Chapter Seventeen
The ball continued long past the hour Helena had expected it might, and she spent the greater part of the evening moving steadily between the assembled guests with trays of champagne and wine.
Her feet ached from standing for so long, and her arms had started protesting hours ago. But the truth was that she hardly noticed. Instead, her attention was fixed on the tall figure moving through the crowd with an ease she scarcely recognised.
Isaac danced with a great many ladies through the course of the evening, greeting each with the composed warmth his lessons had built in him, but it was Lady Victoria Ashford who remained, again and again, at his side.
She'd danced with him twice, seeking him out a third time simply for conversation, her hand settling with easy familiarity against his arm whenever some remark of his drew her laughter, which, Helena noticed, happened with considerable frequency.
She told herself, each time she caught sight of them together, that it was nothing to her. She told herself this with a firmness that ought to have been convincing, but instead the same tight feeling settled low in her chest each time Lady Victoria's laughter carried across the ballroom.
In truth, Nell had done her best to keep her distance from Isaac since he'd seen her in the stream. And it was not because she felt embarrassed, but rather the opposite. She had liked that he had seen her there and she had liked to see the effect she'd had on him.
She'd longed, in that moment, for him to act. To take her naked body in his arms and kiss her, touch her. But he had not, and it was this that had made her pull away. She had to protect herself. From him. From herself.
"You're staring again." Mary's voice was low and pointed.
Helena turned to see Mary standing beside her as they refilled glasses behind the buffet table.
"I'm not staring. I'm only making certain the guests are properly attended to."
"Mm." Mary's expression carried a knowing amusement that left Helena bristling. "You're prettier than her, you know."
"Mary, please stop."
Mary grinned but said nothing further as she picked up her tray and returned to the floor.
Helena continued filling glasses, trying, with very little success, to keep her attention fixed anywhere but the dance floor. But she couldn’t help but think how, had she still been Lady Helena, then it might have been her dancing with Isaac instead.
It was some while later that Lady Victoria approached the refreshment table with Isaac beside her.
"Lord Rowan has finally mastered the waltz," Lady Victoria announced, with a teasing lightness that carried genuine warmth beneath it.
"And deserves considerable congratulation for surviving an entire evening without once treading on my slippers.
I confess I did not expect quite so graceful a partner, given what I understand of his history. "
Isaac laughed, easy and unguarded. "My teacher deserves the credit, my lady, not I. She's had rather more patience with my feet than I imagine I deserved."
He met Helena’s eyes then, and the warmth in them undid something inside of her.
Before Helena had fully considered the wisdom of speaking at all, she heard her own voice cutting into their easy exchange.
"Perhaps his lordship simply found a more talented partner this evening."
The remark hung in the air for a moment as both Isaac and Lady Victoria turned toward her with open surprise.
Isaac raised an eyebrow in amusement, while Lady Victoria's expression carried a polite, faintly puzzled confusion at being addressed so directly by a servant.
Mortified by her own tongue, Helena reached for the nearest wine bottle, intending only to occupy her hands with some useful task that might excuse the sudden silence.
But in her haste, she knocked the bottle's neck sharply against the table's edge, sending a dark red arc of wine splashing directly across the front of Lady Victoria's pale silk gown.
The surrounding guests, several of whom had already turned toward the small commotion, fell silent.
"Oh—I am so terribly sorry, my lady, I didn't mean—"
Helena's apology tumbled out in a rush, her hands already reaching for a nearby cloth.
"Please, allow me—"
"It is of no consequence at all," Lady Victoria said.
Her words carried the practised, gracious composure of a woman well accustomed to smoothing over precisely this sort of small social disaster. Although Helena did not miss the faint stiffness beneath the assurance.
"Truly, it is only a gown. Please don't distress yourself further over it."
The kindness of the response did nothing whatsoever to lessen Helena's mortification. Just then, Mrs Ellis arrived from somewhere across the ballroom and ushered Lady Victoria toward a private room where the damage might be properly addressed.
"Go and fetch some baking soda," Mrs Ellis said, her voice firm with disappointment. "Now."
Helena went right away, but as she left the ballroom, she heard Mary calling her name.
"Oh, Mary!" Helena cried. "I've made such a mess—"
"I saw," Mary grimaced.
"Mrs Ellias has sent me to fetch baking soda, although I am certain Lady Victoria's dress is ruined."
"I'll fetch it," Mary offered.
"Oh no—"
"Go and find somewhere quiet," Mary advised. "You are shaking like a leaf and won't be of any use to Mrs Ellis if you can't carry a tray."
With that, Mary headed off towards the kitchen, and Helena, taking her friend's advice, slipped into the manor's library.
The room was dark and quiet beyond the ballroom's noise and light. Helena closed the heavy door behind her with a soft click. She leaned back against the nearest shelf, pressing a hand to her chest in an effort to steady a breath that refused to settle properly.
However, a minute or two later, the library door opened again and Helena straightened. She expected it to be Mary or Mrs Ellis. But it was Isaac who stepped into the dark room, closing the door behind him.
He turned, studying her in the dim candlelight for a moment, his expression difficult to read.
"What happened out there?" he asked finally.
"It was an accident, My Lord. The bottle slipped—"
"That's not what I meant, and you know it."
He crossed further into the room.
"You've never behaved that way before. Not in all the weeks I've known you. What was that remark, back at the refreshment table?"
"A poorly chosen comment, nothing more. I misspoke, and I'm sorry for the trouble it caused."
He studied her for a long moment, and even in the dimness of the room she saw the corners of his mouth turn up in amusement.
"It sounded a good deal like jealousy to me."
"That's absurd."
The words came out so quickly and forcefully that even Helena heard the falseness of them.
"I'm a servant in your household, My Lord. I've no earthly reason to feel anything of the sort over who you choose to dance with."
"No reason at all," he agreed.
He took another step nearer, close enough now that Helena felt her pulse climb.
"Strange, then, that you spent half the evening watching the dance floor rather than attending to your duties. I noticed it myself, more than once, though I confess I didn't understand what I was seeing until just now."
"You're imagining things, My Lord."
"Am I?"
He was close enough now that she had to tip her head back slightly to hold his gaze, the same unsettling nearness she had felt before. It was a closeness that seemed, each time it arose between them, to strip away some further layer of the careful distance she worked so hard to maintain.
"You've argued with me about a great many things these past weeks, Nell. Cutlery, dance steps, the proper way to tie a cravat. I don't think I've ever once seen you argue quite this hard over something you claim not to feel at all."
"I don't know what you want me to say."
Her voice had grown unsteady despite her best effort to hold it firm, and she found herself unable to summon the composed denial the moment demanded of her.
"I don't know either," he admitted, his voice quieter now.
The distance between them narrowed, gradually and then all at once, until they stood only inches apart among the library's tall shelves.
"Do you watch them with envy, Nell?" Isaac asked, his voice a low rumble that seemed to scrape against the silence. "When you stand in the shadows and watch the other women in my arms... do you wish it were you?"
Helena's breath hitched in her throat, a sharp, jagged sound.
She couldn't answer. The words were there, denials, pleas, truths, but they tangled behind her teeth, paralysed by the sheer weight of his attention.
She turned her head away, staring resolutely at a row of spines on the far shelf, unable to meet the piercing blue of his eyes. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird, the pulse fluttering wildly in her neck.
The silence stretched, taut and agonising. It felt like hours, though it was likely only moments. The air between them seemed to thicken, charged with a static that made the hair on her arms stand up.
"Look at me, Nell," he said.
She hesitated a moment and then turned her head, but before she could say anything, Isaac's mouth was on hers.
It wasn't a gentle, courtly kiss. It was something far hungrier than that.
His lips crashed against hers, hard and demanding, stealing the air from her lungs instantly. Nell gasped, the sound swallowed by his mouth as he backed her up against the sturdy oak of the bookshelf.
The impact rattled the wood and a heavy volume slipped from its perch and thudded dully onto the floor, but neither of them noticed.
His hands were everywhere at once, tangling in the white cap of her uniform, gripping her waist through the coarse fabric of her dress.
Nell’s own hands betrayed her, as she clutched at the lapels of his coat, pulling him closer rather than pushing him away.
The kiss deepened, turning ravenous and almost angry in its intensity.
He tasted of brandy and desire, a potent combination that flooded her senses and made her knees weak. She felt the hard press of his body against hers, the undeniable evidence of his arousal straining against his breeches, speaking to the damp heat between her legs that she had never felt before.
Isaac broke the kiss only to drag his lips down the column of her throat, nipping at the sensitive skin there. Nell’s head fell back.
"Isaac," she breathed, the name sounding like a prayer and a curse.
His hands were already moving with urgent purpose as he reached down, gathering the skirt of her dress and her thin chemise and hauling them up in a rough handful.
The cool air of the library rushed against her bare legs, shocking her heated skin, but then his hands were on her, warm and calloused.
Nell gasped, her hips jerking forward instinctively. She had never been touched like this by a man, but her body knew what it wanted.
Isaac didn't give her time to think. He dropped to his knees before her and pressed his face against the damp heat of her drawers.
"Isaac, wait—what are you—"
Her words dissolved into a sharp cry as he tore the thin fabric aside.
He didn't hesitate as he leaned in and dragged his tongue flat against her sex.
Nell’s hands flew to his hair, her fingers tangling in the dark strands, unsure whether to pull him away or hold him in place.
He licked her again, slower this time. He found the small, hidden nub of her clit and circled it with the tip of his tongue, teasing it until Nell’s legs began to tremble uncontrollably.
She had never felt anything like this; it was a fire building in her belly, a tight coil of pleasure that wound tighter with every flick of his tongue.
"Please," she whimpered, her voice barely recognisable.
In that moment, Helena didn't know what she was begging for, mercy or more.
Isaac groaned against her cunt, the vibration sending shockwaves through her core.
He gripped her thighs hard, bruising the soft flesh, holding her open for his mouth. He sucked on her clit, drawing it into his mouth and flicking it with his tongue.
The pressure built, sharp and exquisite, until she thought she might shatter.
Her hips bucked against his face, seeking more of that friction, riding his mouth as the pleasure crested.
"Isaac! Oh, God, Isaac!"
The orgasm crashed over her with the force of a tidal wave. Her back arched off the books, her toes curling in her shoes, and her sex clenched around nothing as waves of ecstasy rippled through her.
She cried out his name again, her voice breaking on the syllables, her entire body shaking with the force of her release.
Isaac lapped at her gently as she came down, drawing out the aftershocks. Then he pressed a final, lingering kiss to her sensitive flesh before lowering her skirts and standing up.
Helena's chest heaved and her face burned with a heat that had nothing to do with the room's temperature.
Reality crashed back in with the sound of the distant music. She looked at Isaac, his lips damp with the taste of her, his chest rising and falling rapidly. And suddenly she realised what a mistake they had made.
Helena pushed past him. She couldn't look at him. She couldn't bear to see the satisfaction in his eyes or the knowledge of what she had allowed him to do.
"We... we should never speak of this again," she stammered, her voice high and tight.
She smoothed her skirt with trembling hands, though the wrinkles were the least of her concerns.
"It was a mistake. It never happened."
Before Isaac could reach out to her, before he could say a single word to stop her, she turned and fled.
She grabbed the handle of the library door and wrenched it open, slipping out into the dimly lit hallway and leaving Isaac standing alone in the scent of sex and old books.