The Secret Wallflower Society - Jillian Eaton Page 0,45

the kitchens. Dahlia, who dreamed of being whisked away by a dashing knight and living in a castle in the clouds. Dahlia, who was so terrified at the prospect of becoming a child bride, she’d fainted when their parents told her of Cambridge’s proposal.

Helena had been furious at both her parents and Cambridge, but after her fury got her nowhere but locked in her room, she’d realized what she needed to do. What she had to do. It had taken some tremendous acting – her stomach still turned whenever she thought of the lengths to which she’d gone – but she had managed to turn Cambridge’s attention from Dahlia to herself. Lord and Lady Holton truly didn’t care which daughter they married off to the obscenely wealthy earl, and they’d been more than willing to yank Dahlia off of the sacrificial pedestal and shove Helena on top of it. Which was how she came to find herself at Cambridge’s country estate on the day Stephen returned home from his travels abroad.

Pinned between her mother and father while Cambridge feasted on her with watery brown eyes and licked his lips as if she were a particularly scrumptious rack of lamb, she hadn’t even looked up when Stephen first entered the drawing room. Her gaze pinned to her lap, she’d assumed he was a servant bringing in refreshments. Or an assassin come to put her out of her misery. But then he spoke, and the second that deep, husky voice reached her ears, her head snapped around with such suddenness she felt a pop in the back of her neck.

It embarrassed Helena to this day that her first thought upon seeing Stephen was relief. In those precious moments when her gaze had frantically sought his, and she willed him to see inside of her head where the truth lay, she’d believed he was there to rescue her. That he had somehow heard of the engagement, cut his Grand Tour short, and come to save her from the pits of hell.

But then, his eyes had frosted over, and his mouth had twisted in a smile sharp enough to slice flesh, and she’d realized just how wrong and naïve her assumptions had been.

“Miss Holton,” he said, a brow arching up towards his carelessly tousled mane of dark chestnut hair. He looked exactly the same as she remembered. A little leaner, perhaps. Harder around the eyes. But beneath that shark’s smile, she still saw the charming scoundrel her heart had fallen for.

“Lord Ware,” she replied cautiously. “You look…well.”

“And you look like a tramp the cat dragged in.”

Lady Holton gasped. Lord Holton stiffened in his chair. Helena, never taking her gaze off of the man who had kissed her in the moonlight, refused to give him the satisfaction of a reaction. But on the inside she struggled not to weep.

It had been difficult enough, to endure the betrayal of her parents. They’d raised her. Cared for her. Loved her – or so she’d been led to believe. Then they’d stabbed a knife in her back and held another to her sister’s throat if Helena didn’t comply with their wishes. That pain…it had almost broken her. But she’d stayed strong, for herself and for Dahlia. Because she knew if didn’t, no one else would.

Now Stephen’s icy contempt felt like another abandonment, and she wondered how much more she could endure before she shattered.

“See here–” her father began, only to immediately fall silent when he experienced the full weight of Stephen’s formidable glare.

“Yes?” Stephen said coldly.

Lord Holton glanced at his wife, then at Cambridge, then down at the floor. It was telling he didn’t feel the need to look at his daughter. “I, uh, that is…nothing of importance, Lord Ware. I meant no offense.”

Helena let out a strangled laugh. She couldn’t help herself. Not even when Cambridge looked at her with eyes narrowed in disapproval.

“Do you find something humorous, my love?” he asked.

My love.

As if his black heart was capable of such an emotion.

“Yes.” Ignoring the sharp warning nudge of her mother’s elbow, she levelled her gaze at everyone in turn. They all looked away, even the earl.

Only Stephen held her stare and the sheer loathing she saw in his expression was enough to steal her breath.

Let him think what he wants, she thought harshly. His opinion doesn’t mean a damn thing.

Except it did. Of all the people in the room, his opinion mattered the most. And it hurt, more than she could put into words, that he