“Perhaps your father will know what to make of it.” Again, he moved to block her. “No doubt he will be eager to hear about what his guests have been up to.”
Her eyes widened. “No! I mean…” Desperate now, she pouted and fluttered her eyelashes. “There is no need for that. It will only upset my father, and he has enough on his plate as it is. Please, Your Grace…”
In a moment of pure desperation, she reached out and touched his arm.
She thought that she had him. The Duke looked at her hand, and his expression softened, almost seemed resigned. He nodded his head, and she breathed a sigh of relief, her heart fluttering but working to calm herself.
“Perhaps you are correct,” he said. “I would hate to burden your father with… whatever this was.”
“Thank you.”
“Having said that…” The grin returned to his handsome face, and her stomach flipped. “As it stands, it does not take a genius to figure these things out, does it? Even a simpleton might be able to piece together the little scene I’ve stumbled upon.”
“I…” She dropped her hand. “I was lost, that’s all.”
“In your own home?”
“Mr. Ramsay, I mean. He was lost. I found him and… and…” She was losing it.
Ordinarily, Helena was an expert liar, a skill developed over years of having to hide her secret. But she was finding it rather hard to concentrate.
She was not one to become undone by a handsome face. She did not fawn over charming gentlemen. She did not give in to compliments and delusions of romance. She had better things to do than that!
But there was something different about the Duke. Something… unescapable. He had a commanding presence. This was her home, but he acted as if she were the intruder, and the cocky grin he refused to let drop frustrated her just as much as it undid her ordinarily steely control.
“Lost? Or was he waiting to meet you?” he asked simply.
Her eyes widened again. “What… Why would he be—I only just met him!”
The Duke’s eyes flicked to the table, on which sat her manuscript. “I am more than aware of Mr. Ramsay’s profession,” he explained. “Just as I am beginning to suspect…” He leaned past her and glanced closer at the manuscript. “That Henry Monroe is not who Mr. Ramsay was expecting to meet here this evening.” He was back on her, the look on his face suggesting that he was rather pleased with himself. “Now, why don’t you tell me what really happened? The truth might be a nice place to start.”
Helena’s mind tripped and stumbled and fell as she searched desperately for a way out of this mess. A lie. An exaggeration. Something! Whatever she could say to convince the Duke that he had not stumbled upon her secret.
But she knew that it was no good. He had figured her out, and she got the keen sense that once again she had walked right into a trap from which there would be no escape.
Thus, she fell upon the last resort: begging.
“Please don’t tell my father!” she cried, this time grabbing his arm with both her hands. “Please, he cannot know. He must not know! If the ton finds out what I have done, it will… it will embarrass him. It might very well ruin his reputation.”
“That you have written a manuscript, you mean?” he asked simply. “And you were meeting with Mr. Ramsay to have it published.”
She winced and looked away. “Yes…”
“And Mr. Ramsay, sensing an opportunity, thought to take advantage of you.”
“I believe he was.”
“And had I not come here…” He clicked his tongue as if in disappointment. “Let us just say that it is a good thing I intervened when I did.”
She frowned, but was still bowing her head. “I suppose so…”
“So, all that is to say, your gratitude was well earned. Well deserved, in fact.”
Helena jerked her head up, her brow tightening and confusion sweeping over her to see the devilishly delighted grin on his face.
What on earth is he playing at?
“I guess it was,” she said carefully. “Thank you again.”
