Chapter 9
“You should be in bed at this hour,” Helena scolded.
Her little brother, Alex, ignored her and kept skipping at her side down the hall toward the ballroom.
“I will go to bed later,” Alex replied. “I want to see the beast again!”
Helena glowered down at him.
“Stop calling him that!” she snapped, grabbing his shoulder just as he was about to open the ballroom door.
“Why not?” Alex asked, raising a brow. “Is that not what the papers say he is? Nanny said that all the papers wrote about him.”
“Those were not the papers; they were gossip sheets, and you should never have been reading them,” Helena replied sternly. “Did Nanny give those to you?”
“No, Lord Ingram did,” Alex quipped, then shook himself from her grasp and pushed open the ballroom doors.
Helena’s stomach twisted as she heard Lord Ingram’s name, and she placed her hand on her stomach.
The way he spoke to her and her mother frightened her.
She could not even bear to think about the arrangement Lord Ingram and her mother had made in exchange for his financial support, or how he had forced himself to attend the wedding celebration.
Helena was young and inexperienced, but she was not na?ve.
That would end soon, though, she reminded herself. Once she was married to Jeremy, her mother could end her arrangement with Lord Ingram, and none of them would ever have to see him again.
If Jeremy came back, that is. Helena had not expected him to be gone so long. No one had, and thus far, he had not answered anyone’s letters.
Where is he? Why is he not back yet?
Surely his presence would soothe a calming balm over the tingling tension she felt with the Duke of Redgrave.
When they were together, Helena could not help but notice the pulse of excitement in her blood, even when they argued.
Yet when they were apart? That pulse moved from her blood to her mind, filling it with constant images of his handsome face and statuesque body.
Or worse, reminders of how her heart beat faster when she was in close contact with him.
“Helena!”
Hearing Alex shout her name, Helena quickly forgot her own troubles and rushed into the ballroom to see what had scared her little brother so.
She found him looking up at the tall, imposing man who had been stalking her dreams, his little face pale and his eyes as round as saucers as the Duke stared down at him.
“Alex, I told you to stop this silliness,” she demanded, walking toward them. “What has you shouting like that now?”
Alex raised a shaking hand, pointing at Evander’s neck.
Her gaze followed his finger, and she found that Evander had untied the scarf he had been wearing at dinner, and it was now hanging loosely at each side of his neck.
It was a look that made him appear rather smartly dressed in Helena’s opinion, what with the crisp contrast of his white, open shirt and thin, crimson scarf.
However, she knew it was not the fashion Alex feared.
It was the exposed ring of burn scars around Evander’s throat.
“Apologies. I did not mean to frighten him,” Evander’s deep voice broke through the silence. “I thought I had a few more minutes alone. I just needed a chance to breathe.”
“Your Grace, you do not have to apologize.”
“It is just like the stories say,” Alex breathed. “They cut his head off, and the Devil sewed it back on!”
His black-gloved hands then began to move toward the red scarf and fashion it back into a knot, but Helena moved and stayed his hand before turning her attention to her little brother.
She hunkered down on her knees between them, grabbing her little brother’s shoulders and making him look her in the eyes.
“Alexander Nathaniel Robinson, you stop with this nonsense this instant!” she scolded. “You are far too smart to be believing such silly tales, and you were raised better than this!”
“The boy meant no harm,” Evander murmured behind her. “It was I who frightened him.”
“You are nothing to be afraid of,” Helena snapped, giving him a quick glance over her shoulder.
Her gaze lingered just long enough for her to see Evander’s brows shoot up in surprise before she turned back to Alex.
“Listen to me, Alex,” Helena told him with grave seriousness. “Your nanny’s stories are false, and I will have words with her later. His Grace is a hero. He rescued women like Mama and me, and that is how he got hurt. He is not the devil; he is not a beast; he is not a monster. Do you understand?”
Alex frowned at her scolding, no doubt embarrassed over being lectured right in front of such a large man, but he gave a begrudging nod.
“Now, what do you say to His Grace?” Helena asked.
She rose to her full height and stepped behind her brother, squeezing his shoulders in silent urging. Alex huffed, but bowed to Evander.
“Please accept my apologies for being so rude, Your Grace,” Alex muttered blandly. “I did not mean to hurt your feelings.”
“Apology accepted,” Evander replied. Despite speaking softly, his deep voice boomed in the empty space that was the ballroom.
Helena felt Alex tremble under her hands and wished there was something she could do to help him stop being so frightened.
“Go on now, off to bed with you,” she urged Alex.
Alex quickly ran away without another word.
“And tomorrow I expect you to remember your manners!” she called after him, but all she got in return was the heavy thud of the door he went through.
“I do apologize for him, Your Grace,” she said quickly after Alex’s departure. “He truly does mean no harm. Sometimes his imagination is—”
“It is fine,” Evander interrupted, and reached for his scarf again. “It is my fault. I thought you would be a few more minutes, and I did not expect him to be with you. I will be more careful in the future.”
He lifted his arms to tie the scarf around his scars, and though Helena was not at all sure why, she grew annoyed and snatched it out of his hands.
“Stop that,” she bit out, balling the scarf up in frustration and tossing it to the floor. “You keep saying that everything is fine, Your Grace, but I do not believe you.”
“Is that so?” Evander asked, his left brow, the one his scar ran through, raised curiously. “And you know what I am feeling, do you?”
He reached for the scarf on the floor, and she kicked it away.
“You do not have to cover up all the time,” she snapped. “At least around me. I have no care for your scars, and you looked as if you were choking with that thing around your neck at dinner.”
Evander’s lips lifted toward a smirk, but he did not reach for the scarf again.
“So you know my feelings, and you watch me?”
Helena flushed, suddenly acutely aware that the two of them were now utterly alone. She shifted on her feet as she glanced away; the temperature in the room seemed to climb a little higher with each passing second of their very private moment.
Where are the servants? This is entirely scandalous.
“No,” she said, feeling her flushed cheeks grow brighter as she shook her head. “That is not…”
“In any case, we have much to do, and the ballroom arrangements to decide on,” Evander said, saving her from having to figure out how to finish her sentence. “Let us get this over with.”
The way he turned from her, as though she were one more chore on Patricia’s list, undid the last of Helena’s patience.
“Get it over with,” she repeated, her voice climbing. “Of course. Heaven forbid you suffer my company a moment longer than you must.”
Evander stiffened, but he did not turn around.
“I did not say that.”
“You did not have to.” She planted her fists on her hips, and the question she had been holding back for days finally broke loose. “Why do you hate me so, Your Grace? What on earth have I done to you?”
His back still turned to her, the Duke tilted his head just enough to reveal his profile. He looked hesitant for a moment, then finally faced her again. Her breath caught as she saw true pain in his blue eyes.
“You think I hate you?”
Helena bit her lower lip harder, her rising agitation blending into her increasing curiosity about him.
Why does he look at me like that? Do his old wounds still hurt? Or is it me?
Such a thought was foolish, she decided quickly. She had not hurt him. She did not even know him! It was the room’s fault, she decided. Their unexpected moment of privacy was making them both uncomfortable, and they needed to make haste and depart. First, though, she would speak her truth.
“What else am I to think?” she demanded. “Shall we review the evidence?” she asked, holding out her hand with her thumb up. “The moment you met me, you looked at me as if I were the most odious person on earth. You would not even look me in the eye.”
Her forefinger came up from her fist. “Then you did not speak to me for nearly a full day.” She then released her middle finger.
“Then there is the mocking, which has been nearly constant. At the flower shop. At the modiste’s.
At the inn.” She released her ring finger.
“Ah, yes, the inn! The inn where you ran away as if I were some diseased leper that was sure to bring about your death!” She released her pinky finger then and felt the sudden and tingling urge to slap him with her now open hand.
“You literally ran away. In the middle of a horrible rainstorm, you chose to come back here on foot! Instead of sparing a few hours in my presence so that you could get warm and dry! Not to mention how you have been actively avoiding me as if I had the plague these last few days. So yes, Your Grace, yes, I believe you hate me!”
Evander grimaced, then reached up to rub the bridge of his nose.
“Do not take my distance personally, Miss Robinson,” he murmured. “I am like that with everyone.”
“No, you are not,” she quickly insisted. “I have seen you with others, Your Grace, and you treat them all far differently than you treat me. And the worst part is that I do not understand what I have done wrong.”