but you have a way with the women!”
Urland narrowed his eyes. “What exactly happened? You were up there a good long time, after all. I mean, did you seduce her, force her to compromise herself? Is that how you got her? What, Mannion? Give over.”
“Nothing so tawdry.” Not to say the thought hadn’t occurred to him, Adam had to admit with a pang of shame. “I spoke with her father, and he was amenable. She…she needed a bit more convincing.”
The men chuckled knowingly. He scowled, shooting murderous looks to each one in turn.
“I don’t know why you’re so annoyed.” Urland, the worst tempered one of the bunch, bristled. “We are merely curious. I mean, who cares, after all? It’s not like you’ll be having to see her again.”
There was a tense pause before Adam said, “Actually, I am returning for Christmas.”
The Sleeping Beauty Page 14
