Page 16 of The Wolf of Mayfair
“Why are ye saying these things?” she whispered.
Truth. Truth was the reason he uttered each word he did.
“I am a lady,” she continued, with ravaged eyes. “And yet, ye dinnae think anything of speaking to me so.”
“I speak the same way I do to my lovers who are ladies amongst thetonas well as the most skilled ladies of the night.”
She drew back and stared at him like she stood in the presence of a monster.
And she did. The sooner she realized that, the safer she’d be. “Where is your conscience?” she demanded, with the greatest strength to any of the words she’d yet spoken to him.
He snorted. “I don’t have a conscience.”
She stared confusedly at him. “Buteveryonehas a conscience.”
“Not I.” He’d destroy a man as easily as he’d fuck the same man’s wife and never look back.
Miss Wallace continued to peer at him like one seeking any hint that Wingrave wasn’t as soulless as he, in fact, was.
He’d been a weak bastard only once in his life. From his brother’s death, Wingrave had been born anew into a stronger man. He’d made himself a fortress that allowed no one in, so he could maintain strength and never again be reduced to a pathetic boy suffering hurts and mourning losses.
“Ye do have one, my lord,” she said softly, more to herself. “Some are just better at speaking louder over it to drown it out, but it’s still there.”
He smirked. “Tell yourself that if it makes you feel better to believe it, chit.”
He flicked an icy glance up and down her person. “Now, may I suggest you return to your chambers and not wander my halls, unless you receive my permission to do so.”
Miss Wallace gave her head a slippery shake, then collected her candelabra and walked a wide path around Wingrave.
It appeared the lady did have some sense, after all.
When she’d gone, Wingrave glanced over to the portrait she’d been studying when he came upon her—one of but a handful of bucolic paintings: in it, amidst a meadow, Wingrave and his late brother sat, surrounded by the team of hunting dogs. The artist had caught them in the moment, laughing, and memorialized it for all time.
Steeling his jaw, Wingrave stalked off, quitting the room he’d not set foot in since his brother died, and never would again.
Chapter 4
How strange it is, that a fool or a knave, with riches, should be treated with more respect by the world, than a good man, or a wise man in poverty!
—Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho
The following morning, Helia stared out from the little space she’d made on the frosted windowpane and took in the storm still raging.
Deep drifts, the kind she’d loved to dive into as a child, blanketed the duke and duchess’s vast gardens. The branches of the lone spruce tree hung heavy under the burden of several inches of snow that had piled upon them. The six-foot-tall cast stone fountain of Venus stood with a bronze tray stretched over her head. From that metal platter, ice dripped like frozen teardrops that hadn’t been free to make their final descent to the Fiore Pond below.
The sky did cry, and it cried for Helia; the storm made travel impossible for a second day.
The marquess’s attempts to petrify her had turned out to be prophecy.
Helia’s eyes slid closed.
I am ruined.
A lady could escape notice in the dead of night, in the dead of winter, amidst a storm, but in the light of day ... discovery was inevitable.
For secrets didn’t live in these streets—or, truth be told,anystreets. People of every station subsisted on scandal, and inevitably their whispers became roars.
Or maybe, since her parents’ death, she’d become so accustomed to living moment to moment she’d merely deluded herself last evening.
