“I am
Helena’s breath caught as his eyes flashed his rage. Ashford was so very handsome—did he not realize? The young ladies here would be in transports if he closed in on them as he did so now with Helena.
He hadn’t meant to kiss her back in London—she knew that. She’d sprung upon him, he’d been angry, and she’d talked too much as usual. He must have been very confused.
And good heavens, why did she long to kiss him again? She was meant to marry him off to one of her young ladies and have done.
The pain in Helena’s heart surprised her. Ashford wanted nothing to do with her, she told herself firmly. She’d promised his children she’d help him find a wife. That was all.
“Where are you rushing off to?” she made herself say. “All will be disappointed if you do not dance.”
“I am not a caper merchant,” Ashford snapped, his cheeks staining red.
“No one believes you should be. But you are the host. You must be gallant and dance, not hide in …” She glanced past him, but she had no idea what lay behind the double doors he’d been heading for. “Wherever that is.”
“The card room. Where many of my gentlemen guests are waiting. Shall I abandon them instead?”
“A host must circulate, yes, but I know you are a fine dancer. One country dance will not hurt you. Nothing shocking like a waltz will happen at this affair—your aunt has seen to that.”
Ashford straightened and seemed to gather himself, but his gaze remained fixed on Helena. Difficult to meet his eyes, gray like winter skies.
“Very well.” His voice quieted but filled with deadly strength. “I will dance. You will be my partner and keep those bloody debutantes away from me.”
“But—”
Helena’s protest cut off as he seized her by the hand and towed her down the long hall and back into the ballroom.
AS SOON AS Ash swung Helena into line in the old-fashioned country dance, he knew he’d made a mistake.
She was flushed and eager, not chagrined that her ruse of inviting the young women on her list would not work. Her left toe tapped as the music began to play, and she smiled as she curtsied with the row of ladies.
The dance was one of slow but steady movement, of ladies and gentlemen meeting and parting, turning, promenading, circling back to place, greeting a second partner, and always returning to join hands with the first.
Helena danced on light feet, never missing a step, her smile welcoming for ladies and gentlemen alike.
She loved to dance, Ash realized. He’d not seen her do much of it at the gatherings Aunt Florence talked him into attending. Helena usually remained at the side of the ballroom with a clump of matrons and widows, chattering away. A flower among faded weeds, he’d thought.
As young as she was, she was expected, as a widow, to sit against the wall while the girls she helped chaperone took her place. Helena had been married scarcely two years before her young and rather feckless husband had wrecked his phaeton on the Brighton road and quickly expired.
She’d changed overnight from flitting butterfly to a shadow in widow’s garb, resolutely turning away the attentions of gentlemen who’d tried to swoop in and pluck her up, fortune and all. Helena’s husband had provided well for her, leaving her a large pile of cash in a trust that his nephew couldn’t touch, and the use of the Berkeley Square house for her lifetime.
In those first years of her widowhood, Ash had helped keep the ambitious swains from her doorstep, and Olivia had guarded her like a dragon.
When Olivia had died, Helena had been there at once, returning the courtesy by looking after Lewis, Evie, and Lily while Ash had gone to hell and back.
She’d always been there, Ash realized, a rock in the torrent that had threatened to sweep him away. She’d been “Aunt Helena” for his children to cling to in their grief and bewilderment, while Ash gradually returned to life.
Not that Helena had performed these angelic deeds in silence. She’d chatted to him whenever she’d intercepted him, about anything and nothing—the weather, stories in the newspaper, his children and what they’d said to her, speculations about life in other countries and was it similar to life in England? Helena could never
Even now, as they danced, she kept up a stream of conversation.
“I vow, there is Sarah Wilkes. So brave of her to come after that horrible man jilted her. I must speak to her—I know a young man who admires her so. He’s not much to look at, but honorable and kind. She will need someone like that now, do you not think, Ashford?”
Ash laced his arm firmly through Helena’s to promenade her to the bottom of the line. “Can you not cease your matchmaking impulses for one dance?”
