Chapter Thirteen

M ark understood her! Even better than Frederica or Samuel who had known her their whole lives. It was a heady thought. She had never had a friend like him before. Not that she had much experience with friends. Peculiar girls didn't.

She laid her head on his shoulder and his whole body shivered with cold. ‘You are not cold-blooded like me. You're positively an icicle. What can I do to warm you?'

‘N-nothing.'

Helen sat back up, glancing around the carriage for a blanket. But it was April, for goodness sake, and Mark did not have a winter blanket there. She felt him shiver again beside her, his face unnaturally pale, his lips almost blue in colour. She feared for his health and his life. He was wet and cold because of her folly.

How could she warm him without a blanket or a fire?

Animals were much better prepared for the elements than humans. They had no feathers to shake off the rain. No fur to keep them warm. Only thin, cold skin.

Taking his hand, she pulled off his sodden glove and rubbed his cold hand between her two warmer ones. She felt his hand get warmer and the colour improve with circulation. But his hand was merely a limb. She needed to warm his core. Like his lost leg, a person could survive without arms or legs, but the heart needed to keep beating. In cold weather, animals snuggled together for warmth, sharing their own body heat.

Helen thought about sitting on Mark's lap, but she was afraid that it would be difficult for him to balance her there with his wooden leg. He was already swaying to one side. Hiking up her skirt, she straddled his lap with her knees and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her chest against his hard, wet one.

‘What are you doing?'

She couldn't help kissing his brow, near the long white scar that his hair usually hid. Even after such a short time, Mark was so very dear to her. ‘Warming you. Is it working?'

He nodded against her.

Helen continued to feather kisses against the side of his face, until she reached his lips. Leaning back, she remembered her first and only kiss with Jason. She had never thought to kiss another man. But this was not just any other man. This was Mark. Her friend. The person who made her feel safe. Who made her feel less different.

Taking a quick breath, she pressed her lips lightly against his. Mark's lips were not dry, like Jason's had been. But Jason had not walked in the rain to find her. They were cold, wetter than Jason's, but also softer. Helen brushed her lips across Mark's again. They felt warmer this time and his lips responded to hers with delicious pressure.

Helen couldn't help but smile as she kissed him again. His hands cupped her face. They were still wet from the rain, but they no longer felt cold. He licked her lips and she parted them in surprise, only to have him kiss her open-mouthed. Mark tasted of peppermint tea and sugar, sweet and irresistible. Her blood felt like liquid fire pumping through her veins. She could feel this kiss in her fingertips. In her toes. Helen no longer wondered why Samuel and Frederica could not stop kissing each other. She never wanted to stop kissing Mark. This feeling was too wonderful.

Mark deepened the kiss and Helen found that thinking was no longer possible. His tongue stroked hers and Helen made a noise that she had never made before. Her response to him was instinctual. Primal. Her open mouth moved over his in a rhythm that, somehow, they both knew. His hands moved to her waist, pressing her closer to his chest. To his heart. To the very core of his being.

Helen ran her fingers through his hair, cradling his head in her hands. He was so precious to her. He broke the kiss, but Helen did not move. She rubbed her face against his. Her delicate skin against his rougher one. Mark made a noise. An animalic sound of contentment. It wasn't a word, but it didn't need to be. They were beyond language now. Beyond the slithery impossibility of trying to describe a feeling with words. His lips returned to hers with more ardour than before. They were bruising in their intensity. Helen felt a burning in her heart and deep within her belly.

A want.

No. A need.

Something that she had never before experienced. She realised that this was why animals mated. Why species continued to thrive despite difficult environments. Every living thing wished to experience this oneness. This pleasure. Helen wanted to touch all his skin. To rub her burning body up against his. She was on fire and she could have warmed him to the very core.

Helen pulled back an inch or two from Mark's face, breathing hard. Again, she couldn't find the words to express what she was feeling. He was breathing hard, too. She could feel the air from his mouth on her lips. The taste of peppermint. Helen knew she should move, but her legs didn't seem to work. Like her mouth, they were stunned into stillness. Mark's beautiful blue eyes, as deep as the Atlantic Ocean, stared into hers. He did not move either. Maybe he could not. She was straddling his legs after all.

Maybe the kisses meant nothing to him.

Perhaps all open-mouthed kisses caused one's heart to sing and blood to become fire. It was unfair to compare Jason's chaste salute with the heat of Mark's kisses. Jason's kiss had been a brief caress and she had not wanted more than that. But she wanted more of Mark. Helen could not stop herself from diving back in and kissing him with all the need of a lifetime.

While her mouth mated with his, she pulled up his wet shirt and let her hands explore the planes of his chest. The core of his body and soul. She could feel his muscles and springy hair. Everywhere her hands touched Mark, his skin became as heated as her own. Helen could not have believed that either of them had ever felt cold. His hands roved her back and she moaned against his warm lips.

The carriage came to an abrupt stop, Mark's hands tightened on her waist so that she didn't fall. Their faces were less than an inch apart. Instinctively, Helen rubbed her nose against his. She loved how touching him made her feel. Mark closed his eyes and Helen pressed one last soft kiss to his lips.

‘Thank you for finding me,' she whispered.

Reluctantly, Helen climbed off his lap, pushing down her sodden skirts. She couldn't be found like this by her family. This was against society's rules of appropriate behaviour. Ones she knew that she shouldn't break. She was on the seat beside him just in time for Samuel to open the door to the carriage. His eyes focused on Helen's wet figure and then Mark's. His coat was unbuttoned and his shirt tails were hanging out of his trousers. Her dear friend looked thoroughly compromised.

Samuel pulled Helen out of the carriage by her wrist and into a bone-crunching hug in the rain. ‘If you ever scare us again like that, I'm going to kill you.'

Helen laughed as he released her. ‘That makes no sense.'

He turned back to Mark. ‘Inverness, I owe you a great debt.'

‘No, you don't,' Helen insisted. ‘I do.'

Mark's face was expressionless. ‘I was happy to be of assistance.'

Did their kisses mean nothing to him?

Samuel's sharp eyes went from Helen's hot face to Mark's cold one. ‘I'd best get Helen inside and dry. And you'd best get dry yourself. Good day.'

He closed the carriage door and swept Helen into the house under his wing like a mother hen. Frederica and Mama were waiting at the door with a blanket and a towel. They did not wait to put either on her before squeezing her between them. They wrapped her like a newborn calf and ushered her into the parlour, where the rest of her family was waiting. Matthew and Nancy hugged her first, while their daughter, Susie, squeezed her leg. Mantheria and her son, Andrew, were next. Followed by Wick, Louisa and their three sons.

Wick pressed a kiss to her cheek. ‘Let me guess...you just fancied a stroll in the April rain?'

Helen's face grew even hotter. ‘I didn't know that it would put you all into a stew if I slipped out for a couple of hours. I am terribly sorry for the worry I've caused.'

Her mother pulled her into her arms. Helen was only of medium height, but her mother was tall. She rested her head beneath her mother's chin. ‘We are not angry. We were simply worried. We all love you so much.'

‘Who brought you home?' Mantheria asked.

Helen's eyes found Samuel's. She fervently wished that she hadn't been so terrible to him as a child. If he told her family that Mark had brought her home, she would be teased until her dying day. She could have melted to the floor in a puddle of embarrassment.

‘Only a hack,' Samuel said quickly. ‘At least, Helen is wise enough to wade in the Serpentine with her coin purse.'

Her mother squeezed her tighter, dropping a rare kiss on her hair. Papa was the more affectionate of the two.

‘I'll go adventuring with you next time,' Andrew said, her young nephew smiling at her.

Mantheria shook her head. ‘You most certainly will not. It is not at all good for a young lady to walk around unescorted. Someone could have seen Helen walking alone and the gossip would have been terrible.'

But someone had seen her.

Mark.

Not simply in her wet clothes, but into her very soul.