Tempting the Bride

chapter 16



Someone adjusted Helena’s bedcover. She tended to move about a great deal in her sleep and did not always manage to hold on to her blanket. Often in the morning, her feet and ankles would be quite cold—and in this instance, her calves, too, since she’d disrobed thoroughly the night before.

Warm hands rubbed her feet, then her entire lower half was enveloped in a nice, heavy quilt. She sighed in contentment. The same person came nearer and kissed her on her forehead.

“So beautiful,” he murmured.

She smiled and sank back into sleep—only to reawaken what seemed but a few seconds later with a violent start.

The room was dim and empty, the shutters still drawn. She closed her eyes again, her head feeling woolly, as if she’d grossly overslept. She lay still for a few more minutes, then slowly pushed to a sitting position, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

On the nightstand was a photograph of Fitz and her David, standing in the middle of the vast expanse of Tom Quad, the largest college quadrangle at Oxford. Helena had taken the photograph with David’s factory-loaded Kodak camera during one of Fitz’s visits to the university. Shortly afterward, her friend and classmate Mary Dilhorne had passed by. They’d spent a minute chatting together before Miss Dilhorne went on to her next class and David and Helena saw Fitz off at the rail station.

As soon as Fitz had settled into his compartment, before the train had even started, David was already whispering into her ear, “Was that one of your lesbian friends? When are you going to invite me to watch?”

“After you first invite me to watch you as a catamite,” she’d said as she waved at Fitz, “taking it in every orifice.”

The present-day Helena smiled. They’d gone at it like Rome and Carthage, hadn’t they? And she’d fired off a number of excellent retorts she was proud to recall.

At some point during the night, David had gone to her room, collected her dressing robe, and put it on the back of a chair near the bed. She shrugged into the robe, walked to the window, and threw back the shutters. The sun had risen. Bea’s pond reflected brilliantly in the distance. Helena breathed in deeply, filled with a sweet contentment.

Which was disturbed a moment later by a sensation that she’d forgotten something. She chortled to herself. Of course she’d forgotten something—as much as half of her life at one point. But the sensation, as if something had burrowed inside her brain, would not go away.

She shook her head, trying to clear it. Oh, right, the pages of David’s manuscript. She’d better put them away before the servants came through. But when she glanced toward the foot of the bed, the music stand, as well as the manuscript pages, had already been removed—again a demonstration of David’s consideration.

Still the strange and increasingly disconcerting sensation remained. Was it something to do with Fitzhugh and Company? Had she forgotten to return a set of corrections to the printer? Or neglected to arrange advertising a particular title?

The sensation receded somewhat when it dawned on Helena that she’d at last remembered Millie. A feeling of tremendous fondness suffused her—dear, dear Millie. How they’d all grown to love her, and how she always kept surprising them. Together she and Fitz had proved to be remarkable hosts, presiding over many a joyful gathering of family and friends.

And, of course, Helena and David were always there at the gatherings, trading barbs and disparagements.

Don’t look at him like that.

I shall look at him however I wish to.

He’s younger than you.

Doesn’t matter.

He has small feet.

Excellent. It will cost less to keep him in shoes.

Don’t you know what they say about men with small feet?

Yes: They are less arrogant.

He is too soft for you. You need a man made of steel, Miss Fitzhugh. He is like a bird’s nest, built of twigs and fluff.

Why so much interest in how I feel toward another man, Hastings? If you persist in talking about it, I shall have to believe that you are jealous.

Please, Miss Fitzhugh, you’ll make me laugh. Surely you know by now that for a woman to interest me she needs a pair of breasts. So my concern for you is entirely humanitarian. Mark my words: You will be yearning for a man with bigger feet and a stiffer…spine.

Andrew! They’d been speaking of Andrew.

She stumbled backward, her calves hitting the side rail of the bed. She barely felt anything, her horror and dismay obliterating everything else.

Andrew, always happy and eager to talk about all the books under the sun, always gentle and respectful when he didn’t agree with her assessment on any particular volume. Andrew, the first person to tell her that she would make a wonderful publisher, when her family still doubted the wisdom of such a course of action. Andrew, who’d left a bouquet of wildflowers outside her door every day, too shy to leave a card alongside the flowers, until she’d caught him in the act. If you love me, leave another one tomorrow, she’d told him. The next day he’d left three.

It had been such a magical time in her life.

When he’d broken down and sobbed, apologizing over and over again for misleading her—when he’d been perfectly frank from the very beginning that he was expected to marry someone else—she’d told him, with tears streaming down her face, that she could never be angry with him. That she was grateful to have known him and grateful for the memories.

And all it took was a kick in the head to make her forget everything.

It hurt to breathe. She staggered to the window and pushed it open, gulping. Her poor, sweet Andrew. How he must have felt during their most recent encounters, when she’d treated him as if he were just another bystander in her life.

How would she have felt if she woke up one day and the person she’d loved perennially no longer gave a damn about her?

Someone set his hands on her arms and kissed her on her nape. “Guess what arrived in the morning post? Our special license. Shall we start sending out those scandalous invitations?”

That pain in her heart was black and explosive. She flung aside his hands and stomped away from the window. “Don’t touch me.”

Behind her came a long silence, then, “I see.”

She could not look at him. But it was almost worse to look at the bed and be reminded of her shamelessness the night before. Had it been only lust, she might still have forgiven herself, but she had to talk about weddings and honeymoons, making the commitment of a lifetime.

The only saving grace, perhaps, was the fact that she had not said “I love you” in so many words—but that was only because she’d been saving it for their true wedding night.

Her disloyalty burned like acid upon her skin. She hated the feeling of it. She hated that she didn’t know better when she should have. And she hated that each time it had been she who had spread her legs and practically begged him to help himself to her.

“Helena—”

She spun around. “How could you? I’d lost my mind. I was barely cognizant, entirely uninformed, and utterly incapable of true consent. Were you any kind of gentleman, you would have restrained yourself and told me to wait. It took only a few weeks—you couldn’t have waited that long, you who claim to love me to the moon and the stars?”

“I did tell you to wait, Helena.” He looked grieved and hurt, his eyes bright with just the sort of sincerity she did not need to see. “I told you every time that you would be better served by patience.”

She couldn’t bear the truth of his words. “You knew how I felt about Mr. Martin. You knew how much I loved him. You better than anyone else knew that I would never betray his love and trust. But you saw a horny dimwit and you just had to have your fun, didn’t you?”

“Helena!”

His expression began to harden, which only made her wilder. “Why would you think you could ever displace Mr. Martin from my heart? What sort of arrogance and delusion was that? Have you lost your mind, too?”

He did not call her name again—was not even looking at her anymore. She held her breath—she wanted him to keep calling her name. She wanted him to reassure her in that wide-sky-sweet-breezes voice that everything was fine, that she did not need to be buffeted about by this chaotic confusion.

His gaze came back to her. Her heart leaped. But then he leered. “Ah, well, it was good while it lasted—you were the hot little strumpet I’d always suspected you would be. Of course, your breasts remain lacking, but your enthusiasm almost made up for it. My God, the way you swallowed my cock. Real whores couldn’t do it better.”

Her face burned. Her entire person burned.

“And yes, you were gullible, weren’t you?” He went on relentlessly, walking slowly toward her, his eyes harsh, his words harsher. “I’ve never liked you better than when you were that horny dimwit, your legs spread wider than Siberia, your fingers playing with your own titties, your—”

She slapped him so hard her entire arm hurt. But the pain was nothing compared to the annihilation in her heart.

“Get out!” she bellowed.

He raised a contemptuous brow. “This is my room, my dear Lady Hastings. Or do you not remember that you came here last night famished for cock and wouldn’t leave me alone until I’d f*cked you well and good?”

Memories of the night before were like grit rubbed into an open wound. The trust she had for him, her utter openness of the heart, and all the hope she nourished for their future.

She walked out without another word.

The connecting door slammed. Hastings stared at it, unable to believe what he’d just become—again.

The man she’d always despised.

Had he not learned anything from the past few weeks? Had he not learned that lying because he couldn’t bear to be vulnerable never protected him from pain, but only walled him off from happiness?

He stood in place, breathing hard.

He’d told her that his history of being an ass toward her had been no one’s fault but his own, and it was true. But at times like this, so much of him still felt like the boy whose only resort was to hit back hard, because he was never going to make anyone understand anything except how viciously he could strike.

Because sometimes the appearance of strength was all that mattered.

But hadn’t he already promised himself that there would be no more lies, no more cowardice, and no more hiding his true sentiments behind mockery and derision? Hadn’t he promised himself that he would be a man worthy of her?

He pressed two fingers between his brows. He knew what he ought to do, but did he possess courage enough to see it through?

Helena sat before the vanity, her head in her hands. The connecting door opened. She leaped up from her chair. “What do you want?”

Hastings closed the door quietly. “I’m here to apologize.”

She almost didn’t hear his words. How did a man who’d looked so hateful only a minute ago transform into this specimen of humble contrition? “What for?”

His gaze was a blue green of unlimited depth. “For my false and unkind words. They were the absolute opposite of my true feelings. And I’m sorry I reverted to my worst habit when you least needed greater distress.”

Until he’d spoken, she’d had no idea how much she longed for him to tell her how sorry he was. But now she had his apology, she could not tell whether it brought relief or only a greater desolation. “So you are remorseful for giving in to my carnal demands?”

He shook his head. “No, I am only apologizing for speaking those words that would have you believe I didn’t treasure the privilege of making love to you.”

The gentleness of his voice, the infinite sincerity of his words—he was still praying for rain in the Sahara. His persistence moved her and infuriated her at the same time. “So you are glad you slept with me when I didn’t know any better?”

“Helena, you lost your memory, not your mind. You were perfectly capable of conducting your business and your life.”

She had certainly felt so, hadn’t she? Only to wake up from a dream of love torn completely in two. “You say that because the choices I made suited you.”

“Think back, Helena. Was there any point during the past few weeks when you weren’t the same woman you’ve always been?”

She was beginning to feel uncomfortably close to tears. He was expressing a level of confidence in her that she could not feel herself, telling her that she should trust the choice she’d made. “That same woman I’ve always been would never have willingly gone to bed with you.”

He inhaled slowly, then exhaled just as carefully. “I suppose the lack of residual feelings for Mr. Martin freed you to fall in love with someone else.”

Her nostrils flared. Panic spilled out of her heart into every muscle, every nerve. “Don’t be ridiculous. I have not fallen in love with you.”

She willed him to be nasty to her. She didn’t know how much more of his kindness and consideration she could take.

But he only smiled, if a little sadly. “It doesn’t matter how we label it—I can recognize depth of feeling when I see it.”

She clenched her teeth. “Perhaps it is time for you to purchase a pair of spectacles. I love Mr. Martin, not you.”

“I stand by what I said earlier. You loved Mr. Martin as he was five years ago. But that man no longer exists. Without nostalgia in your heart, he is but an unobjectionable man who holds no particular appeal for you.”

If he’d shouted at her, she could have shouted something back. But his almost saintly composure left her defenseless. She returned to her vanity, sat down, and stared into the mirror.

After a while, the connecting door opened and closed, and she was again all alone in the room.

Bea tugged on Hastings’s sleeve and pointed at a bird.

“It’s a…it’s a…” He had to look again at the bird—he’d already forgotten what it was. “It’s a chaffinch. You’ve seen those before, Bea. See those white bars on its wings? Most definitely a chaffinch.”

Bea gazed at him solemnly, waiting.

He usually said much more on their walks, didn’t he? He’d tell Bea everything he knew about the chaffinch. And if he didn’t know enough to fill a teaspoon, which was sometimes the case, he’d veer the topic to something else. Another songbird—the canary, perhaps. Then he’d talk about how one would think the Canary Islands were named after canaries, when in fact the name derived from Insula Canaria, which meant “island of the dogs.”

Today it was all he could do to put one foot in front of the other.

“This one is a gentleman,” he managed. “See its blue cap and reddish chest? A lady chaffinch isn’t quite as colorful.”

Bea looked behind them, where Helena usually followed. “Lady?”

“Lady Hastings isn’t feeling well—not well at all.”

Bea bit her lower lip. “Old?”

On a different day he would have laughed. “No, she isn’t old like Sir Hardshell. Sometimes people just need to…stay in their rooms.”

It wasn’t until he was standing in front of the pond that he realized that Bea had altered her route for the day so she could play at the miniature cottage again. Such a sign of greater flexibility on Bea’s part should have filled him with joy, but the sight of the cottage, the physical embodiment of how close to happiness he and Helena had come…

He did the only thing he could: He sat down and willed the return of Lake Sahara.

Helena had just dressed when a footman came to announce a visitor. “Ma’am, there is a Mrs. Andrew Martin to see you. Are you at home to her?”

Helena started. Mrs. Martin? Here? She put on her turban. “I will receive her.”

Mrs. Martin wore a gown of deep mourning. Helena’s heart seized. Only after a moment did she see that Mrs. Martin’s mourning gown was not one for a widow. “How do you do, Mrs. Martin?”

Her sister, Mrs. Monteth, looked like a ferret. Mrs. Martin, however, was a pretty woman of patrician mien. She and Helena spoke of the weather and her journey. But when tea had been brought in and poured, the small talk was put away.

“I can see you have your memories back, Lady Hastings—you look at me with a certain misgiving.”

“I am only puzzled by your visit, Mrs. Martin. But you are right: I have regained my full memory.”

Enough of it, in any case. She still could not remember the bum-pinching incident with Hastings—or any part of his first visit to Hampton House. Her heart constricted.

“Excellent, for I’d have come for nothing if you still had no recollection of Mr. Martin. I plan to seek a divorce, you see,” said Mrs. Martin, as breezily as if she’d planned to buy a new pair of evening slippers.

Helena stared at her. “A divorce?”

“I have a suitor, an American gentleman who is waiting to marry me—Americans are less fussy about divorces. And five years, wouldn’t you agree, is long enough in a marriage that should have never taken place. I married Mr. Martin to please my father, little realizing that if he wasn’t pleased with me by the time I turned eighteen, he never would be. Mr. Martin did the same for his mother and she thought no better of him. Well, my father died three years ago and the late Mrs. Martin passed away this week.

“Since my father’s passing, I’d made sure that Mr. Martin resided in town and I in the country—since I’d need to claim abandonment as well in order to bring a divorce petition on grounds of adultery.”

So that was why Helena hadn’t seen the Martins together in years. When Andrew was able to attend so many country parties solo, she had only counted her blessings and not once wondered why Mrs. Martin never accompanied him. “You have been planning this a long time.”

“You have no idea, Miss Fitzhugh. Until recently, however, I had a problem: Mr. Martin simply was not an adulterous man. His time and energy went into his manuscripts instead. Then I found a letter among his belongings from a woman who was obviously a paramour and I was overjoyed. It was the last piece that needed to fall into place. I went to my sister, who immediately assured me she would produce firm evidence of this adulterous affair. She had, of course, no idea that I meant to divorce him with that, or she’d never have participated.

“You either know the rest or you can imagine it, Lady Hastings. My sister came back stupefied by having burst in on you and Lord Hastings instead. But I remembered that there had been rumors that Mr. Martin had been in love with you before our marriage. So yesterday, after his mother’s passing, I sat him down and we had a frank conversation. He was at first flatly against my plan, but now I would say he is wavering.”

Before Helena could object, Mrs. Martin raised a hand. “Don’t worry, Lady Hastings: I will not dream of proposing that you be caught with him—I can easily pay someone to swear under oath that she and Mr. Martin engaged in an affair. If Mr. Martin is willing to go through with the divorce, that is. He is undecided, as he is unsure of what benefits await him.

“Upon further questioning, I discovered that he believes that you are unlikely to have truly married Lord Hastings by the time your accident took place. I thought this was of tremendous importance, but he said no, you’d lost all your memories concerning him and treated him as you would any stranger. He was unwilling to come and see you, as he thought he had no right to interfere in another man’s marriage. But I disagreed: He would not be meddling in anyone’s marriage if you are not at all married.”

The true significance of Mrs. Martin’s words was beginning to make itself felt. Helena felt as if she were suspended above a void.

“So this is what I’d like to ask on behalf of Mr. Martin and myself, Lady Hastings: Have you truly married Lord Hastings? For if you have not, Mr. Martin and I will both be thrilled: I for the inducement it will give him to let the divorce go through uncontested; he for the opportunity to finally marry you, once we are divorced.”

This was what Helena had wanted all these years, wasn’t it? That somehow, someday, Andrew would again be free to marry her?

She said nothing.

Mrs. Martin leaned forward in her seat. “I know what you are thinking—the scandal will dwarf anything we’ve seen in a while. It will be punishing for all of us, no doubt. But new scandals will come and old ones will be forgotten. After a while, no one will remember you were ever married to anyone other than Mr. Martin.”

But did this mean that someday Hastings would also marry someone else? The thought was a burn mark upon Helena’s heart.

“Think about it, will you, Lady Hastings? You have risked everything for the love of Mr. Martin. Now you can have him without any of the risks—love and respectability.” Mrs. Martin rose. “You needn’t give me an answer immediately. If you’d like to speak to Mr. Martin, you can reach him at the house in London. I will show myself out.”

Helena stopped before Hastings’s study. The door was ajar. He was at his desk, an unlit tobacco pipe by his elbow.

“Would you like to come in?” he said without looking up.

Her heart flipped. It was another few seconds before she could cross the threshold.

As she approached the desk, she saw that he was working on the revisions she’d requested in one of the Old Toad Pond tales, changing an instance of Mrs. Bunny to Mrs. Porcupine, to avoid having the same character being sunny in one story and sullen in another.

Now he did glance up and smiled faintly. “I am ashamed to admit this, but until you’d pointed it out, I’d had no idea I’d called two different characters by the same name.”

She didn’t know whether she wanted to throw him out of the window or yank him to her by his hair. She tilted her chin at the tobacco pipe. “Is that Tobias’s?”

“I suppose it is. The pipe belonged to my father. I don’t much care for pipe smoking, but I like to pack it with fresh tobacco from time to time.”

So that was why his clothes sometimes smelled of pipe tobacco. She was suddenly possessed by the desire to roll in a pile of his country tweeds, perhaps naked.

He clasped his hands together on the desk. “I understand Mrs. Martin was here.”

The sensation of being suspended above a void returned with a vengeance. “She wants me to marry Mr. Martin.”

He came out of his chair. “What?”

He’d been so composed, so serene—it almost comforted her to see a stronger reaction. “She wants a divorce and he hesitates. She hopes the thought of marrying me will make him more cooperative.”

He said nothing for a long time; her heart began to beat to the rhythm of his agitated breaths. “You still want to marry him?”

“I only stopped wanting to marry him when I could no longer remember who he was.”

He shook his head and went on shaking it. “No. No. Stop this madness.”

A part of her nodded vigorously in agreement. She tried not to pay any attention. “You can’t ask me to change one of my most deeply held wishes simply because we’ve spent a few weeks together.”

He rounded the table and set his hands on her arms. “I can and I do. Don’t make this mistake, Helena. Don’t confuse what you once wanted with what you now need.”

The warmth of his hands through her sleeves—she stepped back. “I’m going to see Mr. Martin.”

“Yes,” he said slowly. “I suppose you’ll need to do that. Would you like me to hold dinner until you return?”

No, what she wanted was…histrionics. She wanted him to throw his inkwell across the room, then overturn his entire desk. To not let her go so easily, so gallantly. “If I decide to marry him, then I will not return. The longer I live with you, the bigger the scandal will be.”

“You will return to at least say a proper good-bye to Bea. She asked about you just now. Do you know how seldom she asks about people?”

At least his beautiful voice rose a little. She supposed she’d have to satisfy herself with that. “I’d better go now.”

He yanked her to him and kissed her, a hard, brief kiss that left her short of breath and light of head.

“Go,” he said brusquely. “I’ll order your carriage.”

She lifted her hand and grazed her lips with her knuckles. He watched her. After a moment, his gaze softened. “Remember Lake Sahara, my dear.”