Marrying Winterborne (16 page)

Her eyes widened as she felt the taut pressure of him even through the layers of her skirts. But she didn't pull back. “You feel very . . . healthy,” she said. “How is your shoulder?”

“Why don't you cut off my shirt and take a look?”

That drew a quick, throaty chuckle from her. “Not in the glasshouse.” Lowering to her heels, she twisted to reach for one of the plants on the table beside them. After breaking off a small, perfect green orchid, she inserted it into the buttonhole of his left lapel.

“
Dendrobium
?” Rhys guessed, looking down at the flower.

“Yes, how did you know?” She felt for the tiny silk boutonniere latch underneath the lapel and tucked the end of the stem into it. “Have you been reading about orchids?”

“A bit.” He ran a teasing fingertip down the length of her nose. It was impossible to stop touching her, playing with her. “Trenear said you've been studying Welsh history.”

“I have. It's fascinating. Did you know that King Arthur was Welsh?”

Amused, Rhys stroked her hair, finding the intricate mass of pinned-up braids at the back. “If he existed, he would have been.”

“He did exist,” Helen said earnestly. “There's a stone that bears his horse's footprint near a lake named
Llyn Barfog
. I want to see it someday.”

His smile widened. “You pronounce that well,
cariad
. But the double L sounds more like
thl
. Let a breath of air slip around the sides of your tongue.”

Helen repeated the sound a few times, not quite able to match his pronunciation. She was so adorable with the tip of her tongue fitted behind her front teeth that
he couldn't help stealing another kiss, sucking briefly at the warm satin of her lips.

“You don't have to learn Welsh,” he told her.

“I want to.”

“A difficult language, it is. And in these times, there's no advantage to knowing it.” Ruefully he added, “My mother always said, ‘Avoid speaking in Welsh as you would sin.'”

“Why?”

“It was bad for business.” Rhys let his hands coast slowly over her arms and back. “You know of the prejudice against my kind. People who believe the Welsh are morally backward, lazy . . . even unclean.”

“Yes, but it's nonsense. Civilized people would never say such things.”

“Not in public. But some say that, and worse, in the privacy of their own parlors.” He frowned as he continued. “Some will think less of you for marrying me. They won't admit it to your face, but you'll see it in their eyes. Even when they smile.”

It wasn't something they had discussed during their previous engagement—Rhys had been touchy about his social inferiority, and Helen hadn't been willing to risk offending him. He was relieved to finally be frank with her. But at the same time, the admission that it would lower her to marry him left a bitter taste in his mouth.

“I'll be a Winterborne,” Helen said calmly. “They should worry about what I'll think of them.”

That drew a grin from him. “So they shall. You'll be a woman of influence, with the means to accomplish whatever you like.”

She touched his face, her fingers shaping to his cheek with gentle, thrilling pressure. “My first concern will be to keep my husband happy.”

Rhys leaned over her, gripping the table on either side of her to make a living cage of his body. “You'll have your work cut out for you, wife,” he warned softly.

Her silvery eyes searched his. Gently the tip of her thumb traced the edge of his lower lip. “Is it difficult for you to be happy, then?”

“Aye. It happens only when you're near.” He seized her mouth ardently, sending his tongue deep, feeding pleasure into her until she was too dazed to refuse anything he wanted. His hand closed on her skirts, and for a fraction of a second, he was tempted to take what his tortured body clamored for, just have her right there. It would be easy to hoist her up to the table, lift her skirts, spread her legs—

Ending the kiss with a groan, he rested his forehead against hers. “I've been too long without you,
cariad
.” He filled his lungs with air and exhaled slowly. “Say something to distract me.”

Helen's face was very pink, her lips slightly puffy. “You mentioned your mother,” she said. “When will I meet her?”

A dry chuckle escaped him—she couldn't have chosen a more effective way to dampen his ardor. “After I've put it off for as long as possible.”

His mother, Bronwen Winterborne, was a stern, severe woman, lean and straight as a broomstick. Her wiry arms had delivered a wealth of punishments throughout his childhood, but Rhys couldn't remember a single time when they had encircled him with tenderness. Still, she had been a good mother, keeping him fed and clothed, teaching him the values of discipline and hard work. It had always been easy to admire her, but not nearly as easy to love her.

“Will she disapprove of me?” Helen asked.

Rhys tried to imagine what his mother would make of this subtle, incandescent creature with a mind full of books and music in her fingers.

“She'll think you're too pretty. And too soft. She doesn't understand your kind of strength.”

Helen looked pleased. “You think I'm strong?”

“I do,” he said without hesitation. “You have a will like a steel blade.” With a dark glance, he added, “Otherwise you couldn't manage me half so well.”

“Manage you?” With adroit grace, Helen ducked beneath one of his arms and wandered to another table. “Is that what I was doing by giving in to your ultimatum and sleeping with you?”

The flirtatious reprimand caused his pulse to leap. Captivated and inflamed, he followed at her heels as she walked between rows of orchids. “Aye, and then leaving London after setting me to longing for you. Now you have me like a dog on a leash, begging for more.”

Amusement curled through her voice. “I see no dog on a leash. Only a very large wolf.”

Catching her from behind, Rhys lowered his mouth to the side of her neck. “Your wolf,” he said gruffly, and grazed her skin with the edge of his teeth.

Helen arched a little, leaning back against him. He could feel the yearning in her, the way she shivered at his touch. “Shall I come to you tonight?” she whispered. “When it's dark and everyone's abed?”

The question turned his blood to fire.
God, yes. Please.
He was starved for sensation and release, for the feel of her beautiful soft flesh yielding to his. But most of all, his heart ached for the peaceful minutes afterward, when she would lie in his arms and belong only to him.

Closing his eyes, he pressed his jaw gently against her small ear. A half-minute passed before he could find his voice. “You've read the fairy tales. You know what happens to little girls who visit wolves.”

Helen turned in his arms. “I do indeed,” she whispered, and lifted her smiling lips to his.

“C
OUSIN
D
EVON, WON'T YOU
play?” Pandora entreated. “We need more people or the game won't last long enough.” She was seated at the game table with Cassandra in the upstairs parlor, where everyone relaxed after dinner.

The twins had pulled out the only board game they possessed, called “The Mansion of Happiness.” The old-fashioned game, a board printed with a spiral track of spaces representing virtues and vices, had been designed to teach values to children.

Devon shook his head with a lazy smile, pulling Kathleen into the crook of his shoulder as he sat with her on the settee. “I played the last time,” he replied. “It's West's turn now.”

Helen watched with amusement as West sent Devon a deadly glance. Both Ravenel brothers detested the preachy and high-minded game, which the twins frequently coerced them into playing.

“It's a foregone conclusion that I'll lose,” West protested. “I always end up in the House of Correction.”

“All the more reason to play,” Helen told him. “It will teach you moral behavior.”

West rolled his eyes. “No one ever thinks their own behavior is immoral, only other people's.” Bringing his
snifter of cognac along with him, he went to take a seat at the table.

“We need a fourth,” Pandora said. “Helen, if you would set aside the mending—”

“No, don't ask her,” Cassandra protested, “she always wins.”

“I'll join you,” Rhys volunteered, tossing back the last swallow of his cognac and going to take the last chair at the game table. He grinned at West, in the way of fellow sufferers.

Helen was delighted by Rhys's newfound ease with her family. When he had visited the Ravenels in London, his manner had been controlled and cautious. Now, however, he was relaxed and charming, participating freely in the conversation.

“You've just become a drunkard,” Pandora informed Rhys sternly when his playing piece landed on one of the vices. “Off to the whipping post you go, and stay there for the next two turns.”

Helen smiled as Rhys tried to look suitably chastened.

Cassandra spun the little wooden teetotum and triumphantly advanced her piece to a space marked Sincerity.

Next came West's turn. His piece advanced to a space bearing the ominous label “Sabbath Breaker.”

“It's three turns in the stocks for you,” Cassandra told him.

“Clapped in the stocks, merely for breaking the Sabbath?” West asked indignantly.

“It's a severe game,” Cassandra said. “It was invented at the turn of the century, and back then you could be put in the stocks or hanged even for stealing a piece of bacon.”

“How do you know that?” Rhys asked.

“We have a book about it in the library,” Pandora said. “
Crimes of Fallen Humanity
. It's all about terrible criminals and horrid gruesome punishments.”

“We've read it at least three times,” Cassandra added.

West regarded the twins with a frown before turning toward the settee and asking, “Should they be reading a book like that?”

“No, they should not,” Kathleen said flatly. “I would have removed it, had I known it was there.”

Pandora leaned toward Rhys and said conspiratorially, “She's too short to see the books above the sixth shelf. That's where we keep all the naughty ones.”

West coughed in the effort to disguise a laugh, while Rhys stared down at the game board with sudden undue interest.

“Helen knows about it too,” Pandora added.

Cassandra frowned at her. “Now you've done it. They'll take away all the interesting books.”

Pandora shrugged. “We've read all of them anyway.”

Rhys deftly changed the subject. “There's a newer version of this game,” he commented, looking at the board. “An American company bought the rights, and they've revised it to make the punishments less harsh. My store carries it.”

“By all means, let's purchase the less bloodthirsty version,” West said. “Or better yet, let's teach poker to the twins.”

“West,” Devon warned, his eyes narrowing.

“Poker is positively wholesome compared to a game with more whippings than a novel by de Sade.”

“
West
,” Devon and Kathleen said at the same time.

“Mr. Winterborne,” Pandora asked, her blue eyes
lively with interest, “where do these board games come from? Who invents them?”

“Anyone who designs one could contract a printer to make some copies.”

“What if Cassandra and I make one?” she asked. “Could we sell it at your store?”

“I don't want to make a game,” Cassandra protested. “I only want to play them.”

Pandora ignored her, focusing intently on Rhys.

“Come up with a prototype,” he told her, “and I'll take a look at it. If I think I can sell it, I'll be your backer and pay for the first printing. In return for a percentage of your profits, of course.”

“What is the usual percentage?” Pandora asked. “Whatever it is, I'll give you half.”

Raising one brow, Rhys asked, “Why only half?”

“Don't I deserve an in-law discount?” Pandora asked ingenuously.

Rhys laughed, looking so boyish that Helen felt her heart quicken. “Aye, you do.”

“How will I know what games have already been done?” Pandora was becoming more enthusiastic by the minute. “I want mine to be different from everyone else's.”

“I'll send you one of every board game we sell, so you can examine all of them.”

“Thank you, that would be most helpful. In the meantime . . .” Pandora's fingers drummed the table in a pale blur. “I can't play any more tonight,” she announced, standing up quickly, obliging West and Rhys to rise to their feet as well. “There's work to be done. Come with me, Cassandra.”

“But I was winning,” Cassandra grumbled, looking down at the game board. “Isn't it too late at night to begin something like this?”

“Not when one has a dire case of imagine-somnia.” Pandora tugged her sister from the chair.

After the twins had left, Rhys glanced at Helen with a slight smile. “Has she always made up words?”

“For as long as I can remember,” she replied. “She likes to try to express things like ‘the sadness of a rainy afternoon' or ‘the annoyance of finding a new hole in one's stocking.' But now she's trying to break herself of the habit, fearing that it might expose her to ridicule during the Season.”

“It would,” Kathleen said regretfully. “Vicious tongues are always wagging, and high-spirited girls like Pandora and Cassandra rarely have an easy time of it during the Season. Lady Berwick was forever scolding me for laughing too loudly in public.”

Devon regarded his wife with a caressing gaze. “I would have found that charming.”

She grinned at him. “Yes, but you never took part in the Season. You and West were elsewhere in London, doing whatever rakes do.”

Rhys went to the sideboard to pour a cognac for himself. Glancing at Devon, he asked, “Will Lady Helen and the twins stay at the estate while you and Lady Trenear are in Ireland?”

“That would be for the best,” Devon said. “We've asked Lady Berwick to chaperone them during our absence.”

“It would raise eyebrows otherwise,” Kathleen explained. “Even though we all know West is like a brother to Helen and the twins, he's still a bachelor with a wicked reputation.”

“Which I worked hard to acquire, by God.” West went to lounge in a chair by the hearth. “In fact, I insist on a chaperone: I can't have my bad name tarnished
by the suggestion that I could be trusted around three innocent girls.”

“Lady Berwick will be a good influence on the twins,” Kathleen said. “She taught me and her two daughters, Dolly and Bettina, how to conduct ourselves in society, and that was no easy task.”

“We'll depart for Ireland the day after tomorrow,” Devon said with a slight frown. “God willing, we'll return soon.”

West stretched his legs before the fire and laced his fingers across his midriff. “I suppose I'll have to postpone Tom Severin's visit. I invited him to come to Hampshire in two days' time, to view the progress on the groundwork for the quarry and railway tracks.”

Rhys spoke in a flat tone that chilled Helen's nerves. “It would be best to keep Severin far away from me.”

They all looked at him alertly. Rhys stood at the sideboard, his long-fingered hand cupped around the bowl of the cognac glass to warm the amber liquid. Swirling the cognac gently, he stared into its depths with eyes that had turned colder than Helen had ever seen them.

Devon was the first to speak. “What has Severin done now?”

“He's been trying to convince me to buy a block of property near King's Cross. But the owner's name wasn't listed on any of the documents. Not even the mortgages.”

“How is that possible?” Devon asked.

“A private investment company holds it all in trust. I hired an investigator to find out what's behind all the elaborate legal papering. He uncovered a transfer agreement, already signed and notarized, that will take effect upon completion of the purchase. The entire
price of the property will go to the last man on earth I would ever willingly do business with. And Severin knows it.”

Devon withdrew his arm from around Kathleen and leaned forward, his gaze lit with interest. “Mr. Vance?” he guessed.

Rhys responded with a single nod.

“Damn,” Devon said quietly.

Perplexed, Helen looked from one man to the other.

“You know how Severin is,” West said in the tense silence. “There's no malice in him. He probably decided that if you found out about it later, it would be water under the bridge.”

Rhys's eyes flashed dangerously. “If the deal had gone through before I found out that the money would go to Vance, I'd have made certain that Severin's lifeless body was under the bridge. The friendship is over for good.”

“Who is Mr. Vance?” Helen asked.

No one replied.

Warily Kathleen broke the silence. “He's Lord Berwick's nephew, actually. Since the Berwicks never had a son, Mr. Vance is the heir presumptive to the estate. When Lord Berwick passes away, everything will go to Mr. Vance, and Lady Berwick and her daughters will be dependent on his goodwill. So, they've always tried to be hospitable to him. I've met Mr. Vance on a few occasions.”

“What is your opinion of him?” Devon asked.

Kathleen made a face. “A loathsome man. Petty, cruel, and self-important. Always in debt, but he believes himself to be a financial wizard of the age. In the past he tried more than once to borrow against his future inheritance. Lord Berwick was livid.”

Helen glanced at Rhys, troubled by the bleakness of his expression. His friend's actions seemed to have cut deeply. “Are you certain,” she asked hesitantly, “that Mr. Severin understood the extent of your dislike for Mr. Vance?”

“He understood,” Rhys said shortly, and took a swallow of cognac.

“Then why did he do it?”

Rhys shook his head, remaining silent.

In a moment, Devon answered pensively. “Severin can be callous in pursuit of a goal. He has an extraordinary mind, it's no exaggeration to call him a genius. However, such ability often comes at the expense of—” He hesitated, searching for the right word.

“Decency?” West suggested dryly.

Looking rueful, Devon nodded. “When dealing with Severin, one must never forget that above all, he's an opportunist. His brain is so busy trying to engineer a certain outcome that he doesn't bother to consider anyone's feelings, including his own. That being said, there have been times when I've seen Severin go to great lengths to help other people. He's not all bad.” He shrugged. “It seems a pity to give up the friendship entirely.”

“I'd give up anyone or anything,” Rhys retorted, “to make certain I never have any connection to Albion Vance.”