“You really must work toward seeing they are the same man. Because if you don’t, how are you going to get Helen to see it?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I thought that was what you were trying to do with your letters. They’re full of hints.”
“No. They’re not. They’re friendly letters.”
“The king in disguise in the poem? The love match? Not marrying for a title? She’s not stupid.”
“She has no idea, Phin. I would know if she knew. She can’t lie, she can’t deceive.”
“You finally found an honest woman, eh, Jack? And you say she hates you? Pity.”
“Pity? What pity?”
“I admit I didn’t appreciate what you saw in her, at first. But now I do. From what you’ve told me about her, she worships your physical being even as she lays waste to your charming nonsense. A lethal combination for a man who craves love from behind the mask of a scoundrel.”
“Phin, you have no conception. She knows I’m a scoundrel. There’s no mask.”
The earl laughed. “For a woman who labors as hard as you say she does, she’s spending an awful lot of her time writing to the Duke of Dunmore. She must believehe’snot a scoundrel.”
“Exactly. That’s why you’re involved. Now, shut up and write what I tell you.”
What he had dictated then had been the foolish letter to Helen where he had probed as to whether she had suitors, if she had found a man. He would never have asked such damn stupid questions if Phineas hadn’t gotten him so riled. So needing. So wanting reassurance she was still free and some part of her belonged only to him.
She hadn’t yet replied to that letter even though he had sent two more letters. Two rather begging letters.
Now, Phineas looked down at the foolscap and frowned. “That’s all? You’ve had me write,Helen,full stop.Don’t get quiet,full stop.”
“Yes. Sign it, John. Just John.”
“That’s all you’re going to write her?”
“She likes things unvarnished. She’ll answer that.”
Helen.
Don’t get quiet.
John.
Ten days later, the very day the doctor told him he could start to walk on his right leg, he received her answer.
To John MacNaughton, the Duke of Dunmore.
My Lord Duke:
I am happy to continue to advise you about your duchy, and I like reading your letters, but please do not mistake this correspondence for true intimacy.
Although I wear breeches six days out of seven, although my language can be coarse (as I have told you), I am still a woman. And my womanly heart will only be open to one man—my husband. I must ask you not to expect me to reveal anything to you which should only be told to him.
Yrs. Sincerely,
Helen Boyd,
Countess of Kinmarloch.
He paced his study that night, exercising the leg probably more than the doctor intended him to.
