Chapter 19
Rule 19
Decide your own fate.
Helena stood on the fringe of the Duke and Duchess of Wilkinson’s ballroom, distractedly eying the festivities.
Through the whole of the receiving line, with bated breath, she’d looked for a single guest . . . with an anticipation that had nothing to do with the ruse she’d asked him to be part of. She ran her gaze over the sea of guests twirling about the dance floor. Whispers and polite laughter filled the room in a cacophony of muted sound.
How very miserable she’d been when Ryker had first sent her to this place. She was as much an outsider here as a fish pulled ashore to live on land, with the breath being slowly choked from her. Until Robert. Until him, she’d not known she could smile or laugh or be happy in this place. Nor had she believed men of his station capable of being hurt or knowing suffering. Last night, he’d lifted the blinders from her eyes and she was shamed by her very narrow view on living and life.
Now that she did know it, she didn’t know what to do with that discovery. For ultimately, it changed nothing. She was still who she was: a bookkeeper at the Hell and Sin Club who wished for control in her life when women were lacking in it. He was a marquess and future duke who’d been betrayed by a woman not far off from Helena’s station. Why, no doubt when she took her leave in two months and three weeks’ time, he’d forget her altogether. Helena caught her lower lip between her teeth, hating that. And hating herself for the vicious pain that truth caused.
There was a faint stir at the front of the ballroom, and she looked to the entrance.
Her breath caught.
Standing at the top of the white Italian marble staircase, Robert surveyed the ballroom with a lazy elegance. The chandelier’s glow cast a soft light on his luxuriant, golden tresses and she ached with the need to run her fingers through those faintly curled strands.
As he made his descent, the flurry of whispers increased. Scandalously clad ladies with plunging décolletage touched their fingers to their chests as he moved past them. Debutantes fluttered their lashes. Never breaking his forward stride, he lifted his head in a vague politeness, revealing that lazy half grin that dulled the pain of rejection.
A rogue. He was a rogue in every sense of the word . . . and she’d fallen hopelessly under his spell. Helena momentarily closed her eyes. She’d entered polite Society with clear expectations of him . . . and for herself. She wasn’t the weak ninny who’d ever fall as her mother had. Only heartbreak and heartache came in loving these men.
Yet, that is what I’ve done.
When she opened her eyes, she found his gaze on her, robbing her lungs of air. The veiled, potent stare that had the power to make her feel as though she were the only woman in the ballroom. Then he smiled, and her heart quickened for altogether different reasons. For this was not the false rogue’s grin he donned for the peers, but rather that smile that reached his eyes.
She returned his grin, inclining her head.
The Duke and Duchess of Wilkinson stepped into their path, shattering that connection. As the trio exchanged polite greetings, the duchess’s warnings and cruel taunts came rushing back.
As long as you do not think to make yourself a duchess. You are not one of us, Miss Banbury. It is important you remember that . . .
Helena fisted her scarred hands, those unwitting reminders standing as a mocking testament to the accuracy of the duchess’s claims.
“I have been studying you for an hour now, Miss Banbury, and I cannot determine whether you are attempting to hide, or plotting your escape.”
She gasped, and spun to face the owner of that unfamiliar, faintly amused voice.
The gentleman of a similar age to the Duke of Wilkinson stood, evaluating her in an appraising manner. Where the duke had let age soften his middle and round his cheeks, this man stood lean and powerful still, even with the cane in his hand. But for the drawn lines at the corners of his blue eyes, there wasn’t a hint of weakness to the man.
“Perhaps a bit of both,” she said at last.
The nameless stranger smiled.
Suspicion brought Helena’s lashes sweeping down. Long ago she’d learned to be wary of the motives of gentlemen. Though she hadn’t been born to this world, she well knew no respectable one would approach a lady so and speak with such familiarity. “Forgive me,” she said between tight lips. “You have me at a disadvantage.”
“Of course,” he murmured. “I am the Duke of Somerset.”
The Duke of Somerset. Robert’s father. The man who by Robert’s admission had sought to manipulate him into a proper match. Her skin pricked under his pointed stare. He’d surely read the papers linking her name to his son’s and sought to assess her worth as a future duchess. Alas, if he were hoping for a miss with all the proper responses, he was to be disappointed. Helena dropped a belated curtsy. “Your Grace,” she murmured. She cast a look about for Robert. She’d no doubt this meeting was not coincidence, and given his station and connection to the Duke of Wilkinson, his was, even for the ghost of a smile, not a friendly chance exchange.
“So very dreadful,” he murmured to himself, as he turned his attention out to the ballroom. The latest set just concluded, couples filed off the dance floor. Her gaze landed on Diana, being escorted over to her parents, by her respective partner . . . and Robert. A spasm wracked her heart.
“These affairs,” the duke was saying.
Yanking her gaze away, Helena looked questioningly up. What was he on about?
The older man waved his cane over the crowded room. “I never liked them, you know.”
Helena opened and closed her mouth several times. Actually, she didn’t know. She’d simply believed attending these events was an additional function, like eating and breathing, to these people. How odd to know one of the most powerful peers in the realm should also despise them.
“What of you, Miss Banbury, do you enjoy the balls and soirees?”
“I . . .”
Robert’s father settled his walking stick on the floor, and shifted his weight over it with a grimace.
She took in the strain in the older man’s eyes. His ashen complexion. The white, drawn lines at the corners of his mouth. He is ill . . . Sympathy battered away the aloof demeanor she’d donned moments ago. By God, Robert didn’t know the truth of his father’s circumstances. He was so focused on his family’s finances, he’d failed to see the truth right in front of him.
Her gaze locked with the Duke of Somerset’s, and a silent understanding passed between them. His Grace flashed her a sad smile, an affirming smile that said with more than words that she’d correctly gauged his circumstances. “Well, Miss Banbury?”
“There are certainly other things I would prefer to be doing,” she settled for.
He chuckled. “That is true. If you enjoyed it, you wouldn’t even now be hiding in this corner talking to me.”
“Oh, I’d vastly prefer to speak to you than . . .” most others. Heat exploded on her cheeks.
A knowing twinkle lit his eyes, momentarily dimming the strain in their blue depths. Robert’s eyes. “What would you be doing?”
At the unexpected question, Helena cocked her head.
“Other than attending balls and soirees.” He motioned once more with his cane.
I’d rather be alone with your son. Speaking freely and laughing when I’d forgotten how . . . She gave him a small smile. “I enjoy numbers, Your Grace.”
“Numbers,” he repeated with no small amount of surprise.
“I enjoy mathematics and learning new equations.”
With his spare hand, he captured his chin in his hand and rubbed it contemplatively. “To what end?”
She tipped her head.
“A number is a number, isn’t it? They are not words that can be shaped into different, poetic meanings.”
Yes, that was how he must see it. To Helena, they’d long made sense, and revealed so much in an equally magnificent way that words did. “Ah, yes, but where would we be with only words and numbers?” she said, gesticulating with her hands. And perhaps if she were another woman she’d be properly shamed by the way the duke flared his eyebrows. “Before the sixteenth century, there was an addition and subtraction sign, but do you know how mathematics equations were once written?”
He gave his head a bemused shake.
“With words. Which given their nature, those equations should have been poetic, no?” she asked, taking a step closer. “But can you imagine keeping ledgers or recording accountings for your estates or business with only words? How much time that would take, and how much time you would lose from life for it.” A flash of understanding lit his eyes. “Therefore, I would argue, even though each is uniquely different, there is a place for both, Your Grace.”
The duke stared at her a long while in an appraising manner, and she shifted under that scrutiny. Then, he smiled, and that gentle mirth dulled the previous pain. “Indeed, you are correct, Miss Banbury. One would say, brought together, even vastly different, a beautiful harmony is found.”
Did she imagine the veiled meaning of those words?
He leveled her with a stare that threatened to see inside her.
“Would you object if I steal Miss Banbury away for the next set?”
They swiveled their attention to Robert.
“Rob—My lord,” she swiftly amended, her cheeks flaming.
He winked, and her heart tripped a beat. That fool woman who’d thrown away his love. And Helena must be in possession of the blackest soul, for in this selfish moment she was wholly glad there was no longer a Lucy.
“Of course, of course,” the Duke of Somerset said, gesturing to Helena.
“I do not—”
Robert held out his hand. “Dance? This isn’t a dance, Miss Banbury.” He dropped his voice. “This is a waltz. I’ve it on authority that you’ve perfected the waltz.”
And though dancing had quick become a lesson in humiliation during her time in London, the desire to be in his arms far outweighed her pride. Helena dropped a curtsy to the Duke of Somerset. “It was an honor, Your Grace,” she murmured, and then allowed Robert to tuck her hand in his sleeve and lead her to the dance floor.
“We’d but one lesson,” she said under her breath, as he positioned them at the edge of the dance floor.
“I’m offended, madam, that you’d question my skills as an instructor. Did you forget that day in the gardens so easily?” Desire glinted his eyes and heat sparked in her veins and spread in a slow conflagration that threatened to consume her under the memory he roused.
Helena managed a jerky nod. She swallowed a moan as he guided his hand lower on the small of her back, and then the orchestra proceeded to play. As their bodies moved in an easy harmony to the whine of the orchestra’s violins, Helena was reduced to nothing but a bundle of sensation. Heat poured off Robert’s broad chest, and her fingers tightened on his thickly muscled biceps.
He lowered his mouth close to her ear, and by God she would go with him now, wherever he’d lead. The promise in the gardens. The feel of his touch. She wanted it all before she left London, never to again see him. This magnetic pull he had over her was one that could not be repelled.
“Surely you’ve not forgotten, there is still the matter of demonstrating to those fortune-hunting swains, too, isn’t there?”
Except that. That could shatter this haze. His words had the same effect as tossing a bucket of cold Thames water over her. Of course. This was all pretend. For him. That had only just ceased to be the case for her. The fake smile she donned strained her cheeks. “Of course, I’ve not forgotten.” It was, after all, the whole reason she’d enlisted his aid.
Robert ran an uncharacteristically somber gaze over her face. “What is it?” He growled. “Did my father say something to you?”
“No,” she said quickly. “He was quite kind.” Her gaze found the duke on the fringe of the activity. It was hardly her place to interfere on a matter between Robert and his father. She was not long for this world with Robert, but before she left, she could open his eyes to the inevitable loss awaiting him. “Your father appears . . . strained.”
Robert frowned, and followed her stare. “Are you being deliberately evasive?” He lowered his head so their brows touched. “Or are you so wholly unmoved by being in my arms?”
His arms were the only place she wished to be. Forever.
She missed a step, and he caught her against him, righting her.
“What is troubling you?” he asked again, running a sharp gaze over her face.
I love you . . . “It is nothing.” Everything. “I am merely counting beats.” Liar. Until her brief meeting with Robert’s father, when had she last thought about anything mathematical? Or the club?
In a short time, this man had become everything to her.
“One-two-three. One-two-three,” he whispered close to her ear, his mellifluous baritone a silken promise that had her wishing for all number of things that could never be.
Unable to meet his piercing stare, Helena looked around his shoulder to the sea of guests eying the Marquess of Westfield with his unlikely companion. The befuddlement in their expressions, and the condescending stares, spoke of people who judged and found her wanting.
“Do not look at them,” Robert said quietly, jerking her attention up. In this moment, with the dark, nameless emotion in those eyes, she could almost believe he felt the same. “Look at me. Only me. No one else matters but me and you.” Her heart faltered. And whatever piece of that rapidly pounding organ that hadn’t previously belonged to him fell away and into his hands.
Helena closed her eyes, swaying against him, and allowed him to right them again.
The music drew to a stop, and as couples politely clapped and began to file from the dance floor, Helena stood, a bundle of throbbing nerves and feelings, wicked and wanton as her mother.
Only . . . frozen before Robert, with their chests moving in a quick rhythm, she understood. Understood what had driven her mother. She could no sooner stop loving this man than she could stop the earth from moving and send it spinning in the opposite direction. It was Robert who managed to pull her from the spell. Shifting her arm to his sleeve, he led her from the dance floor.
As he guided her to the edge of the room, the duchess, a determined glint in her eyes, stood in wait, with Diana at her side.
“Lord Westfield,” the duchess said with forced cheer when Helena and Robert stopped before her. “As promised, Diana is free for the next set.”
The charged energy between Helena and Robert on the dance floor may as well have been conjured by Helena’s own yearnings. With his patent grin, Robert captured Diana’s hand and raised it to his lips. “Lady Diana, it is a pleasure,” he greeted her, and Helena curled her toes so tight her arches ached.
“Likewise,” Diana said, blushing a delicate pink, and not the splotchy red Helena had always managed through the years.
Jealousy stabbed at Helena, vicious and ugly and dark. Her sister’s giggling responses were lost to Helena. What would it be like when Helena left and he found another? How did one live with the jagged agony of wanting and love and loss?
Oh, God, this was the hell her mother had known. She’d spent her life hating Delia Banbury, who’d forsaken all to be a nobleman’s pleasures. Loving Robert as she did, Helena saw how very easy it would be to throw away all for any fleeting joy to be had with Robert. So many years she’d judged her mother, had held her to blame for their circumstances. Now, with a woman’s eyes, she saw that her mother’s smile had been partly broken from the pain of that loss. More, Helena now knew that pain herself.
As Robert guided Diana upon the dance floor for a country reel, he cast a final look at Helena, his expression inscrutable, but then his partner said something requiring his attention.
As the orchestra struck up the lively set, Helena stood shoulder to shoulder alongside the duke’s wife, immobile.
“They make a lovely couple, do they not?” the duchess murmured, not deigning to look at her husband’s by-blow.
Helena kept her face deliberately blank. But then she caught sight of the rosy-cheeked Diana and smiling Robert as the steps brought them together again. The hell of it was, the Duchess of Wilkinson was correct. They did look splendid as a pair: he, tall, powerful, golden perfection and she, a dainty model of English femininity.
Then there was Helena, with her too-tall height and pale cheeks and scarred face and hands.
Never had she despised those marks more than in this moment.
“As I said, Miss Banbury,” the other woman continued conversationally, with no apparent need for comment from Helena. “Lord Westfield will wed a lady, never one who was carved up quite handily by a street ruffian. What was it he did?” She flicked a bored look over Helena’s cheek. The scar throbbed at the old memory and the woman’s vitriol. “Burn you?” she guessed.
The air left Helena on a swift exhale as the duchess, with her casual, throw-away supposition, dragged Helena from the present to that dark, ugly past she’d spent years fighting down. She searched her hands about for the nearby column as memories crept in. The acrid smell of burning flesh. Her flesh. Diggory’s cruel, maniacal laugh.
Spinning jerkily on her heel, Helena stalked off. Gaze trained forward, she eyed the back exit of the ballroom with a hungry desperation. Not here . . . Not now . . .
Please, don’t . . . Don’t . . .
Her own cries echoed around her mind and she sucked in a deep breath, unable to draw air past the pressure squeezing about her lungs. Helena knocked into someone and managed a murmured apology, but continued her lurching flight.
At last free of the ballroom, she tore down the hallway, sprinting through the corridors, onward. Escape. She needed it with the same desperation she’d needed it as a child in Diggory’s clutches. When the nightmares came, there had been Ryker and Calum and Niall and Adair. They’d pulled her from the precipice of madness.
Quit yer croyin or oi’ll give ye something to cry for . . .
She clamped her hands over her ears to blot out that coarse cockney. Helena’s muffled sob filled the quiet halls, blending with her quick, panting breaths, and she quickened her pace. She reached the door to freedom and frantically shoved it open.
Warm air slapped her face, and she collapsed on the graveled path, sucking in with deep, gasping attempts to breathe, and retched.
Someone sank down beside her. Strong hands settled at her back, and crying out, Helena turned, and drew back her fist.
Robert easily caught her wrist in his hand, halting the blow.
She blinked wildly. Robert. Not Diggory. Helena slid her eyes closed. “Robert,” she whispered, as the terror receded and she was left in the duchess’s prized gardens with Robert at her side.
Emotion darkened his eyes, and he gently released her hand. “Did someone hurt you?” The lethal edge of steel underscoring that whisper promised death with it.
Through all the horror of remembered pain and the nightmares that would always be, tenderness unfurled within.
“Helena,” he urged, his harsh, primitive growl rumbling around them.
She managed to nod. A sweat-dampened strand fell over her eye and with a tenderness that threatened to shatter her, he brushed it back.
Then he cupped her cheek.
That flawed, ugly, rippled part of her flesh. And for the first time since Diggory had silenced her tears, she let them fall freely and unchecked. She drew in a gasping breath, and she wept, dimly registering as Robert gathered her against his chest, holding her as though she were a cherished treasure. Her shoulders shook from the force of her sobs and she cried until her body ached with the force of her despair.
Robert cradled her close, his arms wrapped around her.
But he did not say anything. He did not whisper platitudes or ask questions or urge her to silence. And she took that offering. Crying for the child she’d never been. And for the torture she’d endured. She cried for the emptiness that had been her mother’s existence. And she cried for everything she now wanted that could never be. Her tears dissolved into slow, shuddery hiccupping gasps, and she remained there clinging to Robert.
Robert settled onto the ground and shifted her in his arms, moving her closer, and she turned her scarred cheek against the place his heart pounded. Closing her eyes, she breathed in deep the sandalwood scent that clung to him. She closed her eyes. All these years she’d believed tears weakened a person. That had been a rule ingrained into her early on beside her brothers. Calm stole over her, despite the lessons about those salty mementos. Now she found how wrong her brothers had been. Those tears offered healing and peace. Robert rubbed smoothing circles over her back and she leaned into his caress.
During the course of her life, she’d moved from a townhouse to a one-room residence, to London streets, and eventually to one of the greatest gaming establishments to rise in England.
Never had she felt any of them was a home.
And in Robert’s arms, she found that home was not walls and a roof after all.
It was a person.