***
A soft tap on Silas’s bedroom door interrupted disturbed dreams where he chased endlessly after Caro and she chased endlessly after some faceless man. Round and round, and nobody laying a hand on their quarry. Feeling exhausted with all that running, he cracked open one eye. The room was dark. He groaned and rolled over to bury his face in the pillow. Whoever the hell it was would go away.
Except there was another knock and the faint squeak of an opening door, before a tentative voice asked, “My lord?”
“If you don’t get out in the next five seconds, Dobbs, you’ll be seeking alternative employment,” Silas mumbled without raising his head.
“I’m sorry to hear that, sir,” his valet said calmly.
“Five, four, three—”
“Your sister is downstairs and requests your presence.”
That was surprising enough for Silas to roll over and stare blearily through the gloom at the cadaverous-looking fellow holding a candle. “It’s the middle of the night.”
Dobbs’s expression didn’t change. It never did. “Not quite, sir. Close on six o’clock.”
“What the devil is my sister doing here?” He felt thickheaded. It wasn’t altogether lack of sleep. Last night when the prospect of Caro tumbling into West’s arms had become unendurable, he’d sought refuge in the brandy bottle. The pincers behind his eyes reminded him why he so rarely indulged.
“Lady Crewe is dressed for riding.”
Which saved him having to ask which sister. He had three, although Helena was his favorite. Or she had been before she started barging in on a chap when any sensible person would still be in bed.
Dobbs placed the candle on a chest of drawers and crossed to open the curtains. The pale morning light made Silas wince.
“Shall I help you dress before you go downstairs, my lord?” Dobbs lifted Silas’s velvet dressing gown from the chair where he’d flung it last night.
Silas forced himself to sit up. Each movement felt like pushing a boulder up a steep hill. “No, the dressing gown will suffice. There might be an emergency.”
“Lady Crewe didn’t appear agitated.”
That didn’t mean much. Helena could keep her head up through a hurricane. God knew, she’d needed all her pride and courage when she’d lived with Crewe.
Silas grunted acknowledgment as he let Dobbs slide the heavy crimson robe over his bare shoulders. “I’m awake now, Dobbs. You can go back to bed.”
“Thank you, sir, but in case Lady Crewe’s tidings require further action, I might wait. In the meantime, I’ll make some coffee.”
“Bless you.” Silas strode toward the door. “I mightn’t sack you today after all.”
Dobbs didn’t smile. “Most appreciated, sir.”
Silas rushed downstairs and slammed into the drawing room. The family had an extravagant townhouse in Berkeley Square, but he preferred to rent rooms here in Albemarle Street where he could preserve a little privacy. Although if his sisters planned to stage more midnight invasions, privacy might be a thing of the past.
“Helena, what the hell are you doing here?”
“And good morning to you, too, brother.” She stood near the unlit hearth, tall, striking, stylish in her close-fitting black habit. Apart from the commanding Nash nose they shared, nobody would ever pick them for brother and sister.
Silas dredged up a smile and sauntered across to kiss her on the cheek. “Is there some emergency?”
She sank gracefully onto the sofa beside the mantel. “You might think there is.”
He frowned. His mother and sisters occasionally involved him in small dramas, but he couldn’t recall anything worthy of a predawn visit. “Is all well with Mamma?”
“As far as I know.” Helena set her riding crop on her lap and stared hard at him. “I’ve come to invite you to ride in Hyde Park.”
“What drivel is this?”
Grim humor twisted his sister’s lips. “Perhaps it is drivel, but I’m joining Caro in an hour.”
“I don’t—” he began, increasingly irritated, but Helena interrupted him.
“With Lord West.”
“Hell’s bells,” he muttered, hands fisting at his sides as he prepared to thump his absent rival. When he raised his eyes, he read knowledge in Helena’s expression. “You know.”
She shrugged. “That you’re head over heels in love with Caro? Of course I do.”
He hated to think that he’d been so transparent—and that she might find his lack of success amusing. Helena’s sense of humor tended toward the black. “How?”
“Because I know you, dear Silas. I’ve never seen you so careful with a woman. It’s rather touching.”
His lips tightened. “You mock me.”
She shook her dark head, topped with a high-crowned beaver hat tied with a fluttering violet scarf. “Not at all. I’ve always known you had a capacity for deep feeling—you show it to the family, but not to the rest of the world. Nice to see you’re not nearly as self-sufficient as people paint you. I guessed something serious was on the cards when no lady’s name has been linked to yours in more than a year. I fear you’ve become that mythical beast, a reformed rake.”
He winced. “How dull.”
Her laugh held the familiar wry note. “No. You’re growing up at last.”
What in Satan’s name did one say to that? Fortunately Dobbs arrived with the promised coffee and saved him from replying. Silas snatched a cup and emptied it in a gulp, his brain at last starting to function.
“She doesn’t know I love her,” Silas said when Dobbs had left.
“No.” Helena lifted her red and gold cup from the table beside her and took a more decorous sip than he’d managed. “Despite ten years of marriage, Caro’s an innocent. She was so young when she was wed, and Freddie Beaumont never recognized her potential to be anything more than a rural wife. She’s clever, but she’s inexperienced in the wiles of wicked fellows like you. For all her wit and beauty, she’s a wide-eyed child in many ways.”
“I want her to stay that way,” Silas said grimly. He refilled his cup and strolled across to stand beside the sofa. “She won’t if she falls into West’s clutches.”
Helena regarded him with disfavor. “He’s no worse than you.”
“He’ll hurt her.”
Helena shrugged again. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. She’s not in love with him. It’s love that hurts, after all.”
Silas forgot his romantic troubles long enough to lay one hand on his sister’s slender shoulder. “I wish I’d shot that bastard Crewe.”
“If anyone should have shot him, it was me. But let’s not spoil our morning with talk of that brute.”
His sister never spoke of the hell of her marriage. Silas suspected revisiting those dark years gave her late, unlamented spouse power over her present. The problem was that the poison continued to taint her view of the world. He compared the wild hoyden she’d been as a girl with this contained, sardonic woman, and his heart cramped with grief for her. “You could have sent me a note last night.”
She surveyed him thoughtfully over her coffee. “I hadn’t decided to interfere then. I’m still not sure I should.”
It was his turn to look at his sister with disfavor. “Why in Hades not? She’ll make me a fine wife.”
“Undoubtedly. I’m sure she made Freddie Beaumont a fine wife, too. Not one to shirk her duty, our Caro. I think that’s one of the reasons she doesn’t want to sign up for more of the same.”
Pique stirred. “I would hope marriage to me would involve more than duty.”
“It would involve a commitment, when she’s only now tasting her first freedom.”
“I have no intention of crushing her spirit.”
“Maybe not. But she’d be a wife, when I know she’s looking forward to an eventful widowhood.”
“With that ruffian West,” he said grumpily.
“And who knows who else?”
“Bloody hell,” Silas said, settin
g his cup down in its saucer with a sharp clink. “It’s enough to make a man want to shoot himself.”
Helena laughed briefly. “Not when I’ve taken this trouble to alert you to your lady love’s latest escapade. Why don’t you get dressed and we’ll see what’s happening in the park?”
“Capital idea.” Silas strode toward the door. “And, Helena, thank you.”