Page 21 of The Wolf of Mayfair
“Ah, how ... quaint.” His lopsided grin mocked her more effectively than words ever could. “Now tell me, why did you not seek out the help of your servant family members instead of making yourself a nuisance for me?”
She faltered. “They couldn’t ... They would have—”
“But they didn’t because, given their station, there was nothing they were able to provide you, is that not right, Miss Wallace?” he mocked. “That doesn’tsoundlike family.”
Helia looked him over, and for all the previous dread his presence roused, pity found its way inside her heart. How very sad were the lenses through which he viewed the world.
“On the contrary. What manner of family wouldIbe if I let them risk both their livelihood and lives to help me?”
“You’d be as self-serving as the rest of the people in the world,” he drawled.
“People all provide different things, my lord,” she murmured. “My family’s servants were no different. They offered kindness and warmth and—”
“And howwarmdid their warmth keep you when you found yourself in need?” he cut in, effectively shutting down Helia’s attempt at enlightening him.
And this is the man whose mercy you find yourself at ...?
Her hopeful spirits dimmed.
With a more muted word of thanks, Helia helped herself to the dish between Mr. Other John Thomas’s fingers.
Sometimes, as her mother had been keen to say, it was best for one to haud yer wheesht ... until a later time.
Not even here a single day, holding her tongue proved the cleverer option.
Helia turned her full attention to the well-stocked array of breakfast foods. Simultaneously, her mouth watered and her stomach gave an embarrassingly loud rumble.
Helia went ahead and began making her dish. She plucked a brioche bun and piece of french bread, thought better of it, and added another brioche bun. Moving purposefully down the row of trays and platters laid out, she helped herself to a honey cake, cold pork, liver, and french plums.
Food. Never again would she take that gift from God for granted.
She approached the end of the vast sideboard, eyed her heaping plate a moment, and then spooned a bit of scrambled eggs into the last hint of an open corner on her dish.
The slow scrape of wood striking wood brought her back around.
With a lethal and deliberate-looking slowness, Lord Wingrave unfurled each inch of his greater-than-six-foot frame.
At the raw, unfettered virility of the man glowering back at her, Helia quivered, as did the plate in her unsteady hands.
She tightened her grip.
Quivered? Speechless?What is next?Blushing?That third in the threeling signs of a besotted lady?
Helia made the agonizingly long march across the room, to the spot at the head of the table Lord Wingrave occupied.
With each step, she remained keenly aware of the gentleman staring impenetrably back at her.
Male perfection and virility aside—it was Lord Wingrave’s darkly enigmatic eyes. He possessed magnetism that alternately compelled a woman to both look away and look her fill, all at the same time.
And then, it happened. She who did not and had not and believed she’d never be so silly as to be drawn by a man’s stare alone, felt it—the finisher. Heat bathed her cheeks, in a stingingblush.
Aye, apparently she’d gone and completed that triunity of femininity.
At last, Helia reached the white-painted Louis XVI caned chairs nearest the marquess, promptly stopping beside the seat directly next to Lord Wingrave’s.
She instantly regretted her choice. Walking into the fire itself suddenly seemed a safer option.
Too proud, however, to retreat, she waited for him to draw her seat out, and when it became apparent he’d no intention of doing so, she set her dish down.
