Wedded in Scandal (26 page)

A week later, Robert was feeling almost back to normal.
He had labored hard at the mine, which was now running more smoothly. Charlie had been a good choice, and together they had stopped most of the grumbling. Yes, he now employed children, much though he hated the idea. But only boys fourteen years or older. There were new ponies and new carts for the other children to tend in the sunshine, and he had toyed with the idea of school if he could hire a teacher.

What he couldn’t do was make money appear out of thin air. It would be a long while yet before he recouped his latest expenditures, but at least everything was on the right track. So he turned his horse toward London and rode steadily home. Sadly, the minute the day no longer held constant work, his mind wandered straight back to Helaine. Their evening together had taken on a rosy hue this last week. He was constantly remembering the laughter they’d shared. New things struck him every day that he wanted to share with her. And yes, he nightly tortured himself with the glorious softness of her skin, the sweet gasps she made when he
touched her nipples, and the sight of her naked and dazed as he slowly penetrated her exquisite body. That last part hadn’t actually happened, but he had lived it a thousand times in his fantasies.

Fortunately, he was finally home. Soon he could revel in his dreams in the privacy of his own bedroom. He stabled his horse and began trudging up the steps. He could see there were still lights on downstairs, so he knew someone was awake, most likely his sister. He rapidly readjusted his thoughts, picturing the way Gwen would squeal when she saw him and run into his arms. That was a dream he had experienced in reality hundreds of times, but it never got old. So his step was lively as he entered his home, barely giving Dribbs time to take his hat and coat.

“Where’s Gwen?” he asked.

“In the back parlor, my lord, with her fiancé.”

Robert felt his eyebrows raise. “Please tell me that my mother is acting as chaperone.”

“Your mother retired some hours ago.”

“His mother, then. Or sister. Or that aunt.”

“I’m sorry, my lord. But I do believe the door has remained open.”

Robert didn’t wait to hear any more. He was tromping through the house to the back parlor, growing more furious the moment he saw that the back parlor door was
not
in fact open, but firmly shut. He grasped the doorknob and threw the barrier open, only to wish he had banged loudly on the door. He had not, not, not wanted to see his sister wrapped in Edward’s passionate embrace, her hair askew, her lips swollen, and his hands…damn his hands! They were on her breasts!

They gasped and flew apart, but that didn’t stop him from slamming the door hard enough to shake the rafters. “Out!” he roared at Edward.

Sadly, the boy didn’t leave. He stood slowly, his expression grave even as he adjusted his pants. Good Lord, Robert did not want to see that the man had an erection!

“Welcome home, my lord,” Edward stated calmly. There wasn’t even a trace of anxiety in his tone, damn his eyes.

Robert glared at him. “This is not a welcome home, Edward. This is a crime.”

“Oh, good God!” exclaimed Gwen as she straightened to stand beside her fiancé. “We’re engaged! And you cannot be home!”

“Go to your room, Gwen. I shall see to it that Edward remembers that until the ‘I dos’ are spoken, he shall remain at a proper distance from your person at all times.”

Gwen gasped in outrage and folded her arms across her chest. Sadly, it only served to emphasize to his mind that her nipples were tight and, again, he did
not
want to know that! “I am not a child to be sent to my room, Robert. And you must leave immediately!”

He gaped at her. Did she really think he was going to just go upstairs and ignore what they’d been doing down here? “Have you taken leave of your senses?”

It appeared that she had, because she waved at him with both hands, shooing him out the door. “Go to your club. You cannot be here. I have promised.”

“I don’t have a club.”

“Then go to Father’s club. I don’t care. But you can’t be here!”

It took him a moment to understand that she didn’t mean he couldn’t be in the back parlor where Edward was debauching her, but in the house at all. “This is my home! And you!” He rounded on the debaucher in question. “You can take yourself—”

“I cannot abandon the love of my life, my lord. Not when you are in such a state.”

“What!”

“Shhh!” That was Gwen. “You’ll wake the house!”

“They should be awake!” he roared back. “They should be chaperoning you. Does no one think in this house? Dribbs!”

“My lord,” Edward began, “I take full responsibility for this terrible lapse in judgment. I—”

“You will not!” snapped Gwen. “If you recall, I was the one who climbed atop you, who kissed you first, who—”

“Stop!”
bellowed Robert as he jerked open the door. “Dribbs!”

“Here, my lord,” said the butler, who appeared to be cowering—yes, cowering—in the hallway. “I was just going to find your brandy.”

“I don’t want brandy, I want a chaperone right here, right now! Better yet, two footmen to stand guard—”

“Fine, then!” huffed Gwen as she grabbed hold of the boy’s arm. “We shall simply go to his house. In fact, forget the downstairs parlor. Edward, take me to your bedroom. Lay me down on your bed. We shall have our wedding night now!”

“The devil you will! Dribbs! My sister is under guard. Three footmen at all times! Until the moment she walks down that aisle, she is never to be left alone, not even in her bedroom. They will stand there and stare at her and make sure she doesn’t climb out of the window!”

He wasn’t nearly done with his tirade. He had merely stopped to draw breath, but in that moment of silence, a quiet voice cut through the room. It was stern and calm, and very, very female. It was, in fact, the one voice he had never expected to hear again: Helaine’s. And that was why his tirade stopped in midbreath. Because he couldn’t credit that he had heard her at all.

“Goodness, you do have a way of making sure everyone knows you are about, don’t you?”

Robert stood still, his mouth hanging open as he spun around to stare at Helaine. She was dressed in a simple gown that was obviously hastily pulled on. He knew that because the buttons in the front were mismatched around the belly and because her hair was tumbling loose about her shoulders. Honey brown hair flowed freely down her back.

He didn’t know what to say. Indeed, he didn’t know anything at all. What was she doing here? Meanwhile, Gwen rushed forward, all heartfelt embarrassment as she apologized, not to Robert for creating such a scene in the first place, but to Helaine.

“I am so, so sorry, Mrs. Mortimer. He came home unexpectedly. He said he would be away two weeks at the least. That’s what he told Dribbs. Two weeks! But as you can see, he came back unexpectedly. But he’s leaving straightaway. Just getting some clothes and repairing to an inn or some such thing.” Gwen twisted slightly to pin him with an evil glare. “Tell her, Robert. Tell her that you’re leaving straightaway.”

“I finished early,” he said, knowing that he wasn’t speaking to anything at all. “I came home. I thought you would squeal and hug me.”

Gwen scoffed as only a younger sibling can do. “I haven’t done that in ages. Really, Robert, can you not open your eyes and see that I am a woman?”

That was exactly what he didn’t want to see! Swollen lips? Pert breasts? Good God, he was her
brother
! “Please just go to your room, Gwen.”

“No, I won’t! You must—”

“Actually, my dear,” interrupted Edward in low, rational tones, “I believe it has been a long day.” He grabbed her hands and lifted them together to his mouth. Gwen huffed, her anger fading as a softness entered her body.

“You don’t have to go,” she said, her tone a great deal more moderate.

Robert opened his mouth to say he bloody well did, but Helaine’s hand jerked upright, distracting him enough that the moment—and his words—were lost. Edward finished pressing a kiss to Gwen’s knuckles, then executed a respectful bow to all before he nimbly dashed around Robert for the door.

“I’ll see you to the door,” Gwen said as she scampered with him.

Dribbs, of course, stayed well out of their way. The only reason he wasn’t sacked at that very moment was because he did indeed have a bottle of brandy in his hand. But it didn’t stop Robert from snapping one last insult.

“Three footmen,” he called. “And bars on your window.”

“That’s fine, brother dear,” Gwen called back. “I’ll just sleep at his house tonight.”

“Gwen!”

“Oh stop it,” Helaine said as she neatly cut off his pathway to the front door. “She’s just poking for the fun of it. And you respond like a bear with a sore paw every time.”

“You don’t know what they were doing when I walked in.”

“And what were you doing bursting in on an engaged couple? I would say you got exactly what you deserved.”

He threw out a hand to point in fury down the hall. “They are not married yet!”

“And you are tilting at windmills, my lord. Young, happy, lustful windmills.”

He stared at her, his mind grappling with what she had just said. “That makes no sense!”

“Then it is a perfect match for you because you don’t, either. Goodness, Robert, sit down, drink your brandy, and leave the lovers to their—”

“Don’t say it!”

“To their good-byes,” she finished. Then she crossed her arms and shook her head. “I cannot fathom how you have managed to raise such a delightful sister acting this way. How is it that she hasn’t murdered you in your sleep?”

“She’s tried. Believe me.”

“I do believe you. And I also believe that she is an intelligent woman about to marry an extraordinarily levelheaded young man. You should be happy for their passion, my lord. So few have it in their marriage beds.”

“Only if they
wait
for their marriage bed,” he grumbled. But his rancor was fading, his ill temper slowly replaced by the joy of talking to her again.

“Never fear, my lord. Gwen told me that he has French letters. You know. To prevent pregnancy.”

“Oh, my God—” The boy had purchased condoms. And told his sister about them? Meanwhile, Helaine kept talking, keeping him from saying any of the furious words that were leaping through his mind.

“Gwen said it was because they do not wish for children
right away. He has the letters so that they can enjoy being just the two of them for a while before adding children. I can tell you that she was much relieved and thought it especially touching of him. So never fear. If they have been enjoying themselves before their vows, no one will be the wiser.”

But he knew. He knew bloody well too much now. “Bars,” he murmured. “Bars on the windows and guards outside her door. Maybe I’ll even chain her to the bedpost.”

Helaine laughed, the sweet sound cutting through his ill humor like a light through the fog. “And then unchain her the moment her eyes tear up. She has told me, you know, that all she has to do to bend you to her will is to cry. Just one tear, and you melt like butter.”

“The devil she did.”

“She did. And I believe her. Now sit down, drink your brandy, and stop yelling. It will wake your mother and she has had a full day.”

His mind was immediately distracted from how his sister bragged about manipulating him. “My mother? Is she ill?”

“No, no. But she has been up all day without her nap, helping with the dress designs and the like. Edward’s relations are certainly overpowering, but they seem to be exactly what she needs right now.”

“Truly?” he mused. “Perhaps I should have been more forceful with her over the years.”

Helaine snorted. “No, Robert. Your type of forcefulness and a woman’s type are two different things. I believe she just needed a woman’s hand.”

He frowned. “But what is the difference between the two?”

Her head tilted as she looked at him. “Can you not see it? Truly?”

He shook his head, finding his ill humor returning. “I would not have asked if I already knew.”

She dipped her head. “Of course, my lord. My apology—”

“Just say it, Helaine. Pray do not go stiff after all this time.”

She paused a moment to study his face. He kept his
expression neutral, almost bland. But he was keenly interested in her thoughts and so he waited in stillness for her perspective. In time, she realized he was being honest and answered. “You wanted your mother to get out of bed because you and your siblings needed a mother, your father needed a wife, and the household needed a mistress. The more forceful you might be with your needs, the more she would withdraw into her bedroom.”

“But we did need her.”

She sighed. “Yes, I know.” She stepped forward and lightly placed her hand on his arm. “Robert, I am terribly sorry that she failed you. You deserved a mother who could help you against your father, against all the tasks that were thrust too young on your shoulders.”

“But these other women, Edward’s relations. What have they done to help her?”

“They want her to be happy, Robert. To play with the dresses if she likes, to go on a walk and breathe the fresh air if she desires. They look to what she wants and take all of the burden on themselves. Truly, your mother did nothing all day but sit and have people bustle about her showing her things. And we left her alone when she tired, though she never left the room.”

“I want her to be happy, too.” He hated that he sounded so ridiculous. That Helaine thought he had no care for his mother, that he did not wish her to be as joyful as she could possibly be. “I did everything I could for her.”

He saw understanding light in her eyes. “Of course you did, Robert. Of course you
do.
But you are her son. If you are forceful with her, then she feels burdened by your needs. If you ignore her, she feels guilty for her lacks. If you beg her to be happy, she tries to do it for you and fails, which makes her feel worse than before.”

“But she does not feel that way with Edward’s family?”

“Of course not. She does not love them like she loves you.”