Cold-Hearted Rake (The Ravenels 1)

The employees had left this morning, and Winterborne had spent most of the day either in the parlor or in his bedroom, stubbornly maneuvering on his crutches without assistance, despite the doctor’s instructions not to set weight on his injured leg.

Looking around the doorjamb, Helen saw Winterborne sitting alone in the parlor, in a chair beside a walnut marble-topped table. He had accidentally knocked a stack of papers from the table, and they had settled on the floor around him. Leaning over awkwardly, he tried to retrieve the fallen pages without toppling from the chair.

Concern overcame Helen’s shyness, and she went into the room without a second thought. “Good afternoon, Mr. Winterborne.” She sank to her knees and gathered up the papers.

“Don’t trouble yourself with that,” she heard Winterborne say gruffly.

“No trouble at all.” Still kneeling, she looked up at him uncertainly. Her heart skipped a beat, and another, as she stared into the darkest eyes she had ever seen, a brown so deep it looked black, shadowed by thick lashes and set deep in a complexion of rich umber. His brutal handsomeness unnerved her. He could have been Lucifer himself, sitting there. He was much larger than she’d realized; even the cast on his leg didn’t help to make him seem less formidable.

She handed the papers to him, and their fingers touched briefly. Startled by a shock of awareness, she pulled back quickly. His mouth turned grim, his thick brows drawing together.

Helen rose to her feet. “Is there something I can do to make you more comfortable? Shall I send for tea or refreshments?”

He shook his head. “Quincy will bring a tray soon.”

She wasn’t certain how to reply. It had been easier to talk to him when he had been ill and helpless.

“Mr. Quincy told me that he will be working for you in London. I am glad, for both your sakes, that you’ve given him such an opportunity. He will be an excellent valet.”

“For what I’m paying him,” Winterborne said, “he’d better be the best in England.”

Helen was briefly nonplussed. “I have no doubt he will be,” she ventured.

Meticulously Winterborne neatened the stack of paper. “He wants to start by disposing of my shirts.”

“Your shirts,” Helen repeated, perplexed.

“One of my managers brought some of my clothes from London. Quincy could tell that the shirts were ready-made.” He glanced at her warily, assessing her reaction. “To be accurate,” he continued, “they’re sold half finished, so they can be tailored to the customer’s preference. The quality of the fabric is as high as any bespoke shirt, but Quincy still turns up his nose.”

Helen considered her reply carefully. “A man of Quincy’s profession has an exacting eye when it comes to details.” She probably should have left it at that. The discussion of a man’s clothing was entirely improper, but she felt that she should help him to understand Quincy’s concerns. “It’s more than just the fabric. The stitching is different in a bespoke shirt: The seams are perfectly straight and flat-felled, and the buttonholes are often hand-worked with a keyhole shape at one side to reduce the stress of the button’s shank.” She paused with a smile. “I would elaborate about plackets and cuffs, but I fear you would fall asleep in the chair.”

“I know the value of details. But where shirts are concerned…” He hesitated. “I’ve made a point of wearing the kind that I sell, so that customers know they have the same quality as the store’s owner.”

“That sounds like a clever sales strategy.”

“It is. I sell more shirts than any other store in London. But it didn’t occur to me that the upper class pays close attention to buttonholes.”

It had chafed his pride, she thought, to realize that he had put himself at a disadvantage when mingling with social superiors.

“I’m sure they shouldn’t,” Helen said apologetically. “There are far more important things for them to worry about.”

His gaze turned quizzical. “You speak as if you’re not one of them.”

She smiled slightly. “I’ve lived away from the world for so much of my life, Mr. Winterborne, that I sometimes wonder who I am, or if I belong anywhere.”

Winterborne studied her. “Trenear plans to take you and your sisters to London when you’ve finished mourning.”

Helen nodded. “I haven’t been to town since I was a child. I remember it as a very large and exciting place.” She paused, vaguely surprised that she was confiding in him. “Now I think I might find it… intimidating.”

A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “What happens when you’re intimidated? Run to the nearest corner and hide, do you?”

“I should say not,” she said primly, wondering if she were being teased. “I do what has to be done, no matter what the situation.”

Winterborne’s smile widened until she saw the flash of white teeth against that deep bronze complexion. “I suppose I know that better than most,” he said softly.

Understanding that he was referring to how she had helped him through the fever… and remembering how she had held that black head in the crook of her arm, and bathed his face and neck… Helen felt a blush start. Not the ordinary kind of blush that faded soon after it started. This one kept heating and heating, spreading all through her until she was so uncomfortable that she could scarcely breathe. She made the mistake of glancing into his simmering coffee-black eyes, and she felt positively immolated.

Her desperate gaze settled upon the battered pianoforte in the corner. “Shall I play something for you?” She stood without waiting for a reply. It was the only alternative to bolting from the room. Out of the periphery of her vision, she saw Winterborne automatically grip the arms of his chair in preparation to rise, before he remembered that he was in a leg cast.

“Yes,” she heard him say. “I’d like that.” He maneuvered the chair a few inches so that he could see her profile as she played.

The pianoforte seemed to offer a small measure of protection as she sat at the keyboard and pushed up the hinged fallboard that covered the keys. Taking a slow, calming breath, Helen arranged her skirts, adjusted her posture, and placed her fingertips on the keys. She launched into a piece she knew by memory: the allegro from Handel’s Piano Suite in F Major. It was full of life and complexity, and challenging enough to force her to think about something besides blushing. Her fingers danced in a blur over the keys, the exuberant pace unfaltering for two and a half minutes. When she finished, she looked at Winterborne, hoping he had liked it.