Gabe rubbed his throbbing jaw, studying Lady Helena Davenport, who notably refused to meet his gaze, as comprehension hit him with the force of an anvil to the head. There was no other explanation. Her betrothal to Lord Hamish White was looming, and she had seized the reins he had so foolishly left in her hands.
Part of him could not blame her for what she was doing.
But the rest of him seethed.
They were both complicit in this tangled, unacceptable mess. But what she was doing was a different sort of betrayal entirely. She had just told an immense falsehood. If she were truly pregnant, there was no possibility he was the father.
There was the chance she had managed to ruin herself with another.
The thought made him cold.
His mind was still sluggish after Shelbourne had knocked him out. But it was damned difficult to wrap his thoughts around such treachery on her part. Helena was wild and unruly and reckless. She was bold and brash and outspoken. Everything he did not want in a countess. But he did not think her to be the sort of female who would lie with one man and then pin her bastard child upon another.
Not that such a supposition was a commendation.
But he did not have long to contemplate further, because Shelbourne launched himself at him once more, spurred by Helena’s ludicrous confession. This time, Helena threw herself between them, acting like a shield.
Foolishly so.
Shelbourne nearly planted her a facer in his boundless rage.
“Stop this, Shelbourne!” she commanded her irate brother. “No more violence, if you please.”
After she had already incited all this madness with her ill-planned attempt to force him into marriage, her protestation was rich.
“He needs to answer for his sins, curse him,” spat Shelbourne.
Huntingdon wondered if their friendship could weather this betrayal. Whilst it was true that he had not gone as far as Helena claimed in compromising her, he was guilty of lusting after her. Of kissing and touching a woman he had no right to want. His own friend’s innocent sister.
There was only one means of ameliorating this disastrous affair.
He settled his hands on Helena’s waist and moved her to the side so he could face his outraged friend without her acting as a barrier between them. He was not a coward, damn it, and he would face Shelbourne on his own.
“What would you have me do?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
“You have to marry her,” Shelbourne said. “It is the only way.”
Yes, he had trapped himself quite neatly in a mess of his own lustful making. What he had not done, Helena had completed.
He did not flinch, and neither did his gaze waver. “I will marry her. However, I ask for some time. I will need to inform Lady Beatrice of the change in circumstance, and I will need to approach your father formally.”
Shelbourne growled. “How could you have done this, damn you?”
He could deny he was the father of Helena’s supposed child. But what good would the disavowal do him? It was plain from the virulence of his friend’s reaction that Shelbourne would never believe him.
“There is no explanation,” he said grimly, unable to keep the irony from his voice.
He cast a look in Helena’s direction. Her lovely face was stricken, the full lower lip he had so enjoyed kissing caught between her teeth. She looked as if she were torn.
Guilty. That was how she looked.
“Shelbourne, let me speak with Huntingdon for a moment,” she said then, shocking him with her bold request.
“Absolutely not,” Shelbourne rejected flatly. “You cannot believe I would allow you to remain in this vile seducer’s company alone for another second.”
She wanted to speak with him, did she? Gabe was tempted. He had quite a bit he wanted to say to the manipulative baggage. When he could swallow down his anger, that was.
Helena refused to meet his gaze. Her chin lifted in that defiant gesture he had come to know so well as she faced her brother. “Please, Shelbourne. A few minutes, no longer.”
