Page 97 of The Wolf of Mayfair
Helia exploded to her feet. “Enough,” she whispered furiously.Do not think of what took place on this desk and in this office.
Helia finished collecting every neglected page and returned them to the desk. She had begun to set the messy surface to rights, when her gaze alighted upon a crisply folded newspaper. The sheets were entirely too perfectly inked and faded white to be aged by time.
Curiously, Helia availed herself of the copy ofThe London Times.
She stole a peek over in Anthony’s direction. Once she confirmed he remained sleeping, Helia carefully unfurled the newspaper.
She quickly skimmed the contents and then stopped at the top center.
Scandal of the Century
What lady should not wish to be the next Duchess of T?
Helia paused and her pulse picked up.
Certainly, wedding the distinguished and powerful Marquess of W is a dream to all ... except, that is, the one lady he’d been slated to marry—the Season’s most breathtaking beauty, a Diamond of the First Waters, betrothed to the marquess before she’d even formally debuted.
The future duke found himself left standing at the altar as his betrothed walked off with another man, the Viscount C, a lesser gentleman—in every way. Only an uncouth cad would dare interrupt a wedding ceremony in progress and declare his love with the groom at the bride’s side.
This author expects Lord W may have any woman he wants ... that is, if his heart might recover from this greatest of degradations.
Helia’s heart thudded in a sickening beat against the walls of her chest.
“Oh, Anthony,” she whispered, her heart breaking for him ... and herself. “No wonder you’ve become such a curmudgeon,” she murmured to herself, rereading those sad words inked in black.
Was it not enough he’d suffered the abuse of his father and the neglect of his mother? He should find his heart broken, too?
“And what reason is that?”
Helia gasped. She jerked her head up so fast her neck muscles wrenched.
At some point, Anthony had not only awakened, he’d stood. He nowrested, with a hip dropped upon the arm of the sofa he’d slept on only moments ago.
Anthony’s near-obsidian black lashes swept low until they’d swallowed up his sapphire eyes. He studied Helia with a cool smile on his hard lips.
A knot formed in her belly.
“Interesting reading,” he remarked, in a pleasant voice that belied the steel within it.
Blinking furiously, Helia dropped her gaze to the stiff, oversize sheet clutched damningly in her fingers.
When she looked up, Wingrave remained there, contemplating her with an incisiveness in his icy eyes that swiftly killed the illusion of a lazy boredom.
Unnerved as she’d never been, not even during Mr. Draxton’s browbeating, Helia dipped her tongue out and traced the seam of her lips.
The marquess sharpened his eyes on her. Nay, not her, rather that slight movement of her tongue.
Anthony’s eyes glowed with an incandescent heat that could have melted the immense snow the storm had left upon the London streets below.
She immediately flattened her lips.
He chuckled, straightened, and started over with long, languid steps.
He’s trying to unnerve me.
He’s trying to scare me.
To cow me.
