Marrying Winterborne (The Ravenels #2) - Lisa Kleypas Page 0,25

perfect curve of her shoulder. How strange it was to lie here so utterly contented, when he usually couldn’t abide inactivity. He could lie here for hours, even now at the middle of the day, just holding her.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been abed at this hour, save for those three weeks at Eversby Priory while he’d recovered from the train accident.

Before that experience, he’d never been sick in his life. And the thing he had always feared most was to be at someone else’s mercy. But somewhere in the miasma of heat and pain, he had become aware of a young woman’s cool hands and lulling voice. She had wiped his face and neck with iced cloths, and given him sips of sweetened tea. Everything about her had soothed him: the delicacy of her, the vanilla sweetness of her scent, the gentle way she had spoken to him.

For the most blissful few minutes of Rhys’s life, she had cradled his feverish head and told him stories about mythology and orchids. Until his last day on earth, that memory was the one he would return to most often. It was the first time he hadn’t envied a single man on earth, because for once he had felt something close to happiness. And it hadn’t been something he’d had to hunt down and devour in dog-hungry gulps . . . it had been gently, patiently spooned to him. Kindness that had asked for nothing in return. He had craved it . . . craved her . . . ever since.

A delicate blond tendril dangled over Helen’s nose, fluttering with each soft exhalation. Rhys stroked back the glinting strands and let his thumb trace over a slender dark brow.

He still didn’t understand why Helen had come to him. He had believed that his wealth was the attraction, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Obviously she wasn’t drawn to his scholarly turn of mind or his distinguished lineage, since he possessed neither of those things.

She’d said she wanted adventure. But adventures had a way of becoming tiresome, and then it was time to return to everything that was safe and familiar. What would happen when she wanted to go back and realized her life could never be what it was?

Troubled, he disentangled himself from Helen and arranged the covers snugly around her. Leaving the bed, he dressed in the bracing air of the bedroom. His mind fell back into its customary brisk pace, setting out lists and plans like marbles on a solitaire board.

Hell and damnation, what had he been thinking earlier? A grand wedding to show off his blue-blooded bride . . . why had he thought that mattered? Idiot, he told himself in disgust, feeling as if he were finally thinking clearly after spending days in a fog.

Now that Helen belonged to him, he couldn’t give her back. Not even for a brief interval until the wedding. He needed to keep her close at hand, and he damned well couldn’t risk having her back under Devon’s control. Although Rhys was convinced that Helen genuinely wanted to marry him, she was still too unworldly. Too malleable. Her family might try to send her far from his reach.

Thank God it wasn’t too late to rectify his mistake. Striding from the bedroom suite, he went to his private study and rang for a footman.

By the time the footman had reached the study, Rhys had made a list, sealed it, and addressed it to his private secretary.

“You sent for me, Mr. Winterborne?” The young footman, an enterprising fellow named George, had been well trained and highly recommended by an aristocratic London household. Unfortunately for the upper-class family—but quite fortunately for Rhys—they had recently been forced to economize and reduce the number of servants in their employ. Since many peerage families found themselves in straitened circumstances nowadays, Rhys had the luxury of hiring servants they could no longer afford. He had his pick of any number of competent people in service, usually the young or the very old.

Rhys motioned the footman to approach the desk. “George, take this list to my office and give it to Fernsby. Wait there while she collects the items I’ve requested, and bring it all here within the half-hour.”

“By your leave, sir.” The footman was gone in a flash.

Rhys grinned briefly at the young man’s speed. It was no secret, both in his household and at his store, that he liked his orders to be carried out