The Wallflower's Wicked Wager (The Wallflower Wins Book 2) Read online
Page 11
“I do think you should marry me,” he said suddenly.
She gaped, her face pale. “I beg your pardon.”
“If you did, you could write always and never be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid,” she all but bellowed.
“But you are,” he countered. “Isn’t it why you came here, to get away from your family so that you could write? Because you were afraid they would stop you?”
She blanched at that.
“With me,” he urged, “you could write and have no fear of approval or disapproval.”
“It is hard to fathom,” she said. “That here, with you, I’ve found the most important support I think I’ll ever find in my life.”
“Do you mean that?” he asked, stunned and pleased.
“I do,” she affirmed, her eyes suddenly shining with unshed tears. “No one has ever made me feel about my writing the way you have, even my dear friends.”
“I’m glad I’ve made you feel thus,” he breathed. “Now go and write. It is the dearest wish of both our hearts. You can agree to marry me later.”
“I told you that you didn’t really wish to seduce me,” she said, triumphantly.
“Oh Helena,” he murmurred. “I wish to have your mouth beneath mine. I wish to have you in my bed. I wish to feel your body beneath mine too. But, even more, I wish for you to pursue your dreams.”
“You’ve done it again,” she protested. “You tempt me beyond measure.”
“Apologies. Apologies, Miss Highbury.” He reached out and gently tucked a lock of her errant hair behind her ear. “It seems I cannot stop myself.”
She gave him a quick curtsy, then started for the library door. She paused, then turned and looked back at him over her shoulder. “I do not wish you to cease, not truly. Because when you say such things, I believe that my dreams will come true. It’s no longer just a secret longing of the heart, but something that I am making into reality.”
“Go then,” he urged, feeling something for her he’d never felt before. Something deep and powerful. “Make it into reality.”
And she did.
He listened to the steps of her boots retreating down the hallway.
Shock crashed over him.
How the devil had it happened? She had seduced him. That’s what had happened.
In his entire life, he had always been the seducer.
But this was different. Helena had not tried to seduce him. But her entire personality, it made him want things he’d never wanted before. It was both glorious and terrifying because he admired her. So very much.
Bloody hell, Duncan was right.
Marrying Helena Highbury would probably be a very good idea.
He would ensure that the books that she was capable of writing would be written, and she would bring a great deal of happiness to this ancient castle.
She was a unique soul, and unique souls needed to be given special care.
It would be a great mission to choose to take care of her unique soul.
Yes, he’d been looking for something for years, not knowing what it was that would make him feel whole again after the loss of his father and his sister.
Perhaps taking care of Miss Highbury and making certain that her dreams did indeed come true could fill the hole that had been in his heart for so very long.
Chapter 14
The words had flowed like water from a Scottish river down to the sea and she’d been unable to cease writing. She’d written until dawn caressed her windowsill.
How she loved that it had come so easily, and she knew it was because of his belief in her.
Now, of course, she knew it wasn’t entirely because of him. The story was hers.
But he had freed something inside her, taking away some sort of fear that she’d clung to. And she’d felt freedom. Freedom to simply be herself and to write, and it had been a wondrous thing indeed.
When she’d written the very last that she could, she’d done something that she’d been needing to do for quite a while. She picked up her pen and wrote letters to all her friends. Quick missives.
They’d been writing to each other frequently over the weeks. Pippa’s letters had been most entertaining. Her comments about the rather eccentric lord that she worked for were very entertaining, but Helena had not told Pippa of the rather remarkable meeting she’d had with Gideon MacAlister.
She had not told any of them. She had simply said that working for her employer was challenging and that she was having difficulty writing.
It had not been the truth.
He was not challenging at all.
He was remarkable.
Now it was time to confess all.
So she took up her pen and poured out her heart.
But not to Pippa.
To Eloisa.
She wrote to Eloisa, who was in London right now, and confessed that she was falling in love.
Dear God, it was true, and it was terrifying. Surely young ladies such as herself shouldn’t fall in love. They shouldn’t give their hearts, especially when pursuing such grand plans.
But there it was.
And this felt as if he believed that she was magic, and she loved it.
It was the most wonderful she’d felt in her entire life. He’d been so heartfelt in his comments about the truth, about beauty, and love, and desire. He’d meant every word he’d said.
He was far more interested in her as a person than the possible beauty of the ladies in London or in Edinburgh.
Of that, she was certain.
But now he was offering marriage.
Marriage? He couldn’t truly mean that he was willing to marry a governess simply because she’d give him intelligent children. What would his mother say? Surely his mother would dislike her.
And he would hate her too once he learned that she hadn’t told him that she was actually from quite an acceptable family.
Or would he understand?
He might understand, she realized.
Actually, he’d very nearly guessed it this evening. He’d said that he believed she was running away from her family so that she might write. Goodness, he understood her in a way that no one ever had. He understood her rationale and her motivation.
Would his mother? She didn’t know.
It wasn’t as if she’d done some nefarious thing. She’d simply kept the fact that she was from a good family, and that she didn’t need to actually work as a governess, away from them.
She would have to confess.
Helena thought of him and she thought of Duncan and Hamish and Alistair. She sat still and tried to imagine them as her family, her real and true family.
The very thought warmed her.
She could think of nothing that would give her more joy, except, of course, to be a successful author. What if she could have both? What if she could also have her own children and be a successful author?
He was offering her that very thing.
My God, after years of denial, what if she could have those things? Joy suddenly flooded through her, and she continued to pour out these possibilities and thoughts to Eloisa.
“Oh dear friend,” she wrote, “I find I am in a quandary. I am being offered everything that I could ever possibly have hoped for, and now I fear that it will all be snatched away as some cruel joke. Should I jump? Should I accept him? What do you think?”
Before she could think twice, she sealed the letter and placed it on a tray so that the servant would take it in the morning post. She then took the chapters that she had written, tied a red ribbon around them, and pulled on her morning gown.
She slipped out into the cold, dark hall and hurried to Gideon’s room. She placed the chapters in front of his door, lingering for a moment. Then she scampered back to her own room, knowing that she would need a good splashing of cold water so that she could face the day.
Instead of feeling tired, though, she felt exhilarated.
A smile lit her face.
What wond
ers could this world bring?
Just weeks ago, she had been certain that everything was going poorly. That her entire life was little and small and that she would never be able to achieve anything great. Now she lived in Scotland, she oversaw the three most beautiful little boys, and her beautiful employer had asked for her hand in marriage.
What could stop her now?
Chapter 15
Gideon put down the last page and felt a glow of contentment and pleasure settle over him.
What a perfect work it was.
And he did not think that this would be a one-off, a novel that she wrote and never wrote another one like it again.
Writing was who Helena was to her very core, and he loved that about her.
Dear God, yes, he had just said that. He loved it about her.
Gideon stood and stretched his cramped muscles.
He’d been reading for hours. He could only imagine how she had gotten through the morning. She must have written through the night to get so near to the end. But now what would happen? The hero and heroine had been separated. The hero’s heart was broken, and yet he was acting like an absolute ass.
Why did heroes always have to act like an ass, he wondered to himself. The heroine had been left in the most dire of circumstances due to a misunderstanding, but not just a misunderstanding kept them apart. A truly terrible separation had occurred because of her parents.
He was damned glad that no such thing should ever befall himself and Helena. Real life was not full, generally, of such trials as those in novels. At least not to people of his class, or so he assuaged himself.
He scowled.
Damnation, what a liar he was.
Strange circumstances were always occurring, stranger than fiction, for certain. He wished to pretend that wasn’t true, but he knew it was a lie. It was just a comfort to placate himself.
Look at his own life, his own strange affairs with women in Edinburgh and London, his father’s death, his mother’s sorrow, his nephews’ displacement from their parents. So many little stories, so many little tragedies.
And yet they had managed to find some form of contentment, especially with Helena. And because of that, he knew even more so that he wanted to keep her in his life and the boys’ life forever. Yes, that was it. It was the perfect thing to do. And so he stood, smiling, holding the manuscript in his arms, and he knew exactly what he was going to do.
Gideon went to his desk, picked up a piece of paper, scrawled a letter to his friend in London on Fleet Street, and, with a flourish, enclosed the three chapters of the manuscript inside.
Helena would almost certainly be furious with him, but he knew it was a chance worth taking. Happily, he took the sealed parchment and chapters downstairs, handed it to a footman, and cheerfully went in search of coffee.
Breakfast had long been over, but cook was kind, and he did find the silver service waiting for him in the breakfast room.
Cook was a wise woman who knew that there were times when a gentleman still needed his coffee, even if the sun was up far into the sky.
Gideon heard the sound of laughter and the clatter of boys’ feet, and then the rich bell tones of Helena’s own laugh. The boys rushed into the foyer, muddy and happy as dogs. They were pushing each other, teasing each other, and leaping over each other.
Helena was completely unbothered by it.
Many women would have attempted to calm the boys down, to make them walk more carefully, more seriously, more staidly, but not Helena.
If anything, she seemed to take great delight in their antics. She turned to him, positively glowing, her cheeks pink with the exertion of a walk and her hair wild from a fine day and a Scottish breeze.
“We have just fended off pirates, Laird MacAlister,” she explained. “We are very lucky to have survived at all. And so we are in very high spirits.”
“Glad to hear it. Glad to hear it,” he enthused. “One must celebrate victory whenever one can. And speaking of victory, I must speak with you, Miss Highbury.”
“Go now, boys, it’s time for your tea,” Helena said.
The boys rushed towards the stairs, knowing what awaited them.
The boys let out a general cry of huzzah and ran off to the nursery, no doubt eager for the cakes that came every afternoon.
Helena lifted her brows and then followed him into the library where he stopped, turned, and gazed at her with amazement.
“However do you do it?” he asked.
“Do what?” she replied, running a hand over her mussed hair.
“Come up with such tales,” he asked, truly wishing he could understand.
She looked quite perplexed as she struggled to answer.
“In truth, I know not. Often, they just slip into my head,” she said. “Sometimes I just have to be silent and still and let my mind wander off. And then the ideas just come to me.”
“So I can see,” he marveled. “I am in love with your heroine, and I am most alarmed at the situation you have put our hero in! However will he redeem himself?”
She tsked. “He is in a great difficulty.”
Difficulty was not the word for what Helena had done to his doppelgänger. “I can see that, and I cannot wait for the heroine to realize what a lovely fellow he actually is.”
“I’m glad you realized that he is actually a lovely fellow.” She gave a solemn nod of her head as if affirming her own decisions to torture her characters. “Sometimes one cannot know the true depths of another person’s emotions or their intentions.”
That comment seemed the perfect note to confess. “Helena,” he began. “I’ve sent your chapters away.”
“What?” she exclaimed, her voice shooting up as her eyes rounded with alarm. “I’ve not even edited them.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he soothed, raising his hands in the general sign of supplication. “They’re perfection already.”
“They are not,” she ground out. “No writer would permit such a thing.”
For the first time, Gideon worried Helena might seize one of his family’s heirlooms and brain him. “Of course, I largely agree, and this is why I have said that I took the pages in an unedited state. They’ve been sent to London.”
A cry of alarm went up from her. It wasn’t fury but shock which shook her as she exclaimed, “How dare you, sir?”
He met her wild eyes and said with absolute belief, “I dare because I know how they will be loved.”
“What if they are hated?” she insisted, her cheeks flushing with concern.
“They will not hate it,” he promised, determined to assuage her. “My friend will see how remarkable it is. As I told you, I have supported many an artist, and I would not have sent your pages off if I thought that you would be humiliated by the results. I can almost guarantee that there will be a pleasurable outcome from this.”
She bit her lower lip. “Do you truly think so?”
“Yes,” he said firmly. “Do not hate me forever, Helena.”
She drew in a shaky breath and reached out for his hands, which he gave. “How can I hate you for believing in me so very much? I might have liked you to ask me first, but I realize that you were certain I’d be too afraid. But you know, Gideon, I’m not afraid now. You’ve taken that from me because you believe in me so much. You believe in me so much that I too believe.”
She grinned with pleasure. “Now I feel like I should send it to as many publishers as I can.”
“That certainly can be done,” he agreed, “but I sent it to the best in the business, George Bancroft. And he’s going to love it. And I’d be happy to bet your book will be in every bookshop from here to the United States of America in a year’s time.”
Her mouth fell open as she took in his words. “In the colonies?”
“I wouldn’t dare call them that,” he replied dryly.
She looked positively dazed. “I can scarce imagine it.”
“You must,” he insisted.
“Thank you,” she re
plied, her eyes filling with tears of happiness.
“And there’s something else,” he added.
She swung her gaze back to his and squeezed his hands. “What more could there be?”
Slowly, he pulled her towards him, wrapping his strong arms about her waist. “I know we have known each other but a short time. Yet in that short time, I think we’ve come to know each other quite well. We understand each other, and that is more than some people can ever hope to have. I see the happiness you bring into this family, and I would like to ask you to remain in it and become a part of it. I ask you in all sincerity, by the bold light of day, will you marry me, Helena Highbury?”
Her face paled and, for one instant, he was certain she was going to refuse him, which would be quite novel because no woman had ever refused him before.
If he was honest, he imagined any woman he’d have asked in London or Edinburgh would have said yes. He’d had so many women and their mamas running after him that it would have been high comedy indeed if, in this moment, she told him to hie off.
Instead, she looked up at him and said, “Oh, Laird MacAlister, there is something I must tell you first.”
At her words, a chill rushed down his spine and sank into his gut. Such words never bode well. “Good God,” he said, determined not to overreact. He forced a smile. “What could it possibly be, lass? Is this to be a mad turn of plot like in one of your novels? Am I about to discover that, in fact, you are the daughter of my uncle or that you have escaped from a nunnery or that–”
“Cease! Cease!,” she cried, laughing. She batted his shoulder playfully. “Nothing so terrifying, I promise. I am not even the love child of some wild countess who has fled to Arabia.”
Her breasts rose and fell, pressing against her simple gown as she drew in a long breath. “No, Laird MacAlister, I simply wish to tell you I have not been completely honest with you.”
His heart beat so hard that he felt it in the vein running along his neck. “Your name is not Helena Highbury?” he whispered.
She licked her lips. “It is Helen Highbury, and I am from Cornwall. And you were correct. I have run away from my family.”