Winning Lord West (10 page)

“He stayed with Helena last year in London,
when he’d just come back from New South Wales. He’s frightfully
handsome and gallant and naval.”

“Oh, I’m sure he sets hearts fluttering.”

Helena smiled. “Ladies are swooning between
here and Sydney, and every port in between.”

“I hope this weather doesn’t worsen before
the wedding,” Fen said as the butler brought in a laden tray.
“Travel’s so difficult if there’s heavy snow.”

“All the Nashes are punishing riders,” Caro
said, as Fen rose to serve the tea. “Silas’s sisters would push
through a blizzard to be here.”

It was true. The Nashes had big brains and
famous stables. As Helena sipped a fresh cup of tea, she’d gathered
enough composure to ask after West without sounding like a complete
nitwit. “Where are the gentlemen?”

“Silas’s horse was favoring its right foreleg
this morning,” Caro said, setting her cup into its saucer. “They’re
in the stables seeing to the problem.”

“Silas and West are. Anthony’s just gone
along for show,” Fen said serenely, wandering back to her couch
with a full cup. “The poor darling doesn’t know one end of a horse
from another.”

“But he could out-sail the other two with his
hands tied behind his back,” Helena said. In recent weeks, she’d
become very fond of Anthony Townsend. She admired both his acumen
and his lack of artifice. And his devotion to Fenella, who had
emerged from long grief to find happiness with him.

“I’m sure a prime whip like Fen appreciates a
man who lets her take the reins,” Caro said. “If she married an
arrogant brute like West, he’d never let her drive.”

“He’s not an arrogant brute,” Helena said,
then dipped her head in mortification.

A resonant silence fell.

“You’ve changed your tune.” Caro cast her a
quizzical glance. “He’s always set your back up. I’ve never been
sure why. I think he’s utterly charming.”

So charming that before she fell in love with
Silas, Caro had considered taking West as a lover.
With an audible clink, Helena returned her
cup to its saucer.
She knew she was absurd—Caro was mad
about Silas—but the idea of West kissing her friend made Helena
want to shoot her.

Telling herself to settle down, she affected
an airy tone. “He’s back from Russia with some of the stuffing
knocked out of him. As a result, he’s more bearable than
usual.”

Bravo.
That was much more like her.

“I’m worried about this fever,” Fen said,
sipping her tea with a thoughtful frown. “Anthony says he’s seen
agues like this in the East, and they can recur for years.”

“This sounds a very odd diplomatic mission,”
Caro said. “Away for months, and traipsing all over Russia.”

“Anthony says Russia’s a strange place,” Fen
said.

“And of course if Anthony says it, it must be
true,” Helena said slyly.

When Fen blushed, she looked like a pretty
sixteen-year-old. “I’m sorry. I must sound addled. Love turns the
brain to custard.”

Lust had a similar effect, Helena could now
confirm.

“So true,” Caro said. “The other day, I was
walking in the woods, and I started thinking about Silas. I got
completely lost.”

The reminiscent light in Caro’s eyes hinted
there was more to the story. Since they’d found love, Helena had
noted the changes in her friends. But today she was hypersensitive
to the female satisfaction pervading the room.

“It’s a large estate,” Helena said.

“I got as far as the Grecian temple before
Silas found me.”

Ideal for a private rendezvous. When she’d
been a giddy girl, Helena and West had often met there.

“We’re hardly Dashing Widows anymore,”
Fenella said with a smile. “Perhaps we should rechristen ourselves
the dreamy ladies.”

Helena expected someone to mention the one
unattached Dashing Widow, but Caro started to describe her
forthcoming voyage to China instead. Helen let the chatter wash
over her, while she wallowed in wanton memories.

Last night, West had answered so many of her
questions.

Was she unnatural? Not with the right
lover.

What fueled the light in her friends’ eyes?
She now had a fair idea.

Tonight West would come to her bed again.
And perhaps this time, he
wouldn’t leave her unsettled, as well as supremely
satisfied
.

Because every answer she’d received had
raised a hundred questions. And all of them disturbed her. How
could a physical act conjure such a profound emotional effect? She
knew it was mere imagination, but when West thrust deep inside her,
she’d felt like they united into a single being.

“Helena?”

She emerged from her reverie to find both
Caro and Fen staring at her.

“Sorry. I wandered off.” She struggled to
sound like her sharp-tongued self, not this moony creature she’d
become. “You can’t blame me. I’ve heard nothing but China and
weddings—and wedding china!—since I arrived.”

Caro smiled. “It must be dull for you, with
Fen and I so preoccupied.”

Did the question hide a sting? After all, she
was still on the shelf—at least as far as her friends knew. How
shocked they’d be to learn what she’d done last night. Shocked, and
quick to interfere.

But Caro’s smile was genuine. “This is our
last chance to be together for a long while.”

Helena picked up her tea and said with
perfect sincerity, “I’m delighted you’re both so happy—and I
heartily approve of your choices. Silas is the best brother in the
world. I look forward to you becoming my sister in fact as well as
in my heart, Caro. And, Fen, I’d never pictured you with a man like
Anthony, but you’re perfect for each other.”

Caro’s regard was mocking. “Oh, dear, I’m not
picking up a single note of irony. Are you sickening for something,
Hel? Perhaps you should go upstairs and lie down.”

Only if West comes, too, she wanted to
say.

She gave a short laugh. “It’s the blasted
atmosphere in this house. Even I can’t help getting mawkish. I
promise everything will return to normal once we’ve packed away the
wedding finery.”

Fen studied her. “Helena, things will change,
that’s inevitable, but our friendship will endure. I hope you’ll be
a regular visitor to the Beeches.”

“Thank you. I plan to come down and inspect
the stables the minute you’re back from your wedding trip.” The
Townsends were setting up home with Fenella’s son and Anthony’s
ward at a magnificent estate outside Winchester.

Fenella stepped straight into the heart of a
family. Helena suffered a pang of envy, before forcibly reminding
herself that she preferred the freedom to make her own choices.

Caro looked out the window. “Speaking of
stables, our menfolk are marching across the lawn in our
direction.”

Helena had last seen West when he’d
reluctantly crawled out of her bed before dawn. Now at his
approach, her silly heart leaped about with excitement like a dog
before a walk.

With a brilliant smile, Caro rose to open the
door onto the terrace. “Come inside, out of the cold.”

As he stepped in, Silas gave her a brief
kiss. Anthony crossed to sit beside Fenella and sling one powerful
arm around her. West entered more slowly, closing the door behind
him. His eyes arrowed in on Helena, before he made a great show of
turning to Caro. “The horse just needs rest, in my opinion.”

Helena slid her cup and saucer onto the table
so that their rattle didn’t betray her reaction to West’s arrival.
She hadn’t felt like this since she was a young girl, infatuated
with her handsome neighbor.

Her neighbor was still handsome. Seeing him,
her heart slammed to a stop, then began to beat hard and fast.

Luckily nobody paid her a shred of attention.
She had a horrible feeling that if they did, they’d know precisely
what she and West had been up to all night.

Silas was talking about his lame horse, but
he may as well have been speaking Greek. Although if he’d spoken
Greek, Helena might have made an effort to concentrate—like all the
Nash offspring, she’d had a good classical education. But her
friends’ voices turned into mere background as her eyes devoured
West, leaning with louche elegance against the doorframe.

She knew exactly how that tall, rangy form
looked unclothed. Those long, capable fingers had been inside her
body. That ruthless mouth had tasted her sex and licked her into
writhing ecstasy.

Heat flared in the pit of her stomach. She
wanted him now. Right this minute.

His shoulders tensed, as if he knew what she
was thinking. After one smoldering glance, he concentrated with
unconvincing interest on Silas.

Helena curled her fingernails into her palms
until the sting forced her back to reality. What she and West had
unleashed last night threatened to break free of all
constraint.

Again West left Helena before dawn. The urge
to cling to him, and let scandal go hang nearly overpowered what
little remained of her good sense. The bed felt very lonely and
cold once he’d gone.

She slept late and awoke to a sweet smell.
Her eyes opened to see a pink lily on her pillow—the exotic perfume
combined with West’s lingering, musky scent.

Gently she touched the petals, her mind full
of the night’s pleasures. After he left her, West must have raided
Silas’s extravagant greenhouses. As befitted one of the nation’s
premier botanists, Silas had massive heated conservatories attached
to the house. Convenient when one planned a wedding in
February.

Helena held the lily to her nose and rolled
over to find a sealed note propped on her nightstand. After the
flood of correspondence from Russia, she recognized the slashing
writing.

She pushed herself up on the pillows and
reached for the letter. Idly she turned it over and over in her
hands, until she realized she was smiling down at it like a
sapskull. As if this was a love note.

Damn this house. The atmosphere of romance
triumphant was irresistible.

Still, her heart skipped as she slid her
thumbnail under the seal and unfolded the thick creamy sheet of
paper.

My darling…

Blindly she glanced away. The endearment
shouldn’t be so powerful. After those letters from Russia, she’d
decided West used words like sweetheart and darling without meaning
anything much by them.

Neither of them pretended that this affair
involved love. Pleasure certainly. And she was grateful that they’d
moved beyond past bitterness to re-establish their friendship.
She’d forgotten how she enjoyed his humor, and the way he wouldn’t
back down from her.

If he was here, she’d scold him for putting a
romantic gloss on an unromantic union. But still when he called her
his darling, her blood turned to syrup. She hoped to heaven she
wasn’t going to end up going silly over West.

That would be the last straw.

The first two words of his note had her in
such a spin that she’d failed to read the rest. Skating her eyes
across “darling,” she went on.

Meet me at the Greek temple at 12. Don’t
worry about the others. They think I’ve invited you to Shelton
Abbey to see my stables.

Yours in sensual anticipation.

West

***

Helena rode Artemis through the bare woods,
toward the isolated summerhouse her father had built after his
marriage. A happy marriage that had endured until her parents’
death in a carriage accident near Pompeii three years ago. The
Nashes made a habit of happy marriages. Her two oldest sisters
enjoyed blissful domesticity in York and Edinburgh. Helena couldn’t
doubt how well Caro and Silas suited each other.

Her disastrous union with Crewe had been the
exception to the rule.

After two nights in West’s arms, the memory
of her pig of a husband didn’t bring the usual churning stomach.
Right now, life was too promising for her to dwell on old
failures.

The forest was breathlessly still as Helena
approached the pretty little folly. The only sound was the crunch
of Artemis’s neat hooves on the leaf litter. Above them, a watery
sun shone in a streaky sky. The late winter day carried the promise
of spring.

Or perhaps, despite her best efforts to keep
a cool head, Helena wasn’t immune to the thrill of sneaking away to
meet a handsome lover.

Through the trees, the lake glistened. With
sudden vigor, she set her heels to Artemis’s sides. The mare broke
into a springing canter.

Helena supposed now West was back in England,
she’d have to return the horse. Which would break her heart. Unless
she could budge him on selling Artemis. And long acquaintance told
her that when he made up his mind, nothing shifted him.

West stood on the graceful flight of marble
steps, watching her ride up. She shivered at his intense
concentration on her. Once she’d found it unnerving. Not now when
she knew where that interest led.

Predatory intent filled his smile. “I wish I
could paint.”

Helena drew Artemis to a halt. “Oh, no, not
today, my fine fellow. I have other plans for you. And none of them
involve standing several feet away with a brush in your hand.”

He ran lightly down the steps. He looked
well, more like the man she remembered, before he fell victim to
that mysterious fever. “Lady Crewe, you put me to the blush.”

“Blush, fine. Brush, no,” she said with a
laugh, as he lifted her from the sidesaddle to the dry winter
grass.

West caught her up for an urgent kiss, then
drew back and cradled her head in his hands, holding her still for
a thorough inspection.

She shifted restlessly under his searching
gaze, not just because that kiss had stirred her blood. “What?”

“How is it that I’ve only been away from you
for a couple of hours, yet I’ve missed you like the very
devil?”