Helena took a place beside him. “How did it happen?”
He winced. “Thereis a story.”
“You needn’t tell me if you don’t want to,” she said. She reached over and covered his hand with hers. “I’m a stranger, after all.”
“After that kiss, I’d say you’re more than that,” he mused, watching her pale fingers tangle with his. “Here it is, the bottom line of it: my father loved us, I know that is true, but he was selfish. He gambled and he lost. I used to watch him do it with this pit in my stomach. But he was always assuring, always implying that we had more than enough for his foolish decisions not to matter. And when he died—”
He cut himself off with a shake of his head. She nodded slowly. “You discovered the truth.”
“Yes,” he whispered. “I was already mourning the father I loved, weighed down by grief and responsibility, and then I started finding the ledgers.”
“Ledgers?” she repeated.
“Dozens of them, all designed to hide one lie or another, one debt or another.” He almost choked on the words. “For six months, as I went through the contents of his office, every single day brought some new nightmare. The creditors were calling and I was in a chess match with a dead man. Every move took me closer to my doom.”
“It must have been devastating,” she said.
He nodded. “Utterly. But I…I made it worse, Helena.Idid.”
“How?” Her brow wrinkled.
“One of the men my father owed money to, he approached me with a bargain. More gambling to clear the debt. I was against it. By then any stomach I had for the idea was long turned. But I felt I had no choice, so I did so—and I won. That small debt was cleared. It was exhilarating.”
He stopped talking and bent his head as shame flooded him. He couldn’t say the next, he never had. Not to his mother, not to anyone.
Helena brushed a lock of hair from his forehead. “You gambled more,” she said softly, filling in the things he could not bring himself to say. “You tried to fix the damage using the same tools your father had to make it. And I assume it failed.”
He nodded without looking at her. “Yes. Though I did clear a few debts, I also incurred more. I stopped after a few months, but the damage was done. By him. By me.”
Her breath went out in a shuddering sound that mimicked the one inside his head at all times. “It must be terrible for you.”
He dared to look up at last and found her staring back at him. She was care and empathy and support personified. But he wasn’t finished yet.
“I’m telling you this, not for your sympathy,” he said slowly. “But because I must. I am not the kind of man who goes around kissing young ladies in a garden. I would normally not be so reckless, but the moment I saw you on the terrace at the ball, I was drawn to you. When I look at you I want…well, I simplywant. But there are still outstanding debts I cannot even find and a future that can be fixed in only one way. So I…I can’t pursue what I want. I must do what I need to do, no matter how much I don’t want to.”
Her eyes widened slightly, and she nodded. “You must marry for money.”
He wanted to howl when she said it. He wanted to turn away from the disgust that would shortly flow over her face. Only it didn’t. Her expression remained calm and unreadable.
“Yes,” he choked out.
“You have so much weight on your shoulders,” she whispered, reaching up to stroke her hand over one of them.
“Much of which I put there myself,” he said. “I did this.”
“Not alone,” she reminded him, her grip tightening on his arm. He stared at her, and for a moment just a tiny fraction of the weight that he carried lessened. He could breathe again.
But it couldn’t last. “Either way, the result is the same.”
She was very still, and then she slowly slid her hand away. His body mourned the loss. “I understand. I must confess to you that I don’t like it.”
“No?” he whispered.
She smiled, a sad and small expression that hit him in the stomach. “If my reaction to the kiss didn’t spell it out to you, let me be clear. Iwant, too, Baldwin. I’ve been shocked by how deeply I felt connected to you, even after that first night. But I’ve known my position for a long time. I never assumed it would or evencouldbe elevated. That wasn’t my purpose in coming here. So it seems we must just be…friends.”
Pain ripped through him at that kind offer. One he didn’t deserve but meant so very much to him. “I would be honored to be your friend, Helena Monroe.”
She stood and he followed her to her feet. She slid her hand through his elbow and smiled up at him. He could see the lie in that expression. The pain behind it. It mirrored his own, but what was there to do? Life was not fair.
