Chapter Eleven

W hen the hot, wet suction of Helena’s mouth surrounded him, West went taut as a violin string. Furious pleasure blasted him. He groaned and struggled to cling to reality.

He couldn’t let her do this. She must hate it.

Her tongue flickered over the head, and he shuddered. He needed every ounce of willpower to reach down and bury his hands in her wild hair.

“No, Hel…” he gasped. “Stop.”

With a leisurely movement that threatened to hurl him to Kingdom Come, she raised her head and regarded him with puzzled dark eyes. “Don’t you like it? Crewe did.”

Good God, the last thing he needed to hear right now was that swine’s name. “I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to.”

Which was an outright lie. He wanted her mouth on him more than he wanted to live another five minutes. When she licked her lips, he bit back another groan.

“Crewe tried to make me do this, but I found it too revolting.”

Disappointment cramped his gut. Although what else could he expect? “Then why?”

“Because this is you. Because I want to give you pleasure. Because I feel no shame in what we do together. With you, this is almost…pure.” Uncertainty darkened her eyes. “If you can bear it.”

A grunt of wry laughter. “You’re bringing a thousand fantasies to life.”

Helena’s expression filled with incredulous delight. “Really?”

“Really.” Still his inconvenient conscience wouldn’t let him finish there. Dear Lord, he earned his place in heaven today. He hoped the Recording Angel was listening in. “Promise you’ll stop if it becomes too—”

Heavy eyelids descended. “I like it.”

The devils prancing about in his heart settled. Her willingness made no sense in any universe he inhabited, but he couldn’t doubt she meant it. “Then by all means, continue.”

An excited huff of laughter escaped her. With one hand, she gathered her hair behind her neck, while the other circled the thick base of his cock.

Control became more ragged when she lowered over him. He clawed at the cushions and prayed for fortitude through an interval of excruciating pleasure before she found her rhythm. When she did, she rocketed him into a volatile new world of heat and sensuality.

That fiendish tongue prolonged the torture, and she stroked his balls in a caress that crashed through him like cannon fire. His breath emerged in guttural grunts. Every muscle strained toward climax. Every ounce of will kept him from surrendering.

Through the gathering storm, he remembered she was a fine lady. He couldn’t lose himself in her mouth. Yet with every second, release rushed nearer.

Ignoring her rules, he plunged shaking hands into her hair. He had to stop her before it was too late. The words scraped out of his tight throat. “Helena, I’m too close.”

She raised her head. “Give yourself to me.”

The husky, urgent command smashed through him. His hands clenched in her hair. “You don’t understand.”

“Yes, I do.”

Without waiting for an answer, she bowed her head and swept him into sizzling paradise. She squeezed his balls with exquisite pressure.

It was beyond bearing. He couldn’t hold back. He wanted this too much.

With a drawn-out groan, West arched against the cushions and gave himself up to flooding ecstasy.

* * *

West’s hoarse cry woke Helena from exhausted sleep. It was the dead of night, and her bed was shaking.

An earthquake?

She took a few disoriented seconds to realize that West was shivering and moving restlessly beside her. He’d kicked aside the covers, although the night was cold and the fire had burned down to hot coals.

“West?” She leaned over him and placed one hand on his bare shoulder. Dear Lord, he was bathed in sweat, and his skin burned under her touch. In the dark, she fumbled for her nightdress and dragged it over her head.

She should have seen this coming. He’d been quiet all evening. She’d wondered if the direction of their affair worried him. It certainly worried her.

During those tumultuous hours in the summerhouse, they’d forged a profound connection. Profound, and troubling. As Helena fell further and further under West’s spell, the prospect of living without him became unbearable.

What a fool she was to think she could emerge unchanged from such incendiary passion. Now the awkward question was where they went from here. She still shrank from marriage. But the prospect of sending him away in a few days left her desolate. She felt lost and confused, and unable to make her next step.

Tonight when he’d come to bed, he’d settled down with her in his arms and dropped into exhausted sleep. It had all felt horribly—wonderfully—matrimonial.

Even worse, nestling beside him in drowsy contentment, she had the oddest fancy that this was where she belonged.

She pulled the blankets up and smoothed the damp black hair back from his high forehead. “Hush, sweetheart. Shhh.” She hardly noticed the endearment.

At least her touch brought him a measure of comfort. As the terrifying shaking eased, he opened his eyes. “Helena.”

She caught his hand. “You’re sick.”

“Damn it. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be a fool.” She rose from the bed and lit a couple of candles, then almost wished she hadn’t. West looked appalling. White and drawn, eyes sunk back in his face.

He took an unsteady breath. “I’ll go.”

“You can’t be alone.”

The shivering started again. “Staying here will cause a scandal.”

“The others won’t tell anyone.”

“They mightn’t.” Strain plastered his skin to the bones of his face. “But there’s a household full of servants who won’t keep the news to themselves. With the wedding, they’ll have plenty of visitors to tell.”

“I don’t care. Anyway, if the housemaids have eyes, they must know I haven’t slept alone the last two nights.” To think she’d once fretted about gossip. All that mattered now was West’s health. “What can I do?”

“Help me back to my room. You don’t have to nurse me.”

She frowned. However brave his offer, it wasn’t practical. He wasn’t fit to stand, let alone wander the hallways. And her soul screamed denial at the idea of consigning him to another’s care. “Maybe later,” she said to head off an argument.

She might as well have saved her breath. His eyes turned opaque, and his teeth chattered. He obviously couldn’t hear her.

How could he survive this? And he’d suffered these bouts for months. Helpless pity crushed her heart.

She fetched a glass of water and held him against her bosom while he tried to drink. Most of the water went over him, rather than down his throat. He was a big man, and even a strong woman like her struggled to support his weight.

“Cold, cold,” he said over and over, while he fought to throw off the covers.

Increasingly worried, Helena sponged him down, speaking soothing nonsense. Her voice seemed to calm him, as she ran a damp cloth over his naked body, noting again how thin he was.

He raised a shaking hand. She set the bowl aside and took it.

“Helena.” The sound was a whisper, although his grip was firm.

“I’m here, darling,” she murmured.

“Help me back to my room.”

“We won’t make it.” She cupped the side of his face, distraught that despite her efforts, his fever worsened.

“Let’s try.” He was becoming agitated.

“Very well.”

Helena took both his hands and helped him to sit, trembling and sick, on the edge of the bed. She slid her shoulder under his arm. “Hold on to me.”

Staggering, she got him up, but on the first step, he reeled.

“This is hopeless, West,” she said, stumbling to keep him upright. “I’ll get Silas.”

And she’d send for a doctor, scandal be damned. Since she’d woken, she’d been afraid, but seeing strong, self-confident Vernon Grange unable to stand had her stomach twisting with terror.

She’d known he was ill. She’d seen for herself how the fever came upon him out of nowhere. But only now, when she battled alone against this enemy, did she understand that she might lose him.

Suddenly that seemed the worst blow fate could deal her. Crueler by far than an unhappy marriage.

How precious he was. How precious he’d always been.

If West lived, she didn’t care if the whole county shunned her as a brazen trollop.

“No…Silas,” he said, before retreating into the occasional grunt as she struggled to get him back into bed.

Leaning in, she kissed his hot forehead. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

She flung a dressing gown over her shoulders, grabbed a candle, and dashed out of the room. Once, she’d been glad that her rooms were in a separate wing. Then she’d been worried about keeping her affair with West a secret.

Now she’d declare her disgrace from the rooftops, if it brought him one scrap of relief. She cursed every yard of corridor stretching between her and help.

By the time she reached Silas’s door, she was breathless. She pounded on it. “Blast you, Silas, wake up!”

Her brother took an eon to appear. “Helena? What the devil’s got into you?”

“West is sick. I think he’s going to die. Come quickly.” Behind her brother, she saw Caro sitting up in bed and clutching the sheets to her bare breasts.

“Is it the fever again?” Caro asked.

“Yes. I’ll go downstairs and send a servant for the doctor.”

“No, you go with Silas. I’ll organize Dr. Lawson.”

“He looked fine at dinner,” Silas said, coming out into the corridor and tying his dressing gown more securely.

“Well, he’s not fine now.” She grabbed her brother’s hand and rushed back the way she’d come. “Hurry.”

A mountainous man in a crimson dressing gown emerged from the shadows. “What’s all this hubbub?”

“West’s sick,” Silas said to Anthony.

Fen appeared, too. “I thought he was quiet tonight. Has someone sent for a doctor?”

“Caro’s rousing the servants,” Silas said. “She’ll have a groom off to the village in minutes.”

They trooped toward Helena’s room, but as they came to the wide landing above the main staircase, something tall and white stumbled out of the darkness.

“Silas?” the apparition rasped, weaving on the spot.

“West!” Helena cried out, darting forward and flinging her arm around his waist. Violent tremors shook his lean form. How he’d made it this far, she had no idea. “You should be in bed.”

“Sleep…walking,” he managed to say loudly enough for the others to hear, then despite all her efforts, his legs folded.

Anthony could move like lightning, it turned out. Before West hit the floor, the big man caught him.

“He’s out cold.” With characteristic competence, he hitched West up by the armpits.

“I’d be out cold, too, wandering the corridors on a February night in nothing but a sheet,” Silas said, lifting West’s bare feet.

Helena stepped away in favor of the men. In her anguish, she hadn’t noticed that West was wrapped in a sheet, she guessed from her bed. He’d come to her in his evening clothes, but the intricacies of fashionable dress were clearly beyond him.

As was his ability to listen to a lecture. How on earth could he put his health at risk over something as trivial as her reputation?

“We’ll take him to his room,” Silas said. “Hel’s is too far away.”

Caro called from below. “A groom’s gone for Dr. Lawson. He should be here soon.”

Silas and Anthony hauled the unconscious West away. Helena set off after them, but Fen caught her arm. “Come and wait with Caro and me.”

“I don’t want to leave him.”

Fen’s eyes were soft with compassion as she untangled Helena’s fingers from the candlestick. “I know you don’t, but it’s better he’s with Silas and Anthony when the doctor arrives.”

Fen was right. West had gone to heroic efforts to preserve Helena’s good name. The least she could do was ensure his work wasn’t in vain. Mute with dread, she let her friend lead her downstairs.