Reaching up, Helene tugged on his jacket in an attempt to make him sit down on the bed beside her. When this failed, she dropped her hand, but not the issue, and widened her smile to soothe his temper. "You never speak to anyone in an uncivil tone, Stephen. In fact, the more annoyed you are, the more 'civil' you become-until you are so very civil, so very precise and correct, that the effect is actually quite alarming. One might even say terrifying !"
She shivered to illustrate, and Stephen grinned in spite of himself.
"That is what I meant," she said, smiling back at him. "When you grow cold and angry, I know how-" Her breath caught as his large hand slipped down beneath the sheet and covered her breast, his fingers tantalizing her.
"I merely wish to warm you," he said, as she reached her arms around his neck and drew him down on the bed.
"And distract me."
"I think a fur would do a far better job of that."
"Of warming me?"
"Of distracting you," he said as his mouth covered hers, and then he went about the pleasurable business of warming, and distracting, both of them.
It was nearly five o'clock in the morning when he was dressed again.
"Stephen?" she whispered sleepily as he bent and pressed a farewell kiss upon her smooth brow.
"Mmmm?"
"I have a confession."
"No confessions," he reminded her. "We agreed on that from the beginning. No confessions, no recriminations, no promises. That was the way we both wanted it."
Helene didn't deny it, but this morning she couldn't make herself comply. "My confession is that I find myself rather annoyingly jealous of Monica Fitzwaring."
Stephen straightened with an impatient sigh, and waited, knowing she was determined to have her say, but he did not help her do it. He simply regarded her with raised brows.
"I realize you need an heir," she began, her full lips curving into an embarrassed smile, "but could you
not wed a female whose looks pale a little in comparison with mine? Someone shrewish too. A shrew with a slightly crooked nose or small eyes would suit me very well."
Stephen chuckled at her humor, but he wanted the subject closed permanently, and so he said, "Monica Fitzwaring is no threat to you, Helene. I've no doubt she knows of our relationship and she would not try to interfere, even if she thought she could."
"What makes you so certain?"
"She volunteered the information," he said flatly, and when Helene still looked unconvinced, he added, "In the interest of putting an end to your concern and to this entire topic, I'll add that I already have a perfectly acceptable heir in my brother's son. Furthermore, I have no intention of adhering to custom, now or in future, by shackling myself to a wife for the sole purpose of begetting a legal heir of my own body."
As Stephen came to the end of that blunt speech, he watched her expression change from surprise to amused bafflement. Her next remark clarified the reason for her obvious quandary: "If not to beget an heir, what other possible reason could there be for a man such as you to wed at all?"
Stephen's disinterested shrug and brief smile dismissed all the other usual reasons for marriage as trivial, absurd, or imaginary. "For a man such as I," he replied with a mild amusement that failed to disguise his genuine contempt for the twin farces of wedded bliss and the sanctity of marriage-two illusions that flourished even in the brittle, sophisticated social world he inhabited, "there does not seem to be a single compelling reason to commit matrimony."
Helene studied him intently, her face alight with curiosity, caution, and the dawning of understanding. "I always wondered why you didn't marry Emily Lathrop. In addition to her acclaimed face and figure, she is also one of the few women in England who actually possesses the requirements of birth and breeding in enough abundance to make her worthy of marrying into the Westmoreland family and of producing your heir. Everyone knows you fought a duel with her husband because of her, yet you didn't kill him, nor did you marry her a year later, after old Lord Lathrop finally keeled over and cocked up his toes."
His brows rose in amusement at her use of irreverent slang for Lathrop's death, but his attitude toward the duel was as casual and matter-of-fact as her own. "Lathrop got some maggot into his head about defending Emily's honor and putting a stop to all the rumors about her, by challenging one of her alleged lovers to a duel. I will never understand why the poor old man chose me from amongst a legion of viable candidates."
"Whatever method he used, it's obvious age had addled his mind."
Stephen eyed her curiously. "Why do you say that?"
"Because your skill with pistols, and your skill on the dueling field, are both rather legendary."
"Any child of ten could have won a duel with Lathrop," Stephen said, ignoring her praise of his abilities. "He was so old and frail he couldn't steady his own pistol or hold it level. He had to use both hands."
"And so you let him leave Rockham Green unscathed?"