“Employees need to earn a living,” she pointed out. “Most employers know this, and they know that regardless of the treatment they receive, those in their employ will continue coming to work every day to feed their families.”
Levi ran a finger down her cheek, the simple touch making heat snake through her veins. “You are surprisingly sympathetic to the plight of the classes beneath you, my lady.”
“Do you think that because I’m the daughter of an earl I ought not to care about the world around me?” she asked with a wry smile of her own.
“To be candid, I don’t know what I think about you any longer.” He withdrew his touch and turned on his heel to pace.
“I daresay the feeling is mutual.” Helen tried not to admire the sinewy grace of his body as he pivoted to face her, but she failed dismally.
Their gazes caught and held. “This home will be yours.”
She stared at him, dumfounded by his abrupt pronouncement. “What do you mean it will be mine?”
“Precisely what I just said. I’ll see that everything is properly drawn up so that you are the owner.” He spoke in an impersonal tone, as though they were conducting business.
But they most certainly were not.
Her mouth went dry as myriad emotions flitted through her. She was equally aghast and excited at the implications. A large, fine home such as this one was what they so desperately needed, not only to help the women already crowded in Gussie’s House of Rest but also to free others from London’s wretched brothels. However, she had certainly not expected him to unceremoniously drop one into her lap as though it were of no greater import than a letter from her aunt in the Lake District.
“Mr. Storm, you cannot give me a home,” she protested. Like spending time alone with him, it simply wasn’t done. She was an unmarried lady. He was…well, she didn’t precisely know what he was to her now. Her lover? Her friend? Neither? Both?
Everything, came the unwanted answer. He was everything to her.
“Of course I can.” He frowned at her. “All it requires is some attention to legal formalities.”
Was he being deliberately obtuse? She sighed, just as tempted to accept his offer as she was to refuse it and run out the door as fast as she could. They had entered dangerous territories. Her heart was more hopelessly entangled by the minute.
She closed the distance between them, crossing the freshly shined floors to him. “What I mean to say is that one cannot simply give property to an unmarried lady. It is not just unseemly, it implies a rather sordid understanding between the two of us.”
“There is nothing sordid about either the gift of this home or what we’ve shared together.” His countenance was composed as ever. “You are in need of additional lodgings to help the less fortunate creatures who have become your cause. I wish to help you, and as I cannot risk publishing your scandalous article, this seems the most expedient solution. That is all.”
She touched his sleeve, not intending for the gesture to be as intimate as it suddenly felt. Helen snatched back her fingers before the heat of him scorched her and tempted her to do far more than stand too near to him. “Thank you for wanting to help. It is beyond kind.”
“I’m not a kind man,” he interrupted.
“You are,” she insisted, undeterred, “despite your continued use of the word ‘creatures’ in reference to the ladies.”
“I’m not sure the word ‘ladies’ is apt either.”
It was her turn to frown. “Do be quiet. Must you forever interrupt me when I’m trying to speak?”
“I live to irritate you, my dear.” He gave her a slow grin, and the force of it turned her insides molten. Ah, those dimples.
“Well you’re quite adroit at it, that much I’ll admit.” She sighed, recalling the original subject of their conversation. The man had her forever at sixes and sevens. “But none of that is the point. Your offer is very generous and much appreciated. But I cannot receive property from you as it will seem as though I’m your mistress and the house my payment.”
His gaze was hot upon her, and she flushed, horridly embarrassed to even utter such a thing to him. It brought far too many wicked images to her mind, images of what he’d done to her the night before. “But you are not my mistress. This is merely my gift to you.”
It was surely the most extravagant gift that had ever been bestowed upon her. Helen knew that despite his words, there was more to his generosity than he implied. She imagined he could likely buy the entire neighborhood of homes and still have plenty of money to spare. In a financial sense, at least, the gift was a paltry one to a man of his great wealth.
But there was something deeply personal about such a gift that both warmed and disturbed her all at once. He was moved to help the women he had met today, but he had gone to the House of Rest because of her and stayed by her side there all morning when he need not have. He had yet to even go to his offices, which he had done each day prior with regimental precision.
“Give the home to Gussie if you must,” she said. After all, Gussie was a married woman, and she already ran one such establishment. There would be nothing untoward in a transaction with Gussie.
He shook his head. “I want you to have it.”
“Do you often gift houses to women?” she asked quietly.
“Only you, Lady Helen.”
The words spoke volumes, said what neither of them could or should. Her heart seemed to beat faster than a hummingbird’s wings. She stared at him as a truth as terrifying as it was unwanted crashed into her.
Sweet heavens, she was falling in love with Mr. Storm. She didn’t know when or how it had begun, and she most assuredly had never intended to feel a tender emotion for any man. Especially not the man before her, tall and forbidding and arrogant and so handsome her heart ached just looking at him. He was a confusing man, at turns equally harsh and soft. He cared about the women whose lives she wanted to better. And unless she was mistaken, he cared about her as well.
“Mr. Storm,” she began, forcing herself to speak lest she lose her wits and throw herself into his arms once more, “I thank you for the house, but you must see that I cannot accept it.”
He slid an arm around her waist, bringing her solidly up against him. He caressed her cheek, his touch warm and reverent. She barely resisted turning and pressing a kiss to his palm.
“I grow weary of hearing you refer to me as Mr. Storm again,” he said. “We are well beyond playing at being proper after last night. Call me Levi.”
“Levi.” She was trapped in his gaze, trapped by her realization and the sensation of his skin upon hers. “I won’t accept the house.” Her hands flitted to his chest, tantalized by the delicious masculine strength beneath his waistcoat and shirt.
“It’s yours, sweetheart.”
Helen knew she should not accept his offer of the house just as surely as she knew that Levi Storm was not a man who often revealed the warmth beneath his icy exterior. But he had given her glimpses, rare moments when his guard had lowered and he was open with her. It was those tender moments that wound through the briars and thickets guarding her heart, easily circumventing all obstacles.
The realization she had feelings for him terrified her. It made no sense. She was a confirmed spinster and he was wed to his businesses and his electricity. He had told her there would be no marriage, and she could not become his mistress for as many reasons as he could not publish her article. Scandal. Reputation. No, there was no future for them. They were altogether wrong for each other. And falling for him was altogether irrational and naïve. She had to stop these inconvenient emotions before they propelled her any further down the path leading to ruin.
“Why would you give me a house that you’ve clearly already gone to great expense to furnish and prepare for your employees?” she asked. “Why give it away to a woman you scarcely know for a cause you seem barely touched by?”
His fingers slid into her hair now, threatening to undo the pinning her lady’s maid ha
d done hours before. “The why doesn’t matter. All that does matter is that this home as it stands would cost more than you could purchase by raising funds in a little-known newspaper for the next ten years. It will be yours, unencumbered, at no cost to you. Think of all the women you’ll be able to help. If you must, consider it my formal apology for buying the Beacon.”
He was right, of course, about all of it, drat him. Except for the first bit. The why really did matter, to her anyway. But perhaps harping upon the matter would reveal more to him than she preferred. She forced herself to think of what had become the most important part of her life over the last few years, her reform work. “You told me you would print my articles. Have you changed your mind?”
“I told you I would print reasonable articles, not articles with lurid details that would not only break the law but scandalize all of London and tarnish the good name of my business as well. You have my word that there will always be a place in my journal for any articles I can publish in good conscience.”
Yes, she had known the facts she had written about had been too detailed, too shocking, too ugly and raw to be printed. She’d put pen to paper with more than just an inkling that he would never allow the piece to run. But perhaps she had in some sense accomplished what she’d set out to do after all, for now here she stood, in a house that was larger and finer than any she and Gussie could have imagined for their ladies, and it could be theirs. How could she be so selfish to shillyshally over accepting it? What was more important, her pride or her ability to give shelter to more women who so desperately needed it?
“Very well,” she said at last. “If you see fit to give this house to our cause, I won’t try to dissuade you any longer.”
“Good.” Some of her hairpins fell to the floor. Her serviceable updo became loose. His gaze strayed from her face to her hair, then to her mouth. “Finally sweet Lady Helen has agreed to see reason.”
“I’m not sweet.”
“Oh but you are. Every part of you is sweet.” His tone was low and sensual, bringing an instant reminder of just where he had tasted her and how incredibly good it had felt.
A few long locks of hair fell onto her shoulder. Desire slowly spread through her. “You’re ruining my coiffure.”
“I’d say I’m sorry, but I only give apologies that are genuine,” he said without a hint of contrition. “It’s a damn sin to hide your beautiful hair away in a schoolmarm’s bun.”
Helen laughed as more pins fell to the floor. He was blunt and brash and thoroughly American, but she found his brutal honesty rather refreshing. When Levi wanted his thoughts known, there was no doubt about it. And she enjoyed the comfortable rapport that had settled between them. Being with him felt oddly familiar, as if they had known each other for ages rather than the admittedly scarce time since they’d first met. No other man had made her feel so at ease. Perhaps it was that so much time had passed since that painful day in the woods. Perhaps it was just something that was thoroughly, innately him.
Her laughter ceased as she saw the naked desire reflected in his gaze. How had she thought she could only share one night with him? The notion of never again lying with him, kissing him, touching him, and feeling him inside her was too much to bear. What had he said to her? Dear heavens, her emotions were in a muddle. Her brain an utter disaster. Her ability to resist him nonexistent.
“This is most certainly not a schoolmarm’s bun,” she protested softly.
The last of her pins dropped until all of her hair cascaded in long waves down her back and shoulders. “It’s a moot point, sweetheart.”
She ought to care about how much time she’d been gone, about the fact that his servants were aware of the time they’d been spending alone together, first in the carriage and now here. She certainly should worry about how she’d manage to sneak back into the Whitney household undetected with her hair and toilette tellingly disheveled. And she most definitely ought to worry that her heart, already thoroughly involved, would only become more attached to this dashing man than it already was.
But perhaps rational Helen had fallen asleep in the driver’s seat of the runaway carriage that had suddenly become her life. “Levi,” she forced herself to protest. “We cannot.”
“There is cannot and there is ought not,” he said lowly before lowering his lips to hers for a slow, delicious kiss at last. “We ought not, but we can. There is no one here but the two of us.”
She twined her arms around his neck, her body giving her away. This heady desire would always spark between them. She knew it as instinctively as she knew there would be a tomorrow, and just as surely, she knew that she wanted him to be in it. Oh dear. Surely this was folly. Surely she should not act with such flagrant disregard for propriety. Last night had been a wild aberration from her uneventful life of Lady Helen the reformer. But to allow him to bed her again, and in the middle of the day…the part of her who had obeyed the rules all these years tried one more time. She was the daughter of an earl. She could bring great shame upon the sisters she loved by acting so recklessly.
“Bella will wonder where I’ve gone. Your servants are awaiting us outside.”
“You’ve been with your paragon friend. She’ll think nothing of it,” he countered. “And I’ve already told you that my servants are loyal, generously compensated, and above all, silent when it matters most. But the choice is yours, as always. Tell me no, and we’ll walk out to the carriage together right now.”
She couldn’t tell him no. Didn’t want to.
And that was really the crux of the matter now, wasn’t it? Lady Helen Harrington, spinster, who had watched her sisters fall in love with a jaundiced eye, who had been happy to exchange pleasantries with men and stay on the periphery, who had sworn to focus only on her reform work and her beloved sisters and their growing families—that selfsame Lady Helen Harrington was at the mercy of an American businessman who had tossed her over his shoulder the first time she’d met him. However, at the moment, she didn’t really care. At the moment, she was Helen, and he was Levi, and she didn’t give a fig for anything or anyone else.
So she rose to her tiptoes and did the only thing she could do in that moment. She kissed him with every bit of longing simmering within her.
“Yes?”
“Yes,” she sighed. A hundred times yes. For him, it would always be yes. She could no more resist him than deny that she was a Harrington through and through.
Levi led Helen to the largest, nicest chamber in the house. He knew its location by heart, for he had overseen the renovation and furnishing of each of the eight properties he had purchased for employee housing. And it was because of his admittedly obsessive attention to every detail of his business that he had realized what he must do as he’d watched Helen move with such gentle care amongst the women at the House of Rest.
Some of them had been disturbingly young, and it had put him in mind of his childhood. Of his ma returning to their squalid rented room sporting a purple bruise and claiming she’d merely been clumsy. Of the girls he had seen, some nearly his own age, working alongside ma. Of the helplessness and hopelessness of it all. Today he had basked in the goodness, the pureness, and the beauty of Lady Helen, and he had known three things. He would give her this house. He would love her once more. And then he would let her go.
The first two were easy. The last would prove damn near impossible. He wanted her every way he could have her. He wanted to taste her and pleasure her and drive into her slowly on a thousand different days in a thousand different ways, and even that would never be enough. But he could not continue this madness, for she was not his. Nor was he hers.
Into the simple chamber, his hand in hers, his entire being on fire for her. All his life, he had forced himself to be as emotionless as a block of winter’s ice. Ma had died when he was nine. He’d had nothing and no one, had begged and thieved to survive until he enlisted in the war a few years later with false papers. He’d been far too young. No one had noticed or cared, and
he had grown up in gun smoke and carnage, in cannon fire and blood and death. He hadn’t felt a goddamn thing in twenty years or more, and yet as he stood with her in the golden afternoon light, his heart thudded in his chest. He felt as though he were seeing a woman for the first time. Or maybe as though he were seeing the only woman he’d ever want.
Goddamn, but it scared him. Helen turned her face up to him, her blonde hair fallen in heavy ringlets over her shoulders, her creamy skin tinged with pink. She was shy, but she wanted him. The most angelic and loveliest woman he’d ever met, a blue-blooded daughter to a bona fide earl, wanted him, Levi Storm, son of a whore and whatever devil had paid to have her for the night.
Oh, she wasn’t the first woman to have wanted him, not by a long stretch. But she was the first woman who wanted him, not the trappings of money and success. To the VanHorns, he was only worthy for the wealth he’d built. Other women had wanted him for his money, for his fame, for the pleasure he could bring them. None had looked at him the way Lady Helen did now, as though…good Christ, as though he were someone worthy of her esteem, someone she cared about.
Hang it, if she kept on looking at him that way, he would take her right there on the floor like the base miscreant he truly was instead of wooing her as was his intention. So he cupped her face in his hands and took her mouth with his. She tasted of the sweetness of the tea she’d had before they left the House of Rest and something else that was indefinably her. She sighed and he pressed his advantage, his tongue sliding inside. Her hands fluttered to his shoulders, clutching at his jacket. He raised a handful of her fragrant hair and dragged his kisses to her ear, tasting her there, licking her lobe and the sensitive place behind it.
A low moan rose from her and he continued working this secret place with his tongue, reveling in her reaction. She was so responsive, his Helen. Made for pleasure. Made for him. If only he could have her forever. But that wasn’t meant to be. All that could be for them was now, this stolen afternoon with no one the wiser. The Whitneys would think Helen at her reform work and him at his offices. His staff had been informed not to expect him. He breathed deeply of the sweet, seductive scent of her. Rose. Bergamot. Divine.
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