Marrying Winterborne

She had never imagined that a man would kiss her as if he were trying to breathe her in, as if kisses were words meant for poems, or honey to be gathered with his tongue. Clasping her head in his hands, he tipped it back and dragged his parted lips along the side of her neck, nuzzling and tasting the soft skin. She gasped as he found a sensitive place, her knees slackening until they could barely support her weight. He gripped her closer, his mouth returning hungrily to hers. There was no thought, no will, nothing but a sensuous tangle of darkness and desire, while Mr. Winterborne kissed her with such blind, ravening intensity that she could almost feel his soul calling into her.

And then he stopped. With startling abruptness, he tore his mouth free and pried her arms from his neck. A protest slipped from Helen’s throat as he set her aside with more force than was strictly necessary. Bewildered, she watched as Mr. Winterborne went to the window. Although he was recovering from the train accident with remarkable speed, he still walked with a faint limp. Keeping his back to her, he focused on the distant green oasis of Hyde Park. As he rested the side of his fist against the window frame, she saw that his hand was trembling.

Eventually he let out a ragged breath. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“I wanted you to.” Helen blushed at her own forwardness. “I . . . only wish the first time had been like that.”

He was silent, tugging irritably at his stiff shirt collar.

Seeing that the hourglass was empty, Helen wandered to his desk and turned the timepiece over. “I should have been more open with you.” She watched the stream of sand as it measured out second after yearning second. “But it’s difficult for me to tell people what I think and feel. And I was worried about something Kathleen said, that you thought of me only as . . . well, as a prize to acquire. I was afraid she might have been right.”

Mr. Winterborne turned and set his back against the wall, his arms folded across his chest. “She was right,” he surprised her by saying. A corner of his mouth quirked wryly. “You’re as pretty as a moonbeam, cariad, and I’m not a high-minded man. I’m a bruiser from North Wales, with a taste for fine things. Aye, you were a prize to me. You always would have been. But I did want you for more than just that.”

The glow of pleasure Helen felt at the compliment had disappeared by the time he finished. “Why did you say that in the past tense?” she asked, blinking. “You . . . you still want me, don’t you?”

“It doesn’t matter what I want. Trenear will never consent to the match now.”

“He was the one who suggested the match in the first place. As long as I make it clear that I’m quite willing to marry you, I’m sure he’ll agree.”

An unaccountably long pause ensued. “No one told you, then.”

Helen gave him a questioning glance.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, Mr. Winterborne said, “I behaved badly, the day that Kathleen visited. After she told me that you no longer wanted to see me again, I—” He broke off, his mouth grim.

“You did what?” Helen prompted, her brow furrowing.

“It doesn’t matter. Trenear interrupted when he came to fetch her. He and I nearly came to blows.”

“Interrupted what? What did you do?”

He looked away then, his jaw flexing. “I insulted her. With a proposition.”

Helen’s eyes widened. “Did you mean it?”

“Of course I didn’t mean it,” came his brusque reply. “I didn’t lay a blasted finger on her. I wanted you. I have no interest in the little shrew, I was only angry with her for interfering.”

Helen sent him a reproachful glance. “You still owe her an apology.”

“She owes me one,” he retorted, “for costing me a wife.”

Although Helen was tempted to point out the flaws in his reasoning, she held her tongue. Having been reared in a family notorious for its evil tempers and stubborn wills, she knew the value of choosing the right time to help someone see the error of his ways. At the moment, Mr. Winterborne was too much at the mercy of his passions to concede any wrongdoing.

But he had indeed behaved badly—and even if Kathleen forgave him, it was unlikely that Devon ever would.

Devon was madly in love with Kathleen, and along with that came all the jealousy and possessiveness that had plagued generations of Ravenels. While Devon was somewhat more reasonable than the past few earls, that wasn’t saying much. Any man who frightened or offended Kathleen would earn his eternal wrath.

So this was why Devon had withdrawn his approval of the engagement so promptly. But the fact that neither he nor Kathleen had mentioned any of this to Helen was exasperating. Good heavens, how long would they insist on treating her like a child?

“We could elope,” she said reluctantly, although the idea held little appeal for her.

Mr. Winterborne scowled. “I’ll have a church wedding or none at all. If we eloped, no one would ever believe you went with me willingly. I’m damned if I’ll let people say I had to kidnap my bride.”

“There’s no alternative.”

A wordless interval followed, so full of portent that Helen felt her arms prickling beneath her sleeves, all the downy hairs lifting.

“There is.”

His face had changed, his eyes predatory. Calculating. This, she understood in a flash of intuition, was the version of Mr. Winterborne that people regarded with fear and awe, a pirate disguised as a captain of industry.

“The alternative,” he said, “is to let me bed you.”