Chapter 10
Rule 10
Never be seduced by pretty words. Especially from a nobleman.
The following morning, with the house quiet, Helena scribbled furiously on the page before her. Chewing her lip, she skimmed the handful of sentences. Squaring her jaw, Helena shoved back her desk chair, and rushed to ring for her maid.
A moment later the young woman opened the door. “Miss Banbury?”
“Will you see a footman delivers this to the Hell and Sin Club?” she instructed, handing over the note. It matters not. They’ll not respond . . .
With a nod, her maid accepted the missive, curtsied, and rushed off.
Having been awake now for two hours, Helena arched her lower back and then started from her temporary chambers, proceeding to the Blue Parlor. Where was the sense of purpose in this trivial world? A lady sat around and waited . . . for balls and soirees and all things that didn’t matter.
As she found a spot at the window seat, Helena stared out the floor-length windows that overlooked the London streets. Her entire life had been devoted to her work. Given her grasp of numbers and effective accounting, she’d foolishly believed her role in the running of that club had made her invaluable to them. Now, for all the notes she sent round pleading for them to take her back that they’d not even deigned to reply to, they’d proved how little she’d truly mattered.
How easily they’d cut her from the equation. Seated in the window seat, with her legs drawn to her chest, Helena set her copy on Jean-Robert Argand’s life on her knees. Removing the spectacles from her nose, she perched them at a precarious angle atop the open book, and shifted her attention to the fine streets she had no place walking, let alone living near. In the welcome silence of her solitary company, she accepted the feelings of resentment and hurt, taking those emotions in and giving them life.
Where so many women hungered for fripperies and useless baubles, Helena never had. She’d longed to be heard, a woman with worthy thoughts and opinions, opinions that were listened to and, through that, validated. She’d wanted to be seen as a capable woman, wholly trusted with responsibilities beyond her ledgers. Yes, her brothers had trusted her skill with the books, but they’d never let her speak to their distributors or patrons. Instead, those tasks had belonged to the male proprietors. And when she returned, would any of that have changed?
A carriage rattled by, pulling her from her maudlin thoughts, and she turned her efforts on a matter she had proven some surprising control over—the Marquess of Westfield’s pretend courtship.
Their meeting had proven far more agreeable than she could have ever hoped. Or expected.
Yet . . . She chewed at her lip. As a future duke, she expected a man of his lofty status would have bristled at the charges and requests she’d put to him. He had blood bluer than a sapphire running through his veins, and as such hardly needed to answer to or accommodate a bastard woman. Even if she was a duke’s illegitimate offspring, her life and entrance into Society would never merit respect from the peerage.
After she’d returned from Lord and Lady Sinclair’s ball, she’d lain abed, tossing and turning on her unfamiliar mattress. Life on the streets had also taught her to be wary of anything that was too easy. And though the tight lines at the corners of full, perfect lips and snapping eyes hinted at the marquess’s fury, he’d still listened . . . and agreed to help her.
“Why would he do that?” she whispered to herself. Plucking her spectacles from the top of her book, she popped them open and placed them on her nose. She continued to trouble her lower lip. Or mayhap, he’d been so eager to be rid of her that he would have agreed to overthrow the king if it would have seen her gone. All the while, he’d no intention of helping her.
Helena grabbed the small tome and fanned the pages. Having witnessed her mother’s broken heart after the duke’s abandonment, and then Diggory’s manipulation of her only real parent, Helena had the benefit of a daily lesson on all the ways in which to be wary of men . . . of all stations. Then having spent the better part of her life inside a gaming hell, well, her appreciation for treachery and deceit had only been further cemented. What grounds did the marquess have to aid her? She mattered to Ryker and her other de facto brothers, and they’d snipped her from their lives. She was even less to Lord Westfield. He was . . .
Here.
Helena furrowed her brow. Now? He’d come? Book in hands, she pressed her forehead against the window in a display of boldness that would have earned a stern lecture from the Duchess of Wilkinson. From the crystal windowpane overlooking the streets, she studied the marquess as he dismounted from a magnificent black horse. A street urchin rushed forward to collect the reins of his mount and a sad smile pulled at her lips. Then, men such as he had people rushing forward to his aid and assistance, when women such as she remained largely invisible. The marquess handed the boy several coins and said something that earned an emphatic nod.
She used the moment to study him. In her chambers, garments rumpled and a day’s worth of growth on his face, he’d still possessed a masculine beauty that gave a woman pause. The shadows of the earl’s parlor had only lent an air of mystery to the marquess. In the light of day, with his face clean-shaven, and his aquiline cheeks and strong, square jaw on display, she appreciated his as the kind of beauty that made fools of other women.
Not that she was one of those foolish sorts. She wasn’t. She was coolly practical. And logical and would never make a cake of herself for any fancy toff. He started for the front of the duke’s house. As he reached the top step, he removed his hat. The morning sun cast an ethereal glow off his golden tresses.
Breath quickening, she briefly closed her eyes as memories came rushing forward. Of his kiss. Of his gentle caress. The forbidden thrill of his lips on her person. She steeled her jaw. For as masterful as his touch had been, it was nothing for which a woman would ever throw away her future, freedom, and security. Which is invariably what she’d done—through a mistake that was largely his, and partly hers. After all, she’d not bothered to lock that blasted door.
A few moments later, footsteps sounded outside the room, and she swung her legs over the side, climbing to her feet, just as the duke’s butler, Scott, stepped into the threshold. “Miss Banbury,” he said in ancient tones, a familiar smile on his weathered cheeks that contradicted everything one would expect of a duke’s butler. “His Lordship, the Marquess of Westfield, to see you.”
With murmured thanks, she returned the old servant’s smile. Other than the duke and his young daughter, old Scott with his kind eyes often seemed as though he were genuinely pleased with her presence here. He tipped his chin.
Helena gave a vague shake of her head. What is he trying to tell me?
Scott coughed and stared from the corner of his eye at the marquess.
There was something she was missing. Her mind raced. Every aspect from their balls and soirees to something as simple as a morning visit was beyond her realm of comfort and familiarity.
The servant took mercy . . . or mayhap he just despaired of her gathering the proper protocol for receiving a marquess. “I will bring refreshments, Miss Banbury.”
“Uh . . . yes . . . thank you,” she murmured as Scott flashed her another smile and a look of support, and then took his leave.
At last alone, the marquess sketched a bow. “Miss Banbury,” he greeted in that slow, mellifluous baritone that caused a round of delicious shivers.
“My lord,” she motioned him in.
He stalked forward with slow, predatory steps a panther would have envied. Helena held her ground. She’d faced and defeated far greater dangers than this man. Although, at this man’s hands, she was only coming to find there was sometimes greater peril than the violence she’d endured.
As fate’s mocking proof, Lord Westfield flashed a devastating half grin. “May I?” No gentleman had a right to be so gloriously perfect. Particularly when a woman herself was so horribly scarred.
Helena ran the tip of her tongue along her lips. “May you what?” She followed his pointed gaze to a nearby seat. “Oh . . . uh . . . yes,” she said, so wholly out of her element, and plopped into the closest chair.
Instead of doing the same, the marquess came closer, and Helena’s chest tightened as he slid into the red upholstered King Louis XIV chair closest to hers. As he settled his tall, well-muscled frame into those folds, he easily shrank the space between them and she swallowed hard.
Perched on the edge of her chair, Helena clenched her fingers reflexively around her book. In her plan that required this man’s constant presence for the next three months, she’d not thought through the obvious detail that she’d actually have to speak with him.
The marquess laid his forearms over the sides of his chair and cast his glance about the room, as though seeing it for the first time. He drummed his fingertips on the mahogany arms. “Given the time we intend to spend together, I expect we may as well find common ground with which to speak on.”
Where most ladies would most assuredly be offended by that directness, and the absolute lack of pretense at a courtship, Helena appreciated it. Welcomed it. In fact, that directness was not what she’d expect from a man dripping with charm, and in possession of a glib tongue, and it momentarily unsettled her. “There is hardly a need for such pretense,” she said, proud of that smooth delivery.
He chuckled, and removed his gloves. “Isn’t that the point?” he asked, stuffing them into his jacket.
Yes, well, there was truth there. Though she’d sooner slice off her littlest fingers than admit as much.
Lord Westfield leaned forward in his seat, shrinking the space between them, and freezing her thoughts. “Nor would it be wise to discuss any talk of pretense, given that we nobles know nothing about the word quiet.”
At having her words from last evening turned on her, a wave of heat scorched her face. “Very well,” she conceded, despising that he was right. It was far preferable to see him as a sloppy drunkard who wandered into her rooms and upended her existence.
He lifted an eyebrow. “Do you read?”
She blinked, and followed his pointed stare to the forgotten book in her hands. “No.” Helena warmed. “Yes.”
The ghost of a smile hovered on his lips. Odd, not even a month prior, those lips had been on her mouth and person, teaching her in ways no man would ever have the right. Her skin tingled. “Well, which is it?”
Helena held her book up, turning the title toward him.
He wrinkled his brow. Did he fail to recognize Argand’s name? Or was it her reading selection he found exception with? “Are you familiar with Argand’s work, my lord?” she asked, opting for the former.
“I am not.” He settled back in his chair, eying her through those splendidly thick golden lashes.
“He is a mathematician,” she said and warmed to a topic that she could actually speak with some familiarity and comfort on. “He is responsible for the geometrical interpretation of complex numbers.”
The marquess flared his eyes wide. “You are a bluestocking.”
She jutted her chin up at a mutinous angle. “Do you disapprove of a woman of knowledge?”
“Why do I expect you already believe you know the answer?” he returned, waggling his eyebrows.
Because she already did know the answer. Men of all stations and classes had but one desire in a woman, and beyond her face and body, those men saw little use or purpose. “Do you know?” he murmured, leaning forward in his chair so their knees brushed. “I believed it was just me whom you’d taken umbrage with.” He lowered his voice to a hushed whisper. “But I am finding you are suspicious of everyone’s motives, Helena.”
She angled her chin up another notch. What did he know of it? “I’ve been given good reason to be suspect,” she said, boldly meeting his gaze.
He held her stare for a long while, and lingered his gaze on her scarred cheek. Helena curled her toes into the soles of her slippers. Long ago she’d ceased to care about the marks on her body. She’d come to accept them, celebrate them as badges of courage and strength as her brothers had called them. How humbling to be proven a liar before this man’s intense scrutiny. She did care about those jagged white marks and what they said about her story. Wordlessly, he sank back in his chair. “I too have been given,” he lifted an eyebrow, “how did you say it? ‘Good reason to be suspect’?”
Questions spilled to the surface, killing her momentary descent into self-pity. He had reasons to be suspicious? She scoffed. “Fortune-hunting ladies?” she put forth.
His gaze darkened, and the scornful words on her lips died a swift death. The dark emotion glinting in his cerulean-blue eyes, she’d seen too many times reflected back in her own mirrors. “I said we’d speak of our interests, Helena, not our pasts.” His warning meant to deter only cast a lure of further questions about the demons he himself battled.
Helena gave her head a slight shake. It hardly mattered what he’d known in his life. Having been born the son of a duke, destined to a title just a step below royalty, he could never have known the pain and suffering faced by people who dwelled in the streets. “I enjoy mathematics,” she conceded, swiftly diverting their discussion to far safer, far more courting-couple, discourse than any mention of his or her pasts.
“Do you ride?”
“No.” First there had been no funds, and then there had never been a need.
“Do you paint?”
“Poorly.”
He grinned, and that honest turn of his lips was so vastly different than that practiced grin, and somehow more potent. Her heart tripped several beats.
“Do you enjoy the theatre?”
“I have never been.” Life had ceased to exist outside the walls of the Hell and Sin Club.
“Never?” he repeated with some surprise.
Helena shook her head. Never inside. As a young girl, begging the lords and ladies entering those splendorous buildings, she’d hovered at the steps with her hands outstretched.
“You’ve systematically eliminated riding in the park, visits to museums, and trips to the theatre.”
Ah, so that was the purpose of his questioning. “Just because I do not paint or know how to ride doesn’t mean I would not enjoy a trip to a museum or a stroll in Hyde Park.”
With the piercing intensity of his eyes, she stilled, alarmed he might see through her to all the secrets she carried and the hopes she’d once had.
“Fair enough. We shall begin with a trip to Hyde Park tomorrow afternoon,” he said, climbing to his feet.
An inexplicable rush of disappointment filled her as she quickly stood. “You are leaving.” It should hardly matter if he left. His presence here was a mere façade meant to trick and deceive potential suitors desiring of her company and dowry. Still how to account for this . . . regret?
As if on cue, a servant entered bearing a silver tray. Helena’s personal maid trailed in quickly behind. Eyes lowered, the young servant found a chair in the corner of the room.
Robert rescued her gloveless fingers and Helena had an urge to yank her scarred hand from his flawless, olive-hued ones. As she made to draw back, he retained his grip and drew her wrist to his mouth. His breath fanned her flesh as he placed a fleeting kiss upon her skin. “It was a pleasure, Helena.” He dipped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Given the nature of our . . . relationship, I expect you should call me, Robert,” he said, running the pad of his thumb over the sensitive flesh of her inner wrist.
Forbidden shivers radiated from the point of his touch, racing along her arm, and sending heat unfurling through her entire body. Helena managed a jerky nod, and tugged her fingers once more. This time, he allowed her that freedom. Which felt like the very hollowest of victories. “Robert,” she said, hating the breathless quality of that word, his name.
That faint, triumphant smile on his lips hinted at his knowing. “And Helena?”
Flutters danced within her belly.
“You were wrong. I do not.”
She cocked her head.
“Disapprove of a woman with knowledge. Quite the contrary.” Then with an infuriating calm, he dropped a bow, and took his leave.
Helena closed her eyes, never needing the calming effect of numbers more than she did in this moment. She fixed on the ticking porcelain clock atop the mantel, concentrating on those rhythmic beats marking the passing moments. Anything but her muddied thoughts from the faintest touch. A touch that had conjured a long-ago morning in her bedchamber.
Frenzied footsteps sounded in the hall and she looked up at once as the duchess stepped into the entrance of the room. “Lord West . . .” The duchess’s words trailed off and the false smile on her lips withered into a scowl. She cast a furious glance about the room. “Where is His Lordship?”
Helena went still. “He left a moment ago, Your Grace,” she murmured.
The woman tightened her mouth, contorting her pretty features into something quite ugly. “But . . . where is Diana? Has His Lordship escorted her to the park?”
Fiddling with her skirts, Helena at last looked at this particular meeting the way the Duchess of Wilkinson would. Her seventeen-year-old daughter, the model of English ladylike perfection: there would be no more ideal a candidate for the role of future duchess. Oh, bloody hell. Helena picked carefully around her thoughts. “Lord Westfield was . . . paying me a visit,” she said, as the other woman turned to go.
Mayhap she’d let the matter rest.
Mayhap . . .
In an uncharacteristic display of spirit, Her Grace spun about. “Wh-what?” she sputtered. She glanced at Helena, peering down the length of her nose at the by-blow in her residence. “Surely you jest?”
Helena looked to the maid in the corner, who pressed herself against the back of her chair. Did she wish to make herself invisible? In this particular moment of cowardice, Helena well identified with that sentiment. “I do not jest.” The detail she would omit about the marquess’s shocking suit was the whole bit about it being nothing more than a put-on, concocted by Helena, that Lord Westfield—Robert—had agreed to help her in.
If looks could kill, Helena would be the charred ash of tinder at this woman’s noble feet. Then . . . the duchess tossed her head back with a humorless laugh.
Helena stiffened under that condescension. Pretend courtship be damned along with rank and title, she’d not be mocked by this woman, or anyone.
“The marquess wouldn’t pay a visit to you out of anything beyond politeness. There is no secret in Society about the eventual connections between the Wilkinson line and the Somerset one. My husband,” not your father, “and the current duke have been friends since Oxford.”
Two ducal families, uniting kingdoms and empires. Since she’d developed her scheme to avoid suitors with the marquess’s partnership, hesitation stirred. The gentleman had made no mention of Diana. With the families’ connection going so far back, what if there were feelings on her sister’s part?
“Is Diana . . . in love with the duke?” If she were, Helena would swiftly end her plan, cut the marquess free, and deal with the suitors hunting her dowry in some other way.
“Love.” The woman all but spat that word. “You plebeian.” She scraped her gaze over Helena’s too-tall form. “We do not deal in matters of love. We deal in the practical. Wealth. Power. Prestige.” Those callous words turned Helena’s blood cold. Many times, she’d lamented her brothers’ inability to show feeling, but there had never been the emotional deadness that marred this woman’s black soul. “Furthermore,” the duchess went on, “it matters not whether—”
“What are you two ladies so passionately discussing?” A voice sounded at the front of the room, filled with amusement. They looked to the doorway where the portly duke stood, smiling his ever-present smile. “Hmm?” he asked, coming forward. “Could it be a certain marquess?” He waggled his bushy eyebrows. “Paying you court is he, Helena?”
When she’d concocted her scheme and enlisted Robert’s support, she’d seen only the deterrent he’d pose for interested fortune hunters. Not being part of this world, she’d failed to properly consider the enemies she’d earn herself by gaining the attention of a future duke . . . Always think a plan fully through . . . Her skin burning under the force of the other woman’s glare, Helena gave a slight nod.
How many times had that rule been hammered home by Ryker? She’d made the misstep in forgetting those rules applied to all, but the perils in being trapped by a fortune hunter were far greater than a duchess’s displeasure.
The duke settled his hands on his pea-green jacket, smoothing his paunch. “Westfield has always been a good boy.” Despite the thick undercurrent of tension blanketing the parlor, Helena smiled. With the marquess’s powerful physique and command of a room, there was nothing boy-like about him. “He’d make an excellent match, wouldn’t he, Nerissa?”
The duchess flushed.
“And I always thought to see my family tied to Dennington’s.”
A strangled choking sound escaped the duchess, and without a word, she spun on her heel and stormed from the room.
My family.
This man who’d chosen another over Helena’s mother, and failed to acknowledge his by-blow’s existence, saw her as . . . family? Helena stared bewildered at the man whose blood she shared.
The duke patted her on the arm. “Never mind her. She’s merely overcome with joy at the prospect of you marrying Westfield.”
And if her situation hadn’t become incredibly muddied by the connections shared by these two powerful ducal families, Helena would have laughed.
As it was, she’d seen the hatred glinting in the duchess’s eyes and knew she’d found an even greater enemy in the woman.
Three months.
She’d but three months, and then she’d be free of it all.