The Secret Wallflower Society - Jillian Eaton Page 0,60
to sunrise.”
“Why not?” Percy asked.
“Because love at first sight is nothing more than fodder for poets.” Tilting her head back, Helena finished the first glass of brandy and reached blindly for the second. “I was a silly girl who didn’t know what I was promising.”
“What did you promise?”
“To wait.” When her chest tightened, she took another swig of brandy. “Stephen was leaving the next morning on his Grand Tour, and he asked me to wait for him. I promised I would.”
“But you didn’t,” said Percy quietly.
“No.” She swallowed hard. “I didn’t.”
“I believe in love at first sight, you know.” Leaving the fireplace, Percy went to the same window where Stephen had stood only a few minutes ago. “Now you think I’m silly,” she said when Helena remained silent.
“No,” Helena corrected. “I think you’re…idealistic.”
“I knew Andrew for eight months before I accepted his proposal.” Though her voice remained light and unaffected, Percy’s spine was as stiff as a board. “We went to the theater together. He took me on long carriage rides through Hyde Park. He dined with my family, and we danced at too many balls to count. I truly believed I knew him. I truly believed we were in love. We were married for less than a week when he struck me the first time.”
“Percy.” A bit unsteady on her feet, Helena nevertheless stumbled to the fireplace and gathered the duchess in her arms like a mother would her child. “I’m so sorry that happened to you. It wasn’t your fault. Any of it.”
“I know that now.” Although a tremble went through her entire body, Percy kept her chin held high just like Helena had taught her. “But my point is that love does not adhere to a certain timeline. You can know someone for eight minutes and love them for the rest of your life. Or you can know them for eight months and end up bleeding in an alley until two angels come to your rescue.”
On a soft laugh, Helena rested her head on Percy’s shoulder. “No one has ever called me an angel before.”
“It’s what you are, for taking me in. Few would have dared risk the wrath of a powerful duke.”
“Men stopped intimidating me a long time ago.”
“Even wickedly charming earls?” Percy ventured.
“Especially those.”
“Do you think he’ll come back, your Stephen?”
“First of all, he’s hardly my Stephen. Second of all…” She thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. His promise/threat notwithstanding, she saw no reason for Stephen to linger. “I don’t think so. I believe he got what he came for, which was to thoroughly humiliate me.”
“How did he do that?”
“By telling me who my benefactor is.”
Percy’s eyes widened. “He did? How could you not tell me this first and foremost! Who is it?”
“Stephen. Stephen is my benefactor.” Just saying the words out loud caused her teeth and belly to ache as if she’d eaten too many sweets.
“But why–”
“Out of some perverted sense of obligation, I suppose” Helena said, interrupting her friend with an irritated huff of breath. “He cut me off completely when his father died, then apparently felt bad enough about it to secretly become my benefactor, and now he’s here to cut me off again.”
“Oh.” Percy’s brow creased. “That’s…”
“Absurd?” Helena said. “Insane? The most convoluted thing you’ve ever heard?”
“Interesting. I was going to say interesting.” Percy felt for Helena’s hand, then linked their fingers together and squeezed. “But then, men have always done very interesting things for love.”
“Stephen doesn’t love me,” she scoffed.
Percy gave her a knowing look. “And you don’t love him either, right?”
“That’s right.”
“And you wouldn’t mind if he returned London and you never saw him again?”
“Of course not. In fact, I hope that’s precisely what happens.”
But if that were true…why did she suddenly feel so disappointed?
Well, that could have gone better.
As he stared blindly at his tankard of ale, Stephen cursed himself for everything he’d said to Helena during their fractious encounter.
And everything he hadn’t.
The plan had been a simple one. Collect his debt and wash his hands of her. But there’d been nothing simple about the emotions he had experienced when he saw Helena again. There’d been nothing simple about the heat that had filled his loins when he touched her again. There’d been nothing simple about the intense desire he’d felt to kiss her again.
There was nothing simple about Helena, period.
A fact he’d conveniently chosen to forget on this ill-fated quest for revenge.
Grimacing, he tipped his tankard back and drained what was left of