I willnae be a bother to ye any longer.
“You’re going to try to get yourself compromised, is that it?”
“Nae. I have realized that widnae be honorable. I am going to be forthright with what I hope for. As I was with ye.”
“Yes, you were always forthright. With me.”
Until now, Jack Pike. I cannae tell ye what is in my heart the way I could tell ye what was in my loins.
Jack patted the pocket which held the letter. “Do you intend to tell the duke about us?”
“If he had offered to marry me, I would have told him I was a woman of experience. But I widnae have told him it was ye.”
“So last night was our last time together?”
He came toward her now, reaching for her, but she backed away.
“Aye, but please. Dinnae make this more difficult for me. I hope . . . I hope ye will think well of me.”
He got hold of a piece of her hair that had fallen down. He rubbed it in his fingers.
“And I hope you will think wickedly of me, Helen Boyd.”
“If I can control my thoughts, I willnae think of ye at all.”
He leaned forward and whispered in her ear. “What if you can’t control your thoughts?”
She stepped away, well clear of him. “Then I’ll control my deeds.”
Jack looked at the floor. “I hope you get what you want, Helen.”
I cannae. I want ye.“Aye.”
He raised his head. “Mrs. Allen says your dresses are ready to be fitted.”
She did not correct his use of the worddressesinstead ofdress. Hadn’t she always known he would give her both more than she deserved and less than she wanted?
Twenty-Seven
Jack watched Helen look at her reflection in the mirror. She had on the winter dress. Not quite the right blue. The dress covered her completely, stopping just shy of her chin and coming down over her wrists. He came closer and felt the material of her sleeve. It was thick and soft.
Mrs. Allen went to fetch more pins. Helen hissed down at him from the small platform she stood on, “Jack, three. I dinnae need three more dresses.”
“They’re already made for you, Helen. You have to take them. It’s a favor owed me, as I said.” He wanted to put his arm around her waist, touch her bottom through the dress, feel how warm she would be in it.
He folded his arms across his chest, tucking his hands into his armpits, and stepped away.
His letter was meant to divert her attention away from the Duke of Dunmore, not away from Jack Pike. It had not even occurred to him she would break it off with him. If anything, he had thought she would turn to him for comfort after the letter. Comfort that would end with the two of them tangled together in a bed. But, instead, something in the letter had made her decide their coupling should stop.
Why, oh, why had he dictated that letter to Phineas in his study yesterday evening after their excursion to Hyde Park? Because if he hadn’t, he would be stealing a grope or a kiss right now. And, after the fitting of her dresses, they could have gone to the inn again, delaying the inevitable future while they moved against each other, their mouths and groins locked together.
The next dress was the one suitable for spring. Light blue with a little white lace that looked like clouds along the square neckline and at the ends of the elbow sleeves. Again, the urge came to touch her, to run his fingers around the neckline where the lace was and feel her smooth skin there.
Helen’s cheeks were pink. She touched the lace herself. Then she caught his eye in the mirror and scowled and shook her head.
Finally, the ballgown in the blue Jack had requested, a blue of the sky over Scotland on that rarest of things, a clear spring day. Silk fell in a column to pool at Helen’s feet. The smallest bit of gold cording under her breasts. The sleeves just fluttering wisps of silk.
“Jack,” she whispered when she saw herself in the mirror.
