She noted the other half of that particular equation was absent. He had not told her he returned her love. The hope which had been building inside her, gathering air and buoyancy like an ascension balloon, went abruptly flat.
It sank all the way to her toes and then fell out of the carriage entirely, to become macerated on the roadway beneath the carriage wheels. What had she expected? A great soliloquy? An earnest declaration from a man who believed marriage should be loveless in order for it to succeed?
Stupid Helena. When will you learn your lesson? The Earl of Huntingdon will never, ever love you.
She swallowed down the lump rising in her throat, willing the tears that threatened her vision to dissipate before she humiliated herself even further. “How do you know?”
Had she somehow given her secret away before now? Had she whispered her love for him in her sleep? There had been the time she had almost revealed her feelings to him when they had made love, but she had stopped herself in time, had she not?
“Shelbourne told me,” he admitted. “Do not be angry with him, darling. He told me to aid our union, I suspect, not to cause you any embarrassment.”
Embarrassment? Her cheeks were positively aflame. How humiliating. She was going to box her brother’s ears for this. She was going to dump all his bawdy books into the nearest water closet. She was going to…
Drat it, Helena. Plot your revenge later. This is important.
“When did he tell you?” she asked, needing to know for the sake of her own pride.
Good Lord, had he always known? Since before they had wed? Humiliation churned through her. How long had he been aware of her pathetic feelings for him without entertaining even the slightest inkling of love for her? And after they had shared so much of themselves with each other, all those endless nights of passion?
“Since I met with him to calm the waters of our friendship,” Gabe admitted.
“Since almost the beginning of our marriage,” she translated, her mind working out the timing for itself. “You mean to say you knew I loved you all this time?”
“Yes.”
One word from those sensual lips of his. Curse him, why did he have to be so dratted handsome? It made holding on to her irritation dreadfully difficult. Nigh impossible, really.
“And yet you felt nothing?” she prodded, needing to know the answer.
“I felt everything.” He pressed a kiss to the corner of her lips, the gesture at once sweet and thrilling. “I was terrified of what you made me feel, and I was doing all that was within my power to hold tight to my restraint. To keep you from burrowing so deep into my heart there would be no removing you, regardless of the dangers you presented me.”
Helena frowned. “You make me sound as if I am an invasive creature stealing into your garden rather than your wife.”
He grinned at her, making new heat flare to life. “Never an invasive creature. I was merely not prepared to accept what you did to me. What youdoto me, hellion.”
What did this mean? Stupid, fruitless hope was at it once more, trying to rise like a loaf of bread no one would ever slide into the oven. Useless, these feelings. Foolish for her to entertain them. She seized upon the one thing she could, settling for taking him to task.
“I ought to take umbrage at your continued use of that sobriquet,” she told him, nettled with herself for the shakiness in her voice.
“Helena, sweet.” His other hand cupped her cheek, his thumb traveling over her cheekbone with painstaking affection. “You are a hellion.Myhellion. And I love you for it.”
She stilled. Her hand remained over his heart, and it was pounding now with furious insistence. So was hers. Once more, words fled her mind. Her lips parted. Sound was reluctant to emerge.
So she breathed in this moment, the carriage swaying around them, her settled in Gabe’s lap, his strong hands upon her with such caring, his sky-blue eyes devouring her, his lips so near to hers. This was a moment she would never forget, a moment she had scarcely dared to dream could exist.
“You…love…” Oh, blast. There were the tears, blurring her vision and gathering on her lashes.
She blinked furiously to clear them, but it only sent them rolling down her cheeks in fat trails.
“You, Helena,” he finished for her. “I love you. Completely and utterly, in every way, more deeply than I could have fathomed possible.”
“But you do not believe a marriage ought to involve love,” she could not help but to protest, even as part of her was inwardly shouting at her to keep her concerns and fears to herself. To settle instead for his avowal. For his words of love to be enough.
And yet, she loved him too much to accept any half measures. She had to know the truth, to be certain of it and him as well. She had to believe his love was true and strong, and that he would not seek to banish it in a moment of fear.
“My parents were in love once, and their marriage toppled like a poorly stacked wall of bricks without mortar. I was raised in the shadow of that failed union, and my grandfather taught me to believe that love was the reason for its demise.” Gabe paused, seeming to collect his thoughts. “I have spent so long believing that what I needed was a loveless union based upon mutual respect, a bloodless society marriage such as my grandparents enjoyed. So long believing love was the reason for all my parents’ woes and for all the devastation that came after.”
His admission was raw, and her heart ached for him anew. “What changed for you?”
