Chapter 11
‘Is that why you are marrying him?’
Even though she tried her best to talk around an answer, Helena heard Evander’s question over and over again in her mind.
In the distance, she heard the music she was supposed to be paying attention to as well.
Yet her focus was drawn somewhere else. There had been no overt attempt to touch one another, yet somehow, yet again, her body and Evander’s were once more connected—and always, it felt… right.
She was drawn to the heat of his muscled thigh that pulsed into hers, even through the fabric of her layered skirts and his trousers.
Her eyes were drawn to the outline of his muscles visible through those trousers, and she suddenly wondered, was there not a single part of him that was small or soft?
What would it be like to have permission to trace her fingertips over such hard planes of muscle?
To use her hands, her lips… her entire body.
What would it be like to press herself fully upon him and have those big arms wrap around her not out of necessity, but out of want?
Jeremy was a lithe man, and he had given her plenty of quick hugs. Yet she wagered the feel of Evander’s embrace would be very different.
Helena’s eyes shot up to his, startled by the thoughts, and she blushed.
Even so, she did not pull her thigh away from his.
She was drawn to him. To his heat. His touch.
Even when they argued, it was as if a cord had been tied around their chests, and something greater than them was slowly cinching them together.
“Are you all right? You look a little flushed,” Evander asked her.
“I… I think I feel a little faint,” she whispered, her heart suddenly pounding in her chest.
She placed a hand over her racing heart, another to her brow. Her face was scorching, just as she had felt the night before when she and Evander were arguing. Helena attempted to draw in a breath, but it seemed the heat had stolen that away as well.
At once, Evander turned in toward her, his much larger knees framing hers as his gloved hands came around her upper arms. The concern in his eyes was startling, in contrast to the gruff way he had been treating her.
“What are you doing?” she rasped, batting his hands away from her arms. At once she missed the feel of them, and it startled her. “People might misunderstand this.”
Evander’s eyes darkened with hurt, but he did not reach for her again.
“What got you so upset?” he whispered. “Are you not comfortable talking about Jeremy?”
“No, it is just… Your probing questions. I mean… What do you know about people choosing to get married for companionship?” she seethed, the words flying out of her.
She drew in a ragged breath, willing her body to calm down.
“You do not like anyone’s company. Any chance you get, you stay in your rooms, or shoot that blasted pistol of yours! ”
To her surprise, Evander’s ears turned a bright shade of red as he leaned back in flustered surprise.
“Is that so?” he murmured. “I had no idea anyone noticed.”
“Well, I did,” she whispered vehemently. “And it is most distracting. In fact, it has become most annoying to be acutely aware of your absence whether I want to or not!”
They were arguing. Again. Yet for some reason, it was helping her. Breathing seemed a little easier. Her heartbeat was starting to slow.
“You are wrong, by the way,” he confessed, his thigh subtly starting to rub against hers. It was most inappropriate; Helena knew that. Yet the little touch was helping her calm down even more, and finally, she pulled in a deeper breath.
“I might not like most people, but I do have some exceptions,” Evander murmured.
“Such as Damien or Jeremy,” she dryly retorted.
Evander let out a huff as he shook his head.
“You could say that they are among them,” he breathed. “Do you have exceptions?”
She was not sure if it was the argument she had started or the way Evander’s thigh subtly and rhythmically pressed against hers, but either way, Helena’s moment of panic had passed. Instead, a treacherous heat settled low in her belly again.
“Exceptions? I am cordial enough with most people,” she said.
“That is not what I meant. I simply wonder whether there was someone you would have chosen over Jeremy,” Evander explained.
Helena’s heart pounded again, but this time, she was not panicked.
She felt sadness, brought on by the memory of the man who once wrote beautiful letters and sent her flowers.
She had cared for him, but it was obvious he had never truly cared for her.
Not enough to keep his promise to meet her anyway.
“No,” she whispered, pained by the memory of the man who no longer mattered. “I never had feelings for anyone before.”
Evander pulled away to face the musicians once again, taking the soothing movement of his thigh against hers with him.
She studied his side profile now that his usual stoic look had returned, taking in his chiseled jawline, straight nose, and the scar that etched through his dark eyebrow, and wondered if, for a reason she did not understand, he was disappointed in her answer.
“I… I apologize for snapping at you,” she offered, realizing that this must have been the reason. “I did not mean to become so—”
“Helena! Evander! Would you two hush?” Patricia snapped, turning around to glare at them both. “I swear, you two gossip more than two old hens!”
Shame had color fusing into Helena’s already ruddy cheeks, and she bowed her head as she muttered another apology. Evander, however, stood and, with a grave look on his face, announced that he needed to be excused.
“What are you talking about, Evander?” Patricia answered. “You cannot leave now. The quartet has not even—”
“I am afraid I cannot stay any longer,” Evander replied curtly. “I have the beginning of a migraine coming on, and I must take my leave. I do not have an ear for merry notes anyway.”
His eyes darted and narrowed toward Helena as he added, “You will be better off without me.”
Helena flinched at the sudden coldness in his tone, and quickly averted her eyes. Those words, she felt, were intended for her and her alone, despite Patricia and Mary-Anne’s presence.
“Perhaps now that you have no one to gossip with, you can finally pay attention to the music,” Patricia condescended as Evander left the room.
“Of course,” Helena replied meekly.
Yet try as she might, Helena’s focus would not bend to the music. Instead, it once more wandered to Evander and stayed there.
Was he so upset by something I said?
Helena nibbled at the tip of her thumb anxiously as she walked the dark corridors of the house.
Her mind was a mess, and her body seemed to be going through its own storm.
She felt heated. Sensitive. A longing had settled into her bones that she did not dare let rest. Yet even as she paced through quiet darkness in hopes of dispersing such a feeling, it was proving to be a failed effort.
The Duke, despite Patricia’s insistence, had not attended the daily luncheon or dinner after he had left the ballroom.
The dowager had made her annoyance over his absence known, giving Helena a much-needed respite from the planning.
Yet instead of feeling relief for the break, she found herself worried.
Not just for what she might have said that could have offended him.
No, she wished that was all she had to worry about.
What was more troubling was the way her body kept craving the Duke’s touch, even in the smallest ways.
How many times had her leg brushed against Jeremy’s while they sat beside each other, and she felt nothing?
Yet when Evander’s knee brushed against hers, she nearly melted.
And worst of all was how she had leaned into the rubbing of his thigh, even though what she was doing was scandalous. Scandalous because she was marrying Jeremy. He was her betrothed, not the Duke of Redgrave!
Yet Jeremy’s touch had never felt so addicting as Evander’s brief contact with her.
Not even once. Jeremy needed to return, and soon.
She had to speak with him about it all. Not as a betrothed, but as a friend—a friend who had lived a very rakish life by his own confession, and she wanted to know if he had ever felt such things before.
Helena paused, blushing at her own thoughts.
How could she ask her betrothed such a thing?
Jeremy had said that he would never touch her as a man touches a wife.
He had even encouraged her to take a lover in their marriage—but surely, he did not mean for her to take one before it even started.
Even if he did, was that what Helena wanted? A lover instead of a husband?
Helena groaned softly and rubbed her face, wanting nothing more than to be able to take all the convoluted thoughts in her head and straighten them out. What she was feeling was wrong. Even if Jeremy would approve, Helena’s own conscience could not.
Perhaps if I called off the wedding…
“My lord, please. Someone is coming! Let me go.”
Helena’s head shot up when she heard her mother’s voice; her loud thoughts suddenly fell silent. She scanned the dim corridor she had been walking through and quickly saw the cracked-open door.
“Our arrangement does not allow you to tell me to stop,” Lord Ingram’s voice came next, seething with mocking condescension through the crack in the door.
“Did you think you would come all the way here and I would not follow? I will do with you what I want, when I want. Now, take off your nightgown.”