Wedded in Scandal (21 page)

“Yes, well, that was a reasonable fear. Fortunately for you, Tommy had a firm grip on your finger and dragged you inside against my will.”

“Thank God for Tommy.”

“Yes—”

“And thank God that you are an understanding sort, kind and compassionate. You will not tell a soul of what I am asking. And you will allow me to pay for your excellent advice with a meal of very hearty stew.”

“But—”

“Please, Helaine, do not make me beg. My grandfather is already rolling over in his grave as it is.”

It was his expression that finally swayed her. Part teasing, part desperate, and wholly delightful. He was not commanding her, he was charming her. And he had just given quite a gift to her mother in that twenty minutes of polite tea. The two combined made for a potent package. Plus, she had to
admit to a great deal of curiosity about what advice he could possibly want from her. But she couldn’t give in yet.

“I have a great deal to do this evening,” she said. “I am learning to keep my own books, and that takes time and diligence. There is also correspondence to manage, and Penny has come for a visit.”

He paused, hope still shining in his eyes. Then he reached out and squeezed her hand. “What time should my carriage come by? You can finish your bookkeeping and reward yourself with an excellent meal with a delightful companion.”

She bit her lip, trying to sort through the evening. She would need time to finish the accounting, then bathe and dress her hair. Time as well for some light cosmetics and to air out her best gown. It was not a ball gown or anything like that. Simply a dress that was more appropriate to evening and…

And seduction.

She paused, trying to examine the situation logically. But try as she might, she couldn’t force herself to say no. She wanted a lovely dinner. She wanted to be pursued. She wanted to laugh and tease and discuss mining with this man. And even if he meant to bed her for the pleasure, she did not have to say yes. He was not the sort to force her when she refused. Her virtue would be absolutely safe, provided she maintained her own discipline.

“Three hours,” she suddenly said.

He raised his eyebrows. “Three hours?”

“I have a lot of accounting to do.”

He nodded. “Of course. Then I shall endeavor to be sure that the dinner is an appropriate reward for such diligent work.”

He stood to leave, taking the time to bend over her hand. She allowed him to do so, reveling in the feel of being courted as if she were Lady Helaine again.

“Three hours, Helaine. Not a moment more.”

“Not a single second.”

Then he left. She waited a few seconds, reliving the
afternoon’s events, anticipating the evening to come, and relishing the excitement that was tingling through her blood. And when good sense started to surface, she roughly pushed it aside. A minute later she was buried in her books, using the steady march of numbers to obliterate all rational,
moral
considerations.

Robert walked blindly away from her shop, his mind in
a whirl. He knew who she was! Robert knew her real identity and that changed everything. She was Lady Helaine, daughter of Reginald Talbott, Earl of Chelmorton, aka the Thief of the Ton. The scandal might be five years old, but he remembered. It had been all the talk for a Season at least.

The man had stolen from the military troops. The exact details escaped him, but the crime was heinous enough. Stealing from English boys so far from home? Many people cried for the man’s blood. But Talbott was an earl and not a smart one. Robert’s father had once called the man a buffoon, and considering the source, that was an insult indeed.

There had been quite the debate about what was to be done. It went without saying that the entire family was banned from society. Now Robert felt cruel for joking about being tossed from his clubs and spit on in the street. Her father had certainly suffered that fate. Herself as well, most likely, though he could not remember specific events.

So much was clear now. She’d been educated as the
daughter of an earl, so of course she would speak and move as a lady born. As did her mother. No wonder the woman seemed so sad. She’d lost everything just because she’d married a fool.

He hadn’t heard how the debacle was settled. The earl disappeared from society, the discussion of his punishment was overtaken by another matter, and nothing was heard of the Chelmortons again. Until now. Half a decade later, he’d found the daughter, Helaine. She was a talented dressmaker who barely survived above her shop. And her poor mother obviously lived as such women did, playing with children and reliving past glories. She couldn’t even marry again because her husband had disappeared, not died.

But the sacrifices they had made! With no means of support, the daughter becomes a dressmaker. She cannot go out as herself. No one would frequent her shop. So she invents a fictitious name. Then, to avoid the likes of Johnny Bono, she invents a protector as well. Lord Metzger had been close friends with the missing earl. He’d obviously done what he could for the girl, claiming her as his own so that she need not succumb to other more difficult protectors. But at what cost? She could never marry decently, and yet she was obviously not trained as a courtesan, either. At least she had a talent for dresses.

His admiration for Helaine soared. She was resourceful and strong as few women of her set could possibly imagine. And he wanted her now with a passion bordering on insanity.

How awkward that the more he learned about her, the more desperately he wanted to bed her. And yet his honor declared her off-limits. It made no sense, but she was the daughter of an earl. How could he set himself to seduce her? He would be debauching an innocent.

The answer didn’t really matter. No matter how much he told himself that he should back away, he couldn’t force himself to behave. He ought to allow the woman to build a life, but he could not. If Helaine could not marry, then perforce she must either live chaste or become some man’s
mistress. She had obviously intended to be chaste, but that was a cold and empty life. Why not become a mistress in fact? His mistress. She could do much worse than what he offered.

Yes, he told himself. Despite her identity, despite the fact that she’d been raised a woman of his own set, her circumstances had not changed. And that gave him an opening to possess her. An honorable man would walk away. Apparently he was more like his father than he’d thought. Because honorable or not, he intended to bed her. Tonight.

Helaine dressed with as much care for this evening as
she had for her first ball. She’d only attended one. It had been the come-out ball of one of her school friends, and both she and her mother had scrimped to buy the gown. It had been one of her own designs, the materials purchased on the cheap, with the actual stitches sewn by a very young Wendy, though they hadn’t known it at the time. It was the ball gown that had started Wendy thinking along the lines that eventually led to their dress shop. But Helaine hadn’t known it at the time. That night, all she knew was that her mother had dressed her curls perfectly, her father had escorted them like a proper gentleman should, and Helaine had danced the night away.

It was the best night of her life, and yet tonight she felt more excited, more daring, and more on edge than even then. Perhaps it was the hint of despair that touched her. After all, she knew she was taking an irretrievable step. Tonight, whether or not she became a mistress in fact—and she was resolved that it would be
not
—she was losing her virtue in her own mind. She was going to share an evening alone with a gentleman. Without a chaperone, without a good reason beyond his company, and with a great deal of titillating excitement simmering in her blood.

What she was doing was beyond the pale, and Helaine desperately feared that everyone would know it. She didn’t even dare look at her mother, so she asked Penny to help her
style her hair and then escaped as soon as it was possible. And when his lordship’s carriage arrived outside the shop, she rushed out without so much as a good-bye.

He was waiting for her, opening the carriage door even before the footman made it down from his perch. She climbed in, her nerves making her breathless. But the moment she saw his face—his expression pulled wide in an excited grin—she knew she couldn’t regret her choice. He was filled with the same giddy kind of excitement that she was. It was as if they were two kids sneaking downstairs for a treat from the kitchen, and not a man and woman in search of something a great deal more mature. That image helped her relax back into the squabs, which in turn allowed her to notice something other than him.

The carriage was beautiful. The interior was spacious and smelled of cedar. The squabs were made of rich velvet, and it was warm inside. He had a brick for her feet and a rug for her lap and even offered her a cup of spiced wine as she took in her surroundings.

“The inn has good wine, but this is better,” he said as he offered her a glass. “I have stronger stuff as well—”

“No, no. This is excellent. Thank you,” she said as she took the glass. Their hands were gloved. They were both dressed as if for a ball. He looked excellent, of course. The fit of his coat set off his broad shoulders. The color was dark chocolate, a perfect match for his hair and eyes. It was kept from being dull by the white of his lawn shirt and a brilliant emerald in the center of his silk cravat.

He looked handsome and every inch the viscount he was. She bit her lip, feeling the world peel backward to her girlish fantasies. How many nights had she spent dreaming of just this moment—herself in a carriage with a handsome aristocrat? Of course, in her pretend world, they were on their way to something respectable, but it didn’t matter. This moment did. So she took a sip of her wine, closing her eyes to appreciate the taste and the delightful fulfillment of her dreams.

“Do you like it?” he asked.

It took a moment for her to realize he was asking about the wine. “It’s perfect. Where are we going?”

“To the Black Horse Inn. I have, once or twice, stayed there when I can’t stand my family anymore.”

Her eyes widened. “You have not!”

“I have. The first time, I’d just turned seventeen. I was returning from endless hours with the steward at our family seat and knew I would face another pile of correspondence when I arrived in London. So I decided to stop at the inn instead. It was the most heavenly night!”

“What did you do?”

“I read. I took a hot bath. I dreamed of gorgeous women, and I fell asleep.”

She shook her head. “I don’t believe it. At seventeen, you would still have been in school.”

“I was.”

“So how could you be seeing the steward and managing the bills? You were much too young.”

“On the contrary, beginning at the age of twelve, every Boxing Day, my father pulled me into his library and gave me a new responsibility. At first it was overseeing the wine cellar. He said the butler was stealing him blind, and he wanted me to end the nonsense.”

“And was the butler to blame?”

“God, no. That was my father, forgetting how much he drank every night. But my mother praised me for the excellent vintages I purchased and even Dribbs said I was being very clever. I think he was just grateful that my father stopped cursing him as a thief.”

“But you were only twelve! You must have shown quite the skill with management.”

He laughed, the sound filling the carriage. “Not then, I assure you. But my father was remarkably bad at management, so it wasn’t hard to make an improvement.”

“What did you get the next year?”

Even in the darkness of the carriage, she could see him frown, trying to remember. “The sheep, I believe. Or was that the next year?”

“But so much work. And you were still in school?”

“Yes, but I didn’t mind at first. It was kind of fun. I felt important stomping around the estate giving orders. But by the time I was seventeen, the novelty had worn off.”

“Did you come to hate Boxing Day?”

“Despised it with a passion.” Then he leaned back in the carriage and smiled at her. “What did you do for Boxing Day while I was locked in my father’s study?”

“Oh, nothing exciting. Sketched mostly. I spent much of my childhood with dirty fingers. I would draw the most elaborate things.”

“Landscapes? People?”

“Oh, no. Clothing. Dresses much too impractical to ever be possible. My favorite was a court gown. Flounces weren’t even the half of it. Lace, jewels, feathers from exotic birds. You name it, I’d drawn a dress that featured it. I did one that was made of sheets of flattened gold.”

“Gold! Can you imagine how heavy that would be? Like walking around carrying plates on your body. I doubt you could even breathe.”

She smiled, but didn’t answer. Was gold particularly heavy? She’d never held enough in her hand to know. But come to think of it, she remembered a guinea she’d once played with. She recalled how solid it had felt in her hand. A whole dress of coins would indeed have weighed her down to the floor.

He must have understood her embarrassment. When she didn’t respond, he chuckled, filling the darkness with the sound of good humor. “But that’s what youthful dreams are all about, I suppose. I used to dream of running a hospital where every illness was cured within the space of an hour. Sliced open your leg? Here’s a bandage that seals it within seconds. Birthing fever? Just drink this and you’ll be right as rain in a twinkling. Even wasting diseases were no proof against my miracle cures.”