Page 14

How dare those shallow, miserable, arrogant hypocrites speak of her in such a manner! How dare they reduce her to a mere temporary convenience in open discussion! She is the Duchess of Cavendish, a title she bears with far greater dignity than any titled matron in Mayfair could ever hope to muster! His mind roared, his blood burning like liquid fire through his veins.

The sheer injustice of it infuriated him beyond all reason. He saw the quiet pain reflecting in her eyes; the resignation that revealed she secretly believed those malicious lies. Driven by unbridled rage, George rose abruptly and turned away from the fireplace to the exit, intent on riding out into the night to track down every gossiping tongue in the county and tear their social standings to ruin.

Helena's eyes widened in panic as she recognized the terrifying purpose in his aggressive strides. Leaping up, she hurried across the drawing room with desperation. Before he could reach out to grasp the brass handle, Helena threw herself directly in front of him, spreading her arms as she refused to let him pass.

"Step aside, Your Grace," George commanded, his voice dropping into a terrifying growl. "I will not permit a single soul to speak your name with such vile, malicious disrespect. I shall have those miserable wretches brought to account before the sun rises tomorrow."

"And what precisely would you do, Your Grace?" Helena demanded, her eyes flashing as she pressed her back firmly against the cold oak door, holding her ground despite the overwhelming aura radiating from him. "Would you confront all of the ton? Would you ride through Mayfair challenging every gossiping matron because they dared to whisper behind their silk fans?"

"If necessary, yes!" George spat back, his chest rising and falling rapidly as his rage fought against his self-control. "I am the Duke of Cavendish. I will not allow my household or my Duchess to be dragged through the mud by shallow parasites who possess not a particle of worth in my presence."

"I beg you to stop!" Helena cried out, her voice cracking with vulnerability that struck him directly in the heart. She looked up into his fierce face, her eyes shining with unshed tears as she pleaded with him. "Pray, listen to reason, Your Grace. I am already the subject of enough scandal and malicious speculation. If - if you go rampaging through the county making a dramatic spectacle over gossip, it will only serve to confirm their cruel theories. It will draw ten times more ruinous attention to us, turning this into a public circus for all of London to enjoy. I beg of you, do not make this worse. For my sake."

Her impassioned plea hung in the air between them, dispersing the blinding fog of his wrath. George stood frozen in place, his heavy breathing slowly evening out as her logical words forced their way into his mind. She was right, and he knew it with absolute clarity. A public confrontation would only validate the rumors, signaling to the world that the gossip had struck a sensitive nerve. Yet, as his rage began to recede, it left behind a far more dangerous reality.

Their intense argument had brought them so close that George fought hard to master himself as every instinct urged him to ignore reason and touch her. They stood mere centimeters apart, her back pressed against the door, his tall frame trapping her completely within the small space between his body and the heavy wood. He could feel the radiating warmth of her skin, hear the frantic rhythm of her heart hammering behind her silk bodice, and smell the intoxicating scent of sweet lavender and fresh roses that clung to her neck and hair.

"And Helena. If you believe you have no worth…" His eyes fell upon her trembling lips. Those soft, rosy lips that had tantalized his thoughts through countless silent hours in his study, those lips he had watched intently while she bit the inside of her cheek during their evening games.

This marriage was only for Oliver's sake. He'd promised her that, and she'd returned the promise with dismaying promptness. But that hadn't kept him from watching her lips. What would they taste like? Would they be as sweet, warm, and utterly intoxicating as they looked under the candlelight at dinner and during chess? He was so close, just a breath away, and he could claim those lips with ease, just like he had done with countless other women. But he shouldn't. He knew he shouldn't. To cross that boundary would be to shatter the protective wall he had constructed between them; a wall designed specifically to shield her from the ruined depths of his own heart.

He could not stop himself.

The wall cracked.

Overpowered by a tide of pure desire, George abandoned all reason and reached forward. His large hands came up to cup Helena's delicate face, fingers gently threading the dark curls at the base of her neck. He tilted her chin upward, lowered his head, and brought his mouth down onto hers with a possessive, hungry intensity that sent the world spinning on its axis.

Her mouth was unimaginably soft, warm, and sweet; far more intoxicating than any fine wine or heady brandy he had ever tasted in his life. His heart raced with it, waves of heat and chill chasing across his skin.

At first, Helena gasped against his lips, her body stiffening in shock at his bold, unscripted invasion. But before George could pull back or regret his reckless action, her initial resistance dissolved completely into the heat of the moment. With a breathless moan that echoed in her throat, Helena yielded to the kiss, her small hands rising to grip the lapels of his tailcoat, her fingers clutching the heavy wool as if she were a drowning soul clinging to a rescuer.

She kissed him back with more intensity than he had ever dared to dream possible. Her lips parted beneath his, meeting his hungry demand with a fierce, starving passion of her own that matched him step for step. She leaned her soft body against his solid chest, slanting her head to deepen the contact, her mouth moving against his with an eager devotion that drove him completely out of his mind. George let out a low groan, his arms wrapping tightly around her waist, pulling her impossibly closer, pressing her delicate frame against his hard body until there was not a single inch of air separating them. He drank in the taste of her, his tongue sweeping past her sweet lips to tangle with hers, losing himself entirely in the wild heat of her response.

The kiss deepened into a swirling storm of raw emotion, sweeping away loneliness and strict self-control. In her fierce, unreserved embrace, George felt an incredible, terrifying sense of belonging. A feeling that this extraordinary woman, whom society had sought to diminish, held the absolute power to dismantle his entire life with a single touch of her lips.

Yet, even as her passion threatened to consume his very soul, a cold wave of memory struck George's mind like an icy bucket of water. His hands itched to find their way beneath her skirts and along her thighs, but he remembered his rules. They were there for a reason.

You will be my wife before the world... Oliver is the only child this marriage requires... You must never expect love from me.

If he allowed himself to yield to this consuming passion, if he dragged her into the chaotic, ruinous depths of his own darkness, he would end up destroying the very peace he had sworn to preserve. He would disrupt the tranquil home that his nephew's future depended on.

He should protect her from the biggest scandal possible: Himself.

With agonizing exertion of willpower that shook his entire body, he ended the kiss. He slowly broke the connection between them, lingering for one final, heart-wrenching second against her rosy lips as he released her from his devouring grip. He pulled his hands away, taking two full strides backward into the room to re-establish the formal expanse between them.

George stood away, his chest heaving rapidly as he fought to draw cool air into his burning lungs. Helena remained pressed against the oak door, her body trembling slightly, her hair partially loosened from its pins, her cheeks flushed with a radiant scarlet. Her green eyes were wide, luminous, and completely dazed, and as her swollen, rose-red lips parted, she caught her breath, staring at him speechless.

"Tomorrow evening, there shall be none of our chess arrangement," George stated firmly, his icy blue eyes fixed upon a point on the wall just above her head, refusing to look directly into her mesmerizing, disarming gaze lest his control fracture a second time. "My dear friend Caspian, the Duke of Glastonbury, and his lovely wife Arabella are arriving at Cavendish Manor for supper tomorrow evening. They shall be bringing their young son Timothy with them, as they are exceptionally eager to meet little Oliver."

Helena swallowed hard, raising a trembling hand to smooth down a stray lock of hair near her temple as she struggled to gather her scattered thoughts. "I understand, Your Grace. I shall ensure that Oliver is properly dressed and prepared to receive our distinguished guests."

Helena shifted slightly away from the door, her fingers lightly clasping together over her gown as she asked with curiosity. "What should I wear for tomorrow's dinner, Your Grace? What would your preference be?"

George remained still for a long moment, watching her stand there proud, beautiful, and entirely untamed by the cold world around her. Driven by an irresistible impulse he chose not to fight, he stepped forward, closing the distance between them once more. He leaned down slightly, bringing his broad face close to hers until his lips were a hair's breadth away from the delicate shell of her ear.

"Surprise me."

Before his self-control could falter again, before his arms could betray his intellect and pull her flush against his chest to claim those sweet lips once more, George turned squarely on his heel and swept out of the drawing room, leaving his duchess standing entirely alone in the candlelit warmth as her touch lingered on his body.