Page 30 of The Wolf of Mayfair
What was wrong with her that she should want him so?
You are now on your second day alone with me, Helia, and as such, ruined ...
Ruined . . . ruined . . . ruined.
Ruined.
Helia’s head pounded as that one word drummed into it, again and again. Over and over.
She’d managed to escape and evade Mr. Draxton, but in the end, Helia had failed in a different—but no less damaging—way.
With a sob that echoed mockingly around the cavernous corridor, she took off for the ornate gold handle of a glass doorway out of this place and set herself free.
The sudden blast of winter air slapped her face and stole the breath from her lungs so quickly she dissolved into a choking fit.
And yet, she welcomed the ice-flecked snowflakes that hit her face and the exposed skin on her body. They proved sobering and cooling on her heated flesh, freeing her of the shameful lust Lord Wingrave had roused her to.
She raced forward, stopping only when she collided with the limestone railing. Six inches or more of snow had formed a drift upon the top.
Restless, Helia shoved the small mound over the side, where it silently tumbled onto the untouched blanket of snow below.
What if the friendship between their mothers hadn’t been as true and two-sided as Helia’s ma had thought? What would happen to Helia, especially now that her reputation would be in tatters?
What if it’d been a brief camaraderie between two lasses who’d made their Come Out and who’d gone on to have their own lives, and in that whole lifetime that separated the women, those remembrances had shifted and changed for Wingrave’s mother?
Helia stared desolately.
Surely any magnanimity on the duchess’s part would be severely limited now that Helia had spent a night in the same house as the lady’s rakish son.
What woman as powerful as the duchess would align her reputation with Helia’s sullied one?
And despite the cold wind whipping at her skirts and cutting across the fabric of her garments, perspiration slicked her palms and beaded at her brow. Her fear proved greater than the cold, as her teeth chattered.
If—when—the duchess turned her away, there’d be nowhere to go. No one to whom she might turn.
She’d be forced to return to Mr. Draxton, and—
Her stomach roiled, and a pressure developed at the back of her skull, in remembered pain of the grip he’d had on both her arms. As brawny as any pugilist, he possessed such might there could be no doubting that if he decided—when he decided—to force himself upon her, she’d be powerless against him.
The memory alone of his punishing hold sent pressure building at her temples and the back of her skull.
Helia reached a hand up to rub that ache away. Her efforts proved as hopeless as her circumstances.
Unwittingly, she angled another look back at the soaring stone residence where Lord Wingrave remained shut away.
Helia continued to assess that handsome, three-story townhouse. She touched her gaze upon each frosted windowpane, wondering which room now held the occupant of her thoughts.
He struck her as a man in desperate need of a friend. Och, she kenned all too well, the marquess didn’t want one and thought he didn’t need one, but he did. And in Helia? He saw only a potential mistress.
What would it be like to be possessed by a man such as he?
“You’re a d-damned numpty, H-Helia Mairi Wallace,” she spat, hating herself for that wicked wondering.
With her previous efforts to escape Lord Wingrave futile, Helia resumed her flight. She stomped along the terrace. The hems of her skirts grew damp and heavy, and at the top of the stairs, she hiked her dress up and took the stairs as quickly as the elements permitted.
Her raspy breath stirred clouds of white upon the air, while whorls of flakes swirled around her face.
The moment she reached the base, Helia resumed her trudge through deep snow. As she went, she looked past the small shrubs and bushes whose leaves and limbs bent under the remorseless wind, those poor, already burdened branches heavy with snow.
