“Shall I speak to Northampton on your behalf?” he asked. “Or Shelbourne, perhaps?”
Frustration blossomed once more.
“And what shall you tell them, hmm?” she demanded. “The same thing you told Lady Beatrice?”
Hated name, leaving her lips. A name she wished she had never heard. A woman she wished did not exist. But those wishes were futile. Every bit as futile, it would seem, as her attempts to create a scandal so she could have her freedom. She was so certain her father would not turn her away and cut off her pin money if scandal kept Lord Hamish from wanting to offer for her hand. And surely, surely, she could find a more suitable arrangement, given the time and opportunity thus far denied her.
“I did not tell Lady Beatrice about you, specifically.” Huntingdon’s voice sounded thick, his words lacking their usual crisp elocution.
Somehow, seeing him in a state of alarming imperfection made her want him more. Or mayhap it was the fact that her traitorous lips knew the way his felt molded to hers.
“Quelle relief,” she said bitterly. “Please, Huntingdon. Just return to the gentlemen and your port and cigars. You have already done more than enough damage.”
“She forgave me,” he said, running a hand through his dark hair and leaving it rakishly ruffled.
Some hated part of her longed to reach out and smooth the wayward strands. But she would not—must not—touch him. “How lovely for you.”
Helena could not bear another minute of discussing Lady Beatrice. She had endured more than enough, thank you. If Huntingdon was not going to leave the lady’s withdrawing room, she would go.
Helena sidestepped him and moved to sweep past.
But his arm shot out, hooking her waist and hauling her to him.
The motion was so fast, so unexpected, so un-Huntingdon, that Helena lost her balance as she whirled to face him. Though the earl clutched at her waist, his inebriated state did nothing to help his ordinarily impeccable coordination. The two of them fell like a downed tree in the forest.
She landed atop him, the breath leaving her lungs in a whoosh.
At the last moment, she braced her hands on his chest to keep from knocking her head into his. It did nothing, however, to keep his head from striking the polished floor beneath them. He winced and let out a groan.
“Huntingdon, have you injured yourself?” she asked, struggling with the weight and layers of her evening finery to remove herself from him.
Deuce take fashion.
She was wearing flounced skirts and a full tournure, and she felt as dizzied as an upended chicken. But his grasp clamped on her waist, mooring her to him when she would have removed herself and scrambled to her feet.
“Hold still, Helena, will you?” he growled.
“You must let me go.” She moved again, attempting to free herself from his hold.
Mayhap the fall had knocked him senseless and that was the reason he would not allow her to go. But this position was…far too intimate. Far too tempting. She wriggled with greater persistence.
“Stop. Moving.”
He gritted the directive with such force, Helena stilled. “Are you hurt, Huntingdon? I do believe you may have hit your head.”
“I am aching,” he said, his voice wry. “Mayhap next time I should try to hit it with greater force. Amnesia would be a boon. I am convinced of it.”
Helena struggled to make sense of his words. His gaze was hooded, the color of the sky just before the stars began to appear in the night. From this angle, his supple lips were a greater temptation. The slash of his jaw, covered with the shadow of dark whiskers since his morning shave, was a thing of beauty.
“Just how hard did you hit your head?” She frowned down at him, worried.
“Definitely not hard enough.” His fingers bit into her waist through her corset. “Thank the Lord you are wearing your undergarments today. I suppose you were not planning an after-dinner ravishing in the lady’s withdrawing room?”
Was that the true reason he had followed her here? To ward off further attempts at achieving her own ruin?
She frowned down at him. “I always wear my undergarments, my lord.”
Being so forward was unlike him, even in his cups. Indeed, she did not think he had ever said anything so decidedly improper in her presence.
“Cease moving,” he said on a groan, as if in desperate pain. “You were not wearing a corset that day.”
She struggled to understand what he was speaking of. “Have you addled your wits?”
“That day in the carriage,” he elaborated, “when I saved you from giving yourself to that worthless reprobate Forsyte. You were not wearing a corset when I touched you then. I could not help but to wonder…damn, damn, damn. This is all your fault.”
“All my fault?” The outrageous man! He must have struck himself silly. “You are the one who arrived at dinner in his cups and then proceeded to drown himself in wine and follow me into the lady’s withdrawing room. This is, indisputably, your fault, my lord.”
But then, the rest of his words gradually permeated her mind. He had recognized she had not been wearing a corset on the day she had gone to meet Lord Algernon at his bachelor’s residence. And he had been thinking about it, apparently. And he had kissed her, just yesterday.
And his gaze, at this moment, had slipped to her lips once more.
She licked them instinctively.
He groaned again, and beneath her, she detected an unmistakable ridge. A prominence she had read about in the books she had thieved from Shelbourne’s collection. Her breath caught. She inhaled swiftly, and a rush of corresponding warmth slid through her, slow and molten. Could it be that he was not as unaffected by her as he pretended? That he did not, in fact, think of her as he would a sister?
Yes, said the wicked voice inside her. Huntingdon desires you.
“My weakness is your fault,” he countered, his hands sliding up her spine, fingers sinking into the careful upsweep of her coiffure.
His fingertips skimming over her scalp elicited a frisson of pleasure. She never wanted him to stop touching her.
“How?” she asked, breathless. Need for him rose like a tide. “You are your own man. I have done nothing more than attempt to free myself of the unwanted betrothal my father is forcing upon me.”
“Because you are so damned beautiful, and I should not want you, but I cannot help myself.”
His guttural admission pierced her heart like an arrow. Warmth sluiced over her. She became more aware of her position atop him, his big body beneath her, the pulsing evidence of his desire pressed to her hip.
Helena stilled. So did the world, it seemed. “Huntingdon,” she began, searching for the proper words.
What to say? What to ask him? Had she completely lost her senses? Could it be that this man desired her in the way she longed for him?
“Shut up,” he said, and then he pulled her head down toward his.
Their lips met, fused, and she was lost.
Bloody, bloody hell.
He had done his damnedest to give the bottle a black eye today. Never had he ever acted with such recklessness, such disregard for himself, for his hosts, for those around him.
But as Helena’s sweet mouth moved over his, kissing him back with every bit as much fervency, he could not muster the proper amount of regret. Indeed, not just the requisite sum of regret, but none.