“You don’t know what became of her?”
“I don’t give a damn,” he said bitterly. “She’s Albion Vance’s daughter.”
A STRANGE, NUMB feeling invaded Helen, as if her soul had just been jarred loose from her body. She lay still against him, her thoughts whirling like moths in the darkness. Why hadn’t it occurred to her before that her mother probably wasn’t the only woman that Vance had seduced and abandoned?
Poor unwanted infant—she was four now—what had Vance done with her? Had he taken her in?
Somehow Helen didn’t think so.
No wonder Rhys hated him.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
“For what? You’ve nothing to do with it.”
“I’m just . . . sorry.”
She felt him take a tight-banded breath, and her numbness was swept away in a wave of compassion and tenderness. She wanted badly to comfort him, for the pain of the past and the hurt yet to be inflicted.
The fire had sunk down to red coals in their beds of ash, throwing off a thin buttered glow. Most of the heat in the room came from the big masculine form beside her. She moved along his body, feeling her way with lips and hands. He was still, clearly curious about what she intended. The drum-tight surface of his stomach contracted as she drew her mouth across it. Reaching his groin, she breathed in the intimate scent of him, musk and a hint of sharpness that reminded her of whittled birch, and sweetness, like a hot summer meadow. She heard his low exclamation as she touched the hard length of him, gripping until it swelled thickly against her fingers.
Rhys gasped out a few words, beseeching and urgent. Helen didn’t think he realized that he was speaking in his native language, which of course she hadn’t a hope of understanding. But he sounded so violently appreciative that she bent to kiss him as she’d done before. His hips jerked reflexively, and he grunted as if he were in pain. Helen hesitated. His shaking hand came to her head and smoothed over her hair in what seemed to be a mixture of pleading and benediction. She dared to wrap her lips around him, tasting salt as she pulled back slowly. He tensed like a man strung on a torture rack, groaning as she repeated the caress.
In the next moment, he had rolled Helen onto her side, fitting their bodies together like a pair of spoons. One of his muscled arms hooked beneath her top knee, lifting it high, and Helen tensed in surprise as she felt him entering her. He kissed the side of her neck and murmured in Welsh, words like audible caresses. His mouth found the vulnerable spot low behind her ear, where he knew she was especially sensitive. She relaxed helplessly against him as he centered himself and rocked firmly upward, the angle teasing a new place inside her. After adjusting her top leg to rest on his, he slid a hand between her thighs.
Moaning, she abandoned herself to the rhythm he set, his strength all around her, the vital force of him sinking deep. His hips lunged with increasing power, driving the sensations to a higher pitch, until pleasure seemed to come from every direction. A scalding flush came over her, followed by a stronger one. She turned her mouth against the hard arm beneath her neck, biting into the dense muscle, trying to muffle her cries. His scorching breath struck her neck in rapid gusts, and she felt the graze of his teeth and the scrape of his bristle on the tender skin. Twisting, convulsing, she forced her hips down on his, taking his full length, and he poured into her with a ragged groan, holding deep and fast.
They were both still, relaxing slowly. When Helen could finally move, she eased her top leg down. She was limp and heavy, replete with satisfaction. Deep within her belly, where Rhys still pressed, she felt an insistent pulse, and she couldn’t tell whether it came from him or her.
His hand coasted gently over her body, caressing her hip and waist. Helen quivered as he bit gently at her earlobe. He had drawn his legs up behind hers, the hair on his limbs pleasantly coarse against her skin.
“You forgot to speak in English,” she said after a moment, her voice languid. “During.”
His lips toyed with the rim of her ear. “I was so wild for you, I couldn’t have told you my own name.”
“You don’t think anyone heard us, do you?”
“I think it was no accident that I was given a room far away from the family.”
“Perhaps they were afraid you would snore,” she said lightly, and paused. “Do you snore?”
“I don’t think so. You’ll have to tell me.”
Helen snuggled deeper into his embrace. Sighing, she said, “I can’t be found here in the morning when the maid comes to light the grate. I should go back to my room.”
“No, stay.” His arms tightened. “I’ll wake you early. I never sleep past dawn.”
“Never? Why not?”
Rhys smiled lazily against her neck. “It’s what comes of being raised a grocer’s son. My day started at first light, delivering baskets of orders to families around the neighborhood. If I was fast enough, I could stop for a five-minute game of marbles with friends before going back to the shop.” He chuckled. “Whenever my mam heard marbles clicking in my pocket, she took them and gave me a clout to the side of the head. There was no time for play, she would say, with so much work to be done. So I took to wrapping them in a handkerchief to keep them quiet.”
Helen pictured him as a gangly boy, hurrying through his morning chores with a cache of forbidden marbles in his pocket. A bloom of emotion expanded in her chest, an electrifying happiness that almost bordered on pain.
She loved him. She loved the boy he had been, and the man he was now. She loved the look and smell and feel of him, the brusque charm of his accent, the touchy pride and determined will that had taken him so far in life, and the thousand other qualities that made him so extraordinary. Turning in his arms, she pressed herself as tightly to him as she could, and gradually surrendered to an uneasy sleep.
Chapter 19
“THE CARRIAGE IS COMING down the drive,” Cassandra said, kneeling on the settee and staring through the receiving room window. “They’ve almost reached the house.”
It had fallen to West to collect Lady Berwick and her lady’s maid at the Alton railway station, and bring them to Eversby Priory.
“Oh God,” Kathleen muttered, putting a hand to her chest as if to calm a rampaging heartbeat.
She had been tense and distracted throughout the morning, walking from room to room to make certain that every detail was perfect. Flower arrangements had been scrutinized and divested of any drooping blossoms. Carpets had been ruthlessly beaten and brushed, silver and glass had been polished with soft linen, and all the candleholders had been loaded with new beeswax tapers. Every sideboard was weighted with bowls of fresh fruit, and bottles of chilled champagne and soda water had been set in ice-filled urns.
“Why are you so worried about how the house looks?” Cassandra asked. “Lady Berwick has already seen it once before, when you married Theo.”
“Yes, but I wasn’t responsible for anything at the time. Now I’ve been living here for almost a year, and if anything is amiss, she’ll know it’s my fault.”
Pacing in a continuous circle, Kathleen spoke distractedly. “Remember to curtsy when Lady Berwick arrives. And don’t say ‘How do you do’—she doesn’t like that—just tell her ‘Good afternoon.’” She stopped abruptly and cast a wild glance at their surroundings. “Where are the dogs?”