“Neither do I,” Helena said broodingly. She drank her brandy. It burned on the way down, but pooled pleasantly in her belly with an aftertaste of warm honey. “His name is Stephen Darby. He was a viscount when I met him. Now he’s the Earl of Cambridge.”
“Oh. I see.” Percy paused. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t see at all. You loved him? But I always thought–”
“I was incapable of loving anyone?” Helena muttered into her drink.
“Of course not. It’s just…well…” The duchess twisted her fingers together. “I don’t know how to say this politely.”
“I’m a cantankerous witch who skewers any man who dares approach her?”
Percy’s cheeks reddened. “Yes. That – that does sum it up.”
“I wasn’t always this way.” She took another sip of brandy before setting both glasses aside. It was, after all, only half past one in the afternoon. Another four hours and she could drink to her heart’s content. Until then…until then she would be forced to confront her past with a clear mind and an aching heart. “I told you I married the Earl of Cambridge to save my sister from having to do the same. What I didn’t tell you was that I met Stephen before I was ever engaged. Before I even knew who Cambridge was, let alone that he had a son.”
“I’m sorry,” Percy whispered.
Helena flicked her a glance. “I haven’t even told you the worst part yet.”
“Yes, but I can tell it’s coming, and I wanted to give my sympathies in advance.”
“You’re a dear friend, Persephone.”
“And you’re the best friend I’ve ever had,” the duchess said earnestly. “You and Calliope. If I were to never fall in love, I do believe I would be quite content, for who needs men when you have sisters?”
“You can’t kiss your sisters,” Helena pointed out.
“No, but then sisters can’t break your heart…or your bones,” Percy said softly as she touched her nose, her fingers trailing self-consciously over a tiny bump in the middle of it. A tiny bump that hadn’t been there before she met her husband.
“He won’t find you here.” Helena knew she was repeating herself, but she did not know how else to reassure Percy of her safety. She supposed they could flee to the Highlands or take a ship to the Americas. Change their names and live as vagabonds with no true home. But what sort of life would that be?
Percy might have been in hiding, but she was still a duchess. Why should she have to change her name and flee the country when her husband paraded openly around London with his mistress, dining on champagne and caviar?
Helena was sick and tired of men always getting whatever they wanted, while the women they’d professed to love were cast aside like broken toys as soon as their usefulness had expired.
It was more than unfair.
It was wrong.
“But Lord Cambridge found you here,” said Percy.
“What?” Helena blinked, having lost herself in her thoughts.
“Lord Cambridge. He found you here, didn’t he?” Sliding off the armrest, Percy stood up and walked to the fireplace. She picked up a small porcelain bird off the mantle and ran her thumb across its beak, then set it back down. “Unless you invited him.”
Helena snorted. “I definitely did not invite him.”
“Then if he can find you, surely Andrew could find me.” A puzzled line creased Percy’s temple. “Although I’m confused as to why Lord Cambridge is here. From what little I observed, it was quite obvious the two of you are not…erm…”
“Lovers?” Helena suggested.
“Oh, I didn’t–”
“It’s all right. I was just having a bit of fun.” Crossing her legs at the ankle, Helena slid even farther down into her chair. She toyed with a loose tendril of hair, wrapping it round and round her finger as she conceived of the best way to share her convoluted relationship with Stephen.
“We really only knew each other for one night,” she murmured. “We met at a ball. It was my second season. My mother was determined I was to make a match, and after I tired of dancing with one clumsy suitor after another I escaped to the gardens. Stephen discovered me there, in front of a fountain.”
Percy smiled hesitantly. “That sounds romantic.”
“It was. We talked for what felt like hours, and then we did more than talk.” Her mouth curved at the memory. It wasn’t the last kiss she’d had, but it was most definitely the sweetest. “I believed he was different.” Her smile fell away. “As it turns out, he wasn’t. That was the end of it. Until today.”
“But you said you loved him,” Percy reminded gently. “Isn’t his being here a good thing?”
Helena plucked at a loose thread on her skirt. “I thought I was in love with him. When I was a young girl, I also used to think elephants could use their ears to fly. In hindsight, what I felt was surely nothing more than infatuation. He was strikingly handsome, and wickedly charming, and he was the first man who actually seemed to understand me.” Pensive, she reached for the brandy and took a sip, her bottom lip lingering on the smooth edge of the glass. “More than anything, I desperately wanted to be understood.
“The ton saw me as just another pretty debutante, all wrapped up in bows and ribbons and searching for the first wealthy suitor who would have her. But I was more than that.” I am more than that, she reminded herself. “Stephen found me amusing and clever instead of simply beautiful. And perhaps…perhaps I did fall in love with him that night. Just a little. But if I did, it was only love at first sight. It was never meant to last to sunrise.”
“Why not?” Percy asked.
“Because love at first sight is nothing more than fodder for poets.” Tilting her head back, Helena finished the first glass of brandy and reached blindly for the second. “I was a silly girl who didn’t know what I was promising.”
“What did you promise?”
“To wait.” When her chest tightened, she took another swig of brandy. “Stephen was leaving the next morning on his Grand Tour, and he asked me to wait for him. I promised I would.”
“But you didn’t,” said Percy quietly.
“No.” She swallowed hard. “I didn’t.”
“I believe in love at first sight, you know.” Leaving the fireplace, Percy went to the same window where Stephen had stood only a few minutes ago. “Now you think I’m silly,” she said when Helena remained silent.
“No,” Helena corrected. “I think you’re…idealistic.”
“I knew Andrew for eight months before I accepted his proposal.” Though her voice remained light and unaffected, Percy’s spine was as stiff as a board. “We went to the theater together. He took me on long carriage rides through Hyde Park. He dined with my family, and we danced at too many balls to count. I truly believed I knew him. I truly believed we were in love. We were married for less than a week when he struck me the first time.”
“Percy.” A bit unsteady on her feet, Helena nevertheless stumbled to the fireplace and gathered the duchess in her arms like a mother would her child. “I’m so sorry that happened to you. It wasn’t your fault. Any of it.”
“I know that now.” Although a tremble went through her entire body, Percy kept her chin held high just like Helena had taught her. “But my point is that love does not adhere to a certain timeline. You can know someone for eight minutes and love them for the rest of your life. Or you can know them for eight months and end up bleeding in an alley until two angels come to your rescue.”
On a soft laugh, Helena rested her head on Percy’s shoulder. “No one has ever called me an angel before.”
“It’s what you are, for taking me in. Few would have dared risk the wrath of a powerful duke.”
“Men stopped intimidating me a long time ago.”
“Even wickedly charming earls?” Percy ventured.
“Especially those.”
“Do you think he’ll come back, your Stephen?”
“First of all, he’s hardly my Stephen. Second of all…” She thought abo
ut it for a moment, then shook her head. His promise/threat notwithstanding, she saw no reason for Stephen to linger. “I don’t think so. I believe he got what he came for, which was to thoroughly humiliate me.”
“How did he do that?”
“By telling me who my benefactor is.”
Percy’s eyes widened. “He did? How could you not tell me this first and foremost! Who is it?”
“Stephen. Stephen is my benefactor.” Just saying the words out loud caused her teeth and belly to ache as if she’d eaten too many sweets.
“But why–”
“Out of some perverted sense of obligation, I suppose” Helena said, interrupting her friend with an irritated huff of breath. “He cut me off completely when his father died, then apparently felt bad enough about it to secretly become my benefactor, and now he’s here to cut me off again.”
“Oh.” Percy’s brow creased. “That’s…”
“Absurd?” Helena said. “Insane? The most convoluted thing you’ve ever heard?”
“Interesting. I was going to say interesting.” Percy felt for Helena’s hand, then linked their fingers together and squeezed. “But then, men have always done very interesting things for love.”
“Stephen doesn’t love me,” she scoffed.
Percy gave her a knowing look. “And you don’t love him either, right?”
“That’s right.”
“And you wouldn’t mind if he returned London and you never saw him again?”
“Of course not. In fact, I hope that’s precisely what happens.”
But if that were true…why did she suddenly feel so disappointed?
Well, that could have gone better.
As he stared blindly at his tankard of ale, Stephen cursed himself for everything he’d said to Helena during their fractious encounter.
And everything he hadn’t.
The plan had been a simple one. Collect his debt and wash his hands of her. But there’d been nothing simple about the emotions he had experienced when he saw Helena again. There’d been nothing simple about the heat that had filled his loins when he touched her again. There’d been nothing simple about the intense desire he’d felt to kiss her again.
There was nothing simple about Helena, period.
A fact he’d conveniently chosen to forget on this ill-fated quest for revenge.
Grimacing, he tipped his tankard back and drained what was left of his ale, then signaled one of the curvaceous barmaids waltzing around the dark, dingy tavern for another.
“And a bowl of the stew,” he added, belatedly realizing he hadn’t eaten anything since early this morning when he’d left London.
“Anything else, love?” the barmaid purred as she rubbed up against his thigh.
The invitation was obvious.
So was his body’s response.
Or rather, its notable lack of a response.
“No,” he muttered. “That will be all.”
With a disappointed pout, the barmaid plucked up his tankard and sashayed away. Stephen studied her hips, willing himself to feel something. But the only thing he felt was disappointment that the barmaid wasn’t Helena.
Curling his hand into a fist, he thumped it on the table in muted frustration. He’d genuinely believed that by confronting Helena, he could purge her once and for all. From his mind, from his heart, from his blood.
Instead, he’d made everything infinitely worse.
And this time there was only himself to blame.
When the barmaid returned with his food and drink, he ate quickly. Shoveling the last spoonful of stew into his mouth, he chased it down with the rest of the ale and threw a handful of coins into the empty tankard. The legs of his chair scraped against the wooden floorboards as he stood up, the sound drowned out by the loud swell of voices from the other patrons in the tavern as they fought to outshout one another. Pushing his way out the door, he stepped to the side and drew in a lungful of cool spring air, his gaze automatically drawn up to the stars glittering like diamonds in a black, velvet sky.
The same stars had looked down on him the night he’d met Helena. Slipping his hands into his pockets, Stephan inwardly marked off one constellation after another, beginning with Orion and ending with Cassiopeia. Named after a beautiful and vain Ethiopian queen, Cassiopeia cut a jagged line through the inky darkness. It was Helena’s favorite constellation, he recalled. Although he couldn’t remember her reason.
He had been too busy admiring the moonlight in her hair.
God, how she’d taken his breath away. He’d never imagined he would be the sort of fool who fell in love at first glance, but all it had taken was one look at Helena and he had fallen so hard and so fast, he was still trying to catch his breath four years later.
If only he hadn’t left on his damned tour. If only he’d stayed in London. If only he’d courted Helena properly.
If only.
If only.
If only.
With a shake of his head, Stephen set off towards the small house at the edge of town he’d rented. There were rooms above the pub, but he liked his space, especially at night when he couldn’t sleep for thoughts of a certain green-eyed temptress. In his private chambers at home, his midnight pacing had worn a path in the rug beside the bed. Every time he looked at it in the light of day, he was filled with self-loathing, and he always promised himself that tonight, tonight would be the night he wouldn’t dream of her.
But despite his claim to the contrary, Helena wasn’t the only one who couldn’t keep promises.
Bloody hell, he needed her out. Out of his dreams, out of his head, out of his heart. She was like a splinter stuck under his skin. One he’d allowed to fester for far too long. It was only a matter of time before infection set in if it hadn’t already. And then what the devil would he do? Continue to obsess over her every day for the rest of his life?
He couldn’t think of a worse hell…or a sweeter heaven.
Having reached the gate that guarded his temporary accommodations, Stephen wrapped his hands around the smooth iron bars and closed his eyes. He shouldn’t have felt this way. Helena had married his father, for God’s sakes. Of all the men in England, she’d chosen him.
And despite that, Stephen would still choose her.
His traitorous heart would always choose her.
Which was why he needed to rip the damned thing out of his chest, one broken splinter at a time.
Chapter Eight
If there was one thing guaranteed to boost Helena’s spirits, it was shopping. Which was why, at half past nine the following morning – a deplorable hour for anyone to be awake, unless they were, in fact, shopping – she set out for town, leaving Percy behind to work on a painting she’d begun the day before.
“Ives, be a dear and bring these out to the carriage, won’t you?” she asked sweetly.
His gaze falling to the enormous pile of boxes and bags at her feet, Ives raised a brow. “And just where would you like me to put them?” he said, his voice ringing with unmistakable sarcasm. “The floor is already full, and I don’t fancy having to ride back on the roof.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Helena rolled her eyes. “Put the boxes on the roof. I’m sure the driver can find some rope to tie them down.” Opening a bag, she lifted out a large poke bonnet adorned with clusters of colorful silk flowers and perched it on her head. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re fortunate to have a benefactor who can afford such an expensive hat,” a masculine voice drawled.
On a sharp intake of breath Helena froze, then turned ever-so-slowly to discover Stephen standing directly behind her.
“Ives,” she said, not taking her eyes off of Stephen, “could you please see if I left my gloves in the chocolate shop?”
“Your gloves?” said the lady’s footman, visibly confused. “But you’re wearing them.”
“My other gloves, Ives.”
“Oh.” His eyes widened. “Oh. Yes, of course. Right away.”
“What are you still doing here? Are you following me?” she hissed.
“And if I were?” he challenged; his expression smug as he arched a brow.
She didn’t have an answer, other than to cross her arms and glare at him. “I’ve nothing else to say to you.”
“I believe the small store you’ve just bought speaks for itself. Trying to use up the well before it goes dry, lamb?”
“And if I were?” she asked with a haughty toss of her head.
“I suppose I could hardly fault you for it. A leech does what it needs to survive.”
“You would know!” she retorted.
The corners of his mouth tightened. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Helena let two dandies, complete with monocles and mahogany canes, stroll by before she responded. Normally she wasn’t one who cared about making a scene, but given she and Percy were in the country to avoid drawing attention to themselves, she didn’t think it would be in their best interests to have a screaming match in the middle of the village square.
No matter how tempting it might have been.
“It means if I am a leech, then so are you. So are all heirs. The entire sad, sorry lot of you.” She poked her finger at him again. “The only viable means available to a woman to earn a fortune of her own is to marry, and hope her husband is generous. All a man has to do is be born to the right set of parents and claim his inheritance when he comes of age. Yet women are the ones who are constantly judged for the decisions they are forced to make to ensure their very survival.”
“Are you trying to defend marrying my father for his money?” Stephen said incredulously.
“I am pointing out a fact. And I didn’t marry your father for his money!”
Courting the Countess of Cambridge (Secret Wallflower Society Book 2) Page 6