The Wolf of Mayfair

The refreshing pleasure from the first view of nature, after the pain of illness, and the confinement of a sick-chamber, is above the conceptions, as well as the descriptions, of those in health.

—Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho

Helia opened her eyes, then promptly wished she hadn’t.

Her father had often said the moment she’d been born, she’d chased away the dark clouds that had gripped the Highland skies, and the first sun after a winter of gloom had marked her a daughter of the sun.

And yet, with the bright rays streaming from that great orb through the crack in the curtains, she’d far prefer a darker sky to the blinding brightness.

With greater care, Helia tried again.

This time, she turned her heavy head away from those windows, and toward the other side of the room. She blinked remarkably heavy lashes and sought to make out her murky surroundings.

Her gaze locked on the ornately carved, unfamiliar oak door . . . and with an uncharacteristic lethargy, Helia forced her stare away from that intricate panel and took in the other surrounding details: the Louis XVI bedside table with its butterfly veneer. The ornate, polished brass ewer and basin. The damask rose wallpaper, just a faint shade away from being too garish.

These weren’t her rooms.

Ma favored bright, cheerful shades and less elaborate decor.

Her head thick from the fog of sleep, she tried to make sense of her surroundings.

Where am I?

Panic built at the base of her skull, knocking away, and Helia, sluggish as she’d never been, raised her hands to the back of her head.

“You’re awake, dear child.”

Dear child?

Helia looked about for the owner of that cheerful pronouncement.

A kind-eyed, regal-looking older woman, dressed in the attire of a housekeeper, smiled at her.

Helia tried desperately to place her identity, but that, too, remained as futile as sorting out her surroundings.

The woman hastened over to the opposite side of the room. Helia attempted to follow her steps, but all the muscles of her neck ached, making it impossible to keep up with the quick pace the servant had set.

Helia raised her right hand and began to rub at the tight muscles along her neck and the bottom of her skull.

What in blazes happened to me?

But the answer to that remained as unclear as the one pertaining to her whereabouts.

Suddenly, the smiling woman reappeared at her side, with a carved crystal goblet filled with water.

Then, for the first time, Helia registered past her discomfort and achiness to her unbounded and terrible thirst.

She struggled up onto her elbows.

The servant instantly set the glass down upon the nightstand with a little plink and looped an arm about Helia’s waist. “Slow as you go, my dear.”

She helped guide Helia back several inches so that the Venetian, painted, gilt headboard provided a steady surface on which to rest her weary frame.

“Who are you?” Helia asked, her voice thick and hoarse and dry as it had never been.

“Mrs. Trowbridge,” the kindly servant offered. “Now, here,” she continued, reaching for the elegant glass she’d previously set aside. “I trust after the time you’ve had of it, you’re more parched than our Lord himself had been in that desert he once wandered.”

Mrs. Trowbridge slid an arm about Helia’s shoulders and then, with her free hand, began to proffer the drink as if Helia were a babe.

In actuality, Helia felt as weak as one of those helpless creatures.

The moment the water passed her lips, she gulped and swallowed, welcoming that glorious cool liquid as it slid down her throat.

“Slower, my dear,” Mrs. Trowbridge gently admonished. “You do not want to choke.”

Choking might in fact be the preferable fate to this insatiable thirst.

Still, she made herself sip more slowly from the goblet the servant held to her lips.

When she’d downed its contents, Helia collapsed into the headboard. After Mrs. Trowbridge deposited the glass back on the nightstand, she bustled over to the opposite side of the room.

Helia ran a tired hand over her eyes and tried to sort out where—

And then, with all the force and enormity of a headfirst collision with a stone wall, it hit her.

Her parents’ death.

Mr. Draxton’s arrival.

Her desperate flight to London and the godmother she’d never met.

And the son who’d been there to greet her instead.

Lord Wingrave. Surly and menacing and unsmiling . . .

And then she recalled the terms under which he’d allowed Helia to remain.

Suddenly, the heavy brocade curtains were drawn wide, sending so much of that blindingly bright and cheerful light streaming through the thin, gossamer undercurtains that Helia shielded her eyes.

When she’d managed to accustom them to that great, torrential luminance, she looked fully at the window.

Sun.

So very much of it.

She’d always loved the sun and had first entered the world at the highest point of a Sunday, no less.

And yet . . .

This time proved different.

For at some point, the storm had stopped, and the skies had turned a vibrant blue . . . which meant . . .

“I have nowhere to go.”

“Bah, you are not fit to go anywhere, my dear.”

Helia looked dumbly at the still-smiling housekeeper.

It was a moment before she registered she’d spoken those five words aloud.

Panic began to clamor and build inside her chest, and it was all she could do to keep from saying both she and Mrs. Trowbridge had been right: Helia must leave, while at the same time, she wasn’t fit to go anywhere.

Wingrave, who’d been clear in his annoyance with her from the start, had only been further inconvenienced by Helia falling ill and burdening him with her presence.

She felt the familiar prick of tears at her lashes.

“He is going to throw me out,” she whispered.

A man of Wingrave’s reputation would hardly make a mistress of a bedraggled waif.

Worse, what did it say about Helia’s circumstances that becoming the marquess’s lover was the best option available to her—only, it wasn’t even available.

“His Lordship?” Mrs. Trowbridge scoffed. “Hardly. Why, what would be the sense in that . . . ?”

As the kindly housekeeper continued, Helia’s head had already begun to swirl with her deepening dread. She couldn’t return to Mr. Draxton.

“I understand he’s quite menacing,” Mrs. Trowbridge went on, her voice shifting in and out of focus.

A shudder racked Helia’s frame. If the insults and threats Mr. Draxton had doled out before had been bad, what would they be like when she showed up on her family’s doorstep after having outmaneuvered him and run away?

She shook her head, already dispelling the thought. She’d sooner starve on the streets than turn herself over to that miserable, hateful bounder. She might have nothing, but she did have her strong Scottish pride.

“. . . but as they say, timid dogs bark worse than they bite . . .” The housekeeper’s consoling managed to penetrate Helia’s blinding panic.

Timid dogs . . . ?

Through the fog made by fear and her recent illness, it was a moment before Helia registered that the motherly housekeeper in fact spoke of . . .

“Lord Wingrave?” Helia’s voice, still rough from lack of use, emerged as a croak.

Mrs. Trowbridge nodded. “The same. And he’ll be most glad to know you’re up and talking.”

And despite the foreboding future awaiting Helia and her desperate circumstances, a laugh spilled past her cracked and dry lips.

“Lord Wingrave?” Helia repeated, because it really did bear repeating and clarification.

The housekeeper gave an even more energetic bob of her head. “The same.”

His Lordship, who wouldn’t even share his name with her.

Something pricked at the corners of her mind. A murky remembrance danced just out of reach. Hallucinations she’d wailed and moaned through.

Anthony . . .

Through the process of trying to sort out where figment ended and reality began, Helia registered the other woman’s absolute seriousness. “You are serious.”

“Very much so. I know it is hard to believe—the rest of the staff has had a hard time reckoning His Lordship’s actions with his usual temperament.” Color singed the housekeeper’s thin, lightly wrinkled cheeks. “Not that anyone would ever speak ill of His Lordship or any in the duke’s employ,” she added hastily.

“Of course not,” Helia demurred.

And then, as if she feared she’d said too much, the housekeeper cleared her throat. “You must be famished.”

Mrs. Trowbridge didn’t allow for an answer and had already headed for the bellpull.

In an instant, a light scratch sounded at the door. A maid ducked her head inside.

“Please see that a tray is readied for Miss Wallace,” Mrs. Trowbridge said in a no-nonsense way. “And do not tarry.”

The small young woman stole a glance in Helia’s direction, then dipped a curtsy and hurried off.

The moment she’d gone, a now silent Mrs. Trowbridge proceeded to right Helia’s already nearly tidy chambers.

Helia studied the housekeeper as she flitted about the room.

Though Helia would never break the housekeeper’s confidence, she’d known Mrs. Trowbridge but a couple of days—most of which, Helia had been unconscious for—and as such, she understood why the other woman would be wary of being heard speaking ill, or allowing other servants to speak poorly, of a forbidding master such as Lord Wingrave.

In fact, being on her own in the world now, and with her security stripped away, she understood on a level the fear Mrs. Trowbridge would have at the prospect of being turned out.

Desperate to know how a man like Wingrave became Wingrave and something about his life, she looked to the kindly housekeeper.

“Have you been in His and Her Grace’s employ very long?” Helia asked.

Over at the walnut recamier chaise longue, Mrs. Trowbridge paused mid-plump of an already perfectly plump gold silk pillow. “I’ve been head housekeeper for nearly twenty years.” Pride shone in her silvery eyes.

One could tell much about a master and mistress’s kindness by the length of service and loyalty of their servants. Between that affirmation and the marquess having let her recuperate here, Helia found hope that maybe, just maybe, the members of this household weren’t so cold and unfeeling as their son had made them out—

“I’m the longest-employed member on the staff, I am,” Mrs. Trowbridge informed, effectively quashing Helia’s earlier optimism.

“Many have left?” Helia ventured.

“Many have left,” the housekeeper confirmed, and went back to her task of arranging the trio of pillows along the back of the chaise.

Which was hardly a testament to any kind of magnanimity from those who lived under this roof.

Pathetically fatigued from the herculean effort it took to prop herself up, Helia rolled onto her side so she could face the housekeeper.

Mrs. Trowbridge dropped the pillow in her hands and hurried over. “Now, now. I’ve warned you that you are not to tax yourself. His Lordship will be most displeased if you fall ill again.”

“Yes,” she said tiredly, as the beneficent servant straightened Helia’s coverlet and then gave it a firm tug up to her chin. “I trust Lord Wingrave would be most cross at my further illness. Not when it would further delay my departure.”

More like my eviction.

Mrs. Trowbridge frowned. “I see why you’re of that opinion, miss. And . . . several days ago, I myself would have been of a like one, but the marquess? He’s been quite distraught at your condition.”

Distraught?

Helia snorted. “Impossible.”

“I assure you, it is not only possible, but in fact, the truth.” The housekeeper stole a glance about, as if to check for possible interlopers, and then returned her focus to Helia. “Lord Wingrave did not leave your side, Miss Wallace.”

Had Helia not already been lying down, the servant’s words would have knocked her square off her feet. “He didn’t?”

“He surely didn’t. Even cared for you himself, he did.”

Helia reeled. He’d cared for her himself? “He did?”

Mrs. Trowbridge nodded. “Toweled your brow and wrists and dripped little amounts of water into your lips so you had something to drink.”

And a terrific heat spread through her chest; this warmth was a tingling one, caused not by any fever but by the staggering breadth of Lord Wingrave’s benevolence. “My goodness,” Helia whispered.

“Never thought I’d see it myself,” the housekeeper confessed. “Not after—”

The woman abruptly stopped, catching herself from sharing something, and Helia held her breath, wishing she would, wishing she’d finish her unspoken thought.

“After?” Helia quietly urged, desperately wishing for her to say more, wanting to know whatever secret she held about the enigmatic marquess.

Mrs. Trowbridge grunted. “That’s neither here nor there. What matters is that you are well and are going to get stronger with each day.”

“Which is undoubtedly why he cared for me,” she murmured. That was the only thing that made sense. “Once I’m well, he can send me on my way.”

The head servant scoffed. “If he didn’t care, he may as well have left you to die.” Mrs. Trowbridge shook her head. “But he didn’t. He summoned doctor after doctor, and time after time, he showed them the door because he deemed them incompetent.”

A small smile formed. She’d known the marquess but a very short time, and yet, with Wingrave’s imperturbable sangfroid, she could both hear and see him taking on a team of doctors so. Where Lord Wingrave was concerned, his self-assuredness extended to all matters and things.

Mrs. Trowbridge wasn’t done with her stubborn and faithful defense of the marquess. “After he learned one of the doctors bled you, he refused to leave during any further examinations. He wouldn’t let a single one of those men bring even a single leech near you.” An obstinate glint lit the old woman’s eyes. “Threatened to do each one of them harm if they so much as put a leech on your wrist.”

Ah, he’d refused to allow customary bloodletting as part of her treatment. Now, that made sense.

A twinkle sparkled in the older woman’s eyes. “I know what you’re thinking, my dear.”

She couldn’t.

“He didn’t disallow them to bleed you because it was the easiest way to be rid of you.”

Heat exploded on Helia’s cheeks. “I did not—”

“Say so?” The stouthearted housekeeper smiled. “You didn’t need to. You do not know His Lordship, Miss Wallace. You do not know who he was before. But if you’d seen how afeared he was during your illness, you’d see a different man than the one he lets you believe he is.”

Floored by Mrs. Trowbridge’s revelations, Helia lay there. Her mind spun.

Lord Wingrave had challenged an army of doctors he’d let in, for her.

For that matter, what nobleman would ever take on such a grim, effortful task as to play nursemaid for a sick woman? No less, a woman whom he did not personally know and denied any connection to?

Aye, recover she would. And apparently she’d do so not because of any miracle or intervention from any doctor’s part, but rather because of . . . Wingrave.

The housekeeper spoke, drawing Helia from her racing thoughts. “In fact, I’ve not seen His Lordship so shaken since—” Mrs. Trowbridge caught herself once more.

Too late.

Helia’s ears immediately latched on to that incomplete thought. She waited a moment for the faithful servant to speak again.

“Since?” Helia gently prodded when no further words were forthcoming.

In response to that urging, Mrs. Trowbridge pressed her lips closed and shook her head.

“Please,” Helia implored, somehow desperate to know the secrets Anthony kept. Mrs. Trowbridge herself had confirmed he’d not always been this way. Each detail shared offered another piece of a puzzle, which once completed would paint a picture of why he’d become the guarded man he had.

The housekeeper remained silent, then spoke reluctantly. “You know,” she whispered, as if the marquess were within earshot. She pointed at her left ear.

Helia puzzled her brow. “I do not understand.”

Her expression grew serious once more. “One winter, the former Lord Wingrave fell ill and died. Those lads . . .” Tears filled Mrs. Trowbridge’s eyes; she fished a kerchief from her pocket and dabbed the moisture from the corners. “They were as close as two brothers could be, until—”

The older woman stopped to collect herself. “After Lord Wingrave’s brother died, His Lordship hid away in the library and pored over books. I’d bring him tea and biscuits throughout the day. He’d mumble his thanks but never so much as picked his head up from his research.”

Helia hung on the woman’s every word. There’d been a time when Lord Wingrave mourned a brother, and researched books, and thanked servants. It was anathema to everything she’d read, heard, and herself witnessed about the marquess.

“One night, His Lordship burst from the library and went running through the halls, shouting for the duke. His Lordship demanded the surgeon be removed as the family physician for having killed his brother.”

“What did His Grace do?” Helia whispered.

An chilling and out-of-character rage darkened the older woman’s face. “For having awakened the household, the duke beat His Lordship.”

Anthony’s father had beaten him? Oh, my god. The stories surrounding the Duke of Talbert were true, and even worse. Sorrow and anger filled her breast.

Mrs. Trowbridge must have seen horror reflected in Helia’s eyes.

The older woman grunted. “Forget that,” she said, in a stern directive.

“Of course,” Helia lied. She’d never break the woman’s confidence, but neither could she forget everything the housekeeper had revealed about the marquess.

“All you need to know is His Lordship remained by your side until the fever broke, and he was certain you’d recover.” Mrs. Trowbridge grunted. “Anyway, His Lordship is not a bad man. Or he wasn’t.” Sadness slipped into her voice. “An angry one, yes. But angry men are angry for reasons, and only if one cares for that person do they take time to understand why.”

Questions swirled and sprang to Helia’s lips, demanding to be asked.

“Uh-uh,” Mrs. Trowbridge said, and patted her shoulder. “That is enough talking for now. You need to rest so that you can heal up right quick.”

Helia opened her mouth to protest, her hunger for information about the marquess far greater than even her long-overdue need for sustenance, when there came another light scratching at the door.

The one person in possession of, at the very least, some information about the gentleman brightened and turned toward the door. “Splendid!”

Helia wanted to rail at that untimely interruption that kept her from asking more questions about Lord Wingrave.

The housekeeper whisked across the room and drew the door open for a quartet of maids who stood in wait, each holding trays and pitchers and linens.

The moment the young women came pouring in, Mrs. Trowbridge offered Helia another smile, dipped her curtsy, and left.

While the servants gathered about Helia and proceeded to care for her, she contemplated all the words the head housekeeper had spoken . . . and found herself gripped by the need to know more about the future Duke of Talbert.