“I am saving you from the greatest mistake of your life, my lady,” he told her grimly, trying to forget the way her body had molded to his. “What in heaven’s name were you thinking, arranging an assignation with a disgusting scoundrel like Lord Algernon Forsyte?”
“I was thinking my reputation would be destroyed,” she snapped, irritation edging her voice now that she had regained her balance.
She was angry with him, he realized, astounded. She ought to have been awash in gratitude, thanking him for his generosity of spirit. Instead, her lips had thinned, and her jaw was clenched. Her brilliant green eyes glittered with irritation.
He blinked. “Youwantedto be ruined?”
Surely he could not have heard her correctly. He had expected her to say Lord Algernon had wooed her with pretty words of love and coerced her into meeting him here. He had imagined she would tearfully thank him and then promise to never again do anything so rash and dangerous.
“Of course. Why else do you suppose I would have arranged to meet him at his private rooms?” she asked.
What the devil?
Huntingdon struggled to make sense of this bloody mire. “You do not fancy yourself in love with him, then.”
“No.”
“You know a man such as he will never marry you,” he pressed.
“I would not marry him, either.”
He frowned at her. “Then I fail to understand the meaning of this horrible folly, Lady Helena.”
“The meaning is freedom.” Lady Helena’s chin tipped up in defiance. “Mine.”
Freedom.The word was strangely alluring, the notion foreign. Huntingdon had been trapped by duty from the time he had been a lad in leading strings.
“Freedom,” he repeated, as if the word tasted bitter on his tongue.
Because it did.
He had been born into an acrimonious union marked by selfishness and mutual enmity. What had once begun as a love match had deteriorated into a state of perpetual hatred and misery for everyone involved, including Huntingdon and his sister, who had paid the ultimate price for their parents’ many sins. His grandfather had impressed upon him at an early age the need to uphold his honor and duty. Grandfather was gone, but the heavy weights of obligation which the former earl had set, rather like tombstones, had not left this earth with his mortal soul.
“Freedom, yes,” said those full, wicked lips.
Lips he had previously had occasion to notice were quite inviting. Lips he had promptly forced himself to forget. Lady Beatrice was the bride Grandfather had settled upon, the betrothal contract struck just before his death. Huntingdon had promised he would follow through, and his strict code of honor forbade him from courting his friend’s sister.
“You do not know what you are saying,” he said, as much to himself as to Lady Helena.
Curse it, even the small gap between her front teeth was entrancing. Her scent curled about him like some witch’s spell.
He had to force her to see reason. To send her on her way.
Only sternness would do.
Huntingdon braced himself for a battle.
Helena made ahabit of offering prayers each evening before bed and every morning when she rose.
As she faced the man she had always loved—the man who would forever be lost to her—she said her prayers again.
Thank you, Lord, for sending me Hungtingdon in place of the odious Lord Algernon.
Hmm.That was rather poorly done of her, was it not? One ought not to cast aspersions upon the characters of others in prayer.
She hastily amended.
Thank you, Lord, for sending me Hungtingdon in place of Lord Algernon.
