“Aye. It happens only when you’re near.” He seized her mouth ardently, sending his tongue deep, feeding pleasure into her until she was too dazed to refuse anything he wanted. His hand closed on her skirts, and for a fraction of a second, he was tempted to take what his tortured body clamored for, just have her right there. It would be easy to hoist her up to the table, lift her skirts, spread her legs—
Ending the kiss with a groan, he rested his forehead against hers. “I’ve been too long without you, cariad.” He filled his lungs with air and exhaled slowly. “Say something to distract me.”
Helen’s face was very pink, her lips slightly puffy. “You mentioned your mother,” she said. “When will I meet her?”
A dry chuckle escaped him—she couldn’t have chosen a more effective way to dampen his ardor. “After I’ve put it off for as long as possible.”
His mother, Bronwen Winterborne, was a stern, severe woman, lean and straight as a broomstick. Her wiry arms had delivered a wealth of punishments throughout his childhood, but Rhys couldn’t remember a single time when they had encircled him with tenderness. Still, she had been a good mother, keeping him fed and clothed, teaching him the values of discipline and hard work. It had always been easy to admire her, but not nearly as easy to love her.
“Will she disapprove of me?” Helen asked.
Rhys tried to imagine what his mother would make of this subtle, incandescent creature with a mind full of books and music in her fingers.
“She’ll think you’re too pretty. And too soft. She doesn’t understand your kind of strength.”
Helen looked pleased. “You think I’m strong?”
“I do,” he said without hesitation. “You have a will like a steel blade.” With a dark glance, he added, “Otherwise you couldn’t manage me half so well.”
“Manage you?” With adroit grace, Helen ducked beneath one of his arms and wandered to another table. “Is that what I was doing by giving in to your ultimatum and sleeping with you?”
The flirtatious reprimand caused his pulse to leap. Captivated and inflamed, he followed at her heels as she walked between rows of orchids. “Aye, and then leaving London after setting me to longing for you. Now you have me like a dog on a leash, begging for more.”
Amusement curled through her voice. “I see no dog on a leash. Only a very large wolf.”
Catching her from behind, Rhys lowered his mouth to the side of her neck. “Your wolf,” he said gruffly, and grazed her skin with the edge of his teeth.
Helen arched a little, leaning back against him. He could feel the yearning in her, the way she shivered at his touch. “Shall I come to you tonight?” she whispered. “When it’s dark and everyone’s abed?”
The question turned his blood to fire. God, yes. Please. He was starved for sensation and release, for the feel of her beautiful soft flesh yielding to his. But most of all, his heart ached for the peaceful minutes afterward, when she would lie in his arms and belong only to him.
Closing his eyes, he pressed his jaw gently against her small ear. A half-minute passed before he could find his voice. “You’ve read the fairy tales. You know what happens to little girls who visit wolves.”
Helen turned in his arms. “I do indeed,” she whispered, and lifted her smiling lips to his.
Chapter 15
“COUSIN DEVON, WON’T YOU play?” Pandora entreated. “We need more people or the game won’t last long enough.” She was seated at the game table with Cassandra in the upstairs parlor, where everyone relaxed after dinner.
The twins had pulled out the only board game they possessed, called “The Mansion of Happiness.” The old-fashioned game, a board printed with a spiral track of spaces representing virtues and vices, had been designed to teach values to children.
Devon shook his head with a lazy smile, pulling Kathleen into the crook of his shoulder as he sat with her on the settee. “I played the last time,” he replied. “It’s West’s turn now.”
Helen watched with amusement as West sent Devon a deadly glance. Both Ravenel brothers detested the preachy and high-minded game, which the twins frequently coerced them into playing.
“It’s a foregone conclusion that I’ll lose,” West protested. “I always end up in the House of Correction.”
“All the more reason to play,” Helen told him. “It will teach you moral behavior.”
West rolled his eyes. “No one ever thinks their own behavior is immoral, only other people’s.” Bringing his snifter of cognac along with him, he went to take a seat at the table.
“We need a fourth,” Pandora said. “Helen, if you would set aside the mending—”
“No, don’t ask her,” Cassandra protested, “she always wins.”
“I’ll join you,” Rhys volunteered, tossing back the last swallow of his cognac and going to take the last chair at the game table. He grinned at West, in the way of fellow sufferers.
Helen was delighted by Rhys’s newfound ease with her family. When he had visited the Ravenels in London, his manner had been controlled and cautious. Now, however, he was relaxed and charming, participating freely in the conversation.
“You’ve just become a drunkard,” Pandora informed Rhys sternly when his playing piece landed on one of the vices. “Off to the whipping post you go, and stay there for the next two turns.”
Helen smiled as Rhys tried to look suitably chastened.