AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He marveled at the compassion in her voice now, but he, for one, felt little for the man. “This is what you meant about deceit. The seducer. Even Robbie, who was supposed to be your friend. Your husband. They hurt you.”
She nodded, her eyes filling with tears. He knew he risked her pulling away, but he had to try—he reached for her. She propelled into his embrace, wrapping her arms around him as tightly as he held her.
“I wish I believed Robbie proposed for my sake. Later, he admitted it was not. He was trying to placate his parents. Cover for his own mistake. I could have forgiven that—but he left me at the mercy of his family. He didn’t wish me ill, but it was a relief for them to have someone to blame for his failings. You have been the peacemaker in your family. I was the scapegoat in his. Now free of it, I don’t know how I bore it. I never will again.”
It’s not that she doesn’t want my child! She was trapped before.
“Where the hell was your brother during all this?”
“Fleeing his own demons. Or running straight into them.”
“I have my flaws, Helen,” he ground out. “You can take issue with the terms of our investment—it would be fair to do so. But I can assure you ofthis. I’d rather die than hurt you or allow anyone else to hurt you.”
After some time, she pulled away, but held his hands in hers. “There’s something else I wish you to know. Aside from that one time before I married, I knew no other man before you.”
Nicholas lifted her hand to his mouth. “God, Helen.”
Within him, two reactions warred. It bothered him to imagine her so alone for those years, so without affection. Yet pride and satisfaction swelled, too. The idea of her with someone else—especially undeserving—was more than unpleasant.
“I wanted you to know. Come what may, know there is no other like you, Nicholas Irons. What I’ve experienced with you…”
Thank God.“Marry me, Helen.”
“Oh, Nicholas. I cannot fathom my future now. It terrifies me to imagine staying in London. It terrifies me to imagine leaving.”
“But why?”
“Marriage and family…they have not been benign institutions in my life. Never again will I live as I did before. This tea venture with Elijah—it’s all we have. Until he returns, I cannot make any promises to you. I promised myself I would see this done and secure my future. What and where it is, I just don’t know. Life has taught me that all I can do in the moment is survive what’s before me now.”
“You don’t have to survive it alone! We can agree to face what comestogether.”
Helen shook her head urgently. “You said you would wait until I’m free.Please.”
He nodded and closed his eyes, respecting her wishes, but at a cost. He wanted to declare to her and the world that he belonged to her and she to him—and that anyone who would do her ill would have to go through him first.
But Nicholas understood with perfect clarity that her trust was tenuous. Forcing the matter wouldn’t be accepted by Helen as the security and protection he wished to offer—it would feel like entrapment. Knowing how he himself responded to any sense of being forced—his father’s machinations in his and his siblings’s lives came to mind—he vowed to proceed with care.
She’s with you here. Adore her in the ways she’ll accept for now.
When he opened his eyes, she was observing him. “I’ll wait for as long as it takes, Helen.”
She melted into his arms, her mouth lifting as his descended. In their time together, he’d exercised great care to linger, to draw out every kiss and caress such that she would know the tender worship he’d promised.
Tonight he couldn’t help but respond to her hungry, demanding mouth in kind and without the reserve he’d brought to their previous encounters. She met every stroke of his tongue with her own; her head fell back and her fingers bit into his shoulders as he nibbled, kissed, and licked his way down her neck and to the delectable, sensitive juncture with her shoulder.
His hands tensed on the fabric at her collarbone, a hair’s breadth from giving into the urge to rip the fabric and bare her to him. As if sensing his intention, she shivered and arched her back, raising her breasts toward him.
With the remaining gentleness he could muster, he urged her against the cushion of the settee and with their gazes locked, he indented his fingers into her lightly, right above her collarbone, and dragged his fingertips down over the fabric covering her breasts. She whimpered, breath catching in her throat as her nipples pressed against the blue fabric that matched her eyes.
It took all his willpower to keep his gaze on hers as his thumbs plied her through the gown until she was panting and her eyelids fluttered closed. When he carefully tugged at her, she sank a fist in her mouth, but a ragged cry escaped, nonetheless.
Nicholas fought to quell his own sound of pleasure when her other hand flattened over his waistcoat and began a smooth descent down over his tightened abdomen and toward his even tighter trousers.
He stilled her by capturing her wrist. “What lies in store for us tonight isn’t proper to this room.” He glanced at the closed door, beyond which the servants could be lingering.
Notwithstanding his circumspect words, he picked her up in a swift movement, bringing her to his chest. She pulled his head down for a kiss that tested his resolve to make it upstairs.
“To your chamber, wanton one,” he said, and she laughed.
