The Next Best Bride (15 page)

"I favor the blue," the dratted man said, as if he did not know she was ignoring him deliberately. "The color matches that of your eyes."

Helena indicated one of the gowns that Marie had been holding up for her inspection. "Take the green one to be pressed, Marie. I will wear it this evening."

The maid bobbed a curtsey and shot a frightened glance toward Rand. She carried both gowns away in a death grip, as if afraid Rand might tear them from her and rip them into shreds. Helena shook her head. She was imagining things. No doubt the girl thought to save herself time by pressing the packing wrinkles from them both at once.

Helena decided to acknowledge him. She glanced into the mirror and met his eyes. "Apparently Marie does not think as well of you as most female servants, my lord."

She had expected a grin, perhaps a boast that he would have her in love with him and bringing him sweet rolls from the kitchen before the week was out. Instead, he glanced toward the door and said with an air of remorse. "No doubt she is afraid I will grow impatient with her lack of skill and send her back to the main house."

Surprised, Helena protested. "What would make her think such a thing? You are the most generous of men when it comes to such things. I would turn her off before you would."

He glanced at her and raised his brow nearly to his hairline. "You wouldn't turn her off if she ironed you bald." Still, he did not smile.

Wondering if he would reveal his reasons for his unexpected mood, Helena prodded. "This is a mystery I wish to solve. All the maids as we traveled looked at you as though you were a god."

He said disparagingly, "A god who dispensed coin, Helena. That is all."

"Perhaps." That would not explain the reaction of all the maids in the duke's home, who had followed him with their eyes, neglecting their duties shamefully. Marie's reaction was very unusual. Especially considering that this was his home. Surely the maid should know she had no reason to be frightened of him. "Do you suppose she fears she is in imminent danger of being seduced by the wicked earl?"

"That child?" With a hard glance at Helena, Rand's demeanor shifted again, until he was more as she had expected. "No doubt she has heard my reputation as a great lover. Would that my wife thought so highly of me."

How did he manage to bring all subjects back to this one point of his? "No wonder she twitches at the sight of you. I hardly know you, and I tremble at the thought."

He crossed the room to stand behind her, as if she had invited him to do so, and lifted her arm up to kiss her hand. "You lie. I feel not the faintest tremor." His smile was carefree. "Besides, you know all you need to know of me."

She removed her hand from his grasp. "And what is it that I know of you?"

He knelt before her so that they were eye to eye. "That I am generous enough to offer my wife complete freedom, that I am patient enough to wait two extra days to make love to my bride for her comfort, and that I am the best nude figure you have ever seen posed before you."

"I supposed the last would have nothing to do with the fact that you are the only nude figure who has posed before me?"

He shrugged. "Surely you will not deny that I speak the truth?"

She was sorely tempted to touch his smoothly shaven cheek. But she was still vexed with him. "And have you revealed all there is for me to know of you? Is that why you speak of London when we have just arrived at Parsleigh?"

"Helena —" His look was not unkind, but it held a warning.

She held up her hand. "I know. Our bargain." She examined the room. Her room. "I suppose everything is just so unfamiliar. All my life I have lived with my sisters about me. With Ros. And now—"

A sincere sympathy warmed his eyes. "You miss Ros, I suppose."

"Yes." More than he could imagine. More than she might have imagined. They had never been separated before. And now an ocean divided them.

"So do I," he admitted, as if the idea of missing someone was foreign to him. Somewhat shameful.

"You are the only person at Parsleigh who knows her. When you leave..."

He stood. "Helena —" He pulled her into his arms a trifle roughly. "I cannot be your sister." He grimaced, tracing her ear with his forefinger. "Indeed, I do not wish to be your sister. However, I understand your need for your family. If you find that you wish to visit your family at any time, tell me."

"My home is here now." Though it was true enough, she said it more to convince herself. The desire to run back to London and throw herself into her sister's arms was overwhelming.

Again, he became serious when she thought he would make a joke. "Your home is wherever you choose it to be, Helena. And if you wish to be with your sisters — even Ros in America, once the child is born — you have only to tell me and I will see it done. Promise me."

"I promise." The child. He spoke with such certainty of the future. What if she, like Miranda, did not conceive. She pushed away the thought and remembered that the reason she need promise such a thing was because he did not want to call this place home. "If you are not in London, carousing."

He grimaced, took her by the shoulders and planted a kiss on the tip of her nose. "If I am in London, darling shrew, send a note to my rooms. Night or day."

She rested her hands on his arms lightly. "You sound as if you imagine I might need to flee in the night."

He laughed, but the muscles of his arms were tense under her fingers. "If you do, you will make a pretty picture in this dressing gown, white silk against the dark of night."

She was certain that he would kiss her. She had begun to recognize all too well that look in his eye which presaged a bout of lovemaking. Only Marie's discreet knock on the door kept him from it.

The maid came in, eyes widening when she saw them in an embrace. "Excuse me, my lord. Mrs. Robson says your grandfather asks that you and your milady join him for a drink before the evening meal."

"Thank you, Marie." His charm was as evident as ever to Helena's eyes, but the maid did not respond.

She curtseyed again and, staring at a spot on the floor as if it might bite her, said timidly, "If you wish to be prompt, I should begin to dress her ladyship now."

"Of course." As if he thought nothing of the maid's nervousness, Rand stepped back into his room, closing the door behind him.

The girl let out an unconscious sigh of relief and helped Helena out of her dressing gown. She kept a nervous eye on the door which led to Rand's room, though.

"Marie, the earl will not be angry with you for doing your job. He is a charming man." Helena smiled. "You do not need to be afraid of him."

"Yes, milady," the girl said softly. But she did not seem reassured as she dressed Helena in the freshly pressed gown.

"Oh, milady. There were some clothes in your trunk packed by mistake, I believe. What should I do with them?"

"What clothes?" Helena hoped she had not packed some of Kate's gowns in her haste to pack. If so, her little sister would never forgive her.

Marie brought her a set of Ros's gentleman's dress. Atop sat her next best pair of boots. There was a sealed note peeking from one boot, addressed to her in Ros's hand.

The note, typical Ros, said only,

My next best armor, for Rand's next best bride.

Armor. Was that how Ros saw her gentleman's dress? As protection? Protection against...what? Being a woman? Helena took the neat bundle of clothes and said, "No, Marie. No mistake."

The girl stiffened in shock. "Surely you do not wear—"

She did not see the need to explain her sister to Marie, who would likely never meet her. "A costume." Helena said. "From a role I played in a family dramatic event."

The maid still seemed shocked. Helena could not but wonder what the girl would have made of Ros, if Rand had married her as he'd first intended. She glanced about the room. Ros had been right to refuse to marry Rand. She would not have been happy here. Even with their bargain. But did Rand recognize that? Or did he detect her wish for a real marriage and regret his impulsive agreement to the switch?

"I keep it for sentimental value." To remember Ros as she had been, and imagine her as the years passed. Rand's offer to send her to America suddenly seemed less foolish. With a sigh, Helena stored the clothing and boots carefully in the trunk at the foot of her bed. Just in case her sister might ever come to retrieve them.

Rand knocked lightly and came through the door before she could grant him entrance. Marie looked frozen to the floor. Helena did not know how to convince the maid that the earl was harmless — at least to servants. Rand gave the girl a sympathetic glance and gestured for her to go, which she did with alacrity.

"Are you ready to enter the lion's den?"

"I am fully armored," she answered, thinking of Ros and the suit of men's clothing in her trunk. Perhaps she should have donned that as protection from the ill feelings that were obvious between grandfather and grandson.

"Good, you'll need to be, or the old goat will eat you with the main dish."

She wished he would not be so disrespectful of his grandfather. But she decided wisdom should keep her tongue still, tonight at the least. When they stepped outdoors, a carriage was waiting. The marquess had sent the best for them, Helena reflected. She paused for Rand to help her up, but he said sharply, "Thank you, Halsey. We will walk."

He said, "You don't mind, do you, it is a beautiful evening?" But as his arm was at her back, propelling her away from the startled coachman, she did not feel as if she had a true choice in the matter.

Chapter Twelve

Another disadvantage to having a wife was that she wished to know her husband, at times much more than he wished to be known. Rand was acutely aware that Helena regarded him closely. So closely that she tripped on a stone in the path and would have fallen if he had not grabbed her up against him.

She was sweet, he loved the feel of her. He loved that he could hold her like this because she was his wife. But he wished she was not nearly so observant of his behavior.

He set her back on her feet. "You should watch the road, Helena, not me."

She merely raised a brow. "I had expected that to be the coachman's job."

Perhaps she was more angry than observant this time, he hoped. "I am tired of coaches after our travel. Do you mind the walk?"

"No." She started off on the path again without waiting. She spoke without turning back toward him. "I would, in the future, prefer to have you wait for my answer before you make the decision for me."

"Very well." Would she believe him properly chastened if he followed three paces behind her? He caught up to her side and took her arm to halt her. Once she had stopped, and stood facing him, with a small frown, he said, "If I promise you should be the mistress of your own fate, it is only fair that I wait for you to express your desire. I apologize."

"One would think we were going to our hanging rather than to dinner with your grandfather. Really, Rand. Perhaps your relationship with him would be better if you had a less mournful face when you thought of spending an evening with the poor man."

Poor man? "Perhaps you're right. I remember a good evening with him once. I was in a more cheerful frame of mind that night. Perhaps I should force myself to be so again. The trained monkey present that evening might help matters."

Dread was a cold knot in his stomach, even when she laughed in amusement. He was so close to ending his grandfather's games for good. But to succeed he needed to outwit the fox a little longer. Patience had never been his strength.

He trusted Helena to please the old man. She was everything a wife should be: pleasant, soft-spoken, kind...he made her sound a saint. If only the old man thought so. Maybe the next few weeks would not be unbearable.

As they approached the house, he felt the dread deepen and slow his steps. Deliberately, when Helena glanced at him in concern once more, he made himself move at his normal pace. One consolation was that the food would be good. He only hoped they could plead their recent travel in order to escape the ordeal early.

Dinner was as trying as he'd expected.

His grandfather began with the drinks. Turning to Helena with a benevolent smile, he asked, "What shall you have, my dear? Sherry? I know Rand will have a brandy. A double. He appreciates fine brandy. Just not the obligation to drink it with discrimination."

"Sherry will be fine, my lord." Helena's expression indicated that she knew she would need the fortification of spirits if she wished to survive the evening.

She was nervous, he realized, watching her careful movements. Hearing the tremble of her voice. The tremor of her hand as she held her sherry.

"How was your travel?" The old man was watching her closely. "Not too exhausting, I hope."

"No. We traveled only six or seven hours a day."

"I prefer to do it all in a hard go, myself." He glanced between them. "Not so soft as the younger generation."

Helena flushed, obviously feeling rebuked.

"We chose to travel more easily, Grandfather." Rand had planned to be more discreet than usual, for the first few days of Helena's arrival. He hated throwing an innocent in the middle of their ongoing war.

But seeing his wife blush with shame over not traveling until exhaustion turned her gray and her bones ached from being jostled in the coach, he discarded that plan. "I needed my energy for the nights, grandfather. After all, we want an heir as speedily as possible, do we not."

He nodded to his wife, as if he had said nothing more than could be considered conversationally polite. He knew he danced a fine thread — if the old man understood the nature of the game he was playing, all was lost. But playing the game at all could mean hurting Helena, and Rand did not want to do so — at least, not more than he feared would become necessary.

"So, you did not want to ride hard, in the desire to get to work producing my great-grandchildren, eh?" His grandfather trained his most penetrating gaze on Helena, apparently deciding she was the weaker of the pair.