Annoyance flattened her lips. “Caro’s a telltale.”
“She doesn’t like to see me suffer.” He paused. “Surely you want to revisit the pleasures of the flesh—two years of chastity must chafe.”
For a shocked moment, she stared at him. Then the ludicrous situation struck her with full force. She jerked away and collapsed back into her chair, laughing.
“Helena?” West asked when she didn’t stop. “What the devil is the matter?”
“I can’t—” she spluttered and set off on another peal of giggles. To think, this was the man who claimed to understand her. Yet everything he said was wrong, wrong, wrong.
He went down on his haunches and grabbed her shoulders. Genuine concern darkened his expression. “Helena, damn well calm down.”
She sucked in a breath, feeling better for the good laugh, however bitter its cause.
And because she felt better, she admitted the unvarnished truth. “There were no pleasures of the flesh in my marriage. Crewe was as useless with a woman as he was with everything else.”
Chapter Four
West had led a full and exciting life. He’d traveled. He’d indulged his sensual appetites, some might say to a fault. He’d experienced human nature in all its rich variety. At thirty, very little surprised him anymore.
Helena’s confession left him speechless. And appalled.
That this glorious creature had never experienced sexual pleasure was too cruel to be borne. His liking for her drunken brute of a husband hadn’t much outlasted that ill-fated visit to Shelton Abbey when Crewe met his bride. But this went beyond all the evil he already knew of Gerald Wade.
“I won’t have you feeling sorry for me,” she snarled, staring up at him like a deer surrounded by hounds. Except even when she left herself vulnerable, Helena stayed fierce.
Not a deer. A lioness.
West studied her taut, troubled features, and did the only thing he could.
He kissed her.
Her confession called for gentleness. Kindness. Reassurance. But her fire had always lured him. The knowledge that her fire had never had a chance to blaze into magnificent conflagration made him seethe.
And crave.
So when he dragged her up from the chair into his arms, his touch was ruthless. The lips he pressed to hers were hungry, and made no concession to what remained an essential innocence.
She cried out in protest, and her hands clenched on his arms. When he’d caught her, she’d been too startled to resist. Now she went as rigid as a block of wood.
Not as rigid as he was. He’d wanted Helena for months. Years. Touching her, he went up in flames. As volatile as the idealistic, untried boy he’d once been.
More. Now he was a man. His desire was a man’s desire.
Her mouth was unresponsive. But her smoky scent, familiar yet strange, made his head swim. She fitted against him, created for his pleasure. She was a tall, slender woman, and that lissome body drove him mad.
Drowning in heat, he took too long to realize that she was pounding on his shoulders. “What the devil?” he gasped, wrenching free.
Since her marriage, she’d masked her ardent soul beneath intellectual detachment. Now she was incandescent with emotion. Unfortunately the emotion wasn’t passion. Rage set her black eyes glittering.
Her defiance only made him burn to kiss her again. Once, he’d feared that Crewe’s betrayals might crush her tempestuous soul.
Not in a million years.
“I begin to believe you,” he said in a drawl meant to stoke her fury. He didn’t want her taking refuge in defensive coolness. “Crewe didn’t teach you much about kissing. You were better at this when you were sixteen.”
Temper flared in Helena’s eyes like an exploding star. “I don’t want pity kisses,” she snapped. “You will not laugh at me.”
“Idiot girl,” he said with fond impatience, and swept her up, blatantly pressing her against him. “Does that feel like pity?”
“You—” she stammered, drawing back. Astonishment chased her anger away.
“Yes, I want you.” He answered the unfinished question. “I’ve always wanted you. Even when you were another man’s wife.”
Wonderingly she studied him. His candor didn’t seem to have offended her, which was a surprise. “I had no idea.”
“You’ve been locked away from life.” His grip on her arms tightened. “Let me show you what you’ve missed.”
When her dark gaze settled on his mouth, something sparked in those starry depths. Arousal jolted him. And the beginnings of hope.
“What if I don’t like it?”
“I’ll stop.” He hoped to Hades he wasn’t lying.
“I’m not sure I trust you.”
“If you shriek your head off, someone will save you.”
Ironic amusement curled her lips. “You’re convinced you can kiss any objections away, aren’t you?”
He shrugged. “I’ve had no complaints.”
She subjected him to the comprehensive inspection she’d give a horse before she bought it. “I feel…I feel that my education is lacking. Especially since Caro and Fen…”
“Have found their own satisfaction?”
“Yes.” To stop him gathering her closer, she flattened her hand on his chest. “If we do this…”
“If?” If was better than an outright refusal any day. Triumph beat inside him like a thousand wings. He’d intrigued her—and Helena followed where her curiosity led.
“If we do this, I set the pace. After you’ve kissed me, I decide whether we proceed.”
A grunt of incredulous laughter escaped him. “You’re still a blasted managing wench. Do you want me to sign a contract? In triplicate? In blood?”
His sarcasm didn’t amuse her. “Your word is sufficient.”
“Damn it, Hel. I’m asking for a few days of fun, not hiring an architect to build me a new townhouse.” Actually he intended much more than a brief affair, but however heady her nearness, he hadn’t lost his grip on strategy.
His levity earned him a disapproving glance. “There’s more.”
He sighed and settled his hands at her supple waist. “Of course there is.”
“You won’t tell anybody.”
“Not even Silas?”
“Silas in particular. If you tell Silas, he’ll tell Caro. Then she’ll tell Fen. I don’t want any misguided, if well-meant matchmaking. In public, we still act like acquaintances.”
West arched his eyebrows. “When you’re wandering around in a blissful daze, that will be difficult.”
This time she did push away. He didn’t try to stop her. Right now, she wasn’t going anywhere.
“I hate to puncture your confidence, but it’s possible there won’t be any bliss.” She paced as she spoke. Hers was a restless soul, always had been.
He frowned as he watched her move. Those long legs ate up the carpet, and everything about her expressed energy and purpose. She was the most exciting woman he’d ever known. “I’m not a brute like Crewe.”
The smile she cast him in passing was almost fond. “I know you’re not.”
He gaped at her in shock. “What did you say?”
She came to rest near the bed and curled her hand around one of the carved posts. He gulped for air. The action was a little too suggestive for his sanity. And the pity of it was she had no clue.
As if ensuring he understood, she spoke very clearly. “I said you’re a better man than my late, unlamented spouse. Why else are we having this conversation?”
He frowned, struggling through the steam in his brain to make sense of this momentous change. “You always said we were cut from the same cloth.”
“Yes, well, I was hurt and angry. Just now, when I asked you to stop kissing me, you did. Crewe would have rushed on to find his swinish satisfaction.”
Did she know how much she betrayed about her marriage? “Helena…”
She glowered. “I told you not to feel sorry for me. When I deci
ded I wouldn’t share him with his whores, I started sleeping with a pistol under my pillow. You might recall his hunting accident, back in 1811. The one that didn’t kill him, but left him with his arm in a sling.”
“You?” What a woman she was. He wanted to give three cheers.
Her lips curled in bloodthirsty self-satisfaction. “After that, he took me seriously.”
“The worm. I’ll make it up to you.”
She laughed without amusement. “You don’t have to heal every hurt, West, although it’s sweet to think the chivalrous boy still lurks under that worldly hide.”
He winced at the word “sweet.” Between falling at her feet like a poltroon and completely misinterpreting her past, he was making a damned fool of himself. Something about Helena undermined arrogance. Worse, he wanted to protect and cherish her.
How she’d scoff if he admitted that.
“I always wished you well.”
Her memorable features softened into true beauty. “I’m sorry it’s taken so long to forgive you.”
West released a breath that he felt he’d held for years. Her resentment had always niggled like a stone in his shoe. Whatever else tonight brought, he was damned grateful that at last they reached an understanding.
“At least you have.” When he made to close in on her, she waved her hand to keep him at a distance.
“I need to say this before we go on. Crewe always said I’m…unnatural. It was my fault that he had to find ease elsewhere.”
That slimy, vicious sod. “That’s self-serving spite.”
“He could be spiteful. But…” She looked away toward the window. “Perhaps he was right, and I’m incapable of a woman’s response.”
Helena incapable of desire? He’d never heard such claptrap. “You forget I’ve held you in my arms.”
“That was a long time ago.” Still she avoided his eyes. These confidences tested her pride. “And we never…”
“You were only sixteen, and my best friend’s sister. I have a small measure of honor.”
“Silas would have killed you.”
“Slowly and painfully. And then he’d put my body through a mincer.” West ran his hand through his hair. “Helena, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you, apart from a capacity to hold a grudge.”
“I hope you’re right.” He made another move. Again she gestured him back. “I haven’t finished.”
With a theatrical sigh, he rolled his eyes. “I was wrong. This is worse than contracting to build a new townhouse.”
“If…if this arrangement goes ahead, I reserve the right to end it.”
“Once you’ve satisfied curiosity?” Sourness tinged his question. “I don’t feel like an architect anymore. I feel like the subject of a scientific experiment.”
She didn’t smile. “You don’t have to agree.”
“Yes, I do.” Not only because he wanted her more than he’d wanted anything else in his life. After tonight’s revelations, he had the strangest feeling that she needed him. Even if she didn’t recognize it, and would never admit it if she did.
“Because you’ve got something to prove?”
He was canny enough not to confide his thoughts. “Maybe.”
“And you’re not to mention marriage.”
West swept a finger across his lips to indicate they were forever sealed. “No M words.”
“I mean it.”
She didn’t trust his easy cooperation. A smart girl, his Helena. But in this, he was at least one step ahead of her. She’d forgotten his reputation as a negotiator. Tonight, her concessions exceeded his most extravagant hopes. From here, he could forge ahead and win the war.
Helena Wade didn’t know it yet, but he had her exactly where he wished.
As if taking an oath, he raised his hand. “For the duration of our stay at Woodley Park, I foreswear all mention of marriage, wedding, vicar, wife, husband, nuptials, proposals, and all similar and related terms, so help me, God.”
“You’re looking too pleased with yourself, West.” Her tone was suspicious. “I don’t like it.”
“I’m about to kiss a lovely woman.” He strove for a guileless expression. It didn’t come naturally. “Why shouldn’t I be happy?”
“I know you. You’re as cunning as a rat.”
By God, she was a delight. Despite his maneuvering, she wasn’t near defeated. The dance would go on, and if he didn’t concentrate on every step, he’d stumble in a heap. This edgy wooing proved devilish entertaining. The elusive Lady Crewe was a quarry worth the pursuit. “Hardly flattering.”
“But accurate.” Her regard remained wary. “You’ve been a slippery customer since you were in your cradle.”
He spread his hands. “I agree to everything you ask.”
“That’s what worries me.”
“Enough talk.” This time he ignored the message of her raised hand and stepped close enough to catch her smoky scent. “If I don’t kiss you in the next second, I’ll explode.”
She searched his face for signs of deceit. “You’re up to something. I know it.”
He caught the fluttering hands that betrayed how flustered she was. “No more, Helena. It’s time to lay down your guns and surrender. Close your eyes and pucker up.”
“Oh, very well, if I must,” she said, as though fronting up to a punishment.
But she tilted her face with breathtaking sweetness, and when he drew her into his arms, she was soft and warm and pliant.
Chapter Five
How strange to be in West’s arms again. Fleetingly Helena became once more the innocent girl who had been so mad for him.
Except his easy strength was new, and the confidence. This was a man who knew how to touch a woman. Whereas she felt tremulous and untried, as if those poisonous years with Crewe had never existed.
Slowly she ran her palms up his chest, feeling the heat of his skin through his shirt. The mature West was an altogether more substantial figure than his younger self. The body under her hands was firm with muscle, even if he was too thin after his illness.
Remembering how mere days ago, he’d been racked with fever prompted her to steal this chance. In recent years, her only physical pleasure had been a good gallop on a fine horse—and little enough of that. What a tragic waste. West was right. Crewe might be in the grave, but still he blighted her life.
Once she’d loved kissing. West and she had whiled away a whole summer with kisses. Even Crewe had known how to kiss her into a lather of desire, when he could be bothered. It was what came after kissing that left her cringing with frustration and shame.
Tonight she couldn’t bear to be that pathetic creature.
“What’s wrong?” West whispered.
Startled, she emerged from the unhappy past to find the man of the present observing her with concern. His hands sat loosely at her waist.
Once she gave her consent, she’d expected him to leap on her. His last kiss had caught her unprepared. Unprepared and unafraid. The lack of fear had convinced her that despite years of pique, at some instinctual level, she still trusted her first love.
“Why do you ask?”
His tender expression twisted her heart. Even in courtship, Crewe had never given her a scrap of tenderness. To her adolescent self, that had seemed thrilling proof of overmastering passion. Today’s Helena knew better.
“Because you were as supple as a willow wand, and now you’re all tight and wary again.”
To her surprise, she responded honestly. Tonight was unprecedented in so many ways, not least because she abandoned all defenses. Or they abandoned her. “I’m nervous.”
More breathtaking tenderness. “So am I.”
She frowned her disbelief. “Don’t play games, West.”
“You challenged me to show you pleasure. Good God, it’s more responsibility than the government laid on my shoulders when I went to Russia. Then I only had to worry about the fate of empires.”
Something coiled and suspicious inside Helena loosened
as she laughed. “You’re absurd.”
He cupped the side of her face. “And you’re lovely.”
The tightness returned. “No, I’m not. My nose is too big.”
It was West’s turn to laugh. “I love your nose. I always have. It has such character. A woman so imperious would look silly with a little button nose. You’re a queen, Helena, not a pretty little poppet.”
When he kissed her long blade of a nose, she shifted uncomfortably. Crewe had left her mistrusting everything about herself, including her looks. Now she hated how she yearned for more of West’s praise. “You don’t have to—”
“Give you compliments? I do, if you’re mad enough to underestimate your attractions.”
She snorted. “Overdoing it, West.”
He grabbed her hand and pressed it over his pounding heart. “Feel that?”
Wide-eyed Helena stared at him. “For me?”
“For you.”
Without stopping to second-guess herself, she rose on her toes—West was one of the few men she knew tall enough to make her feel small and feminine—and pressed her lips to his.
Her boldness startled him, and he jerked away. “Helena, are you sure?”
Yes, definitely a better man than her louse of a husband. She hooked her hands over his broad shoulders. “No.”
This time when she kissed him, she leaned closer, nipping at his lower lip until he let her in. When his arms lashed around her and his mouth opened over hers, triumph filled her.
After all this time, she’d expected to feel more tentative, but this was like coming home after a long, difficult journey. A voluptuous sigh escaped, and she parted her lips to allow him access. His tongue thrust into her mouth, and she met him eagerly.
Closing her eyes, she gave herself up to a sizzling universe of sensation. West’s scent was richer and more potent than she remembered, and he tasted so delicious. Heat swept through her with swift and irresistible force. A powerful pulse set up in the base of her belly.
Helena moaned against his seeking lips, as his hands roamed up and down her back. Only when her bodice sagged did she realize he touched her with intent.
Winning Lord West Page 5