Tempting the Bride

chapter 3



Helena stumbled upon a piece of luck the next morning. Her maid Susie, hired to keep a close eye on her, resigned: A former employer’s housekeeper had died after a sudden illness, and Susie had been approached to become the new housekeeper—immediately. Helena was all too happy to let her go with extra wages and a glowing letter of character.

To her sister, Venetia, the Duchess of Lexington, with whom she was staying, Helena recommended that since Fitz and Millie had gone off on a quick holiday in the Lake District without servants attending, Venetia could ask Millie’s maid, Bridget, to be the one sitting outside Helena’s office for a few days, until a satisfactory replacement for Susie was located.

It certainly did not escape Helena’s attention that Fitz and Millie would return on Monday afternoon. Bridget would be eager to get back to her mistress, and Helena just might exploit that time gap to her advantage.

In the meantime, Helena smuggled out a set of livery from the Lexington household and contacted a company that leased carriages.

The board was set, the pieces moving. She awaited only the arrival of Monday afternoon to see whether her strategy would procure a victory on the field.

Saturday evening the Lexingtons gave a dinner at their house. As was usually the case when one of her siblings played host, Hastings was invited to the gathering. He was, however, not seated anywhere near Helena, who’d long ago requested that he never be put next to her at dinner, so as not to diminish her enjoyment.

But after dinner, once the gentlemen had finished with their port and cigars, they rejoined the ladies in the drawing room, and at such times there was no escaping Hastings. As inevitable as the day’s descent into night, he appeared at her side, sleek and smug, like a predator freshly returned from a bout of hearty slaughter.

She wondered, not for the first time, whom he’d been bedding before he arrived at the Lexington house—and exactly what he’d been doing with her.

“Miss Fitzhugh,” he murmured. “My dear, I don’t wish to impugn your toilette, but you look lonely and deprived.”

“The recommended cure for which is no doubt a few hours in your bed, my lord?”

“My dear girl of little faith, no one leaves my bed after only a few hours. Ladies clear their schedule for at least a week before they leap in.”

When he lowered it just so, his voice practically purred, uncomfortably attractive. She had to tamp down an involuntary flutter in her stomach. “What do you want, Hastings?”

He slanted a look at her. His eyes seemed to have shifted in color, a blue-grey tonight.

“I’ve found a ring for you among my mother’s jewels, my dear, an emerald ring to match your eyes.”

She arched a brow. “And since when do I take jewelry from gentlemen to whom I am not related?”

“Oh, I believe we shall be related very soon, the way you are going. I can see it in your eyes: the machination, the impatience. You are scheming hard, Miss Fitzhugh, against everyone else’s better judgment.”

He might be a bastard, but he was a clever bastard.

“I have been leaning on Mr. Monteth for news concerning his wife,” he continued. “Daily she calls on her sister, the wife of your beloved, and comes home excited and agitated. Mr. Monteth is convinced she is up to something. If I were you, I’d do nothing as long as Mrs. Monteth might be paying the slightest attention to her brother-in-law.”

But if Helena didn’t take this opportunity, when would she have another one?

“You are not listening, Miss Fitzhugh.” Hastings’s voice dropped even lower, a dark, smooth mellifluousness. “Think of wearing my ring and what that would entail. Does it not stop you cold that I may be the one to rescue you from a disaster of your own making? And remember, I already told you that I don’t want to be your husband. But if I must, out of duty, I will exact my price and make demands you’ve never even dreamed of.”

She’d read snippets of his erotic novel—she had a very good idea of the sort of degrading lewdness he’d stipulate. It vexed her that she wasn’t as revolted as she ought to be. “That I am not concerned about a possible future chained to your bedpost—shouldn’t you take it as a sign that all my scheming is but a figment of your imagination?”

“But you are concerned. Just now your voice caught and your shoulders recoiled.” He looked directly into her eyes. “And unless I am very much mistaken, your pupils are dilated.”

“That is just how I react to finding a worm in my apple, my lord.”

“Then think about how you’d feel finding such a worm—indeed, half a worm—in every apple you’ll ever henceforth bite into. Be careful, Miss Fitzhugh. More pieces are moving on this board than you think, and you may yet find yourself outmaneuvered.”

Sunday afternoons Hastings and his daughter painted the wall of her tearoom at Easton Grange, his estate in Kent. Or rather, Hastings painted and Bea watched.

The mural was almost complete. The sky, the trees, and a number of cottages along the edge of the pond had been painted. The pond itself, done the previous week, had dried to a glossy, sunlit green.

“See?” He showed the palette to Bea. “I take some red and some yellow, and when I mix them I get orange.”

Bea watched intently, but without comment.

“Would you like to put in a few orange flowers among the red ones?” he asked. The window box he was adding to the cottage in the foreground was a riot of nasturtiums.

Bea bit her lower lip. He could sense her desire to participate. Silently he encouraged her to say yes.

She shook her head. He sighed inwardly—at least it was taking her longer and longer to decline.

“Maybe another time, then. It’s quite fun, painting. You take a blob of color, you put it on a brush, and soon you have a picture.”

He would have liked for her to join him. For a girl who spoke very little, and reluctantly at that, color and images could have become useful substitutes for words. But he didn’t start this mural to lure her to paint, just as he didn’t devote all the hours and days to the mural in his town house to impress Helena Fitzhugh.

Painting had become a form of prayer. When he lurched between hope and despair, a brush in one hand and a palette in the other was one of the ways he dealt with sentiments too raw to be discussed and too big to shove away. And this mural was his prayer for Bea: that she would grow up strong, happy, and unafraid.

He took up a new brush. “Now I am going to paint some leaves. You like watching me mix yellow and blue to make green, don’t you, Bea? Would you like to try your hand at it?”

He waited the usual few seconds for her to say no. To his shock, she nodded and reached out for the brush in his hand. But then she didn’t move. He realized, after a while, that she meant for him to hold her hand and guide her.

After what had happened when she was younger, he never felt quite worthy of her trust. But for some miraculous reason, she did trust him wholeheartedly.

He wrapped his hand around hers, kissed her on the top of her head, and showed her what to do.



At half past three Monday afternoon, a coachman dressed in the Lexington livery came for Helena at her office.

“Well, there is my carriage,” she said to Bridget. “I know you must be anxious to get back and prepare for your mistress’s return. Take a hansom. Mrs. Wilson has already been instructed to add the cost of your transportation to your wages.”

“Thank you, miss, I might then. I want to make sure everything is ready—Lady Fitzhugh won’t have much time to change out of her traveling dress before she is to head to the duchess’s for tea.”

“Indeed she won’t.”

And neither, after so much trouble, would Helena enjoy much more than half an hour with Andrew—she, too, was expected at the five o’clock tea. And she had better arrive before Millie, to avoid questions about why she’d taken so much time en route.

She hopped into the brougham, directed the coachman to a nearby post office, and made a telephone call to the Lexington town house, letting the staff know she’d be coming home on her own, accompanied by Millie’s maid; no need to send the carriage.

Now to the hotel—and Andrew.

Inside the carriage with all its shades drawn, she fiddled with the drawstring of her reticule. She thought she’d done enough, but what if she’d underprepared? Granted, her presence at the Savoy would raise no eyebrows—the hotel’s terrace was a popular place for a cup of afternoon tea. But would it not have been even better had she disguised herself as a man with a big beard—or something of the sort?

Damn Hastings and his incessant warnings of disaster. She ought to be exhilarated at the prospect of seeing Andrew again so soon, not fretting about everything that could go wrong.

Enough with the troubling thoughts. She’d worked hard for this morsel of stolen time. She would clear her mind and relish her triumph.

Or at least, she would do her utmost.

Hastings did not expect to see Andrew Martin at the club. After Fitz had spoken to him earlier in the Season, Martin had avoided locales where he might run into any of the Fitzhugh siblings. But with Fitz away, Martin probably thought the club a safe venue for whiling away a few hours.

Except he wasn’t exactly whiling away the hours. He seemed distracted and jumpy, getting up from his chair every few minutes to pace about the periphery of the room. At some point during each circle, he’d pull out a piece of paper from the pocket of his day coat, read it, stuff it back into his pocket, sit down, chew his lips for some time, and then repeat the procedure all over again.

As his restlessness grew, so did Hastings’s. Why the hell was Martin so agitated? And why did he keep looking at that piece of paper?

The next time Martin crossed the room, Hastings rose and bumped into him.

He steadied Martin. “Sorry, there, old fellow.”

“My fault,” said Martin meekly.

Many children talked of running away with the Gypsies; Hastings had actually done so—more than once. His pickpocketing skills were rusty, but Martin was a spectacularly easy target.

Standing before a bookcase, his back to the room, Hastings looked down at the loot in his hand. It was a telegram. Next Monday. The Savoy Hotel. Four o’clock in the afternoon. Ask for the Quaids’ room.

He looked at the date on the telegram. Today was the Monday that had been specified—and soon it would strike four on the clock. Had Helena Fitzhugh sent the cable despite all his warnings to the contrary?

Martin sucked in a loud breath. Hastings turned around to the sight of him frantically feeling his pockets. The telegram tucked inside his sleeve, Hastings meandered to Martin’s chair and dropped the telegram on the floor.

“Something the matter?” he asked.

Martin turned around and exhaled in relief at the sight of the telegram next to Hastings’s shoes. “Nothing. I dropped a cable—that’s all.”

Hastings picked it up and held it out facedown toward Martin. “This one?”

“Yes, thank you, sir.”

Martin pocketed the telegram. But this time, instead of returning to his seat, he bade Hastings good day and walked out of the room.

The bastard was going to the Savoy Hotel.

There was no inherent malice to Martin. But he was born without a spine of his own and always yielded to whichever person exerted the greatest influence on him. On the matter of his marriage, he’d deferred to his mother. Earlier in the Season, he’d obeyed Fitz. And now he’d let himself be once again persuaded by the forceful Helena Fitzhugh.

Hastings didn’t know whom he wanted to punch more, Martin or himself. Why did he still care? Why did he persist in manning his temple in the Sahara, praying for rain, when all about him the evidence of his failure stretched as far as the eyes could see?

On their own, his feet carried him toward the door. If he was going to drown his sorrows in whiskey, he preferred to do it at home, in the privacy of his own chambers, where his heartache would be visible to no one but himself.

Someone pulled him aside.

“You could be right after all, Hastings,” Monteth whispered. “I ran into Martin outside just now and tried to bring him in here, but he gave me all sorts of shifty reasons why he couldn’t have a drink with me.”

“A man not wanting to have a drink with you, Monteth, is not exactly reason for suspicion.”

“You don’t understand.” Monteth looked about the largely empty room and lowered his voice even more. “This morning I saw a letter the missus was writing. It said, ‘I will catch him in the act very soon.’ And guess to whom it was addressed? ‘My dear Alexandra’!”

Alexandra was Mrs. Martin’s Christian name.

“My goodness,” Hastings heard himself respond, sounding calm, almost detached. Or perhaps he was merely in shock, although a sharp cold was beginning to spread between his shoulder blades.

“Precisely. I tried to bring Martin back in here, where he can’t get into much trouble. But as I told you, he wanted none of it.”

“Right-ho,” Hastings managed. “Keep me abreast of any interesting developments, will you? I must be off now. My lady awaits.”

He strolled toward the door, when it was all he could do not to sprint.

“Your lady?” called Monteth behind him. “But you haven’t a wife.”

Nor did Hastings want one who preferred another man. But should things go ill, his bachelor days would be numbered.

Martin was no longer outside the club. Hastings hopped into a hansom cab and asked for the Savoy Hotel and great haste. It did not escape his attention that he might again stand guard while she trysted with Martin—but today he’d almost volunteer for the odious duty, if only he could thwart Mrs. Monteth.

As the hansom cab approached its destination, he saw Martin enter the hotel, looking left and right as he went, radiating quite the aura of a man who knew he was up to no good. Hastings wasted no time in alighting from the hansom. He crossed the lobby to the clerk’s station. “The Quaids’ room.”

“Room five on the top floor, sir.”

“I was told there would be a key waiting for me,” he fibbed.

“I’m sorry, sir. My instruction was that only the first person to ask for the room would be given a key.”

“And was the first person to ask for a key the gentleman of a minute ago?”

“No, sir. I gave the key to the lady who came a few minutes before him.”

Martin had not instigated this tryst, judging by the cable he’d received. Yet if Miss Fitzhugh had been the one to arrange for this meeting, she would not have needed to ask for a key. She would have been the one who’d issued the instruction to give the key to Martin.

The possibility that a third party was pulling the strings had just shot up to near certainty.

“How many keys do you have to the room?”

“Three, sir.”

“Where are the other two?”

“One is with the guest under whose name the room is registered. The other key we hold.”

And if Helena Fitzhugh had taken the third key, then she was definitely not the one under whose name the room was registered.

Hastings reached inside his day coat and slid across a one-pound note. “Give me the third key and say nothing of me to anyone.”

The clerk looked at the note for a long moment—then quickly pocketed it. “Here you go, sir.”

The key was heavy and cold in Hastings’s hand as he walked toward the lift. It had seemed imperative that he should have a key. But now that he did, he didn’t know what to do with it. He couldn’t very well interrupt a lovers’ rendezvous without clear and present danger.

A moment later, clear and present danger arrived in the form of Mrs. Monteth, approaching the clerk’s station.

His heart seized. Not the lift then, with its unpredictable speed. He walked to the stairs as fast as he dared without attracting undue attention, glancing at Mrs. Monteth every two seconds. The moment he was out of her sight, he sprinted up the steps, praying the lift would require a long wait and then stop at every floor along the way.

His lungs burned. He ran faster.

The Savoy was not as tall as the hotel Helena had stayed at in New York City, but still, from the top floor it was a long drop to the ground. Helena stood just inside the balcony, waiting.

Sometimes it still seemed only last week that she and Andrew first met, and the world was glorious with the promise of happiness. Sometimes it seemed a lifetime ago, and she’d always had this crux of desolation in her heart.

A scratch came at the door. She rushed to open it. Andrew stood before her, his face at once glowing and apologetic. “Sorry I’m late. Monteth wanted to drag me back inside the club for a drink—and I always underestimate how long it takes to get anywhere in London nowadays.”

It didn’t matter why he was late; it mattered only that he was here. She pulled him in, shut the door, and threw her arms about him. “Andrew, Andrew, Andrew.”

How well she remembered the first time she’d hugged him, impulsively, after he’d told her he didn’t see why she wouldn’t make a terrific publisher. They’d been on the banks of her brother’s trout stream, having known each other all of a week. But what a glorious week, spending every waking minute together. She’d gone to sleep each night with an enormous smile on her face.

The present-day Andrew nuzzled her hair. “I’ve missed you terribly, Helena.”

The sound of pounding feet reverberated in the passage—a vibration she felt in her own shins. Her chest tightened. Surely it couldn’t be Mrs. Monteth making such an uncivilized racket.

“I shouldn’t be here at all,” Andrew went on. “But ever since we ran into each other at the rail station the other day, your question of whether a promise to your brother was more important than a promise to you has agonized me. I did promise to be always at your side, didn’t I?”

She barely heard him. But she heard all too clearly the sound of a key turning in the lock. She sprang back from him as if he’d suddenly developed the pox.

But it was only Hastings, clutching onto the doorjamb, breathing hard.

“What are you doing here?” she cried, flabbergasted, relieved, and outraged. Her action might carry risks, but he had no right to interfere in such a crude manner.

“It’s not what it looks like,” blurted Andrew at the same time.

“I know what it is and I don’t care.” Hastings pushed the door shut behind them. “Mrs. Monteth is on her way up here. She also has a key.”

Helena was cold all over. “I don’t believe you.”

But there was no force in her words, only fear.

“Did you send the cable to Mr. Martin?” demanded Hastings.

“No, of course not. He sent the cable to me.”

“I didn’t,” Andrew protested. “I received one from you.”

She couldn’t speak at all.

“Mrs. Monteth must have been the one to send cables to you both,” said Hastings forcefully, “arranging for this meeting so she could catch you in the act.”

He opened the door a crack and looked out. “She’s coming out of the lift as we speak. And—dear God—the senior Mrs. Martin is with her.”

“My mother?” Andrew’s voice quavered.

The elder Mrs. Martin set strenuous standards for her sons—Andrew had ever feared her. If she learned that he had compromised a young lady of otherwise fine standing, she’d hold him in contempt for the rest of her days. It would crush him.

Hastings closed the door and peered at the locking mechanism. “Someone has tampered with the door. It cannot be secured from inside.”

“What are we to do?” Andrew gazed at Helena beseechingly. “What are we to do?”

“Mrs. Monteth went to the clerk’s station after me,” said Hastings, holding the door shut with his person. “If the clerk kept quiet about me, as I’d asked, all she has learned is that a man and a woman had asked for the key. What do you want to do?”

The question was addressed to Helena.

She was surprised she heard Hastings so clearly—there seemed to be someone screaming inside her head. She swallowed. “Andrew, my dear, go into the bath and lock the door. If you love me, you will not make a single sound no matter what you hear.”

“But, Helena—”

“There is no time. Do as I say.”

Andrew still hesitated. She grabbed him by the elbow and shoved him into the bath. “Not a sound—or I’ll never forgive you.”

She shut the door of the bath in Andrew’s face and prayed she’d conveyed her point with enough authority. When she turned around, Hastings was already stripping off his jacket and waistcoat.

He raised a brow. “You don’t mind, I hope?”

Without waiting for an answer, he pushed her onto the divan in the center of the room. His hand behind her skull was warm and strong. His other hand opened her jacket as he bent his head to her neck.

Her hair tumbled loose. His teeth grazed her neck, sending a hot jolt to her middle. His fingers worked the buttons of her blouse and pushed both the jacket and the blouse from her shoulders.

Their eyes met. Without hesitation he kissed her. His weight was solid. His hair—she didn’t know when her fingers had plunged into his hair—was cool and soft. And the hunger in his kiss…contrary to everything she knew, he made her feel as if he’d never kissed anyone before and never wanted to kiss anyone else.

Without ever making a conscious decision about it, she kissed him back.

The door burst open.

“Now I’ve caught you in delicto flagrante!” shouted Mrs. Monteth. “How do you explain yourself, Mr. Martin?”

Hastings swore, pulled away, and rose. “That is in flagrante delicto, you gorgon. And what is the meaning of this? Get out before I throw you out, the both of you.”

Helena barely remembered to squeal and clumsily right her clothes.

Mrs. Monteth was stunned. “Lord Hastings, but—but—”

“Leave, Mrs. Monteth. And you, too, Mrs. Martin. Can’t a man celebrate his elopement in peace?”

“Elopement?” Mrs. Martin, a bird of a woman, gasped.

Elopement? Helena felt as if she’d been electrocuted. She hastily lowered her head.

“Yes, elopement,” said Hastings. “Surely you don’t think I would consign my best friend’s sister to this sort of situation, where apparently any nosy woman could interrupt us, without marrying her first.”

Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.

Helena clamped her right hand over her left. She was only trying to restrain herself from saying anything foolish or compromising before Mrs. Martin and Mrs. Monteth. But with this show of seemingly hand-wringing mortification, no one could see that she was not wearing a wedding band.

Mrs. Martin squared her shoulders. “Our apologies, Lord Hastings, Lady Hastings. We wish you much happiness in your union.”

Mrs. Monteth still sputtered. “But—but—”

Mrs. Martin took her by the arm and yanked her out. Hastings closed the door and leaned his weight against it.

Helena counted to ten, to give the women time to walk down the passage, out of hearing. Then she counted to another ten.

Eight. Nine. Ten.

“Eloped?” she erupted, barely managing to keep her voice to a reasonable volume. “Eloped? What in the world caused you to say that? Have you lost your mind?”

He looked incredulous—and none too pleased. “You wanted me to tell them that we were having an affair of our own?”

“Yes!”

His expression turned sober, then blank. “The result would have been exactly the same: I’d have to marry you. So I decided to spare us the scandal.”

He did not have to marry her. Or rather, she would not have married him under any circumstances. “You can’t make such decisions for me.”

“I’ve been telling you ever since you came back from America not to put me in this kind of situation.”

“Nobody put you in anything.” Her voice rose with her exasperation. “You inserted yourself into the situation.”

“And where would you and Mr. Martin be if I hadn’t come along?”

She shivered. “The worst would have happened—I will admit that. But that doesn’t mean the two matters are related. To save Mr. Martin, we had to create an illusion that you, not he, were my lover. That was it—nothing more.”

“To save Mr. Martin? What do I care about—” He stopped. “And what then? What do I tell Fitz?”

“The truth, of course. Tell him Mr. Martin and I were ambushed by Mrs. Monteth, and to shield him we chose to make it look as if the two of us were meeting illicitly.”

“And you think that would be the end of the matter? That Fitz would allow such a state of things to stand, for Society to believe his best friend and his sister are sleeping together, without doing something about it? He would have compelled me to offer for you.”

“And I’d have gratefully declined your offer. I will deal with Fitz. I will deal with the consequences of my own actions. I do not need any man to save me and I particularly do not need you.”

His voice hardened. “So you will become a fallen woman? As you so often like to remind everyone, there isn’t just reputation to consider; there is also happiness. Do you not realize that you would not only tarnish your family’s reputation, but forever taint your brother’s and sister’s happiness? It doesn’t matter whether you stay in London and keep running your firm or repair to the country to rusticate; they could never be seen with you in public again, never talk about you, never let you see their future children except in utmost secrecy. And they would worry about you every hour of the day and pull their hair out over your obstinacy for the remainder of their natural lives. You would subject them to that?”

The trap was closing about her. Her family was her Achilles’ heel. She did not fear consequences for herself, but she could not bear to hurt her loved ones.

She thought she’d steeled herself for this moment—still she had to put a hand against the wall to keep herself upright. She wanted to rail against the unfairness of life: that he, with his debauchery and his illegitimate child living under his roof, was still accepted everywhere, but she, unless she accepted his suit, would suffer the harshest punishments for this one small overreach.

But there was no point blaming the rules of the game when she’d known them all along.

A timid knock came from the door of the bath. “May I come out now?”

Andrew. She’d forgotten him. “Yes, do come out.”

He opened the door and slunk into the parlor, his hand clutched around his hat. Her heart gave an awful throb at his red, disconsolate face. Her poor darling, he must think it was all his fault.

“It’s quite all right, Andrew,” she said encouragingly.

“No, it’s not.” His voice shook. “It’s all gone wrong—like your brother said it would.”

She took hold of his hands, the brim of his hat hard in her palm. “Listen to me. This is not your fault.”

Behind her Hastings rolled his eyes—no doubt he meant for her to see it in the mirror opposite. She clenched her jaw and repeated herself. “None of this is your fault.”

Hastings shrugged into his waistcoat. “Stay here for now, Martin. Let me make sure it’s safe; then I’ll smuggle you out through a service door.”

“Thank you,” Andrew said, his voice barely audible. “Most kind of you.”

“And, Lady Hastings, I trust you will conduct yourself with some decorum.” Hastings shot her a look that was almost hostile in its intensity. She stared back, but had to break his gaze when her heart started to thump unpleasantly. “When I return, we’ll speak to your family, my love.”