After the excitement of Almack’s, Helen had expected to endure a sleepless night. Instead, drugged with unaccustomed happiness, she had slept the sleep of the innocent. Unheralded but sure of his welcome, Martin had called to take her driving at eleven. What with entertaining a small procession of afternoon visitors, all agog to hear anything she might have to say about the Earl of Merton, and then dressing for dinner at Hatcham House, Helen found herself once more in Martin Willesden’s arms, waltzing down a ballroom, without having had more than a moment to spend in consideration of his words of the previous night.
‘Tell me, fairest Juno, is it normal for such affairs as this to be so refreshingly free of the jeunes filles?’
Martin’s voice in her ear summoned her wits from besotted contemplation of how very strong he was and how helpless he made her feel. Helen blinked. ‘Well,’ she temporised, glancing about at the crowd and noticing he was right, ‘I suppose it’s because the Hatchams are rather out of the deb set—their own children are all married. And Lord Pomeroy is giving a ball for his daughter tonight, too, so many of the younger folk will be there, I expect.’
Martin frowned slightly. ‘I don’t suppose I can convince you to eschew the larger balls—at least for this year?’
Helen returned his mock-frown with one of her own. ‘After avoiding the ton and the matchmaking mamas for the past thirteen years, the least you can do is allow them a try at you.’
‘But just think how pointless such an undertaking on their parts will be.’ His expression became earnest. ‘Shouldn’t I, in the interests of the social good, and the matchmaking mamas’ constitutions, simply give them all the go-by?’
The music ceased and they whirled to a halt. Taking his arm all but automatically, Helen fell to strolling by his side. ‘By no means!’ She could not yet see where his conversation was taking them. ‘It’s your duty to be seen at the major functions.’
Martin grimaced. ‘You’re absolutely sure?’
Warily, Helen nodded.
‘Ah, well.’ He sighed. ‘In that case, just as long as you’re there to protect me, I suppose I’ll have to attend.’
‘My lord, I cannot be forever at your side.’ She could see where he was headed now.
‘Why not?’
The grey eyes, impossibly candid, held hers.
‘Because…’ Helen struggled to assemble her reasons— her rational, sensible reasons. But, under the power of his grey gaze, they went winging from her head. They had halted by the side of the ballroom and she had turned, the better to look into his face. The eyes holding hers seemed to look deeper, reach deeper, to touch some chord within her and make it sing. Then, as she watched, he was distracted. His eyes left hers, focusing on some vision a few feet behind her.
‘Speaking of protection…’ Martin drew her hand through his arm, securing her by his side.
‘Martin—darling! How positively thrilling to see you again—after all these years!’
Helen stifled a wince at the arch tones. Small wonder that Martin wished to avoid the mesdames if that was the treatment they accorded him. She felt the muscles of his arm tense beneath her fingers. Helen shifted slightly, to stand more definitely by his side, where she sensed he wanted her, and found herself staring at blonde curls much paler than her own, arranged about a face rather older than her own. But not old enough to be a matchmaking mama. The woman cast the barest of icy smiles in her direction before turning big, pale blue eyes on the new Earl of Merton.
The new Earl remained stubbornly silent.
The lady continued unabashed. ‘Such a surprise, my dear. You should have called.’ A look of unlikely ingenuousness suffused the pale face. ‘Oh! Of course. You wouldn’t know! I’m Lady Rochester now.’
For Helen, the penny dropped with the name. She stifled the urge to look up at Martin, to see what he was making of her ladyship’s performance. Lady Rochester was a widow of some years standing, one of those who, while credited with birth sufficient to enter the ton and title sufficient to open most doors, was nevertheless on the outer circle of polite society. No scandal had ever touched her name, but consistent rumour still tarnished it.
Martin’s silence was beginning to strain her ladyship’s smile. But her voice was determinedly conspiratorial when she said, ‘My dear Martin, I’ve so much to tell you. Perhaps, such old friends as we are, we should repair to some place rather more private to review our histories? If Lady Walford will excuse us?’
The last was said with a dismissive smile. Her ladyship reached for Martin’s other arm. Helen stiffened, and would have drawn her hand from Martin’s sleeve except that his hand, covering hers, tightened, strong fingers gripping hers.
‘I think not.’
Helen blinked, very glad that Martin did not use that particular tone to her. Shafts of ice and arctic winds would have been warmer. Intrigued by this by-play, for it was transparently obvious that there was more to the exchange than she yet knew, she watched Lady Rochester’s face pale to blank-white.
‘But—’
‘As it happens,’ Martin continued, repressive coldness in every syllable, ‘Lady Walford and I were about to take a stroll on the terrace. If you’ll excuse us, Lady Rochester?’
With a distant nod, Martin steered Helen past the importunate Lady Rochester, leaving her ladyship to stare, dumbfounded, at their backs.
Within minutes, they were strolling on the long terrace in relative isolation. Helen felt the tension ease from Martin’s long frame. Who was Lady Rochester that she should draw such a violent, albeit suppressed reaction from Martin? Out of the blue, the answer flew into Helen’s head.
‘Oh! Is she the one who—?’ Abruptly, she cut off her words; embarrassment rose to smother her.
Beside her, she felt rather than heard Martin’s sigh.
‘She’s the one who engineered the little drama that saw me exiled from England.’
Engineered? What drama? Helen wished she had the nerve to ask.
Martin stared out over the darkly shadowed gardens, seeing the shadows from his past. He did not want them to cloud his future. There was no one within earshot. ‘When I was twenty-two, Serena Monckton, now Lady Rochester, was a débutante. She quite literally threw herself at my head.’ He glanced down at Helen’s face, and saw the little frown of concentration that dragged at her brows. He smiled. ‘As I told you, I have a constitutional dislike of being pursued. In this case, however, I underestimated the opposition. Serena engineered a compromising situation— and then cried rape.’
Helen’s brows flew but she said nothing.
‘Unfortunately, that little contretemps came on top of the discovery by my father of a rash of gambling debts— nothing overly outrageous, only what was to be expected from a youth such as I was. But my father was determined to keep me in line. Serena’s little ploy was the last straw. He issued an ultimatum.’
Despite his clipped tones, and the effort he was making to tell his story without emotion, Helen heard the pain, dulled by the years but still there, an undercurrent that had sprung to life immediately he had mentioned his father.
‘Either I married the chit or he’d send me to the colonies. I chose the colonies.’ Martin raised his brows, considering his life in brief. ‘All in all, that was the luckiest decision of my life.’ His lips curled. ‘Perhaps I should thank Serena. Without her efforts, I doubt I would be worth quite as much as I am today.’
Helen threw him a soft smile. Hesitantly, and only because she was desperate to know, she asked, ‘Did your father learn the truth later?’
There was a distinct pause before the answer came. ‘No. I never saw him again. He died two years after the event, while I was still in Jamaica.’
Helen did not need to ask herself if she had heard the truth. Every particle of her being knew that she had. No matter how accomplished an actor, no man, she felt sure, could manufacture the emptiness, the intense loss, that vibrated in the deep, gravelly voice. She had heard vague murmurings of the scanda
l in his past. She was pleased that he had told her of it—now she could disregard it.
They paced the length of the terrace to where a series of shallow steps led down to a fountain surrounded by an area of parterre. A number of couples were strolling in the fresh night air, seeking relief from the closeness of the ballroom.
Glancing at the serious face beside him, Martin smiled. She was so easy to read. He felt curiously honoured that she should concern herself with his long-ago hurts. But it was time she smiled again. ‘Can I tempt you from the terrace, fair Juno? I promise not to abduct you.’
Helen looked up and smiled as the implication of his words registered. A disavowal of any negative response to being abducted by him had almost reached her lips before, horrified, she stilled the words. Fancy admitting to a desire to be kidnapped—by a rake, no less! Her wits were becoming thoroughly untrustworthy when he was by her side. She covered her confusion by drawing away and sweeping him a curtsy. ‘Why, thank you, my lord. A brisk turn about the fountain will doubtless clear my head.’
Martin’s brows rose. ‘Does it need clearing? What’s it full of?’
You, was her thought. But his eyes were quizzing her. Determined not to be jockeyed into making any revealing disclosures, Helen put her nose in the air and her hand on his arm. ‘The fountain, my lord.’
His soft laugh set every nerve tingling.
‘As you command, fair Juno.’
Chapter Seven
The Little Season progressed and, with it, Martin’s campaign. By the time the first flurry of balls had faded into memory, and the trees in the Park had begun to shed their leaves, he felt it was time to re-evaluate his position. Helen Walford was his—that was quite clear to him. Hopefully, it would, by now, also be quite clear to the ton at large. Watching his fair Juno from the side of Lady Winchester’s ballroom, his shoulders propped against the panelled wall, he spared a moment in fond amazement that she, alone, was still uncertain on the matter, unsure that the future he had planned for her would ever come true.
He had taken great delight in conveying, by every subtle means at his disposal, just how exciting her future would be. She was fascinated. Her insecurity stemmed, he surmised, from her unhappy marriage—a fact he had no difficulty believing. Arthur Walford must have been all of fifteen years her senior.
‘I wonder…is it possible to tempt you to the card-room?’
At the familiar languid tones, Martin smiled and shifted his gaze sideways to the Marquis of Hazelmere’s face. ‘Unlikely.’
Hazelmere sighed. ‘I thought not. I’ll have to hunt up Tony.’ He clapped Martin on the shoulder and was turning away when he paused to add, ‘Just remember—the sooner you resolve this matter, the sooner you can join us. It doesn’t do to forget your friends.’ With a smile of the most complete understanding, Hazelmere moved on.
Turning back to the ballroom in time to see Helen throw a laughing smile at her partner—Alvanley and therefore perfectly safe—Martin smiled wryly. He had only just arrived, yet the urge to monopolise Lady Walford’s company was growing stronger by the minute. He would resist the tug yet awhile; there was a limit to all things— even the leniency of the ton towards one who they were now convinced had been wrongfully slighted. Martin’s smile grew. In truth, the past no longer haunted him. His only concern was for the future. But the approbation of the ton would be important to the future Countess of Merton, so he was pleased to have secured that elusive cachet.
As to the future itself, he had no doubts. In fact, if he was forced to the truth, he would have to admit that he had made up his mind to wed Helen Walford the instant he had seen her standing before the Hazelmeres’ fireplace. The only consideration that had kept him from a declaration was a desire not to startle her—or the ton. The ton was now taken care of. She was still slightly nervous over what she knew would shortly be her fate, but, if anything, that touch of the wide-eyed innocent only made him more eager to make her his.
The music came to an end and the guests milled across the floor. Conversation rose to cloak the scene lit by the heavy chandeliers. The curls in the ladies’ artfully arranged coiffures sheened; jewels winked about their throats. Their gowns swirled, the colours of spring flowers about the trunks of the darker-garbed males.
Juno had her own little court. Over the heads of the throng, Martin watched as she smiled and traded quips. Her gown of palest amber became her fair charms to admiration. With an inward glow, he noted the way her eyes lifted every now and then to scan the company. She had yet to see him. Then, as he watched, waiting for the right moment to make his presence known, a fop in a coat of a peculiar shade of green insinuated himself at Helen’s side.
Martin came away from the wall. He started across the floor, automatically smiling and nodding at those he knew, his attention focused on the man beside Helen. He had noticed him, and his interest in Lady Walford, before. Discreet enquiry had elicited the information that he was one Hedley Swayne, Esquire, of a small but prosperous estate in Cornwall. Despite the lack of firm evidence, it was entirely possible that Hedley Swayne had indeed been behind Helen’s kidnapping. The ton had noted a singular tendency for Mr Swayne to pay assiduous court to Lady Walford but had dismissed this as a mere smokescreen erected by the gentleman with a view to being regarded as fashionable; none could imagine the undeniably fashionable Lady Walford having any serious interest in a man a good half-head shorter than herself and distinctly less high in social rank to boot. Martin had seen Hedley Swayne at numerous gatherings, but this was the first time the fop had had the temerity to approach Helen.
Long before he reached her side, Martin sensed Helen’s unease. Mr Swayne had picked his moment; there were none but the more youthful of her cavaliers at present about her. As he paused to dutifully exchange compliments with an ageing dowager, a friend of his mother’s, Martin saw Helen frown.
‘I assure you, Mr Swayne, that I am not such a weakling as to need to repair instantly to the terrace immediately a dance is ended.’ Helen tried not to sound waspish but Hedley Swayne would try the patience of a saint.
‘I merely wished to explain—’
‘I don’t believe I wish to hear any explanation, Mr Swayne.’ Helen wished it were permissible to glare. She came as close as she could, viewing the pale face and long, pink-tipped nose of the unfortunate Mr Swayne with every evidence of aversion. If the man had any sensibility at all, he would leave. Her court had deserted her, prompted by his declared intention of walking with her on the terrace. As if she would risk a terrace in his company! But she knew from experience that Hedley Swayne was all but irrepressible. She compressed her lips in reluctant resignation as she watched him draw breath to put forward his next suggestion. Why wouldn’t he just leave her alone?
‘Mr Hedley Swayne, I presume?’
The languid tones surprised Hedley Swayne, making him look rather like a startled rabbit. As his eyes rose to take in the gentleman now by her side, the huge floppy bow at his throat, hallmark of the well-dressed fop, all but quivered in agitation. Swallowing a sudden urge to giggle, Helen turned slightly, putting out her hand to Martin. He took it and tucked it into his arm, but spared only a glance for her before returning his attention to her persecutor.
Under the grey gaze, Hedley Swayne blinked nervously. ‘Ah—I don’t believe we’ve been introduced, my lord.’
Martin noticed he did not say he did not know who he was. He smiled coldly. ‘Not exactly. Your reputation goes before you, you see. I believe we just missed each other— in Somerset, some weeks ago?’
At the heavy meaning underlying the polite words, Hedley Swayne’s pale eyes grew round. He blanched, then flushed. ‘Er…ah…’
Martin’s gaze grew steely. ‘Just so.’
Helen watched in appreciation. It must have been Hedley behind her kidnapping after all. Then the musicians started playing the music for the next dance—a waltz.
Eyes still holding Hedley Swayne’s, Martin smiled, letting dire warning show beneath
his urbanity. ‘My dance, I believe, my lady. Mr Swayne.’ With a nod for the hapless Hedley, Martin drew his future wife firmly into his arms, a little shocked at how intensely possessive he felt.
Slightly surprised at being denied the opportunity to take proper leave of Mr Swayne, irritating though that gentleman was, Helen nevertheless could not find it in her to cavil. Waltzing with Martin was a heavenly delight—she had no intention of losing so much as a moment of her rapture over something as inconsequential as a fop called Hedley Swayne.
‘Has he been bothering you?’
Helen glanced up to find a frown gathering in the grey eyes fixed on her face. Bother Hedley! She shrugged. ‘He’s totally innocuous, really.’
‘Innocuous enough to have you kidnapped.’
This time, Helen sighed. ‘There’s no need to worry about him.’
‘I assure you it’s not Hedley Swayne I worry about.’
Helen looked up and was trapped in his grey gaze. Suddenly, she felt breathless, her pulse accelerating. ‘You worry too much, my lord,’ she whispered, dragging her eyes from his.
At her tone, Martin shut his lips on his retort. He was tempted to order her to avoid Hedley Swayne, but, as yet, his jurisdiction did not stretch that far. He placated his urge to ensure her safety with the reflection that, soon, he would be in a position to make sure she saw nothing more of Mr Swayne.
Despite his not having uttered his decree, Helen got the message quite clearly. She felt thoroughly disgruntled when the music ceased, denying her the chance to dwell further on the peculiarly addictive sensation of drifting, light as air, in Martin’s arms. His discussion of Hedley had distracted her and now their waltz—the last one of the night, what was more—was over.
Nevertheless, she made the most of the rest of her evening, going into supper on the Earl of Merton’s arm. She had given up trying to tell herself he was not serious. He was perfectly serious when he wished to be and on the subject of her future he was unshakeable. It was simply not possible to mistake the intentions of a gentleman who made it patently clear that he attended the ton parties purely to dance attendance on one woman. Being that woman made her more nervous than she had ever been in her life.
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