It was well after midnight when he found himself in the garden of the Shotwick mansion, walking aimlessly, avoiding clandestine couples. The fresh air was a soothing respite to the stifling staleness of the ballroom. He took off his gloves, shoved them into his pocket and flexed his fingers in the cool night, inhaling deeply, realizing at that moment the real reason he was alone in the garden. All he could think about was Helena Phillips. He had watched her on the dance floor whenever he could, trying not to be too obvious in front of his partners. She even caught his eye every once in a while. He knew he wasn’t supposed to encourage himself in that way, but ever since the Roxton musicale he could think of nothing else. Even when he made love to Lavinia, he sometimes imagined it was Helena in his arms.
A couple absorbed in conversation came toward him along the path. He quickly ducked behind the thick trunk of a gnarled tree.
“Ow!” hissed a female voice.
Nicholas turned around in the dark. “Who’s there?”
“Dr. Ramsay?”
He would know her voice anywhere. A tingling heat ripped through his body and ended at his crotch. “Miss Phillips?”
“You stepped on my toe.”
“Oh dear. Are you all right? Did I injure you?” His eyes adjusted in the dark to see her smiling demurely at him.
“No,” she assured him with a soft laugh.
“It seems I’ve been stepping on a lot of toes this evening.”
She giggled. “Did you like any of them?”
“Who?”
“Your dance partners, silly.”
“They’re all very nice and pretty. I don’t think I want to marry any of them, though.”
“But how do you know after only one dance?”
Nicholas drew in a breath. He knew, he just did. “I suppose I didn’t feel anything. Like a spark, or a magnetic pull. I really don’t know how to explain it. There was just no…no attraction.” Like with you.
“You make love sound so scientific, Doctor,” she remarked with another giggle.
“Shh! Miss Phillips, we really oughtn’t be alone in the garden like this.”
“No,” she agreed with amusement. “We really oughtn’t.”
“What are you doing here, anyway?”
“I could ask the same of you, Dr. Ramsay.” She sighed. “It was so stifling in the crush of the ballroom. I’m supposed to be in the ladies’ retiring room at the moment. But then I saw one or two of the ladies going out into the garden, and the lure of the starlit night was simply too much. I suppose they’re escaping to the arms of their lovers with stars in their eyes.” She sighed melodiously. “I have to content myself with the consolations of this old elm and the twinkle in the night sky.”
Nicholas cursed the elm for offering comfort to Helena Phillips before he did. “I would have to agree, Miss Phillips, that being out amongst the stars and the trees is far more enjoyable than the disappointments of the dance floor.” It seemed particularly dark, as if Lord Shotwick, or more likely Lady Shotwick, had purposefully left sections of the garden unlit. “Is stargazing another one of your pursuits?”
“Come,” she said invitingly as she moved deeper into the recesses of the ancient tree. Nicholas was compelled to follow.
“Look up. You can see the constellation Virgo between those branches.” She pointed. “That’s Spica—the brightest star.”
Miss Helena Phillips surprised him at every turn. “How wonderful,” he murmured.
“There are various stories about who Virgo represents. My favorite is Demeter. She is the goddess of grain, of agriculture. She holds Spica—”
“Ah, yes, Latin. An ear of grain.”
“Yes! She holds an ear of grain in her hand against her thigh, and another is held upward.” Helena drew the goddess with her finger against the sky. “Do you know the story?”
He did, but Nicholas just wanted to listen to her melodious voice. “I’d love to hear it,” he said as he leaned against the trunk of the elm.
She smiled. “Demeter had a beautiful daughter, Persephone, a girl pure of heart and soul who was her pride and joy. One day, Persephone was innocently picking flowers in a meadow when the ground suddenly opened and out of the fissure came Hades, the god of the underworld, riding fiercely in his black chariot. Hades coveted the beautiful Persephone and wanted to make her his bride. He grabbed her viciously and whisked her away to his kingdom in the center of the earth.”
Helena’s countenance grew earnest, her voice carrying a touch of intensity. She loved telling stories, it was clear. Probably because she loved reading them. Nicholas sank back farther against the thick trunk, contented, his heart swelling with the shared joy of her words.
“Besieged with grief, Demeter went looking for her daughter but could not find her anywhere. She wandered the earth for four months, fasting, tearing her hair, pleading with the gods and man to help find her daughter. Her grief was so terrible the earth grieved with her. There was no sunshine, no warmth, only rain and snow and ice. The fields remained barren and mankind began to die because of her mourning.”
She painted the story with her hands, expressed the emotions in her intonation, her passion and utter engrossment affecting. Nicholas’ heart thumped a little harder in his chest.
“Finally, Helios, the god of the sun, revealed to Demeter the horrific fate of her daughter. Hades refused to give up the beauteous girl, now no longer an innocent, having been subjected to his vile desires—”
Nicholas was unable to tamp down his own improper desires, his cock stirred
“Until Zeus intervened. But Persephone had eaten four pomegranate seeds whilst a wretch in the bleak underworld, and as a consequence, Zeus required four months of the year she should endure with Hades as his queen. The rest of the year she would be on the earth, the center of her mother’s loving attention.” Helena bit her lip shyly. “And that’s the story of the seasons. Four months of cold and winter, eight of warm spring, summer and autumn.” She smiled at him.
“Thank you.” He smiled back. “You are a very engaging storyteller.”
She blushed, or Nicholas imagined she blushed in the gray of the night. A moment of silence passed and he realized they were quite alone. In the dark. A little spark of lust rose insistently inside him.
“And what about you?” he asked, trying to distract himself. “Did you like any of your partners?”
“Well, the best dancer was Lord Aldersley, the son of the Duke of Underwood. But all he talked about were his sheep.”
“Animal husbandry is quite scientific, you know. You may grow to like being a duchess sheep farmer.”
Helena giggled. “You make it sound so interesting. Unfortunately, Lord Aldersley made it sound awfully boring.”
“Well, at least you like him.”
“I liked his dancing. That’s different.”
“Yes, of course. I understand completely.” Nicholas had liked Miss Hardcastle’s dancing too, but not her vacuousness. “One of these days, though, you’ll meet someone you’ll like for more than just his dancing. And, I suppose, you could learn about sheep,” Nicholas offered.
Helena laughed softly. “I suppose. Mama learned about machines because of Papa.”
“Machines?” Unwittingly, an image of Dr. Christopher’s device flashed in his brain.
“Papa designs machines that make metal fittings for railroad cars and undercarriages. When Mama first met him, she knew naught of that. She just knew she loved Papa. So she was inspired to learn and now she consults with him on his business. She was the one who told Papa he should make his machines pleasing to the eye even if only laborers were to use them.”
“They sound well-suited to each other.” Like us.
“They are, very. And I simply do not feel the same way about Lord Aldersley. I like sheep but he certainly does not inspire me to want to learn more about them than I already know.”
Nicholas knew precisely what she meant. “Love as inspiration. Spouse as muse.” You.
“Yes!” Helena looked up at him in the dark. “Isn’t that like the ‘attraction’ you mentioned?”
“Yes, yes, it is,” he agreed. “And I was not inspired to marry and have children with any of my dance partners.”
She grinned at that. “You don’t need to get married to have children, Doctor.”
“Miss Phillips!”
She giggled. “Mama and Papa weren’t married when they had me.”
Ah, yes, the scandal. Damn their impetuous hearts. “Yes, but they eventually got married to raise you, did they not?”
She giggled again, gently, melodically, not cruelly. “You want a woman who will inspire you to make children.”
His cock stirred uncomfortably. “You are incorrigible,” he said with a chuckle. “But yes, I want a family. And a wife who will be my companion and friend, someone with whom I can discuss my work.”
She shifted on her feet and emitted a noise akin to a sigh. “Do you have family now?” she asked quietly.
“Only my brother and my father. We’re not close.” That was a subject Nicholas was most definitely not willing to discuss. “You? Do you have brothers and sisters?” he deflected the question. He already knew the answer.
“No. I am a solitary child. I know no other life, but I think it must be better to have more than one.”
Nicholas empathized. “As long as the brood gets on with each other.”
“But wouldn’t they if their parents got on? Is it such a naive notion to think that if a man and a woman love each other their children would be happy and convivial?”
It was something Nicholas simply had no knowledge of. “Perhaps that would be the case. I suppose you’ll discover the answer when you fall in love.”
Helena shifted her weight from one foot to the other and back again. “What’s it like?”
“What’s what like?”
“Falling in love.”
A spine-tingling shiver shot through him. How the devil was he supposed to answer that? It’s like what I’m feeling right now for you? Well, at least he imagined that was what falling in love felt like. “It’s a sensation of just wanting to be with someone, no matter how mundane the situation. I think magazines and novels will tell you it’s all flowers and carriage rides but really it’s feeling comfortable and elated all at once. I think you’ll know when you’ve fallen in love.”
“And how will I know if he loves me back?”
That was something Nicholas could not answer. He hoped Helena felt something for him, thought she might, but short of outright asking, he really didn’t know. “He might tell you.”
“Then what do I do if he does love me?” she said timidly.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what if he wants to kiss me? I’ve never been kissed before. I wouldn’t know what to do.”
The shiver stirred inside, swirling around his heart. “Never? You’ve never kissed a man?” Why on earth no one had ever tried was beyond his comprehension.
“Never.”
She stepped closer to the elm, to the crook of a large low branch. Nicholas joined her, moving until he could see her face illuminated by the tiniest sliver of pale moonlight. A stubborn root raised above the earth meant he had to be very close to her to get the view. Very close. The warmth of her flesh, her delicate perfume enlivened his senses.
“Is it nice?” she asked eagerly.
Nicholas felt his burgeoning arousal grow more insistent. “Is what nice?” he said, stalling.
“When you kiss Lady Foxley-Graham.” She shifted again, ever so slightly, but enough that her hand touched his. Her bare, ungloved hand.
Every nerve in Nicholas’ body came alive at the contact. “It is very nice,” he choked out.
Her fingers, delicate and soft, threaded through his. “Will you…will you tell me what it’s like?” Her eyes widened at the prospect of merely listening to him tell her about kissing.
Nicholas swallowed hard. “When two people kiss you don’t just feel it on the lips.”
“No?” she asked ingenuously.
“No. You feel it…other places.” As if on cue, his cock twitched to full stand.
“Like where?”
His body ached from self-restraint until he could bear it no longer. He bent his head and brushed his lips against hers, his heart thrilling at how wonderfully soft and warm she was.
Helena flinched a little in surprise, a reaction that only encouraged him, his determination to explore emboldening her. Nicholas pecked gently at her upper lip, then the lower, then repeated the motion more languidly. She placed her hands tentatively on his shoulders, holding herself steady before sliding her hands around his neck, drawing herself more closely to him. An eager pupil, she mimicked his tasting of her by eagerly tasting him back, her sighs of desire natural, instinctive. When he tantalized her with his tongue, she opened her mouth for him, letting him plumb her depths, letting him take his pleasure with a rumbling growl, mewling her yearning approval. She was an absolute natural at the game.
He pulled back, panting, incredulous. “That was your first time?”
“Yes.” She was breathless. “I felt it.”
“Felt what?”
“Felt the kiss in…in other places.”
Damn and blast! It was outright seduction. “Helena—Miss Phillips, we mustn’t do that ever again—”
“No,” she sighed.
“We can’t. Two people in our positions—”
“No.” It came out as a little moan.
“You’re supposed to marry a duke.”
“Or an earl.”
She couldn’t possibly realize what those words meant to him. He had to remind himself he was never going to be an earl, never going to have the lovely Helena Phillips as his own.
But right now she was his. He couldn’t stand it any longer. He had to have her again.
He reached for her, crushing his lips to hers in desperation. This time she knew what to do and confidence gave her leave to delve into her own cravings to touch and feel. Her hands wandered across his waist, gliding along his chest, wrapping around his neck as he leaned her against the crook of the old elm. He pressed his hips against her, and she responded with a tilt of her own, rubbing along his painfully needful erection. Their bodies undulated naturally, their mouths delighted in mutual cadence, she met every one of his actions with an equally enthusiastic reaction.
It would be this perfect when he made love to her.
When, not if…
He was a fool for harboring such fantasies.
Still, she was in his arms at that moment…
His hands spanned her back, her spine flexing and yielding to his hold, arching to give him access to more of her. He trailed kisses down her neck, along her shoulder, down to her heart thumping and pounding like his own. Her perfume, heady with arousal, filled his senses. Her breaths were ragged, each exhale intoned with a plaintive moan, her virgin body yearning for some unknown fulfillment.
It was wrong to lead her astray. He pulled back, still entwined in their dangerous embrace. “Helena, darling, we can’t do this.”
“I know.” She gasped for air. “But I want to.”
“I very much want to as well.” He rested his forehead on hers, feeling the heat radiate from her flushed face. “But we mustn’t.”
She steadied her breath. “Nicholas, is it like that every time?” Her smile, her eyes, her face glowed with contented wonder.
“When you’re with someone you love, yes, it is.”
She emitted a yearning hum.
He shouldn’t have said that, damn it, he shouldn’t have. He shouldn’t lead her to believe he was in love with her, even when he knew damn well that he was futilely fighting the feeling every damn day. Against his body’s wishes, Nicholas released her. “Helena, darling, you must return inside at once.” He studied her in the moonlight. “You may need to fix your hair. And put on your gloves.”
“Yes, Nicholas.” She had regained some o
f her composure.
“I’ll follow in a few minutes. It…it shouldn’t appear…obvious.” He watched her go and heaved a sigh, not of regret but of relief. For one brief moment in time, she had been his. It was the best he could possibly hope for.
* * * * *
Helena did not want to return to the ballroom. She was already dancing on air.
He had called her “darling”.
He had gazed at her adoringly.
He had kissed her.
The handsomest man in the world had kissed her and made her feel wonderful. The warmth of his lips had penetrated her very soul, as well as other very intimate parts of her body. Her breasts still tingled and below, where she touched herself sometimes, she felt sticky and swollen, starved of a satisfaction she did not yet know but now had an inkling of.
Until that moment, the moment when his arms enveloped her, holding her steady as he assaulted her with pleasure, Helena had only imagined such an act. She realized her imagination had been inadequate, lacking in specifics, not knowing what details to fill in. She certainly had not imagined the heavenly sensory experience that touched every aspect of her being. The touch of his fingers, strong yet gentle; the sound of his voice, sonorous and seductive; the look in his eyes, pleading yet determined; the scent of his flesh, heated with desire.
The taste of his mouth…
He tasted soft and comforting. It was the only way she could describe it. She traced a naked finger over her still-sensitive lips trying to relive his touch, his taste.
When you’re with someone you love…
Helena pondered the words over and over. Did he love her? How could he? They barely knew each other. And yet, there was something electric, exciting, so utterly perfect every time they met. She became herself around him. She did not need to pretend to be something she was not, did not need to be dishonest for propriety’s sake. She had been thinking of him since the first time she saw him, then more so after their first conversation, fantasizing he was with her when she pleasured herself and constantly wondering when she might see him next.
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