Still, he had taken note that something was different about Helena this evening.
Gabe could not quite determine what it was. However, it was there, hovering between them, almost as tangible as the golden curl which oft seemed to fall across her cheek. He found it most endearing, that curl.
In fact, he found her most endearing.
And enthralling.
Beautiful, too.
By God, he was falling beneath his wife’s spell.
It was happening too quickly. They were moving too quickly. Had he learned nothing from his parents’ destructive union?
Apparently not. Because ever since the fateful evening when he had vowed he would not share her bed, he had been bedding her at every opportunity. Not necessarily involving a bed. He had made love to her on the chaise longue in the library, against the wall of his study, on the carpeted floor of an anteroom, and once—though he had previously doubted the facility of such an action—in his carriage.
The unholy urge to bed her everywhere arose within him now, and not for the first time. Wickley House was rife with possibilities. The kitchens. The larder. The guest rooms. The emerald drawing room. The stairs. The portrait gallery. The mews. The gardens…
Damnation. This was doing nothing to ease the sudden tightness of his trousers.
He rose as the song came to a close and Helena stood, turning to face him.
“Brava, my dear,” he said. “Listening to you play was a delight.”
She sent him a small smile. “Thank you, my lord.”
Again the notion struck him that there was something unusual about his wife this evening. She was more…solemn. Less vibrant, almost like a faded version of herself.
“Is something troubling you, Helena?”
She moved past him, crossing the Axminster to the wall where his sister’s portrait hung. “If something was, why should it be your concern?”
He did not miss the edge to her voice, but he chose for the moment to ignore it. “You are my wife. Of course if you are troubled, it is my concern.”
That emerald stare studied him. “It is because I am a duty to you?”
Yes and no. But he would fret over the no later.
He inclined his head. “I take all my duties seriously.”
“And your honor and reputation,” she observed.
“Yes. I do my utmost to live in the mold of my grandfather.” He paused. “All too often, I fail.”
Her lips tightened. “Because of me, you mean.”
“Because of my weakness for you,” he corrected.
“Your weakness.” She said the word as if it were an epithet.
Obsession had been the obvious choice of word. He had ignored it. However, it seemed the word he had decided upon instead was no better. The expression upon his wife’s lovely countenance was distinctly unenthused.
He attempted to explain. “I ought to have been strong enough to resist the pull I have felt for you instead of allowing myself to become ensnared in your plotting to ruin yourself. It is my own failing.”
“You consider our marriage a failing?” she asked next.
“I consider my conduct a failing.” He moved toward her, attempting to close the chasm he had created between them with proximity. “Our marriage has proven pleasant. Do you not find it so?”
Better than pleasant, at least when they found each other in the darkest hours of night.
“I cannot say what I find it just yet. I fear you will resent me forever, Gabe.” She cocked her head, studying him intently. “What shall happen if I do something to displease you? Or if I should cause you scandal?”
He stiffened, stopping just short of her, the claret-red of her silken skirts brushing his trousers. “Do you intend to cause me scandal?”
“Not if I can help it.”
That was not the response he had been looking for, but he ought not to be surprised. She was the lady he had spent so much time chasing about London whilst she attempted to ruin herself. Her willingness to do so with any man she could cozen into her scheme returned to him, nettling. A woman with her passionate nature…
Shelbourne claimed she fancied herself in love with him.
Love begot nothing but hurt and devastation.
Love could so quickly fade and turn to enmity.
“I will not accept you taking lovers, Helena,” he bit out.
She flinched as if he had struck her. “Is that what you think of me?”
“What am I to make of your own words?” He raked his fingers through his hair. “Why should you cause a scandal, if not by cuckolding me? I cannot think of any other means. Most society marriages involve husband and wife turning a blind eye to each other’s sins.”
Her chin tipped upward in a familiar show of stubborn defiance. “Would Lady Beatrice have taken lovers?”
Damn it, how had they come to this impasse? One moment, he had been listening to her play, and the next they were at each other’s throats.
“It hardly matters what she would have done,” he growled. “She is not my wife. You are.”
“Yes, but I am the wife you did not want, am I not?” she asked.
There was no good way to answer her question.
“I want you,” he rasped, irritated with himself at the hoarseness in his own voice. “Let there be no question of that.”
He wanted her endlessly. Every way he could have her. He desired her in a way he had not thought possible, and making love to her did nothing to quell the ache within him. Rather, it just made him long for her even more.
“You desire me.” Her voice was cool. “That was never in question. Your wanting me as your wife, however, always has been.”
He was a confused mass of emotions. Ever since he had kissed her for the first time, he had been tangled in knots. Knots which only grew tighter and more complex with each passing day. He had spent so much of his life fearing he would make the same mistakes as his parents had. Grandfather’s maxims were so ingrained in him as to be a part of him, no different than a limb.
And yet, the woman before him vexed him.
She entranced him.
She brought him low.
“Is not desire enough for us to build our union upon?” he countered.
“You say nothing of love,” Helena pointed out.
Ah, there they were. At the crux of the matter and the heart of all the problems his parents had faced in their disastrous marriage.
“Love is not the proper foundation for a marriage.” Grandfather’s words, touted so oft. Not his own.
But he believed in the truth of them.
Helena’s eyes flashed with fire. “And what do you consider the proper foundation for a marriage, Gabe? Mayhap we should have discussed this before we wed, because I am beginning to suspect the two of us have vastly different opinions on the matter.”
“Mutual respect,” he answered easily. “Politeness. Treating each other with perfect courtesy.”
Also Grandfather’s suggestions. Excellent ones, Gabe thought.
Apparently, his wife, however, did not.
She shook her head. “But why not love?”
His response was instant. “Love is a dangerous emotion, quick to change. When it is destroyed, it cannot be repaired. Believe me on this. I witnessed the hell my parents’ own union became. It ended with both them and my sister dead, my sister as a result of their selfish, reckless actions.”
He hated the tremor in his voice when he mentioned Lisbeth. Hated even more the sudden fit which hit him at the reminder of what she had endured. His chest tightened. His vision grew dark around the edges. Breathing became a struggle. His heart pounded furiously against his chest.
He froze, giving in to his old demons once more.
Helena sensed the moment her husband’s attack was imminent. His entire demeanor altered. He stiffened, and his eyes darkened from sky blue to navy, his pupils wide and obsidian.
She wondered again at the full story of what had happened to his sister. S
he had witnessed the reaction that came over him, and she knew what to expect by now. Regret and guilt washed over her in unison as she reached for him, cupping his cheeks and forcing him to meet her gaze.
“Look at me, Gabe. Breathe. I am here.”
His skin was rough with the shadow of his whiskers and slick with an abrupt sheen of perspiration. He inhaled slowly, gazing at her as if he did not see her. He was somewhere else, though his physical body was present. It was as if he had descended into the hells of the past, where no one and nothing existed but his painful memories and the ghosts that haunted him.
She caressed his jaw. Soothingly ran her hands over his dark hair. “Talk to me, my love.”
His breath wheezed. “Can’t.”
Fair enough. It would not do to push him too much. Mayhap she had already pushed him far too much this evening, driven by Lord Algernon’s hateful visit and her own roiling fears over the decision she must make.
She did the next thing that felt natural in that moment, and she took her husband into her arms. She embraced him, pressing a kiss to his cheek, to his ear. “You are with me. You are safe. The past cannot hurt you now.”
He shuddered, and then his arms wrapped around her, his grip so tight as to verge upon painful. But Helena did not care if she would find bruises on her waist by the morning light. If he needed to hold her as if he were a drowning man clinging to shore, she would stand here all night long.
He was so beloved to her.
She would do anything for him, anything to protect him, anything to make him happy and to chase his pain. Even if he did not want her love, even if he believed love was what had soured his parents’ marriage, he could not change the way she felt about him. It was unchangeable. Eternal. Even if he never loved her back.
Was she a fool?
Mayhap.
He was a beautiful, flawed, hopelessly confounding man. But he was the man she loved, and she would stand by his side forever.
“Helena.” He said her name reverently, as if it were a prayer.
As if he had not, minutes before, suggested he feared she would make a cuckold of him. The hurt from his words lingered, simmering just beneath the surface. But she would tend to it later. She would prove to him she was nothing like his parents. For now, he needed her far more than she needed to lick her wounds.
What had Gabe endured, what had he witnessed, to make him into the man he had become?
“Yes, my love.” She ran her hands up and down his spine, caressing him, soothing him. “I am here. I will be here for you always, whenever you need me. This, I promise.”
His heart, which had been racing in a tangible thud against her, seemed to calm. So, too, his breathing. He inhaled slowly, sharply, then exhaled, making the tendrils of hair that inevitably worked themselves free of her coiffure dance and tickle her cheek.
He shifted in her arms, pressing his lips to her skin. “Thank you, hellion. I…want to tell you about Lisbeth. About my sister.”
It seemed too soon. He was still trembling in her arms, and oh how her heart ached at this seemingly omnipotent man, brought so low.
“Hush,” she whispered, still stroking his back. “You need not tell me anything. We shall have a seat on the settee, and I will ring for a tea tray or mayhap something stronger. Would you care for some Moselle? A whisky, perhaps?”
“You.”
She was not certain if his terse response meant that he wanted her alone or if he was asking her to decide what she ought to ring for. In the end, Helena decided to guide her husband to the settee so they could sit down.
Slowly, haltingly, they traveled across the thick Axminster.
“Here we are, Gabe.” She puffed out a breath, for though she was tall and though he had moved on his own, she had put a considerable effort into hauling him to the piece of furniture in question. “Have a seat.”
“You as well.”
Three words. Mayhap she could count it an improvement. A sign his attack was receding.
“Of course,” she said agreeably, attempting to infuse her voice with calm and cheer. “You first, my love.”
He lowered himself to the cushion, then gestured for her to do the same.
How he could appear imperious and demanding when he was not himself, she could not say. However, the Earl of Huntingdon was, indisputably, a law unto his own.
She seated herself at his side as he wished, so near their hips were aligned. She felt him keenly, even through her layers. He seared her everywhere their bodies connected. And she knew he always would. It was simply the way of it between them.
Her heart gave a pang anew at the difficult—nay, impossible—decision before her. Did she dare defy Lord Algernon and invite the possibility of scandal and lies into her life when Gabe had just told her himself that he would not tolerate scandal, that his honor and duty were paramount? Or did she betray her husband by going to Lord Algernon and paying him the funds he required for his silence?
It was a horrible choice, either way.
Given Gabe’s state of mind this evening, she did not even dare broach the subject with him. What she needed to do now was to be as supportive and calming an influence as possible.
His hand shook her from her reveries. Their fingers tangled and held, there in her lap. His touch was warm and reassuring, his grip strong. All signs he was reemerging from the tunnel into which he disappeared in these rare moments.
She turned to him, searching his countenance and noting some of the life had returned to his handsome face. He was no longer the color of ash. “How are you feeling, darling?”
He licked his lips. “I am calming. Forgive me, Helena.”
She would forgive him anything. “Of course. I cannot begin to imagine what might have happened to cause such a visceral response in you, but please know I am here at your side whenever you have need of me.”
He squeezed her fingers. “Thank you.”
She brought their entwined hands to her lips, pressing a kiss to the top of his. “You need not thank me. As your wife, it is my duty to see to your well-being.”
“Duty,” he repeated.
She searched his gaze, fearing another episode loomed since they had returned to a lone word. “Yes, duty. You seem quite familiar with the notion.”
A faint smile flitted with the corners of his lips, another indication he was returning to himself. “A woman once told me that if I said the word duty, she would stomp on my foot.”
And so she had. She was surprised he remembered that day, that conversation in his carriage. It seemed as if it had transpired a lifetime ago now.
“Mayhap she was frustrated with your overbearing nature,” she suggested sweetly, hoping to tease him and further ease his mood.
“I dare say she was.” His eyes seemed to bore into hers as his faculties returned to him and he was once more the bold, strongly opinionated man she had come to know as her husband. “I am imperfect, by nature.”
“As am I,” she agreed readily. “I am sorry for telling Shelbourne what I did, sorry for forcing you to forego your future plans and marry me instead of your paragon Lady Beatrice. My actions were inexcusably selfish. I see that now. You had settled upon your course, and then I upended everything.”
She had been thinking of herself when she had told her brother about what had happened between herself and Gabe. She had known the revelation would hurt the both of them. And yet, she had done so anyhow. To save herself. Because she had cared more about what she would endure as Lord Hamish White’s bride than she had cared about what Gabe wanted.
More and more, she understood what she needed to do on the morrow. How she could make amends for her actions. She could not risk further scandal and upset for Gabe if she ignored Lord Algernon’s warnings. She had gotten them into this infernal mess with her own reckless actions, and she alone could extricate them from it.
“I had settled upon my course, and I do not deny it,” her husband said at her side, taking her by surprise with his smooth
baritone. “However, I am pleased by our marriage. Just as you beg my forgiveness for your actions, I must apologize for my own behavior. I know I have not been the husband you expected; mayhap not even the husband you deserve. Helena, I…I want to tell you about my sister. About my parents.”
It was her turn to squeeze his fingers. “Only if you wish it, Gabe. I will not force it out of you. I want to know, but the choice must be yours and yours alone. You do not owe me your secrets.”
He nodded jerkily. “I am your husband, Helena. It is only right and fair that I tell you my story. My mother and father…they were a love match, both terribly young when they wed. It did not take long for their love to fester and turn into hatred. Father was a jealous man, and possessed of a mercurial nature. Mother was a bit wild. He sought to cage her, she rebelled. They each began taking lovers. My childhood was a tawdry map of furious fighting and volcanic loathing.”
Her heart ached for him. “I am so sorry, Gabe.”
“It is hardly an original tale of woe. Many children are born to parents who do not deserve them. I had it better than most, for I had my grandfather.” He paused, running his hand along his jaw, his countenance taking on a faraway look as memories no doubt returned to him. “My sister Lisbeth and I spent most of our time with Grandfather and our governesses as children, whilst our parents went about their separate lives. We were close, though she was older than I. However, as we progressed in age, we spent more time apart.”
Helena brought their entwined hands to her lips, pressing a kiss to the top of his. She knew what delving into the darkness of his past must be costing him. But she was also appreciative of the rare glimpse he was providing her to the man within. To the boy he had once been.
“My mother died when the cutter she was sailing in with one of her lovers sank,” he continued. “Not long after, I went off to Eton. Lisbeth remained with Grandfather. But it pleased my father to force her to play the part of his hostess at various country house parties he hosted for all his cronies. At one of those parties, Lisbeth was raped.”
Helena could not stifle her gasp of shock. Little wonder he grew so ill whenever thinking of his sister. She could not bear to think what Lisbeth must have endured. “You do not need to continue, Gabe.”
Lady Reckless (Notorious Ladies of London Book 3) Page 23