THE ELEGANT UNMARKED CARRIAGE came to a halt at the porticoed side entrance of Ravenel House. An afternoon rain had descended from the January sky, swept along by brisk icy breezes that whistled through the streets of London. As Helen had peeked through the carriage’s window blinds during the ride from Cork Street to South Audley, she had seen pedestrians clutching wool coats and capes more closely around their bodies, heading to covered shop doorways to stand in tight clusters. The shower of raindrops, heralding worse to come, had imparted a dark shimmer to the pavement.
But warm yellow light poured through the glass-paned doors that opened onto Ravenel House’s spacious double library, filled with mahogany shelves and acres of books, and heavy well-cushioned furniture. A shiver of anticipation went through Helen at the thought of returning to her cozy house.
Rhys slid a hand over both her gloved ones, giving them a slight squeeze. “I’ll call on Trenear tomorrow evening to tell him about the engagement.”
“He may not take the news well,” Helen said.
“He won’t,” Rhys replied flatly. “But I can handle him.”
Helen was still concerned about Devon’s reaction. “Perhaps you should wait to call until the day after tomorrow,” she suggested. “He and Kathleen will be weary from traveling. I think they’ll receive the news more easily if they’ve had a sound night’s rest. And I could—” She paused as a footman began to open the carriage door.
Rhys glanced at the footman and said brusquely, “A few minutes.”
“Yes, sir.” The door closed at once.
Turning in his seat, Rhys leaned over Helen, toying with the folds of her veil. “Go on.”
“I could explain things to Devon before you arrive,” she continued, “and try to pave the way.”
He shook his head. “If he loses his temper, I won’t have you bear the brunt of it. Let me be the one to tell him.”
“But my cousin would never harm me in any way—”
“I know that. All the same, he’ll be picking for a fight. It’s for me to deal with him, not you.” Carefully he adjusted an edge of her collar that had folded over. “I want this settled by tomorrow night, for both our sakes. I can’t bear to wait longer than that. Will you agree to say nothing until then? And let me take care of it?” His tone was not dictatorial, but rather concerned. Protective. He paused before saying with gruff unwillingness, as if the word threatened to choke him, “Please.”
Helen stared into his coffee-black eyes. This was new, this feeling of being looked after and wanted. It seemed to spread inside her like delicate tendrils.
Realizing that he was waiting for an answer, she replied with a touch of impishness, “Aye.”
After a blink of surprise, Rhys hauled her up into his lap. His eyes glinted with amusement. “Mocking my accent, are you?”
“No.” A breathless giggle escaped her. “I like it. Very much.”
“Do you, then?” His tone had deepened. “I’ll have to send you inside, now soon. Give me a kiss, cariad. One to make up for all the kisses I would have had from you tonight.”
She pressed her mouth to his, and his lips parted, letting her explore him with little flirting tastes. Realizing that he was letting her take the lead, she nudged him more fully open, enjoying the firm silken texture of his mouth. Tentatively she changed the angle of the kiss, and the fit was so lush and delicious that she locked her mouth onto his. She wanted to stay like this forever, caught in his lap with the mass of her skirts bunched all around them, her bottom sinking into the space between his muscular thighs. Gripping his shoulders, she hugged herself closer to the hard contours of his body.
His chest moved in a forceful breath or two, like pumps from fireplace bellows, and he broke the kiss with a groan. A shaken laugh escaped him as her mouth continued to seek his. “No—Helen—ah, how you please me—we have to stop.” He leaned his forehead against hers. “Before I take you here in this carriage.”
Befuddled, Helen asked, “It can be done in a carriage?”
His color heightened, and he closed his eyes briefly, as if he’d been pushed to the limit of his endurance. “Aye.”
“But how—”
“Don’t ask me to explain, or I might end up showing you.” Clumsily he set her back on the seat beside him, and leaned forward to rap on the carriage door.
The footman came to help Helen descend, first placing a movable step on the flagstone tiled ground, then extending his gloved hand for her to take. Before Helen reached the French doors, she could already see the twins through the paned glass, their slim forms practically vibrating with eagerness.
“Milady, shall I carry this inside?”
Helen glanced at the cream-colored box he held, approximately the size of a dinner plate, tied with a narrow matching satin ribbon. She realized it was the box containing a selection of stockings from the store. “I’ll take it now,” she said. “Thank you”—she tried to remember what Rhys had called him—“George, isn’t it?”
He smiled at her as he opened the door. “Yes, milady.”
Immediately upon entering the house Helen was beset by the twins, who danced around her in excitement.
She cast one last glance through the glass panes, watching the carriage depart.
“You’re back!” Pandora shouted. “Finally! Whatever took you so long? You’ve been gone for most of the day!”
“It’s almost teatime,” Cassandra chimed in.
Helen smiled, nonplussed by their wildness.
The twins were nineteen, soon to be twenty, but one could be excused for thinking they were younger than their actual age. Raised in an atmosphere largely devoid of authority, they had run free on a country estate with few diversions other than those they created for themselves. Their parents had spent much of their time in London society, leaving their daughters in the care of servants, governesses, and tutors. None of them had been able or willing to take a firm hand with them.
To be certain, Pandora and Cassandra were high-spirited but also affectionate, intelligent, and endearing. And they were as beautiful as a pair of pagan goddesses, both of them long-limbed and glowing with health. Pandora was perpetually disheveled and full of energy, her dark hair falling from its pins as if she’d just been running through the woods. Cassandra, the golden-haired twin, was more compliant and romantic in nature, more willing to abide by rules.
“What happened?” Cassandra demanded. “What did Mr. Winterborne say?”
Helen set aside the cream-colored box. After tugging off a black glove, she held out her left hand.
The twins crowded close, wide-eyed with wonder.
The moonstone seemed illuminated, glowing with shimmers of green, blue, and silver.
“A new ring,” Pandora said.
“A new engagement,” Helen told her.
“But the same fiancé,” Cassandra said with a questioning lilt.
Helen laughed. “One can’t simply go shopping for one of those. Yes, it’s the same fiancé.”
That set off a fresh burst of enthusiasm, both girls whooping and jumping without restraint.
Perceiving there was no use in trying to curb them, Helen stood back. Noticing movement at the doorway, she turned to find the housekeeper waiting at the threshold.
Mrs. Abbott tilted her head and regarded her expectantly, asking a silent question.
Helen beamed and nodded.
The housekeeper sighed with what appeared to be an equal measure of relief and worry. “May I take your things, Lady Helen?”
After giving her hat and gloves, Helen said quietly, “You and the other servants must not worry, even for a moment, about the consequences of my outing. I will take full responsibility. All I ask is that the staff refrain from saying anything to Lord or Lady Trenear when they arrive tomorrow.”
“They will hold their tongues and go about their work as usual.”
“Thank you.” Impulsively Helen touched the older woman’s shoulder, patting it softly. “I’ve never been so happy.”
“There’s no one who deserves happiness more,” Mrs. Abbott said gently. “I hope Mr. Winterborne will be half so deserving of you.”
The housekeeper departed through the main library room, while Helen went back to her sisters. They had settled onto a leather-upholstered settee, staring at her eagerly.
“Tell us everything,” Cassandra urged. “Was Mr. Winterborne upset when you approached him? Angry?”
“Was he confuming?” Pandora, who liked to invent words, asked.
Helen laughed. “As a matter of fact, he was terribly confuming. But after I convinced him that I sincerely wished to be his wife, he seemed much happier.”
“Did he kiss you?” Cassandra asked eagerly. “On the lips?”
Helen hesitated before replying, and both twins squealed, one from excitement and the other from aversion.
“Oh lucky, lucky Helen,” Cassandra exclaimed.
“I don’t think she’s lucky at all,” Pandora said frankly. “Fancy putting your mouth on someone else’s—what if his breath is nasty or there’s a wad of dipping snuff in his cheek? What if there are crumbs in his beard?”
“Mr. Winterborne has no beard,” Cassandra said. “And he doesn’t dip snuff.”
“Still, mouth kisses are revolting.”
Cassandra looked at Helen with great concern. “Was it revolting, Helen?”
“No,” she said, turning scarlet. “Not at all.”
“What was it like?”
“He held my cheeks in his hands,” Helen said, remembering the touch of Rhys’s strong, gentle fingers, and the way he’d murmured You belong to me, cariad . . . “His mouth was warm and soft,” she continued dreamily, “and his breath was cool with peppermint. It was a lovely feeling. Kissing is the best thing lips do other than smiling.”
Cassandra drew up her knees and hugged them. “I want to be kissed someday,” she exclaimed.
“I don’t,” Pandora said. “I can think of a hundred things better than kissing. Decorating for Christmas, petting the dogs, extra butter on the crumpets, having someone scratch the itch on your back that you can’t quite reach—”
“You haven’t tried kissing,” Cassandra told her. “You might like it. Helen does.”
“Helen likes Brussels sprouts. How can anyone trust her opinion?” Curling up in the corner of the settee, Pandora gave Helen a shrewd glance. “You needn’t worry that we’ll let anything slip to Devon or Kathleen. We’re good at secrets. But all the servants know you went somewhere.”
“Mrs. Abbott promises they will hold their silence.”
Pandora grinned crookedly. “Why is everyone willing to keep Helen’s secrets,” she asked Cassandra, “but not ours?”
“Because Helen’s never naughty.”
“I rather was today,” Helen said before she thought better of it.
Pandora glanced at her with keen interest. “What do you mean?”
Deciding that a distraction was in order, Helen retrieved the ivory box and handed it to them. “Open this.” She sat in a nearby chair, smiling as the twins untied the ribbon and lifted the lid.
Inside, three rows of folded silk stockings had been arranged like bonbons . . . pink, yellow, white, lavender, cream, all of them with stretchy lace welts.
“There are twelve pair,” Helen said, enjoying her sisters’ awestruck expressions. “The three of us will divide them evenly.”
“Oh they’re so beautiful!!” Cassandra reached out with a single finger to touch the tiny embroidered forget-me-nots bordering a lace top. “May we wear them now, Helen?”
“Only take care that no one sees them.”
“I suppose these might be worth a kiss on the mouth,” Pandora conceded. After counting the stockings, she glanced quizzically at Helen. “There are only eleven.”
Unable to think of an evasive answer, Helen was compelled to admit, “I’m already wearing one pair.”
Pandora regarded her speculatively, and grinned. “I think you have been naughty.”