A Duchess a Day (Awakened by a Kiss #1) - Charis Michaels Page 0,71
girls they chose could lose heart or be failures at seduction. The girls they didn’t choose could gossip about being approached. The duke could ignore the potential duchesses, or he could love them but still refuse to throw her over.
There were so many more things that could go wrong and only one very improbable thing that could go right.
And then, underlying it all, superseding it all, was Declan.
Totally unexpected, but now wholly central.
He’d begun as a means to an end, and now, in Helena’s mind, he seemed like the very embodiment of “the end.”
She’d fallen in love with him, of this she had no doubt. Her realization of this had been like discovering she was soaking wet even as she’d willingly waded into a stream. She’d wanted to sample the coolness and current and now she was being swept away.
And it wasn’t because he was the only man she’d been allowed to consider, and it wasn’t because he was strong and sensual and exciting.
It was because he was all the things that Lusk was not, plus a host of things she’d never dreamed she needed. Opinionated, interested, courageous, sacrificing, clever. The list of why she loved him was very long.
And it begged the question: Why endeavor to enact this plan, if he wasn’t there in the end?
“What of Shaw?” asked Camille.
Helena looked up. If before her sister had seemed astute and observant, now she seemed positively clairvoyant.
“Camille,” sighed Helena.
It was one thing to admit that she resisted the duke. All of London had heard of her resistance. It was quite another to admit that she’d fallen in love with her groom.
“Do you . . . love him?” her sister pressed.
“Camille,” Helena repeated. “Shaw is a servant.”
“If that is true,” said Camille, “he’s the boldest, most arrogant and entitled servant I’ve ever seen. Not to mention strapping. And clearly he operates very safely inside your confidence.”
“You’re mistaken.”
“I’m not,” Camille sang. “You’re simply fortunate that I’m the only one paying attention. I’m not sure why that is. I’m only seventeen.”
“You are easily passing for thirty in this moment.”
Camille ignored her. “What I don’t understand is why Girdleston doesn’t suspect something.”
“When I bolted from Lady Canning’s party and Shaw recovered me, Girdleston ordered him to never leave my side. The old man bound us together. Shaw’s attention is his job.”
Camille turned away, wagging her finger. “Not so very much attention. Not so willingly, both of you. Can you not feign indifference to him, Lena? And tell him to stop staring at you like you’re . . . you’re a winged angel from the heavenly host.”
“How have you seen this?” asked Helena, dragging herself up from the window.
“You’re not the only clever Lark sister.”
“Quite so,” Helena chuckled. She beamed at her sister. “I’m so glad you came to my room.”
Camille nodded. “It occurred to me that I had a choice to make. Before we’d left Somerset, I thought I could either go along with Mama and Papa as Joan did, or I could do what my head and my heart has been telling me for some time. I’m of the same mind as you, Lena. I want to be like you. I want to make my own choices and live as I want to live. I want to fall in love with my own version of a handsome groom.”
Helena made a choking sound. “Well, perhaps let us take this new independence one step at the time. I’m not—”
“Do not,” sighed Camille, “spare me the subterfuge. Have you made arrangements for Shaw to be with you at the ball?”
Helena was uncertain of how to answer this—and not only because it meant taking Camille into her confidence. She and Declan had gone back and forth about it. Declan felt Helena should allow Lusk to escort her in the ducal carriage. In his view, this was the most prudent, least suspicious way to arrive. Helena had recoiled at the notion and they’d quarreled about it on the walk home from the museum. In the end, Declan promised that he would find his own way inside the ball. He would be near her but not immediately beside her. That she would be safe. He was a mercenary, after all.
Helena looked at her sister now. “Probably,” she said.
“Good for you,” said Camille.
Helena collapsed on the bed, staring at the molded ceiling. “It’s a masquerade. Everyone will be caught up in the pageantry and half of the guests will be obscured by masks. It will be a blur of crystals