She nodded, smiling up at him. “Yes, I feel that I’ve finally found a place where I can make a real difference. These women become pregnant and often are almost immediately abandoned by the men responsible. All life is supposed to be sacred, but from the moment the life inside them begins to show, they are ostracized. Most of them lose their jobs, and sometimes their homes, because of it. They give birth in squalor. You wouldn’t believe some of the places I’ve seen.”
He probably wouldn’t. His life took him to the industrial parts of the city, to pubs and bars, and occasionally to the home of one of his workers, but never to the places she referenced. He knew that she had actually gone there herself. When she could have sent Ostler or some other person in her employ, she had gone herself to see with her own eyes these people she wanted to help. His admiration for her, already high, soared.
“Why do you do that to yourself?”
“Because if I don’t, who will?” Shaking her head as if to clear it, she looked down at their still-clasped hands. “But that’s neither here nor there. I only meant to thank you. No one has ever deigned to support me publicly.”
“Helena.” His voice rasped against his throat. With his other hand, he touched her chin, resting it between his thumb and forefinger. She looked up at him, her eyes almost shy now that she had revealed so much to him. “I admire you more than you know. I will always champion you.”
She smiled again, and his thumb traced over the silk of her skin, touching the tiny little indentation at the bottom of her chin that was only barely visible. Then it moved upward, daring to touch the soft fullness of her bottom lip. She didn’t move. Her eyes darkened, dilating with passion, as he slowly lowered his mouth to hers. He paused mere inches away, letting their breaths mingle, breathing her into him.
Jesus, he wanted this woman more than he had ever wanted before. His body ached with it. Every part of him felt tight, needy, desperate for her touch. His breath shook as he exhaled, trying to stop himself from devouring her. She made a soft sound of want in the back of her throat, and he was undone by it. His mouth touched hers, and she responded to his kiss, her lips parting, letting him inside to taste her like he wanted.
She was hot and soft, her tongue bold as it touched his, taking what she wanted as much as she gave. Somehow they had moved across the room. His back came up against the wall, pushing a painting askew. His hands moved up and down her back, flattening her against him as best he could with the layers of clothing between them. He’d have given anything to have her naked and beneath him. Anything.
“Helena?” Her mother’s voice cracked through the air like a shot. They managed to jump apart a mere second before the woman stepped into the room. “There you are, darling.” An eyebrow shot up as she looked them over, and an expression of bored disappointment settled on her face. It had to be painfully obvious that they had been kissing. “Mr. Crenshaw, lovely to see you again.” To Helena, “We must be going. Your father has called for the carriage.”
“Yes, I am ready.” Her voice was calm, having no doubt learned the trick at the skirts of the woman who had judged him and found him lacking.
“Oh. Did you find your book?” Lady Farthington raised that all-knowing eyebrow again.
“We did,” he said a bit too fast, grabbing a book that rested facedown on the shelf beside him. “Here.” He presented it to Helena with possibly a bit more ceremony than the moment called for.
“Thank you, Maxwell.” She plucked it deftly from his hand and smoothed back that single strand of hair that had escaped from its knot. Something about the movement was telling. She was so accustomed to projecting an outward calm that she did it without even noticing. “Shall we, Mama?” she asked, avoiding looking at him.
“What book did Lady Leigh leave for you?” her mother asked, clearly enjoying herself.
Helena’s brows drew together as she glanced down, holding the book up. “North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell.”
“How appropriate.” The words floated behind Lady Farthington as she wafted off, already tired of her game.
Helena gave him a conspirative smile as she followed her mother. The implication of that look hit him right in the gut, like an arrow with an invisible string that was tied to her. They were together, alone in their collusion against the world. It might be a fragile intimacy drawn by circumstance, but he felt closer to her than he had anyone ever before.
He stayed where he was long after she left, the back of his head and his palms pressed to the wall behind him. It took him that long to regain his equilibrium. He knew without question that holding her so briefly, kissing her, wouldn’t be enough. Before he left for New York, he had to have her.
* * *
• • •
As the carriage pulled away from the Crenshaws’ townhome, Helena kept her gaze out the window. Her lips still throbbed from Maxwell’s kiss, and the skin on the lower part of her face tingled pleasantly from the rasp of his beard. She had never kissed a bearded man before. To be fair, aside from a couple of stolen pecks in her first Season, she had never kissed a man other than her husband. Arthur had still been relatively young at twenty and two when they married. He’d always been clean-shaven and reserved with her. His kisses had been shy and quiet.
Maxwell was whatever the opposite of that was. Impatient. Fiery. Wild. The imprint of his hands still warmed her back, as if his touch had burned through the layers of her clothing and corset. She couldn’t deny anymore that she was interested in exploring whatever this was between them. When they touched, it was as if the twin mantles of restraint and composure that she shielded herself with fell away, shredded by him. But she didn’t miss them when they were gone. To the contrary, she felt that she was herself without them for the first time in . . . well, ever.
As a woman who had spent the last five years of her life trying to find out who she was on her own without a man in her life, she didn’t know what to think about that. What did it mean that he so casually and brutally tore her shrouds to threads? More importantly, what did it mean that she liked it?
“Haven’t you already read North and South, darling?” Mama’s knowing voice floated through the darkness of the carriage, penetrating it in a way the small carriage light had been unable to do.
If there had been any doubts about her knowing what Helena and Maxwell had been doing, her tone extinguished them. Helena clutched the leather-bound book in her lap, avoiding looking at her mother, who sat on the bench next to her. “It’s an annotated copy.” The lie came so easily that she should have been ashamed, but her only concern at the moment was getting out of this carriage with her parents. Why had she agreed to ride over with them? At least Berkeley Square was only a few streets away.
“How kind of the young Mr. Crenshaw to help you find it.”