Philip arrived at the pleasure house just as the kitchen clock struck six times. He’d slept well, reassured his staff that he was neither dead, pursued by debt collectors, nor rolled up with grief, and answered all his outstanding correspondence. His bed had seemed empty without Helene in it, and he’d missed the simple pleasure of her acerbic company more than he had anticipated.
He took off his cloak and hat and hung them in the dark hallway. Helene’s revelations about Marguerite followed by the erotic night they’d shared seemed to have complicated their relationship even further. Helene was the only woman he’d met who seemed to instinctively understand him and, more importantly, accept him for what he was.
What the devil would he do with himself when the thirty days were up? He’d be adrift again, unless Helene kept her promise and allowed him some say in the business matters of the pleasure house. He realized he’d like that. Not that he didn’t have a whole new set of responsibilities to worry about and more possibly to come if the Earl of Swansford died without a son.
He slowly pushed open the door of the kitchen and found it surprisingly full of people. All the kitchen staff were busy polishing the silverware under the direction of Judd. Helene’s twins sat at the table eating Madame Dubois’s famous croissants. He paused to watch them, smiling indulgently as the boy teased his sister by withholding the mug of hot chocolate madame had also placed on the table. It reminded him of watching his own children at the breakfast table.
Philip forced himself to breathe. It was just like watching his children at the breakfast table. He turned abruptly to his left and bumped into Helene.
“Bonjour, Philip.”
God, he couldn’t speak to her now. With a sharp nod, he blundered his way across the hall into the wine cellar and clattered down the steps into the welcoming darkness.
“Damnation!”
He grabbed the first bottle his hand connected with and threw it at the brick wall. The glass shattered with a satisfying crash, and the strong smell of brandy stung his senses. He didn’t bother to light a candle, just fumbled his way to the nearest wall and sat down, knees drawn up to his chest, his head in his hands.
After a while, he managed to control his breathing and open his eyes, not that he could see much. And truly he might as well have been blind. He’d been misled by the twins’ fair coloring and his own deliberate decision to ignore any offspring Helene had created with another man. And what sensible man went around looking to see if he’d fathered any bastards anyway?
But he should at least have considered it. They’d been young and impetuous, and despite his best efforts, he’d obviously gotten her pregnant. He gripped his knees even more tightly. Why the hell hadn’t she told him then or now?
“Philip?”
He looked up; saw the flicker of candlelight descending the stairs and a woman’s distorted shadow on the wall. He shielded his eyes as Helene spun slowly around trying to find him.
“Philip, are you all right? Did you fall?”
He still couldn’t speak, became aware of a growing ball of anger settling somewhere between his chest and his gut. She knelt down beside him, the soft muslin of her dress floated over his fingers and her flowery scent replaced the acidic tang of bottled wine. The angle of the candlelight kept their faces in the shadows, which was something of a relief.
She touched his arm, and he flinched away. So much for knowing her. So much for his strange belief that they shared a common soul. He took a deep breath, which was difficult when all he could inhale was her beguiling familiar essence.
“How old are they?”
“The…twins?”
“Yes.”
“They have just turned eighteen.”
He took his time to absorb that, worked out that they were indeed what he thought they were. Yet another woman lying to him about his own children. Did she take him for a fool like his wife had?
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her sharp intake of breath sounded loud in the echoing confines of the cellar. “Who told you?”
He frowned into the darkness. Why did she sound so defensive? He was the one who had been deceived—again.
“Nobody had to tell me. I worked it out for myself.”
“How?”
“Why does it matter?”
“Because I have taken great care to keep the twins away from you. I foolishly hoped you would be too preoccupied with other things to worry about something that happened such a long time ago.”
“Too preoccupied with fucking their mother, you mean.”
She didn’t reply. He relished the harried sound of her breathing and the subtle trembling of her limbs where she almost touched him.
“I know you won’t believe me, but I did intend to tell you.”
“When? On my deathbed?”
“After the thirty days were up. I didn’t want to use such an important and personal piece of information to make you leave.”
Damnation, how dare she sound so reasonable and yet so vulnerable at the same time? He wanted her to hurt as much as he did, to make her feel as betrayed as he felt.
“That’s very sporting of you. Perhaps it didn’t occur to you that I might be able to handle a discussion about my own children without storming out in a huff?”
She hesitated again as if trying to choose her words with great care. “I wasn’t sure if you would wish to know you had more children.”
“Because they are bastards? I’m already accustomed to having to deal with that because of my wife and her lover. And if you had married me the first time we met, they wouldn’t be bastards, would they?”
“That is unfair.”
“But it is true, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t know I was pregnant until after you left me.”
“You were the one who made me leave.”
“I seem to remember you were more than willing to go after I told you I was a whore.”
“That is a lie.”
Silence fell between them again, and Philip closed his eyes to avoid staring at Helene’s perfect profile. She eased down beside him, her back against the wall, knees drawn up to her chin.
“When I came to London, I fully intended to ask Viscount Harcourt-DeVere to help me find you so that I could at least tell you I was pregnant. It wasn’t that I expected you to marry me or anything—I knew I wasn’t of the right class for that—but I at least wanted you to know.”
“But you didn’t tell me.”
She sighed. “How could I when I read in the newspaper that you were already married?”
Philip stared into the gloom, trying to piece together the sequence of events he’d tried so hard to forget.
“I had no choice. Did you think I did it out of spite? After I left you at the inn and returned to the city, I spent several days drinking and whoring to force myself to forget you. By the time I appeared before my father, I was determined to tell him to go to the devil. Unfortunately, he threatened to disinherit me, and that brought me to my senses.”
He tried to laugh. “You were right about me. I was a coward. I couldn’t imagine living my life without all the costly trappings I’d become accustomed to. He also threatened to marry Anne off to a notorious aging lecher, and I couldn’t allow that either. So we were married by special license the next day.”
He shuddered as her fingers brushed his. He took hold of her cold hand and held on tight.
“Even if I had known I was pregnant, Philip, I still would’ve sent you away.”
“I know.” He squeezed her fingers hard. “I’m not sure if I would’ve gone, though.”
“You would’ve had no choice in the end. Your father was determined you should marry Anne.”
“And if I had wanted to support you and the twins, I had to marry Anne to claim her inheritance. How ironic.”
She stirred beside him, and her skirts made the candlelight flicker. “The twins were well cared for. Viscount Harcourt-DeVere ensured that they were boarded at the same private school as my older daughter, Marguerite. I missed watching them grow up, but at least I knew they were safe.”
“Of course; you weren’t able to keep them with you, were you?”
“I would’ve loved to keep them all, but unfortunately, my lifestyle did not allow it. As I said, I could scarcely bring them up in a pleasure house, however exclusive it was.”
He could hear the raw hurt behind her light tone and realized he wasn’t the only person who had suffered. The hot glow of anger inside him subsided. The older he grew, the more he realized life wasn’t black and white, that there were many hues of gray in between. Helene’s decisions about the twins had little to do with his wife’s deliberate deception and her subsequent lack of interest in the results of her adultery.
“Some women simply abandon their children to the foundling hospitals.”
She sighed. “I couldn’t have done that. I never knew which man in the Bastille fathered Marguerite, but she was still my child. And the twins were doubly special, because they reminded me of you.”
He swallowed hard. “If you had come to me, even after I was married, I would’ve helped you, supported you, set you up in your own house…”
“I know, but what would’ve happened to me then? I’d be beholden to you for everything, at your beck and call, simply existing between the moments you could snatch away from your wife. After my elderly French lover died, I swore that I would never be a kept woman again.”
He thought about that. Allowed his mind to consider her words, even realized he could accept her logic, despite his hurt. “And your life has been better without me?”
“My life has been different. I have achieved a level of independence and success that few women manage. I have three healthy children and enough money saved to know I will never have to depend on anyone for anything in my old age.”
“That is certainly an achievement.” He let go of her hand. She was right. She didn’t need him at all. “Do the twins know I’m their father?”
“Non, I haven’t told them. I assume you would not have been amused if they’d suddenly decided to seek you out and confront you.”
Philip stood up and brushed at his breeches. “Are you going to tell them now?”
Helene picked up the candle and got up as well, shielding the flame with her cupped hand. “That is for you to decide, surely?”
“Will you let me think about it?”
“Of course. I know this has been an unpleasant surprise for you.”
“A shock, certainly.” Why were they being so polite and reasonable to each other? What had happened to his desire to throttle her for deceiving him? It had faded away, pushed into the background by the sense of their shared pain.
He started for the stairs, aware of her close behind him.
“Philip…I am sorry.”
He half turned, saw her face illuminated by the light for the first time, the tears glinting on her cheeks.
“You are sorry? You were faced with the burden of bearing my children alone. You do not have to apologize to me.”
He started up the stairs and emerged into the narrow scullery. The kitchen door was open, and there was no sign of the twins, a small thing for which, in his present disordered state, he was profoundly grateful. He doubted he could face them yet without betraying something of his chaotic feelings. He’d already guessed they were no fools.
The scent of roasted coffee caught at his senses, and he walked into the kitchen. Madame Dubois nodded to him as he helped himself to some coffee and a slice of freshly baked bread. To his relief, his stomach settled and he realized he was capable of functioning again.
Helene hadn’t followed him into the kitchen. He wondered where she’d gone. He doubted she would let their agonizing exchange of confidences affect her as much as it had affected him, but she had been crying….
Philip put down his mug and headed for Helene’s office. She wasn’t there, so he started up the back stairs and worked his way down through all the floors of the pleasure house. Where in God’s name had she gone? There was only once place left to look.
He knocked on the door of her private suite and was surprised when she told him to enter. He found her sitting on the floor, surrounded by bundles of letters.
“Helene, are you all right?”
She nodded as she gathered up some of the stacks of letters and placed them into one of the kitchen baskets. He wasn’t deceived by her businesslike manner—he had learned that it concealed so much more.
“I wanted to give you these. They are all the letters I have received from the nuns and the twins since they were taken to the nunnery school.” She smoothed one of the faded ribbons. “I kept the twins with me for their first year. After that…I had to send them away.”
Philip stared at the basket, almost afraid to reach for it. Helene was watching him closely.
“Of course, if you do not wish to read about them, I will understand….”
He picked up the basket, surprised at the weight, and realized he held a lifetime of love.
“Thank you. I promise I will return them to you when I’m done.”
She smiled. “There is no need.” She clenched her fist to her breast. “I think I have them all by heart.”
He studied her face, savoring the strength beneath the fragile exquisite beauty. Strength that had made sure his children survived to adulthood despite the odds stacked against them. He wished he could’ve seen her body swollen with his seed…. With a start, he realized he wanted to bind her to him in the most primitive and possessive ways a man could.
She raised her eyebrows. “Why are you staring at me?”
He managed to shrug. “Because you are beautiful?”
“You have only just noticed that?”
She collected the rest of the letters, put them back into their box, and locked them away in her bedside cabinet. Her self-possession continued to alternately enchant and confuse him.
“I noticed it the first time we met; don’t you remember?”
She shrugged. “It was a long time ago. I can hardly be expected to recollect exactly what happened.”
He advanced toward her and pulled her into his arms, wanted her attention completely focused on him, wanted to see that famed icy beauty dissolve to reveal her desire for him and him alone.
“You don’t remember that I was as hard as a rock for that entire coach journey and that all I could think about was pulling up your skirts and fucking you in front of the other passengers?”
“I don’t recall that at all. In truth, you behaved like a perfect gentleman.”
“Until I did back you up against a wall and have you.”
He suited his actions to his words and maneuvered her up against the nearest wall, shoving her skirts around her waist. At this particular moment, he needed to be inside her more than anything. He hastily undid the buttons on his breeches to reveal his eager cock and lifted her over him.
He held her gaze as he slowly lowered her down over his shaft, groaning as each thick inch was enclosed by her tight wet passage. She gripped his shoulders and dug the heels of her jeweled slippers into his arse.
With a groan, he shifted his grip and allowed her to move on him until he couldn’t stand it anymore. He took control of her hips, pressing her down onto his engorged cock as he thrust upward, creating a fast grinding rhythm that drove them both toward a climax. Helene came first, moaning his name, and he swiftly followed, his cock pulsing endlessly as she milked him dry.
He pulled out and let her legs slide down to the floor, pressing her to the wall with his weight.
“I still get hard every time I see you, Helene.”
“And I still let you back me up against walls and have your way with me.”
A curious sense of peace invaded his limbs, and he struggled with a strong desire to take her back to bed and forget about all their problems in the joy of lovemaking. In the two weeks since he’d seen her again, his life had changed in extraordinary ways. Whatever happened between them, he would never forget her.
He kissed the top of her head. “If you wish to stay here and rest, I’ll do the inspection for you.”
She pushed at his chest. “I’m not an invalid, Philip. I’m quite capable of following my usual routine, despite your attentions.”
He smiled at her businesslike tone. How like her to emerge from his lovemaking with renewed vigor when he felt like taking a long luxurious nap.
“Perhaps I’ll stay here and rest instead.”
She fixed him with a glare from her fine blue eyes. “You will not. You will accompany me.”
“Still hoping to see me chained up on the top floor, then?”
“I would like that.” Her gaze turned speculative. “Are you ready to submit to me yet?”
Despite its recent activity, his cock twitched and started to thicken. “Like you submit to me?”
She bit down on her lush lower lip, and his shaft grew even more.
“You seemed to like it when I spanked you with your own hairbrush.”
Her color heightened, and she turned toward her dressing room. “I’ll be ready in a moment. Perhaps you might straighten your attire.”
He glanced down at his unbuttoned breeches, saw the crown of his cock thrusting through his wet shirttails, and grinned. “As I said, I don’t need any of those fancy instruments of torture to get me hard, just you.”
She didn’t reply, but she did slam the door. Philip smiled, sauntered over to the door, and knocked.
“I’ll wait for you upstairs.”
He picked up the basket of letters and left, amazed that he could find Helene incredibly alluring and profoundly moving at the same time. His discovery of the twins’ identity had shocked him to his core, and yet it seemed that his attraction to Helene was still as strong, if not stronger. He paused in the scullery to hide the letters under his cloak and continued on up to the top of the house.