Page 112 of Seduced by an Irresistible Lady

I didn’t even have to wait too long.

Helena turned sharply to look at him.

“When did you ask for my hand in marriage? When did I say yes?” Helena said. Her voice had gone up to a shout, but Helena didn’t care. She stood up from the bench.

“My dear–”

“I am not your dear. I am not your wife, Jeffrey. You infuriate me with such endearing remarks when you know we feel nothing of that sort for each other,” Helena shouted.

She didn’t care anymore. She couldn’t pretend that this was alright. The smile on Lord Jeffrey’s face disappeared. He stood up with a menacing scowl effectively replacing the smile. He towered over Helena and looked down at her.

“You are going to marry me, Helena.”

“I won’t,” Helena shouted at him, standing on her toes so she could even lift her face up to his neck.

“You will,” Lord Jeffrey said.

His voice was cold and calm. He looked annoyed but unruffled by Helena’s outburst.

“I won’t,” she screamed.

She felt her eyes get wet and hot. Helena didn’t want to shed tears in front of Lord Jeffrey so she turned and made to run away when a hard hand gripped her arm.

“Release me.”

“Listen to me, Helena. I have provided your father with twenty thousand pounds to get rid of the barony’s debt troubles. And I gave him five thousand pounds extra for his maintenance and other necessities. But that is not all I’ve done. I made sure to properly document all his financial troubles. Do not tempt me to use what I know,” Lord Jeffrey said with a calm voice.

Helena shook her head.

No, this couldn’t be happening. Lord Jeffrey is blackmailing me into marriage.

“So behave yourself and prepare to be called Mrs. Rutledge.”

Helena dragged her arm away from his grip. There was a sinister smile on Lord Jeffrey face that Helena wanted so much to slap off. But she was scared; she was scared of what he would do to avenge it.

“You will not succeed.”

Helena ran away past a couple of stewards who stared at her. She ran up the stairs, past the sitting room, through the passage, and into her room. She turned to lock the door then flung herself on her bed. Tears were streaming down her cheeks in heavy floods. Helena could taste the salt already as some of the tears seeped into her mouth. She dabbed her eyes with a ’kerchief she saw on her bed, but even that was wet in no time.

Who was she deceiving? He would succeed. He would because despite the pain tearing at her insides, she had finally gotten what she wanted and would do nothing to sabotage the newly found financial security that her father now had.

Chapter 25

Reward

Dr Frederick smiled when he saw the Chimney house. Maybe he could try to build something with the beautiful chit that lived there. She wouldn’t replace Helena, but she’d make it easier.

His journey to London was a success. He couldn’t wait to tell Mister Frank how everything had gone.

When he got to the office for the English Council of Physicians and submitted his reports, the leading physicians who read through his work were ecstatic. He submitted the laboratory notes the day he got there and was told to come back the next day by noon.

Dr Frederick got an inn to sleep in and was at the office again by dawn. He couldn’t sleep throughout the night and saw it as pointless to put himself through the stress of waiting again. Before noon, he was summoned.

“Dr Frederick, please have your seat,” the old man in the middle said.

There were three men in white sitting across the table. They were all older than him. Dr Frederick knew the man by the right. He was the Chairman of the English Council of Physicians.

“Do you attest to running all the experiments and making all the observations in these notes?” the man in the middle asked.