CHAPTER SIX
Bright morning sunlight fell through the windows as Helena hurried down the stairs and through the quiet house.
While the kitchen staff was awake and busy in the kitchens, the other servants were taking their time easing into the day.
Alice and Nanny Potts were still up in the nursery, and Verity would still be in her room for a goodly while yet, sleeping long into the morning.
But Gabe would be up early and down from his room, she knew, in an attempt to escape the house before he bumped into her. That was not going to happen.
She’d spent a sleepless night tossing and turning, plotting and pacing, all of it punctuated with lots of cursing.
Many, many times she’d stopped in her pacing and stared at the door that connected their rooms. He would be there on the other side, just as sleepless and pacing and cursing as she was.
She could have presented her list to him then, but she also knew she needed to be well-prepared for battle, which meant having to think straight.
Seeing him even further undressed than he’d been in his study with a warm and soft bed only a few feet away would have kept her from thinking at all.
No, better to confront him on neutral ground. The breakfast room.
She hurried down the hall and stopped abruptly in the doorway as Gabe stepped in front of her on his way out.
He halted, surprised, and in that moment, she couldn’t help but drop a glance over him.
He wore tan breeches and a maroon redingote, well-worn boots, and no neckcloth, revealing a scandalously open collar and bare neck.
Based on his attire, he’d planned to spend the entire day riding… and avoiding her.
But she refused to let her heart sink. Last night, she had glimpsed—if only momentarily—the old Gabe she’d known and loved, just as she’d seen the pain inside him despite the cold, emotionless facade he showed to the world.
That glimpse made her determined to make him love both her and the little girl he was raising as his own.
It made no difference the dark circumstances that had brought them to this point. What mattered was moving forward.
Her plan started right now.
“Oh, good!” She flashed him a smile as bright as the morning. “I’ve caught you before you’ve ridden out.” She wrapped her arm around his. “Can I have a few moments of your time?”
His face remained stony, yet he let her lead him back into the breakfast room and said nothing when she nudged closed the door with her foot.
“I wanted to see you first thing,” she said.
He stiffened almost imperceptibly, but she noticed. God help her, she noticed everything about this man. “You’re here to say goodbye then.”
“Goodbye? Not at all! I’m here to say good morning.” She gave the sweetest laugh possible and placed her hand on his bicep. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” he returned a bit warily. “I didn’t expect to see you so early. I thought you’d be packing to leave as soon as possible.”
“I’m not leaving.” She feigned ignorance. “Why would I leave?”
“Because last night wasn’t exactly—”
“Last night was difficult, I’ll admit.” Inhaling a deep breath to steel herself, she gestured at the chair at the head of the table for him to return to his seat. She slid into place on the chair next to him. “But I promised to stay at least a month, so that’s what I plan to do.”
Helena looked down at his plate with the leftover bits of his breakfast that he hadn’t gulped down in his rush to dash from the house. She didn’t want to see his expression, fearing she wouldn’t note any relief in him at her announcement that she was staying.
So she focused her attention on his remaining strawberries and shrugged a shoulder. “What kind of fiancée would I be if I chased off so easily?”
He leaned back in his chair and leveled his gaze on her. “What are you scheming at?”
A second chance at our future. “Nothing,” she answered instead with a flit of her eyelashes and feigned insult that he would even suggest such a thing. “I only want the same thing you do—to give our marriage the best chance for success.”
He silently arched a brow.
“But since we spent yesterday outlining your stipulations for our marriage, I would like to spend this morning stating my rules for our engagement.”
She pulled a folded piece of paper from her pelisse pocket and slid it across the table to him.
He frowned at the paper. “What’s this?”
“My list of demands.” When she pulled her hand back, she snagged a leftover strawberry from his plate.
She eased down into her chair and gestured at the list with the red berry.
“If you’d feel more comfortable discussing them in front of Mr. Putnam, then we can certainly return to his office.
” She brought the berry to her lips and frowned as she mumbled against it, “Although I daresay the poor man would most likely hide under his desk if he saw us coming.”
The corners of his mouth curled up slightly at Putnam’s expense, yet he didn’t give her the satisfaction of a full chuckle. But she knew to take her victories wherever she could, no matter how small, and a triumphant warmth blossomed low in her belly.
He unfolded the paper and scanned it. “Why do we need these? It’s a short engagement. It will be over in four weeks.”
Exactly. “Because I take issue with some of your stipulations, and I want my own. Consider this the marriage contract negotiations we didn’t have before.”
He shook his head. “Finances have been settled. There isn’t—”
“Not finances.” She nibbled at the berry. “But what really matters.”
His eyes flicked to her mouth. “Such as?”
“My wedding breakfast, for one.” She placed the rest of the berry on her tongue to finish it, then licked the juice from her lips.
His stare turned burning. “How can it be a good start to a marriage if the bride isn’t allowed to plan her own wedding breakfast, for heaven’s sake?
Guests might go hungry, and that wouldn’t make the manor house look at all respectable. ”
As if to make her point, she lifted from her chair to reach again for his plate. This time she snatched up an orange slice.
He dropped his attention back to her list and mumbled, “I simply didn’t want any kind of misunderstanding on our wedding day.”
“Misunderstanding?” She paused in mid chew. “How would dictating the terms of my wedding breakfast—and my wedding dress”—she didn’t have to pretend anger at that—“prevent any kind of misunderstanding?”
“Because I’m the Duke of Thurston.” He tossed the list onto the table in front of him, then leaned back in his chair as she rose from her seat and moved to lean back against the corner of the table to be closer to his plate.
And to him. “And every merchant within a twenty-mile radius will be scrambling to figure out how to profit from my wedding. They’ll offer all kinds of goods and services they’ll claim are essential to your happiness that day.
Dozens of ribbon streamers to dangle from the trees edging the drive and from the chandeliers inside the house, hundreds of lanterns to light the gardens and terraces once night falls, doves released as we leave the church, children paid to throw rose petals into the air as we leave in the carriage, an orchestra to accompany our breakfast… ”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.” No. It sounded like a fairytale.
“Until they charge you three times the true price. They’ll be hoping you’re too captivated by what they’re offering—or too kind—to say no.
They’ll turn our wedding day into a circus if we let them.
” In a pre-emptive move, he held up his plate to her so she could help herself to the last orange slice and grimaced. “Complete with rented elephant.”
She took the orange, bit off half, and mumbled around it, “You’re exaggerating.”
He set down his plate and muttered, “I wish I were.”
His gaze returned to her mouth as he watched her eat the juicy bite. The way he stared was deliciously unsettling. His heart might have been broken to the point of distrust, but he still wanted her. Of that much she was absolutely certain.
“But if the decision to have a small reception has already been made,” he continued, “then you’ll have a ready excuse to reject their offerings. As a bonus, you can place the blame squarely on me while remaining in the merchants’ good graces.”
“Hmm.” Her brow lifted knowingly. “And how convenient that you don’t like big parties and would prefer hosting something small.”
“Actually, I’d prefer hosting nothing at all.” When she sent him a frowning glare, he added conciliatorily, “But you deserve a celebration, and I want you to have a good one.”
“And keep you out of the decision-making as much as possible?” She reached for a ripe blackberry.
He snatched it up before her fingers grasped it and popped it into his mouth. “Exactly.”
Giving him the scolding shake of her head he deserved, she pushed away from the table and crossed the room to the sideboard.
A row of silver chafing dishes waited there, with their warming candles still flickering beneath and filled with all kinds of breakfast goodies.
Judging from how much was left as she peered into each one, Larkin had expected Gabe and Verity to eat enough for a small army.
As an engaged woman, Helena’s own breakfast would have been served on a tray in her room, if she hadn’t left early to catch Gabe.
That, too, would change after today.
She picked up a clean plate. “And making decisions about my wedding dress?” She kept from looking at him over her shoulder as she said that by reaching for the silver serving spoon with the letter T sculpted on its handle in delicately crafted grape vines.
She placed a generous helping of berries onto her plate. “Is that protecting me, too?”
“Mrs. Swenson is the best seamstress in Kent.”
She caught her breath at the deep voice coming from immediately behind her. Her skin prickled with awareness of his unexpected nearness.
“She knows it, too.”