CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Gabe paced the length of his bedroom, pausing only to glance absently out the window at the black rainy night whenever thunder rolled across the countryside.
Inside, the room was nearly as cold and dark, with the coals having been banked several hours ago when the footman came to take away his untouched supper tray.
He hadn’t had the heart to face Helena and Alice at dinner, so he’d begged off and instead spent the evening alone in his room, cursing himself and doing his best to drink himself into oblivion.
It hadn’t worked. There wasn’t enough whisky in the world for that.
The small clock on the fireplace mantel pointed its hands at half past midnight. He blew out a harsh breath. It was going to be one hell of a long night.
He should go to bed. After all, he’d undressed—that is, he’d sent away his valet Roberts and taken off everything himself except his trousers before he began to pace. But he suspected sleep would prove just as futile tonight as drink, so there was no point in crawling under the covers.
What he’d done that afternoon to Helena… “Christ,” he cursed at himself.
He’d lost his mind. It was that simple. To confront of her like that— Thank God, Mrs. Swenson had been there to set everything to rights, or they might not have needed any of the wedding trousseau as there would have most likely been no more wedding.
He had embarrassed both of them and left the seamstress feeling as if he’d accused her of something akin to smuggling goods from the continent.
He’d handled the entire situation badly.
He had to apologize to Helena, he knew that. But he also dreaded it, because apologizing would prove her right that he hadn’t been able to let go of Clarissa. Or rather, Clarissa’s ghost hadn’t yet let go of him.
Would she ever?
All it took to have the past haunting him again was a passing suggestion by Adam that the two women were more alike that Gabe wanted to admit, that all society ladies overcharged the accounts and then skimmed away money for their own secret use.
Perhaps most of them did, but they didn’t use the money to gamble, amass debts, and keep their lovers in grand style.
Clarissa had done all that and more, and lied about it every step of the way.
The problem wasn’t that he had trusted Adam. No. The problem was that he hadn’t trusted Helena.
He snatched up the iron poker and jabbed at the banked coals, more to dispel pent up energy than to stir up a fire. He would have to apologize, soon and greatly. There would be groveling on his part, dozens and dozens of flowers, perhaps an indecently expensive piece of jewelry or ten—
The handle on the connecting door to the sitting room clicked softly, and Gabe froze.
An angel in white appeared in the doorway, framed in the darkness of the room behind her.
Her chestnut hair hung free and loose around her shoulders and down her back, and a white wrapper tied around the waist covered her almost from neck to ankles, with white stockinged feet peeking out below.
He would have sworn the figure was a ghost, or a creature of the storm and darkness.
Even in the shadows, her eyes shined, and when faint flashes of lightning from the horizon dimly cut through the darkness, her soft curves were silhouetted through the thin fabric.
Sweet Lucifer. If his soul hadn’t already been lost, she would have completely stolen it away.
Closing the door behind her, Helena leaned back against it, as if she was certain he would order her to leave. Not a chance. And yet, he felt compelled to say…
“You shouldn’t be here.” He didn’t mean a word of it. His traitorous heart wanted her with him tonight, warm and soft—and forgiving—in his arms.
The problem was that he didn’t deserve her.
He set down the poker and turned completely to face her, crossing his arms to keep at bay the urge to grab for her.
“What are you doing here?” Most likely to demand his apology. One she very much deserved.
“I’m claiming my activity for the day,” she answered instead, a bit breathlessly.
“We’ve already done our activity for the day. Alice played the pianoforte for us after breakfast, remember?” He winced at the memory and reached for his glass of whiskey. “I think she should focus on riding horses.”
The laughter he’d expected from her didn’t come.
Instead, she slowly stepped away from the door and approached him.
She stopped in front of him at the fireplace, took his half-finished glass from his hand, and helped herself to the remaining liquor.
He watched her slender throat undulate as she drank.
He somehow managed to resist the desperate urge to put his mouth on her right there and feel the soft motion, or lick away the drops of cognac still clinging to her lips.
“It’s past midnight,” she said softly and gestured at the mantel clock with the empty glass before setting it down. “New day.” She carefully untied her wrapper and let it hang open in the soft light of the small fire at their feet. “New activity.”
She gently pushed the silk wrapper off her slender shoulders.
Its cool silk cascaded down her body to puddle on the floor around her feet and revealed a decadent confection of lace and ribbon beneath.
He swallowed. Hard. Then accepted the temptation she presented by casting a languid look down her body.
His breath strangled in his throat. Good God, she was stunning.
The lace bodice was cinched tightly across her full breasts, revealing the tease of pink nipples beneath, and it stretched down over her flat abdomen and curved across her hips.
Nothing of the shape of her was left to the imagination, including her thighs and the dark triangle between, covered by a whisper of a gauzy skirt that seemed little more than a suggestion.
So thin, in fact, that he could see the lace of her garters and stockings through it, tantalizingly encircling her lower thighs just above her knees.
During the last five years, whenever he had let himself fantasize about Helena, with images of her skin all smooth and golden in the firelight, he had never come close to imagining the reality of her.
“I don’t—” Christ, his voice cracked. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Isn’t it bad luck to see the bride’s night gown before the wedding?”
A knowing smile teased at her lips. “That’s the wedding dress.”
His gut tightened with aching desire, and his gaze trailed agonizingly back up her body. “I’m pretty certain I’m not supposed to see this either,” he muttered, arching a brow. “You need to go back to your own room.”
“And you need to learn that I’m not Clarissa.”
He stiffened, all except his heart, which continue to pound heated blood through his veins. “Believe me, Helena,” he rasped out as he turned toward the fire, putting his back toward her. “I know that.”
“I don’t think you do.” She paused, then ordered softly, “Look at me.”
That was the last thing he needed to do. The image of her in that hint of lace had already been seared into his mind.
“Gabe.” She came up behind him and rested her hand in the middle of his bare back. The hard muscles quivered beneath her fingertips from the burn of her touch, bare skin to skin. “Look at me.”
Hanging on to his restraint by a thread, he faced her.
“I’m not Clarissa.” She spread out her arms so he could take a long look at her, and God help him, he did just that, unable to help himself. She was simply glorious. “I would never hurt you the way she did. Never.”
His head knew that. But what his wounded heart felt was a different matter entirely.
“I am not Clarissa,” she repeated in a firm yet quiet whisper, then reached up to pull down the thin ribbon strap of her night rail and bared her creamy shoulder to his eyes.
“And I plan on proving that to you.” When she did the same to the other strap, the low neckline of the bodice sagged slightly across the full swells of her breasts.
Her nipples poked tantalizingly through the gaps in the lace, already drawn up into tight little nubs proclaiming her own desire. “In every way.”
He shook his head. “If you stay…” He bit down a frustrated groan and raked his fingers through his hair. “We’re not wedded yet.”
“But we will be soon.”
He clenched his jaw. They were supposed to have been married before, too, right up until the morning of the ceremony. They’d both learned the hard way that marriage wasn’t a certainty until vows were taken and the register signed. “And if you get with child?”
“There are ways to prevent that.”
“They’re not foolproof.”
Her eyes glistened in the firelight. “I understand all the possible consequences, and I accept them.” Yet her voice trembled, and he suspected she’d said that as much to convince herself as him.
“I will admit that was why I didn’t come to your room before tonight, because I worried about that exact same thing, that once again before the wedding…
” Her voice trailed off into a silent swallow.
“That I might leave you at the altar,” he finished quietly, yet the words were a brutal self-damnation.
“Yes.”
He slowly reached for her hand and laced his fingers through hers. “I won’t ever do that again,” he promised and brought her hand to his lips to place a kiss to her palm. “I will never abandon you.”
“Because you have too much honor in you. You always have.”
Only Helena could turn that compliment into a condemnation. But he didn’t correct her. He couldn’t. She wasn’t wrong. That same honor had ruined his life.
“But I don’t want honor.” She brought his hand to her chest. “Tonight, I only want you.”
He caught his breath at the heaviness of her breast against his palm, of her hard nipple beneath the soft lace, of the tempting softness and inviting warmth of her. The gesture was both permission and a plea, yet the enormity of what she was offering shook him to his core.
“I want you to make love to me, Gabe,” she rasped out in an aching whisper. “I’m tired of waiting for your love.”