“Not yet.”
His denial gave her pause. “My lord, I know nothing about helping a gentleman disrobe.”
“I want you,” he argued stubbornly.
Of course, he was not saying the words in the sense she wished to hear them. But just the same, they filled her heart with stupid, incipient warmth.
“I shall do my best,” she relented, continuing her task. “But you must help me.”
Together, they managed to divest him of most of his attire, right down to his smalls. Helena could not escape the observation that every part of her husband was handsome. Even his feet.
She led him to his bed, and he fell into it like a downed tree.
“Mmm, hellion,” he muttered. “Don’t go.”
As she tucked the counterpane around him, he began to snore. Helena studied his profile, noting the dark prickle of whiskers shading his strong jaw, the slope of his nose, his well-defined lips. Those dark lashes that were too long for a man, his rakishly ruffled hair.
And slowly, inspiration struck. Along with it came a plan.
Chapter Thirteen
There is nothing more infuriating than someone who refuses to accept reason.
—FromLady’s Suffrage Society Times
Gabe woke toa throbbing head, a roiling stomach, blinding white light, and the voice of an angel.
Strike that.The voice did not belong to an angel at all, but rather to the gorgeous bane of his existence.
Helena.
“Thank you, Bennet. Would you be kind enough to see a tray brought up for his lordship?” she was asking his valet.
He had no idea why she would be arranging anything on his behalf with his own manservant. Where was he? What time was it? And why did he feel as if an omnibus had run over his entire body, from head to foot?
Most importantly of all, why was he not on a train bound for Shropshire?
Bloody hell, his travel plans.
Remembrance washed over him. The wedding. Helena was his wife now. The breakfast. That interminable barouche ride to Wickley House. His flight to his club. Drowning himself in Moselle and champagne and everything else. Had he dreamt that she had helped him to bed the night before?
He had not consummated their union, had he?
He sat up and instantly regretted the haste of his movements. His stomach lurched, and he feared he was going to cast up his accounts. Helena swept toward him across the Axminster of his chamber, a gleaming ray of sunlight catching in her golden tresses. A goddess at any hour, curse her.
The window dressing had been pulled aside to invite the unusual brightness of the day. Even his soul cringed at the offending light.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “What time is it?” he asked, taking note that she looked far too beautiful for her own good this morning.
Or mayhap for his own good. He had to continue his campaign of resistance, damn it. Supposing he had not already dismantled it the night before, that was. The sight of her in an afternoon gown of light-green silk that served to heighten the vibrancy of her emerald eyes did not help the matter. Her lush curves were on glorious display, and although he still felt as if he had been dragged through the streets beneath an unforgiving pair of hooves, an answering spark of awareness lit within him.
“It is half past one in the afternoon,” she informed him blithely.
Impossible.
He must have misheard.
He frowned, but the movement of his forehead inspired a fresh spate of pounding in his skull until he softened his expression. “I beg your pardon?”
