Helena looked at him, stricken. ‘Yes.’
‘Well, Helena, how do you intend to proceed now?’ The exasperation had turned, inexplicably, to anger and his eyes on her face were harsh.
‘I…I could hide down the steps in the area, near the coal cellar, until dawn when the servants open the doors. Then I could creep in through the kitchens…’ Her voice died away; she was not convincing herself, let alone Adam.
‘So you think I would abandon you to whatever drunks or vagabonds might be lurking about?’
Helena spoke rapidly as her mind at last began to work. ‘Portia! You can take me to Portia’s house!’
‘I see.’ Adam’s voice was sarcastic. ‘So we arrive unexpectedly at a house at three in the morning, not knowing whether the mistress or master are returned home or whether or not they have guests. The servants will, of course, not think this is in any way strange, despite the fact that you are entirely unchaperoned except by one of the most notorious rakes in London. What a splendid plan! Let us have a wager on how long the news would take to travel from the drinking houses the footmen use to their masters’ ears. You would be the talk of the clubs within twenty-four hours.’
Helena was shocked by his cruelty. ‘Adam! Why are you so angry with me?’ For he was, indeed, very angry.
‘Because you, madam, have been an infernal nuisance from the moment I picked you out of the sea.’ He put his head out of the door and snapped, ‘Home, Roberts!’ then sat back, rigid, his arms folded across his chest.
For an incredulous moment she stared at him in the gloom, then a little sob escaped from her throat.
‘Stop snivelling, Helena, it will solve nothing.’
‘I am not snivelling!’ she snapped back. ‘But I cannot go home with you!’
Adam turned hard eyes on her. ‘You are coming back with me because my home is the one place in London where the servants will not turn a hair at the sight of a cloaked woman entering in the small hours.’
The carriage drew up at his front door as he spoke. With a sharp glance around to make sure the Square was empty, Adam took Helena’s arm and unceremoniously bundled her out of the carriage and up to the front door. ‘Pull up your hood.’
The door was unbolted and opened silently with Adam’s key, but even so the butler materialised from the baize door below the stairs. ‘Thank you, Ogley, there is no need for you to wait up.’
If Ogley made the connection between the young lady he had admitted earlier that evening and the cloaked figure at the bottom of the stairs, he gave no sign of it, nor, in fact, did he acknowledge in any way that his lordship was accompanied. ‘Goodnight, my lord.’
Blushing under her hood, Helena let Adam take her hand and hurry her up the stairs. His hand was warm, enveloping her chilly fingers, and she could feel his pulse beating strongly where their wrists touched.
At the head of the stairs on the second floor he opened a door and Helena found herself inside before she realised where she was.
The great four-poster dominated the room, its damask hangings lit to a dull sheen by the flickering firelight and the light from the many-branched candelabra on the dressing stand. The bed was turned down invitingly and a decanter stood with one wine glass on the table.
In a panic Helena turned to face him. ‘I cannot stay here, this is your bedchamber!’
Adam looked down into her face, at the wide eyes and trembling mouth and said softly, ‘Are you really so afraid of me, Helena?’
She stared back, wondering if she dared read tenderness in that voice, in the lines of his mouth. He unlaced the ties of her cloak with fingers that were not quite steady and it fell unheeded to the floor.
Her heart was beating like a drum, the pulse filling her ears. Fatigue, anxiety and a dreadful yearning for him made her dizzy; when Adam reached out to cup her cheek in one hand, she flinched away from him as if stung.
Helena stumbled away from him and stood gazing into the fire, fighting down the wave of love and longing that threatened to send her running across the room and into his embrace. She was so tired, so vulnerable, she would never be able to conceal her feelings for him.
‘There is no need to run from me, madam. A simple “no” would suffice—I am not Daniel Brookes.’ His voice was cold, but she knew it had hurt him very much that she seemed not to trust him. ‘I shall sleep in the dressing room.’
The door clicked emphatically behind him and only then did Helena dare turn from the fire. Slowly she dragged her leaden feet across the floor, blew out the candles and unbuttoned her outer clothing, letting the walking dress drop to the boards. Dressed only in her shift, she crept between the crisp sheets of the big bed and pulled the covers up to her chin.
The room was redolent with the scent of burning applewood from the fire, the familiar tang of Russian leather cologne and the indefinable sense of the man whose room it was.
She did not believe that sleep would claim her, but her eyes closed as soon as her head touched the pillow and she was plunged into feverish dreams, longings…
Images of Adam filled her mind: the recollection of his body hard against hers when he had first kissed her on the deck of the Moonspinner, the feel of his back under her spread palms as she yielded up her innocent lips to his experienced, tender mouth.
Helena tossed restlessly in the big bed, half-awake, half-asleep in that strange early morning state of waking and dreaming. The taste of the salt on his skin came back to her intensely, as did the thrilling feeling of powerlessness as his strong arms bore her down onto the bunk in that stuffy cabin.
Once more she felt the weight of him trapping her, his heart thudding over hers, the shock of finding how soft and hot his skin was. Part of her knew she was dreaming, for the pictures in her mind were silent; his lips moved in her hair but she heard no words.
Feverish desire was making the blood sing in her ears. The cabin faded and now she was in the Vauxhall Gardens and Adam was claiming her lips in a hard kiss of mastery and control, weakening her resistance, her ability to say no to him.
Now the shrubs faded too and her dreaming mind replaced the scene with the image of red damask bedhangings with flickering firelight playing across them. It was Adam’s bedchamber, but she must still be dreaming for all was silent in the big room save for the beating of her pulse.
It seemed to Helena that the bed dipped, as though under another weight. Dreamily she turned and was taken, enfolded, in a burning embrace, held against a naked chest by bare arms. She moaned, but no sound escaped her lips.
A mouth trailed kisses down her throat, the touch as light as a butterfly’s wing. Sensation coursed through her being out of all proportion to the sensitivity of the caress. Lips brushed across the fine muslin of her shift, over the curve of her breast and settled with shocking intimacy on the fabric covering her nipple.
Her flesh leapt to meet his questing mouth and the tongue that was now lapping agonisingly at the swollen peak through the dampened sheerness of the flimsy chemise, which was all that covered her aching body and separated it from the aroused male body which was molding against hers.
Instinctively Helena bent her head, brushing her eager mouth against Adam’s hair. Her fingers tangled in the disarrayed locks, tugging and compelling his head up so that she could seek out his lips with hers. In her dream her eyes were tightly shut but still she had no difficulty finding Adam’s mouth, her own softening, opening beneath his questing tongue.
One of his hands cradled the nape of her neck, the other moved with agonising slowness over the plane of her stomach until he reached the hem of her chemise and his palm began to stroke the satin skin of her thighs which quivered, responsive to his touch.
His hand gently, inexorably, moved upwards, nudging her thighs apart. The safety of the dream swept away all shame, all inhibition and seemed to give her the knowledge to respond to him as his body was demanding.
Adam’s body shifted and as it did so a voice from the street shattered the early morning silen
ce. ‘Six of the clock and all’s well!’ In the hearth a smouldering log broke and fell in a shower of sparks and Helena’s eyes flew open.
In the dawn light filtering into the room she found herself gazing into Adam’s eyes, inches from her own. Her body, quivering with desire, clung to his bare limbs.
With a cry Helena twisted away, almost falling from the bed in shock. This was no dream, no feverish imagining concocted from the past. From the moment the bed had dipped it had all been real.
She scrambled back across the wide bed, dragging a sheet with her to cover her near-nakedness. The action revealed no dream but Adam, naked and aroused. For a long moment they stared at each other, both beyond speech, then Adam sat up against the pillows, pulling a cover across his lower body.
Hot colour suffused Helena’s face, but she could not tear her eyes away from his. ‘I thought…I believed I was dreaming,’ she stammered.
A mocking smile curved his lips. ‘Of course you did, Helena, and a very colourful imagination you have too.’
‘How could you?’ She accused him, furious with herself and with him. ‘You said you were going to sleep in the dressing room and I trusted you!’
Adam put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes briefly. A rueful grimace crossed his features, but when he opened his eyes again Helena could read nothing in their dark depths. ‘You can trust me to do the right thing, Helena,’ he said evenly. ‘And the right thing, as I have told you from the beginning of this sorry history, is for you to marry me.’
Her breath was forced from her lungs by the calculating way he could speak to her only moments after he had given her such pleasure. Her betraying body was still aching for him even though the scalding anger had replaced desire in her blood.
‘And I have told you again and again I will not marry you.’
‘I was fool enough to agree, against all my instincts and my honour. And now look at the mess you have got yourself into.’ His voice was flat and hard. ‘It was obvious that I could not persuade you to do the sensible thing, so I decided—reluctantly—to take extreme measures.’
Goaded beyond sense and endurance, Helena launched herself across the bed, her clenched fists raised to beat at his chest. He caught both wrists in one hand, holding her at arm’s length as easily as if she were a child. In her impotence she blurted out, ‘So you were forcing yourself to make love to me, were you?’ Tears stung the back of her throat and she could not keep the hurt from her voice.
‘I hate to hurt your pride, Helena, but a basic fact you will learn about men is that, with any halfway attractive woman, making love is really a matter of instinct.’
As a look of bleakness came across her face, he released her wrists and spoke more gently. ‘Believe me, Helena, I only want to do the right thing and you have made it impossible for me. What choice did I have but to compromise you so totally that you had no option but to be my wife? But I would never force you—you must know that. I may be a rake, but I have never taken an unwilling woman.’
‘And you have had so many, haven’t you?’ Helena was off the bed, her rigid back to him as she dragged on her creased dress and thrust her feet into her shoes without bothering to put on her stockings. Without looking back, she scooped up her cloak and ran to the door, wrenching it open.
Behind her she heard Adam cry, ‘Helena! Wait!’ but she was already halfway down the staircase.
Below in the hall Ogley glanced up, startled out his well-trained imperturbability. As she reached the door he stepped forward and hesitated, then, seeing the expression on her face, opened it for her to pass through.
Out on the street she forced herself to slow to a walk and threw the cloak around her shoulders, pulling up the hood. Adam could hardly chase her naked into the street and it would take him several minutes to dress. Walking briskly, she passed servants sweeping the paving slabs before their masters’ great houses as they rubbed the sleep out of their eyes.
Reaching the corner of the Square, she turned left and walked on, attracting a curious stare from a milkmaid, her yoke across her shoulders, who was about to descend the area steps for her first delivery. Helena ducked her head and pulled the voluminous cloak more closely round her body.
No gentlefolk would be about at such an early hour, and if she had not been in such distress Helena would have been intrigued by the other world of the morning streets. Footmen in their shirtsleeves and baize aprons exchanged gossip over area railings; a porter with a basket of vegetables on his head sauntered along, whistling at any comely maidservant he encountered. Soapy water ran in rivulets down the broad front steps which led to the great panelled doors with their polished knockers as charwomen on their knees scrubbed them clean.
Helena had to watch her step as she dodged the water, very conscious of her bare, stockingless, ankles. The weak sunlight was slowly warming through the back of the cloak, but she was still chilled to the heart with the shock and Adam’s betrayal.
The irony of it all was not lost on her as she made the short journey back to Brook Street. She loved Adam, heart and soul, and he would have had only to have spoken one word of love to her for her to have yielded to him joyfully against every tenet of her upbringing.
As she rounded the corner and turned into Brook Street, Helena paused and tried to compose herself. One of the footmen was polishing the dolphin knocker which Sir Robert had brought back from Portugal after one voyage, considering it suitable for a naval household.
Taking a deep breath Helena swept up the front steps with a calm, ‘Good morning, Lovage.’ The man’s jaw dropped open and the knocker slipped from his fingers and crashed on to the striker plate with an unholy clang in the silent street.
‘Oh…morning, Miss Wyatt. Begging your pardon, ma’am, you startled me.’
Summoned by the knocker Fishe appeared, a look of deep displeasure on his normally urbane features. ‘Now, look here, my lad, this—Miss Helena!’ If it had not been for her deep embarrassment, Helena would have laughed out loud, for the butler, in his amazement, was opening and closing his mouth like a fish. ‘Forgive me, Miss Wyatt, I am not properly attired…’ And, indeed, it was the first time Helena had ever seen him in his shirtsleeves, his horizontally striped waistcoat covered by his baize apron. ‘I was not aware you were, er…abroad, Miss Helena.’
It was more a question than a statement. Acutely conscious of Lovage agog behind her, Helena managed a composed smile. ‘Such a lovely morning, Fishe, do you not think? I could not resist slipping out to taste the early morning air. Will you have some chocolate sent up to my chamber?’
Orders for chocolate were at least a return to a semblance of normality and Fishe seized on the request with relief. He bowed. ‘At once, Miss Helena. I will send your maid to you.’
Helena had begun to climb the stairs before she remembered her stockingless legs. Shrugging off the cloak, she let it drape from her shoulders, brushing the treads behind her, masking her feet and ankles. Even the loyal and discreet servants employed by Lady Breakey would be agog if the young mistress was seen coming home stockingless.
In the safety of her bedchamber Helena tore off her walking dress and pulled on her wrapper before sinking down before the dressing table. Her hair, reflected to her horrified eyes in the glass before her, was a veritable bird’s nest. One side was completely down—all the pins lost somewhere in Adam’s bed, she supposed. Hastily she pulled out the few that remained at the back and was fluffing out the tangles when Lucy tapped at the door and slipped in.
‘Oh, miss, where have you been?’ The girl was agog, her eyes shining with excitement.
‘Just out for a walk, Lucy,’ Helena replied calmly. ‘Take the brush and brush my hair. I had to put the hood of my cloak up, of course, and it seems to have made a dreadful tangle.’
Glancing up Helena saw her maid’s reflection. The girl was gazing in half-horrified excitement at Helena’s bed, so obviously undisturbed, its covers and pillows as smooth as they had been left last night.
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‘I do hope, Lucy, that you will not trouble my mother or Lady Breakey with the intelligence that I took an early morning stroll.’ Her voice was even, but the tenor was implicit.
Lucy dropped an agitated curtsy. ‘Miss Wyatt…of course I would not mention it, miss, I would have no call to…’
Helena held her maid’s gaze in the mirror. ‘Good. By the way…the walking dress I have put over the edge of the screen—you may have it. I believe the colour does little to flatter my complexion.’
The young girl bobbed again, before brushing gently at the disordered curls beneath her touch. ‘Thank you, Miss Helena, I shall keep it for my Sunday best.’ She hesitated. ‘It’s very good of you, Miss Helena, but there’s no need, you know—I would never do anything to harm you…’
Helena reached back over her shoulder with one hand and touched the girl’s fingers. ‘I know that, Lucy, my dear, but I would like you to have the dress anyway.’
As she dressed, Helena toyed with the idea of taking breakfast in her room, but decided to go down as usual. Despite the loyalty of her maid, she knew that below stairs would be buzzing with gossip about the young mistress’s early morning excursion and skulking in her room would only increase the speculation.
The Commodore, after years on board ship, brought his habits of early rising to his own home and Helena found her uncle, aunt and her mama already in the breakfast room when she came downstairs. She circled the table, kissing each on the cheek as she did so before assuming her place.
‘My word, my dear, you do look well this morning,’ her uncle said with delight. ‘I had feared this London air would not suit you after the sea breezes of Selsea, yet here you are with roses in your cheeks.’
Helena—who knew her cheeks were flaming after running the gauntlet of the curious glances of two footmen, the tweeny, and her uncle’s valet who had somehow contrived to be in the hall when she passed through—had to force a smile in response.
Lady Breakey looked with mock severity at her husband. ‘Oh, come, Sir Robert, you have been at sea too long! It is not the town air which has made our niece bloom, it is rather a handsome naval lieutenant of our acquaintance.’ She leaned over and patted Helena’s hand. ‘Is that not so, my dear?’
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