Chapter Twenty-Three
Helena fled the study.
She scarcely remembered the corridors she passed through to reach the servants' quarters, her vision blurred and her breath coming in short, uneven pulls.
It was only once she had reached the small attic room she shared with Peggy that the composure she'd barely maintained broke apart.
Mary found her there sometime later, still in her apron, sitting on the edge of her narrow bed with her hands pressed over her face, unable to stop the tears that had finally overwhelmed her.
"Nell!"
Mary crossed the room at once, dropping down beside her and wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
"What's happened? Tell me."
It took several attempts before Helena could manage any words at all, her breath catching on each fresh wave of tears, but eventually, haltingly, the truth came out.
"He knows. Isaac knows—"
A fresh sob overtook her before she could finish.
"But how did he find out?"
Helena shook her head. "I don't know," she admitted.
"Oh, Nell." Mary's arm tightened around her.
"He looked so hurt, Mary. Not just angry, I could have borne angry, but the hurt…"
Helena's voice trailed off as she exhaled shakily.
"He said everything we have was built on a lie, and he's not wrong, is he? However true my feelings were, the name beneath them never was."
She wiped uselessly at her face with the back of her hand.
"I've ruined the only place I've ever felt safe. He told me to leave, and I don't blame him for it."
Mary said nothing for a long moment, only held her. After a long moment, Helena rose unsteadily and crossed to the small trunk at the foot of her bed.
She pulled it open with hands that would not quite stop trembling.
"What are you doing?"
"Packing."
She quickly gathered her two plain dresses, the worn shawl Mrs Ellis had given her that first cold week, and the modest pouch of coins she'd earned and never had cause to spend.
"I have to go, Mary. Before dawn, if I can manage it."
"You can't simply run again." Mary rose as well, alarm plain in her voice. "Nell, please—running solved nothing the first time, beyond delaying whatever was going to happen regardless. You can't keep doing this every time something goes wrong."
"I have no choice."
Helena did not stop packing as she spoke, though her hands had grown clumsier with the effort of holding back fresh tears.
"If I stay, I will bring scandal down on this entire household.
On Isaac, most of all—a runaway earl's daughter discovered hiding as a servant in his house?
He's spent months building some measure of respect among people who'd like nothing better than an excuse to take it from him again. I won't be the reason it's taken."
"Where will you even go?"
Helena's hands stilled over the half-packed trunk.
"I don't know. The next town, I suppose. Find work again, under some other name."
The admission frightened her more than she let show in her voice, the whole uncertain future opening up before her again exactly as it had that first terrible morning she'd slipped out of Winford House before dawn.
Except that this time, she understood, with a hollow ache in the pit of her stomach, just how much she was losing by leaving.
More than she had lost when she left London.
Because this time she was leaving Isaac behind.
A lump rose painfully in her throat.
Mary said nothing further, only watched her with an expression of open, helpless worry. Once her few possessions were finally gathered, Helena found herself pausing at the door with a realisation that had been building beneath the whole frantic business of packing.
I can't leave yet.
She could not simply disappear. Not without speaking to him one final time.
Whatever he thought of her now, whatever damage she had done, she owed him the truth spoken properly, in full, rather than left to unravel itself in fragments across a single furious confrontation.
She left Mary in the attic room and made her way back through the darkened house. The corridors were silent at this late hour, and when she reached the library, its door stood ajar, a low fire still burning within.
Isaac stood before the fireplace, a glass of brandy held loosely in one hand, his gaze fixed on the flames with an intensity that suggested he was looking at something further away than the fire itself. He did not turn as she entered.
"Isaac." Her voice came out smaller than she intended. "I'm sorry. For all of it—for every lie, even the small ones, even the ones that seemed harmless at the time. You deserved better than what I gave you."
He said nothing, and she pressed on regardless, the words arriving now with a momentum she could not have stopped even had she wished to.
"There was a ball," she began.
And then she told him the whole of it. Lord Crawford's cruel deception in the conservatory and the scandal that had followed regardless of her innocence.
How her father had coldly declared that she would marry the very man who had orchestrated it, and how she had decided leaving London was the only way.
"I lied about my name," she finished, "because I believed no one in this world would trouble themselves to help Lady Helena Winford—not truly, not without some calculation of what helping her might earn them in return.
But I thought, perhaps, someone might show a bit of kindness to an ordinary maid named Nell, who wanted nothing from anyone beyond a fair chance to prove herself. "
Her voice caught.
"I'll leave before dawn, Isaac. I won't bring any more trouble down on this house, or on you. You've worked too hard for what little respect you've earned to have it undone by scandal."
Isaac did not answer immediately. For several long moments he remained exactly as he'd stood since she entered, the fire crackling in the silence between them, and Helena began to wonder whether he intended to let her leave without a single word in response.
Then, slowly, he turned to face her.
"Where will you go?" he asked quietly.
"I don't know." She lowered her eyes, the admission costing her more than she expected it to. "I hadn't gotten that far in the planning of it."
She took a few hesitant steps nearer, until only a short distance remained between them, and made herself look up, directly into his eyes, despite every instinct urging her to retreat.
"Whatever existed between us," she said, "was never false, Isaac.
Only my name was a lie. Every lesson, every evening in that study, every moment we laughed together over some ridiculous dance step or an arrangement of dinner forks—all of it was real, whatever else I concealed from you.
I need you to know that, before I go. Whoever you believe me to be now, the woman who came to care for you these past months was never pretending that part. "
Isaac said nothing.
The fire popped softly in the grate, throwing brief shadows across his face, and Helena stood before him in the library's dim, uncertain light, waiting for some word, some sign, anything at all that might tell her whether the truth she had just laid bare had reached him.
Or whether she had only succeeded in making the leaving harder for herself, with nothing gained in return.
She waited, hoping, but every second that passed by, she felt the weight of Isaac's silence pressing down on her shoulders, bowing her spine until she thought she might crumble right there among the shelves of poetry and philosophy.
"Goodbye, then," she said, finally.
Without another word, she turned toward the door. But she had only taken a single step when Isaac's hand closed around her wrist.
Helena froze, her breath catching in her throat as his touch sent electricity skittering up her arm, raising gooseflesh beneath her dress.
Neither of them moved for a long moment, his fingers pressing gently against her pulse point where her blood hammered wildly.
Slowly, she turned back, and as she did, she saw that the anger that had hardened his features earlier had melted away, leaving something raw and exposed in its place.
His eyes, usually so guarded, held a vulnerability that made her chest ache. She saw a muscle in his jaw work. But still he said nothing, just held her wrist as if she might dissolve if he let go.
Without a word, he stepped closer, closing the distance between them.
The scent of him, bay rum and clean linen and something uniquely Isaac, filled her senses. His free hand came up to cup her cheek, his thumb stroking the sensitive skin just below her ear. Helena leaned into his touch, her eyes fluttering shut.
Then his lips were on hers, his tongue tracing the seam of her lips. She opened to him with a soft sigh.
Isaac's arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her flush against his body. The hard ridge of his arousal pressed against her belly through layers of cotton and wool.
The kiss deepened, growing more urgent. Isaac's hands roamed her body, mapping her curves through the fabric of her dress. One palm slid down her spine to cup her buttocks, kneading the soft flesh.
Helena moaned into his neck, her own hands exploring the broad expanse of his shoulders, the nape of his neck where his hair curled damply.
"We shouldn't," she gasped when he finally broke the kiss to trail hot, open-mouthed kisses along her jawline.
"I don't care," he growled against her skin, his voice rough with need. "I don't care about anything but you."
He guided her backwards toward the rosewood couch, its deep crimson upholstery a stark contrast to the dark wood. Helena sank onto it, the velvet cool against her heated skin.
Isaac knelt before her, his hands going to the buttons of her dress, and soon the fabric pooled around her waist, leaving her in just her thin chemise.
Helena's breath hitched as his gaze swept over her, dark with desire.
He leaned in to press a kiss to the hollow of her throat, then lower, to the swell of her breasts above the chemise's neckline. His hands slid up her ribs, thumbs brushing against the sensitive undersides of her breasts.
Helena arched into his touch, her head falling back against the couch cushions.
"You're so beautiful," he murmured, his lips tracing patterns across her collarbones.
He hooked his fingers in the chemise's straps, slowly drawing them down her arms. The fabric whispered against her skin, exposing her breasts to the cool library air. Her nipples peaked instantly, hardening into tight buds.
Isaac's attention fixed on them, and he lowered his head, taking one nipple into his mouth.
Helena cried out, her fingers tangling in his hair as he suckled hungrily.
The wet heat of his mouth sent jolts of pleasure straight to her core, making her pussy clench. He switched to the other breast, giving it the same attention while his hand slid up her thigh, pushing her skirts out of the way.
His hand found her sex and he stroked her gently through the fabric of her drawers.
Helena bucked against his hand, desperate for more. Isaac chuckled softly, a low, intimate sound that vibrated against her breast. He worked the drawstring of her drawers loose and Helena gasped as he circled her clit with his thumb, the sensitive bundle of nerves swelling under his touch.
"Isaac," she moaned, her hips rocking against his hand.
With his other hand, Isaac removed his breeches and moved between her spread thighs, aligning their bodies. Then he positioned himself at her entrance, the broad head of his cock nudging against her wet opening.
Helena wrapped her legs around his waist, drawing him closer, and with one smooth thrust, he buried himself inside her.
Helena cried out at the exquisite stretch of it, the feeling of being completely filled by him. Isaac paused, giving her time to adjust, his forehead pressed against hers. Their breath mingled in the space between them, hot and ragged.
Then he began to move, slow and deep at first, then faster as his control slipped. Each thrust sent sparks of pleasure through Helena's body, building toward another peak. She met him thrust for thrust, their bodies moving together in a rhythm as old as time.
Isaac reached between them to rub her clit, and she wrapped her hands in his hair as pleasure pulsed through her body, climbing higher and higher until she peaked, a loud moan escaping her.
Isaac was not far behind, as she felt his ball stiffen against her asshole, and a moment later, he pulled out of her, spilling seed down her thigh as he groaned in pleasure.
They collapsed against each other, sweaty and sated.
Isaac's weight was a welcome comfort, his heart beating against her breast. Helena wrapped her arms around him, holding him close as their breathing slowly returned to normal.
For the first time since they met, she allowed herself to believe that they might simply be two people who found one another despite impossible circumstances. And in the quiet of the library, surrounded by the wisdom of ages, that belief felt like the most natural thing in the world.