He might prey on her mind and lay waste to the defenses she’d erected against powerful men, but while in his arms with his lips on hers, she knew, and understood, only one thing.
He was hers.
Hers to command at least in this arena—hers to claim if she wished. He was in control, but it was she he sought to please—a conundrum perhaps, but the thought of having a powerful man at her feet was too tantalizing, too tempting, too elementally enthralling to forgo.
His pleasure was hers. She sensed it through his kiss, through his immediate response to any demand she chose to make. Any hint of trepidation and he would ease back, soothe her, wait for her sign he could take her mouth again, that she was ready again to sink deep into the kiss, let his tongue probe, caress, slide about hers, seductively tangling.
He hadn’t released her hands; instead, his fingers had locked, not painfully, but his grip was unbreakable, his forearms outside hers against the wall, holding his weight from her. She wanted his weight on her. Her whole body had come alive, heated, nerves afire. She wanted him against her, chest to breast, thighs to hips. Wanted him.
She arched, touched him. For one glorious instant, she let her body caress him.
Sensed his immediate response—sensed the depth of the fire she hadn’t yet walked through. Felt his control quake.
They broke the kiss.
Both of them. They needed to breathe, needed to think. Had to pull back from the brink.
They were both breathing rapidly, each one’s gaze locked on the other’s lips.
Simultaneously, they lifted their eyes; their gazes met, held.
They searched each other’s eyes; her thoughts were reflected in his—she felt as if he could see into her soul.
This was not the right place, not the right time.
Whether there would ever be a right place, a right time, neither knew, but they could not go further tonight.
They both knew it. Recognized the fact.
When the pounding in her ears eased enough for her to hear, Helena drew in a deep breath and softly said, “Let me go.”
Not an order, but a simple direction.
He hesitated. Then his grip eased, bit by bit. As his touch left her skin, she eased her hands from under his, lowered her arms. She ducked under his arm, stepped away from the wall, out of the cage of his arms.
He turned his head but didn’t otherwise move.
She took another step away, already missing—regretting the loss of—his heat. Then she lifted her head; without turning around, she said, “For your help with Markham—thank you.”
She hesitated for an instant, then walked to the door.
Her hand was on the knob when she heard him murmur, soft and low, “Until later,
Leaving his cloak and cane in the front hall, he went into the library. After lighting a lamp, he settled behind his desk—settled to the letter he’d decided to write.
He addressed it to Thierry. Helena was staying under Thierry’s roof, nominally in his care; his wife had introduced her to society. De Sèvres’s relationship to Helena he was less sure of, and when all was said and done, he didn’t trust the man. Thierry, despite being a Frenchman, was a straightforward soul.
The scritch-scratch of his pen across the page was the only sound discernible; the silence of the huge house, his home from birth, lay like a comfortable blanket about him.
He paused, looking down, considering what he’d written, what he had yet to say. Then he bent and wrote again, until he reached the end and closed with his flourishing signature: St. Ives.
Sanding the letter, he sat back. Looked across the room to where the embers of the fire glowed in the grate.
He didn’t know if he could do it—if he could make the concessions she’d demand, the concessions she might indeed need in order to become his duchess. But he would try. He had accepted that he must, that he had to do everything within his considerable power to ensure she became his.
His wife.
The equation was a simple one. He had to marry. And at the last moment, he’d met her, the only woman he’d ever wished to possess for all time.
It was she or no one.
He’d wanted, waited for, some sign that she wanted him, that she recognized the fact that she did. Tonight . . . tonight they’d come very close to stepping over that invisible line, taking what had thus far been an acceptable interaction into another arena, an illicit one.
They’d drawn back, but only just, and she’d known it, realized the truth as well as he.
It was enough—sign enough. Confirmation enough, if he’d needed any reassurance.
She wanted him in precisely the same way he wanted her.
He glanced at the letter, let his eyes run over his careful phrases inviting the Thierrys, mademoiselle la comtesse d’Lisle and M. de Sèvres to spend the next week at Somersham Place. He had made it clear that this was to be a private visit, that the only others at his principal estate would be Cynster family members.
That last should make his direction patently clear; such a summons, couched in such terms, could mean only one thing. But with that “thing” unstated, it could not be taken for granted.
He smiled as he considered how Helena might react—he couldn’t, even now, predict it. But he would see her tomorrow night, at Lady Lowy’s masquerade. Whatever her reaction, he was sure he’d learn of it then.
Tipping the sand aside, he folded the parchment, lit the candle, and melted a stub of wax, then set his seal to the letter. Rising, he turned down the lamp, then crossed to the door.
In the front hall, he dropped the letter on the salver on the side table.
Done.
He paused, then headed for the stairs and his bed.
Chapter Six
Villard hurried into speech. “M’sieur, I knew you would wish to have these immediately.” He deposited a package on the bed beside Louis.
Louis frowned at the package, then his face cleared.
Settling against the pillows, Louis ripped open the package addressed in Fabien’s distinctive hand. Three letters wrapped in a single sheet of parchment spilled onto the sheets. There was writing on the parchment, an order:
Louis studied the three letters. One was for him; another, also from Fabien, was addressed to Helena. The third was also for Helena, but addressed in a girlish hand. After a moment of pondering, Louis decided it must be from Ariele. He set aside Helena’s letters and opened his.
There were two sheets closely covered in Fabien’s forceful black script. Smiling in anticipation, Louis smoothed them out—he looked up as Villard reappeared with his chocolate on a tray. He nodded, picked up the cup, took a sip, then held up the letter and started to read.
Villard saw the smile fade from his master’s face, saw it pale. Louis’s hand shook. Chocolate spattered the sheets, and he swore. Villard jumped to mop the spill. Scowling, Louis set the cup back on the tray. He returned to
