It was to be blackmail then. Pure and simple.
She should have known better than to let her guard down.
Bloody men.To hell with the lot of them.
Helen quickly madeher way to Amelia’s rooms using the back passages. She had no wish to come across another guest in the state she was in.
With every step, she turned over Lord Holsen’s words in her mind, searching for the slightest nuances.
Whichever way she looked at it, she had been betrayed.
By Starling, certainly. By Holsen, it seemed, opportunistically. By unknown forces that she should have known would come for her sooner or later.
She was a woman in a man’s world. What else did she expect, really?
A hysterical gasp of laughter escaped her throat as she wavered on her feet, the passage appeared to recede before her as she reached out with a trembling hand to steady herself against the wall.
One breath in, one breath out.
Helen had survived disaster before, she could do it again.
She needed to find Amelia. Her friend would know what to do.
Gathering her anger to buoy her up, Helen straightened and marched on down the passage.
Finally, the rage was making itself known.
Buggering blasted-
Damn him. Damn Captain Starling and his mischievous glinting eyes that promised so much. Damn his hands and his mouth that had her trembling for him just hours ago.
Goddamnher stupid heart for leaping in her chest at the thought of him, of seeing him again. Even now.
Even now, after what she had just learned.
Helen was weak. She had let herself have…. desires. More than those of the flesh.
Desires of the heart.
Her stupid heart had secretly thought there was something more behind his carnal interest in her. That she had found someone who saw her for who she was inside.
That might evenwanther. All of her.
She should have never taken him to her bed again. It was folly the first time.
Pure insanity, the second.
The worst of it, if Helen was honest with herself, was that she would do it again. They were not finished yet.
A small part of her frantically held onto a scrap of hope. That it was all a mistake, that Holsen was lying.
Please, oh please, let him be lying about Starling.
Finally, just as her sense was threatening to escape her completely, she found herself at Amelia’s door and she knocked, hoping that her friend was inside.
A sweet voice called her to enter, and Helen stumbled through the door gratefully, throwing herself into Amelia’s arms with a gasp.
Slowly, as her friend rubbed her back in soothing circles, Helen calmed, her ragged breaths evening out into deep sighs.
