She knew that look

She had once known the look of desire on a man’s face—on many men’s faces. But none of them had ever affected her like this.

Deep inside, some nether region of her innards rattled. Humming, vibrating, rattling—she couldn’t tell which. It felt wonderful, like silver threads of pleasure were woven throughout her body and being plucked by some unseen hand like an angel playing a harp.

She felt a bit dizzy all of a sudden. Her eyelids felt heavy.

“It is less than a fortnight when we will be man and wife,” Adam said thickly. He kept looking at her mouth, studying it intensely. Without seeming to move an inch, he somehow was closer. “Not long…”

“No. Soon.”

He was going to kiss her, and she could do nothing but stand there, frozen on the spot, and wait for the touch of his mouth….

The Sleeping Beauty

Harlequin Historical #578

Praise for Jacqueline Navin’s previous works

The Viking’s Heart

“THE VIKING’S HEART is a beautifully written medieval romance…an entertaining and emotional read.”

—The Romance Reader

A Rose at Midnight

“Nothing can prepare you for the pure love that flows from Ms. Navin’s writing. She gives warmth, humor, tears of joy…her books are gifts to be treasured.”

—Bell, Book and Candle

The Flower and the Sword

“…a touching tale of love’s ability to heal wounded souls.”

—Romantic Times Magazine

The Maiden and the Warrior

“Ms. Navin has captured the essence of the time and created a beautiful love story.”

—Rendezvous

#575 SHOTGUN GROOMS

Susan Mallery & Maureen Child

#576 THE MACKINTOSH BRIDE

Debra Lee Brown

#577 THE GUNSLINGER’S BRIDE

Cheryl St.John

The Sleeping Beauty

Jacqueline Navin

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

Available from Harlequin Historicals and

JACQUELINE NAVIN

The Maiden and the Warrior #403

The Flower and the Sword #428

A Rose at Midnight #447

Strathmere’s Bride #479

One Christmas Night #487

“A Wife for Christmas”

The Viking’s Heart #515

The Sleeping Beauty #578

To Kelly.

The year this book was written was a tough one for you and yet you have emerged from it with amazing benefit. I admire your courage, your fortitude, your poise, your sense of justice—just about everything about you (except your hairstyle ). You have made your dad and me proud and so very happy each and every day.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Epilogue

Chapter One

Northumberland, England 1852

Adam Mannion pulled his mount to a halt as the two of them rounded a bend in the packed-dirt road and stood staring at the sprawling mansion.

This was Rathford Manor?

His horse, a newly bought gelding with more spirit than sense, skittered sideways as if he, too, felt the sudden chill that seemed to hit once the house came into view. “Whoa, boy,” Adam muttered, controlling the steed with a skillful jerk of the reins. The horse stilled and twitched his ears nervously as they both regarded the house.

Adam Mannion was nothing if not a practical man. In all of his thirty-two years, he had not seen anything to cause him to believe in anything outside the realm of the physical world other than a good, solid hunch one got at times when the turn of the cards was going one’s way. Nevertheless, in this case he had to sympathize with the horse’s skittishness. The place seemed…dead.

It appeared deserted. Not a single soul wandered in the gardens snipping herbs. No one trotted from the stables to greet him. The shrubbery that might have once lent grace to the noble facade was overgrown, ill tended and wild looking. Lichens grew on the stones, flourishing in the neglect that hung about the place like a pall. Many of the windows were shuttered, a strange sight when the weather was so mild. He supposed it indicated those rooms were shut up and unused.

“The Sleeping Beauty of Northumberland,” Adam muttered, and huffed a short sound of amusement. Well, he was hardly Prince Charming set on cutting down the fence of thorns to rescue the princess, that was certain.

It was money that brought him to this godforsaken corner of England, up here where the wind came off the North Sea to blow across the lifeless moors. He would have preferred summering in Cornwall with his friends, or perhaps the south of France, or Italy as some of his more wealthy bows had. The difference was, he wasn’t wealthy. Which was why he was here. Money. Oh, yes. And a wife.

The Sleeping Beauty of Northumberland, no less.

The horse nickered, a sure sign of derision, as if he could read minds, and Adam nodded sagely. “I agree. Silly stuff and nonsense, all of it.” He shook his head and kicked his heels into the gelding’s flanks. “We shall have to debunk the air of sorcery around here. It is pickling my brain.”

However, his thoughts remained dark as he headed through the high grass and weeds growing on the terraced lawns. It was like heading into a mist-shrouded graveyard at midnight. The hairs on his arms stood up as though lightning were preparing to snap at his feet.

Dismounting, he brushed some of the dust off his trousers and smoothed his cravat, then laughed at his uncharacteristic fussiness. He supposed he was a bit nervous.

Going up to the door, he raised the thick verdigris wreath protruding from the mouth of an iron grotesque, and let it fall. The sound echoed like the low rumble of thunder. Nothing happened for a long time. Knocking again, he waited. He frowned back at the unsightly sentry and thought about his predicament.

Had his information been wrong? Or had he fallen victim to his friends’ savage humor? The idea struck him like a blow. His “bosom bows” were rakehells and scoundrels, and it wouldn’t be below them to play a cruel trick on one of their own. Maybe this was a prank, and they were right now gathered at White’s by the wide front window, laughing themselves senseless as they thought of him traveling all the way up here for…for a fairy tale.

The Sleeping Beauty? He had been told fantastic tales of her beauty, of her charm and grace that had no equal, and—and this was the most important of all—of her fortune. A fortune he needed.

Money, beauty, a country miss whose reclusive preferences would pose no strings to his fast-paced lifestyle in the City. She was perfect.

How stupid of him. He was no green buck. Nothing was ever perfect. He should have known that by now.

Sighing, he silently admitted he had been duped. Thinking that if he left now he could make the inn in the nearby village of Strathmere by nightfall, he took a step down off the marble stoop.

He heard the door open behind him. Swinging around, he squinted. The figure inside was shrouded in deep shadows. He could only see it was a woman. A small, frail creature. Probably a servant girl. “What do you want?” she demanded.

Her impudence combined with his less-than-sublime mood at the moment served to annoy him. He said with an air of command, “I wish to see the mistress of the house. Lady Helena Rathford, if you please.”

There was a short silence. “Who are you—” She broke off. In a more docile tone, she amended, “I mean, who may I say is calling?”

Her voice was cultured, not like a servant’s at all. Then again, he was unfamiliar with this corner of England. Maybe the dialect was not as pronounced among the common folk as in other regions.

“Adam Mannion, Esquire.” He folded his arms across his chest and waited to be asked in.

There was no response from the girl. “Go,” Adam demanded, “and fetch her. Do not keep me waiting.” He waved his hand at her in a shooing motion. Was she daft?

Her demanding tone was anything but. “What is it you want with her?”

“That is not your concern, girl.”

“She doesn’t wish to be disturbed. Go away.”

To his utter astonishment, the door began to close. Two things spurred him into action. The first was his irritation at this annoying slip of a girl and the second was her unwitting admission that there was a Lady Helena Rathford in residence. He had doubted it when he had seen the poor condition of the house. He leaped back up the step and wedged his polished Hessian in the door frame just as she slammed the heavy oak portal closed.

“Lord, girl!” he cried, biting back some more vicious epithets he would have liked to employ as pain shot up his leg. “Are you trying to cripple me?”

“Move your leg.”

“You impertinent chit. Get your mistress. I have important business with her that she…” He stopped. His foot throbbed. The pain edged his temper up. Pushing with one of his broad shoulders, he knocked into the door. The girl stumbled back and the oak panel crashed against the inside wall.

The intrepid servant was astonished, he saw. Her eyes were a startling blue—pale with a hint of green that made them almost turquoise. Grinning his most charming grin, he explained, “I’ve decided I’d prefer to wait inside.”

She was taller that he had thought, probably because she had been hunched over before. Now she stood at her full height, looking brazen and outraged. Her hair was a mess, pulled back in a sloppy knot. Two hanks had worked out of the tether and shielded most of her features from view. Between those and the ubiquitous shadows clustering inside the house, he could barely discern what she looked like. All he could see was that she was thin, almost gaunt. A fine nose and a good chin impressed him as strong features in an otherwise frail mien.

Almost grudgingly, he acknowledged she was attractive. He was a man who enjoyed women, and he knew quality when he saw it. His objective observation of her good features disturbed him, for it was followed with a jolt of lust he found inexplicable. This girl was a hellcat. As a rule, easygoing misses with big bosoms were his favorite bed-mates.

The girl retreated, melting back into the shadows. She called, “Get out of here immediately before I call my…my master.”

“Call him then, I welcome it.” Adam crept closer to the darkness. Really, the little idiot was a silly bit. He would have words with the Lady Helena when—or if—he was ever able to speak with her. “Where have you gone? Why are you hiding?”

“I am not hiding, you jackanapes. Get out now, I say!”

“Why, you imperious little snipe. How dare you refer so to your betters. Your behavior is reprehensible.”

A snort was her response.

He went after her. She had him incensed. He had no idea what he planned to do when he got her in hand. He didn’t strike women, nor did he shake or manhandle them in any way. But still he stalked the shadows like an impatient predator.

“Where are you?” There was no answer. Perhaps she had grown frightened after realizing her wickedness, and fled. He straightened. He would just go and find her master himself, he decided.

Taking a few steps, he stopped, just now registering his surroundings. His eyes traveled in a slow circle and his breath came out in an appreciative whistle. The hall was a rotunda capped with what appeared to be a domed ceiling. Around him was artwork of magnificent proportion, all relief work in the neoclassical style that had become popular of late. Marble and painted wood and pure, white alabaster were all around him in various fashions of interior decoration. He walked about slowly, touching this and that, astounded by all that he saw.

He smiled. It was all he could do to keep from cackling and rubbing his hands together. The wealth displayed delighted him. He had come to the right place.

“Are you still here?”

He almost snarled. “I should say the same to you.” He whipped around, scanning the darkened corners for some sign of her. In this hollow place where their voices echoed, the disembodied voice seemed eerie.

Another voice sounded. “My lady? What is it tha’s goin’ on? Who is come?”

My lady? “Lady Helena!” Adam called. “Are you here?”

Frantic whispers led him to the two figures huddled in the shadows. “Lady Helena?” he inquired, more urgently.

A flare of light startled all three of them. A man had joined them, coming up behind Adam with an oil lamp held out before him in one huge, hamlike fist. He was large as a bear and featured in the same fashion, his great bushy brows drawn down in confusion. “Helena, what the devil is going on here?” he demanded.

Adam turned back to the other two in front of him, which he could see now with the aid of illumination. The girl stared at him. Her features, bathed in the torchlight, were startling. She seemed afraid, he noted. Well she should, for this man who had just arrived was likely her master. No doubt her atrocious behavior would win her a sound reprimand. Adam gave her a smug look before turning to her companion, whom he expected to be the Lady Helena herself.

A woman stared back at him, her full mouth pursed in irritation. She was at least two score and ten, her red hair caught under a mobcap, with frizzled strands sticking straight out from her head. Her face was lined, with a healthy spattering of freckles over every inch. Both her age and her obvious Irish heritage forbade her being the one he sought.

Not Lady Helena.

With dawning dread, he turned back to the other female. The servant who had taunted him. Lady Helena?

Helena blanched to see the look come over his face when he realized who she was—a subtle blend of shock and wariness and…disgust?

Why should it hurt? Vanity, she supposed. It hadn’t completely left her, despite the last five years.

This was a handsome man, after all. Dark eyes, dark hair, well-dressed in expensive clothes straight from Savile Row…A London dandy, no doubt. Although she tried to strike a scornful pose, her insides were quivering too much to make it effective. From the moment she had peered at him through the slit in the door, there had been something about this man that had her stomach fluttering with a vague sense of apprehension.

She could easily guess why he was here—that didn’t require any particular feat of brilliance. There was only one reason a man, any man, would travel to the northernmost regions of the country looking for her. A fortune hunter, then, ready with soft words and fawning praise. They had come before.

This one was different, however. He didn’t seem the sly type who thought to win her with simpering compliments and false affections. This man had an edge to him, a hardness that wasn’t completely tamed by his impeccable manners. He had dark hair, and eyes dark as sin that pierced her with incredulity, betraying his less than complimentary thoughts. His face was strong boned, with a square jaw and a straight, proud nose that gave him a certain presence. Not a pretty man, yet he exuded a virility that was indeed quite powerful.

That sensuously curved mouth said nothing, but she knew what he thought. Self-consciously she touched her wildly tousled hair and wondered if she had dirt on her face. The sudden anxiety over her appearance jarred her. It had been a long time since she had cared about such things.

Well, damn him! Dropping her hand, she told herself he was just a cheap swindler dressed in a nice coat.

“Father?” She forced out the words through a throat suddenly gone dry. “Please do not permit this man inside our home.”

George Rathford looked at her, puzzled. “But he’s already in, child. What are you about?”

“You can see I am in no condition to receive anyone,” Helena protested. “Look at me! We were at work in the cellars.”

The gentleman now turned to Lord Rathford and executed a correct bow. “My lord, I am honored to make your acquaintance. I am Adam Mannion, Esquire. At your service.”

She narrowed her eyes critically as he paid respects to her father. Even as he bent at the waist in a cursory bow, he held his head at an arrogant angle. He had in him a reluctance to humble himself before a peer, as if there were a bit of a rebel residing behind those polite words.

She triumphantly awaited her father’s response. If she had guessed this Adam Mannion’s game, surely her father would be quicker to know it. George Rathford did not suffer fools.

“I have come to speak with your daughter—”

Her father cut him off. “My daughter? Helena, do you know this man?”

“No, Father. I was attempting to get him to leave when you came upon us.”

Swinging around, the old man groused, “It’s too damned dark in here. Why are all the windows shuttered? I can’t see the fellow.”

The Irishwoman spoke. “The sunshine makes dust motes, my lord. It is easier to keep the house this way.”

“Damnation.” Rathford peered again at Adam. “Want to see my daughter, eh?”

“If it is convenient,” came the bland reply.

Helena saw her father chewing on the inside of his lip. It was a sign he was thinking. His rheumy eyes focused on her for a moment, then shifted back to the man. “It doesn’t seem that the gel wants to see you.”

“I…I noticed that, my lord.”

“Women can be hard, Mannion. You know about women?”

Helena was stunned. This was not the curt dismissal she had anticipated. There was even a glimmer of amusement on the old man’s lined face.

Mr. Adam Mannion, Esquire relaxed. “Not enough, I’m afraid.” What a clever response.

“Ah, who does?” Lord Rathford paused again, taking his time to consider the man before him. “Why don’t you come into my study, since you’ve traveled all this way and Helena won’t receive you? I’m of a mind to wet my throat a bit. You might be in need of a nip yourself.”

Helen gasped. “Father!”

Mr. Mannion, Esquire, stopped and turned to peer at her over his shoulder as he followed Lord Rathford. His dark eyes nearly twinkled and the thick slashes above them lifted tauntingly. He said, “I’m afraid you’ll have to await your turn, my lady.”

And then he joined her father as they entered a paneled door off to the right, the one that led into her father’s masculine retreat, the library.

She looked at Kimberly. The Irish servant’s eyes were narrowed as she stared at the closed door. Helena grew frightened at that look. She was afraid of Kimberly.

To her utter dread, the servant turned that thoughtful gaze on Helena.

“Come upstairs,” Kimberly ordered.

Chapter Two

“Sit down,” Rathford ordered gruffly.

If Adam was bewildered by the man’s abrupt change of mood, he knew he had better not show it. Selecting a chair, he slouched slightly and crossed his ankle on his knee. Propping his elbows on the armrests, he weaved his fingers together over his chest.

This room was only a bit more cheery than the cold hospitality offered in the shadow-shrouded hall. There was light, at least. Lots of books, gray as ghosts with thick layers of dust on them, lined every shelf. The furniture was comfortable, though, constructed of studded leather that softly absorbed the body’s weight.

Rathford filled a tumbler with whiskey. “Are you of a mind for whiskey or port?”

“Whiskey will be fine.” Adam looked around him. “Thank you for giving me your time and your hospitality. It’s comfortable in here.”

Rathford scowled at him and drawled sarcastically, “I am so glad you like it.”

Adam took the jab without retort.

“I could ask you what you want with Helena, but you’d probably tell me a heap of manure.” Handing him the whiskey, Rathford took a seat by the window and looked out at the ravaged garden. “So let me tell you what you want with Helena. You want her fortune.”

Adam, who had been taking his first sip of the whiskey, nearly choked. Rathford smiled, never taking his gaze off the window. “She knows it, too. Do you think you’re the first? Well, you ain’t, boy. And you can forget trying to charm her. She’ll have nothing to do with you.”

Adam didn’t reply at first. Running his forefinger across his top lip thoughtfully, he asked, “Then why not just send me away?”

“Because I may have some use for you, you arrogant pup.”

The bitterness of the old man’s response gave Adam pause. “What is it you want?”

Rathford started to laugh. Glancing at Adam, he raised his glass. “Why, the same goddamned thing as you do.”

Adam puzzled over that one, but refused to rise to the bait and ask the old curmudgeon what he meant.

“I see you know when to shut up and listen,” Rathford said after a while. “I like that. It’s something, at least. A man hopes to have some respect for the man his daughter marries.” Rathford glared at him. “You came here to marry her, didn’t you?”

There was no sense in prevaricating. “Y-yes,” he managed to reply.

“You need money?”

Adam tossed back a hearty gulp of the whiskey. “Yes.”

“What is it? Demanding mistress? Gambling debts? Too much drinking?”

“The fickle blessings of Lady Luck have deserted me at this time,” Adam said carefully. “My skill at the tables has proved inadequate without it.”

“Cards? Horses? Or are you not particular?”

Adam shrugged. “Mostly cards. I’m usually good enough to live off my winnings, but lately I’ve run into a bit of trouble.”

“How deep?”

“Four thousand.”

“Good God. Well, it would have to be a goodly sum to hie you all the way up here.” Rathford drew in a deep breath and expelled it, as if bracing himself for a particularly difficult duty. “You can have five thousand to cover your debts. I can give it to you today. Another fifteen hundred each quarter with which to amuse yourself. You might be able to use that if your ‘bit of trouble’ continues.”

A hot flood of excitement spread through Adam like a stain on linen. “I could use it even so.”

“And in return…” Rathford faltered. The whiskey hadn’t dulled his senses enough that a dull gleam of pain wasn’t detectable in his eyes. “In return, I shall require something of you.”

“Yes, my lord. I understand.”

“You want to marry my daughter. I will allow it. But for your part, you will promise me three things.” He finished the whiskey. His sadness grew, it seemed, evident in the slump of his shoulders, the weary bow of his head.

Adam studied the man gazing dolefully into his empty glass. The whiskey he had just downed in a startlingly short amount of time was surely not his first today. Nor was his binge an unfamiliar activity. One could always tell by the bulbous nose, the tiny red spider veins tracing over the face, when a man was too fond of drink.

But there was a cunning here as well. And something else, something more…urgent. With his chin resting on his thumb and his forefinger caressing his top lip, Adam waited.

“The first,” Rathford began, “is that you must not abandon Helena here. You will swear to visit at least twice a year, before and after the illustrious season, if you wish, so that your enjoyment of high society is not interrupted. You will stay for two months each visit.”

Adam frowned. He hadn’t counted on so frequent a journey up to these cold climes. He hadn’t necessarily intended to return at all.

“You will not leave her all alone—” Rathford broke off, his voice choking a bit. “You will come. The second promise is to be that you will do what you must as a husband to provide my daughter with a child. As many children as she desires. During these visits, you and she will be man and wife in all senses of the term.”

What it cost him to say this was evident in the rapid blinking of his eyes, in the way his jaw worked. His jowls began to tremble, so that his next words warbled more noticeably. “The final promise is that you will always treat her with kindness. Never speak to her in anger, never raise a hand. I will have you not only cut off without a ha’penny to comfort you, but thrown in the darkest of cells in a place where no one will find you. And I’m not talking through legal means, boy. I will—” His voice finally gave way.

This, at least, Adam had no compunctions about. “My lord, I assure you your daughter will be met with kindness. Never will I do a thing to harm her, body or spirit. I am not a cruel or unkind man.”

“Money changes men,” Rathford said prophetically. Bowing his head, he nodded, however, accepting Adam’s vow. “And the rest?”

Shifting in his chair, Adam admitted, “I do not care for so frequent journeying. But I will do it. Twice a year, just as you request. I suppose.” His lack of enthusiasm he didn’t bother to hide. “As for the other…I will provide my duty as husband as long as the girl is well. Her thinness may prevent—”

“No!” Rathford slashed a hand through the air. “No qualifications on it. You will…bed…her. You will give her children.”

Adam would have furthered the argument that the girl’s health might make pregnancy a danger, but the man’s countenance forbade it. Rathford’s eyes blazed; his quivering lips were nearly palsied. “I promise,” Adam said.

Rathford froze for a moment, then like a wax doll held too close to a fire, he melted back into his chair. “Very well. The bargain is done, pup. You shall have Helena as wife, and the bloody money, too.”

In the quiet of her bedchamber, Helena craned her neck to view the pattern of cards laid out before her. “What do you see?” she asked.

“Silence.” Kimberly bowed her head. “Don’t ye be feelin’ it? Yer mother, she’s here.”

Helena froze. The mention of her mother brought an instant chill.

Kimberly opened her eyes and studied the three cards already laid out in front of Helena. “Choose another.”

Helena obeyed, her icy fingers trembling as they selected from the deck. She placed the card where Kimberly indicated.

The servant frowned. “Darkness. Very bad.” She closed her eyes as she concentrated on communing with the long-dead Althea Rathford. “She is very angry. Do ye not feel her anger?”

Helena had always been terrified of her mother, but Althea’s rage when alive was nothing as terrible as the thought of her venom coming from beyond the grave.

Kimberly held her hands over the cards, palms down. Her body stiffened and her head fell back. She was in communion with the other world. She moaned, then said, “Retribution.”

Helena’s breath accelerated, coming in rapid pants, her heart ready to tear out of her chest. Long, elegant fingers clung to the table.

Kimberly went limp. Helena waited with the dull echo of her heartbeat pounding in her ears.

Opening her eyes, Kimberly drilled Helena with her gaze. “This man is yer destiny.”

“No! It can’t be.”

“Yer mother has called him here from across leagues of space.”

“Does she wish to punish me? Is that why you said, ‘Retribution’? Does she hate me?”

“A mother can never hate her child.” Kimberly scooped the cards up, her crafty eyes staring into Helena’s anxious ones. “She has great love for ye, just as she always did.”

That was hardly reassuring. Helena had known all too well the yoke of her mother’s love. She wrung her hands anxiously. “But he is a commoner. And…” She remembered his eyes. Dark, unfathomable and unforgiving. “And he seems so harsh.”

Kimberly didn’t argue further. Pressing her lips together—a sign that she had said all she was going to—she rose to place the cards back in their cupboard. Rising on shaky legs, Helena retreated to the other end of the room. She slid onto the window seat, her little corner where she always went to think.

Helena put no stock in Kimberly’s predictions. She wasn’t a believer. Not exactly. But guilt was a powerful thing. And the servant was clever, if nothing else. Kimberly’s knowledge of the spirit world might or might not be accurate, but she certainly knew her way around the human soul.

How could Helena be expected to marry that arrogant peacock, a virtual stranger who was obviously seeking nothing but a nice fat purse? He did not hold any caring for her—how could he be her destiny?

Helena wrapped her arms around her chest and closed her eyes. She heard Kimberly leave.

Retribution.

It was time to pay for what she had done.

When she received a message from her father to change her dress, brush her hair and come to the conservatory, Helena was shocked. She had held out hope that her father had wished to annoy the man—this Adam Mannion—by playing along with his “suit” for a while. She couldn’t believe that he would actually be interested in speaking to the man genuinely about the prospect of marriage.

But there was Kimberly’s prophesy. And now this summons.

Going to the pier glass by her dressing table, she stared at her reflection as her numb brain assimilated the incredible events of this afternoon.

She had bathed as soon as she had come into her room, fetching the water herself and making do with a hip bath. Long soaks in the tub were a luxury of the past. Her hair was freshly washed, still damp, her face scrubbed clean.

Leaning forward, she concentrated on the stranger whose image she faced. Her hair, a wheat color, had once gleamed with rich luster, falling in a cascade of perfect curls. Each one had seemed to be made of pale ecru satin. Now it hung rather dry and dull, with only the tepid undulations of its natural wave to give it any style. Her skin was still good, but pale. No longer did the blush of roses flame in her cheeks. Her lips looked bloodless.

She was no longer a beauty. Which was how she liked it. She had never wanted to look in the mirror and see that other Helena, her mother’s Helena, again. And yet this drab creature seemed a stranger. Perhaps a reflection of the true Helena she had never bothered to know.

For the first time since she’d pushed herself away from the strictures of beauty and grace that had been drilled into her as a child, she wanted something of her old self back. The thought of going to the conservatory and…and seeing him again was too daunting without it. Her mother had taught her how to use her looks to command attention, admiration. Power. She needed something of that skill now.

She took up her brush and began to pull it through her hair. Years of neglect weren’t going to be cured in one sitting, but the slight sheen that came into the tresses gave her confidence. Pinning it up as best she could, she surveyed the effect. Not bad, she decided. Biting her lips and pinching her cheeks, she went to the wardrobe to inspect its contents.

The dresses were all heavy with dust, dull and limp with age, and in some places, moth-eaten. Even had they been in excellent condition, they were outdated. A yellow muslin wasn’t too bad, she thought, pulling it out and brushing it off. The lace was still good and the stomacher in front boasted beautiful gold embroidery on ivory satin.

She flung it out before her, raising a cloud of dust. Then again and again. Each time it was as if she was shedding more than dirt. She was shedding the years. Her heart quickened. Destiny or not, she was going to give Mr. Adam Mannion a thing or two to reckon with. Namely, that she wasn’t a treasure-laden galleon ripe for a pirate’s plucking.

Her spirits lifted as she rushed about the rest of her toilette.

Chapter Three

The conservatory was magnificent. Adam looked around him, bouncing on his heels.

He wondered what his father would have thought to see him here, poised to marry an heiress. Not yet, he cautioned, checking the dangerous direction of his thoughts. The belle had yet to be won.

Lord Rathford, who had been nursing a drink while slumped in an old wicker settee, stood up when the sharp click of heeled slippers tapped upon the floor tiles. Adam looked over, mastering the sublime excitement that had stolen over him, and donned a sober mask.

The sight of Helena caused his jaw to drop. It gaped open for a moment before he recalled that it should be shut. He did so with such haste his teeth clicked together.

She was…incredibly different. Her hair was brushed and fixed into a neat twist. The simple style flattered her, revealing a face that was well-proportioned and delicate boned, with a pale complexion that needed no powder to enhance it. Her eyes were as vivid as a southern sea, her brow fair and arched, her mouth nicely pinked and prettily formed into a broad curve in the shape of a longbow laid on its side.

Her thinness, however, was disconcerting. In the soft fabric of the dress she now wore, he could see that the bones of her shoulders were acutely pronounced. The stomacher, meant to flatten a woman’s chest and push her breasts upward, nearly sagged. The garment hung on her, even at the pinched waist, which was already shockingly narrow. Yet even in this faded finery, she made a palpable impact on the room as she entered, head held high, eyes straight ahead.

“Father,” she said, pointedly ignoring Adam.

He grinned. She might have transformed her outward self, but she was still determined to bedevil him.

Rathford held out his arms to her. Adam’s complacency vanished when he saw the older man’s hands shaking visibly. Adam turned his head away.

Why all the melodrama? he thought testily. Christ, he wasn’t a beast. And if they thought he was, why not throw him out and have done with it?

She breezed past him, into her father’s embrace. Embarrassed at the intimate way they had their heads together, murmuring to one another, he looked out the dirty, multi-paned windows.

“No!” he heard her say.

Rathford said something back. She protested; he overrode her.

Adam checked his nails. They could use a trim, he supposed. He sighed, waiting. Raising his eyes to the ceiling, he began to count the cobwebs.

A sharp cry and the rustle of skirts told him she had retreated from her father. Adam spied her sulking by some potted plant carcasses in the corner. She glared at him.

Turning to Rathford, Adam found the man red-faced. Biting his lips to hold back whatever emotions churned behind that ruddy facade, he gave Adam a curt nod and made for the door.

Adam supposed Rathford had told her the happy news. The rest was up to him.

Gritting his teeth, he approached Helena carefully, much as he would a skittish horse. Although he was certain she would not be delighted by the analogy, the situations were similar in that they both called for a gentle voice, a firm hand.

He was unprepared for the blaze of her eyes when she whirled on him. “My father says I am to wed you.”

He halted in his tracks. It wasn’t so much her anger—that he might have anticipated—but the stark blaze of fear he saw that stopped him. Holding up his hands in a gesture of peace, he said carefully, “I am certain the idea will be more agreeable to you when we know each other better.”

“Why? Do you improve upon acquaintance?”

He bit back his temper. “I simply believe we got off to a bad start.”

“When precisely was that? When you chased me into the shadows or when you pushed the door in and nearly knocked me down?”

He answered, “I believe it was when you called me a jackanapes.”

Doing her best to flounce, she turned away from him with a sound of disgust. He reined in his mounting anger, reminding himself that he was supposed to be smoothing out their differences, not inflaming them.

He could coddle her pride. For five thousand and another six annually, he could do that. “I admit I thought you a servant,” he said in a conciliatory tone. “It was unforgivable of me, but I can only plead the excuse of ignorance and poor lighting.”

Her head came back around, slowly. Thoughtfully.

Encouraged, he continued. “You are no fool, that one can easily see.” He took a step closer, glad she didn’t skitter away from him. At this distance, he could see her prominent collarbone and the soft pulse that beat at the base of her throat. His gaze dipped lower to where the tiny breasts heaved under the too-large bodice. The slightest tremor stirred inside him. He swallowed, tearing his eyes away from the strangely exciting sight. “You don’t trust me. I think this is fair. However, though I may be a cad, I am an honest one. If you don’t believe me, consider that your father loves you too much to deceive you. He will no doubt share with you every facet of our conversation and the resultant bargain. Therefore, I have no choice but to be truthful.”

She bit her lip with uncertainty, and he felt his stomach clench as the even, white teeth sank into tender flesh.

She said, “If all you want is money, I will pay you to go away.”

“If money was the only consideration, I could pluck an heiress without going farther than the drawing rooms of Belgravia and Mayfair.”

“Then why did you come?”

He hesitated. “There was talk. There was…a legend of sorts. Of a woman who lived in these parts, who was possessed of beauty and charm—”

The blue of her eyes grew icy when she cut him off. “If you wish to flatter me, you must think me indeed a fool.”

“Of beauty and charm,” he insisted, coming even closer, so that it seemed he towered over her. She was so petite, so fragile, like an exquisite doll made of porcelain. “That is the truth.”

“And rich.”

He didn’t flinch. Almost, but he fought it. “And rich. Yes.” There was an awkward silence.

She was the one who broke it. “I trust my father is compensating you well.”

He didn’t like that, not at all. Less so for it being the truth. “I have already admitted as much. You cannot wound me by taunting me with it.”

“Can’t I?”

He gritted his teeth. “You are very clever.”

“Didn’t they tell you that when they were extolling my beauty and wit?”

“Charm. It was beauty and charm. However, they clearly neglected to inform me of a few things.”

Her lips twitched for a moment, then pressed together, extinguishing any hint of amusement. “You must be very angry at whoever sent you up here.”

“Right now, I am concerned with you.”

“Yes, of course. You can hardly kidnap me and force me to marry you.”

“Your father thinks my suit to be a sound one. Should you not consider that?”

Tossing her head, she retorted, “My father is a drunkard whose affection for me has been lost in an intoxicated brain fever.”

“He seemed quite clear thinking. He made me promise to treat you well, not to abandon you, and…to see to your needs.”

“How wonderful.” Her eyes blazed with a renewed flare of anger, blue-green fire coming straight for him. “It seems we’re all set, then.”

“That sort of sarcasm is unflattering.” It wasn’t true. Her features were alive and mobile with the play of emotions. His gaze once again dipped to those meager mounds of flesh, that miniature waist. What was coming over him, to wonder what that slender body would look like naked? Undressed, would it be hard angles and ungiving bone or would her breasts still rise to pinkened peaks and her hips flare with just the right sort of roundness to tempt a man’s hand to slide along the contour?

She smirked. “Oh, heavens! And I do so wish to impress you.”

He blinked, giving himself a mental shake. The direction of his thoughts surprised him. She was not the sort of woman he usually favored. She was haughty and brittle and far too thin. “You are making quite an impression.”

With a brazen flourish, she squared off across from him. “Why should I care the impression you form of me? The days of my living for others’ opinions are long since gone.”

“That is obvious,” he drawled.

“Nothing is obvious, Mr. Mannion. Nothing is what it seems here. If you knew what was best for you, you would leave this house, leave this place and count yourself fortunate to be gone.”

He gritted his teeth. “I’m not leaving, Helena.”

“And I didn’t give you leave to address me by my name.”

“It is only fitting, don’t you agree, as you shall be my wife?”

“I have not agreed to marry you!” She exploded then, breaking away to pace. “You cannot possibly know what you are doing. You don’t know things…. There may come a day when you consider your brilliant bargain not so attractive upon reflection.”

“What don’t I know? The reason why you and your father have chosen to molder here in this rotting mansion? I suppose I shall find the answer to that soon enough.”

Startled, she whirled on him, eyes wide.

Strangely, he wanted to soothe her. Instead, his words came out sharp. “Do you truly want me to leave you to this dreary life? Do you love it so much?”

Her hand came to her throat. He could see it convulse under those long, thin fingers. He didn’t relent. “Perhaps this is why your father accepted my suit, to get you out of this….” He waved his hands around, at a loss for words to describe the stagnant air around him. “So it remains, Helena, whether you will obey him in his wishes. Will you consent to marry me as your father commands? You are a dutiful daughter, aren’t you?”

She looked up at him all of a sudden, startled. A doe cornered. Everything inside her was laid bare, raw and vulnerable. In a stinging moment of clarity, he understood something, something he couldn’t even name, a feeling. That she needed him.

It was an intoxicating realization, filling him with a sense of power. Shoving aside the prickles of conscience, he pressed his advantage. “Will you consent to marry me?” His body tensed, awaiting her response.

Her shoulders weren’t as squared. Her fear had edged out the burst of defiance and there was an air of resignation about her that curled his nostrils like a hound hot after the scent of a tired hare.

“Go away.” It wasn’t a command; it was a plea. “Leave me alone.”

“I want an answer.”

Her jaw worked rebelliously, but she lowered her eyes. Softly, she replied, “I do not believe I have a choice.”

The surge of relief and triumph swept down from shoulders to heels, leaving him trembling with reaction. He’d done it. He’d gotten the money.

Slanting a glance up at him, her tone laced with contempt, she added, “If you are inclined to gloat, I would be grateful if you would do it somewhere else. And while you are congratulating yourself, Mr. Mannion, consider that you may find the fruit you have stolen may prove sour before too long.”

He ignored her, grinning as he snatched her hand. It was so cool. He touched his lips quickly to the slender back. “You taste sweet enough to me.”

Snatching her hand back, she glared at him with prim affront. He laughed, buoyed by his great fortune today. “Now, I am off to have my things brought up from the inn.”

“You are staying here?”

“At your father’s invitation.” He hiked his brows wickedly. “Are you not happy to have me close? All the better to learn all those things a husband should know about a wife, wouldn’t you say?”

She looked like she could claw his eyes out without a moment’s hesitation. Without a word, she stormed off, her too-large dress gaping in the back. It should have made her look silly, like a twelve-year-old in her mother’s gown, and yet she held herself with a dignity that would not allow anything so frivolous to be associated with her magnificent exit.

Narrowing his eyes as he stared after her, he wondered if she were going to prove difficult. He hadn’t bargained on having to actually contend with his new wife.

Shrugging, he turned to other, more pleasant thoughts. Thoughts of money—six thousand a year! He laughed out loud as he jammed his hat on his head and exited the house.

Chapter Four

George Rathford was not nearly as drunk as he wanted to be. Maybe there wasn’t enough whiskey in the world to take him to the oblivion he sought. Damnation, he was tired. Tired of the pain, tired of the hopelessness.

He blamed Althea, though it did him no good. It was useless to fault someone who was dead for one’s problems. A cat chasing his tail was what he was—hating his deceased wife and helpless to do anything about the daughter whom he loved more than anything on this earth.

Had he done the right thing today? It was so hard to know. One rarely acted wisely when one was desperate.

There was little time left.

The housekeeper, Mrs. Kent, came in. “You wished to see me, my lord?”

“Instruct the servants that this man, this Mr. Mannion, is to be treated with all honor and courtesy. I want his room cleaned impeccably, his meals hot. I know there are precious little staff left, Mrs. Kent, but I must urge you to make the best impression possible.”

“Will Kimberly also be expected to work, my lord?”

Rathford paused. The old Irishwoman was a blight on the house. Everyone was terrified of her, of her superstitions and her “powers.” He considered it all foolishness, but he couldn’t quite work up the courage to get rid of her. She was just a part of life in this old place—not a pleasant part, but a part just the same.

Perhaps Kimberly’s presence was Althea’s revenge on him for being happy she was gone.

“Kimberly has her own duties,” he said, and swallowed a large gulp of whiskey to chase away his self-disgust.

Mrs. Kent’s voice was stiff with disapproval. “Very well, my lord.”

“One more thing. There is to be no…talk. That is, the reason for my daughter’s seclusion may be of interest to Mr. Mannion. This might cause him to ask questions of the staff. No one is to speak of the accident. I cannot be more firm about this, Mrs. Kent. Any gossip on this topic will result in an immediate dismissal and no reference.”

“That’s harsh, sir.”

“Indeed. So they will know how serious I am about this matter. My daughter’s secret is to be kept.”

“Very good, then. I’ll tell them.”

“And have Charles fetch another bottle, will you?”

Her frown creased her face. “Yes, my lord.”

Adam spent the better part of the afternoon in the stables, as his room had to be “aired.” Judging from the din coming from the house and the sight of several windows flung open to disgorge huge amounts of dust, the term “aired” was a euphemism for a full-fledged scrubbing.

While they worked, he enjoyed the company of horses and was surprised to find some astonishing specimens of horseflesh housed in the stalls. There were the work animals, and two fine Arabians whose sagging bellies bespoke of overfeeding and no exercise. With nothing better to do, he took them out to the paddock and trotted them a bit, then brushed them down when a quick-rolling thunderstorm drove them inside.

Tired and having worked up an appetite, Adam wandered into the house. The kitchens were deserted. Pilfering a smoked sausage from a string of links hanging on a peg, he munched as he sauntered out of the room and roamed the halls.

He smothered the smug sense of proprietorship that came over him. The place was nothing short of magnificent—underneath the dirt. It would be his someday. It felt good, and this surprised him. After all, he didn’t even expect to be living in it, save those times he was obligated to visit.

Yet his mind couldn’t help but create images of what the Romanesque busts would look like without their layer of grime, and just how brilliantly the gold leaf would glimmer if the filth-lined windows actually allowed in some light.

His good mood dwindled, however, as he passed through room after room of moth-eaten draperies and dust-dulled furniture. The Sleeping Beauty…yes, he felt like he was in an enchanted castle, and it was starting to send creeping tremors of disquiet up his spine.

The eerie effect was worsened by the loud patter of rain on the windowpanes. It sounded like bony fingers tapping, begging entry. It followed him as he wound his way through the house.

There was a music room, a portrait gallery, a column-lined portico overlooking a large ballroom that was now used for storage, apparently. In a small parlor, a painting caught his eye.

He moved closer, stopping when the sound of scurrying mice overrode the soft brush of his footsteps. Looking up, he studied the face framed above the fireplace.

It was her—Helena. Squinting, he looked again. Wasn’t it?

The woman in the painting looked like her, but the eyes were colder. Empty, maybe, and devoid of fire. Her face was perfect, however, with high cheekbones blushed just right with the color of roses, and that pouting mouth that was slightly overfull and far too lush for her otherwise serious face. Her nose was perfection, her brow flawless. Dressed in an elaborate costume more suited to the last decade than to this, she was looking haughtily off into the distance, as if the laboring of the artist were of no consequence to her.

Oh, yes, this was Helena. That arrogance was unmistakable.

He let his eyes wander over the painted bustline, pushed up and flowing nicely over the straight line of the stomacher. It was a daring dress. Her breasts were exposed nearly to the nipples.

Low in his belly, a snake of desire stirred to life, coiling tightly like a cobra right before it struck. The artist had rendered her thin, but not as thin as she was now. The elegant length of her neck and the willowy repose of her bared arms showed enough flesh to make his mouth go dry. The difference in her face was also noticeable, fleshing out the promise of her otherworldly beauty.

This was undoubtedly an exquisite woman. Adam wondered if the artist had been flattering his subject, or had Helena once exuded that incredible blend of austere coolness and promised sensuality?

Immediately following these ponderings were the obvious questions, the questions that a man who had not come all the way to Northumberland for money alone would have asked first thing. Why?

Why did this incredible house resemble a tomb?

Why did the mistress dress and act like a common servant?

Why did a great and celebrated beauty shrink among the shadows and hide from the world?

He had told himself it didn’t matter, but he was interested now.

“Mr. Mannion, sir,” a woman’s voice said from the doorway.

He started and spun around. A middle-aged woman in a checked muslin skirt and shawl knotted around her hunched shoulders smiled at him. She was pleasant looking, with bright eyes and a scooped nose that made her look a bit impish. “I am Mrs. Kent, the housekeeper,” she said. “Your room is done and your things have arrived from the village. They’ve been unpacked. Would you like me to show you the way now?”

“Very well,” he said, following Mrs. Kent out the door. Before he left, he cast one quick glance over his shoulder at the portrait and felt a renewed rush of curiosity.

What had happened?

Pausing at the threshold of the dining room, Helena took a bracing breath and squared her shoulders. But when she entered, she found only her father, seated at the head of the long polished table.

She was a bit taken aback by the fine linens and sparkling crystal and china settings. Looking about, she took in the improvements to the drafty place.

“Mrs. Kent has been busy today,” she commented, taking one of the places set on either side of his.

“It is a time of great change,” her father muttered into his glass. Although he had a wineglass at his place setting, he had his large fist wrapped around a tumbler.

“Indeed,” she said, sitting stiffly and shaking out the linen napkin. “Here we are having dinner together, no more trays in our rooms. Just like civilized people.”

“Helena, please. Not now.”

“Of course, Father. Pardon me for troubling you. It’s just that being bartered off to a complete stranger moments after setting eyes on him has put me a bit out of sorts…but, no, I must not speak of such things, mustn’t I? I always should remember my manners.”

“My God,” he swore, and guzzled the drink down to the last drop.

“Isn’t that what I was always taught—deportment above all things?”

“That was your mother.”

“And where were you when I was being instructed in this treatise and all the rules of haute société? Off hunting?” Leaning forward, she gripped the edge of the table until it cut into her palm. “I remember wanting to go with you so badly. Once, when I was six years old, Mother had me dressed in a perfect white frock trimmed with delicate pink satin bows all along the hem. It was a beautiful dress, and costly. I know because she told me so, reminding me to take care, hounding me, really. I hated the thing, hated the prison I was in when I wore it. Trapped into being a lady when I wanted to run and jump and yell like a Red Indian.

“We were going to tea at a neighbor’s. I always hated that, having to sit there perfectly still, perfectly silent, perfectly deported. When I saw you going to the stables, I ran out of the house and asked you to take me with you. I cried, ‘Pick me up, Papa!’ and held my arms out to you.”

George Rathford hunched over in his seat, shielding himself from her words as if they were physical blows.

“You looked at me and smiled. I wonder if you remember. I thought for a moment you were going to lift me up and carry me off to a grand adventure. I knew at that moment you were my absolute hero and that you’d rescue me.” She paused a moment before continuing, sotto voce. “And then Mother came. She scolded me and sent me inside, but I defied her, sure you would tell her that we were going hunting together, sure you would stand firm. Sure you would take me with you.”

Her father looked despairingly at his empty glass, then glanced rather desperately at the sideboard where the decanters were situated.

Helena said, “When you didn’t, I knew that you never would. You weren’t my hero. Not at all. You were weak. You’ve always been weak, Papa. I don’t blame you for it, it’s just what you are, though I wish it could be different. And even with understanding that, I cannot see the reasoning you have to seal me to this devil’s bargain. How could you?” Passionately, she strained forward, willing him to see her for once. “How could you do it?”

He just shook his head, his eyes downcast. He appeared miserable.

There was a long silence. Her father was not going to give her an answer, so Helena leaned against the back of the chair carved to depict an ornate shield and lifted her eyes to the ceiling.

Adam chose that moment to enter. Like a windup toy, Rathford sprang to his feet and lurched to the sideboard to pour himself another whiskey. Adam, coolly glancing at his host’s jerky, nearly frantic movements, raised a brow and continued on without comment. “I do apologize for my lateness,” he said, taking a seat, “but the accommodations, while wonderful, were a bit slow in coming.”

She despised Adam for his smooth entrance and suave smile. Surely if a man had something to smile about, it was he—the victor triumphant and not above rubbing it in.

“We are not accustomed to guests.”

His lips curled, cutting deeper into the lean lines on either side of his mouth. “You don’t say.”

She looked away quickly. He was impertinent and full of himself. She disliked him intensely. A footman entered with the soup.

“I saw your portrait in a parlor,” Adam said in a nonchalant purr as he took up his spoon. “A remarkable likeness. It captures your mystery well.”

“What were you doing in that room?” she demanded.

“Exploring a bit.” He flashed her a smile that was all charm. She supposed he could be beguiling if he set his mind to it. But she wasn’t misled. He was baiting her, there was no doubt about it. “I was curious about the house. It is quite lovely.” Carefully, he skimmed the surface of the consommé with his spoon and tasted it.

“It is not yours. Yet.”

His spoon stalled. “It is to be my home. Do you wish me to stay in my room?”

She gave him a snide smile to mock his. “I wish you would leave.”

He shook his head as if thoroughly disappointed. “How shall we get to know one another, then?”

“I do not wish to know you.”

“I see. You prefer your solitude. You like it here, moldering in this rotted out place—do excuse my frankness, Lord Rathford. You actually adore the dust and the dry rot and the mice.” To his future father-in-law, he inclined his head. “Again, my apologies, my lord.”

Helena spared her father a brief glance, to find he was fighting a smile. Amused, was he?

“Well, if the place is not good enough for you, perhaps you should leave.”

Adam frowned and tapped his finger against his pursed lips. “Now, there is something happening here that is causing me to suspect…can it be? Is it that you want me to leave?”

“Your sarcasm, sir, betrays your lack of gentlemanly manners.”

“In response to your appalling breach of hospitality, I believe it most appropriate.”

“You are a bore!”

“And you are a skinny, waspish, miserable female who is allowing her soup to get cold.” He nodded to the cooling liquid in front of her. “If anyone ever needed all the sustenance she could find, it is you.”

She nearly came out of her chair. “If you find me lacking, sir, then you may—”

“Leave,” he finished for her, and blithely downed another spoonful.

Breathless, wordless, she gaped, her mouth working as her mind tried fitfully to formulate a suitable reply. There was a dry, wheezing sound in the room and it drew her attention to her father, who was shaking uncontrollably with his hands over his face.

For one brief moment, she thought perhaps he was weeping. He had seen the awful truth about Adam Mannion, realized his terrible misjudgment and now he was weeping!

Vindicated, Helena reached for her father, full of concern and ready to forgive. At her touch, Rathford raised his face and she saw that tears were streaming down the man’s ruddy face, but he was not weeping.

He was laughing.

Dawning fury washed through her, leaving her electrified. She didn’t dare cast even the briefest glance at Adam, sure he would be gloating. Throwing her napkin onto the table, she leaped to her feet and fled.

Chapter Five

Adam had a difficult time falling asleep. This was unusual for him. He usually experienced no trouble.

He had certainly gotten the best of Helena at dinner. Sent her out in a huff, he had, and it had felt good for exactly one-tenth of a second. Then he had felt mildly ashamed. After all, it was graceless of him, when he had obviously won everything so completely, to be snide about it.

Besides, it troubled him that she had missed dinner. She was so damned thin. He hoped she had eaten later, but doubted it.

Sitting up, he turned on his side and punched the pillow. The nights were certainly cool up in this corner of England. Tonight, however, the sheets felt clammy and his skin dry and hot.

A sound reached his ear, causing him to still his arm in midpunch.

It was music. It was a pianoforte, being played by an expert hand.

Maybe it was the completely moonless dark, or maybe it was this tomblike place finally getting the better of him, but the hair on his arms stood straight up and cold fingers traced a chill across the back of his neck. It was a sensation that had nothing to do with the plunging temperatures.

The strains were lilting, but faint. Carefully, he climbed out of bed and grabbed his trousers as he tiptoed to the door. Pressing his ear to the crack, he heard the music better.

On the dressing table lay his watch and fob. He fumbled for them after he had secured his trousers, and retrieved a flint box and small candelabra. Striking a flame, he lit three tapers and checked his watch. Half past one.

Who was playing the pianoforte at this hour?

Quickly, silently, he undid the latch to the door and entered the hall. The candlelight threw up shadows along the wall. They looked like undulating wraiths that melted into the darkness as he passed. Fanciful nonesuch, he scoffed, and padded barefoot down the corridor.

He didn’t yet have his bearings in the house. Upon reaching the stairs, he wasn’t certain whether to proceed to the corridor on the east end of the house, which looked to be a match of the one he had just come down, or descend. Taking a few tentative steps down the stairs, he judged the sounds to be growing louder and hurried on.

The piece being played grew bolder, harsher. Increased emotion built into a medley of light frolics offset with low undertones. Under the guidance of the magnificent piece, a vision unfolded in his mind, of a child playing alone, serving tea to her dolls on a clean, sweet lawn, while a slavering beast lurked just on the edges of the forest. And every so often a moment of disquiet entered the child’s consciousness as she became increasingly aware that she was being watched by a predator.

As he moved stealthily down the corridor, Adam marveled at the vivid picture in his mind. Never having been a man given to great contortions of imagination, he blamed the music. It was incredibly moving, incredibly passionate.

He paused, cursing himself for a clodpoll. Of course—the music room. The problem was he wasn’t certain where it was located. His wanderings that day had taken him all over the house, and he couldn’t rightly place it.

Trying a door, he winced at the long, agonizing protest of the hinges. The sound was like a wail of pain. The pianoforte music ceased.

In the darkness, he called, “Hello? Who is there?”

There was a silence, then a soft scrape and the light brush of footsteps retreating quickly.

Cocking his head, he tried to gauge their direction, but the vaulted ceiling and polished floors created a cavernous chamber where the untraceable sound echoed, then died.

It had to be her, of course. Helena. He couldn’t imagine the servants were used to making free with the musical instruments, and only one who had been subject to careful—and expensive—instruction could play with that combination of skill and passion. And yet it seemed impossible that thin, wasted waif who had scowled and screeched at him had so much within her.

But if there was one thing he was learning, and learning quickly, it was that Lady Helena Rathford was rarely what one would expect.

Helena spent the morning in the drawing room she often used, sewing with Kimberly. Their project was to alter the contents of her wardrobe, trying to transform the outmoded gowns into some semblance of current style. Inspecting their efforts, Helena held up a green silk. She could not say she was pleased. Not particularly talented with the needle and unskilled in working the delicate fabric, she had drawn the material into unsightly puckers as she stitched.

“I think I have no choice but to go to Strathmere and visit the seamstress,” Helena said, bundling up another botched effort and tossing it on the floor.

“If yer vanity must be appeased, so be it,” Kimberly replied darkly, not looking up from her own sewing.

“If I do not wish to go about with my bosom exposed, I must.”

Kimberly looked up. Helena stared back at the watery blue eyes. There passed between them a moment of shared astonishment. Helena did not speak this way to Kimberly. She simply didn’t.

Drawing in a nervous breath, she proceeded more calmly. “It is not conceit to wish to be dressed properly. I am, after all, a noblewoman, even if we’ve all forgotten that fact.”

Kimberly’s great irritation, which was clearly apparent on her freckled face, did not frighten Helena. Well, perhaps a little bit, but her mind was already made up. She simply would not allow Adam Mannion to see her in these rags.

“Are ye, now?” Kimberly purred. She placed the dress she’d been working on down and rose to her full height, which came to just under Helena’s chin. Of course, Helena was taller than most, but this only made Kimberly’s small stature all the more noticeable. “I’d o’ thought ye’d be beyond that kind of conceit. After all, ye’re not so high and mighty as ye once were, when your mama was alive and ye thought ye were the toast of the land. Ye know what ’appened then, eh, missy?”

“Yes,” Helena said, fighting the tremor of reaction at the mention of the accident. “I know what happened then, Kimberly. And if I ever forget, no doubt you will hasten to remind me. Nevertheless, I am to be married. I cannot disgrace my husband. And I would think you’d wish me to make a better impression, as he is my destiny.”

“That he is. But why impress him? Who is ’e—a commoner, not a nobleman. An’ ’e’s come for yer money. What difference does it make ’ow ye look, my pretty bird? Yer destiny is not to be a pleasured pet. Ye best remember that, eh?”

Whirling away, Helena headed for the door. “I think you’ve said enough. I—” She broke off, staring at Adam, who was standing just outside the room.

“Hello.” He cocked his eyebrows and flashed her one of those half grins he favored. She supposed the tarts he was used to dealing with found the expression absolutely adorable. “I was just about to knock.”

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

“Why looking for you. You weren’t at breakfast. Naturally, I wondered where you had gotten to.”

“I cannot see why my whereabouts would be of such interest.”

He shrugged, another gesture of appealing nonchalance. “There is little enough diversion for a man up here in the wilderness.”

“It is not the wilderness.” Gad, she sounded like a harridan, even to her own ears. With an effort, Helena softened her posture and modulated her voice. “It is a perfectly respectable part of the country and we are quite civilized.”

“Compared to London, it is positively primitive. Why weren’t you at breakfast?”

She was disconcerted. As it was not the family’s custom to take meals together in the dining room, it hadn’t even occurred to her to go there this morning. However, her father had no doubt given orders that they were to institute this ritual for the sake of their guest. She was simply forgotten. She said, “I rose late today.”

“Slept in because you were up all night, did you? Do you always play like that when you can’t sleep? No use denying it. I heard you at the pianoforte last night. Excellent performance, if a bit odd in timing.”

Kimberly made to leave, glaring at Adam as she brushed past him. Swiveling his head to follow her path down the hall, he muttered, “I’m afraid she doesn’t like me.”

Nothing else he might have said could have melted Helena more readily. She fought back a smile. “It would seem not.”

He turned back to her. “I would like it if you would play for me sometime.”

“That is impossible. I do not play for anyone but myself,” she answered honestly.

“Really? We shall see, then.”

Whenever he and Helena were sparring, his eyes had a habit of sparkling, as if they danced in delight at some amusing secret he held from the rest of the world. She got the strongest feeling that if there was a joke there, it was most certainly on her.

“Sewing today, are you?” he said.

Helena bristled. She hardly wished him to be made aware of the fact that she had spent the morning frantically attempting to refashion her wardrobe in order to make a more pleasing presentation—for him! Her response was reflexive. “No, no, not at all. Why do you say that?”

That debonair grin deepened, showing a single dimple. His hand came up and she flinched, catching herself and flushing with embarrassment at the instinctive response. She didn’t like being touched, as a rule.

He didn’t hesitate, however. Long, tapered fingers plucked a snippet of embroidered silk from her hair. They moved down to her shoulder, where a tendril of thread stuck to her bodice.

Faced with this evidence and nearly undone for his forwardness, she stared at him. “Oh, sewing. Yes, well, we were doing our usual mending. A few hours here and there. I am so used to it, I barely notice it anymore.” She ended with a nervous laugh that fell flat.

His smirk told her he guessed the truth. Her humiliation knew no bounds.

“I could take you into the village if you need…supplies.” A heartbeat later, he added, “For your mending.”

“I don’t need…” What was she saying? It was no use denying that her wardrobe was a shambles. “Actually,” she began, “I saw today that my mending has rather taken its toll on my old dresses. Of course, I normally couldn’t be bothered with such things, since no one ever comes here. However, given the state of things, I was considering purchasing a few new items. Gowns, I mean. Just because the other ones are beyond repair, you understand.”

He was tactful enough not to let the quivering of his lips blossom into a true smile. “Every bride should have a trousseau.”

“I am hardly an ordinary bride,” she stated smartly.

He ignored her show of vinegar. “All the more reason for the ordinary rituals to stay locked in place, yes?”

She didn’t know why he was being so kind. He could very easily expose her, or even cock one of those sharply arched brows, and she would be totally humiliated.

“Does tomorrow suit you? Or did you have other plans?”

“No, no plans.” She said haughtily, as if there were some possibility of her having plans. Which was ridiculous. She’d be devoured by flesh-eating maggots before she’d admit that to him, though. “Tomorrow should suit me.”

“After breakfast, then?”

“I’ll meet you in the dining room for the meal, and we can go immediately afterward.”

“Good.” He folded his arms across his chest and regarded her with a pleased expression. “Then I can make certain you eat something.”

She saw him go off to the stables some time later. Less than three-quarters of an hour after that, he went galloping across the meadow and into the woods.

It was a relief not to have him about, not to have the possibility of him chancing upon her at any moment. Her days were usually spent either in the kitchens or together with Mrs. Kent, undertaking some house chore. There was an endless supply of them, what with the shortage of staff. It was Helena’s fault, that was, and she felt obligated to help. She might be a lady of noble birth, but she was not one of leisure. She toiled alongside the lowest-paid servant, and didn’t mind a bit. For one thing, it kept her busy and helped her fall exhausted into bed most nights. For another, it meant she could keep the amount of strangers in her house to a minimum.

Since the accident, she couldn’t tolerate intruders.

Therefore, this planned jaunt into Strathmere tomorrow threw her into a fit of anxiety. Of course, going anywhere with Adam would be bothersome. They were likely to quarrel the entire way.

But more than that, she would be seen. She hated being seen. She hated the whispers and the looks.

She almost changed her mind. Just imagining what it would be like turned her legs to water. But she simply could not be a faded frump any longer. When he left to return to London, she’d get her precious solitude back, but until then she would have to contend with his presence. His intrusion.

And she would simply have to get some new clothes. What a bother he was!

Yet she found herself watching all afternoon for his return.

Chapter Six

Besides being cold most of the time, Adam very quickly learned, the Northumberland shire was very troublesome in its terrain. His horse didn’t like it at all, the spoiled beast. No doubt longing for the civilized streets of the city, the gelding snorted and generally made known his displeasure at having to traverse the crude paths. When they came to a fallen tree, he balked at the jump. At the edge of a stream, he rolled his eyes testily and refused to take one step into the water.

In no mood to have a difference of opinion with the ornery beast, Adam sighed and resigned himself to following the bank for a while. He let his mind wander.

There were plans to be made, tasks to be seen to. He had to post several letters tomorrow, which he had written early this morning. One to his friends to inform them of his staying on in Northumberland for a period of two months, and of the impending nuptials. He grinned, imagining their response. There had been no small amount of coin wagered on his success in this venture, and he wished he could be there to see the naysayers who had put their money against him pay up.

Two other letters were to solicitors. Mr. Fenton was his father’s old solicitor. It would be he who would receive the bulk of the five thousand to settle Adam’s father’s debts, compounded by his own ill-fated attempts to cope with them through wagering.

Mr. Darby was a new fellow whom Adam had contacted just before setting out. On the chance he was successful in getting his hands on the Rathford money, Adam had arranged for Darby to handle all future transfers of funds. The clean break with Fenton was needed. This would signal the end of a chapter in Adam’s life, an unpleasant one. He was now a wealthy man and the troubles of the past were behind him.

There was a fourth letter, written to a Trina Bentford, advising her that their association was to be terminated due to the occasion of his marriage. It was something that had been coming for a long time. As a friend, Trina was exuberant and deliciously wicked. She never ceased to make him laugh and always was ready for whatever wild scheme anyone could come up with. As a mistress, she was exhausting. Not in bed. In fact, her interest in that department was negligible. Of course, she understood how it went and did her best to keep him pleasured, but she was hardly inventive or particularly stirring in the sensual way. No, her talent lay in craving attention, and her appetite for that had been far too voracious for him.

It was a good time for a break here, too. She would be miffed, naturally, since marriage was not necessarily an occasion for ending a liaison, but by the time Adam was set to return to London she would have cooled off enough to forgo the usual tedious scenes.

Thinking of tedious scenes put him in mind of his future wife. He smiled as he kicked his horse up the sloped embankment and cantered home, although why thinking of Helena Rathford should bring on a stupid grin was beyond his comprehension. She was a bothersome piece, completely incomprehensible and constantly contradicting reason. A study in contrasts at every turn—cool as ice one moment, then wild as any untamed virago the next. And all the while shrouded in that cursed air of mystery that was beginning to wear on his nerves.

But damn, her eyes could look straight through a man and touch something in him. Adam scoffed at himself. Lust was what it was, if one could be besieged by that affliction for such a slip of a girl. He mentally compared her to the voluptuous Trina, then dismissed his former mistress, to linger only on Helena’s attributes.

She had incredible grace. Her neck was like a swan’s, giving her the most elegant aspect. Her air of reserve seemed to taunt him unmercifully, driving him to distraction with wanting to strip it away and find out what passions it hid.

Because there was passion in her. He had heard it in the incredible music she had produced. Absolutely tantalizing.

He was still thinking about her when the house came into view. It was past luncheon, nearly teatime. He wondered if she’d eaten. Good God, he was becoming her nursemaid, worrying over her. He told himself it was because he didn’t want to bed a skeleton. By their wedding night, at which time he had promised to do his best to keep his end of the wretched bargain he had struck with Rathford, Adam wanted a more fleshy version of the woman to warm his bed.

He wanted the Helena in the portrait.

“Hello, sir,” the groom called, coming to take the horse. “Have a nice ride?”

“The damned beast almost broke a leg on those rocks.”

“Gotta stay off of them rocks,” the man agreed. “Gotta go south to get to the good hunting grounds. That’s where the master goes.”

“Hunts, does he?” Adam was interested. “Where exactly does he go?”

“The woods that stretch from here to Strathmere, then all the way to the castle.” Seeing from his expression that Adam didn’t know about the castle, the man explained, “Where the duke lives. You’ll see it when you get near. It’s a huge old place, sits way up high on a big hill. The woods whip around it and go all the way up to the cliffs, and there’s lots of game in those woods. The duke don’t like you hunting the deer, though. Got a cousin what comes up once in a while, and he and the master have a rout, getting the foxes off the farmers’ lands and rabbit hunting.”

“Keep me informed when the fellow arrives, if I’m about. I fancy a good fox chase. What’s your name, fellow?”

“Kepper, sir.”

“Glad to know you, Kepper,” Adam said amicably. He noticed the man’s surprise at his familiarity. There were certainly many things that had changed about him in the years since he was himself touching his forelock to members of the aristocracy, but he’d be dead and rotted through before he’d neglect a courtesy because of his newfound status. “Thanks for the tip. I’ll need a carriage or curricle to go into the village tomorrow. I’ll be taking Lady Helena with me, so something not too rough, man.”

“Lady…? Lady Helena, you say? She’s going into the village?”

“That’s what I said.” Adam’s good-natured smile sagged at the man’s apoplectic expression. “Is there something wrong with that, Kepper?”

“She don’t see nobody, sir. Don’t go out none, either.”

“Why not?”

He shrugged his wide, bony shoulders. He had the wiry build of a man whose frame held a deceptive amount of strength. There was an air of competence about Kepper, as if he’d seen a lot in his life and knew how to keep it locked up tight behind closed lips. “Don’t want to, I guess.”

“Yes.” Adam knew Kepper wasn’t going to gossip, so he took his leave and mulled over the latest titillating bit of strangeness about his betrothed.

He was losing count of them.

One of the few advantages Rathford Manor could boast was its good cook. Her name was Maddie, and last night’s herbed roast beef had been perfection, complemented with a delicate sauce and mashed turnips. Mashed turnips had hardly been chief on Adam’s list of favorite delicacies, but this dish was incredible, as was the delicious cake soaked in rum served for dessert, with steaming hot coffee strong enough to make the roots of his teeth ache. Just how he liked it.

He feared he would grow quite fat and lazy here at Rathford Manor. As he sat down this evening and surveyed the dressed fowl and glazed carrots on the sideboard, ready to be served, he considered this a definite possibility. That thought reminded him of the necessity of daily exercise, which in turn put him in mind of the possibility of hunting with Lord Rathford.

“I was told you are fond of the hunt, sir,” Adam said.

Lord Rathford was seated at his customary seat. He cocked his eyebrows. “Indeed I am, sir.”

“I fancy a good run in the woods myself. I was told you sometimes go out with a fellow from a nearby castle.”

“Yes, when he is visiting his cousin, the duke. The, ah, Duke of Strathmere is an old family friend.” The glance he cast Helena was nothing short of conspiratorial.

Adam frowned. What was this, another secret?

“Do you keep hounds, Lord Rathford?”

“Used to have a fine pack, but I don’t get out as much as I used to and they turned bad, most of them. Lost the scent, or ran off.” He waved his hand in the air.

Adam was now truly perplexed. A good hound was as valuable in hunting circles as an excellent mount. One did not simply neglect them, or allow them to “run off.”

“I don’t understand.” Leaning on his elbow, Adam took up his wineglass, which had just been filled. “How do you hunt without the hounds?”

“There’s a bitch in the stables that’s still good, and a dog or two who’ll be up for a romp occasionally, but they’re too lazy to run for long.”

“They need training, that is all. And steady exercise to build up their endurance.” Looking to Helena, who had maintained a decorous quiet during this entire exchange, he asked, “Do you hunt, my lady?”

Her lowered lashes lifted lazily. “No, Mr. Mannion, I do not have the slightest interest in chasing poor, defenseless animals. There seems to me to be no good reason for this exercise other than to experience a rush of pleasure at having demonstrated superiority over a hare.”

“You put it so cheerfully,” he countered as a servant came to proffer a plate loaded with pheasant, “that it makes me absolutely champ at the bit to get out there and track the wretched beasts. I believe it my most profound duty to drive them down into the ground, where they belong.”

She tried to appear cool, but her lips twitched before she lowered her gaze back to her plate. When the servant came to her, Helena selected a few morsels.

“Excuse me…Bissel, is it?” Adam asked. “Ah, then, Bissel, if you would place a few more slices of the fowl on your mistress’s plate, it would please me.”

“Excuse me,” Helena interrupted archly. “You are not presuming to select my food for me, are you?”

“Indeed, I am. I am concerned about your health, Helena. You skip meals and eat sparingly whenever you do take a meal.”

“Let me guess.” Her smirk was childish, but it actually looked good on her. She was angry, and the emotion gave color to her cheeks and made those blue-green eyes sparkle radiantly in the candlelight. “You prefer your women plump.”

“I enjoy many things in a woman, not the least of which is a pleasant disposition, but I am not aiming to please myself. I simply thought that since you were to be fitted for some new dresses, you might want to see to filling them out a bit.”

She reacted as if he had slapped her. “How dare you make reference to my garments and their…fit.”

“I was merely observing that it must get damned tiresome being so scrawny.”

The look in her eyes was murderous. “Did you hear that, Father?”

“Yes,” Rathford agreed mildly, not at all offended on his daughter’s behalf. “The man has appalling manners, I agree, my dear. Nevertheless, he is correct. You look like an urchin. It’s about time someone told you so.”

“Father!” She sprang to her feet, clearly devastated. “I cannot believe you would take sides against me.”

Leveling a serious look at her, Rathford said solemnly, “Never, Daughter. That I’d not do. And if you listen closely, you’ll not hear a disparaging word in what I said. It is merely the unfortunate truth.”

“Sit down, Helena,” Adam interjected. “I am getting tired of you running out of a room every time you realize you cannot win an argument.”

She waited a long time before she did anything. Adam was half-afraid she’d dismiss his taunt and run, anyway.

“Will it help if I ask nicely?” he said, wanting to offer something in return when she slowly sank back down in her seat. “Please eat your pheasant. There. And have the carrots, too.”

“I will eat what I wish, and you can be damned.”

Adam merely smiled back at her. “Did you hear that, Lord Rathford?”

“Indeed, and I agree with her. Now shut up and eat before I resort to paddling the pair of you and sending you off to bed without dessert.”

Adam addressed the contents of his plate with gusto, pretending not to notice how Helena ate. He would not have put it past her to deny herself out of defiance against him. But she didn’t. She consumed a healthy portion at dinner and had a slice of iced sweetroll for dessert. He even detected her stirring more cream into her coffee than he had seen her use last night.

He couldn’t keep from crowing to himself at his victory. This marriage might just be fine, after all. All he had to do is refer to his wife as “scrawny” and she’d do his will.

God, that thought—of Helena doing his will—brought up images no man should have about a woman while sitting in the presence of her father.

Chapter Seven

Some days were too winsome to bear. Everything about them was perfection, from the soft yellow of the sunshine, and the sweet smelling breeze, to the call of birdsong, sounding so brave and promising in the wood.

There wouldn’t be many of these days left in the summer. Already the foliage was beginning to wilt and brown, and the promise of cooler times ahead made the mild weather all that much more precious.

It was a day such as this when Helena and Adam left the manor and headed in a stylish curricle down to the village. Kepper must have been hard at work to get the vehicle in order. The smell of fresh paint was detectable, as was the lemon oil used to rub the hide seats clean and supple. In no way was it a luxurious conveyance such as Adam’s friends in London utilized, but it was a damned sight better than he had expected. As was Helena. She appeared bedecked in a scarlet cloak and wearing an air of indifference that was as thin as the gossamer tucker folded into the neckline of her dress.

Climbing into the open carriage, she didn’t say a word.

Adam took the reins and pulled out.

After a broad silence, he said, “The banns will be read Sunday.” He kept his eyes trained on the road ahead. “It is useful that we are going together on this outing. It is helpful for us to be seen together. It won’t come as so much of a shock to your friends, then, when the news comes.”

“There is no one I call friend.” She said it without any hint of sadness or regret.

He was startled. “How odd. Are you such a misanthrope?”

“I am simply a private person.” He heard the rustle of her dress as she twisted in her seat. It was an anxious motion. “Which no doubt meets with your disapproval. Everything I do seems to meet with your disapproval.”

“Not entirely. I like your hair that way, for instance. Your rudeness to me, however, that is an entirely different matter.”

“Oh, really? And how am I supposed to act toward the man who has so gallantly ridden all the way from London to claim a purse. Oh, and take a bride in the process, a rather minimal consideration.”

“I do not think it so unusual. Most girls of your illustrious acquaintance no doubt never met their husbands before their papas picked them for them. I always thought it an odd custom of the aristocracy to treat their children like cattle, to be matched and bred for the good of the estate. Don’t tell me you don’t know this.”

“I am no sapskull. I am rather better versed on the ‘odd customs’ of the aristocracy than you, I should think.”

“Touché. I am, after all, a lowly commoner. Completely unworthy of your exaltedness.”

Her voice was full of accusation. “You sound bitter, Mr. Mannion.”

“Come to think of it, how is it you escaped the net of marriage? Did your father never find a suitable man who was willing to brave your harpy tongue?” Adam looked over at her, his gaze taking in her stiff profile, her face turned resolutely ahead. “Or were you waiting for love, Helena?”

“For your information, I was engaged once.”

“Pray tell what happened.”

“He preferred someone else.”

The news was a jolt to Adam, wiping the smile from his face as soundly as if he’d been slapped.

Good God, what a sod-head he was! He had taunted her horribly when she had been nursing a broken heart all along.

“I’m sorry,” he said gruffly. “I didn’t know.”

“I’m surprised at that. People hereabouts love to talk.”

“Actually, I have found the one person whose conversation I enjoyed damned reluctant to give me any facts aside from where the best hunting grounds could be found.”

She looked over at him then, and those large blue-green eyes softened. “Who was that?”

“Kepper.”

“He’s a good man. He’s very loyal to my father.”

Adam allowed a silence to lapse while he berated himself for his thoughtless jibes. He wondered if this were the reason for her seclusion—the oldest reason in the world. Had she retired from society to pine for the unrequited love lost years ago?

The idea of it disturbed him. He had been disturbed, however, since the moment he laid eyes on her, so he should be getting used to it by now.

Nevertheless, he was surprised to realize that he was more than a bit curious. And perhaps a tad jealous.

“I’d like to ask you more, but I know you won’t answer. I have quite a lot of questions, Helena. I wonder why there are so few servants in so large a house. Why do you live alone without seeing anyone? I haven’t asked a one of these, and I’m not asking now. I just want you to know those questions are there.”

He didn’t know what he wanted her to say. He didn’t even know why he had uttered such an inane statement—as if she would rush to explain herself if she knew of his interest.

No, it wasn’t merely interest. It was becoming an obsession. He wanted her to know he would listen if she ever wished to tell him the strange secrets that governed her hermetic existence, that he wouldn’t judge or mock, and he wouldn’t betray her confidence. He wondered if she knew that, if he had expressed it properly in his awkward little speech just now.

It was a moot point. She said nothing.

As they crossed Darby Creek, Helena became aware of a growing terror arising in her breast.

They topped a hill and she could see the large cluster of buildings in the distance. Passing a farmhouse, she noted an old woman wrapped in a shawl staring at them. Adam raised his hand in a greeting. The old woman didn’t respond. Helena wondered if she were imagining the antagonism in the wrinkled face.

Swallowing painfully against her dry throat, she clutched her reticule tightly in her fist. She had been mad to come. Why hadn’t she thought to simply summon the dressmaker to the manor? Because of Adam Mannion, that was why. She could never think properly when he was around.

On the outskirts of the village, a prosperous community that had grown by leaps and bounds in recent years, the presence of the population became more noticeable. A cart crossed the road ahead of them. While they waited, Helena scanned the faces of the children playing in a nearby field, wondering if they would recognize her. And if they did, would they flee in fear?

“Helena?” Adam’s voice was full of concern. “Are you feeling ill?”

He couldn’t know—he mustn’t know. She shouldn’t have come this far. She could have made some excuse and had him turn back the moment she felt the first twinges of fear. But now she was fixed.

A tremulous smile quivered on her lips. “Not at all. Just a bit nervous. I—I don’t enjoy going away from the house very much.”

He stared at her for a long moment. She could feel the touch of his eyes and it made her skin prickle. “Another question that wants answering.”

Jerking her head about to face him, she snapped, “There is no exotic mystery, just sordid truth, and you’re better off not knowing. And when you do find out, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He leaned in closer, inclining his head so that he was staring at her through those lashes that were ridiculously long and thick for a man. “Since you say you want to be rid of me so badly, why not tell me all of these dastardly horrors you keep hidden? Maybe I’ll just run like a madman all the way home to London, pulling my hair out all the way as I think of how close I had come to unmitigated disaster.”

He made a face of such exaggerated dread that she burst out laughing before she could help it. Sobering quickly, she ducked her head and plucked nervously at her dress. “Joking will not cure a thing, Mr. Mannion. And I suppose you will find out what you wish to know soon enough. As for myself telling you a single thing, you can dispel that notion immediately. I’ll never explain myself to a reprobate and wastrel and admitted fortune hunter.”

“Ouch!” He grinned and sat back. “I believe my pride has been pummeled quite soundly.”

He didn’t look as if his pride had been pummeled. He looked, in fact, as if he were inordinately pleased with himself for having goaded her.

She settled back into her seat. Her fears returned as they drove into the village square.

“Where is the modiste?” he asked.

She made a sound alarmingly like a snort. “There is no modiste, Mr. Mannion. You confuse us with posh London. There is a dressmaker.”

Helena saw a woman walking on the side of the road stop in her tracks and gape at the passing carriage. Jaw slack, eyes wide, she dropped the basket of baked bread she was carrying. The golden brown loaves rolled in the dust. The woman she had been walking with noticed Helena at about the same time. Her reaction was just as dramatic. She stumbled and stared without any care for manners.

Helena wished she could look away with a haughty lift of her chin, but she couldn’t seem to tear her eyes from them. Miserably, she watched helplessly as the two women ducked their heads together and commenced whispering vigorously.

“Ah, I see the sign,” Adam said, oblivious to the little dramas taking place all around them.

Across the street, the butcher had rushed out of his shop. The thin, fussy tobacconist hurried over to confer with him. Their gazes seemed to blaze clear into Helena’s forehead.

Adam continued, “I’ll bring you inside, but I won’t wait. Can’t stand that sort of thing. Can barely manage to keep my own wardrobe up. What do you say we meet at the tea shop at…oh, say, twelve? We’ll lunch there. If you are too busy and can’t make it, send word and I’ll go ahead without you…Helena?”

She sat motionless. Adam took her hands, his own warm and strong. She fought a sudden desire to fling herself into the protection of his arms.

What would make her have such a thought? Her terror had her too confused to think properly.

“Something is wrong.” Adam’s voice was demanding. “Don’t play the martyr now, for God’s sake. Tell me.”

“The people…” She couldn’t bring herself to meet his eye. “They are looking at me, talking about me. They frighten me.”

“Nonsense. They are merely looking at you because you are so lovely today.” She did glance up then, incredulous and painfully suspicious that he was mocking her.

There was kindness in his eyes. True kindness, not a false show or, worse, pity. His well-formed mouth was slightly curved in a smile that was soft and seemed to be genuine.

Her hands felt warmer already. “This is why I never come out,” she said in an emotion-roughened voice. “The gossip. The dreadful staring. I cannot stand it.”

“Well, you see, that’s the trouble.” His tone was low and reasonable, yet without a trace of patronization. “They never see you, and since you live so close, they no doubt find this odd. Now that you appear, they understandably take notice. It is a temporary condition. It will surely pass as soon as they become used to you being about. Come now. Let us go into the dressmaker’s—which, thank you for correcting my error, is not to be confused with a modiste.”

He leaped down and put the box up against the side. With a flourish, he handed her down. Once her feet touched the floor, he held her a moment longer—long enough to bestow a quick kiss on the gloved knuckles. He raised his head and said, “If it’s gossip they desire, that morsel should do nicely to keep them busy for a while.”

She wanted to weep with gratitude. She might have if she weren’t still so afraid. But, somehow, he made it easy for her to ignore curious faces as they walked down the street to the dressmaker’s shop.

The word had apparently spread. Shopkeepers were coming out of their shops, mothers rushing outside with squalling babies, tradesmen pausing—all to stare at her. She could feel their gazes crawl over her like a swarm of slugs.

“Did you arrange to make an appointment?” Adam said. She latched on to his voice, so sensible among the madness growing inside her. She wanted more than anything to flee. It took all her concentration to put one foot in front of the other. Keep your eyes fixed straight ahead. Steady on.

At the door of the dressmaker’s, he paused. “If you don’t have an appointment, then I will wait to see if she will see you. You don’t mind if I do? I know I said I have an aversion to dressmakers and such, but in this instance I shall make an exception, as I’d hate to see you lose the morning to waiting.” They entered, setting the little bell tied over the door tinkling furiously. “I come by it honestly. My aversion, I mean. You see, my mother used to drag me about as a boy when she did her shopping. It was horrible torture for a rambunctious lad.”

His voice was like a touchstone. Helena forced herself to listen, to concentrate on what he was saying. She suspected he was talking to distract her from the churning apprehensions burning in her belly.

How odd that he should come to her rescue. He had been her enemy from the moment he had stepped foot on the doorstep of her house. Now he was her unexpected ally.

A pang of guilt grabbed her. He didn’t even know why it was she feared the village folk, or going out among them. He didn’t know the answers to any of her secrets—all those questions he had admitted plagued him. And still he had been kind to her.

If he knew, it would change things. It would change everything. He would no longer be solicitous, and he surely wouldn’t be cajoling her so effectively out of her terror.

No. One was never kind to a murderess.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.