Love's Price (Lord Trent Series) (4 page)

Her derision was undeniable. “This is a recipe for disaster.”

“It won’t be. I promise.”

She scrutinized him, her mind busy with arguments she could never win. Ultimately, she capitulated, as he’d known she would.

“There can’t be any gambling,” she said.

“In my home? Or anywhere?”

“In your home. If I find out that you’re having gaming parties, I won’t stay. It’s vital that I maintain a stellar reputation. I won’t have it destroyed by you.”

“Are we haggling over employment terms?”

“No. I’m merely stating my conditions for remaining: no gambling and no loose women. For my sake—and for Miss Wilson’s—I must insist.”

“No women or gaming,” he pretended to muse. “Anything else?”

“That should cover it. For now. After I’ve gotten to know you better, I’m sure I’ll stumble on other bad habits of which I’ll disapprove.”

“You’re determined to spoil all my fun.”

“I’m
determined
to labor in a decent environment where I don’t have to be mistaken for a harlot by any of your seedy friends.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Miss Stewart, but I give up. You will toil away in a domicile as dull as a Puritan’s.”

“Thank you.”

He was more humored than ever by her, aware that—despite what he’d vowed—he would behave exactly as he pleased. If she caught him in a scandalous situation and tried to sneak to Mrs. Ford, he’d simply fetch her back, and he’d keep on fetching her until she understood that she couldn’t defy him.

He stared at her, and though a footman had yanked open the door, neither of them moved. They sat, transfixed, as the most thrilling surge of recognition flowed between them. It was physical attraction, but fondness too, and some other emotion he couldn’t quite identify.

He felt as if he’d always known her, as if he’d been charged with protecting her. The sensation was bizarre and unnerving, and he was relieved when she was the one to break the contact.

She climbed out, and he followed, hating to admit that he was flustered by the encounter.

Why would he be?

She was a twenty-year-old destitute female. She would work for him for a few months as any other servant might do. He would rarely see her. They would rarely interact.

But as she marched up the steps and bustled into his foyer, the moment seemed normal and expected, and he experienced the most peculiar rush of happiness, convinced that she’d finally arrived right where she belonged.

CHAPTER THREE

“When I want your opinion, Miss Stewart, I’ll ask for it.”

Helen took a deep breath and bit down on a dozen scathing retorts.

“I simply thought I should mention,” she pleasantly said, “that the cut of the gown’s neckline is rather low.”

“It’s my money, Miss Stewart,” Miranda snapped. “How I choose to spend it isn’t any of your business.”

“I realize that, but Lord Westwood is counting on me to assist you. I wouldn’t be earning my salary if I didn’t speak up.”

“Miss Stewart! You are neither a seamstress nor a clothing expert so your comments are without merit. As to your knowledge of fashion”—she derisively assessed Helen—“it’s clear from your dreary wardrobe that you haven’t the sense God gave an ant. Be helpful or be silent.”

Helen sighed and gazed out the carriage window, wishing a hole would open in the road and swallow her up.

She had been Miranda’s companion for two weeks, and the position was as awful as she’d predicted it would be. Miranda had a temper, and her tongue was sharp as a whip. Helen had been maligned and impugned and demeaned, and though she kept her mouth shut and her head down, there was no way to escape Miranda’s wrath.

From the moment Lord Westwood had advised Miranda that Helen had been hired after all, Miranda had been in a state. Not that she’d let Westwood know.

In his presence, she was courtesy itself. She flirted and simpered and batted her lashes, and if Helen hadn’t been apprised—by Westwood himself—that Miranda was marrying his brother, she might have wondered at Miranda’s behavior.

Her conduct seemed very forward, but Westwood didn’t appear to notice, so Helen might be confused as to the exact nature of their relationship. Maybe Westwood was friendlier than Helen had assumed. Or perhaps—just perhaps—Helen was correct, and the entire situation stunk to high heaven.

Wasn’t it just her luck to be caught in the middle of it?

The carriage halted in Westwood’s drive, and Helen expected Miranda to climb out first. On their previous outing, Helen had been so desperate to flee Miranda’s critical diatribe that she’d bolted the instant they’d stopped. As a result, she’d received an hour-long lecture on disrespect.

She wouldn’t make the same mistake again, so she waited...and waited...

But Miranda didn’t move.

“What is it?” Helen finally inquired.

“I am the earl’s cousin and his brother’s fiancée,” Miranda imperiously said. “As I am the only important personage in this vehicle, it is appropriate that
I
exit last. You may precede me.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Helen grumbled.

She leapt out and stomped into the house, then ran up to her room where she flopped down on the bed, an arm flung across her eyes to hold back tears.

Miranda’s wedding was over three months away! How would Helen survive until she was released from Westwood’s service? What if he
never
released her? What if he made her keep working for Miranda after the ceremony? Could he?

She didn’t understand why he’d come to Mrs. Ford’s, why he’d forced her to his home. In light of Miranda’s vitriol, the act had been overtly cruel, but then, he’d softened the blow by giving Helen a lovely bedchamber that wasn’t a servant’s quarters at all, but a small suite, complete with a sitting and dressing room. It was the sort of spot where an honored guest might reside.

Clothing had started to arrive, pretty gowns with matching bonnets and parasols and shawls and gloves. They were tasteful and elegant, the kind of attire a refined young lady would wear while strolling in the park on a summer afternoon.

She hadn’t tried on any of them. The gifts disturbed her, and she didn’t care to be beholden to Westwood in a way that the garments indicated.

How could she persist under such difficult conditions? Why was he doing this to her?

She was so miserable! And he was so detached from events. He was gone in the morning when she rose, gone in the day when she and Miranda were shopping, gone at supper, gone at bedtime, so he had no clue as to what was transpiring, but she couldn’t continue on as she was.

She was determined to leave, so she had to speak with him. He’d claimed he would listen, but would he?

She stood and splashed water on her face, then went downstairs, eager to see if his exalted self might actually be on the premises.

In the foyer, she talked with the butler and was elated to learn that Westwood
was
at home and having a brandy in his library.

Helen hurried down the hall and, since the door was ajar, she entered without thinking. Westwood was at the rear of the large chamber, seated at his massive oak desk. Miranda was across from him, primly perched on the edge of a chair, her back to Helen. Miranda was leaned forward, as if wishing she could get her body in closer proximity to his.

They didn’t notice Helen, and as Miranda began to babble, Helen was reminded of the old adage:
Eavesdroppers never hear anything good about themselves
.

“She really is too horrid, James,” Miranda was protesting.

“Is she?” He sipped his liquor, looking bored.

“We’re so incompatible. Must she stay?”

“I’m afraid she must.”

“But I’m eighteen and about to be married. She treats me as if I’m a child, and I constantly have to reprimand her. She has no sense of her place in relationship to me.”

“And what is her
place
?”

“Why...she’s a servant, but she never remembers that she is.”

Miranda leaned even nearer. She was wearing the dress with the low-cut bodice that Helen had mentioned was too risqué. No doubt Westwood was getting an impressive view of her bared bosom.

“Can’t we be shed of her, James?” Miranda was practically cooing. “Can’t you let her go—as a favor to me?”

Helen was furious and hurt, and she was just ready to tiptoe out when the butler foiled her escape.

“Miss Stewart is here to see you, Lord Westwood,” he loudly announced from behind her. “Would you like her to remain, or should I have her come back when you and Miss Wilson are finished?”

Miranda whipped around and glared, her irate glower slicing into Helen like a knife. Westwood showed no reaction.

He sipped his drink again. “Spying on us, are you, Miss Stewart?”

“I do beg your pardon.” Helen swooped into a respectful curtsy. “I didn’t realize you were otherwise engaged.”

“A likely story,” Miranda sniffed.

“If you’ll excuse me?” Helen said.

She raced out, not waiting for Westwood to give her permission to leave.

She’d never been more humiliated, and she scurried up to her room and sat at the writing desk that had been provided for her use. The drawer contained a stack of pretty, feminine stationary, and she pulled out a sheet, yearning to send a note to Harriet.

It had been weeks since she’d spoken to Harriet, and she was anxious to meet her at church the following Sunday, which was the only time Harriet could get away. But Helen was too distraught to pen a word. She put the paper away and peered out the window when—to her surprise and dismay—the door creaked open.

She glanced over, her jaw dropping in shock as she saw Westwood standing there.

Her first instinct was to demand his departure, but she didn’t have the authority to order him out, and he was so arrogantly stubborn that if she insisted, he’d stay merely to prove that he could.

They stared and stared, then he made her heart pound as he walked toward her, but he stepped past her and leaned against the windowsill to gaze outside.

“I always loved this view of the garden,” he said.

“Yes, it’s beautiful,” she mumbled.

For a long while, he studied the flowerbeds, then he turned to her. With him on his feet, and her seated, he towered over her, seeming very masculine, very large and overpowering.

“How do you like your accommodations?” he asked.

“They’re wonderful.”

“I chose this suite for you myself. The housekeeper was going to stuff you up in the attic with the scullery maids, but I wouldn’t let her. She’s scandalized by my generosity.”

“Why single me out? Your interest only guarantees that the other servants will hate me.”

“I recognize that you don’t want to be here, so I’m trying to make your sojourn as pleasant as possible.”

When he’d just admitted to being kind, to thinking of her comfort, how was she to complain? She’d sound churlish and ungrateful.

“Thank you.” She peered at her lap, embarrassed. “Down in the library...I wasn’t spying on you.”

“I know that.”

“I simply needed to talk to you.”

“I know that, too.”

“Why are you here? What do you want?”

“I could tell you were upset, and I had to find out if you were all right.”

“I’m fine. Now you should probably go.”

He chuckled. “I’m not ready to leave.”

“But you just told me that the housekeeper is scandalized. If anyone sees you with me, I’ll never live it down.”

“This is my castle, and I’m king of my domain. If I decide to enter your room—or
any
room—it’s not the staff’s business to protest.”

She shook her head. Could he be that dense? That naive?

Of course they wouldn’t protest—to his face. They would mutter and gossip and take it out on Helen in other ways that would render her existence even more unpalatable.

“Would you like me to let you in on a little secret?” he queried.

“What?”

“My ward really, really doesn’t like you.”

“This revelation is not news to me, and it shouldn’t be to you either.”

“She had many criticisms and was quite explicit in cataloging them.”

“I warned you.”

“She claims you’re bossy and impertinent and that you’re being deliberately difficult merely to antagonize her. Are you?”

“I always try to be amenable. Sometimes I don’t succeed.”

He emitted a noise low in his throat that might have indicated anything, then another lengthy silence ensued. He was so still that—if she hadn’t been able to see his feet in front of her—she might have imagined he’d tiptoed out. But she could feel him watching her, his regard acute and unnerving.

“Look at me,” he ultimately said.

“No.”

“Helen...”

“Would you call me Miss Stewart?”

There was an intimacy growing between them that worried her. When he’d murmured her given name, she’d rippled with an unusual joy that was completely foreign to her character. Her reaction made it seem as if she...she...
liked
him much more than she ought when she had no reason to like him at all.

He wasn’t a beau or possible swain or even a friend. He was her employer and a dictatorial one at that.

To her consternation, he reached out and balanced his thumb under her chin, forcing her to lift her gaze to his. He stroked a finger across her lips, and her heart pounded again.

She yearned to shift back, out of range, but she couldn’t move. She was paralyzed, caught up in the poignancy of the moment, in the anticipation of what he might do next.

“If you could have anything you wanted,” he absurdly asked, “what would it be?”

“I have everything I want,” she lied.

“No one has
everything
. Tell me. What is your deepest, darkest wish?”

His appeared genuinely interested, so she said, “I’d like to live with my sister. She’s my twin. I’d like us to have our own home and our own money so we wouldn’t have to struggle so hard just to get by.”

“You have a twin sister?”

“Yes.”

“What is her name?”

“Harriet.”

He nodded, shrewdly assessing her. “You weren’t cut out for this life. What happened to you?”