“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.
Chapter Nine
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.