The Secret Wallflower Society - Jillian Eaton Page 0,58

searched her face. “I’ll settle a large sum in an account of your choosing, of course. Enough to keep the house in Berkley Square, if you so choose. Although I might recommend curtailing some of your…extracurricular spending.”

“I do enjoy shopping,” she admitted.

“I know,” he said wryly. “I’ve the mountain of notes to prove it.”

As they shared a grin, it struck Helena how easy it was. To be with him again. To smile with him again. To share a jest with him again. But she didn’t want it to be easy. She didn’t want it at all. Not the hope, or the heartbreak. Not the love, or the loss. Because if there was another lesson that she’d learned the hard way, it was that you couldn’t have one without the other.

Which was why she wanted neither.

“I’m sorry,” she said, taking a step back. “I-I need time to think.”

His brows gathered. “About what? The money? I can assure you; it is insignificant to me.”

But am I insignificant to you?

She backed further away. Away from Stephen. Away from her feelings. Away from questions she could never ask, for if she did, it would reveal how much she still desperately cared for him. And if she told him how she felt, how she really felt, then she’d also have to tell him what she’d done. What she’d really done.

“You should leave,” she said flatly.

“Helena–”

“Leave,” she insisted. “Right this minute. I’ve nothing else to say to you.”

Confusion flickered in his gaze. Then his expression hardened. “You want more, is that it?”

“I don’t want anything from you, except for you to get out!”

“Do you know, for a second I almost believed you’d changed.” His eyes narrowed. “But you’re still the same selfish, conniving bitch you’ve always been. Ah,” he said, a jeering smile contorting his mouth when she visibly flinched. “The truth hurts, doesn’t it, lamb?”

“You wouldn’t know the truth if it hit you upside that inflated skull of yours!”

As the temporary peace they’d managed to find fractured straight down the middle, Helena and Stephen squared off like two boxers preparing to step into the ring. She put her hands on her hips. He curled his into fists. She glared. He glowered. They both seethed.

And they both hurt.

“I’ll let myself out,” he said at last. “I’ll see you again soon.”

“Is that a promise or a threat?” she demanded.

“That’s for you to decide, lamb. But know this – unlike you, I always keep my promises.” He gave a mocking bow and then he was gone, leaving Helena to wonder what the devil she was supposed to do now.

Chapter Seven

Percy was waiting for Helena in the parlor.

“Who was that?” she asked, her eyes as big as dinner plates.

Helena took a deep breath. “That was my deplorable stepson. And the only man I’ve ever fancied myself in love with. I need a drink,” she decided. Crossing to the liquor cabinet on the other side of the room, she helped herself to a bottle of brandy. When she held up two glasses, Percy shook her head, and with a shrug Helena filled up both of them for herself.

“I – I really don’t understand.” Biting her lip, Percy followed Helena over to a pair of chairs turned towards the fireplace. She perched delicately on the armrest of one while Helena threw herself into the other.

“Neither do I,” Helena said broodingly. She drank her brandy. It burned on the way down, but pooled pleasantly in her belly with an aftertaste of warm honey. “His name is Stephen Darby. He was a viscount when I met him. Now he’s the Earl of Cambridge.”

“Oh. I see.” Percy paused. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t see at all. You loved him? But I always thought–”

“I was incapable of loving anyone?” Helena muttered into her drink.

“Of course not. It’s just…well…” The duchess twisted her fingers together. “I don’t know how to say this politely.”

“I’m a cantankerous witch who skewers any man who dares approach her?”

Percy’s cheeks reddened. “Yes. That – that does sum it up.”

“I wasn’t always this way.” She took another sip of brandy before setting both glasses aside. It was, after all, only half past one in the afternoon. Another four hours and she could drink to her heart’s content. Until then…until then she would be forced to confront her past with a clear mind and an aching heart. “I told you I married the Earl of Cambridge to save my sister from having to do the same. What I didn’t tell you was that