Julia Justiss (10 page)

Though Helena was more interested in attending the meetings of the Mathematical Society, the concerts of the Philharmonic Society and the art exhibition of the Royal Academy, she had dutifully expressed her anticipation of these delights. If it gave Aunt Lillian pleasure to escort Helena to her favorite entertainments, Helena would do her best to appear agreeably entertained.

Her first evening engagement, her aunt had also told her today, would be here at Darnell House at the dinner Aunt Lillian was giving in honor of Lord Darnell’s engagement to Miss Priscilla Standish.

Though there was no reason she should be, Helena had been surprised—and inexplicably disappointed—upon hearing of Darnell’s engagement. She had to admit he intrigued her, probably because he seemed so
different from the few men she’d known growing up. She’d hoped to get to know him better once Aunt Lillian pronounced her ready to appear in public—since, remembering all too vividly his reaction upon first meeting her, she’d been careful to avoid him during the month she’d spent under his roof.

But the family shouldn’t expect to see much of the newly affianced gentleman, Charis—who hadn’t seemed very enthusiastic about the engagement, either—had told her this afternoon. At least, Helena thought with a sigh, when she did meet Darnell again, he should be pleased by the improvement in her appearance.

Reaching the library, she entered and crossed to the sofa. Harrison having confirmed that Darnell would be out late celebrating, she’d asked the staff to build up the fire and bring in the extra candelabra she used when she stayed up late reading. Noting as she lit the candles that the blaze of heat from the hearth made the fur-lined robe she’d worn to ward off the chill in the rest of the house unnecessary, she slipped off the garment before turning to inspect herself in the mirror beside the fireplace.

She
was
much improved, Helena decided as she studied her reflection. Nearly a month of Cook’s wholesome fare had filled out the hollows under her cheekbones and added an attractive rounding to the shoulders and bosom outlined by the clinging silk of the full-sleeved, high-necked night rail. Her hair was still too unruly, her body too tall and her eyes too large and prominent for beauty, but she would do, she decided.

Her wardrobe would certainly be exemplary. Though some might disapprove of the colors, not the most exacting could fault the gowns’ meticulous construction or the splendor of the materials. For subtle improvements in the design, her new maid could share much of the credit.

Nell had more than justified Helena’s risky choice of a workhouse employee. Not only was the girl as wonderfully clever a seamstress as she’d claimed, she possessed an innate sense of style that marched with Helena’s own tastes, allowing her to suggest adding touches that enhanced the simple beauty of the gowns. Willing to work at whatever Helena set her, modest, quiet and unassuming, she had settled into the Darnell household without stirring a ripple of dissent. Even Aunt Lillian had pronounced herself impressed by Nell’s competence.

With her careful ear and observant eye, Nell also reported to Helena the news about town and within the servants’ quarters, giving Helena a welcome source of information about the outside world since, not wishing to chance being discovered, Helena had not again ventured out.

Though, she concluded as she poured herself a glass of wine, after three weeks of enforced inactivity, she would almost be willing to join the Christians in the ring at the Roman circus just to escape the house.

Her new employee’s most valuable attribute, though, was her willingness to answer any questions that occurred to Helena’s active mind without becoming distressed, embarrassed or offended.

Of necessity, Helena had been obligated to reveal to Nell something of her past. In turn, Nell told Helena about a soldier’s vagabond life and the deep affection that bound his family together, even when separated by distance and time. The two had formed a bond much stronger than that normally found between a lady of the ton and her maid.

Glancing at the splendidly polished copper fender by the hearth before her, Helena had to sigh. Sergeant Hastings’ son Dickon had not found his place within the Darnell household with nearly the ease of his sister. Indeed, it seemed for a while that Molly’s dark predictions about Nell’s brother were going to come true.

Initially thinking to use the boy as a tiger when she drove out, Helena had sent him to the head groom. But since she’d not as yet been able to acquire her horses or carriage, the boy had little to occupy him. He’d quickly succeeded in committing a variety of transgressions, from converting a purloined leather saddle girth into a slingshot to pepper the laundry maids with pebbles to attempting to teach the pot boy to gamble using buttons he’d stolen from the wash. The harried grooms soon washed their hands of him, prompting Harrison to quietly advise Helena that something else must be found to occupy the boy or he would have to be sent away.

Summoning the lad after his latest transgression—and doubtless after he’d received a blistering scold from his sister—she’d taken advantage of his penitent state to exact Dickon’s promise to behave himself and work diligently if she found him some other suitable task.

Helena had then used every ploy she could devise to persuade Harrison to take the boy on as a sort of apprentice footman. Only her assurance that she would not contest the child’s banishment if he abused his position—and her avowal that Dickon was awed by the prospect of being tutored by so eminent a personage as Harrison himself—finally induced him to agree.

In the two weeks since, the boy had certainly lived up to his promise. The brass on every door handle and knocker was as shiny as mirrors, while the iron grates and hearth utensils gleamed with a fresh coating of oil. Harrison was so impressed with Dickon’s efforts that he’d allowed the boy, under his supervision, to begin polishing the silver.

Of course, Helena thought with a smile, the fact that Dickon followed Harrison about, hanging on his every word and, despite Harrison’s outward protest but obvious gratification, saluting him every time the butler gave him an order, hadn’t hurt his cause. When Lord Darnell entertained the family of his new fiancée—who, Nell had confided, were said to be very high in the instep—his home would shine from entry hall to attics.

The dinner at which, to reflect credit on the two ladies she had come to love so dearly, Helena was determined to be on her most careful behavior.

The blaze of candles adding to the fire’s warmth, Helena set down her wine with a contented sigh and snuggled back against the silk pillows with which she’d strewn the couch. Enjoying the sensual glide of the fur-lined satin over her silk gown, she settled the robe over her lap and opened her book.

Several hours later the muffled thump of the front door closing echoed through the silent house, pulling her from her reading. It was followed by the sound of bootsteps ascending the stairs in an unsteady rhythm.

Probably Lord Darnell, she thought. From the sound of his uneven footsteps, he must have left his revels well in his cups.

Which the staff had predicted, Nell had told her tonight when she brought Helena’s night rail. Agog with chatter about the rich lordling’s daughter their master was to wed, all had agreed that the master would celebrate heartily as, Harrison had observed, was only fitting for a gentleman who had Done his Duty to his Name to Marry Well and Save his Estate. Since apparently, Nell further confided, the Darnell family had been nearly under the hatches.

Surmising that meant the Darnell finances were at a low ebb, a fact of which she’d previously been unaware, Helena understood a little better why Lord Darnell had suddenly decided on matrimony. It also made Helena very glad she was paying her own expenses and had insisted on sharing the dressmaker’s bounty with Charis and Aunt Lillian.

Expecting Lord Darnell to continue his unsteady progress up to his chamber, Helena went back to her book. Not until the candles on the table beside her flickered in the sudden breeze from the open door did she realize that the footsteps had continued, not up the stairs, but to the library—where Lord Darnell now stood on the threshold, staring at her.

S
OME FIVE MINUTES EARLIER
Bennett Dixon had pushed an unsteady Adam Darnell out of a hackney. “Splendid party,” Adam said as Dix half-guided, half-hauled him up the town house entry stairs. “Immensely gratified, old friend.”

Dix chuckled as he braced Adam against the front door. “I doubt you’ll thank me come morning. I expect you’ll have the devil of a headache—a fit beginning to your new life under the cat’s paw.”

Adam shrugged. “You’re just jealous of my charm. ’Tis good to know one has successfully concluded so important an endeavor.”

“Growing up with parents who could scarce stand to be in the same room, I may have a jaundiced view of the married state,” Dix admitted. “And, Lord bless you, you did make short work of fulfilling your duty. Would that Heaven might provide you some suitable reward! However, I shall be even prouder if I manage to get you to your chamber without us both falling down the stairs.”

“No need, Dix,” Adam replied, waving off his friend. “I can proceed from here. If you’d tasted some
of the brew we drank in Portugal, you’d not worry over me after a few bottles of excellent port. I bid you good night—or morning,” he concluded, offering Dix a salute that was only slightly off the mark.

“As you wish,” Dix said. “Just be careful not to let that new ball and chain trip you on your way upstairs!”

Weaving a little, Adam made it through the front door, shucking his greatcoat as he walked, then up the first flight, banging his shins into the balustrade only once. Congratulating himself on that feat, he was about to tackle the second flight when a glowing half moon of light emanating from under the library door caught his attention.

Had someone left candles burning? The realization that such negligence might lead to the catastrophe of a fire cleared some of the alcohol fumes from his brain. Removing his foot from the first step, Adam turned and headed down the hall to open the library door.

The rush of heat that greeted him made his pulse leap in panic until his eyes registered that, though the fire roared lustily, it was fully contained in the hearth.

His heartbeat had just started to slow when he saw the girl reclining on the sofa. Her hair, a shining fall of blue-black alive with dancing copper highlights, framed her face and cascaded over her shoulders where she lay propped upon a profusion of pillows. A white silk night rail outlined her form from the collar high on the graceful curve of her neck down over the round of her shoulders and even fuller swell of her breasts before disappearing beneath the robe of emerald satin spread over her lap.

After a moment spent staring at the rise and fall of those perfect breasts, his stupefied gaze rose again to the oval of her face, the skin almost as pale as the silk of her gown. The vaguest hint of recognition formed in his brain as he completed his inspection of the high cheekbones tinged with a hint of a blush, the narrow nose, the pert mouth whose full lower lip begged to be nibbled. Had he seen her gracing someone’s opera box?

Her large, black-fringed dark eyes regarding him in return, the Vision smiled. “Welcome home, Lord Darnell,” she said, the low-pitched, throaty murmur of her voice as arousing as the rest of her.

For a moment, disoriented, he cast a startled look about. But, yes, that was his desk in the corner, Papa’s portrait as a young man hanging above the hearth, his sofa before the fire upon which the young woman reclined. However she happened to get here, this exotic beauty was definitely addressing him in his own library.

And had said library not already been as warm as a summer noon in Portugal, he would still have felt the heat now popping out in beads of sweat at his forehead, rushing through his body, pooling low and turgid in his loins. Struggling to prompt his dazzled brain to function, he wondered how this rare beauty had ended up in his library.

A reward from Heaven? Dix’s comment suddenly recurred to him. But why would his whimsical friend send such a creature to his home?

Pushing aside that interesting but, at the moment,
superfluous question, Adam approached the sofa. Could he get the lady up to his chamber without waking anyone, or would it be better to simply bolt the library door before partaking of the enjoyment that lush body promised?

Given the need for stealth, the warmth already blanketing the room and the throbbing intensity of his erection, here and now seemed the most sensible choice.

“Have you been sent to help me celebrate?” he asked, finding his voice at last. “I see you have wine already.”

“I wasn’t precisely ‘sent,’ but I should be happy to drink a toast,” she responded in that velvet voice.

“I’ve had wine enough and more, but I suppose we could start with that,” he returned, heading toward the sideboard to pour himself a glass. “Though I am more interested in exploring your…other skills.”

“Other skills?” she asked, tilting her head coyly to study him. “And…what might those be?”

Ah, so she was clever as well as stunning. Too bad he’d imbibed too much to match her wit. “I was hoping you would…demonstrate them. But first—” he approached the sofa and set his full glass down on a side table “—why not help me get more comfortable?” Having undone his coat buttons as he’d ascended the stairs, he now pointed to the buttons at his waistcoat.

Her eyes followed his gesture and the pale cheeks pinked further. Her show of innocence and her throaty chuckle sent another bolt of lust through him.

“It appears you are already…comfortable enough, my lord. Perhaps I’d best bid you good night.”

This was progress! Adam thought, grinning. “An excellent idea!” But as he stepped forward, intending to pull her into an embrace, the girl lifted one slim hand and, rather than reaching for him, tucked a lock of ebony hair behind her ear.

Her fingers rested against her head, her thumb extended. A thumb that bore a long jagged scar running from her palm to beneath the wrist of her night rail.

Adam halted as he tried to force a brain numbed by alcohol and lust to search out the meaning of that damaged thumb. Then, like a blow to the solar plexis, recognition hammered into him.

This girl was not an exotic ladybird hired out of one of London’s most exclusive brothels by a naughty Dix to celebrate the end of his bachelorhood. Unless he’d gone totally out of his senses—and he felt that he was just now and unfortunately far too late returning to them—this was his stepmother’s virginal relative, the “child” he’d invited into his home practically as his ward.

Miss Helena Lambarth.

The enormity of the mistake he’d almost made left him speechless. But she was not, and the certainty that he’d mistaken her calling grew stronger with every word as she thanked him for the use of his library, apologized for the excessive heat within it and assured him that she herself had provided the funds for the extra candles and coal expended. Her final salute, with the last sip of the wine in her glass, to him and his fiancée sealed the matter.

He was still staring, openmouthed in dismay and
regret, when with one last remonstrance that he not forget to extinguish the candles before leaving the room, she stood, slipped the satin robe back over her shoulders, curtseyed and walked out.

For a moment after she exited, he still did not fully believe that the tall scarecrow he’d brought home from Mr. Pendenning’s office and this exquisite, sensual creature could be the same woman. His gradually sobering brain worked at summoning up the likenesses: slender figure, dark hair and eyes, high cheekbones…the damaged thumb. That last detail sealed the identification, for he could not image two women possessing that same unique pattern of scarring.

The implications of his conclusion were so dire that rage erupted, coursing through his still-aroused body. Bellemere had certainly outdone herself, he reflected bitterly. Somehow she’d coaxed the spark of attraction that had singed him in the lawyer’s office, not to a flame, but into a full-blown conflagration that had nearly cindered reason and sanity right here in his library. ’Twas just what he needed as a newly engaged man—a breathtaking siren living under his roof.

Angry at himself for the idiocy he’d almost committed and at the capriciousness of fate, he snatched up Miss Lambarth’s empty glass and hurled it into the fire.

A
DAM ROSE LATER THAT MORNING
, his head as painful as Dix had predicted. But his physical discomfort was minor compared to the dismay engendered by recalling the encounter in his library with Miss Helena Lambarth.

By now, his rage at fate had cooled while his fury and chagrin at having made a bloody fool of himself had intensified. He was exceedingly lucky that Miss Lambarth, confronted by a foxed lecher she barely knew, had not run from the room screaming to lift the rafters, awakening his aunt and requiring him to provide some extremely embarrassing explanations.

The only sop to his self-esteem in that disaster of an encounter was that she had not. But that didn’t mean his next meeting with the girl would be much more comfortable. Somehow he was going to have to come up with an innocuous but convincing explanation for his odd behavior.

No such explanation had yet occurred. In the interim, recalling how he’d ambled toward her, soliciting her help in disrobing, made him cringe.

And he’d thought her show of innocence a sham to further inflame him. Beseeching a merciful God for deliverance, he could only hope she was indeed too innocent to fully understand what he’d been about.

By the time his valet had, in merciful silence, shaved him and provided a mug of his infallible morning-after remedy, Adam had decided the adage that the more disagreeable the task, the better to complete it swiftly applied in full force here. Since he knew from the servants’ chat that Miss Lambarth normally rose early and took breakfast in the small back parlor, he decided he would go immediately, hoping to catch her alone and make his apologies before the rest of the family arrived.

Served him right for being so proud of leaving the
management of Miss Lambarth to his stepmother. If he’d expressed the least interest in her progress, instead of being so focused on his own affairs that he’d merely been grateful to escape any responsibility for overseeing hers, he would have met her a dozen times the last few weeks, instead of being blindsided in his own library by her miraculous transformation.

After dressing with meticulous care for the role of avuncular elder brother, Adam descended the stairs, setting off a clanging in his head which present circumstances rendered even more unpleasant than Dix had predicted.

As he walked to the breakfast room in his still-reduced mental state, he entertained the craven hope that Miss Lambarth might have decided to take a tray in her room. But alas, as he entered the breakfast parlor, he spied her at the sideboard.

Instead of a silk night rail and a satin robe, the girl was outfitted in a shimmering turquoise material that might have done justice to a ball gown, except that once again the garment covered her from her toes to the tip of her chin. Having apparently heard him enter, she half turned, fixing those large, thick-lashed eyes on him, her body outlined in profile against the dark sideboard behind her, which emphasized the slenderness of her figure and the fullness of her breasts.

Heat flushed his skin and he felt an immediate stirring in his loins. Destroyed in that single glance was his fond hope that his inebriated brain had overreacted to last night’s display of satin and silk.

In the tepid sunlight of a gray London morning, Miss
Lambarth exuded just as much sensual allure as she had by firelight. Desire, no less potent for being entirely unwanted, coursed through Adam as he watched her, that lush lower lip, the exotic gleam of those dark eyes, that demure gown buttoned up over a swell of bosom. Into his head flashed the memory of those breasts cloaked in a thin veil of silk, a hint of the nipples outlined.

Sweat popped out on his forehead and his neck cloth seemed suddenly too tight.

He would just have to put those images out of mind, he told himself, sternly commanding his body to desist. Not only were they unseemly, given that Miss Lambarth was practically his stepmother’s ward, but he was now engaged to another woman.

Cursing under his breath, he summoned a smile. His life, he realized grimly as he advanced into the room, had just become a great deal more complicated.