Page 64 of From Rakes to Riches

Dash it, hehadnoticed.

“What’s happened?” He gave her shoulder a gentle shake. “Why are you crying?”

Why? It was a perfectly reasonable question. What she would have given in that moment to have uttered a perfectly reasonableanswer in response! It was a great pity, then, that she hadn’t the vaguest idea.

She was crying over nothing. And everything.

Lady Codswaddle had shouted at her. The fete was only four days away, and there was so much to do between now and then her head felt dizzy just thinking about it. She was exhausted, and…and…

And Lord Hawke—Adrian—had hardly spared her a glance all afternoon, because he’d been taken up with escorting Lady Anne into every room in the entire castle.

Evenshehadn’t seen every room in this castle!

They looked well together, he and Lady Anne. His dark hair and height complimented Lady Anne’s fair daintiness, and then they were so easy with each other, laughing and chatting together as if no one else was in the room with them, as if no one else mattered, and…and…

She was being made to leave Hawke’s Run, to abandon her sweet boys, and…and other people! The end of the year was creeping closer with every sunrise, and Ryan and Etienne were sure to forget her as soon as she’d gone, and she’d never get to see Hecate’s kittens, and Abby would become a dreadful gossip, and poor Mrs. Norris would be run ragged trying to keep up with the boys, and Lord Hawke would fall madly in love Lady Anne, and everything was wretched?—

“Please stop crying, Helena, and tell me what’s wrong.”

Helena? Had he just called her by her given name? That and the gentle hand he laid on her shoulder so startled her she swallowed her sobs and raised her head.

She blinked up at him, squinted, then blinked again.

His brows were pulled together, his lips turned down at the corners, and his hair was standing on end. He looked handsome and disheveled and perfectly miserable.

Even more miserable than she felt.

“I’m very sorry I shouted at you, and laughed at your…” He retrieved the pathetic little bundle of sticks and ribbons she’d tied together. “Your, ah…your kissing ball. It’s a very nice one, indeed, and?—”

“No, it isn’t. It’s awful.” She took it from his hand with a sigh and tossed it onto the table. “And you didn’t shout at me.”

“I daresay it sounded like a shout to you, with the stillroom so quiet. I do beg your pardon for startling you.” He gazed down at her in the dim light, his eyes soft and darker than usual, his pupils having swallowed all but the narrowest ring of forest green.

“I own youdidstartle me a bit.” So much so her heart was thrashing like a wild thing against her rib cage. From the startling, that is. No other reason. “I thought everyone would have gone off to their beds by now.”

“The boys are asleep, but Mrs. Norris was worried about you. She said she hadn’t seen you in hours, and asked me to come look for you.” He nodded at the mess spread out on the work table. “Can’t this wait until tomorrow?”

“No, I’m afraid not.” She let out a weary sigh. “Lady Codswaddle was a bit, er, dismayed to find I’d only made two dozen kissing balls.” Dismayed, indeed. That was a polite word for what had, in fact, been an ill-tempered rant on Lady Codswaddle’s part.

He frowned. “You mean to say you’ve been down here making kissing balls this entire time?”

“I’m afraid so. Hawke’s Run’s ballroom is much larger than Goodall Abbey’s, you see, and so it’s going to take far more kissing balls than we originally planned.”

His lips had pulled into a thin, grim line. “How many more?”

She glanced at the enormous pile of greenery on the table and the overflowing basket of white silk ribbon, and allowed herself a despairing little sniffle. “Another six dozen.”

“Six dozen! You mean to say Lady Codswallop is demanding you?—”

“Codswaddle.” She brushed a stray lock of hair from her damp face. Dash it, she was all drippy?—

“My God, what happened to your hands?” He seized one of her wrists and brought her hand closer to the lantern light. “You’re bleeding!”

“Only a little. It’s nothing, I assure you.”

She tugged gently to free her hand from his grasp, but he held on, turning it this way and that. Dozens of tiny cuts and pricks marred her skin, some of them oozing droplets of blood. “It’s not nothing.”

“The holly leaves are a bit pointy, that’s all.”

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