Now Helena Courtland was determined to push him back onto the market like a somewhat bruised hunk of flesh.

As always when the thought of Helena popped into his head, Ash tried to hastily close the door on the troubling memory of the kiss.

He must have lost his mind. Of course, he’d been quite agitated from his conversation with Lord Merrivale and the decision to leave London. And bewildered by the unnerving dreams he’d been having of Helena. Yes, all those things combined.

And yet …

He could not banish the remembered sensation of her softness, her scent, the warm silk of her lips.

He tried to joke with himself that at least the kiss had rendered her silent. Then again, while Helena liked to rattle on, her voice was pleasant, like velvet, not shrill and resounding. Damn it all, Ash liked hearing her talk—that is, if he ignored what she was saying.

None of that mattered now, he told himself. Ash had found sanctuary at Middlebrook Castle, one he hadn’t understood he’d needed. If Aunt Florence wanted to invite the county to stroll about the galleries of an evening, she had his blessing. Let her enjoy herself.

The first gathering occurred after Ash and family had been home two weeks. Aunt Florence truly had invited the entire county, Ash mused—he hadn’t realized he had so many neighbors. Most he recognized to nod to, some had become good friends, and a few were complete strangers. Aunt Florence knew everyone, of course, and Ash went through the ritual of introduction several times.

He only realized his predicament when he was introduced to Miss Lucy Howard and her family. Miss Howard was tall for a lady, young, but with intelligence in her eyes.

The name was familiar. Alarm bells rang in his head when Ash remembered she’d been on the list of Helena’s potential brides.

Ash was a bit more abrupt to the poor girl than he ought to be, but she looked puzzled rather than hurt, likely labeling him a boor.

Coincidence that she was here, nothing more. Aunt Florence had sent out the invitations, not Helena.

The alarm sounded again when he met the Honorable Miss Hannah Werner, and then Lady Megan Winter. And then another lady, a young widow this time, whose name he’d spied on the list before he’d thrust it into the flames.

Damn and blast. Aunt Florence would answer for this.

Ash was cursorily polite and escaped the ballroom at the first instance. He had so many guests no one would blame him for attending those in other parts of the house.

He made for the card room, that realm of safety where husbands and fathers retreated once their obligatory greetings were finished. Ash had almost reached it when an all-to-familiar voice pulled him up.

“There you are, Ashford. Your home is most splendid. I cannot think why you do not live here more often—it must be a magnificent view over the park when the sun sets. Have you met my ladies, yet? I apologize for being late, but dear Millicent is a bit slow. She likes to arrive last thing, though I have pointed out that this is a bit rude.”

Ash stood frozen in place while the words washed over him, then he slowly turned.

It was not a dream. Helena Courtland stood behind him, red lips smiling, in a silver and blue gown that rendered her a glowing angel.




CHAPTER 4




HELENA COULD PRETEND all she liked, but Ashford did not look happy to see her. His cold gray stare as she neared him was quite forbidding.

My, he was handsome in evening dress. The trousers suited him, as did the fit of his coat across broad shoulders. His waistcoat emphasized his slim torso, the ivory silk broken by the fine gold chain of his watch fob. The only other color amid all the black and white was a sapphire pin in his lapel.

The clothing showed his athletic build that Helena believed had grown even trimmer since he’d left London. Lady Florence had told her he spent most of his time riding or tramping about, and it showed.

“I beg your pardon, Ashford,” Helena said in a light voice, as though she’d forgotten all about the kiss they’d shared—the passionate, blood-stinging kiss. “I did not mean to startle you.”

“What the dev—” Ashford straightened and cleared his throat. “What are you doing here, Mrs. Courtland?”

Her brows went up. “Well, that is not much of a greeting. I was invited, of course, by your aunt. My friend Millicent lives not a mile outside your gate, so we are neighbors once again. Is that not entertaining?”

Ashford advanced on her. To throw her out? Or kiss her once more? Helena waited eagerly to find out.

He halted three feet away, to her disappointment. “You brought those ladies here,” he said in a hard voice. “The ones on your be-damned list.”

“Indeed, I did. I instructed your aunt whom to invite. Which lady do you favor? Or do you need more time to converse with them?”

“Do they know why they are here? Did you recruit them as a general recruits his soldiers?”

“Goodness, no. They’d be horribly nervous if they knew a duke looked them over with an eye to marry them.”

“But I do not have an eye to marry any of them.”

“Perhaps not immediately. You’d hardly go down on one knee and propose to a young lady in the middle of the ballroom tonight. It would embarrass her, and you. No, none of them have any idea you’re hanging out a shingle for a wife.”

“I am not …” Ashford broke off with that strange growl. “Of course, they’ll believe it. I’m a duke, a widower, and I’ve allowed my aunt to invite eligible young women into my house, along with my busybody next-door neighbor. They’ll believe my shingle is hanging high and swinging mightily.”

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 not talk.

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?”

“Do you know, I do not think I can. The instinct comes unbidden. I long to pair up people and see them happy. Don’t you?”

“I mind my own business,” Ash said, but absently. Helena’s soft bosom against his arm was distracting.

“How dull for you. People are interesting, are they not? Infinite variety—everyone has a story. In this room are so many tales, so many little dramas. I want to learn them all and set the players on the path to contentedness. I know I never can, but I enjoy speculating.”

“You are …” Ash trailed off, fumbling for words, he who could eloquently out-argue the most smooth-tongued of his fellow peers. “A unique woman, Mrs. Courtland.”

She turned startled brown eyes to him. “I will take that as a compliment, Your Grace.”

Ash wasn’t certain what he’d meant, except the truth. In all the players and stories she talked about filling this ballroom, Ash wagered none were as interesting as Helena herself.

The thought startled him so much he stopped in the middle of the dance, missing his steps.