Page 70 of The Wolf of Mayfair
As she parted ways with the peddler, another strange, tingling sensation took hold. She did a sweep of her surroundings.
Excited energy thrummed amongst the throngs of revelers. A small cluster of dapperly dressed gentlemen each held drinks of their own. The lofty lords chatted and laughed uproariously. Bright-eyed, giggling children dashed and darted around the slower-moving adults.
“You are being ridiculous,” she muttered. Even knowing as much, when Helia resumed walking, she did so at a quickened pace.
Excited screams and trilling laughter filled the frozen fairgrounds.
Helia paused when she reached the portion of the frozen water where wild-looking sled races took place. How many times had her father pushed her in that way so that she’d soared and sailed so fast over Loch Morar, she’d felt a breath away from taking flight?
“Care for a roide, missus?”
Looking down at the tiny owner of that coarse Cockney, Helia smiled. The young boy couldn’t have been more than eight or nine.
She paid her fare, and soon she was squealing wildly as two young boys shoved each sled.
She went racing across the Thames, past the twirling skaters and the games of ninepins that’d broken out upon the ice.
Laughing, Helia held tight to the makeshift bar the boy had fashioned onto the sled.
The dizzying speed with which Helia sailed over the frozen river sent her hood whipping back; her curls tumbled over her shoulders. That same frigid air slapped at her face and stole her breath.
Over and over she went.
Time melted away.
All her troubles and worries faded along with it.
The gap-toothed, freckled boys gave Helia a final push, one that went cockeyed and sent them diverging in an uneven line.
As the world sped past, she closed her eyes tight, tipped her head back, and freed herself fully to the joy.
Until, too soon, the speed of her sled gradually slowed, then suddenly came to an unexpected jolting stop.
That abrupt finish brought her eyes flying open ... and she froze.
A gentleman in a costly deep-blue, fur-lined cloak and a chimney-style, black top hat stood with a black riding boot propped on the edge of her sleigh.
Her stomach churned and fear exploded in her breast, a crippling terror that kept her paralyzed.
“Dearest Helia,” Mr. Draxton murmured in smooth, silky tones too hard to ever truly be warm. “My goodness, you’ve given me quite the chase.”
Chapter 15
He loved the soothing hour, when the last tints of light die away; when the stars, one by one, tremble through æther, and are reflected on the dark mirror of the waters; that hour, which, of all others, inspires the mind with pensive tenderness, and often elevates it to sublime contemplation.
—Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho
Hours after he’d searched the duke’s office, Wingrave remained seated upon his pompous sire’s imperial chair.
He had long since returned the old duke’s official records and correspondences to their respective places within the always tidy desk.
Wingrave stared off into nothing and drummed his fingertips along the mahogany arms of his current seat.
Nay, not nothing.
His gaze remained locked on the wall where he’d pinned Helia and coaxed her body to surrender.
Both her embrace and shyness had proven—as if there’d ever been a doubt—the lady was as pure as the snow covering the gardens below.
