The door swung open, and there he stood, as magnificent and handsome as ever. Their gazes clashed. Her heart was sick. The mere sight of him affected her, giving her a physical jolt. Electricity. How ironic. How pathetic.
“Lady Helen,” he said softly before nodding to his man of business. “Thank you, Eddy, I will speak to my guest in private.”
Eddy gestured for Helen to enter and disappeared without another word. She crossed the threshold with grim trepidation, prepared for a battle. How dare he play her for a fool? How dare he? The door closed at her back.
“You look troubled, Helen. What is it?” he asked, blunt as ever. No simile this time. Just an observation and a question.
“Mrs. Whitney shared a most interesting piece of reading with me this morning,” she said, impressed by how calm she sounded. “American newspapers are so very quaint. Would you care to read it too, Mr. Storm?”
He glanced at the paper she held clutched tightly in her fist. “I reckon that I ought to read it, Lady Helen, if it has given you such grief.”
Grief. Perhaps it was an apt word.
“Here you are.” She held it out for him, keeping a safe distance between them as he took it. “I think you may be interested to hear of your impending nuptials, Mr. Storm, as surely they must be a surprise to you since you neglected to mention them to me during the course of any of our…conversations.”
He didn’t even look at the Times, merely kept his gaze trained to her face. “Helen.”
“Who is Miss VanHorn?” she asked him, needing to hear him admit the truth aloud. Though her voice was quiet, it held an edge of steel.
He stiffened, his expression hardening, his sensual mouth tensing. His reaction told her all she needed to know. “She is the daughter to Elias VanHorn, one of the wealthiest men in America and the largest investor in my electric company.”
Of course. Her father was an investor in his company. It all began to make perfect, heart-rending sense. He hadn’t acknowledged that she was his betrothed, but he didn’t need to. He had kept it from her. All the times they had been together, and he’d said not a word. Not in private. Certainly not in public. He had kissed her and loved every inch of her body, and yet he had never told her—had not so much as hinted—that he had another woman in New York City waiting for him. Had he touched his betrothed the way he’d touched Helen? Kissed and caressed and brought her passion the likes of which she’d never known? Helen refused to think of that now, for the thought made her ill. She had been foolish and reckless with him. Now she would pay the price.
The smile she gave him was equal parts bitter and wry. “I daresay you left out a rather important part of Miss VanHorn’s story.”
Levi crossed the office in two strides, a tall and imposing presence towering over her. He looked as grim as she felt. “I am to marry her in the summer.”
Despite the fact that she’d already known, his stark admission still cut her every bit as painfully and easily as if it had been the blade of a knife scoring her flesh. Or plunging deep into her heart. She met his gaze, unflinching, daring him to be the first to look away. “Did you plan to tell me that you had a betrothed, or were you simply going to disappear one day and sail back to America?”
“Helen, it’s far more complicated than you realize.” He tried to touch her and she shrugged him away.
Complicated. Surely there was nothing at all complicated about the matter of his having a beautiful heiress in America that he planned to wed. A woman he had never mentioned in all the days they had spent together, not when he’d kissed her, held her, made love to her. Not ever.
She didn’t know whether to rail at him, strike him, or walk away. Perhaps she ought to do all three in that particular order. She was angry, hurt, and yet somehow oddly numb too. “It all seems rather straightforward to me.”
“It is anything but straightforward, damn it.” He touched her waist but she slipped from his grasp once more.
She would not make herself an easy target any longer by allowing her body’s response to him to cloud her judgment. Rational Helen held the reins quite firmly. “Do keep your hands to yourself, Mr. Storm. I find the mere thought of you repulsive.”
Of course it wasn’t true. If only it were. Then this would be easier. Then she wouldn’t have cared. If only she were the sort of woman who flirted and had affairs and never lost her heart. If only she’d spent the last decade of her life kissing and bedding whomever she’d liked. But she was not, and she had not, and she didn’t want to bear the pain of it all. The abject humiliation of realizing that while he had come to mean so much to her, she had never meant anything at all to him. Not even enough to merit his honesty.
He stalked to his desk then and picked up a sheaf of papers, thrusting them at her. “You needn’t suffer my touch again, but at least take these documents I had drawn up for you. The house will officially be yours, whether I repulse you or not.”
She clutched the documents to her bosom as though they were a shield. “I accept the house as payment for my services.”
He caught her elbow and dragged her against him, his entire body radiating with raw anger. “Jesus, Helen. I’m not giving you the house because I fucked you.”
The words were harsh, ugly. She flinched. “Please unhand me.”
He released her. “You can be as angry with me as you please, but I won’t let you diminish what is between us.”
She scoffed. “Lies are between us. That is all now.”
“I never lied to you. I told you I could not offer you marriage.”
That much was true. He hadn’t professed to love her. He hadn’t proposed marriage. He hadn’t made a single promise. But his omission had been a lie of its own, of dreadful and all-consuming proportions. What had his intentions been? Had he thought to make her his mistress? Had he believed she would follow at his heels like a puppy and travel across an ocean to happily watch him marry another woman?
“Do you love her?” she demanded, unable to keep herself from asking the question.
“Helen, I had every intention of explaining all to you this evening.” He was solemn. “I agreed to the match back when her father invested a large sum of money in my company and proposed the idea. I was unencumbered at the time, and it seemed a wise decision given her family’s wealth and influence. I’ve only met her twice, and I’ll be damned if I can even remember what we said to each other. I’m given to understand there was some sort of scandal that made her father anxious to see her settled. The answer to your question is no, sweetheart. I do not love Miss VanHorn.”
“Do not refer to me as your sweetheart. I’m Lady Helen to you now.” The tremor in her voice betrayed her and irritated her at the same time. Oh how she didn’t want to appear weak before him. She didn’t want him to know just how much he had hurt her. If only she’d been as worldly as a woman of her years should have been. Thirty years old and she hadn’t learned a blessed thing about men in all that time. Even now, he weakened her resolve.
Objectively, she could understand why he had agreed to the match. Subjectively, she could not comprehend why he would keep the knowledge from her. She supposed she should take comfort knowing he didn’t love Miss VanHorn, but she found precious little solace in his admission. He quite obviously didn’t love Helen either. She wasn’t sure that he could love anyone more than he loved his business. Perhaps he was incapable of emotion. How could he have made love to her as he had, wooed her and won her, all while keeping the fact that he was going to marry another woman from her?
If only she had not fallen hopelessly, helplessly in love with him.
The thought, as unwelcome as it was startling, couldn’t have hit her at a more vulnerable moment. Dear God, she feared that she did love him. Realization crashed down on her now as she stood staring at him, a complete stranger to her, this man who had made her body feel as though it was made for his. This man who had given her pleasure and stolen kisses and moments of the most intense bliss she’d ever known.
/> None of it mattered anyway, for it was too late, far too late, for love.
His jaw clenched and he caught her about the waist, hauling her back into his chest. “Damn it, Helen, listen to me. I’m leaving tomorrow for Paris. I haven’t a choice—I must go. But let me explain. Please.”
“No.” She shook her head, forcing away the tears stinging her eyes. “Go to Paris then. Go back to New York City and your life there. Go anywhere you please so long as it’s away from me. I don’t need or want any more explanation.”
“Helen.”
She pushed away from him, even as a traitorous part of her still longed to be in his arms. “I am deadly serious, Levi. I don’t care. I don’t give a damn about your betrothed or your electricity or your business. And I most certainly don’t care about you. You never belonged here and you never will. I should not have lowered myself by being with you. Now I am well and truly ruined.”
“I never lied to you, Helen,” he said again, as if the distinction was somehow important to him. As if it would make a modicum of difference to her.
Whether he had lied or omitted the awful fact, he had broken her heart and she could not forgive him for that. Nor could she forgive herself for her naïveté. “No I suppose you didn’t, did you? How gentlemanly of you. Thank you, Mr. Storm, for your kindness in only misleading me rather than lying to me, which I suppose is all one could expect from the bastard son of a New York City doxy.”
He was as forbidding and cold as he’d ever been. “That is enough, madam.”
Her words were intended to wound. Though it may be childish of her, she wanted to hurt him as he had hurt her. To make him feel the same bitter pain. “You warned me that I was too good for the likes of you, and you were right. You are nothing but a vile opportunist who cares only about your businesses and your money and your pleasure. You disgust me.”
“You’ve gone too far, Helen,” he warned, taking her arm in a punishing grip.
Good, she had angered him. “What do you intend to do, Mr. Storm? Punish me? Use me the way men used your own mother? You already have.”
“Goddamn it, enough,” he roared, releasing her as if she were a poisonous snake. “Enough, Helen.”
“If hearing what you’ve done makes you angry, you need only look one place to lay the blame. The mirror.” She shook like a tree in a violent winter wind, so furious was the torrent of emotion coursing through her. “Goodbye, Levi. I never want to see you again.”
With tears blurring her vision, she turned and practically fled out the door. He didn’t follow, nor did he call after her. It was all done now, and Helen had never felt more hollow or more alone.
London, One Year Later
t had been a hell of a long time, but Levi had finally made his return to England. As he cooled his heels in Jesse’s stately townhome and waited for the butler to come back, he reached inside his waistcoat pocket for the folded sheet of paper holding his reason for leaving New York City. There it was, right next to his watch, the same place it had been ever since he’d received it though he had extracted it at least a hundred-odd times to read its contents again, always first in disbelief. Then in sheer, unadulterated anger.
Yes, the disbelief had come as his eyes had caught upon one word. Son.
Not been far behind in its wake had been anger, a deep, scoring blade of righteous rage. Son. He could still recall the precise moment he’d read the sentence that had changed his life forever. He’d been at the desk in his study on Fifth Avenue, the bustle and noise of the city he loved humming outside, a cup of coffee steaming at his right hand, a Waterman pen half deconstructed to his left alongside a stack of engineering journals awaiting his keen eye.
And there it had been, the letter from London. The cup of coffee, the pen, and the journals would never be the same. Nor would he.
The dour-faced butler reappeared. “Mr. Whitney will see you now.”
Levi hadn’t forgotten the man from his time spent as a guest here, but apparently he had been forgotten. No matter. He would reacquaint himself with everyone soon. And with one woman in particular, the very woman who, at their last meeting, had sworn she never wanted to lay eyes on him again. She was about to be vastly disappointed.
He followed the butler to Jesse’s study and crossed the threshold, his memories inevitably stirred by the familiar chamber. Jesse stood upon his entrance, but there was no warm smile. No friendly handshake. The discreet butler closed the door at Levi’s back. He tucked the letter into his pocket once more, realizing he’d been carrying it still, his thumb worrying the fraying fold.
“Damn it, Levi, I’m not sure if I should shake your hand or give you a sound beating,” his friend said, his Virginia drawl all the more pronounced in his ire.
Levi inclined his head in acknowledgment. “I wouldn’t recommend a beating, however well-deserved. Don’t forget what happens when Johnny Rebs tangle with Yanks.”
Jesse’s grim expression cracked for an instant, and he grinned. “I’m not likely to forget, sir. Though we did hand you a crushing defeat at Manassas upon two separate occasions.”
Levi clasped his hands behind his back. “Need I remind you of Richmond?”
“Hell.” Jesse skirted his desk and clapped him on the back, perhaps against his best intentions. “It’s good to see you again, old friend, in spite of the bind you’ve put me in.”
They shook hands, and for a moment, Levi could almost forget the seriousness of his visit. Almost. “It’s damn good to see you as well, Jesse.” Since his abrupt departure for Paris last year, he’d had little time for anything other than business. He’d thrown himself headlong into his work, in rebuilding North Atlantic Electric’s reputation, fighting Edison’s patent-infringement lawsuit, gaining his freedom. “Thank you for writing me.”
“No need for gratitude. Your making things right will be my ultimate thanks,” Jesse said pointedly.
Ah, there was the censure he’d been expecting. “Damn it, if I’d had even the slightest inkling, I wouldn’t have left. She was very angry with me after she found out about Miss VanHorn, and there’d been the explosion in France that I had to answer for. I did and said things I regret, Jesse, but I sure as hell never would have left her behind knowing she carried my child.”
Inevitably, his mind traveled to her. Lady Helen. Beautiful, sweet, good Lady Helen. Perhaps not so good nor so sweet after all, even if she continued to pen her fiery reform articles and he’d been fool enough to seek them out and read them all, just for the reminder it gave him of the sound of her voice, the passion of her convictions. She had refused to see him before he’d gone to Paris or to answer his letters later, and he didn’t entirely blame her for that. He should have been open with her about his engagement from the start, but things between them had progressed so rapidly and unexpectedly. He’d been selfish and careless.
He did, however, blame her for not telling him about their son, goddamn it. An entire year had passed, and she’d made no effort to contact him. Hell yes, he blamed her for that crippling omission.
He had tried, over the last year, to tell himself that their end would have been inexorable anyhow. And that their two worlds, while they had overlapped for a charmed sliver of time, could never coexist for a lifetime. But a day had not gone by, in all the days since she’d stormed out of his office, when he hadn’t thought of her. When he hadn’t read her words from another continent and wondered at what might have been, and that was the bitter truth of it.
“I know you’re a fine man, and I’m inclined to believe you,” Jesse said then. “But Lady Helen is as dear as a sister to me, and she deserves to be treated with utmost care.”
Levi didn’t know about the utmost care bit of his friend’s statement. He hadn’t ever been as enraged as he was when he’d discovered that she had kept their child from him. He wasn’t sure that he could handle her civilly, but he also wasn’t about to waste any more time without seeing his son. “She kept my son a secret from me, and she’ll have to pay
the price for that. All I need is for you to tell me where to find her, and the rest is not your concern.”
Jesse’s countenance grew grim. “It became my concern when you got an innocent woman with child beneath my goddamn roof. My wife is already angry enough with me for interfering in her friend’s personal matters and informing you of the babe. If you do anything to upset Lady Helen in any way, there will be hell to pay, as much as from Mrs. Whitney as from myself.”
Anything to upset Lady Helen. The rage inside him continued to fester. She damn well could have answered his letters. She could have written him, sent him a telegram, anything for Christ’s sake, and he would have come running to her. It would have been so very easy for her to find him. Instead, she hadn’t done a thing. She’d had his son. And she had said nothing.
“Tell me where she is, Jesse.”
Jesse gritted his teeth. “I don’t like this, Levi. Not one damn bit.”
“Nor do I. But I’ve come an awful long way from New York City, and I’ll be damned if I have to go one more hour without seeing my son.”
His friend sighed. “My wife will box my ears for this, but very well. Lady Helen can be found at the House of Rest, the one she and Mrs. Bennington opened not long after you left for Paris. Lady Helen runs the place now. She’s living quite a different life these days.”
The House of Rest. Of course. He should’ve known. If she’d been trying to hide from him, she hadn’t made it very difficult to find her. He knew the way by heart. “Thank you, old friend.”
And without another word, he turned on his heel and stalked out the door.
“B-o-y,” sounded out one of Helen’s latest protégés at the House of Rest, slowly and painstakingly. “Boy.”
“Excellent progress, Ruby,” Helen encouraged, a warm surge of pride welling up within her. “Now try this one.” She pointed to the next word in the primer. Teaching the ladies was one of her greatest enjoyments. Although education was compulsory until age ten, many of the women and girls they aided had scarcely attended schools at all, caught up as they’d become in the underworld of London’s vices. Between running the house and spending time with her sweet little Theo, her days were full and long, arduous but also satisfying.
Sweet Scandal Page 17