The promise in a kiss

Chapter Four

THEnext morning Helena paced her bedchamber; eyes narrowed, she considered the night before.

Considered the unexpected tack Sebastian had taken.

Remembered her dreams.

Wondered again what it would have felt like to spread her hands over his chest, beneath the silk and satin of his coat, to feel the width and weight of his muscles . . .

“Non, non, non, et non!”

Furious, she whirled, kicking her skirts before her. “Thatis why he did it!”

To make her dream, yearn, desire . . . want. To make her come to him, surrender like some witless lovelorn maid.

A sneaky, underhanded conquest.

Safe and alone in her bedchamber, she could admit it might have worked.

“But not now.” Not now that she’d realized his true goal. She was twenty-three—no starry-eyed innocent when it came to the games men played. A seduction could be achieved by more than one route; monsieur le duc assuredly knew every road.

“Everytwist in every road. Hah!”

He would not catch her.

There was only just over a week to go before the ton left London; she could assuredly hold him at bay until then.

“Mignonne,it is customary to pay some attention to the gentleman who partners you in the dance.”

Helena shifted her gaze to Sebastian and widened her eyes. “I was merely taking note of the ladies’ jewels.”

“Why?”

“Why?” She stepped around him, circled, then returned to face him, her gaze straying once more to the ladies nearby. “Because the quality here is quite remarkable.”

“Given your heritage, you must possess a king’s ransom in jewelry.”

“Oui,but I left most of it in the vault at Cameralle.” She gestured at the simple sapphire necklace she was wearing. “I did not bring the heavier pieces—I did not realize the need.”

“Your beauty,mignonne, outshines any jewels.”

She smiled, but not at him. “You have a very quick tongue, Your Grace.”

Helena was at the breakfast table the next morning when a package was delivered.

“It’s for you.” Louis dropped it beside her plate as he joined her.

Marjorie peered up the table. “Who is it from?”

Helena turned the package in her hands. “It doesn’t say.”

“Open it.” Marjorie set down her cup. “There will be a card inside.”

Helena tore open the wrappings and reached in. Her fingers touched the plush cover of a jeweler’s case—a frisson of presentiment raced over her skin. She stared at the open package, almost afraid to draw out the contents. Then she steeled herself and pulled.

A green leather case. She set aside the paper, opened the case. Inside, on a bed of deep green velvet, nestled a very long double strand of the purest pearls. The strands were interrupted at three points by single stones, each a perfect rectangle, cut very simply to showcase their color. At first she guessed peridot, but as she lifted the necklace and draped it between her hands, the stones flashed and the light caught them; their depth of color was revealed. Emeralds. Three large pure emeralds more vividly green than her eyes.

Earrings, each with a smaller emerald set above pearls, and a matching pair of bracelets—miniature versions of the necklace—completed the set.

Of the king’s ransom she already owned, no piece appealed to her half as much.

Helena dropped the necklace as if it had burned her. “We must send it back.” She pushed the case away from her.

Louis had been examining the packaging; now he glanced at the case. “There is no card. Do you know who sent it?”

“St. Ives! It must be from him.” Helena pushed back her chair; some impulse was urging her to run, to flee from the necklace—from her wish to touch it, to run her fingers along the smooth strands. To imagine how it would feel around her throat, how it would look.

Damn Sebastian!

She stood. “Please arrange to have it returned to His Grace.”

“But,ma petite. ” Marjorie had searched the packaging for herself. “If there is no card, then we cannot be sure who sent it. What if it wasn’t monsieur le duc?”

Helena looked down at Marjorie; she could almost see Sebastian’s smug smile. “You are right,” she eventually said. She sat again. After a moment of staring at the pearls lying like temptation on their velvet bed, she drew the case closer. “I will have to think what is best to be done.”

“Yousent me these, did you not?”

The fingers of one hand caressing the pearls encircling her throat, Helena turned to face Sebastian. The silk of her pale green skirts swished sensuously; she let her fingers trail lovingly over the pearls, following the strands over her breasts.

Lips lightly curved, Sebastian watched every move. She could tell nothing from his face or his eyes.

“They look very well on you,mignonne .”

She refused to think how well, how they made her feel.

As if she weredangereuse, too.

Only he could have delivered the ultimate temptation to play his game. Never before had she felt so powerful—powerful enough to engage with a man such as he.

A thrill of excitement, of insidious attraction flared; she turned, paced, unable to keep still.

When he’d appeared by her side in Lady Carlyle’s ballroom, his eyes had gone straight to the necklace, then he’d quickly noted the other pieces she’d also donned. She’d acquiesced readily to his invitation to stroll the room. Sure enough, he had, as only he could, found an anteroom giving off the ballroom. An empty room, poorly lit by wall lamps, with a tiled floor and a small fountain splashing at its center.

Her heels clicked on the tiles as she paced before the fountain; she threw him an openly considering glance. “If not you . . . perhaps it was Were? Perhaps he is missing me.”

Sebastian said nothing, but even in the weak light she saw his face harden.

“No,” she said. “It was not Were—it was you. What do you expect to gain by it?”

He watched her—whether considering his answer or merely stretching her nerves tight, she could not tell—then said, “IfI had sent such a gift, I would expect to receive . . . whatever response you would naturally give to one who had so indulged you.”

She let her eyes flash, let her temper show. She’d grown accustomed, over the weeks, to letting him see it. Even now there seemed no reason to hide her feelings from him. With a swish of her skirts, she swung to face him and lifted her chin. “The thanks I would give to whoever had so indulged me . . . that I could give only if I knew who that gentleman was.”

He smiled. With his usual prowling gait, he closed the distance between them. “Mignonne,I care not, in truth, whether you judge me the one deserving of your gratitude.”

Halting before her, he raised one hand and tangled his long fingers in the strands below her throat. He lifted the pearls; fingers sliding, he gathered the lengthy strands in his hand until the slack was locked in his fist, poised above her neckline.

“I would much rather be assured,” he murmured, voice deepening to its most dangerous purr, “that every time you wore this piece, you thought of me.”

He opened his fist, let the pearls fall.

Weighted by the largest emerald, the strands dropped down her cleavage, slithered between her breasts.

She gasped at the heat—the heat of his hand held trapped in the pearls.

“I would much rather know that every time you wore this, you thought of us. Of what will be.”

He hadn’t completely released the necklace; one long finger remained hooked in the strands. Watching the strands, he raised them, then let them slide and slither down, around, caressing her bare breasts in defiance of her gown and chemise—her completely clothed state. Deliberately, he made the pearls rise and fall to a slow, sensuous rhythm, one she could all too readily imagine his fingers themselves following.

Her lungs had locked; she dragged in a shuddering breath, briefly closed her eyes. Felt her breasts rise, swell, heat.

He shifted closer—she sensed rather than saw or heard it, felt him like a flame on her skin. She opened her eyes—and fell into the blue of his.

“Every time you wear these,mignonne, think of . . . this.”

She hadn’t meant to let him get so close. Hadn’t meant to tip up her face and let him kiss her. But with the intoxicating warmth of him so near, the murmurous sound of his deep voice in her ear, the sense-stealing sensation of the pearls, still warm, still shifting provocatively between her breasts, she was lost.

His lips closed over hers. At the first hint of pressure, the first demand, she opened to him, not submissively but defiantly, refusing, even now, to surrender.

She could kiss him and survive, let him kiss her and still not be his. If he thought otherwise, he would learn. Reaching up, she slid her fingers into his hair and boldly kissed him back. Surprised him for a second, but only that.

His response was unexpected—no suffocating rush of passion, of overwhelming desire. Instead, he matched her, gave her all she wanted, hinted at more. Lured her on.

She knew it, but resistance was impossible. The only way she could hold on to her self, retain some semblance of awareness and self-will, was to immerse herself in the kiss, give herself over to it and follow his lead, noting each step along the way, knowingly taking each one.

Within seconds he had taken her from this world. Only he could lead her back.

Sebastian released the pearls, left them to lie, a faint memory between her bare breasts. Closing his arms about her, he drew her to him, until her soft flesh was once again pressed against his much harder frame. Desire swelled, gnashed like some ravenous beast, wanting more—much more.

Wanting her beneath him, sheathing him.

He knew it couldn’t be—not yet. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. He didn’t even dare caress her more definitely, his rake’s instincts warning not yet, not yet.

She was driving him slowly, steadily, mad. If he didn’t have her soon . . .

Never had he waited so long; no other woman—none he had desired—had ever denied him. Had ever refused to take the journey with him.

Yet despite the fact that her body was his, despite the fact that her pulse leaped when he neared, her pupils dilated and her skin warmed the instant he touched her, her mind refused to yield—her will stubbornly stood in his way.

Every night he went without her only increased his desire, that primitive urge to seize, slake his lust . . . possess.

Her hands touched his cheeks, framed his face, held it steady as she pressed a flagrantly passionate kiss on him in return for his most recent foray. He felt his control shake, quake, as she teased and taunted him to reply . . .

He did, for one instant let his shield slip, let her glimpse what waited for her—the heat, the unbridled passion behind his suave mask.

All resistance fled before his onslaught; her spine, until then infused with her stubborn will, softened. Melted.

He drew back, quickly, before desire and rampant passion ran away with him—with them. Chest laboring, he lifted his head. Felt her drag in a long breath, felt her breasts press against his chest.

Then her lids fluttered; from beneath the lace of her long lashes, he saw her eyes gleam. They were more jewel-toned than his emeralds about her throat, hanging at her ears, circling her wrists.

Despite his frustration, satisfaction welled and warmed him. He eased his hold on her; she opened her eyes, blinked, stepped back.

Glanced at him warily.

He managed not to smile. “Come,mignonne —we must return to the ballroom.”

She gave him her hand and let him lead her to the door. He paused as they reached it. Raising one hand, he hooked a finger in the pearl strands and lifted them from beneath her bodice, then draped them over the silk once more.

“Remember,mignonne. ” He caught her wide gaze. “Whenever you wear them, think of what will be.”

When Helena awoke the next morning, the first thing she saw was his pearls cascading out of the green leather case. They sat on her dresser where she had left them—and mocked her.

“Je suis folle.”

With a groan, she turned her shoulder on them, but she could, like phantoms, feel them as if they were still about her throat, at her ears, on her wrists.

She’d been mad indeed to think that, in that arena, she could hope to stand against him and prevail.

Her eyes narrowed as she thought back over the entire episode. Turning, she looked at the pearls again. Her first impulse had been to bury them at the bottom of her trunk. Pride dictated that she wear them every night. He’d comprehensively won that round, but she couldn’t let him know it.

Which meant . . . that she would indeed remember every touch of the pearls, warm from his hand, against her bare breasts. Would indeed wonder . . .

She was getting very close to being out of her depth. She couldn’t let him win the next round.

And she couldn’t call a halt to the game.

She was doing it again—pulling back, tumbling obstacles into his path.

Across Lady Cottlesford’s ballroom, Sebastian watched Helena with something very like aggravation simmering behind his façade.

Time was running out. He hadn’t imagined, when he’d set out to make her admit she wanted him, that it would take this long. There were only five days left to Lady Lowy’s masquerade, the event that in recent years had heralded the ton’s exodus from London.

He had five more days—five nights, more accurately—to gain her capitulation. To gain some indication that she would welcome his advances quite aside from a formal proposal of marriage. That was the minimum he would accept.

Five nights. Plenty of time normally. Except, with her, he’d already been laying siege for seven nights. Although he’d dented her walls, he hadn’t yet set them crumbling, hadn’t yet convinced her to lower her drawbridge and welcome him in.

“How’s the wife hunting going?”

Martin. Sebastian turned as his youngest brother clapped him on the shoulder.

One glance at his face and Martin took a step back, held up his hands. “No one heard, I swear.”

“Pray that that’s true.” Yet another irritation.

“Well? Do you still have your eye on the comtesse? Fetching piece, I admit, but sharp, don’t you think?”

“Let her hear you speak of her like that and she’s liable to demand I string you up by your thumbs. Or worse.”

“Fire-eater, is she?”

“Her temper is marginally better than mine.”

“Oh, all right, all right, I’ll stop teasing. But you can’t deny the issue has a certain personal relevance. You can hardly expect me to be uninterested.”

“Uninterested, no.Less interested, certainly.”

Martin ignored that and looked around. “Have you seen Augusta?”

“I believe,” Sebastian said, studying the lace at his cuff, “that our dear sister has quit the capital. Huntly sent word this morning.”

Martin glanced sharply at him. “She’s all right?”

“Oh, entirely. But she and I agreed she’d had enough of the ton for the nonce, and as I’ve asked her to organize the festivities at Somersham, she had plenty to distract her.”

“Ah!” Martin nodded. “Excellent strategy.”

“Thank you,” Sebastian murmured. “I do my poor best.” Would that he could do better with a certain comtesse.

“There’s Arnold. I must have a word.” Martin clapped him on the back. “Good luck, not that you need it, but for God’s sake don’t fail.”

With that injunction, he took himself off.

Sebastian resisted the urge to frown; instead, he looked across the room again—and realized he’d lost Helena.

“Damn!”

She must have been watching him, a good sign in itself. But . . .

He visually quartered the room but couldn’t see her. Lips setting, he stepped away from the shadows and into the crowd.

It took him a good ten minutes of smiles, greetings, and sliding out of conversations before he came in sight of Mme Thierry, seated on a chaise. She was engaged in an animated conversation with Lady Lucas; Helena was nowhere in sight.

Sebastian swept the gathering again. His gaze fell on Louis de Sèvres. The man was Helena’s nominal escort, but everyone assumed he was the protector sent by her family to keep a watchful eye on her. De Sèvres was ogling one of the Britten sisters. Sebastian strolled to his side.

His shadow alerted de Sèvres; he looked up—to Sebastian’s surprise, he smiled and bowed obsequiously. “Ah—Your Grace. You are looking for my fair cousin? She has adjourned to hold court in the refreshment salon, I believe.”

Sebastian considered de Sèvres and suppressed the urge to shake his head. The man was supposed to be protecting her . . . Mme Thierry, too, had changed her tune. If none within the ton had yet fathomed his true motive—and he would certainly know if they had—then it was inconceivable that the Thierrys and de Sèvres had seen through his mask.

De Sèvres shifted under his scrutiny; Sebastian decided to accept the unlooked-for assistance until he had Helena in hand.Then he would investigate what was behind de Sèvres’s encouragement.

He looked over de Sèvres’s head to the archway into the smaller salon. “Indeed? If you’ll excuse me?”

He didn’t wait for any answer, but strolled on.

One glance through the archway and he saw what she’d done—fortified her defenses. She’d surrounded herself with, not gentlemen of the ilk of Were and the others she’d been assessing, but with the latest crop of bucks and bloods looking to make their mark.

They were he twelve years ago, drawn like moths to her flame and brash and bold enough to consider any madness, even the madness of challenging him.

Especially over her. They were not in his league, but would never admit it, certainly not in her presence, something he understood.

He pondered that, considered the sight of them gathered around her, considered the pearls lying about her throat, at her ears, encircling her wrists. He turned away and beckoned a footman.

Helena breathed an inward sigh of relief when Sebastian quit the archway. She was rarely unaware of his gaze; over the last week it had become almost familiar, like a warm breath feathering her skin.

She quelled a shiver at the thought and doggedly focused her attention on young Lord Marlborough; although he was at least five years her senior, she still thought of him as young. Not experienced. Not . . . fascinating. At all.

But bored though she might be, at least she was safe. So she smiled and encouraged them to expand on their exploits. Their latest curricle races, the latest hell with its Captain Sharps, the latest outing of the fancy. They were so like little boys.

She’d relaxed, relaxed her guard, when a footman materialized at her elbow, a silver salver in his hand. He presented the salver to her; upon it resided a simple note. She considered it, picked it up. With a smile for the footman, who bowed and withdrew, then a swift smile around her protective circle, she stepped a little to the side and opened the note.

Which one will it be,mignonne?Pick one, and I will arrange that it will be he who will meet me. For when I come to fetch you from their midst, nothing is surer than that one of their number will be unable to resist and will challenge me. Of course, if you would prefer none meet his fate on some green field with tomorrow’s dawn, then leave them and join me in the anteroom that gives off the front hall.

But if that is to be your choice, do not dally, mignonne, for I am not a patient man. If you do not appear shortly, I will come to fetch you.

Helena read the last words through a scarlet haze. Her hands shook as she refolded the note, then crammed it into the tiny pocket in her gown. She had to pause for an instant, draw breath, fight down her fury. Hold it in until she could let it loose on he who had provoked it.

“You must excuse me.” To her ears, her voice sounded strained, but none of her self-engrossed cavaliers seemed to notice. “I must return to Madame Thierry.”

“We’ll escort you there,” Lord Marsh proclaimed.

“No—I beg you, do not put yourselves to the trouble. Madame is only just inside the ballroom.” Her tone commanding, Helena swept them with an assured glance.

They fell in with her wishes, murmuring their adieus, bowing over her hand—and forgetting her the minute she left them, she had not a doubt.

She reached the front hall without drawing undue attention. A footman directed her to the anteroom, down a short corridor away from the noise. She paused in the shadows of the corridor; eyes fixed on the door, she tweaked the note from her pocket, flicked it open, then she drew in a breath, gathered her fury about her, opened the door, and swept in.

The small room was dimly lit; a lamp burning low on a side table and the crackling fire were the only sources of light. Two armchairs flanked the fire; Sebastian rose from one, languidly, moving with his customary commanding grace.

“Good evening,mignonne. ” The smile on his lips as he straightened was mildly, paternalistically, triumphant.

Helena shut the door behind her, heard the lock fall with a click.“How dare you?”

She stepped forward, saw the smile fade from Sebastian’s face as the light reached hers. “Howdare you send me this?” She thrust the hand holding the note at him. Her voice quavered with sheer fury. “You think to entertain yourself by pursuing me, yet I have told you from the first that I will not be yours, my lord.” She let her eyes flash, let her tone lash, let her polite mask fall entirely. She stalked forward. “As you find it so difficult to accept my decision, my steadfast rejection of you, let me tell you why I am here in London, and why you willnever advance your cause with me.”

With every word she felt stronger; her temper coalesced, hardened, infused her tone as she stopped two yards from him.

“I was sent to England to seek a husband—that you know. The reason I agreed to do so was to escape the clutches of my guardian, a powerful man of wealth, breeding, inflexible will, and unceasing ambition. Tell me, Your Grace, does that description sound familiar?”

She arched a brow at him, her expression contemptuous, coldly furious. “I am determined to use this opportunity to escape men such as my guardian, men such as yourself, men who think nothing—nothing!—of using a woman’s emotions to manipulate her into doing as they wish.”

His expression had lost all hint of animation.“Mignonne—”

“Do not call me that!”She flung the injunction at him, flung her hands in the air. “I am notyours ! Not yours to command, not yours to play with like a pawn on some chessboard!” She flourished his note again. “Without thinking, without in any way considering my feelings, on discovering yourself thwarted you reached for a pen and invoked guilt and fear so I would do as you wished. So that you would triumph.”

Sebastian tried to speak, but she cut him off with a violent slash of her hand.

“No! This time you will hear me out—and this time you will listen. Men like you—you are elegant, wealthy, powerful, and the reason you are so is because you are so adept at bending all around you to your will. And how do you accomplish that? By manipulation! It is second nature to you. You turn to manipulation with the same degree of thought you give to breathing. You cannot help yourself. Just look at how you ‘manage’ your sister—and I’m quite sure you tell yourself it’s for her own good, just as my guardian doubtless tells himself that all his machinations are indeed ultimately for my good, too.”

Sebastian held his tongue. Her anger burned, an almost visible flame. She reined it in, drew herself up. Her gaze remained steady on his.

“I have had half a lifetime of such managing, such manipulation—I will not suffer more. In your case, like my guardian, manipulating others—especially women—is part of your nature. It is part of who you are. You are helpless to change it. And the last man on earth I would consider as my consort is a man so steeped in the very characteristic I wish to flee.”

She flung his note at him; reflexively, he caught it.

“Never dare send me such a summons again.”

Her voice vibrated with fury and contempt; her eyes blazed with the same emotions.

“I do not wish to hear from you nor see you ever again, Your Grace.”

She swung on her heel and swept to the door. Sebastian watched as she opened it, went out; the door shut behind her.

He looked down at the note in his hand. With two fingers, he opened it, smoothed it. Reread it.

Then he crumpled it. With one flick, he sent it flying into the fire. The flames flared for an instant, then subsided.

Sebastian considered them, then turned and strode for the door.