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Nell had more than justified Helena's risky choice of a workhouse employee. Not only was the girl as wonderfully clever a seamstress as she'd claimed, she possessed an innate sense of style that marched with Helena's own tastes, allowing her to
suggest adding touches that enhanced the simple beauty of the gowns. Willing to work at whatever Helena set her, modest, quiet and unassuming, she had settled into the Darnell household without stirring a ripple of dissent. Even Aunt Lillian had pronounced herself impressed by Nell's competence.
With her careful ear and observant eye, Nell also reported to Helena the news about town and within the servants' quarters, giving Helena a welcome source of information about the outside world since, not wishing to chance being discovered, Helena had not again ventured out.
Though, she concluded as she poured herself a glass of wine, after three weeks of enforced inactivity, she would almost be willing to join the Christians in the ring at the Roman circus just to escape the house.
Her new employee's most valuable attribute, though, was her willingness to answer any questions that occurred to Helena's active mind without becoming distressed, embarrassed or offended.
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Of necessity, Helena had been obligated to reveal to Nell something of her past. In turn, Nell told Helena about a soldier's vagabond life and the deep affection that bound his family together, even when separated by distance and time. The two had formed a bond much stronger than that normally found between a lady of the ton and her maid.
Glancing at the splendidly polished copper fender by the hearth before her, Helena had to sigh. Sergeant Hastings' son Dickon had not found his place within the Darnell household with nearly the ease of his sister. Indeed, it seemed for a while that
Molly's dark predictions about Nell's brother were going to come true.
Initially thinking to use the boy as a tiger when she drove out, Helena had sent him to the head groom. But since she'd not as yet been able to acquire her horses or carriage, the boy had little to occupy him. He'd quickly succeeded in committing a variety of transgressions, from converting a purloined leather saddle girth into a slingshot to pepper the laundry maids with pebbles to attempting to teach the pot boy to gamble using buttons he'd stolen from the wash. The harried grooms soon washed their hands of him, prompting Harrison to quietly advise Helena that something else must be found to occupy the boy or he would have to be sent away.
Summoning the lad after his latest transgression— and doubtless after he'd received a blistering scold from his sister—
she'd taken advantage of his penitent state to exact Dickon's promise to behave himself and work diligently if she found him some other suitable task.
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Helena had then used every ploy she could devise to persuade Harrison to take the boy on as a sort of apprentice footman. Only her assurance that she would not contest the child's banishment if he abused his position—and her avowal that Dickon was awed by the prospect of being tutored by so eminent a personage as Harrison himself—finally induced him to agree.
In the two weeks since, the boy had certainly lived up to his promise. The brass on every door handle and knocker was as shiny as mirrors, while the iron grates and hearth utensils gleamed with a fresh coating of oil. Harrison was so impressed with Dickon's efforts that he'd allowed the boy, under his supervision, to begin polishing the silver.
Of course, Helena thought with a smile, the fact that Dickon followed Harrison about, hanging on his every word and, despite Harrison's outward protest but obvious gratification, saluting him every time the butler gave him an order, hadn't hurt his cause.
When Lord Darnell entertained the family of his new fiancée—
who, Nell had confided, were said to be very high in the instep—
his home would shine from entry hall to attics.
The dinner at which, to reflect credit on the two ladies she had come to love so dearly, Helena was de termined to be on her most careful behavior.
The blaze of candles adding to the fire's warmth, Helena set down her wine with a contented sigh and snuggled back against the silk pillows with which she'd strewn the couch. Enjoying the sensual glide of the fur-lined satin over her silk gown, she settled the robe over her lap and opened her book.
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Several hours later the muffled thump of the front door closing echoed through the silent house, pulling her from her reading. It was followed by the sound of bootsteps ascending the stairs in an unsteady rhythm.
Probably Lord Darnell, she thought. From the sound of his uneven footsteps, he must have left his revels well in his cups.
Which the staff had predicted, Nell had told her tonight when she brought Helena's night rail. Agog with chatter about the rich lordling's daughter their master was to wed, all had agreed that the master would celebrate heartily as, Harrison had observed, was only fitting for a gentleman who had Done his Duty to his Name to Marry Well and Save his Estate. Since appar ently, Nell further confided, the Darnell family had been nearly under the hatches.
Surmising that meant the Darnell finances were at a low ebb, a fact of which she'd previously been unaware, Helena understood a little better why Lord Darnell had suddenly decided on matrimony. It also made Helena very glad she was paying her own expenses and had insisted on sharing the dressmaker's bounty with Charis and Aunt Lillian.
Expecting Lord Darnell to continue his unsteady progress up to his chamber, Helena went back to her book. Not until the candles on the table beside her flickered in the sudden breeze from the open door did she realize that the footsteps had continued, not up the stairs, but to the library—where Lord Darnell now stood on the threshold, staring at her.
CHAPTER 10
Some five minutes earlier Bennett Dixon had pushed an unsteady Adam Darnell out of a hackney. "Splendid party," Adam said as Dix half-guided, half-hauled him up the town house entry stairs. "Immensely gratified, old friend."
Dix chuckled as he braced Adam against the front door. "I doubt you'll thank me come morning. I expect you'll have the devil of a headache—a fit beginning to your new life under the cat's paw."
Adam shrugged. "You're just jealous of my charm. 'Tis good to know one has successfully concluded so important an endeavor."
"Growing up with parents who could scarce stand to be in the same room, I may have a jaundiced view of the married state,"
Dix admitted. "And, Lord bless you, you did make short work of fulfilling your duty. Would that Heaven might provide you some suitable reward! However, I shall be even prouder if I manage to
get you to your chamber without us both falling down the stairs."
"No need, Dix," Adam replied, waving off his friend. "I can proceed from here. If you'd tasted some 128 THE UNTAMED HEIRESS
of the brew we drank in Portugal, you'd not worry over me after a few bottles of excellent port. I bid you good night—or morning," he concluded, offering Dix a salute that was only slightly off the mark.
"As you wish," Dix said. "Just be careful not to let that new ball and chain trip you on your way upstairs!"
Weaving a little, Adam made it through the front door, shucki ng his greatcoat as he walked, then up the first flight, banging his shins into the balustrade only once. Congratulating himself on that feat, he was about to tackle the second flight when a glowing half moon of light emanating from under the library door caught his attention.
Had someone left candles burning? The realization that such negligence might lead to the catastrophe of a fire cleared some of the alcohol fumes from his brain. Removing his foot from the first step, Adam turned and headed down the hall to open the library door.
The rush of heat that greeted him made his pulse leap in panic until his eyes registered that, though the fire roared lustily, it was fully contained in the hearth.
His heartbeat had just started to slow when he saw the girl reclining on the sofa. Her hair, a shining fall of blue-black alive
with dancing copper highlights, framed her face and cascaded over her shoulders where she lay propped upon a profusion of pillows. A white silk night rail outlined her form from the collar high on the graceful curve of her neck down over the round of her shoulders and even fuller swell of her breasts before disappearing beneath the robe of emerald satin spread over her lap.
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After a moment spent staring at the rise and fall of those perfect breasts, his stupefied gaze rose again to the oval of her face, the skin almost as pale as the silk of her gown. The vaguest hint of recognition formed in his brain as he completed his inspection of the high cheekbones tinged with a hint of a blush, the narrow nose, the pert mouth whose full lower Up begged to be nibbled. Had he seen her gracing someone's opera box?
Her large, black-fringed dark eyes regarding him in return, the Vision smiled. "Welcome home, Lord Darnell," she said, the low-pitched, throaty murmur of her voice as arousing as the rest of her.
For a moment, disoriented, he cast a startled look about. But, yes, that was his desk in the corner, Papa's portrait as a young man hanging above the hearth, his sofa before the fire upon which the young woman reclined. However she happened to get here, this exotic beauty was definitely addressing him in his own library.
And had said library not already been as warm as a summer noon in Portugal, he would still have felt the heat now popping out in beads of sweat at his forehead, rushing through his body, pooling low and turgid in his loins. Struggling to prompt his dazzled brain to function, he wondered how this rare beauty had ended up in his library.
