Tempting the Bride Read online

  She pressed a palm to the side of her head, the fingers of her other hand tapping restlessly against Andrew’s last letter to her. She’d gone over it countless times, but, inveterate reader that she was, she could not help scanning the words that had been set down before her.

  My Dearest,

  I am relieved to learn that you have returned safe and sound from America. I have missed you desperately during the long weeks of your absence. I need not tell you how delighted I am to receive your note requesting a meeting, and I need not tell you how dearly I’d like to see you.

  But I’ve been giving the matter much thought. As wondrously euphoric as I’ve been of late, and as honored as I am by the bestowal of your affections, I cannot forget that every moment of our stolen joy comes at terrifying peril to you.

  It is my fault, of course. I should never have allowed myself to be swayed by the idea of my own happiness. It was the utmost selfishness on my part to not understand sooner that I am keeping you from pursuing your own life, a life that can be lived in the open, that need never cower for fear of discovery.

  It had taken her ages to gradually convince Andrew that her desires were worth something. That if she wished to lie with him in a state of near intimacy, she was old enough to make that choice with full understanding of the possible consequences.

  But with one quick reminder from Fitz, Andrew’s thinking had tipped back the other way. He’d dutifully stopped seeing her, even in her capacity as his publisher. And his letters, too, had ceased altogether. Except for one chance encounter at a rail station some time ago, she had not seen him since before she left for America in January.

  Such useless conventions society clung to, valuing a marriage that was essentially a transaction of property above the truths of the heart, and judging her on her possession of a hymen rather than her actions and character. Even her own family—her brother and sister, who’d let her make her own choices most of her life—had proved unyielding on this particular point.

  But it is still not too late for you. You are kind, charming, and beautiful. I wish you all the blessings my heart can carry, and I shall remain

  Your faithful and devoted friend

  It was too late for her; couldn’t he see? It had been too late since the very first. And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t taken a good, hard look at the gentlemen available to her. But she’d yet to meet one with whom the thought of spending the rest of her life was remotely tolerable.

  She would not accept that this was the end. Taking advantage of a moment of privacy—even if they were standing on a rail platform full of travelers—she’d made an im-passioned plea that reputation was not the only thing that mattered. That her happiness, too, counted for something. And that he, of all people, ought to have a care for her happiness.

  His resolution had seemed to waver at the end of her entreaty. It was possible that ever since then he’d been reconsidering his decision. If only she could know the thoughts that coursed through his mind this very moment.

  A stiff breeze blew and nearly made off with Andrew’s letter. She caught it, stowed it in the locked drawer where she kept all his letters, tossed out the pot of tea Miss Boyle insisted on making for her every day, and went to the window. The crowd below still hadn’t eased, hundreds of carriages crawling along like a parade of snails. The sky had become even darker. The coachmen were shrugging into their mackintoshes; the pedestrians, heads bowed, picked up their pace.

  One particular pedestrian caught her eye. The angle of his hat, the width of his shoulders, the cadence of his gait…She must be imagining things. Hastings would not walk about Fleet Street at this hour of the day; he was far more likely to be mid-tryst with his lady du jour.

  An all too vivid image came to mind: Hastings pressing an anonymous woman against a wall, one hand on her hip, the other at her nape, kissing her—no, devouring her with his lips and tongue. The woman was no less indecent in her lust, her fingers clutching his hair, her body writhing, whimpers and moans of all descriptions escaping her throat.

  Helena slammed the window shut, jarring her arms.

  Though he was her brother’s best friend, Helena had paid him little mind: Hastings was the wasp at a picnic, or the occasional fly that fell into one’s soup—irksome when he was around, but hardly a preoccupation when he wasn’t.

  Until, that was, six months ago, when he’d demanded the kiss in exchange for his fraudulent silence. She still managed to mostly not think of him, but when she did, her thoughts flew in unruly directions.

  She returned to her desk and opened the bottom drawer again, intending to read a few more of Andrew’s old letters to drown out the part of her mind that persisted in imagining Hastings at his illicit rendezvous. Instead, from the same drawer she pulled out quite something else: a manuscript that Hastings had sent her not long ago.

  An erotic manuscript titled The Bride of Larkspear, in which the titular bride existed in a state of literal bondage, trussed to her husband’s bed.

  The raspberries have been picked only hours earlier. They are tiny yet plump, a lovely deep red. I rub one against her lips.

  “What is this?”

  “Something delicious and succulent.” I speak easier when I do not need to look into her eyes, when the blindfold replaces the scorn in them with a strip of black silk. “Like you.”

  She opens her mouth and takes the raspberry. I watch her as she chews, then swallows. A tiny smear of raspberry juice remains on her lower lip. I lick it, tasting the tart sweetness.

  “Would you like another?”

  “Why such tenderness?” she demands archly. “I am already naked, fettered, and blindfolded. Go ahead. Have your way with me.”

  How I would love to descend upon her like a pack of wolves. My body is certainly primed, my cock hot and hard, my muscles straining against my own urges.

  “No,” I reply. “I am going to play with you a little longer.”

  There was an illustration of the naked bride at the bottom of the page. The view was from the side. Her face was obscured by one of the thick bedposts, but her breasts were taut, her legs endless. Helena’s gaze, however, was drawn to her feet, one arched and flexed, the toes of the other pressing hard into the sheets, as if in silent arousal.

  Her own toes were digging into the soles of her boots. The moment she realized it, she picked up the manuscript, jammed it back into the drawer, and turned the key in the lock.

  She really ought to burn it. Or, failing that, read the whole thing and send him a politely snide letter of rejection. But she could no more consign the pages to the fireplace than she could read more than a few paragraphs at a time.

  That, perhaps, was the true reason she was angry at him: He’d broken through a formerly invisible barrier and forced this awareness upon her—this awareness of him as a man.

  And she did not want it. She wanted him relegated back to the periphery of her existence, there to stay for the remainder of his natural life. To never again be a cause of irregular heartbeats and agitated breathing.

  It was a while before she could resume working.

  Hastings did not head home directly, but stopped by his club. The Season was drawing to a close, and the club was sparsely attended. Soon Society would repair to the seashore or to the country. He might see some more of Helena when Fitz and his wife held their annual shooting party in August. But after that, there was a long stretch until Christmas during which there would be no doors of hers for him to stare at.

  “My lord, a telegram for you,” said one of the club’s footmen. “Your staff thought you’d like to have it.”

  “Thank you,” he said, taking the cable.

  It was from Millie, Fitz’s wife, informing him that she and her husband would be taking a short holiday in the Lake District. The news pleased Hastings: Fitz and Millie had had such a long road to happiness and deserved to wallow in their newfound joy.

  He almost missed the postscript at the very bottom of the cable.

  Up
on reflection, dear Hastings, I realize I should have disclosed my true sentiments years ago. And, if I may be so forward, so should have you.

  He should have, of course. A more rational, less proud man would consider the prize at the end, swallow his humiliation, and proceed apace to woo his beloved. Hastings was not that man. In every other regard he was quite reasonable, but when it came to Helena Fitzhugh, so futile was his approach he might as well have built a temple to the rain god in the middle of the Sahara Desert.

  He certainly prayed a good deal for her to miraculously change her mind, to wake up one day, look at him with completely different eyes, and see him as he wished to be seen.

  “Something the matter?”

  He looked up. The speaker was Bernard Monteth, a thin man with prematurely grey hair. They’d belonged to the same clubs for years, but it was only in the past six months that Hastings had cultivated a greater acquaintance with Monteth: Monteth’s wife was Mrs. Andrew Martin’s sister.

  Hastings raised a brow. “Speaking to me, good sir?”

  “You seem to be brooding.”

  “Brooding? Me? I was but imagining the pleasures that await me tonight. Must make hay while the sun yet shines, you see, before it is off to the country to rusticate.”

  Monteth sighed. “You have my envy, Hastings—make hay while the sun yet shines indeed. Don’t marry too soon like the lot of us.”

  “I’ll make sure not to mention our conversation to Mrs. Monteth,” Hastings said lightly. “How is the missus, by the way?”

  “Always up to something, that woman,” grumbled Monteth.

  “I hope she isn’t conspiring against you?”

  “Not me, thankfully—not yet, at least. But the wife is always conspiring against somebody.”

  It was not an exaggeration. Mrs. Monteth was not so much a gossip as a self-appointed guardian of virtue and righteousness. She spied on the servants, opened random doors at country house parties—for which reason she was seldom invited anywhere these days—and did just about everything in her power to expose and punish the private moral failings of those around her.

  “So whom is the missus going after this week?”

  “Don’t know,” grumbled Monteth. “But she’s been spending an awful lot of time with her sister.”

  Hastings felt an odd tingle in his spine. “Could she have something on Mr. Martin?”

  Monteth shook his head. “That man sits in a room with his books and his typewriter and never comes out. The missus wouldn’t waste her time on him.”

  If Monteth only knew.

  “No,” continued Monteth. “Martin doesn’t have the stones to overstep the bounds.”

  Martin had done it once. He could most certainly do it again, his promise to Fitz notwithstanding.

  “Well,” said Hastings. “Keep me abreast of the missus’s intrigues, will you? Nothing I love more than a good old-fashioned scandal.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Work had become Helena’s refuge, solid stretches of time during which she could forget that she’d become a prisoner in her own life. A particular source of solace of late had been Tales from Old Toad Pond, a collection of children’s books, the rights to which she’d acquired earlier in the year.

  The books depicted the escapades of a pair of ducklings and their friends around a seemingly placid pond that nevertheless offered all the adventures any young heart could desire—or handle, as foxes came sniffing in spring, crocodiles arrived to escape the heat of Egypt in summer, and silly little bunnies sometimes set their houses on fire while toasting carrots during the equinox celebrations.

  Helena planned to publish one story a month for twelve months, beginning in September, and then a handsome boxed collection for the following Christmas, to be followed by a single volume containing all the previously published stories, plus a pair of new ones to make for a lucky fourteen in total.

  She’d never met Miss Evangeline South, the author of the tales, but found the woman easy to work with. The tales hadn’t originally been intended to be a round-the-year series, and Helena had asked for a number of modifications. The changes completed thus far had been made quickly, and very much to Helena’s satisfaction.

  She toyed with the idea of hiring a calligrapher to render the text of the books, which would increase her initial cost of production, but which—

  A knock came at her door.

  “Yes?”

  Miss Boyle, her secretary, poked in her head. “Miss, Lord Hastings to see you.”

  Helena’s chair scraped rather audibly.

  Hastings occasionally came to fetch her at Fitz’s behest, but Fitz and Millie were not in London—they were on their way to the Lake District, in fact.

  “You may show him in, but warn him I have only a few minutes to spare.”

  “Yes, miss.”

  Helena took a quick look at herself in the small mirror on the wall. She was in her usual white shirtwaist, an antique cameo brooch at her throat. Her sister, Venetia, two years older than she, was the Great Beauty of their generation. Helena was often grateful that she hadn’t been burdened with Venetia’s stunning looks, which made most men and quite a number of women incapable of seeing Venetia beyond her face.

  Today, however, she wished she were as staggeringly beautiful as Venetia. She would have enjoyed flaunting all that gorgeousness before Hastings, and rendering him agape at what he could not have.

  Hastings walked in with the smile of the Cheshire cat and the gait of a Siberian tiger, a big man who moved surely but lightly, always on the prowl.

  Helena gritted her teeth—she could swear she’d never noticed his gait before the beginning of this year.

  He sat down. “Miss Fitzhugh, how glad I am that you can spare five minutes to see me.”

  “I’d offer you a seat, but I see you’ve already taken one,” she said by way of greeting.

  “Shall I bring some tea?” Miss Boyle asked eagerly.

  “Lord Hastings is busier than you and I combined, Miss Boyle. I’m sure he won’t stay long enough for water to boil.”

  “Indeed, I shall stay only long enough for Miss Fitzhugh’s blood to boil.” Hastings smirked. “But thank you for the lovely offer, Miss Boyle.”

  “Of course, my lord,” answered Miss Boyle, flushing with pleasure.

  “Don’t do that,” Helena said sharply, once Miss Boyle had closed the door behind her.

  “Do what?”

  “Flirt with my secretary.”

  “Why not? She enjoys it, as do I.”

  “And what happens when she falls in love with you?”

  He smiled. “My dear Miss Fitzhugh, you attribute such powers to me. I can only imagine you must find me difficult to resist.”

  “And yet my resistance remains intact, after all these years.”

  “A mere husk—the faintest gust will blow it away. But truly, you need not fear for Miss Boyle. She has a promising young man who works in the city and waits for her outside each afternoon to walk her to her lodging. They have even met twice on Sundays to picnic in the country.”

  “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  “And why should she mention such distractions to her employer? Do you speak to her of your love affairs?”

  “Then why should she tell you?”

  “I take an interest. She does find my attention flattering, but she is quite sensible, that young lady, and not about to let my lovely plumage turn her head.”

  Lovely plumage. “You flatter yourself a great deal.”

  “I learned the trick from Lord Vere. It makes my listener’s blood boil faster.”

  He had a good voice—his words emerged like notes on an arpeggio. Had she never noticed it before?

  She was beginning to be thoroughly annoyed with herself. Leaning back in her chair, she made her voice cold and impatient. “Why are you here?”

  “Because I am a good and loyal friend and I am worried about you.”

  She snickered. “I am touched, Hastings. Te
ll me, is the way I’m not filling out my bodice bothering you again? And are my Amazonian footprints cracking London’s streets?”

  “It’s about Mr. Martin.”

  “I’ve already heard a number of warnings from you on that front, Hastings,” she said dismissively.

  “But you have not heeded any of them.”

  “Which is no one’s fault but your own.”

  He looked down a moment before raising his eyes again—had he always had eyes that particular depth of blue? “Would you take me more seriously if I promise never to try for another kiss from you?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Your promise not to kiss me will translate into attempts to grope me instead, from what I know of the caliber of your promises.”

  “What if I promise never again to come within three feet of you?”

  Something in the timbre of his voice gave her pause. Was this what sincerity on Hastings’s part sounded like? She dismissed the thought out of hand. “Then no doubt you will demand that I disrobe and tie myself to a bedpost—as you’ve described in your smutty novel—while you watch from three feet away and do whatever disgusting things men do in such situations.”

  “You do put such ideas in my head,” he murmured.

  Now, this mocking tone was far more familiar. Not that she fared much better against it—inside her stockings, her toes clenched again. “You manufacture such ideas by the gross without any help from me.”

  He sighed exaggeratedly. “I see it is futile for me to offer any promises.”

  “Utterly pointless.”

  He rose. “Sometimes you must disregard the messenger and consider only the message—or have you forgotten that I was exactly right about Billy Carstairs? Mrs. Monteth is on the loose, and you will be foolish to ignore the lengths to which she is willing to go to unmask what she considers wrongdoing.”

  Mrs. Monteth was Andrew’s wife’s sister, a guardian of virtue in her own eyes. Her idea of virtue consisted largely—one might say entirely—of chastity. She lived to expose maids who had granted too much liberty to their fellows, or young ladies who might have been indiscreet with someone who was not an approved suitor.