“I was hoping you would see reason.” His gaze strayed to those pink, lush lips, and he swallowed against a staggering rush of need he had no right to feel. “But you have proven again and again that you are incapable of knowing what is best for you.”
That much was the truth. It aggrieved him to no end, thinking of the rogues and scoundrels she would have given herself to, without thought, all in a desperate—and foolish—bid to escape marriage. First Lord Algernon. Then Dessington. Now Dorset. None of them deserved her.
“How like Lord Hamish you are,” she said, dragging him from his thoughts. “Believing you know better what I need than I do. You may think I am acting recklessly, but I can assure you that I have weighed my options with care. I am running out of time to save myself. Now kindly go away so I can carry on with what I set about doing.”
She thought him comparable to an arse like Lord Hamish White? That rather nettled. Huntingdon knew he should back away from her. That he should put some necessary space between them. But the light touch of her hands on his shoulders was filling his head with fire.
“I understand that you think ruining yourself is the only means of avoiding your match with Lord Hamish,” he allowed. “But you must see there are other ways, better ways. Have you spoken with your father about your wishes?”
Her golden eyebrows raised. “You must think me an imbecile. Of course I have spoken with my father. He does not take my concerns seriously. I have also spoken at length with my mother and my brother. No one seems inclined to aid me. Do you suppose I would throw myself into the arms of any man I could find as a first choice?”
Her question stung, and only partially because she was right—he had underestimated her. But also because the thought of her in any other man’s arms made him want to tear all the books in the room from their shelves.
“You ought not to be throwing yourself into anyone’s arms, damn you,” he ground out, itching to touch her. One pass of his fingers over her silken jaw. That was all.
Damn it, Gabe. Stop this madness. Step away.
And yet he could not leave.
“Says the man who considers me a sister,” she snapped, an edge to her voice he could not mistake. “Just because you see me as a burden rather than a woman does not mean I am yours to command.”
No, she could never be his.
She was forbidden.
But that did not stop him from lowering his head, falling into her emerald eyes. “I do not think you a burden.”
He thought her the loveliest, most tempting woman he had ever known. He also wished, briefly, that he was a scruples-lacking scoundrel like Dorset.
“Of course you do.” Her chin quivered. “Please, Huntingdon. Leave me alone. Stop following me. Stuff your sense of honor and duty.”
Her eyes glistened. Tears, he realized, and the sight of them did something to him. His restraint snapped. He touched her at last, brushing the backs of his fingers over her cheek in a tender stroke. A mistake, as it happened. Her skin was a revelation. She was a mystery and a temptation, everything he wanted and yet could never dare to have, knowing where it would eventually lead.
“Do not weep, Helena,” he said, his voice a low rasp.
Her eyelashes fluttered, and a tiny bead of moisture clung to them. He had upset her, and he hated it. Hated it more than what she was doing to herself.
“Go,” she told him, but as she voiced the directive, her fingers curled in his coat. “Let me do what I must to save myself.”
He told himself he should stop touching her. But a tear tracked down her cheek, and he caught it on his thumb. He told himself to step away, but his head lowered. Her mouth was close to his. So close, her breath feathered over his lips. So close, he could not resist settling his mouth over hers.
He was aware of a gasp. Perhaps hers, mayhap his. He did not know. Because in the next moment, her soft lips moved, clinging to his. The fire in his head roared through his blood, overtaking him.
The gentleness in his kiss fled. He kissed her harder, with all the pent-up desperation he had spent the last few years tamping down and ignoring. Kissed her as he had longed to.
Kissed her as if she were his.
Wanted her to be his.
And when her mouth responded, he could not help but to feel she was his. That this moment, this woman in his arms, was meant to be. He teased her parted lips with his tongue. She tasted sweet and tart, like champagne. Huntingdon could not seem to have enough of her now.
One word rushed through his mind, repeating itself to the pounding beat of his heart. More. More. More.
He cupped her face, angled her head to allow him to ravish her mouth properly, as he wanted. Her tongue moved against his, tentatively at first. She kissed like an innocent and not like a wanton who had been throwing herself into the arms of scoundrels.
Gabe groaned as he sucked on her lower lip before catching it between his teeth and tugging. Her fingers sank into his hair, raking over his scalp and leaving sparks in their wake. Flames licked down his spine. Spread over his skin. He was ablaze for her.
He kissed her as if she were his life source, as if he would never again have the opportunity to know her mouth beneath his.
Because he could not.
This is wrong, Gabe. Think of your duty, your honor. Stop this madness at once, before it is too late.
There was the voice of reason which had been eluding him, arriving far too late to keep him from madness. He raised his head against his will, ending the connection, staring down at her flushed cheeks, her kiss-bruised mouth. Her eyes were wide, fringed with tear-stained lashes. Glazed with passion.
Scalding shame hit him, joining the perilous heat of his ardor. What had he done?
A second word hammered its way through his thick skull then.
“Huntingdon.” Helena blinked, as if she were dazed, her hands returning to his chest and pushing.
Her tongue ran over her lower lip, almost earning another groan from him. He was harder than he had ever been, rigid and ready in his trousers.
What had he been thinking? That he would take her against the wall of books?
Dear God, he hated himself. He had not thought of Lady Beatrice or the consequences of his actions once. Not until now. Not until he had already gone too far. Grandfather was surely rolling in his grave. Mayhap he was no better than his mother and father had been. Cut from the same disastrous, selfish, sinful cloth.
“Huntingdon, you must go,” Helena was saying, dragging him from the depths of self-loathing.
Shaking him from his thoughts.
What had he done?
“Forgive me,” he said stiffly, before realizing he was still cupping her face.
Instantly, he released her, stepping back in retreat.
“We have not much time.” Helena smoothed the fall of her skirts and raised a hand to her hair, tucking an errant tendril back into place. “Lady Clementine Hammond is expected within minutes.”
All the fire in his blood turned to ice. “Lady Clementine Hammond?”
Though he need not ask. He knew well enough who and what she was. A notorious gossip with a reputation as a lady who had forced more than her fair share of marriages after catching couples in alcove embraces and moonlit kisses.
Helena nodded. “She was to have happened upon Dorset and myself… Oh, dash it all. We haven’t time to tarry, Huntingdon. You must go, now, or risk being caught in a compromising position with me. What will Lady Beatrice think?”