Page 26

With no one to turn to, and still no sign of her family’s return, she sighed and called for a hackney.

The trip back to Carrivick House felt long and nauseating, her stomach churning with discomfort the closer she got to the manor.

When she finally arrived, there was no sign of her husband.

The manor was as quiet as ever; with its vastness, someone could scream from one end, and Helena was certain she wouldn’t hear it.

Just as she reached the halfway point of the grand staircase, Lowen’s deep voice stopped her in her tracks, sending a chill down her spine.

“Where were you?” he asked from below.

Helena turned, surprised to find him so close. He stood at the base of the stairs, his hand resting on the decorative newel cap. His fingers tapped rhythmically against the wood, the signet ring on his little finger creating a soft, insistent beat.

She didn’t have a chance to answer before he spoke again. “I arrived just as Mrs. van Dorn was leaving. She said you weren’t receiving visitors. I thought perhaps you were ill, but when I inquired with Upworth, he told me you’d left without a word.”

Even from where she stood, Helena could see the lines of displeasure on his face, his eyes hardening like chips of stone. He looked just like when she first met him—contemptuous, disapproving.

“I’m s-sorry,” Helena stammered. “In my haste, I forgot to leave a note. I won’t do it again.”

Lowen took a step up the staircase, his posture stiff. “You snubbed Mrs. van Dorn, and you left Thomasin here alone.”

Thomasin. Helena’s heart sank. How could she have forgotten about her?

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, softer this time. “I didn’t realize?—”

“How could you leave?” Lowen’s voice sharpened, quiet enough to avoid any curious servants. “You haven’t even lived here a day. We haven’t even been married a day—and yet you left without a word to anyone?”

Helena swallowed hard, her throat tight. “I didn’t mean to—I wasn’t thinking. It wasn’t my intention to leave Thomasin alone.”

“Why did you leave?” Lowen took two steps up, then three, and several more until he was just one step below where she stood. He studied her face closely, his grey eyes cutting through her as though he could see straight into her. His scent, like fresh rain on a garden, distracted her.

“Where did you go?”

“Hom—Hargreaves House.”

“Why?”

“I—I didn’t want to sit with Mrs. van Dorn, so I left.”

Lowen’s expression hardened. “You snubbed a very dear family friend of mine, whose husband is one of my biggest supporters. If she learns you did so deliberately, she’ll find a way to isolate you from the rest of the ton. Duchess or not, you’ll have no allies if this continues.”

Helena felt a flash of irritation. She snapped before she could think better of it. “She should mind her own behavior. She said horrible things about me.”

Lowen blinked, his face softened slightly. "Today?"

“No, at her ball. I overheard her talking to someone about me. I was perfectly cordial to her all evening, and yet—" Helena faltered, the anger rising again. “I dare not repeat what she said.”

A moment of silence passed. Her husband appeared particularly unmoved by the information, and Helena surmised that she might never truly know what he felt. “That was nearly a month ago,” he said, cooly. “It’s best to forget it unless it happens again. If it does, tell me immediately.”

Now she realized it didn’t matter if she knew how he felt or not; she would probably be disappointed anyway.

“I don’t want to forget,” she retorted hotly. “I don’t want her here paying calls on me. I don’t like her.”

“Do you suppose I do not understand your feelings?” Lowen snapped. “Each day I am obliged to endure the company of those whom I myself don’t like.”

The thinly veiled insult wrapped itself around Helena's chest, tightening.

“I have no such obligation.” The words came out braver than she felt, and she wished she could take them back the moment they left her lips.

She resisted the urge to squirm, wishing to be behind the locked door of her room already.

“The obligation was always there; you simply never cared,” he drawled, then reached into his inner pocket and produced a stack of letters, perfectly wrapped in a ribbon. “Invitations,” he explained. “Accept whichever you like, and we shall make our appearance.”

Helena wordlessly took the letters from him and watched as he descended the stairs, likely returning to his study.

Once in her chambers, she exhaled sharply, unraveling the ribbon carelessly.

The invitations fluttered onto her writing desk in disarray.

With nothing else to occupy her, she begrudgingly sat down and began sorting through them.

None held any real appeal, but she supposed she ought to select a few—if only to find an excuse to escape this bloody house.

An hour later, after penning her replies and feeling decidedly bored, Helena leaned back in her chair. It was four o'clock now. Lowen had gone again, this time to pontificate in Parliament.

Normally, around this time, Helena would be out with her mother and sister.

She longed to speak with Felicity, to ease some of her burdens with her sister’s kind words.

But with Felicity preparing for her own wedding in a few weeks, Helena couldn’t bear to trouble her.

She couldn't reach out to Charlotte either—she’d ignored every previous missive, and Lady Babbage likely read her daughter’s correspondence.

Helena told herself that Charlotte would come around, eventually.

But Elias, her dear Elias, had disappeared.

From what she’d heard, he had fled London and was now hiding away in some remote Scottish castle.

Still, Elias had always been more forgiving, and Helena was desperate for his friendship.

She pulled a clean sheet of parchment toward her, picked up her quill, and began to write.

Never had Lowen imagined that, in the great House of Lords at Westminster, his thoughts would be consumed by his new wife while good men were being laid to waste on the Continent by France’s armies.

He sat amidst the chaos—shouting, feet stamping, and jeering replies thrown at anyone daring to oppose—and all he could think of was the unpleasant exchange with Helena earlier.

The snub to Mrs. van Dorn didn’t trouble him nearly as much as Helena’s sudden departure without a word.

She claimed to have returned to Hargreaves House, and he should have taken her at her word.

Yet, something in him couldn’t dismiss the suspicion that remained, though he knew better than to dwell on it.

What truly disappointed him, however, was that Helena had left Thomasin alone.

Not that his sister had even noticed—she was happily confined to her rooms, sketching away.

By the time Lowen finally returned home, it was nearly midnight. Yet sleep was the furthest thing from his mind—not with the knowledge of who occupied the room next to his.

Stripped of his coat and cravat by Upworth at the door, Lowen ignored any desire to go to his room entirely and made his way to his neglected library.

He had no intention of exacerbating the headache caused by Parliament that evening and needed a suitable distraction from the world around him.

As he approached the library door, a flicker of light shone through the gap below.

He entered quietly, expecting to find Thomasin, who often kept odd hours to draw or paint. Instead, he was met with Helena, who gasped and shot out of her cushioned chair as something clattered to the floor at her feet.

“Oh!” she breathed, turning so quickly that the thick tail of her plaited hair whipped around. “You frightened me!”

“My apologies; I did not think you would hear me,” Lowen said, holding his palms out in front of him. He stepped forward slowly, careful not to startle her further.

“I didn’t. I merely felt a shadow coming over me,” she exhaled, catching her breath, then winced as she clutched her left hand.

Lowen closed the distance between them, his attention falling to her hand.

He took it gently, examining the pad of her finger, which was darkened with blood.

“You’re bleeding.” Without hesitation, he produced a handkerchief from his coat and carefully wrapped it around her injured finger, his touch deliberate but soft.

“I pricked myself with my embroidery needle,” she explained, motioning to the fallen hoop behind her.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I didn’t know you were in here,” Lowen explained, his gaze unintentionally drifting to the outline of her breasts under her loose night rail.

Even against the stark white fabric of her shift, he could see the dark color of her nipples.

His cock twitched in response, and his body warmed; alarmed, he released her.

“Why did you come down here half-dressed?” he asked, gruffer than he intended, and forced his eyes to her face, though it hardly helped.

“I didn’t. My dressing gown is on the chair,” Helena replied defensively.

Her obliviousness to her current condition—and Lowen’s own—only made it worse, and he could swear his breeches were close to bursting at the seams.

For the sake of distraction, he picked up her fallen embroidery off the floor and snatched her dressing gown from the arm of her chair.

“Here,” he said, holding her robe out for her.

She pursed her lips curiously, then turned to insert her arms into its sleeves, her shift tightening over her breasts as she did so. After wrapping the sash tightly about herself, she took the embroidery hoop from him and peered at him with her familiar guarded expression.

There was a moment of silence, and never had the strangeness between them been more apparent.

Lowen should never have agreed to the match, even for his own insistence that he could be as good as Benjamin was.

It would’ve been better to just let Helena fall—Lowen could reason with his integrity later—and allow some better man to rise as her knight in shining armor.

If that had happened, Lowen could have gone about his days undisturbed by these base desires, free of the disgust that followed, mocking him.

But instead, these urges pushed him onward, attempting to steer him to triumph, to make her his finally, as if he were breaking a wild horse.

But it was more difficult than he had anticipated, especially now, when she looked up at him like a fawn staring down the barrel of a rifle.

He could take her now if he wanted. There was plenty of room on the settee to lay her down, and all he’d need was to push up her nightgown and unbutton his falls.

“It’s late. You should be abed,” Lowen said, interrupting his wandering thoughts.

Helena frowned. “Are you dismissing me?”

“I am.”

“Well, that’s terribly unfair of you to do so,” she protested. "I have as much right to be in here as you do, and just because you came in after me doesn't mean I must now leave at your command."

Lowen rubbed his temples. Of course, she would argue.

"As your husband, I can do as I please, and I’m telling you to go to bed."

"But I don’t want to. I’m nearly finished with this," she said, holding up her embroidery. "I’d like to complete it tonight."

"Then finish it in your own room," he replied impatiently.

"But I like the library."

"Helena," his voice dropped low, rough, "if you don’t do as I say, your embroidery will be the least of your concerns. Because you’ll find yourself bent over the arm of that settee."

She blinked in confusion. "Bent over?"

"Yes. Bent over, with me inside you. Do you wish for our marriage to be consummated here, in the library?"

Her eyes grew owlish. "N-no."

"I didn’t think so," he growled. "Now go."

She skittered out of the room, and Lowen sank into the chair she had occupied moments earlier. He could still smell her, that sweet and intoxicating scent, as if he were pressed against her skin.

His cockstand returned.

Now alone and aching with arousal, Lowen decided to do something he hadn’t allowed himself to for the past month. He unfastened the buttons at his front with clumsy, impatient fingers, the tension snapping loose with a dull series of pops.

He took himself in hand, the rough skin of his palm moving steadily up and down his cock.

The thought of Helena would have to do — for now.