Page 67 of The Wolf of Mayfair
Helia dipped a curtsy and let herself from the office; she closed the ornate oak panel behind her with the faintest click.
Meowww.
Blankly, Wingrave looked down at Black Bothersome Cat, who’d sneaked himself back inside the office.
The beastie stared up with angry, accusatory eyes, and damned if Wingrave didn’t find himself deserving of that feline censure.
Chapter 14
How suddenly one comes to be happy, just when one is beginning to think one never is to be happy again!
—Ann Radcliffe, The Italian
A short while later, along the tideway of the River Thames, the world lay before Helia, a veritable winter wonderland of snowdrifts and ice amidst which had sprung a makeshift carnival of merchants and frolickers of all ages.
The frozen waterway found itself a temporary home to peddler tents; they sat in the distance, a collection of symmetrical forms and vibrant colors.
From within those booths rose the boisterous voices of peddlers hawking their wares. The din of that bustling activity melded with the rollicking laughter of the merrymakers.
For all the joy the Frost Fair had brought to London, Helia moved along the edge of that revelry, like a lost soul who’d been forced to dwell amongst the lucky living.
Though there felt nothing fortunate in this anguish sluicing away at her insides.
Since the moment she’d availed herself of the marquess’s carriage and servants and set out across London to put distance between her and the man who’d broken her heart, the memory of each cruel wordhe’d uttered had played over and over again, like a lash upon her heart and mind.
You think Icareabout you. Why? Because I had my hand up your skirts and your hot quim in my hand?
Helia quickened her stride, all the while wishing she could outrun each hated utterance that had crossed his lips. The memory of his hateful declaration, combined with the pace she’d set, caused her breath to come in harsh, uneven spurts. They slipped from her lips and left little clouds of white upon the frigid air.
She willed the echo of his voice to cease repeating in her mind—to no avail.
The thing about you, Helia Mairi Wallace, with your cheery outlook, despite the supposed death of your parents and a villainous cousin on your trail, and your always smiling face, is that in your naivete, you see good where it doesn’t exist. You expect there will be someone there to help and that things will get better. But they won’t.
Helia caught her lower lip between her teeth and bit down hard. Since the loss of her parents, hope had sustained her—hope that there was, in fact, safety, security, and happiness awaiting her. That charity all hinged upon just one woman and her family.
What she’d not anticipated was meeting the duchess’s enigmatic and clearly hurting son, Anthony. She’d not anticipated being drawn to a man so cynical and angry and with a thousand fortresses built about him.
You deluded yourself into seeing parts of him that aren’t really there. You let yourself believe he cared. And why? Because he gave you shelter from the storm? Because he sat beside you through your illness ...
Only . . .
Aye. That’d been precisely what she’d thought.
Helia abruptly stopped on a slight rise overlooking the festivities. As the cold winter wind whipped her cloak about her legs, Helia ran a vacant gaze over the fair that existed as a blur down below.
Gentlemen didn’t tend to sick young ladies. But Anthonyhad.
Surely those glimpses she’d caught of him were real and—
The world is a shite place, full of shite things and shite people, Helia. People that lie. Just as you’ve done, MissWallace.
Helia yearned to clamp her hands over her ears to drown out the remembered viciousness of his charges and tone.
She blinked slowly, and at once the world came rushing back in an explosion of beautiful sound and color.
What is wrong with me?Melancholy? Woolgathering? That wasn’t who she was.
He was trying to scare me. To hurt me.She knew that. He had done so in a bid to avoid presenting himself as vulnerable in any way.
