The Sleeping Beauty

“It is not the wilderness.” Gad, she sounded like a harridan, even to her own ears. With an effort, Helena softened her posture and modulated her voice. “It is a perfectly respectable part of the country and we are quite civilized.”

“Compared to London, it is positively primitive. Why weren’t you at breakfast?”

She was disconcerted. As it was not the family’s custom to take meals together in the dining room, it hadn’t even occurred to her to go there this morning. However, her father had no doubt given orders that they were to institute this ritual for the sake of their guest. She was simply forgotten. She said, “I rose late today.”

“Slept in because you were up all night, did you? Do you always play like that when you can’t sleep? No use denying it. I heard you at the pianoforte last night. Excellent performance, if a bit odd in timing.”

Kimberly made to leave, glaring at Adam as she brushed past him. Swiveling his head to follow her path down the hall, he muttered, “I’m afraid she doesn’t like me.”

Nothing else he might have said could have melted Helena more readily. She fought back a smile. “It would seem not.”

He turned back to her. “I would like it if you would play for me sometime.”

“That is impossible. I do not play for anyone but myself,” she answered honestly.

“Really? We shall see, then.”

Whenever he and Helena were sparring, his eyes had a habit of sparkling, as if they danced in delight at some amusing secret he held from the rest of the world. She got the strongest feeling that if there was a joke there, it was most certainly on her.

“Sewing today, are you?” he said.

Helena bristled. She hardly wished him to be made aware of the fact that she had spent the morning frantically attempting to refashion her wardrobe in order to make a more pleasing presentation—for him! Her response was reflexive. “No, no, not at all. Why do you say that?”

That debonair grin deepened, showing a single dimple. His hand came up and she flinched, catching herself and flushing with embarrassment at the instinctive response. She didn’t like being touched, as a rule.

He didn’t hesitate, however. Long, tapered fingers plucked a snippet of embroidered silk from her hair. They moved down to her shoulder, where a tendril of thread stuck to her bodice.

Faced with this evidence and nearly undone for his forwardness, she stared at him. “Oh, sewing. Yes, well, we were doing our usual mending. A few hours here and there. I am so used to it, I barely notice it anymore.” She ended with a nervous laugh that fell flat.

His smirk told her he guessed the truth. Her humiliation knew no bounds.

“I could take you into the village if you need…supplies.” A heartbeat later, he added, “For your mending.”

“I don’t need…” What was she saying? It was no use denying that her wardrobe was a shambles. “Actually,” she began, “I saw today that my mending has rather taken its toll on my old dresses. Of course, I normally couldn’t be bothered with such things, since no one ever comes here. However, given the state of things, I was considering purchasing a few new items. Gowns, I mean. Just because the other ones are beyond repair, you understand.”

He was tactful enough not to let the quivering of his lips blossom into a true smile. “Every bride should have a trousseau.”

“I am hardly an ordinary bride,” she stated smartly.

He ignored her show of vinegar. “All the more reason for the ordinary rituals to stay locked in place, yes?”

She didn’t know why he was being so kind. He could very easily expose her, or even cock one of those sharply arched brows, and she would be totally humiliated.

“Does tomorrow suit you? Or did you have other plans?”

“No, no plans.” She said haughtily, as if there were some possibility of her having plans. Which was ridiculous. She’d be devoured by flesh-eating maggots before she’d admit that to him, though. “Tomorrow should suit me.”

“After breakfast, then?”

“I’ll meet you in the dining room for the meal, and we can go immediately afterward.”

“Good.” He folded his arms across his chest and regarded her with a pleased expression. “Then I can make certain you eat something.”

She saw him go off to the stables some time later. Less than three-quarters of an hour after that, he went galloping across the meadow and into the woods.

It was a relief not to have him about, not to have the possibility of him chancing upon her at any moment. Her days were usually spent either in the kitchens or together with Mrs. Kent, undertaking some house chore. There was an endless supply of them, what with the shortage of staff. It was Helena’s fault, that was, and she felt obligated to help. She might be a lady of noble birth, but she was not one of leisure. She toiled alongside the lowest-paid servant, and didn’t mind a bit. For one thing, it kept her busy and helped her fall exhausted into bed most nights. For another, it meant she could keep the amount of strangers in her house to a minimum.

Since the accident, she couldn’t tolerate intruders.

Therefore, this planned jaunt into Strathmere tomorrow threw her into a fit of anxiety. Of course, going anywhere with Adam would be bothersome. They were likely to quarrel the entire way.

But more than that, she would be seen. She hated being seen. She hated the whispers and the looks.

She almost changed her mind. Just imagining what it would be like turned her legs to water. But she simply could not be a faded frump any longer. When he left to return to London, she’d get her precious solitude back, but until then she would have to contend with his presence. His intrusion.

And she would simply have to get some new clothes. What a bother he was!

Yet she found herself watching all afternoon for his return.

Chapter Six

Besides being cold most of the time, Adam very quickly learned, the Northumberland shire was very troublesome in its terrain. His horse didn’t like it at all, the spoiled beast. No doubt longing for the civilized streets of the city, the gelding snorted and generally made known his displeasure at having to traverse the crude paths. When they came to a fallen tree, he balked at the jump. At the edge of a stream, he rolled his eyes testily and refused to take one step into the water.

In no mood to have a difference of opinion with the ornery beast, Adam sighed and resigned himself to following the bank for a while. He let his mind wander.

There were plans to be made, tasks to be seen to. He had to post several letters tomorrow, which he had written early this morning. One to his friends to inform them of his staying on in Northumberland for a period of two months, and of the impending nuptials. He grinned, imagining their response. There had been no small amount of coin wagered on his success in this venture, and he wished he could be there to see the naysayers who had put their money against him pay up.

Two other letters were to solicitors. Mr. Fenton was his father’s old solicitor. It would be he who would receive the bulk of the five thousand to settle Adam’s father’s debts, compounded by his own ill-fated attempts to cope with them through wagering.

Mr. Darby was a new fellow whom Adam had contacted just before setting out. On the chance he was successful in getting his hands on the Rathford money, Adam had arranged for Darby to handle all future transfers of funds. The clean break with Fenton was needed. This would signal the end of a chapter in Adam’s life, an unpleasant one. He was now a wealthy man and the troubles of the past were behind him.

There was a fourth letter, written to a Trina Bentford, advising her that their association was to be terminated due to the occasion of his marriage. It was something that had been coming for a long time. As a friend, Trina was exuberant and deliciously wicked. She never ceased to make him laugh and always was ready for whatever wild scheme anyone could come up with. As a mistress, she was exhausting. Not in bed. In fact, her interest in that department was negligible. Of course, she understood how it went and did her best to keep him pleasured, but she was hardly inventive or particularly stirring in the sensual way. No, her talent lay in craving attention, and her appetite for that had been far too voracious for him.

It was a good time for a break here, too. She would be miffed, naturally, since marriage was not necessarily an occasion for ending a liaison, but by the time Adam was set to return to London she would have cooled off enough to forgo the usual tedious scenes.

Thinking of tedious scenes put him in mind of his future wife. He smiled as he kicked his horse up the sloped embankment and cantered home, although why thinking of Helena Rathford should bring on a stupid grin was beyond his comprehension. She was a bothersome piece, completely incomprehensible and constantly contradicting reason. A study in contrasts at every turn—cool as ice one moment, then wild as any untamed virago the next. And all the while shrouded in that cursed air of mystery that was beginning to wear on his nerves.

But damn, her eyes could look straight through a man and touch something in him. Adam scoffed at himself. Lust was what it was, if one could be besieged by that affliction for such a slip of a girl. He mentally compared her to the voluptuous Trina, then dismissed his former mistress, to linger only on Helena’s attributes.

She had incredible grace. Her neck was like a swan’s, giving her the most elegant aspect. Her air of reserve seemed to taunt him unmercifully, driving him to distraction with wanting to strip it away and find out what passions it hid.

Because there was passion in her. He had heard it in the incredible music she had produced. Absolutely tantalizing.

He was still thinking about her when the house came into view. It was past luncheon, nearly teatime. He wondered if she’d eaten. Good God, he was becoming her nursemaid, worrying over her. He told himself it was because he didn’t want to bed a skeleton. By their wedding night, at which time he had promised to do his best to keep his end of the wretched bargain he had struck with Rathford, Adam wanted a more fleshy version of the woman to warm his bed.

He wanted the Helena in the portrait.

“Hello, sir,” the groom called, coming to take the horse. “Have a nice ride?”