What is the matter with me?
Silas was perfectly aware that he was being unnecessarily churlish but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.
He was usually in better control of his emotions, so he was slightly disconcerted that she was able to move him enough for him to behave impulsively. Perhaps that was another reason why he wanted her as far away from him as possible.
He picked up his coffee cup and retreated to his office. He had a lot of work to do, with or without Helena’s testimony.
He walked in to find that his secretary had arrived and was industriously copying figures into the estate ledgers.
“Good morning, Saunders,” he said as he headed for his own desk. “And how was your trip to the Cotswolds?”
Saunders looked up with a distracted air. “Very well, Your Grace.” He held up the paper that he was copying from. “I was able to get all the information that we needed. You’ll be able to sell the mine with no issues should you choose to.”
Silas made a noncommittal sound, frowning at the newspaper on his desk. The front page was filled with the recent murder of a well-known nobleman. What the public did not know, however, was that he used to run the largest prostitution ring in England.
Silas was not at all surprised that someone had finally slashed his throat, though it was being blamed on a lovers’s spat gone wrong.
His mind inevitably returned to the late Earl of Downfield, his current mission.
He turned to his secretary. “Saunders, I have a small assignment for you.”
Saunders looked up, protest in his eyes. “I haven’t finished with the ledgers, Your Grace.”
“Yes, yes, but you can do that later.” Silas waved a dismissive hand. “I need you to go to St. Margaret’s abbey. A young lady has escaped to the premises, and I would like you to make discreet inquiries into what they mean to do about it. Emphasis on discreet.”
Saunders quickly got to his feet. “Yes, Your Grace.” He bowed quickly, grabbed his coat from behind the chair, and hurried out of the room.
Silas picked up his coffee cup in a huff and turned to face the window. He caught sight of his sister and Helena sitting on the grass, facing each other, deep in conversation.
What are they talking about?
He took a slow sip of his tea, his eyes lingering on Helena. She sat with an ease he hadn’t expected, with her posture open, relaxed, almost as though she belonged there. It wasn’t just her composure that intrigued him; it was the way she held Amelia’s attention, the way she seemed to draw her in without even trying.
Amelia, who rarely allowed anyone to hold her focus for long, seemed utterly fascinated by her. There was something in the way Helena spoke, the way she moved, that had captured his sister’s curiosity.
Silas couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
His gaze darkened slightly as he studied Helena’s profile. There was something alluring about her; perhaps her defiance, her strength. The way she challenged him, even in their brief exchanges, stirred a curiosity in him that he wasn’t accustomed to.
Now, watching her laugh softly at something Amelia had said, a thought—no, aneed—flashed through his mind.
Her lips on his, her eyes fluttering to the back of her head with bliss, the curve of her neck, open and ripe for biting.
A jolt of heat went through him, one that quickly twisted into something far darker, far more dangerous.
He shoved the thought aside, tightening his grip on the teacup until his knuckles went white.
No, this was a distraction he couldn’t afford.
But even as he tried to refocus, that image of her lingered, too vivid, too tempting to dismiss.
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake,” he set the cup down with a sharp exhale, his mind racing to pull himself back from the brink.
He had work to do, answers to find, and the Crown to protect.
Yet, the faintest trace of Helena’s presence, her scent, her very essence, seemed to haunt him, a silent whisper that refused to fade.
“You mustn’t judge my brother too harshly,” Amelia said softly. “He has not had an easy time of it. Sometimes I think he just holds himself too tight. As if, were he to do the slightest thing wrong, then everything would fall apart.”
