Nor was Miss Devereux to be seen at any of the social events that had taken on a renewed glamour and excitement with the arrival of the Duke of Wellington. Brett had haunted them all, but she was nowhere to be seen, and even the princess, while she still appeared to take pleasure in the company of both Metternich and Talleyrand, was less to be seen than previously.
Brett even took to sauntering frequently down the Graben, hovering as long as possible near the entrance to the Princess von Furstenberg’s apartments, but to no avail. It was as though Helena Devereux had vanished from the face of the earth.
In desperation, he set Biggs to watching the von Hohenbachern residence again. “But
this
time, for heaven’s sake, keep well out of sight.” He admonished the batman.
“Of course, sir. Certainly, sir. You can depend on me, sir.” Determined to redeem himself, the batman spent many chilly hours hanging in the deepest shadows of various doorways until at last he was able to report that the only times the young mistress did seem to emerge was late in the afternoon when, despite the unpropitious weather, she appeared to be heading toward the Prater on her horse. In fact. Biggs added, she might at that moment be there as he had followed horse and rider as far as the river before, fearful of being detected once again, he had headed back to his quarters.
“Perfect.” Brett scrambled to his feet, pulling on his boots as he hurried toward the door. “Thank you, Biggs, you have done well.”
“And let us hope that you do too, sir,” the batman muttered as the door slammed shut behind his master. “For if you do not make peace with the young lady soon, life will not be worth living for all of us.”
Biggs had served his master in the most desperate of circumstances, but he could never remember a time when the major had been so listless, so lacking in energy and vitality, so unlike himself. In fact, to call him despondent was not putting too fine a point on it. And it had all begun with the batman’s first unsuccessful observation of the young lady. Therefore, it seemed reasonable to assume that the black mood that had had his master in its grip for the past weeks had everything to do with the young woman that the major characterized as being
a very clever young lady indeed.
And, following this train of thought to its logical conclusion, it seemed obvious that the sooner the major could succeed in working things out with this young lady, the sooner life would return to normal, or as normal as life had ever been where Major Lord Brett Stanford was concerned.
Ordinarily the batman would have had the utmost confidence in the successful resolution of this problem, for there was no one like the major for talking a woman around. Biggs had witnessed it time and again, from jealous Spanish condesas to infuriated French mademoiselles, to the most rapacious of opera dancers, but in this case, it did not appear to be the major who was in control. It was Biggs’ humble opinion, from the little he had seen of this redoubtable young woman, that Major Lord Brett Stanford had met his match this time. And as Biggs set to tidying their chambers with a thoughtful look on his face, he decided that if the master were able to retrieve his position with this young woman, he would finally achieve the one thing that had been lacking in his life—true companionship and, yes, love.
In all the years Biggs had been with the major, he had never seen him so happy as he had been the last few months in Vienna. True, he had chafed at the inactivity, but there had been a certain contentment that the batman had never witnessed before. Of course, someone as clever and daring as the major had been admired by his troops and well liked by his fellow officers, but even in the midst of those closest to him, at the most raucous moments of camaraderie, the major had seemed to remain set apart by something—call it seriousness of purpose—but whatever it was, it kept him from being able to lose himself in the fellowship of his comrades in arms.
Maybe it was because he had not yet met anyone who shared all the rare qualities that distinguished him— courage, self-reliance, resourcefulness, and intelligence, coupled with a thoughtfulness and reflectiveness that was rare among most people that Biggs had encountered. But somehow. Biggs sensed that this Miss Devereux possessed many of these same qualities. If only the master were able to make her see that.
Biggs’ master was at this moment urging Rex across the bridge over the half frozen branch of the Danube that separated the city from the wide-open meadows of the Prater. There, at last, as he entered the Prater, off in the distance, framed by the bare branches of the chestnut trees that lined the alley, he saw a solitary horse and rider.
Even at that distance, when she was little more than a silhouette against the barren landscape and the leaden sky, he knew it was Helena. He had sought her so anxiously in the streets and the ballrooms of the city, had spent so many hours recalling every detail of her face and figure, every gesture, every lithe movement, that his heart recognized her even before his mind identified her.
But she too appeared to be as sensitive to his presence as he was to hers, for the instant he was close enough for her to catch the sound of approaching hooves, she took flight and was off like the wind.
Brett bent low over Rex’s neck, urging the horse to its greatest speed. They thundered along the alley, gaining on the horse in front of them inch by inch until, at last, cornered at the end of the alley, she was forced either to turn around or plunge into the icy waters of the Danube.
She halted and turned to face him defiantly. “I told you, I have nothing to say to you ever again.”
Completely ignoring this ultimatum, Brett swung down and strode over to take Nimrod’s reins. Short of putting up an undignified scuffle, there was nothing Helena could do except allow him to help her dismount.
The moment his hands touched her waist, however, she knew she was lost. There was a purposeful set to his jaw, and a steely look in his eyes that warned her he was not going to allow her to avoid hearing what he had to say. Still, she kept her chin high, her shoulders back, and her lips clenched, the very picture of unyielding scorn.
“Helena, I mean, Miss Devereux, you
must
listen to me.”
She gazed off into the distance, refusing to acknowledge his presence by even so much as the flicker of an eyelash, but her heart was pounding so hard she could barely hear his words. Unwillingly she acknowledged to herself that her joy at seeing him again was the cause of the weakness that washed over and through her, threatening to make her knees collapse under her. Never in her life had she fought so hard to maintain her composure, to remain as stolid and impassive as the bare chestnut trees behind her.
Undaunted, Brett continued, driven by a desperation he had never felt before. “You have no idea what it was like to discover that my movements were being reported to the French, that things I had said within the privacy of your apartments were common enough knowledge at the French embassy that they were repeated to the Countess Edmond de Talleyrand-Perigord. I had spoken those things in confidence, something I would only have said to someone I knew very well, someone I counted as my friend, someone I knew I could trust with my life.” He had reached her at last through that frozen wall of reserve. It was just the tiniest flicker of recognition in those deep-set hazel eyes, but he knew he had touched a chord.
Taking advantage of this moment of recognition, he continued, “I knew you could not have done it, but who could have? I went over and over our conversations in my mind, but it always came back to the fact that we had been alone when they occurred. I kept asking myself if I had been wrong about you. Had I become so enamored of you that I was being willfully blind? Had I resisted the seductive wiles of beautiful women from Portugal to Austria only to be taken in by the single woman I had felt I could call my friend? Had I been so overwhelmed by your passion, your idealism, your intellect, and your energy that I was overlooking something obvious? Was there some political reason that overrode what I had begun to hope were your feelings toward me? No. I could not accept any of that. It could not be you who was passing information to the French, but what other explanation was there? I had to prove that you were all the honorable, idealistic things I had come to believe you were, so I set Biggs to watching you— not because I mistrusted you, but because the entire situation seemed so unreal that I had come to mistrust myself.”
Helena’s hands clenched and unclenched at her sides. She could hardly breathe enough to keep from fainting, but she had to speak. “And,” she was able to croak at last,
“friend,
that you felt yourself to be, you could not simply come to me and ask me if I had engaged in such despicable behavior? You say that you believed in me, trusted me, but you could not trust me enough to confront me face-to-face? And if it was your friendship with me that made you doubt yourself, why was it that you had my mother followed, as you have admitted to doing? No, such fine words may succeed with your
beautiful women from Portugal to Austria,
women gullible enough to care about you, but they will not work with me.” She reached for the reins and turned on her heel to throw herself into the saddle.
But Brett was too quick for her. Still holding Rex’s reins, he grabbed her shoulders and turned her around to face him. “So you do care! You admit it. No, do not look away.” One hand let go of her shoulder to tilt her chin so that she was forced to look up at him. “You could not be so angry with me if you did not feel as hurt and confused over this as I. Helena, I am not proud of the way I acted. As you say, I should have come to you, but I was too upset to think clearly. I did not know what to do. I had never been in love before.”
He stopped dead. That was it. He was in love. That was why in the space of a few weeks he had gone from being happier than he had ever been in his entire life to suffering more misery and despair than he could ever have believed possible.
“You what?” She could hardly believe her ears. Here was the charming, self-assured Major Lord Brett Stanford, who knew how to make the heart of the lowliest servant girl beat faster, admitting that he did not know what he was doing now because he was in love? Had he taken leave of his senses? The man who had flirted with her mother, the Princess Bagration, and the Duchess of Sagan without becoming embroiled with any of them was now saying that he had unwittingly fallen in love with a young woman who had never flirted in her life? How stupid did he think she was? Yet, against all reason, the brief flicker of hope that his words had ignited, continued to flicker in spite of every evidence that any rational person would consider absolutely damning. But hope she did, that somehow his claims, extravagant as they were, were true.
No. She shook her head vigorously. She must be crazed even to think such a thing. Men like Major Lord Brett Stanford
never
allowed themselves to fall in love, and certainly not with a woman like her, a woman with more brains than beauty, more independence than charm. And yet, and yet, there was a light in those blue eyes that gazed so steadily down into hers that seemed to prove her wrong.
“I love you. I love you. I love you.” He pulled her into his arms and brought his lips down on hers, not gently like the first time, but hard, demanding, persuasive, willing her to believe what he had only just admitted to himself: that they belonged together. That he could not exist without her, and she could not live without him.
Chapter Twenty-five
Helena felt all the passion of his newfound belief pouring into her, the warmth of his hands as they caressed the back of her neck, the insistence of his lips as they forced her to respond to him. Her pride and her common sense fought against it, struggled to keep her mind alert and unyielding, but the battle was already lost. Her treacherous emotions and her own heart betrayed her. She wanted to believe him too much. Even during the dark days after she had banished him from her presence, she had longed so much for the sight of him, the touch of him that she had been afraid to go out-of-doors, afraid that she might see him and lose all her resolve.
And now she had. She could no more resist him than she could fly. She had to believe that what he said was true, because if it were not, if she could not trust him and believe in him, then she could no longer trust and believe in herself. To her, he had come to represent all that she herself had tried to be, and she sensed that it was the same for him, the recognition of himself in her.
Sighing, she gave herself up to it, the hunger that had threatened to consume her, the hunger to belong, to be one with him, and she reveled in the sheer power of it all, the closeness, the joy of feeling loved and wanted.
But, being Helena, she could not totally abandon herself to pleasure. A tiny doubt still nagged at the comer of her mind.
Sensing it in the slightest of hesitation as she returned his kiss, Brett lifted his head and looked anxiously into her eyes. “What is it, love?”
“Mama.”
His eyes darkened and he reached up to lift off her riding hat and smooth away a tendril of hair that had escaped and was now curling wildly against her flushed cheek. “I know. I have been thinking of that too.”
Tears pricked her eyes. This was why she loved him and why she could believe in him. For all his worldly ways, for all the confident charm he exuded with women of all types, he was kind. He understood that pleasure-seeking, sophisticated, and flirtatious as the Princess von Hohenbachern was, she could still be hurt, and he did not want to do that. Nor did he wish to shirk his responsibility.
Brett gathered Helena’s hands into his. “Helena, believe me, I would never want to do anything that would cause your mother pain. I do not think that her heart was ever involved, which does not mean that I am not concerned for her happiness, but I do not believe that I could have fallen head over heels in love with her daughter if her own affections had truly been engaged. And, it was her very clear wish to enjoy herself without becoming involved that drew me to her in the first place. I think that that part of it has not changed. It seems, as I have observed her lately, that she has become a great deal more interested in Monsieur Talleyrand and Monsieur Metternich than she is in Major Lord Brett Stanford. I trust that I am not deceiving myself with wishful thinking, but what do you think?” His eyes, full of concern, never wavered from her face.