“I do hope you are right,” Richard said quietly. “For other than her connection with Garthwood, she has only once ever given me real cause to doubt her.”
“In the meantime, if there’s a price offered on your telltale head, someone may still be waiting to collect it.”
The viscount grinned, but not from amusement. “I have thought of that.”
“Then is it wise to discard your disguise?”
“Very probably not. But if it’s true that Helena connives with her cousin and would be so indifferent to my instant demise, I’m not very sure that I care.”
“Devil take it, then! But for God’s sake, be careful! Nothing I say will change your mind about Helena?”
“How can it when the facts argue so cogently against both our desires? Damnation! Let’s get rid of this food!”
Richard signaled to the waiter, who hurried to clear the plates. Then he leaned back and closed his eyes for a moment.
“Charles, I know you have problems of your own and that London calls insistently for your return. I wish I could do as much for you as you’ve tried to do for me. But this is one demon that I must face down for myself.”
Dagonet shrugged. “Very well, if you insist.”
“I do. In the meantime, put your mind at rest. I’m going from here to see my father at King’s Acton. His lordship has many burly footmen and a gamekeeper with a fearsome blunderbuss. They each love me like a son and would guard with their lives every last hair on my shameless head. Before I turn my attention to the problem of Helena and Garthwood, I should like to try one more time to make the earl see reason. It will haunt me for the rest of my life, however short, if that little girl who died in Paris hanged herself in vain.”
“And then you return to Acton Mead? Be on your guard, Richard!”
“King’s Acton will buy me a few days of safety before I meet a gruesome death in some lonely field or in my own garden.” Richard smiled at the other man. “I do admit it would make me feel a great deal better about it, however, if I knew for a fact that Helena would care.”
* * *
It wasn’t easy, since Richard’s sisters and John hadn’t known before what it was to have someone try to make a warm home for them, but little by little their hostility disappeared.
With Helena, they invented games and played uproarious charades. They helped in the kitchen with the stirring of the plum pudding and the chopping of fruit for the mince pies. Helena had a footman supply them all with old pewter trays and they went out tobogganing to return rosy-cheeked to the fireside. Even Joanna joined in, while John began to take a new pride in helping and protecting Milly, instead of tormenting her.
Helena also had them help with the packing of baskets for the poor of the parish and let them take the responsibility of delivery, while she sent the stable hands out with wagons of firewood. The snow and cold was fun for the children, but there was some real hardship and suffering beyond the gates.
When Eleanor came downstairs at last, she found herself surrounded by unexpected laughter and gaiety and no one remembered to tease her about her mousy brown hair or her chapped nostrils. Instead, she was instantly pressed into service to help with the multitude of ongoing projects, which she did with a will.
Helena realized right away that her struggle to win some happiness for the children would have been a great deal easier if she had only had Eleanor’s help from the beginning. The oldest sister of the Acton family was both sensible and merry, and her love for her siblings was palpable.
On Christmas Eve they all gathered in the drawing room to play the traditional games.
After the chaos of Hunt the Slipper, Hoodman Blind caused as much noise as a fox in a hen house. Helena had to agree to be the first victim to be blindfolded and to allow herself to be spun until she was dizzy. With much hilarity, the others dodged behind chairs and sofas as she stumbled about trying to find them.
“Surely, this is Milly!” she cried as her fingers closed on some soft fabric.
“It’s only the curtains!” Milly squealed as Helena heard her racing to hide somewhere else.
Breathless with laughter, Helena felt her way back to the center of the room. She managed to collide with the sofa and the corner of the piano, before she knew herself back in the open space on the carpet.
There was a sudden excited silence punctuated only with suppressed giggles. She could hear the sound of soft breathing. Someone stood directly in front of her.
“Helena’s under the kissing bough!” John cried suddenly with a whoop of delight.
She put out her hands.
Other hands caught them firmly. She felt herself pulled into the solid warmth of a man’s chest, then her palms were turned up and gentle lips touched each one.
Softly, softly, her face was taken in careful fingers and the man kissed her on the mouth. Desire leaped pounding through her blood, leaving her faint and breathless as he ran his hands down her back and held her with no possibility of escape. His chest was firm and solid. His mouth explored hers with sweet insistence—and she was ravished, melting, hot with craving for his honeyed tongue and clever fingertips, even when his kiss was still gentle, almost exploratory.
I have missed him! Dear Lord, how much! How much!
The girls clapped their hands and John cheered.
“It’s the best of all possible Christmas presents,” Milly said. “Can’t we tell now, sir?”
“What, and leave Helena without the fun of the surprise? I have signaled you all to silence, young lady. Don’t break it!”
The hands moved up to her hair and untied the blindfold. But his voice had already given him away. Helena gazed up into the secret depths of her husband’s black eyes.
The children came racing to fling themselves at him, while Eleanor and Joanna clasped at his hands.
“Merry Christmas, everyone!” Viscount Lenwood said, before bestowing individual greetings all around.
Only Helena hung back. She had already had her acknowledgment, she supposed. Richard might be prepared to kiss her, but now he did not seem to want to meet her eyes.
“Now you must be Hoodman!” John cried.
“Richard has only just arrived, young man,” Eleanor said instantly. “Aren’t you going to let him rest for a moment?”
“Oh, Richard’s never tired, are you, sir? And that’s the rules—the person who gets caught is the next Hoodman.”
“And the rules must be obeyed?” Richard said. “Where is the blindfold? I am ready.”
Helena watched as Joanna secured the strip of black cloth over her husband’s eyes. He was spun with the greatest enthusiasm by John, who then ran off gasping with delight.
Richard took two steps to the sofa, vaulted over the innocent piece of furniture, and caught Milly firmly around the waist. Only the slightest hesitation as he reached for the carved back with his hand would have betrayed to an observer that he was totally blind.
That easy confidence made Helena’s breath catch in her throat.
It was then Milly’s turn to catch John.
“Enough!” Helena said at last. “I am sorely winded and we must have enough breath left to sing tonight.”
Dinner was passed in a state close to uproar. After they had gathered at the piano and sung carols together, Helena had promised to tuck Milly in bed. As soon as she had gone, John and Joanna settled into a moderately quiet game of cards.
Richard walked over to Eleanor, where she still sat at the piano, softly playing old songs.
“What on earth is going on?” he asked seriously.
Eleanor raised a brown brow and smiled. “Going on? What makes you suppose anything is going on?”
“You know perfectly well what I mean, Eleanor, and I shall strangle you with my bare hands if you don’t explain. I don’t imagine a double whipping at Eton has so reformed John. Nor that Joanna’s putting up her beautiful hair has given her so much forbearance. I can’t ever remember Milly not displaying either panics or sulks. And instead of looking frazzled, you, my beloved child, are blooming.”
“You must ask Helena, dear brother. I’m afraid I arrived here with a horrid cold and spent far too many days in bed than was fair. By the time I came down, all was as you see: peace in the family—”
“—and goodwill to all Actons?”
She grinned at him, stopped playing, and hugged his arm. “Perhaps you married an angel by mistake?”
Richard smiled and returned the hug. “I wish I could think so, sister mine.”
Eleanor was left to wonder why his voice carried so much pain beneath the surface banter.
* * *
Two hours later Richard sat alone by the fire and stared into the flames. The others, including Helena, had gone off to bed. He sipped absently at a very fine brandy and thought through very carefully everything he knew. However he cudgeled at the facts, they still left one inescapable conclusion: Garthwood had no reason to harm him, unless he expected to benefit through Helena. Yet why should he, unless Helena were a willing partner?
How could he have been so foolish as to lose his heart to her, when she was still little more than a stranger? He was not even sure how it had happened, but like a thief in the night, she had robbed him of his freedom. He felt obsessed. And that was dangerous.
How easy to have one’s judgment clouded when the object of suspicion pulled at his heart like the Lorelei. How on earth could he discover the truth? At last he stood and tossed the dregs of his glass into the flames. The brandy flared up in a blaze of blue light. There was one simple solution. He would ask her.
* * *
Helena had gone to bed, but she was not asleep. She lay and stared at the ceiling and chased thoughts about in her head like a flock of confused sheep. Richard had gone off to France when? —six? —no, more than seven weeks ago.
He had not come to see her when he came back to England, had not even sent her a message. Charles de Dagonet had stopped by to see her, but not at Richard’s request.
Were even his friends concerned for him? Did they know that Harry was a threat to his brother?
Then Dagonet had told her nothing of where Richard had been or what he was doing. Was Marie French? Had Richard taken her to the new Bourbon court with him? And why had he come back now? Only, surely, because the children were there for Christmas.
They had married with no pretensions to love. All he owed her was courtesy and financial security, and he had more than given her that. She had no right whatsoever to make further demands on his time or his energy. If Marie had his heart, she could neither interfere, nor in honor allow him to be confronted with her anguish over it.
With that thought, Richard walked into the room.
Helena sat up and tried to school her features, so that he wouldn’t guess that her heart was pounding like a steam engine. Her hair lay over her shoulder in a single long plait. She glanced down at it, golden where it lay against the soft folds of her nightgown. Her bare arms seemed very white on the coverlet.
Was her whole body shaking? Could he tell the effect he had on her?
Richard sat down beside her on the bed. His silk dressing gown lay open at the neck.
She looked up and watched the steady beat of the pulse at his throat.
“Helena, I must talk with you,” he said seriously. “There is something that lies between us. It has kept me away from you. God knows, I didn’t intend it to be this way.”
With sudden dread she felt certain that he was going to tell her about Marie. That he was in love with his mistress and would never be coming back to Acton Mead. Once it was out in the open, she could no longer pretend to ignore it. He would no longer feel that he owed her even these brief visits. It was more than she could bear.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said lightly. “Don’t tell me anything! We don’t owe each other our secrets. I’ve never expected more from you than what you’ve already given me. You’re here now, and that’s all that counts.”
Gathering her courage, Helena leaned forward and kissed him. She meant to offer comfort, perhaps, for the indefinable pain that seemed to haunt his black eyes, and even a defiant gesture of understanding about Marie.
In the next moment Richard buried his fingers in her hair and was ravishing the warm sweetness of her mouth. The braid fell apart under his hands. He pulled her with him into the cocoon of the sheets. The dark print of his dressing gown enfolded the white sheen of her discarded night rail when it slipped silent and unheeded to the floor.
Richard barely noticed, lost in the scent and feel and taste of her. If she wanted him dead, he would die. Nothing mattered now except her open lips and sensitive skin, and the welcome and peace he could find in her bed.
* * *
Helena awoke in the morning to only a memory of his strength and passion. He was gone.
At the breakfast table when she came down, he was already occupied with Milly on one side and John on the other, being given a detailed account of the state of Bayard’s health and spirits. Eleanor and Joanna were laughing together on the other side of the table. Joanna had so forgotten herself as to tie her lustrous black hair back in a simple ribbon. She looked very much like a little girl again.
“Oh, Dickon,” she said suddenly, “can’t we do some silly verses like we used to when Grandmama was alive?”
“I want one about me!” Milly squealed.
“Very well, who’ll start?”
“I shall!” John stood and bowed, then began to intone, flinging out his arm in a melodramatic gesture. “There once was a creature called Milly—”
“Who went out whene’er it was chilly—” Eleanor said right away. “You took the easy line, John.”
“But although we had snow,” Richard added solemnly, giving Milly a wink, “the sled wouldn’t go—”
“Since she couldn’t tell flat land from hilly. Hello, everyone!”
“Harry!”
Joanna leaped up to run around the table to embrace the brother whose dark head looked so like hers.
“The same, beloved children. Let me get a breath, Jo, for heaven’s sake! Hello, Eleanor, you look beautiful, dear child, as does our Milly. Has Helena been feeding you on ambrosia and syllabub?”
“Hardly,” Helena whispered, her pulse thundering.
Harry!