Marrying Winterborne (2 page)

His gaze shot back to hers, while another of those deep stabs sank into his chest. Helen didn't even blink, only waited patiently for his response.

“My lady, we both know that I'm the last man you want to marry. From the beginning, I've seen your disgust of me.”

“Disgust?”

Insulted by her feigned surprise, he continued savagely. “You shrink away from my touch. You won't speak to me at dinner. Most of the time you can't even bring yourself to look at me. And when I kissed you last week, you pulled away and burst into tears.”

He would have expected Helen to be ashamed at being called out in a lie. Instead, she stared at him earnestly, her lips parted in dismay. “Please,” she eventually said, “you must forgive me. I'm far too shy. I must work harder to overcome it. When I behave that way, it has nothing at all to do with disgust. The truth is, I'm nervous with you. Because . . .” A deep flush worked up from the high neck of her dress to the edge of her hairline. “Because you're very attractive,” she continued awkwardly, “and worldly, and I don't wish for you to think me foolish. As for the other day, that . . . that was my first kiss. I didn't know what to do, and I felt . . . quite overwhelmed.”

Somewhere in the chaos of his mind, Rhys thought it was a good thing he was leaning against the desk. Otherwise, his legs would have buckled. Could it be that what he had read as disdain was actually shyness? That what he'd thought was contempt had been innocence? He felt a splintering sensation, as if his heart were cracking open. How easily Helen had undone him. A few words, and he was ready to fall to his knees before her.

Her first kiss, and he had taken it without asking.

There had never been a need for him to play the part of skilled seducer. Women had always been easily
available to him, and they had seemed pleased with whatever he cared to do in bed. There had even been ladies now and then: the wife of a diplomat, and a countess whose husband had been away on a trip to the continent. They had praised him for his vigor, his stamina, and his big cock, and they hadn't asked for anything more.

In body and nature, he was as tough as the slate dug from the flanks of Elidir Fawr, the mountain in Llanberis, where he'd been born. He knew nothing of fine manner or good breeding. There were permanent callouses on his hands from years of building crates and loading merchandise onto delivery wagons. He was easily twice Helen's weight, and as muscular as a bull, and if he rutted on her the way he had with other women, he would rip her apart without even trying.

Holy hell.
What had he been thinking in the first place? He should never have let himself even consider the idea of marrying her. But he had been too blinded by his own ambition—and by Helen's sweetness and fine-spun beauty—to fully consider the consequences for her.

Bitter with the awareness of his own limitations, he said in a low voice, “It's water under the bridge, it is. Soon you'll have your first season, and you'll meet the man you were meant for. The devil knows it's not me.”

He began to stand, but Helen moved even closer, standing between his spread feet. The hesitant pressure of her hand on his chest sent desire roaring through him. Rhys sank back to the desk weakly, all his strength focused on maintaining his crumbling self-control. He was a terrifying hairsbreadth away from taking her down to the floor with him. Devouring her.

“Will you . . . will you kiss me again?” she asked.

He shut his eyes, panting, furious with her. What a joke Fate had played on him, throwing this fragile creature into his path to punish him for climbing higher than he'd been meant to. To remind him of what he could never become.

“I can't be a gentleman,” he said hoarsely. “Not even for you.”

“You don't have to be a gentleman. Only gentle.”

No one had ever asked him for such a thing. To his despair, he realized it wasn't in him. His hands gripped the edges of the desk until the wood threatened to crack.

“
Cariad . . .
there's nothing gentle about how I want you.” He was startled by the endearment that had slipped out, one he had never used with anyone.

He felt Helen touch his jaw, her fingertips delicate spots of cool fire on his skin.

All his muscles locked, his body turning to steel.

“Just try,” he heard her whisper. “For me.”

And her soft mouth pressed against his.

T
IMIDLY
H
ELEN BRUSHED HER
lips over Mr. Winterborne's, trying to coax a response from him. But there was no answering pressure. No hint of encouragement.

After a moment, she drew back uncertainly.

Breathing unevenly, he leveled a surly watchdog stare at her.

With a despairing sinking of her stomach, Helen wondered what to do next.

She knew little about men. Almost nothing. Since early childhood, she and her younger sisters, Pandora and Cassandra, had lived in seclusion at their family's country estate. The male servants at Eversby Priory had always been deferential, and the tenants and town tradesmen had kept a respectful distance from the earl's three daughters.

Overlooked by her parents, and ignored by her brother Theo, who had spent most of his short life at boarding schools or in London, Helen had turned to her inner world of books and imagination. Her suitors had been Romeo, Heathcliff, Mr. Darcy, Edward Rochester, Sir Lancelot, Sydney Carton, and an assortment of golden-haired fairy tale princes.

It had seemed as if she would never be courted by a real man, only imaginary ones. But two months ago, Devon, the cousin who had recently inherited
Theo's title, had invited his friend Rhys Winterborne to spend Christmas with the family—and everything had changed.

The first time Helen had ever seen Mr. Winterborne was the day he had been brought to the estate with a broken leg. In a shocking turn of events, as Devon and Mr. Winterborne had traveled from London to Hampshire, their train had collided with some ballast wagons. Miraculously both men had survived the accident, but they had each sustained injuries.

As a result, Mr. Winterborne's brief holiday visit had been turned into nearly a month-long stay at Eversby Priory, until he had healed sufficiently to return to London. Even injured, he'd radiated a force of will that Helen had found as exciting as it was unsettling. Against every rule of propriety, she'd helped to take care of him. She had insisted on it, as a matter of fact. Although she had done it under the guise of simple compassion, that hadn't been the only reason. The truth was, she had never been so fascinated by anyone as she was by this big, dark-haired stranger with an accent like rough music.

As his condition had improved, Mr. Winterborne had demanded her companionship, insisting that she read and talk to him for hours. No one in Helen's life had ever taken such an interest in her.

Mr. Winterborne was strikingly handsome, not in the way of fairy tale princes, but with an uncompromising masculinity that made her nerves jump whenever he was near. The angles of his face were bold, the nose sturdy, the lips full and distinctly edged. His skin was not fashionably pale but a rich, glowing umber, and his hair was quite black. There was nothing of an aristocrat's ease about him, no hint of languid grace.
He was sophisticated, keenly intelligent, but there was something not quite civilized about him. A hint of danger, a smolder beneath the surface.

After he had left Hampshire, the estate had been dull and quiet, the days monotonous. Helen had been haunted by thoughts of him . . . the suggestion of charm beneath his hard veneer . . . the infrequent but dazzling smile.

To her consternation, he didn't seem at all willing to take her back. His pride had been hurt by what must have appeared to be an insensitive rejection, and she longed to soothe it. If only she could turn the clock back to the day he had kissed her at Ravenel House, she would manage the situation far differently. It was only that she had been so profoundly intimidated by him. He had kissed her, put his hands on her, and she had reacted with startled dismay. After a few harsh words, he had left. That was the last time she had seen him until now.

Had there been a few flirtations in her girlhood—a stolen kiss or two from a young lad—perhaps the encounter with Mr. Winterborne wouldn't have been so alarming. But she'd had no experience at all. And Mr. Winterborne was no innocent boy, but an adult man in his prime.

The strange part—the secret she couldn't confess to anyone—was that in spite of her distress over what had happened, she had begun to dream every night about Mr. Winterborne pressing his mouth very hard against hers, over and over. In some of the dreams, he would begin to unfasten her dress, kissing her ever more compellingly and forcefully, all of it leading toward some mysterious conclusion. She would awaken breathless and agitated, and hot with shame.

A flicker of that same turmoil awakened low in her stomach as she looked up at him. “Show me how you want to be kissed,” she said, her voice shaking only a little. “Teach me how to please you.”

To her astonishment, one corner of his mouth curled with contemptuous amusement. “Hedging your bets, are you?”

She stared at him in confusion. “Hedging my . . .”

“You want to keep me on the hook,” he clarified, “until you're sure about Trenear's windfall.”

Helen was baffled and hurt by the scorn in his tone. “Why can't you believe that I want to marry you for reasons other than money?”

“The only reason you accepted me was because you had no dowry.”

“That's not true—”

He continued as if he hadn't heard. “You need to marry one of your own kind, my lady. A man with pretty manners and a fine pedigree. He'll know how to treat you. He'll keep you in a country house, where you'll tend your orchids and read your books—”

“That's the
opposite
of what I need,” Helen burst out. It wasn't at all like her to speak impetuously, but she was too desperate to care. Clearly he meant to send her away. How could she convince him that she genuinely wanted him?

“I've spent my entire life reading about the lives other people are having,” she continued. “My world has been . . . very small. No one believes I would thrive if I weren't kept secluded and protected. Like a flower in a glasshouse. If I marry one of my kind, as you put it, no one will ever see me as I am. Only what I'm supposed to be.”

“Why do you think I would be any different?”

“Because you are.”

He gave her an arrested glance that reminded her of the gleam of light on a knife blade. After a peculiarly charged silence, he spoke brusquely. “You've known too few men. Go home, Helen. You'll find someone during the Season, and then you'll thank God, on your knees, that you didn't marry me.”

Helen felt her eyes sting. How had everything been ruined so quickly? How could she have lost him so easily? Sickened with regret and grief, she said, “Kathleen shouldn't have spoken to you on my behalf. She thought she was protecting me, but—”

“She was.”

“I didn't want to be protected from you.” Fighting for composure was like trying to run through sand: She couldn't find traction amid the shifting angles of emotion. To her mortification, tears welled and a vehement sob escaped her. “I went to bed with a migraine for
one day
,” she continued, “and when I woke up the next morning, our engagement was broken and I had
l-lost
you and I didn't even—”

“Helen, don't.”

“I thought it was only a misunderstanding. I thought if I spoke to you directly, everything would be s-sorted out, and—” Another sob choked her. She was so consumed by emotion that she was only vaguely aware of Rhys hovering around her, reaching for her and snatching his hands back.

“No. Don't cry. For God's sake, Helen—”

“I didn't mean to push you away. I didn't know what to do. How can I make you want me again?”

She expected a jeering reply, or perhaps even a pitying one. The last thing she expected was his shaken murmur.

“I do want you,
cariad
. I want you too damned much.”

She blinked at him through a bewildered blur, breathing in mortifying hiccups, like a child. In the next moment, he had hauled her firmly against him.

“Hush, now.” His voice dropped to a deeper octave, a brush of dark velvet against her ears. “Hush,
bychan
, little one, my dove. Nothing is worth your tears.”

“You are.”

Mr. Winterborne went very still. After a minute, one of his hands came to her jaw, his thumb erasing the wake of a teardrop. The cuffs of his shirt had been rolled up to his elbows, in the manner of carpenters or farm workers. His forearms were heavily muscled and hairy, his wrists thick. There was something astonishingly comforting about being wrapped in his sturdy embrace. A dry, pleasant scent clung to him, a crisp mingling of starched linen and clean male skin, and shaving soap.

She felt him angle her face upward with great care. His breath fanned against her cheek, carrying the scent of peppermint. Realizing what he intended, she closed her eyes, her stomach lifting as if the floor had just disappeared from beneath her feet.

There was a brush of heat against her upper lip, so soft that she could scarcely feel it. Another touch at the sensitive corner of her mouth, and then at her lower lip, finishing with the hint of a tug.

His free hand slid beneath the fall of her veil to clasp the tender nape of her neck. His mouth came to hers in another brief, silky caress. The pad of his thumb drew over her lower lip, rubbing the kiss into the tender surface. The abrasion of a callus heightened the sensation, stimulating her nerve endings. She was suddenly lightheaded; her lungs wouldn't draw in enough air.

His lips returned to hers, and she strained upward, dying for him to kiss her harder, longer, the way he had in her dreams. Seeming to understand what she wanted, he coaxed her lips apart. Trembling, she opened to the glassy touch of his tongue, helplessly taking in the flavor of him, mint and heat and coolness, as he began to consume her with a slow hunger that unraveled runners of feeling all through her body. Her arms went around his neck, her hands sinking into his thick black hair, the locks curling slightly around her fingers. Yes, this was what she had needed, his mouth taking hers, while he held her as if he couldn't draw her close enough, tight enough.

She had never imagined that a man would kiss her as if he were trying to breathe her in, as if kisses were words meant for poems, or honey to be gathered with his tongue. Clasping her head in his hands, he tipped it back and dragged his parted lips along the side of her neck, nuzzling and tasting the soft skin. She gasped as he found a sensitive place, her knees slackening until they could barely support her weight. He gripped her closer, his mouth returning hungrily to hers. There was no thought, no will, nothing but a sensuous tangle of darkness and desire, while Mr. Winterborne kissed her with such blind, ravening intensity that she could almost feel his soul calling into her.

And then he stopped. With startling abruptness, he tore his mouth free and pried her arms from his neck. A protest slipped from Helen's throat as he set her aside with more force than was strictly necessary. Bewildered, she watched as Mr. Winterborne went to the window. Although he was recovering from the train accident with remarkable speed, he still walked with a faint limp. Keeping his back to her, he focused on the
distant green oasis of Hyde Park. As he rested the side of his fist against the window frame, she saw that his hand was trembling.

Eventually he let out a ragged breath. “I shouldn't have done that.”

“I wanted you to.” Helen blushed at her own forwardness. “I . . . only wish the first time had been like that.”

He was silent, tugging irritably at his stiff shirt collar.

Seeing that the hourglass was empty, Helen wandered to his desk and turned the timepiece over. “I should have been more open with you.” She watched the stream of sand as it measured out second after yearning second. “But it's difficult for me to tell people what I think and feel. And I was worried about something Kathleen said, that you thought of me only as . . . well, as a prize to acquire. I was afraid she might have been right.”

Mr. Winterborne turned and set his back against the wall, his arms folded across his chest. “She was right,” he surprised her by saying. A corner of his mouth quirked wryly. “You're as pretty as a moonbeam,
cariad
, and I'm not a high-minded man. I'm a bruiser from North Wales, with a taste for fine things. Aye, you were a prize to me. You always would have been. But I did want you for more than just that.”

The glow of pleasure Helen felt at the compliment had disappeared by the time he finished. “Why did you say that in the past tense?” she asked, blinking. “You . . . you still want me, don't you?”

“It doesn't matter what I want. Trenear will never consent to the match now.”

“He was the one who suggested the match in the first
place. As long as I make it clear that I'm
quite
willing to marry you, I'm sure he'll agree.”

An unaccountably long pause ensued. “No one told you, then.”

Helen gave him a questioning glance.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, Mr. Winterborne said, “I behaved badly, the day that Kathleen visited. After she told me that you no longer wanted to see me again, I—” He broke off, his mouth grim.

“You did what?” Helen prompted, her brow furrowing.

“It doesn't matter. Trenear interrupted when he came to fetch her. He and I nearly came to blows.”

“Interrupted what? What did you do?”

He looked away then, his jaw flexing. “I insulted her. With a proposition.”

Helen's eyes widened. “Did you mean it?”

“Of course I didn't mean it,” came his brusque reply. “I didn't lay a blasted finger on her. I wanted
you
. I have no interest in the little shrew, I was only angry with her for interfering.”

Helen sent him a reproachful glance. “You still owe her an apology.”

“She owes me one,” he retorted, “for costing me a wife.”

Although Helen was tempted to point out the flaws in his reasoning, she held her tongue. Having been reared in a family notorious for its evil tempers and stubborn wills, she knew the value of choosing the right time to help someone see the error of his ways. At the moment, Mr. Winterborne was too much at the mercy of his passions to concede any wrongdoing.