The Rogue's Wager (Sinful Brides #1)(61)

I am losing myself . . . After just over a month amongst the haute ton, she’d somehow forgotten all the rules ingrained into her by Ryker. If he’d sent her here as some test or another, she’d failed abysmally. Her sole intention for enlisting Robert’s assistance had been to avoid fortune hunters out to trap a duke’s by-blow, so she might return to the life she’d quite contentedly lived. In doing so, she’d unwittingly endangered them both: he, with his inability to secure a proper, advantageous match . . . and she, with her weakening heart.

For, how often had she longed for her office? Or her books? Or the actual club itself? Not truly, she hadn’t. Not beyond some amorphous thought of three months from now when she would return.

Panic churned inside, a need possessing her to rekindle that connection with the only life she’d truly known. For what if this was some kind of grander test conducted by Ryker? What if in her absence he discovered someone far more skilled and capable with the club’s accounting? Then what purpose would she have?

She steeled her jaw, tamping down the worry wreaking havoc on her senses.

She may desire Lord Robert Westfield, even like him, but that did not mean she belonged here or wished to. What purpose was there for a woman who lived amongst polite Society? What kind of existence beyond a fat dowry for an impoverished husband who wagered too much and kept just as many whores?

Robert is not that man . . .

Helena froze. Just four days ago she would have scoffed at that defense of him. Given his actions in the Earl of Sinclair’s parlor with that stunning beauty, he’d quite neatly fit within her expectations for him and all nobles.

No longer. She gripped her hands against the fabric of her skirts. Neither did this new appreciation for Robert, as a man and person, matter. There was no place for them together in any sense of the word. She’d no doubt he’d make her his mistress, scars and all . . . but never his wife.

“Not that I want that position,” she muttered under her breath.

Why did that ring hollow?

Striding over to her armoire, she threw the doors open and fished around the far back. Her fingers brushed a coarse, familiar fabric, and she froze. This brown cloak was her world. This was the harsh, but safe existence. Not satins or silks or muslins.

With slow, regretful fingers, she let the garment fall back into place and collected a soft muslin cloak.

Yanking it on, she drew the deep hood up, and sprinted over to the side of her bed. With quick movements, she dropped to her knees and fished under the soft feather mattress. Of course, theft within the duke’s home was as likely as a snowstorm in summer, yet life had ingrained the perils of leaving your monies about; that was why she’d hidden those funds the moment she stepped inside this temporary home.

Jumping to her feet, Helena stuffed the handful of coins into the front of her cloak and strode purposefully across the room. If she stayed here, in this room, in this home, with these turbulent thoughts about Robert and her place in Society swirling around her mind, she’d go mad.

Almost instantly, her maid, Meredith, entered the room. The girl, with heavily freckled cheeks and jutting front teeth, smiled. “You rang, Miss Banbury?”

Helena nodded. “Will you see the duke’s carriage readied? I’d have you accompany . . . shopping.” Isn’t that how everyone expected a young lady to spend her days? Bitterness soured her mouth.

The young woman nodded, promptly closed the door, and hurried to do Helena’s bidding.

A short while later, in the duke’s comfortable carriage, with her maid on the opposite bench, Helena made her way to Lambeth. As she settled back in the comfortable squabs, an invigorating thrill coursed through her. Hers was a small show of control, but there was a heady sense of power in stepping outside those suddenly suffocating walls. How many years had she still been viewed as nothing more than the snarling, spitting child of eight, dependent on her brothers to go anywhere or do anything? She’d been that same closed-away person since she’d arrived in Mayfair, dutifully tucked away in the duke’s townhouse like a wounded bird in a gilded cage.

As the carriage drew her farther and farther away, she drew the curtain back more and stared boldly out. Still quiet at the early morning hour, vendors pushed their carts into place, preparing for a day of hawking their wares.

Even the vendors and streets of the nobility were cleaner. As opposed to the crass men and women who’d sell their teeth, soul, and body against a crumbling building for coin, if it were offered. Then, that was the world to which they were born. The ton . . . and everyone else. Nor would Helena trade the freedom and power she had to be one of those purposeless ladies. She’d carved out a world where she’d never be dependent upon a man, not the way her own mother had.

First a powerful lord, who’d chosen a proper lady as his wife, and then the protector her mother had found in Mac Diggory.

An icy dread froze her, and she pressed her eyes closed. Hatred, potent and tangible, all these years gripped her in its familiar grasp. Helena curled her fingers about the edge of her seat. How many switches had he taken to her and her mother’s backs? How many scars did she now wear because of his drunken rages? How many times had he sold his wife to a fancy gent, all for some coin that he only wasted on more drink?

The agonized cries of her long-dead mother echoed around her mind, and Helena pressed her eyes closed, willing them gone. Nothing could come from those remembrances. Pain brought weakness. There was no healing or happiness that could ever come from thoughts of the life they’d lived.