She didn’t look at him, but placed both hands on the half wall of the gazebo and leaned there like the weight of the world was on her shoulders.
“I see,” he murmured. “You know I don’t want her.”
“You don’t want any of them,” Helena said, glancing at him. “But we both know the danger. Charity has a huge dowry. It may even be bigger than everyone is whispering about. I recognize you’d have to consider it.”
His stomach turned. “Hear me, Helena. I could not consider your cousin, not if she had a hundred thousand pounds, or a million.”
High color touched her cheeks and she smiled slightly. “Don’t be silly.Iwould marry her for a million pounds.”
He recognized what she was doing, how she was trying to diffuse the situation through humor. And it worked. He smiled despite himself and reached out to take her hand.
“Let’s not talk about her,” he said. “I have such little time with you, I don’t want to waste it talking about Charity or Lady Winifred or roses.”
“Then you choose the topic, since you’ve suffered so today,” she said, another teasing smile tilting her lips.
Lips he wanted to kiss so very desperately. Only a kiss would lead to other things right now.
So instead, he guided her so they could sit together on the bench in the gazebo’s center. “Tell me about your friends at home.”
He had expected her to brighten at that topic, but instead her body went stiff next to his and her jaw tightened.
“I’m sorry,” he said, holding her hand a little tighter. “I did not mean to find a painful subject for you.”
“It’s not your fault,” she said softly. “The truth of my ruination came out amongst my friends. I had confided in my closest friend, needing someone to talk to. Instead, she told the rest and they…they turned away from me. The scandal grew, its facts twisted to be even worse and…well, I wouldn’t want to return to Boston, I don’t think.”
Baldwin shook his head slowly, filled with disbelief. “Those do not sound like friends,” he growled. “I cannot imagine my own set of friends not standing by my side.”
“Is that why you lie to them about your situation?” she asked, gently but pointedly.
He stared at her. “A fair argument,” he said. “And not one we need to hash over again. But Helena, please know that the friendships you’re forging with Emma, Meg, Charlotte and Adelaide, they are far truer. A better group of women I have never known in my life.”
Helena shifted. “I thought my own friends would see me through, too. I don’t want the duchesses to know the truth.”
There was a hint of desperation to her tone. A lilt of terror and sadness and grief that twisted Baldwin’s gut. He could no longer hold himself back. He cupped her chin, leaned in and brushed his lips over hers.
She made a soft little sound of surrender in her throat that drove him mad, but he didn’t deepen the kiss or demand more from her. This wasn’t about possession or desire. It was about comfort. Support. And emotions he refused to name because they could come to nothing.
He drew back and held her gaze evenly. “I will not tell your secret, Helena. I would never betray you like that. But I do want to say that I promise you that your new friends would never turn on you.”
“But they wouldn’t understand,” she whispered.
“Adelaide and Emma would,” he said softly. “Both of them narrowly escaped the same fate you experienced.”
Her eyes widened. “Adelaide and Emma?” she repeated.
“Attacked by the same man, at different times,” he said, his jaw tightening as he thought of those stories James and Graham had told. At the time he’d been angry enough, but now he was enraged. Now he could picture what Helena had endured, and it shattered his heart.
“The same man,” she said, her eyes widening with terror.
“He’s dead now,” he reassured her. “I’m only trying to say that what happened to them was not their fault. And I know they would understand what you went through if you chose to tell them the truth.”
She sighed heavily and stared off into the garden, though it was with distant eyes that didn’t seem to truly see. “I’ll think about it, Baldwin. I will. It might be…nice to have friends to confide in who understood.”
“You’ve been dealing with this on your own for so long,” he encouraged. “I hope you will consider it.”
She looked around and then briefly rested her head against his shoulder. Warmth spread through his whole body, and he wrapped his arms around her as she sagged against him. She trusted him to be her strength in that moment, and his body swelled with pride…and a desire to protect her for the rest of her life.
Only he couldn’t. And she seemed to recall that at the same time he did, for she sat up and smiled at him. It was a shaky expression, not entirely believable.
