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.
Helena banged into him, a crush of soft woman. She shot him a surprised look then laughed and pulled him along. “Move with the music. There we are. No one noticed, I think.”
Ash found his balance again, shaken, aware of Helena studying him. “You look unwell,” she said as they came together. She said something else, but it was lost in the music as she parted from him.
She continued to chatter, but to Ash, the sound was a blur in the background. The dance mercifully came to an end, and Ash led Helena from the floor.
He planned to settle her in a chair and bring her refreshment, as a gentleman should, but Helena was invited immediately to dance once more. With her high color and the silver-blue gown floating like gossamer, it was no wonder gentlemen were lining up for her. Ash ought to be relieved, but he watched her go with reluctance and irritation.
He made himself escape the ballroom but headed for the terrace this time instead of seeking the card room. He needed air.
Ash walked out to frigid chill. Nights were growing colder, days shorter.
Scarcely feeling the weather, he rested his gloved hands on the stone balustrade and gazed at the garden, which twinkled with paper lanterns. No one walked there—the guests were sensibly in the warm house.
“Deep thoughts, Ash?” Guy Lovell emerged from the shadows, the lit end of his cheroot an orange smudge.
“Appalling ones.” Ash drew a breath to tell him of his astounding thoughts about Helena and the kiss they’d shared, then let it out again. There were things a man didn’t reveal, even to his closest friend. “Mrs. Courtland has brought eligible women for me to look over.”