There was a light knock on the chamber door behind her and Helena stiffened. After the past twenty-four hours, she wasn’t equipped to deal with any more drama. Not that drama normally knocked so gently.
She moved to the door and opened it, and was surprised to find Walker standing there. The butler smiled. “I’m sorry to trouble you, miss, but His Grace has requested that you join him in his study, if you are not otherwise occupied at the moment.”
Her heart throbbed as she tried, and failed, to read Walker’s expression. “His Grace wants to—to see me,” she said.
He nodded. “At your earliest convenience. Do you have a message to return to him?”
“I will join him momentarily.” Her voice shook, and she blushed, for it was very noticeable.
Walker inclined his head. “Very good, miss. And you know where the study is?”
“Yes,” Helena whispered as she thought of the night she had shared with Baldwin there. The butler smiled again and then slipped away.
She stood staring into the empty hall for a moment, then shook off her surprise. She had no idea why Baldwin would call her to him. It was ten in the morning, early by the standards of many. Her cousin was still abed, after all.
After their last encounter, he could want to say anything to her. He might want to check on her. Or perhaps he wanted to tell her that Tyndale disapproved of what he’d walked in on the previous day. He might even want to end their affair.
“Oh, do just go down,” she snapped out loud to herself. “Standing up here and running over the possibilities is no help.”
She moved to the mirror and quickly checked herself. Aside from looking like she’d had no sleep, which she hadn’t, she was presentable. She drew a deep breath, and marched out of the room and down the stairs. As she meandered through the hallways, she tried to stay calm and finally resorted to counting the number of doors that were between her and her fate.
At last she reached Baldwin’s office door. It was open a crack and she quietly stepped inside. He was standing at his window, his hands clasped behind him. She drank in the sight of him for the briefest of moments. He was so handsome. So strong. For just a flash of time, he’d been hers.
Letting him go was going to be crushing.
She shook away the last thought and cleared her throat to draw his attention.
He turned, and she caught her breath a second time, though for a far different reason. Baldwin’s face was filled with…light. She’d never seen him thus, and it shocked her. He always had a sense of melancholy around him, responsibility that was drowning him every day.
Now it was different. It was as if he had been brought to life. She couldn’t help but step toward him and that light, to feel healed by it and lifted by it.
“Helena,” he said, crossing the room to her. “Thank you for coming.”
She jerked out a nod. “I…of course, Baldwin. Of course. Has something happened?”
He tilted his head and examined her face with another of those little smiles that were so lovely to see. “Why would you think something has happened?”
She drew in a shaky breath. “You’re changed. I don’t know, there is something different in the air around you.”
He laughed as he moved to shut the door and gave them the privacy she so longed for. The privacy they likely shouldn’t have. But she ignored that.
She wanted to be alone with him. She had no idea how many times she would get to do so. There were only two days left at his house party. Perhaps a week or two before she’d be shuttled back to America.
She pushed the thought away as he returned and caught her hand, drawing her to the settee and taking a place there beside her. Too close.
“Leave it to you to recognize even the most subtle of shifts in me,” he said, reaching out to trace a finger down her cheek.
She swallowed hard and tried not to lean in to the gentle warmth of his touch. “Has something happened?”
He nodded, and his expression grew more serious. Not melancholy, just serious. “It has, Helena. Not all at once, but in little increments. Little shifts over time that take a man from a certain place to another in a way that he hardly notices, before one day he wakes up and he’s…here. With you.”
“I-I don’t understand,” she whispered.
“I know you don’t. I’m going to explain.” He shook his head with a small laugh. “I’m actually quite nervous, though, so I hope you will be gentle with me.”
She drew back. “You? Nervous. I can hardly picture that.”
“You do that to me,” he said. “You always have. I should have known that first night.”
Her hands had begun to shake and she gripped them in her lap as she stared into his face and saw all her hopes and dreams reflected there. Only they couldn’t be. “What should you have known?”
He leaned in closer, holding her stare with his. Never letting her look away. He smiled once more. “I love you, Helena Monroe.”
She froze. This was a dream. There was no other explanation for Baldwin sitting across from her, telling her he loved her. Except when she pinched herself, she didn’t wake.
“Please don’t,” she said, jumping up to distance herself from him. “Please don’t say that to me.”
Baldwin watched as Helena staggered across the room, holding her hands up to ward him away. She did not look happy at his confession—she looked horrified.
Slowly he got to his feet and smoothed his jacket. “Not the reaction I was hoping for, I admit,” he said, trying to keep his tone calm. “Do you not care for me?”
He braced himself for the answer, though there was no bracing for her rejection. Just the thought of it made his stomach turn.
She shook her head over and over. “You know I do,” she said at last, her breath short, her words trembling. “But it’s cruel to tell me this when we both know the situation. I’ve accepted that we can’t be together. Please don’t make me say those words out loud. I will drown in them.”
His relief nearly buckled him. She didn’t know his decision yet. She didn’t know his offer. Her fear kept her from him, not a lack of feeling.
He stepped forward. “Say the words,” he encouraged. “I will not let you drown.”
Her face crumpled. “Please.”
“Say them,” he repeated.
“I love you,” she whispered, ducking her head. “I have loved you from the first moment I met you. But we both know I have nothing to offer you.”
He frowned at how easily she accepted that she would lose. That was the place she had been placed for so long. By her family and friends…by him. When they were married, he would help her with that. He knew she could find her confidence. Emma had, after all, and she had been very similar to Helena when she and James first wed.
“You have yourself,” he said softly as he tucked a finger beneath her chin and made her look up at him. Tears sparkled in her eyes, and they broke his heart. “You are worth more than gold.”
“I am not,” she said. “And that isn’t what we’re talking about.”