that she had some food inside her to fortify her against the lecture that was coming, though she knew that food would not sit comfortably in her stomach at the moment. She blew out a breath silently through puffed cheeks and opened the door.
William Mainwaring stood facing her across the room, his hands behind his back, his legs slightly apart. He was looking pale, his expression even more austere than usual. Helen stared at him incredulously, closing the door behind her without conscious thought.
'You!' she said. 'What are you doing in my father's house?'
'I came to speak to him and to you, Lady Helen,' he said. His voice sounded strained.
'Indeed?' she prompted haughtily.
He seemed to be having trouble with his breathing. 'I have asked your father if I may pay my addresses to you,' he said at last. 'He has given his consent. I would be greatly honored, ma'am, if you will consent to be my wife.'
Helen continued to stare at him from her position just inside the door. 'Have you completely taken leave: your senses?' she hissed. 'How dare you come here with such a suggestion?'
He had not moved. His expression was still stern and controlled. 'I can understand that you are angry with me,' he said. 'I did not know who you were.'
'Angry,' she said. She strode across the room suddenly, color flooding into her face. 'Angry? Why should I be angry with you, sir? I am only incredulous at your temerity. I cannot imagine how you could have nerve enough even to come here this morning. But to talk to Papa! And to make me this offer! You can take your offer, sir, and chuck it in the Thames.'
“Nell-' he began.
'My name is Helen, sir,' she said, glaring at him m a few feet distant. 'Lady Helen to you.'
He took a deep and ragged breath. 'I am sorry,' he said. 'I have not meant to insult you. I have lain awake all night thinking how I might make amends. I have much explaining to do, I know, and even then much of my behavior is beyond excuse. Please, ma'am, believe that I deeply regret what is past and wish to do something to put matters to rights.'
Helen put her hands on her hips and laughed, a short, mocking laugh. 'And you believe that matters can be put to rights, as you put it, by marrying me,' she said. 'I would consider marriage to you only further punishment for my own wrongdoings. I could think of no worse fate than to be sentenced to spend my life with a man of such low principles.'
Mainwaring winced noticeably and turned paler, if that were possible. 'I have ruined you, Nell… ma'am,' he said quietly. His voice was almost pleading. 'The least I can do is to offer you the protection of my name.'
'I would prefer my own name and any ruin that goes with it, sir,' she said. Her jaw was clenched as it had been the night before. She was finding it increasingly difficult to relax enough to speak clearly.
'Why did you not tell me?' he asked, searching her eyes with his.
Helen smiled unpleasantly and tapped her foot on the floor. 'Would it have made a difference, William?' she asked. 'If you had known I was Lady Helen Wade, would you have treated me with the proper respect? Don't answer that, please. I fear you might say yes, and then I would despise you even more than I do now. Are you one of those men who think it quite acceptable to tumble a girl of no social position, while you almost fear to touch the fingertips of a lady? I despise such double standards, sir.'
He hesitated. 'You do me some injustice,' he said.
'Do I?' she asked. She looked him contemptuously up and down. 'I did not notice you breaking a leg to find my fictitious father in the village to offer for me. In fact, you ran in the opposite direction. It was time to find someone new in Scotland, was it? You should be in your element now, sir. I hear that London is simply crawling with whores and lightskirts.'
For the first time Mainwaring looked angry. 'Such words and ideas do not become you,' he said. 'I see that I have made an error in coming here today. I apologize, ma'am. I shall not take any more of your time.'
He bowed and moved past her in the direction of the door. He paused when he reached it, a hand on the knob. 'If I can be of service to you at any time,' he said quietly, 'will you ask me? Please, Nell?'
She turned to face him, her eyes hard. 'Mr. Mainwaring,' she said, 'you are the last person on God's earth to whom I would turn for help in any situation I can imagine.'
He looked at her silently for several moments before letting himself quietly out the room.
Helen reached out a hand to grasp a porcelain figurine that stood on a table beside her. She aimed at the door on the level of where his head had been. But she let her hand fall to her side, the figurine still safely within her grasp. Her shoulders slumped. She was being self-righteous again. Why had she not simply agreed to exchange forgiveness with him so that they could have been free of their mutual guilt and free to merely dislike and avoid each other? She could not seem to do it. She could not forgive him. Was it perhaps because she could not quite forgive herself?
Helen replaced the porcelain ornament carefully on the table. She concentrated all her effort on not crying. Her face became so red and blotchy when she did so. Everyone would know of her misery.
William Mainwaring rode without thinking. When he finally came to an awareness of his surroundings, he was on the Great North Road, London already receding into the distance behind him. He did not know where he had thought to go-back home to Scotland, perhaps. Was the instinct to run away taking over from conscious thought again? He slowed his horse to a walk, but he did not immediately turn back. He needed to be alone for a while yet.
He could not possibly have botched things worse. The past twenty-four hours were like one jumbled nightmare in his mind-no, not even twenty-four. Until last evening, until he had found Nell in the person of Lady Helen Wade, he had thought that perhaps at last his life was beginning to follow some sort of satisfactory plan. Only an hour before meeting her again, he had decided to go back to Yorkshire and search her out and marry her if she would have him.
He still could not contemplate the night before with any rational thought. Seeing her in Robert's ballroom, knowing her real identity had completely numbed his mind. He could not now remember who his dancing partners had been. He could not remember who had been there or with whom he had talked. He could recall only his suffocating consciousness of her presence, at first standing, and later sitting on the sidelines. She had not danced even once. And she had looked sullen and quite unapproachable.
He had looked at her several times with incredulity. It was she, of course, yet she was not the Nell he remembered, the light, dreamy little wood nymph of his memory. This was a girl who was poorly dressed- the color and style of her gown were all wrong. Her hairstyle did not suit her and her face was fuller than he remembered. She would not have attracted him at all had he seen her for the first time that evening, he knew, especially with the brooding looks that were directed most often at the floor.
Yet he could look beyond her present appearance and see the ragged, unkempt, graceful creature he had known during the summer. And his heart had ached for her. Had London taken the bloom from her? Or had he done that? Looking at her minutes before he had approached her to ask her to dance, he had pictured her vividly as she had appeared the last time he had seen her, curled naked and sleepy beside him, flushed from his lovemaking, telling him that she loved him. He had found her refusal to dance a painful experience. He had wanted to stoop down in front of her, put his arms around her, and soothe away whatever it was that had taken away her joy.
It had been a particularly difficult moment later in the evening, after everyone but him had left, when Elizabeth had asked him how he had enjoyed the evening. It had been relatively easy to lie, even to laugh good- humoredly at her teasing and Robert's about the various ladies who had appeared smitten by his charms. But then she had spoken about Nell.
'Was she always so rude when you were in Yorkshire, William?' she had asked. 'I do not wonder that you removed to Scotland if that was the sort of manners to which you were exposed.'
'The elder sisters have quite acceptable manners,' Robert had added. 'My guess is that the youngest one has been overindulged. Someone should have given that girl a few good spankings when she was younger. Elizabeth wanted to throw her out when she was so rude to you, William.' He had grinned.
