Reading sample Winning Lord West

The Challenge

Helena, Countess of Crewe, arrived at Lord West’s picnic, determined to talk to her brother Silas. Since yesterday when she’d caught Silas on the point of seducing Caro Beaumont—in a greenhouse in full sight of anyone who cared to look, no less—he’d done an excellent job of evading her.

Well, his evasion ended right now.

With a purposeful step, Helena approached her brother as he rode in on his dapple-gray mare. She could already tell something was afoot. He looked brittle and alert, like a man on the eve of battle. She’d seen him like this when his botanical experiments verged on a major breakthrough.

While a groom led the gray away, Silas’s hazel eyes sharpened on Caroline’s flashy curricle rolling across the grass toward the extravagant festivities. West had taken great trouble to create his riverside idyll, with cushions and divans in open tents, fine wines and exotic delicacies to tempt jaded appetites, and boats for pleasure trips. There was even a string quartet scratching away at the latest tunes.

“You can’t run away from me forever, brother dear.”

Silas cast Helena a sheepish look. “Save the scolding. You couldn’t say anything that I haven’t already said to myself.” He sighed and ran his hand through his untidy tawny hair. “I don’t know what got into me.”

To her regret, Helena knew the answer to that. Overwhelming desire.

When she’d burst into the greenhouse, the lust in the air had woken long forgotten memories. From their first meeting, she’d been wildly infatuated with her late husband, Lord Crewe. Desire, however frustrated, had outlasted love by a long measure. Until her pride had sickened at sharing his attentions with any other woman who took his eye, and she barred him from her bed.

Catching Caroline and Silas in a torrid embrace had provided an unwelcome reminder that Helena hadn’t always despised her profligate swine of a husband. “Caro means to have West. I’ll tell you that much.”

Her friend wanted a lover and had set her sights on Lord West, Silas’s boon companion and Helena’s first sweetheart. Helena had tried to warn Caro that the dissipated West was a dangerous choice. But the lovely brunette had the bit between her teeth, and there was no stopping her headlong gallop.

Until yesterday in the greenhouse, when it seemed Silas might make a late run.

“You two are being dashed unsociable,” West said softly, prowling up on his long, powerful legs. His green eyes were watchful. “Save the family reunion for your own time. I’ve got a dozen footmen standing idle, ready to answer every whim. If you persist in loitering over here, you’ll hurt their feelings.”

Despite having long ago recognized West’s many faults, Helena couldn’t suppress a frisson of awareness. She reminded herself she didn’t like overly handsome men—Crewe had looked like a Greek god until debauchery took its inevitable toll.

Vernon Grange, Baron West, was another handsome man, if in a very different style. He was the classic English aristocrat, tall and elegant, and with features so crisp and perfect, they could be carved from marble. Glossy black hair under a stylish beaver hat. A commanding aquiline nose. An air of effortless authority that always made her bridle like a half-broken filly.

“West,” Silas said, and Helena searched in vain for any hostility in his greeting. With Caro’s preference turning to West, lately Silas had been grumpy with his childhood chum. “You’ve been devilish fortunate with the sunshine.”

That thin, expressive mouth curled in wry humor. “I have contacts in high places.”

West bowed over Helena’s hand and sent her a glinting smile from beneath his heavy eyelids. It was a rake’s trick, designed to make a lady’s heart beat faster.

“Down below more likely,” Helena muttered, struggling to hide how her pulses jumped at his touch. Knowing it was a trick didn’t seem to offer her immunity from its effects.

What the devil was wrong with her? She hadn’t felt an ounce of attraction for Vernon Grange since she was a sixteen-year-old ninnyhammer. Perhaps she should blame her unsettled reaction on seeing Caro and Silas so intimately connected on that bench.

“Put away your barbs, my prickly lady. It’s too nice a day for sniping.”

Coolly she withdrew her hand. “I’d imagined more guests, my lord.”

The gathering comprised West, Helena, Silas, Caroline, a couple of West’s rakish friends, and Fenella Deerham.

“The numbers are sufficient to my entertainment.” Under the winged dark brows that added a satanic touch to his good looks, West’s regard was searching. “Yours, too, I hope. You didn’t ride?”

“No.” Given the failure of her plan to quiz Silas on the drive to Richmond, she was sorry she hadn’t come on horseback. It was so long since she’d had a good run, and this wide field beside the Thames offered scope beyond anything in Hyde Park.

“I have a spare horse.”

Silas shuffled sideways to keep a better eye on his beloved. Caro glanced their way, stiffened, and headed swiftly in the opposite direction.

“Helena?” West said when she didn’t respond. “I brought you a horse to ride.”

She stopped watching her brother and met West’s amused eyes. He was a man society fawned over—handsome, rich, from an old family. People were more inclined to hang on his every word than drift off in his presence. But he’d always worn his consequence lightly. A lesser person might find her erratic attention an insult to his vanity. Vernon Grange merely thought it funny. She’d always liked his lack of conceit, thorny as relations had become since she’d abandoned her girlish tendre.

“I can’t ride astride. Even in Richmond that would cause talk.” She fought to rise above the antagonism he always stirred. Crewe and West had been bosom bows at Oxford. She’d never forgiven West for introducing her to the man she’d so disastrously married. “But thank you for offering.”

“You used to ride astride when you were a cheeky schoolgirl in plaits and a muddy pinafore.”

“I used to do many things.” A chill entered her voice. “But wisdom has a grim habit of following after reckless decisions.”

His amusement faded. “Not always.”

“No, not always.” The ghost of her late husband hovered. Charming, deceitful, self-centered. And destructive—to himself most of all.

“I’ve missed seeing you on a horse, Hel,” Silas said absently, still watching Caro, who had joined Fenella on the far side of the field.

West made an effort to lighten the tone. “I arranged this picnic purely for the pleasure of seeing you flying across the grass on the back of a galloping horse.”

Oh, dear, that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She’d imagined he’d put this party together to further his pursuit of Caro. Helena didn’t want West noticing her. For years, he’d been content to treat her as a distant acquaintance. “Really?”

“Yes, really. It’s been a fancy of mine since I saw you restricted to a trot in Hyde Park. The experience was most uncongenial for an observer. You looked like someone was strangling you. Slowly.”

She frowned, resenting that West made her the focus of his attention. And that his conclusions were so accurate. “Town isn’t the place to ride neck or nothing. I’ll soon be back at Cranham.”

West signaled to a groom. “Such a pity.”

“That I’m leaving London?”

“No, that you don’t want a good gallop, when I went to such trouble to bring you a suitable mount—and a suitable saddle.”

The groom led a pretty white mare toward them. Helena immediately noted the gleaming sidesaddle. Her hand curled at her side as if it already held a crop. Despite her misgivings about the man offering the favor, she itched to throw herself onto the lovely horse. The groom passed the reins to West, bowed and left.

West’s smile was mocking. “If you deny me, I’ll think that you don’t like me.”

She ran a gentle hand down the Arab’s jaw and bit back a sigh of longing. The mare truly was a darling. “I don’t.”

That wasn’t completely true. Her feelings for West had always been more complex than mere antipathy. When they were children, he’d been her hero. Shreds of that fondness lingered, although she’d long ago recognized that he was cut from the same cloth as her depraved husband.

“Ouch.”

She studied West, as with unconvincing nonchalance, Silas wandered off in Caro’s direction. “You don’t believe me?”

West shrugged. “Explaining exactly what I believe requires more time and privacy than we now enjoy. Even if you insist on seeing me as the enemy, I hope you’ll still accept Artemis as a gift.”

“Gift?” Helena stared at him, appalled. “What on earth do you mean? I can’t take such an extravagant present. Have some sense, West.”

He stood unmoved by her refusal, tall and lean in his immaculate dark blue coat and fawn breeches. “Nonetheless, she’s yours.”

“That’s…” Helena struggled to understand what lay behind this ridiculous and inappropriate gesture. West had been out in society all his adult life. He knew how the world would interpret his generosity.

His gaze remained unwavering on her face. “Yes.”

“Yes, what?” she snapped, although she had a sinking feeling she knew.

“Yes, it’s a declaration of intentions.”

Horror flooded her. She faltered back across the grass as if he’d made an unwelcome physical advance. “This isn’t funny.”

“I’m deadly serious.”

“Then you’re wasting your time.” She straightened and glared at him. Her mind worked a thousand miles an hour to make sense of this abrupt alteration in their dealings. “I was a rake’s wife. Be damned if I’ll be a rake’s mistress.”

The tension vibrating between them upset the mare, and she shifted nervously. West patted Artemis’s glossy neck in reassurance.

“I know you’re frightened, Hel.” His voice was low and deep, and Helena resented that he sought to reassure her, too.

Her temper sparked, not least because he used her childhood nickname. “Devil take you, nothing frightens me.”

Despite her brave words, fear curdled her stomach and tasted sour in her mouth. She didn’t want Vernon Grange to pursue her. She wanted to stay safe in her lonely little eyrie. Nine tempestuous, miserable years with Crewe had left scars that had hardly healed in the eighteen months since his death.

“Love frightens you.”

“You don’t know what that word means.”

“Let’s not quarrel.” Calmly he offered Artemis’s reins. “Not today when I’ve worked so hard for your enjoyment. Come riding with me.”

She glowered at his hand as if it held poison. “That’s it? ‘I want you as my mistress, but we won’t fight about it, and now come for a canter?’”

His laugh made her itch to slap him. “Pretty much.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“My dear Helena, if you require a more emphatic declaration, I’m prepared to make my plans public. I’m only holding back to protect your reputation and help you become accustomed to my interest. If I kiss you in front of all these people, your fate is sealed.”

“As if I’d let you kiss me.”

“As if you could stop me.”

Curse him, now he’d mentioned kisses, she couldn’t stop staring at his firm, sharply defined lips, and wondering what he’d learned since those clumsy, but pleasurable experiments in the summerhouse.

She reminded herself that anything he’d learned, he’d learned through unbridled lechery. To her shame, that didn’t dilute her fascination.

“What about Caroline?” Her voice was flat. “Or are you covering your bets and chasing both of us?”

Humor lit his eyes, and he glanced across to where Caro fought a losing battle to avoid Silas. “On my honor, you’re the only woman I’m interested in. Caroline has her own fish to fry.”

Resentment and apprehension curdled in Helena’s belly. “I’m not listening to this nonsense.”

With a contemptuous flick of her blue skirts, she whirled away. She wished she’d never come to this cursed picnic. Since reaching adulthood, she hadn’t spent much time alone with West. That was clearly a good thing.

“Don’t go.” He caught her arm, holding her without force. Of course, after all that worldly experience, he knew how to handle a woman. “You’ll kick yourself if you don’t try Artemis.”

She glared at him, loathing his effortless confidence and unabashed sexual allure. Loathing that he was right—about the horse at least. “I’d rather kick you.”

A huff of laughter escaped him. “I’m sure you would. If I let you go, will you ride? Artemis is very sensitive. She thinks you don’t like her either.”

“Fool.” Despite everything, a trickle of warmth softened the insult.

“That’s not in question,” he said, and she unwillingly remembered how once she’d enjoyed sparring with him.

“I’m not dressed for riding.”

He glanced at her royal blue day dress with its jaunty gold military braid. “You’ll do. And you’re wearing half-boots.”

Good Lord, a man had a woman in his sights when he noticed what she was wearing. This conversation became more alarming by the second. “West—”

“I’m not suggesting we ride to Cornwall. You’re adequately fixed for a short run. I’d say different if you were done up in that devilish becoming red frock you wore to the Oldhams’ ball on Tuesday.”

Good Lord doubled. West really was paying attention. Perhaps he meant this tomfoolery about making her his mistress. “I’m not—”

“Please.”

She sighed, the fight leaving her. He’d always been a stubborn sod. She wouldn’t get rid of him—or manage to finish a sentence—until she rode the mare. “If you promise to stop acting like a lunatic.”

This time his laugh was free and untroubled. “I promise to behave for the next half hour.”

Heads turned in their direction. Helena stiffened with renewed wariness. She didn’t want their names connected. After all, gossip was the fuel that powered the season.

She let him toss her into the saddle. Helena couldn’t control a shiver when his hands closed around her waist. Blast him. And blast Silas and Caro, and their flagrant session yesterday.

Artemis shifted, sensing her rider’s disquiet, but settled when Helena took the reins. A groom brought up the stamping brute of a bay, familiar from the ride in Hyde Park. That early morning when West had been indiscreet enough to mention Helena’s adolescent passion to Silas and Caro.

Until that day, Helena hadn’t realized he remembered that turbulent summer. Given that West had been notorious for his wenching ever since, she’d imagined he’d long ago forgotten those innocent embraces.

Because for all their heat and fervor, they had been innocent. A year later, she’d gone to Crewe’s bed a virgin. Not that the cur she’d married had deserved the honor.

Before West mounted, she urged Artemis to a gallop. The mare responded gallantly, and the restrictions and exasperations of London life vanished in a second.

Damn West, he was right. This was what she was born for: speed, the wind in her face, freedom. Freedom most of all.

She gave a joyful laugh as Artemis settled into a steady run that promised to take them to China and beyond. Helena was so elated to be on the back of a spirited horse that she didn’t even mind when West thundered up behind her.

Over the lush green grass they rushed, and Helena tasted genuine happiness. She only drew rein when Artemis at last began to tire.

Turning to West, she couldn’t contain her exhilaration. “That was marvelous. Thank you.”

He stared at her as if he’d never seen her before. For once, no devil of laughter lurked in his green eyes. “This is how I always think of you. Strong and exuberant. The way you were as an impetuous girl. This is how you should stay, rather than wrapped up in stifling convention, pretending you’re like everyone else.”

Abruptly her euphoria drained away. She hadn’t heard him sound so sincere since those ecstatic weeks at Woodley Park, when she’d imagined herself in love with him. He didn’t sound like the shallow man she’d judged him to be. He sounded like someone who took the trouble to know her.

The fermenting fear in her stomach built to terror.

Long ago she’d placed Vernon Grange in a box marked “hazardous.” And that was where she wanted him to stay. “I had no idea you thought of me at all, let alone always,” she said repressively.

Something that might have been regret shadowed his features, before he resumed his lazy manner. He hadn’t been a languid boy. He’d been vivid with passion and enthusiasm. But then so had she. Her verve hadn’t survived her marriage.

“What do you think of Artemis?”

Helena wanted to dismiss West’s choice of horse, if only to avoid admitting that in arranging that glorious gallop, he knew her better than she knew herself. But she couldn’t lie about such a superb creature.

“She’s a dream.” Then went on when satisfaction sparked in his eyes. “Can I buy her from you?”

“She’s not for sale,” he said curtly. The bay snorted and shifted, as if West tightened his grip on the reins.

“That’s a pity.” Helena leaned down to pat Artemis’s satiny neck. “I love her already.”

“She’s not for sale because she’s already yours.”

“West,” Helena began in a warning tone.

He raised a hand in a conciliatory gesture. “But I’ll keep her for the moment.”

“You’ll keep her because I haven’t accepted her,” Helena retorted, stifling a pang. If only the price of taking Artemis wasn’t so high.

“No, I’ll keep her because you haven’t accepted me,” he said. Then added with an edge, “Yet.”

Before Helena could muster the words to put him in his place, he wheeled his great monster of a horse around and galloped back toward his guests.

Letters

Chapter One

 

Helena strolled out of her childhood home into a perfect winter morning. The air was cold enough to make her lungs ache, but the sky was pure blue and the light so clear that everything looked new minted. She stopped in the empty stable yard and sucked in a deep breath. The worries and stresses of city life drained away.

She was a countrywoman at heart. Always had been.

Instead of living in London most of the year, she should spend more time on her estate, Cranham. Especially with Caro and Silas traveling, and Fenella planning her wedding to Anthony Townsend.

How she’d miss having her friends close by. She didn’t exaggerate when she credited the other members of the dashingly named Dashing Widows with saving her life in those dark days after Crewe’s death in a hunting accident. Not that she’d missed the philandering bastard, but nine turbulent years as his wife had left her bitter and withdrawn. Caro and Fen had reminded her she was more than just a foolish girl who had wed a rake and lived to regret it.

Now Caro and Fenella looked forward to their own happiness, which was wonderful. Except…

Except Helena felt left behind, still mired in the past. Sighing, she tapped her crop against her thigh. Enough self-pity. She’d had a bellyful of that, married to Crewe. With her friends embarking on new lives, she needed a fresh purpose, something to carry her through the inevitable loneliness.

And she had plenty to be grateful for. She was her own woman with resources to take any path she chose.

Luckily by the time her father drew up the wedding settlements, he didn’t trust the man his daughter had chosen. The late Lord Stone had made provision for Helena to have exclusive use of a substantial portion of her dowry. Within the first few years of marriage, Crewe had gone through his own fortune, as well as every penny he’d gained in wedding her. Without her father’s foresight, she’d have been destitute. Then last year, an inheritance from a bluestocking aunt had turned her from comfortable to wealthy.

There was time enough to decide which worlds to conquer. Today she had a lovely morning, a fine horse waiting, and familiar haunts to revisit.

With a light step, she headed for the stables. “Good morning, Becket,” she said as the head groom appeared, pushing a laden wheelbarrow.

“Miss Helena,” he said, forgetting that she was no longer the family’s coddled daughter, but the much grander Countess of Crewe. If only she could forget, too. “We’ve missed you about the old place.”

His lined face creased in a greeting that reminded Helena how happy she’d been growing up at Woodley Park. The estate had been Eden until the arrival of a snake, in the form of Gerald Wade, Lord Crewe.

Becket had put her on her first pony before she could walk. He must be over eighty, but Silas couldn’t convince him to accept a comfortable retirement. Becket vowed that while the Nash horses needed care, he’d stay on duty.

“Did Artemis settle overnight?”

“Aye. Like a champion. A right fine little mare she is.” His eyes sharpened. “Comes from Shelton Abbey, don’t she? Has the look of old Shah Persis.”

Helena’s sallow skin didn’t hold a blush, but unaccustomed heat burned in her cheeks. “I bought her from Lord West earlier this year.”

“The Granges don’t like to share their best horses. You was a lucky ‘un, then.”

“Yes, I was.” She hoped that West, when he returned, would reconsider selling the mare and change her lie into the truth. Lord West might annoy and trouble her, but Artemis was a joy.

Becket bobbed his head and trundled away out of earshot. When Helena entered the stables, Artemis stretched her neck over the loosebox door and whickered in welcome.

“Hello, lovely girl.” Helena extended half a wizened apple on her palm and smiled as Artemis’s velvety nose brushed her skin in equine greed. When she scratched behind the Arab’s ears, they pricked forward in encouragement. “Did you miss me?”

“Like the very devil.”

The baritone drawl made Helena jump and drop the other half of the apple. Artemis wasn’t pleased.

Nor was Helena.

She closed her eyes, inhaled a breath of hay-scented air, prayed for composure, and turned. A tall, dark man leaned one broad shoulder against a post in the central aisle. He watched her with unwavering concentration.

“Lord West,” she said coolly. “Still sneaking up on people, I see. You could give a cat lessons.”

Sardonic humor curled his mouth and made him dazzlingly attractive, damn him. Her silly heart had started to race the moment he spoke. Sheer surprise, she told herself staunchly.

“I’d rather give you lessons.”

She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Better take the time to learn a little humility. I told you I wasn’t interested.”

“Even after I wrote you all those fascinating letters?”

“You’re most welcome to go back to writing. I’ll go back to ignoring you.”

“A little difficult when we’re under the same roof until the wedding.”

Oh, no. Although she knew Silas had asked West to be his groomsman, the coward inside her had hoped that her bugbear would stay in Russia. “You make it sound so scandalous, when you know it’s perfectly respectable.”

“A man can live in hope.” He straightened and sauntered closer with that long, smooth stride that she remembered so well. Except now she had a chance to see him in stronger light, a gasp of dismay escaped her. “West, you’re not well.”

His winged brows drew together in annoyance. “Like hell I’m not.”

“You look dreadful.” It wasn’t altogether true. He’d lost a lot of weight in the months since they’d last met, and he was worryingly pale. But extreme thinness emphasized the purity of his bone structure, and in his striking face, the dark green eyes glittered with familiar wickedness.

“Why, thank you.”

She reached to take his arm before she remembered that they were no longer friends, hadn’t been friends in close to a dozen years. “You shouldn’t be prowling around, trying to prove your rakish credentials. You should be in bed.”

He was still smiling, but now she saw the effort it took. “I thought you’d never ask.”

“Stop it, you fool,” she snapped, shoving hesitation aside and grabbing his arm. She tugged him toward a narrow bench against the wall.

“Ah, such a fond greeting, my love.” Despite his sarcasm, he couldn’t hide his relief as he sat and rested his head against the wall behind him.

He was a ghastly color, and he was breathing unsteadily. Helena couldn’t vanquish a feeling of unreality. West was a force of nature. He always had been. Surely no mere physical weakness could sap that titanic energy. “I’ll fetch a doctor.”

As he closed his eyes, his long mouth turned down. “Don’t you dare. I’ve seen more than enough damned quacks in the last few months.”

“When did you get back from Russia?”

“Two days ago.”

“You traveled like this? You’re raving mad.”

This time sweetness tinged his smile. “Had to.”

“I know you’re Silas’s best friend.” From her earliest breath, West had been woven into her life. He’d been her first dance partner. He was the first boy she’d kissed. And when he’d introduced a handsome young man to her family as a capital fellow, nobody had bothered to check further into Lord Crewe’s background. “But he won’t thank you for killing yourself to be at his wedding.”

“Not here for Silas.” West’s answer emerged in fits and starts. “Here for…you.”

With every word he spoke, she became more concerned. He sounded like these short, staccato sentences were all he could manage. With a pang, she recalled how he’d provoked her at the picnic last spring. This was a different man.

Except apparently he was just as stubborn. And just as set on seducing her.

“I’ll still be here in a couple of weeks,” she snapped, then cursed herself for offering any shred of encouragement.

Another faint smile. His color was a little better, but he looked horridly ill. Fear coagulated in a cold lump in her stomach. Not of his powers of persuasion this time, but that she might lose him. For nearly half her life, she’d been angry with West, but that didn’t mean she was ready to accept a world without him.

“Will you?” he asked.

“Of course I will. Where the devil else would I go? Mars?”

“Paris. New York. Timbuctoo.” He snatched a shallow breath. “Lord Pascal’s bed.”

She should have expected this. West’s fuming displeasure had been apparent in those unwelcome, irritating, marvelous letters that she’d insisted she wouldn’t read.

During this last year, London’s handsomest man had occasionally escorted her in public. The admission that Pascal meant nothing to her hovered on her lips, but wisdom kept her silent. “It’s none of your business whose bed I sleep in.”

What little color West had regained leached from his skin. He looked like an effigy on a medieval tomb. When he raised his hand, she automatically took it.

“Good God, West, you’re burning up.”

“You have no idea.” He pulled her down beside him. “Tell me I’m not too late.”

“Too late for what?” Whatever was wrong with him, it was serious.

“Don’t play coy, Helena. It’s never been your style.” His words came more easily. “Are you and Pascal in love?”

She gave a dismissive snort. “I don’t believe in love.”

At last West opened his eyes. That green gaze blazed with fever, and determination. His illness hadn’t totally banished the domineering earl. “You did once.”

“When I imagined myself in love with Crewe?” she asked in an acid tone.

Her parents had been unable to prevent her headlong rush to disaster. They’d told her she was too young, and that Crewe was a wastrel and a rake, but his sins added to his dark glamour.

She’d recognized her mistake on their wedding trip to Devon when she’d caught him rogering the inn’s chambermaid. From there, things had only gone downhill.

“Once you imagined yourself in love with me.”

“It’s clear I was utterly brainless when I was young.”

“Cruel goddess,” he said without force, then his voice turned thoughtful. “Not brainless, but ardent, and eager to launch into life.”

“Brainless.”

“Incautious. Headstrong. Passionate.” His grip on her hand tightened, and like an idiot, she didn’t pull free. If he’d been his usual king of the universe self, she’d find no difficulty sending him away with a flea in his ear. But his illness made him cursed vulnerable, and she hated to kick a man when he was down.

“Brainless.”

“Adorable.”

She gave a snort of sour amusement. “I can’t have been too adorable. You forgot me easily enough.”

“I never forgot you.”

She shot him a disbelieving glance. “Fever must affect your memory. You toddled off to Oxford after that summer, and decided I was of no interest whatsoever.”

“Good God, Helena,” he protested. “Don’t tell me you’re holding that against me. I was a stripling of eighteen who suddenly had the whole world before him.”

“No.” She shook her head. “You know why I can’t forgive you.”

“Well, it’s time you did.” He regarded her with exasperation. “It’s not my fault you made such a fool of yourself over Crewe.”

“You brought him into our lives.”

“Damn it, half a dozen fellows stayed with me at Shelton Abbey that summer. You’re the one who settled her fancy on the only ne’er-do-well. Every one of the other five turned out to be pillars of society. I know hating me helped you weather the miseries of your marriage, but Crewe has been dead for two years. It’s time you placed blame where it belongs. With a blackguard’s wiles and an unworldly girl’s romantic longings.”

She leaped up and stared at West in hurt rage. Right now, if he fainted in front of her, she’d let him lie where he fell.

“You’ve grown spiteful in Russia.” She turned away in a swirl of vermillion skirts. “I’ll send a servant to help you back to your bed.”

He surged to his feet and caught her arm before she marched out. “Wait, Hel. I don’t want to fight.”

She struggled to ignore how white he’d gone. “Yet you set yourself to anger me.”

“Just tell me I’m not too late.”

“You were too late eleven years ago. I won’t be your mistress.”

He released her and slumped back on the bench in a quaking heap. “It’s worse than that, my cranky Lady Crewe.”

“Nothing could be worse than that.” She hardly heard what he said. “Let me take you back to the house. You should be in bed.”

“You’re still offering to join me?” But his question lacked the usual spark.

“It wouldn’t do me much good, by the look of you. You don’t need excitement. You need a dose of laudanum, and a warm brick wrapped in flannel.”

He leaned back and shut his eyes. “Don’t fuss, Hel.”

Her gaze narrowed. She might care about his wellbeing—purely as one human to another—but she hadn’t forgotten she was annoyed. “As far as I’m concerned, sir, you can curl up in the straw and shrivel away to nothing. But I doubt if Silas wants his best friend giving his last gasp a week before his wedding. It would cast a pall over the celebrations.”

West’s lips twitched. “So sharp tongued.”

“Now aren’t you glad that I refused you?”

“Your nagging doesn’t scare me.”

“It should. No man wants a harridan for a mistress.”

He opened his eyes. The green was glassy, and his shivering was worse. Dear heaven, this malady was nasty. “I don’t want a harridan for a mistress.”

She frowned. He must be delirious. “So what’s all that nonsense about missing me?”

He sighed. “Oh, all that is as true as I live.”

“Stop teasing, West. It’s not funny.”

“I’m deadly serious. More serious than I’ve ever been.” His voice was deep and slow, and terrifyingly sincere. “Our timing has always been out of joint, Hel. We were too young when we played at sweethearts. By the time I realized that I was a blockhead to let you go, you’d married Crewe. I waited through your year of mourning to make my move, then damned Liverpool sent me two thousand miles away. But now I’m brooking no more delay. You’re here, and I’m here, and no man will say me nay.”

She scowled to hide her alarm. For someone on the verge of collapse, he sounded remarkably self-assured. “No man, perhaps. But this woman will never be your mistress.”

“I told you I don’t want you to be my mistress.” That burning gaze didn’t waver. “I want you to be my wife.”

Before she could respond to that astounding statement, his eyes fluttered shut, and he slid to the ground as if he didn’t have a bone in his body.