But being the Duke of Dunmore in London was not nearly as engaging as being Jack Pike, the duke’s man, in Dunmore itself. Because here it was paper and numbers and dry men in spectacles and suits and the formality and the dullness of the House of Lords.
And the balls.
Oh, my God. The balls.
He had been to four already in just his first fortnight back. Him thinking the balls would fill his solitary nights and the women there would keep his mind off Helen. Phineas chivvying him into his satin breeches. George telling him he would be at the balls, too, chaperoning his sister Alice and to watch out for the disgusting ratafia and under no circumstances was Jack to get anywhere near his sister. Or her friend Lady Phoebe Finch. Edmund grunting he would go, too. Just to look. And besides, there was nothing else to do.
He had met many debutantes at the balls, of course. He had agreed with Phineas that Lady Olivia Radcliffe was beautiful but icy, that Miss Alice Danforth was a walking inducement to scandal with her wicked ways, that Lady Phoebe Finch would make someone a very good wife—but not him, of course, not him, because after all, wasn’t she meant for George?—that Lady Ellen Stafford almost certainly did have beautiful legs under her gown, that the widowed Lady Lutton was sweet and plump and ripe for the picking, and that Lady Anne Cavendish had a sharp tongue to match her wits.
He had liked speaking with Lady Anne the most, he supposed. Despite being a duke’s daughter, surely close to thirty and still unmarried, Lady Anne had a spark and an anger which reminded him of . . . well, she reminded him that there were certain women in the world who were immune to his charms. But her father had died five days ago and she had gone back to Middlewich with her sisters. He had had no one to spar with at the last ball he had attended.
At all the balls, he had danced. He had eaten midnight suppers. And each time, he had gone home, rudely, long before the breakfasts, wanting only to be alone, knowing his thoughts would turn to Helen.
And he was home alone in the afternoon, sprawled on a sofa in the front drawing room, in his oldest clothes, unshaven, reading a report on the economic necessity of clearances in the Highlands of Scotland, when he heard a knock and a burr-laden voice asking his butler, “If ye could please tell me if this is Captain Jack Pike’s house?”
A bounce off the sofa, five enormous strides, an elbow to his butler’s ribs shoving him out of the way, and he was faced with Helen Boyd, Countess of Kinmarloch. And behind her a towering Highlander in full kilt with bright hair and freckles. And to the side of him, a seraph with hair of flame.
He ushered them into the house quickly, not allowing his butler to say anything, not wanting the words “Your Grace” to cross the man’s lips. He got them into the drawing room and closed the door behind him.
Helen. He couldn’t stop staring at her in her brown dress. She seemed so much smaller in his drawing room than she had been in his mind these last weeks. She also looked tired, but she had just taken a journey, hadn’t she?
He forced himself to look at Mags and Duncan, to acknowledge them with a nod. The young people looked well. He turned his gaze back to Helen.
“What brings you to London, Lady Kinmarloch?”
“Besides the mail coach, Jack Pike?”
“Please sit. All of you. Please.”
They did. Duncan and Mags drew away from Helen and went to sit in two chairs by a window. He sat next to Helen on one of the sofas and smelled cider and thought about a bed in a castle in the Highlands and two people lying naked in that bed and kissing. He touched her hand.
“No, really. Why are you here?”Are you here to see me, Helen?
She looked down at where his fingers rested on the back of her hand. She moved her hand away, into her own lap, and met his eyes. She didn’t look tired any longer. She looked as fierce as ever.
“I need yer help, Jack Pike.”
“Yes, of course. But you could have written. That would have been quicker.”
“I needed to come myself.”
“How can I help you?”
Helen took a deep breath. “I still think I should try to marry John MacNaughton, the Duke of Dunmore.”
He held still. This was the moment to tell her. The truth. Here in London, how could he keep it hidden from her? It had been a close thing with his butler.
But she would despise him for it.
“I dinnae want to be any trouble. I only want an introduction. And I dinnae want ye to tell me ’tis foolishness when I know ’tis the best way to end my and Kinmarloch’s troubles. I used the money ye gave Mrs. Mac to come down here. And I have enough left to buy a dress and get us some rooms. But I dinnae know anyone else here. So, if ye could tell me the least costly part of London where I might find rooms? And do any of yer women know of a good dressmaker?”
Her eyes searched his face and he held himself immobile, not wanting to betray anything to her.
She went on. “’Tis what fine men of means call a calculated risk. But I can tell from yer expression that ye think my calculations are very poor and I am very stupid to have wasted my bit of money and come here.”
“No,” he said slowly.
“And I would be lying if I didn’t tell ye that I am a weak woman and I wanted to see ye again, Jack Pike.”
