He slipped on his trousers and his shirt from the night before, not bothering with the buttons. At the moment, he didn’t give a damn who saw him in dishabille. He felt like a grizzly bear who’d just gotten a rude awakening during hibernation. He took one last look at her to find her standing precisely where he’d left her, watching him with wide eyes.
“For the first time in your life, listen to reason and do as I say, woman.” With that, he stalked from her chamber and into the hall.
He had gone.
Helen raised a hand to her tingling mouth, still feeling the possessive kisses he had given her. The arrogance of the man. He thought he could order her about because she’d allowed him into her bed? He thought he could commandeer her reform journal and turn it into a business paper and then demand that she stay away from the East End? Of course she was going with Gussie in spite of what he’d said. Perhaps because of it.
Do as I say, woman.
Obviously, Mr. Storm had no idea that those were the last words he should have uttered to a proud Harrington sister. Now she was more determined than ever. The intimacies between them did not mean he had any right to decree what she could and could not do.
But the thought of what they had shared heated her body all over. Good heavens, the things he had done. He’d brought out sensations she hadn’t even known existed, had made her aware of her body and all its longings. Part of her had been shocked when she’d woken nude to find him still sharing her bed. Part of her had wanted more. And yet another part of her had been embarrassed, feeling hopelessly gauche. She had no idea what to do, what to say, how to act.
So she had resorted to distance. Perhaps it had been enough. Perhaps it hadn’t been.
I will see you again, sweetheart.
The words, half promise and half sensual threat, sent a frisson of desire down her spine. Oh dear. It wouldn’t do to stand about daydreaming as if she were a lovelorn girl straight from the schoolroom. She wasn’t a girl. And she most assuredly was not lovelorn.
She rang for her lady’s maid and finished dressing. If Willet was surprised to find her mistress partially dressed and already laced in her corset, her expression didn’t reflect it. Helen didn’t say a word, simply thanked the loyal retainer and went to breakfast as though she hadn’t spent half the night in wicked abandon with the most handsome and thoroughly maddening man she’d ever known.
Of course he was not at breakfast, but Helen was pleasantly surprised to find her hostess already seated. They completed their morning greetings and as Helen settled in, she couldn’t help but notice how lovely Bella looked. From her lustrous dark hair to her stunning, blue morning gown, she was perfection, as though she had spent all night in restful slumber rather than hosting a crush of a ball. Helen felt a bit bedraggled by comparison. Levi had kept her up very late and had woken her quite early. A slow knot of desire unfurled in her belly at the reminder, but she tamped it down. She would not allow him to barge in on her every thought.
“You are certainly the picture of sunshine for one who was up all night dancing away,” Helen pointed out good-naturedly. “Indeed, I’m shocked you’re up so early.”
“My darling little Virginia decided that I must wake at the first light of dawn this morning. She was most insistent about it, so here I am. Anyway, my dear, I might say the same of you.” Her friend delivered the kind of searching look one of Helen’s own dear sisters would surely give her. An honorary Harrington sister Bella was indeed. “I saw you dancing with Mr. Storm.”
Despite herself, she flushed. Dear heavens. She hoped she didn’t appear half as guilty as she felt. “I danced with a number of gentlemen,” she offered in a noncommittal tone before taking a sip of tea.
“I daresay you did.” Bella’s arch tone made it clear that she was not fooled.
Helen remained undeterred. “It was so nice to see an old family friend like Lord Denbigh again.”
Bella dismissed the servants before turning back to her with a conspiratorial air when they were alone. “You didn’t have eyes for Denbigh, and you know it.”
Helen sighed, wishing Bella hadn’t taken lessons in prying from Cleo. “Did my sister train you or have you always been this thoroughly invasive?”
Her friend laughed. “I believe I’ve always been this way, but I do confess that having you Harrington girls about has taught me a thing or two.”
“Lovely,” Helen gritted.
“Dearest, if I’m prying it’s only because I care about you and because Cleo has ordered me to watch over you in her stead.” Bella took a demure sip from her cup.
“Watch over me?” Helen sniffed at that. “I’m your elder, you ninny. I’m her elder too, for that matter.”
“By a scarce few number of years.”
“A good six years,” she pointed out.
“Cleo would have my head if anyone broke your heart,” Bella blurted.
“The Earl of Denbigh won’t break my heart.” Helen gave her friend and hostess her most forbidding frown.
“Oh, pish. You know very well I’m not speaking of Denbigh. I’m talking about Mr. Storm.” She paused. “I could have sworn I saw you on his arm, and then you both seemed to disappear from the ballroom. Please tell me nothing untoward occurred, dear.”
Oh drat it all. Levi had been wrong. Someone had seen, or at the very least she had noticed their absence long enough to question it. Helen didn’t relish the prospect of misleading her friend, but neither did she wish to reveal the raw truth to her.
“Nothing untoward occurred,” she lied, redirecting her gaze to the bounty of food upon her plate and treating it as if it were the most intriguing sight she’d beheld all morning. Not true, for the most intriguing sight she’d beheld all morning had been Levi’s lean body without a stitch of clothing to hide it.
Bella gave a small harrumph reminiscent of her formidable mother, the dowager marchioness. “Something tells me not to believe you, Helen.”
“Perhaps you ought to inform whatever that something is to mind its own business,” she suggested with a sunny smile.
“I’ll send it a letter posthaste.” Bella grinned at that. “You’re quite a curmudgeon when your heart is in peril, you know.”
“My heart is not in peril.”
“Better your heart than your virtue,” her friend said primly. “If so much as a breath of scandal should find its way to your sister, she’ll leave her lying in and swoop down upon us all like an avenging angel.”
“More like a scandalous angel,” Helen grumbled. “It’s rich indeed for Cleo to be so protective when she created the scandal of the century herself. I’m hardly the sister to be worrying over. We won’t even get into how Tia wound up wedding Devonshire.”
“Be that as it may, I’ve been charged with your wellbeing, dearest Helen,” Bella said. “I would be remiss if I didn’t warn you I’m not entirely certain Mr. Storm’s intentions are honorable. My husband counts him a true friend, but the man is something of an enigma. I cannot quite figure him out just yet.”
Of course his intentions weren’t honorable. They were passionate and sinful and altogether wrong yet altogether wonderful. But it was too late for Bella’s sermon and concern both. The dye had been cast. Maybe she’d made a mistake. By the grim light of day, it certainly seemed that she may have. Still, she didn’t regret a moment of their time together. Not one single moment.
She wasn’t sure what that meant, any of it, and for the nonce, she didn’t care to examine it any further. Helen stood. “I appreciate your concern, truly I do, however it is quite misplaced. I’m a spinster firmly and happily on the shelf. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Lady Bella, I have an important call I must make to Gussie at the House of Rest.”
Without waiting for her friend’s reply, she sailed from the room and from Bella’s unnerving observations both. By the time she reached her waiting carriage, her emotions were as jumbled and messy as a bag of yarn scraps that had been savaged by a kitten. As a servant handed her up into the car
riage, she was so caught up in her thoughts that it took her by complete surprise when she realized she wasn’t alone.
“Levi.” She almost turned around and left the conveyance. Didn’t he realize he couldn’t simply ride in an enclosed carriage with her? It wasn’t done. Belatedly, she observed that this carriage did not belong to the Whitneys. It must be his.
He caught her elbow and pulled her the rest of the way inside, unsmiling. The door closed behind her. “Sit.”
Helen seated herself on the bench beside him, wishing the carriage was not so cramped. Her skirts brushed his muscled thigh and when she faced him, they were nearly nose to nose. The urge to kiss him was strong but she would not, could not give in.
“Have you gone mad? What are you doing in this carriage?” she demanded.
His expression remained impassive as ever. “I expect I have. Lord knows there are a hundred things I’d be better served by doing this morning than playing guardian angel.”
The nerve of the man would never cease to amaze—or vex—her. “Then why are you not off doing those hundred things instead of importuning me in my carriage?”
“Because I cannot in good conscience allow you to go traipsing about the rookeries where anything can happen to you. And also because this is not, in fact, your carriage. It is mine.”
Oh, blast him. He had a point there. And he had known she wouldn’t listen to his high-handed decree. “You haven’t the right to allow me to do anything, Mr. Storm.”
He flashed her a thin smile that showed his even, white teeth. “We will have to disagree on that count, my dear.”
But Helen wasn’t done. “The servants will talk belowstairs. Everyone will know that I’ve been spirited away with you.”
“I’m not spiriting you anywhere, and the servants will not talk. They’re my men, and they’re loyal to a fault. A decent wage will do that for a man.”
Perhaps his servants were loyal, but she knew the rules. It was one thing to sneak about in the darkness and quite another to flagrantly travel the streets of London alone with him. “Have you any idea of how improper it is for you to ride in this carriage with me?”
“Surely not any more improper than traipsing about brothels with your reformer friend,” he drawled. “Or inviting me into your bed.”
His blunt observation had her flushing. “You came to my chamber.”
“You didn’t turn me away.”
No, she hadn’t. Nor would she if he somehow turned up at her door again tonight. How deflating. When it came to this man, she possessed not a jot of resolve. He had invaded her life and her senses just as surely as he’d invaded the carriage. Like a plundering army, taking all her defenses with him.
“Why are you really here?” she asked instead of responding to his observation. “Aren’t you ordinarily at your offices by now, busy turning the Beacon into a glowing beast?”
“Someone has to protect you from your foolishness,” he snapped.
Her foolishness indeed. The greatest foolishness in which she was currently engaged involved him, not any trip to the East End with Gussie. “No one has been protecting me for thirty years and I’ve managed just fine.”
“Someone damn well should have.” His tone was clipped. “Your brother ought to be dragged behind the nearest carriage for failing you the way he did.”
She stiffened. “I prefer not to speak of it, if you don’t mind. Besides, I don’t wish anything ill of Bingley.” Well, perhaps that was doing it a bit brown. What she truly meant to say was that she didn’t wish anything painful and potentially life-threatening to happen to her brother. But if in one of his drunken stupors he accidentally received a sound knock to the head or fist to the jaw, she may have deemed it fitting.
“Helen, I’m trying to keep you from getting hurt,” Levi said, sounding much aggrieved. He took her hand firmly in his. “I cannot right the wrongs done to you in your past, but I’ll be damned if I stand idly by while you put yourself in danger.”
Somehow, the mere squeeze of his large hand around hers, burrowed in the pleats of her serviceable visiting gown, melted some of the ice she’d built around her heart. Emotions she’d been doing her utmost to repress all morning rushed over her.
She swallowed, wishing very much that she hadn’t donned gloves, and clasped his hand as if it were a lifeline. He may be arrogant, but he cared. He cared or he would not have eschewed his plans for the day to accompany her. Perhaps she had melted some of his ice in return.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
He appeared surprised by her capitulation. “Am I hearing right? Gratitude instead of a thorough dressing down?”
Helen smiled at last. “I can deliver a stinging dressing down if you’d prefer it.”
“I can think of better uses for your mouth, sweetheart.” With his free hand, he cupped her face. His thumb swept over her lower lip in a broad stroke.
In an instant, the air between them changed. She kissed his thumb, gazing boldly into his eyes. Every part of her rational mind knew she shouldn’t very well be sitting so near to him in an enclosed carriage, let alone allowing him to touch her so freely. But hadn’t they already gone far beyond the lines of propriety? wondered a wicked inner voice. Yes, they had. His body had claimed hers. What could be the harm in one more kiss? One more embrace? A slow, pulsing yearning began at the juncture of her thighs and radiated outward, over her entire body.
His mouth slanted over hers and she gave in to what they both so desperately wanted. More of the forbidden. She opened for him and his questing tongue. He tasted of coffee. The kiss deepened.
The carriage stopped.
They sprang apart just as the door opened to reveal they had arrived at Gussie’s House of Rest for women in need of shelter. Perhaps it was a fortuitous interruption, but Helen dearly wished she could’ve gone on kissing him for just a few moments more. Their arrival reminded her that there was work to be done. If nothing else could come of the day, she hoped that at the very least she might convince Levi to assist them in their efforts. He was not an unkind man. After he met the women and girls, she had no doubt that he would understand why she felt so strongly about their cause.
She descended from the carriage and took his arm in silence as they climbed the stairs to the front door. It was not an imposing edifice. Indeed, it was small and nondescript, though tucked into a decent neighborhood far enough from the brothels the women had once called home. Gussie herself greeted them at the door.
“Helen dear, do come in.” Smiling, she stepped back so that Helen and Levi could enter. She wore an apron and her hair had been wound in a serviceable bun. “Forgive me my appearance. I’m afraid I was helping in the kitchens this morning.”
Although Gussie had been born a lady, she was not afraid to roll up her sleeves and work alongside anyone, and it was one of the many traits Helen admired about her friend. “Gussie, may I introduce you to Mr. Storm? He is the new owner of the Beacon. Mr. Storm, this is Mrs. Augusta Bennington.”
“I’m sure I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, sir,” Gussie said with considerably less enthusiasm and warmth than she had previously displayed.
If Levi noticed, he didn’t show it. “The pleasure is mine, Mrs. Bennington. I hope you don’t mind the intrusion. Lady Helen has convinced me to assist you and your cause in any way that I may.”
She had? Helen looked at him askance. He ignored her, imperturbable as always.
Gussie beamed once more. “Oh, how wonderful. Our Helen is an angel on Earth, and I just knew that if anyone could persuade you how important our mission is, it would be sweet Lady Helen.”
“Yes,” Levi agreed solemnly, sending Helen a meaningful look. “It would be sweet Lady Helen indeed.”
hy have you brought me here?” Helen asked Levi much later that day as they stood alone in the entryway of a nicely appointed but empty house not far from Gussie’s House of Rest.
She had accompanied him against her better judgment. But he had been start
lingly kind and helpful at Gussie’s despite his insistence that they refrain from visiting the property in the East End. He’d repaired a broken door lock and carried supplies into the kitchens as if he were a man of all work. He had taken interest in the stories of the women he met. He had assured Gussie before their departure that he would aid the cause however he could.
And Helen believed him, which was why she found herself in a large home in a good, middle class neighborhood, trying to tamp down the troubling stirrings of her heart. The more time she spent in Levi’s company, the more her admiration for him grew. He possessed a keen intelligence and sharp wit, and beneath his arrogant, cool exterior there lurked a compassionate man. He wasn’t all business, the enigmatic American before her.
“I own this property, along with a number of others here in London,” he told her. “I was planning to use this particular building as lodgings for my engineers.”
Helen wasn’t accustomed to men who spoke so bluntly of trade, but rather than finding it tedious, she was interested. His mind was ever spinning, and it appeared that he had laid the groundwork for his business very carefully. “You provide your employees with lodging?”
“I provide them with affordable lodging,” he explained. “If they need loans for homes, I provide them as well.”
He cared about the people in his employ. She recalled his heated words in the library. Hundreds of families put bread on their table through me, and I take that responsibility seriously. “That is very good of you,” she said softly. Oh yes, there was so much more to him than she had supposed.
He flashed her a self-mocking smile. “Not so good, I’m afraid. I merely know how to judge what is in my best interest and what isn’t. A happy and comforting home environment is excellent for business. Well-treated employees are loyal employees, and loyal employees are productive and motivated. Productivity and self-motivation earn me money. Ultimately, it’s a small thing that reaps great rewards for me.”
Although he attempted to dismiss his actions as mere selfishness, she wasn’t fooled. Providing employees with well-appointed and affordable lodgings was virtually unheard of. She may be a privileged member of the Upper Ten Thousand, but she had a reformer’s heart, and she had made it her business to acquaint herself with the ways of the world.
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