The promise in a kiss

couldn’t explain the power she’d felt last night.

On entering Lady Hunterston’s ballroom, Helena kept Marjorie with her and determinedly quartered the room. She found Lord Were by the card room; the group about him parted readily to allow them to join.

The topic under discussion was the imminent demise of Lord Were’s uncle, the Marquess of Catterly.

“I’ll have to head north tomorrow,” Were told them. “The old reprobate’s been asking after me. Seems the least I can do.”

He grimaced as he said it; Helena considered his attitude as a black mark against him—then realized whom she was comparing him with. She thrust the comparison aside. However, to her satisfaction, as they chatted and the topic shifted to Christmas and the entertainments planned, she found herself much more in tune with Were’s views. He was an amiable if unexciting soul, solid and somewhat doggedly unassuming. That, she told herself, was a welcome relief from others who were too well aware of their worth.

Catching Marjorie’s eyes, she let an unspoken question infuse hers. Marjorie smiled meaningfully and inclined her head. She, too, approved of Lord Were.

Sebastian entered Lady Hunterston’s ballroom to be met by the sight of Helena smiling delightedly up at Were. He noted it, paused to sweep an elegant bow to her ladyship, then, for once ignoring the smiles directed his way, made straight for the group outside the card room.

He walked through the crowd, his attention riveted on Helena; inwardly, he canvassed his options. He could tell her he wished to marry her, deliberately dazzle her and draw her to his side,but . . .

That “but” held considerable weight. Any hint to the ton that he’d changed his mind and decided to make her his duchess would cause a sensation and focus all eyes, every last one, on them. And the thoughts going through the minds behind the eyes, and the consequent whispers, would not all be felicitious. Some, indeed, would choose to be blind and speculate that his intention wasn’t honorable at all. Such rumors would not be to his liking—nor hers, and even less her guardian’s.

He’d received a report from his Parisian agent; her maternal uncle, Geoffre Daurent, had become her guardian on her father’s death. Thierry presumably stood in Daurent’s shoes, but calling formally in Green Street was impossible. Impossible to keep such a meeting secret, not in the heart of the ton.

A discreet invitation to visit his principal estate, Somersham Place, when the ton dispersed from the capital in just under two weeks was his preferred way forward. No one beyond the Thierrys and Louis de Sèvres would need to know; he himself would tell only his aunt Clara, who acted as his hostess at his ancestral home. In privacy he could speak—and persuade if need be.

That last grated. Helena enjoyed his company but did not, so her peridot eyes declared, consider him a potential husband.

Yet.

The fault might be his, with his antipathy to marriage so publicly declared; that didn’t prevent him from viewing her dismissal as a challenge.

“Comtesse.” He halted by her side. She’d seen him approach but had feigned ignorance. Now she turned and, with a cool smile, held out her hand. He took it, bowed over it. Before she could retrieve her fingers, he locked his about them. “Madame.” He acknowledged Mme Thierry’s curtsy with a nod, then inclined his head to Were. “If you’ll excuse us, there’s a matter of some import I wish to convey to mademoiselle la comtesse.”

Skepticism flared in Mme Thierry’s eyes, but none dared gainsay him—not even Helena. Her expression studiously serene, she allowed him to lead her away, down the long room.

“And what is it you wish to tell me?”

Her voice held a haughty chill. She glided beside him, her gaze fixed ahead, her expression betraying not the slightest perturbation.

“That Were is not for you.”

“Indeed? And why is that?”

He could not lie about a friend. “Suffice to say I believe your guardian would not approve.”

“How odd. From all I have learned, the estates Lord Were will shortly inherit are extensive and the income sound.”

Not as extensive nor as sound as his own.

“His lordship is all things amiable,” she continued. “I foresee no problem at all.”

Sebastian bit back a retort to the effect that she didn’t foresee the half of it. Her dismissal of his caveat had been delivered with a regal air—an air few would attempt with him.

The fact that she had done so did not surprise him; his agent’s report had confirmed his supposition. She and her sister were the last of the de Stansions, a very old aristocratic French family. Her mother had been a Daurent, another senior house of the French nobility. Helena’s birth was as good as his; she’d been reared, as had he, to know her worth. Their arrogance was a part of them, bred into them—she had her own brand, as did he.

Unfortunately for her, such feminine arrogance brought out the conqueror in him.

“You would do well to consider,mignonne, that there might be more to a gentleman than meets the eye.”

“I am not a child, Your Grace—I am well aware that most men mask their true natures.”

“Sebastian—and permit me to point out,mignonne, that not all women are as open as you.”

How had they got onto that point? Helena barely had time for the thought before Sebastian whisked her through a pair of curtains she’d imagined were merely wall hangings. Instead, they’d concealed an archway leading into a small, luxuriously appointed salon.

Finding herself in the middle of the room, cut off from the ballroom now that the curtains had fallen shut, she dropped her own mask and frowned—openly.

“This is not, I am sure”—she gestured—“comme il faut.”

She all but glared at Sebastian as he came to stand before her. The infuriating man did nothing more than raise one brow. Why she was so irritated with him she could not say, but she’d had a strong suspicion even before he’d arrived that he’d been deliberately steering her away from Lord Were.

To her mind, Lord Were was looking more and more like the perfect avenue for her escape to freedom.

“I appreciate your help in introducing me to the ton, Your Grace, but I am—how do you English say it?—more than eight, so I will be my own judge. And your veiled aspersions on Lord Were’s character I do not credit at all.”

She capped her dismissal of his arguments with a contemptuous wave; she would have preferred to sweep back to the ballroom on that note, but he was standing directly in her way. She held his blue gaze belligerently.

The aggravating man had the temerity to sigh.

“I fear you will have to readjust your thinking,mignonne . The gentleman to whom I referred was not Were.”

Helena frowned. It took her a moment to replay his statement: . . .there might be more to a gentleman than meets the eye . She looked at him, blinked.

His lips quirked. “Indeed. The gentleman I referred to was me.”

“You.” She couldn’t credit it—couldn’t believe what logic was telling her, nor what she could see in his eyes.

She felt his hand at her waist, sliding, felt a quiver run the length of her spine.

He drew her closer. “You remember that night in the moonlight in the gardens of the Convent des Jardinières de Marie.”

His voice had taken on a mesmerizing cadence; the blue of his eyes was even more hypnotic.

“I kissed you. Once, to thank you.”

Trapped in his web, she was incapable of pulling back. Her hands rose to rest on the silk of his sleeves as he urged her nearer. And she went, lids falling as he bent his head.

“Why?” she whispered as his lips neared hers. She moistened her own. “Why did you kiss me a second time?”

The question to which she’d always wanted an answer.

“The second time?” His breath brushed her lips. “I kissed you a second time . . . to savor you.”