The Secret Wallflower Society - Jillian Eaton Page 0,57

I’ll be right out. I am sorry to have kept you waiting for so long.”

“Are…are you sure?” Percy said uncertainly.

“Positive.” She forced herself to smile. “It shan’t take more than a minute.”

“All right.” Percy started to leave, then hesitated. “I’ll be across the way if you need me.”

“Of course. Off with you, now.” Giving the duchess a gentle push out of the room, Helena closed the door and then leaned back against it. There was a part of her that wanted to follow behind her friend, but first, she had a dragon to vanquish. A very snarly, very angry dragon. The kind that breathed fire and had enormous wings and an even bigger–

Tail, she told herself as heat scalded her cheeks.

He has a very big tail.

Good Lord. What was wrong with her? Stephen was her nemesis, not her lover. The last thing she should have been thinking about was his…tail.

“Who was that?” he asked.

“None of your business.” She stepped away from the door and leveled a cool, unblinking stare at him. “We’re both adults, Stephen. Surely, we can come to a mutual agreement without unnecessary theatrics or shouting.”

“You’re the one who swung a poker at me,” he pointed out.

She lifted her chin a notch. “A lady should always be ready to defend herself.”

“I am not going to hurt you, Helena,” he scowled.

Her smile was soft, and a little sad. “Haven’t you already?”

“I…” Uttering a muffled curse, he went to a window and braced his arms on the edge of the sill, his towering frame one long, lean line of tension. “You broke your promise. Not me. If there’s hurt to be had, you’re the cause of it.”

How could something be so completely true and so utterly false at the same time? Faced with Stephen’s back, she couldn’t help but wonder how things might have turned out differently if she’d been able to keep that promise.

Would she and Stephen be together? Would they be married? Would they have children? As she imagined a little girl with her red hair and his blue eyes, her lips curved, and she let out of a quiet, wishful sigh just as he turned around.

Stephen froze, and the unexpected flash of fierce possessiveness in his gaze rekindled the lust she’d been trying unsuccessfully to shove down deep. As he slowly lifted his eyes from her mouth, she saw his confusion…and his desire. That vulnerable flare of yearning called to her own sense of longing…and of loss. Of what might have been, and what could never be.

“Stephen…?” Her fingers curled inwards, nails biting anxiously into her gloves as he continued to look at her with a mixture of anger, bewilderment, and need.

“Helena.” He took one step towards her, then another. The room seemed to shrink around them. And even though it was impossible, she could have sworn she smelled the faintest hint of wisteria. On a sharp inhalation of breath, he closed the distance between them and brushed his knuckles against her cheek.

“We can’t,” she whispered even as she leaned into his touch.

“I know,” he said raggedly even as his thumb traced the outer curve of her ear.

They gazed into each other’s eyes with both wonder and regret. Passion and pain. Love and loathing.

Helena was so very tempted to take that final step. To stand on her toes and grab onto the lapels of his jacket and pick right up where they’d left off in the garden. As if no time had passed at all. But old injuries were not easy to forget, and old hurts were hard to forgive, and with great reluctance she shook her head.

“We can’t,” she repeated. “It wouldn’t do either of us any good. Whatever reason you have for being my patron, I’m grateful for it.” As difficult as those words were for her to say, she meant them. Truly. Without Stephen’s support, she could only imagine where she’d be. Working as a governess, if she were lucky. On her back in a brothel if she weren’t.

“It was wrong of me to cut you off without a penny after my father died. I was still angry with you. Furious, really.”

“And now?” she whispered.

“Now I don’t know how I feel, if I’m being honest.” His crooked smile tugged at something deep inside of her heart. Something she’d done her best to keep hidden, along with all the other secrets she dared not bring to the light. “But I do know I cannot be bound to you any longer. Not even in anonymity.” He