***
Silas arrived ahead of Caroline at West’s lavish picnic beside the Thames, but not ahead of Helena. His sister must have been watching out for him, because she marched up to where he dismounted, clearly spoiling for a row. Only the presence of the groom leading his horse away delayed her attack.
“You can’t run away from me forever, brother dear,” Helena said, once they were alone.
If only he could. So far, he’d done an excellent job of avoiding her. Yesterday, too heartsick to face an inquisition, he’d escaped through the back gate before she could corner him. When she’d called at his rooms in the afternoon, he’d told Dobbs to say he was out. This morning, he’d chosen to ride instead of joining her in the carriage as they’d originally arranged.
He knew she was worried about him, but right now she wasn’t the focus of his interest. His fight to win a certain troublesome widow was. He needed every ounce of cunning and resourcefulness to ensure his victory, and Helena’s interference was an unwelcome distraction. He felt brittle and alert like a man on the eve of battle, the way he did when his experiments verged on a breakthrough.
Caroline Beaumont didn’t know it yet, but her dashing days were about to end.
“Good morning to you, Hel.” He shifted his gaze from where Caroline’s curricle turned off the road onto the grass. “Perhaps if you looked less set on a scolding, I might be less eager to take to my heels.”
“I’m not going to give you a scolding,” she said, and they both heard the unspoken “even if I should” at the end of that sentence.
“You couldn’t say anything that I haven’t already said to myself.” Caro’s presence set him bristling with awareness, like a hound scenting a fox. “I have no idea what got into me yesterday.”
That was a lie. He and Helena both knew what had got into him. Volcanic passion too long suppressed.
“Well, given the risks you took, you’ve got the devil’s own luck.”
“Have I?” It didn’t feel that way, not after he’d told Caro he loved her and she’d thrown his words back in his teeth.
Helena must have heard the grimness underlying his question because her martial air eased. “Well, in one respect at least. A scandal’s unlikely. The servants were all downstairs having their dinner when you—”
“Lost my head?”
“From what I can gather, nobody saw a thing. Which is a better outcome than you deserved. Good God, seducing Caro in a building made of glass—it beggars the imagination.”
“You said no scolding, Hel.”
Her lips tightened. “Very well. I imagine you’ve spent the night cursing yourself anyway. You don’t need me to join in.”
It was true. Or it had been until he’d visited West and set today’s nefarious plan in train. He kicked idly at a tree root and cast Helena a sidelong glance. “What did Caro say after you took her inside?”
She sent him a disgusted look. “I’m not going to tell you that.”
“Pity. I could do with an inside track advantage.” His attention returned to the neat little carriage rolling toward the picnic site and his eyebrows rose in surprise. “Good God, Fenella is quite the whip. I had no idea.”
Helena turned to take in her friend’s unexpected skills as a driver, but stuck to her topic. “Caro means to have West. I’ll tell you that much.”
A faint smile lightened Silas’s expression. “There’s many a slip between cup and lip.”
Helena was no fool. She immediately guessed there was some scheme afoot. “What does that mean?” she asked sharply.
His smile intensified. “It means that the race is not yet over.”
She touched his arm and spoke urgently. “Silas, even if you want her…”
He met her eyes, making no attempt to conceal his emotion. “You know that it’s worse than that. I love her.”
Compassion softened Helena’s disapproving expression. “I also know you’ve got some mischief in mind, but please be careful. She’s nowhere near as indomitable as she acts.”
“I don’t intend to hurt her.”
Her smile was sad. “You mightn’t intend to, but that doesn’t mean you won’t.”
“You two are being dashed unsociable,” West drawled, prowling up behind Silas. “Save the family reunion for your own time. I’ve got a dozen footmen standing idle, ready to answer every whim. If you persist in loitering over here in isolation, you’ll hurt their feelings.”
“West,” Silas said, and caught his sister’s surprise at the greeting’s lack of hostility. “You’ve been deuced fortunate with the sunshine.”
“I have contacts in high places.”
“More likely down below,” Helena muttered. His sister was the only person Silas knew who didn’t melt under West’s famous charm. West had introduced Helena to his great chum, Lord Crewe, and she’d never forgiven him.
West bowed over Helena’s hand and sent her a glinting glance from beneath his heavy eyelids. “Put away your barbs, my prickly lady. It’s too nice a day for sniping.”
Something in West’s voice pierced Silas’s preoccupation with Caro. Some hint of…not quite fondness. Perhaps masculine interest. Helena was an attractive woman and West flirted with anything in skirts. But now Silas looked closely, the predatory spark in West’s eyes made him distinctly uneasy.
He frowned at his friend, suddenly recalling a slip that at the time, he’d disregarded in his extremity. When he’d blundered into West’s house breathing fire and vowing destruction, the first woman his friend had mentioned hadn’t been Caroline Beaumont, but Helena.
Had rakish Vernon Grange set his sights on Helena Wade? And if he had, how did Silas feel about it? More importantly, how would Helena feel about it?
Silas looked at his sister and had to admit he had no idea.
Coolly she withdrew her hand. “I’d imagined more guests, my lord.”
The gathering at this fête champêtre was smaller than Silas had expected, too, almost…intimate. West, Helena, Silas, a couple of West’s raffish friends, and the freshly arrived Caroline and Fenella. Did today mark the beginning of West’s pursuit? Devil take the man, if he hurt Helena, Silas would turn him into compost.
West shrugged. “The numbers are sufficient to my entertainment.” He regarded Helena searchingly. “And hopefully yours. You didn’t ride?”
“No.” She directed a flash of annoyance at Silas. He knew she’d planned to use the carriage trip to Richmond to quiz him about Caroline.
“I have a spare horse,” West said.
Across the lush green field, Caro stepped out of her curricle and headed in their direction. Then she noticed Silas standing beside Helena and veered away. After yesterday’s indiscretions, she must have decided evasion was the best policy.
“The perfect host,” Silas said sardonically as he put aside questions about West’s romantic ambitions. He had his hands full catching Caro. Unraveling his sister’s intrigues would have to wait.
“I can’t ride astride,” Helena said. “Even in Richmond that would cause talk. But thank you for offering.”
West smiled at her and the unabashed affection in his face heightened Silas’s suspicions. “When you were an impudent schoolgirl in plaits and a muddy pinafore, you used to ride astride.”
She didn’t smile back. “I used to do many things. But wisdom has a grim habit of following on from reckless decisions.”
West’s amusement faded. “Not always.”
“No, not always.” Fleetingly the late Lord Crewe’s ghost hovered over the three of them. Like West, he’d been a man of charm and daring—and cruel selfishness that had left Helena forever scarred.
Silas watched West shake off the dark memories and become once again the urbane gentleman who had graced a thousand elegant drawing rooms. “What a shame that you won’t ride when I planned this picnic purely for the pleasure of seeing you flying across the grass on the back of a fine horse.”
Helena looked astonished. Like
ly she’d imagined he’d put this party together for Caro’s sake. “Really?”
“Yes, really. It’s been a fancy of mine since I saw you restricted to a trot in Hyde Park. The experience was most uncongenial for an observer. You looked like someone was strangling you. Slowly.”
West was right. She only ever came truly alive galloping hell for leather over an open field. “I’ve missed seeing you on a horse, Hel,” Silas said.
Helena frowned. She wouldn’t like West’s attention centering on her. Especially when his conclusions were so accurate. She liked to play her cards close to her chest. “Town isn’t the place to ride neck or nothing. I’ll soon be back at Cranham.”
West raised a hand toward the grooms holding the horses. “Such a pity.”
“That I’m leaving London?”
“No, that you don’t want a good gallop when I went to such trouble to bring you a suitable mount—and a suitable saddle.”
A groom led a spectacular white mare toward them. Silas noted the Arab’s proud carriage, the gleaming sidesaddle, and also the way Helena’s hand curled at her side as if it already held a crop. Whatever her doubts about the man offering the favor, Silas could see that she itched to throw herself onto the lovely horse.
“What a beauty,” Silas said. Like Helena, he’d been set on his first pony when he was toddling.
The groom passed the reins to West, bowed and left. The horse’s ears flickered and her great dark eyes shone. She bent her noble head to nudge Helena as if inviting her to climb into the saddle.
West’s thin, expressive mouth stretched into a sardonic smile. “If you deny me now, Helena, I’ll think that you don’t like me.“
“I don’t,” she said shortly, cupping one hand under the horse’s jaw and giving her a scratch.
“Ouch.”
Deciding that West and Helena could settle into bickering without his assistance, Silas wandered toward Caroline. Without seeming to pay him any heed, Caroline turned the opposite way. He cast her a knowing glance, but lingered to compliment Fenella on her driving.
Caro glanced back before inserting herself into a group of West’s friends. One step to the right. One step to the left. The day promised to play out like a children’s game of dodge and catch. With, if Silas had his way, a breathtakingly adult conclusion after the sun went down.