Lady Helena's Secret Husband Read online

  “Aye,” the gentleman finally spoke in a gruff voice that sent even icier shivers through Helena’s body, making her feel as if she had the ague.

  Every nerve in her body was prickling with awareness while her mind screamed, No, this cannot be. Then he turned and she felt the earth shift under her feet. He met her gaze with unreadable dark brown eyes, and she knew now hers must be deceiving her. She gazed numbly at his face, one that was older and grimmer than Will’s would have been if he really had returned from the dead by a latter-day miracle. This man didn’t look as if he even believed in miracles, so how could he possibly be one?

  “Will?” she whispered all the same.

  The ghost nodded but, no, this was just a cruel dream. She must have drifted off in her mother’s stuffy drawing room and her weary mind had cruelly made up a Will with all the verve and fire sucked out of him to punish her for wishing so hard that she could stop missing him. Clearly, it was time she woke up.

  “No, you can’t be,” she told the spectre.

  “Yet here I still am,” it replied.

  Author Note

  It is wonderful for me to be able to share Will and Helena’s story of love against the odds with you. I do hope you enjoy reading about their struggle to be together despite the dangerous secrets that forced them apart for so many years.

  This book began when I wondered how a privileged society lady would cope with loving a soldier who was many miles away fighting for his country. I was still playing with that idea when Lady Helena strode into view, arm in arm with her dashing, stubborn and fiercely protective hero, and they seemed very happy to take it over and tell me what came next—I just hope they made a good job of it!

  ELIZABETH BEACON

  Lady Helena’s Secret Husband

  Elizabeth Beacon has a passion for history and storytelling and, with the English West Country on her doorstep, never lacks a glorious setting for her books. Elizabeth tried horticulture, higher education as a mature student, briefly taught English and worked in an office before finally turning her daydreams about dashing piratical heroes and their stubborn and independent heroines into her dream job: writing Regency romances for Harlequin Historical.

  Books by Elizabeth Beacon

  Harlequin Historical

  A Rake to the Rescue

  The Duchess’s Secret

  Falling for the Scandalous Lady

  Lady Helena’s Secret Husband

  The Yelverton Marriages

  Marrying for Love or Money?

  Unsuitable Bride for a Viscount

  The Governess’s Secret Longing

  The Alstone Family

  A Less Than Perfect Lady

  Rebellious Rake, Innocent Governess

  One Final Season

  A Most Unladylike Adventure

  A Wedding for the Scandalous Heiress

  A Year of Scandal

  The Viscount’s Frozen Heart

  The Marquis’s Awakening

  Lord Laughraine’s Summer Promise

  Redemption of the Rake

  The Winterley Scandal

  The Governess Heiress

  Visit the Author Profile page

  at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Tempted by Her Outcast Viking by Lucy Morris

  Prologue

  Spring 1809

  ‘We did it, Will, we’re married,’ Lady Helena Harborough murmured and nestled her head against her new husband’s shoulder with a blissful sigh. ‘Despite Mama’s hysterics and my father and brother threatening to kill you if you ever came near me again, we are wed and I am so happy.’

  ‘Me, too, my darling,’ Will said and pulled her even closer, but he went on staring at the hedges heavy with hawthorn blossom, fields full of yellow buttercups and drifts of creamy white cow parsley lining the roadside outside.

  He was trying to pretend it was impossible to make love in a hired carriage, but she knew it wasn’t. The great gallant idiot wanted to wait until they got to the secluded cottage her best friend Kate, Lady Herridge, had lent them behind her husband’s back for a whole lovely week of honeymoon before Will would have to rejoin his regiment.

  Without Kate’s help it would have been so much harder for them to marry in secret and Helena smiled at the thought of her friend, who was currently pretending to enjoy a few weeks in Harrogate with her best friend Lady Helena while Kate’s husband was away in London. Kate would manage to fool everyone into believing that her friend had taken to her bed with a mysterious illness while Helena enjoyed herself in Will’s arms because Kate could be superbly arrogant when she chose to be and nobody would question her insistence on nursing her sick friend herself if she told them not to.

  It was all a front, of course; she and Kate had been partners in mischief since their first day at school and Helena trusted her completely. Somehow Helena would get back into her imaginary sick bed without anyone knowing she was ever out of it, if she could not persuade Will he needed to take her with him when he went back to war. She frowned and tried not to doubt she could manage that even after their blissful week of loving. Will needed her every bit as much as she needed him but he had far too much self-control for her peace of mind. He had used it to fight this powerful, very mutual need for a whole month after they met. In the end she had lost patience, tugged him into a darkened room at a very dull party and made him forget his silly scruples in her eager arms.

  It was all very unladylike and part of her was still shocked that coolly composed Lady Helena Snowe could be so wanton, but he was worth every risk of their tryst with the ton so dangerously close by. She would do anything to be by his side for ever and since passion had flared so hot and bright between them that night she had been longing to do it all over again. It was Will who had insisted on waiting until they were wed for more so it was no wonder she was desperate for him now.

  Silly man, she thought fondly as the familiar, sensuous ache nagged at the heart of her even more insistently than usual when he was close by. A shock like warm lightning had run through her the first time they met and it felt as if her senses had truly come alive that night and now her inner woman was so hungry. Of course Will had to heal fully after the bullet wound he took at the Battle of Corunna, but now he was well again they had so much loving to make up for. She felt as if she needed to store up as much of it as they could fit into a whole delicious week before he risked a French bullet or sabre blow again. No, she would not worry about his dangerous profession on their wedding morning. She had promised herself a whole week of loving and being loved without that fear looming over them at every turn and she must not ruin the blissful days and hours ahead with it now.

  ‘I should never have let things become so heated between us that I lost all my self-control,’ he told her gruffly.

  ‘You think it was a mistake, don’t you?’ she said, every nerve she had on the alert for his admission they had only got married because he was her
first and only lover.

  ‘Of course not, but you are a wonder I don’t deserve.’

  ‘Yes, you do and true love is not deserved, it simply happens. I found that out the night we met and I thought you did, too.’

  ‘I love you as I never thought I could love anyone, let alone a titled lady, Helena,’ he told her with a rueful smile and an intense, wanting look that reassured her this was true and right, and he was just being gallant and Will in not wanting to make love fully to his new wife without complete privacy.

  ‘Titles don’t matter and we are on our honeymoon so why should we wait, Will? Newlyweds like us have a licence to make love whenever the opportunity arises and I do believe it’s arisen right now,’ she said with a wicked, gloating smile.

  ‘Oh, yes, I want you all right, my lady,’ he said hoarsely, but his muscles were rigid with his steely determination to resist it.

  ‘Your lady, indeed—I am Lady Helena Harborough now,’ she told him, ‘and there are blinds on the carriage windows.’

  She felt the fine tremor of need in his leanly powerful body, but he still frowned and shook his head. ‘No, we must wait,’ he said tersely.

  ‘Why? It was perfect without a bed last time,’ she argued, hoping it had been for him as well. What if it wasn’t? What if he only married her because he felt he had to? No, he could never have made her first time so right and fiery and satisfying if he was just sating his pent-up need for a woman and almost anyone would do.

  ‘We could easily have been caught behaving so scandalously that night. It was reckless and stupid to risk doing what we did in a stranger’s house with a ball going on nearby, Helena. I should be shot for so nearly ruining you.’

  ‘No, you shouldn’t and don’t even talk about being shot again after you were at Corunna,’ she said and bit back panic at the very thought of him going into battle again. ‘And I don’t feel ruined. That night I felt refined and newly made and glorious, do you think that makes me an abandoned hussy?’

  ‘No, it makes you delicious and utterly desirable,’ he said gruffly and went back to studying the scene outside as if every flower, bird and tree in blossom along their way had to be counted.

  She could still feel the fine tremble of desire in his sleekly muscled body and there was a faint burn of colour on his high cheekbones to say Captain William Harborough wanted his new wife very badly indeed. They only had a week to love blissfully and completely so why must he insist on wasting even a precious hour of it like this? Drat, she wasn’t meant to think about the shortness of it until their week was up. Better to live in the moment while they still had it and spring was heady and lush all around them. She almost purred at the feel of him at her side, fit and healthy again under his dashing soldier-in-disguise superfine cut-away coat. He truly had remade her world, though, and she could not face the thought of it without him.

  ‘You will take me with you when you rejoin your regiment, won’t you, my darling?’ she said, so airily he should agree without even thinking about it.

  ‘No,’ he said tightly instead. Steely Captain Harborough flattened the sensitive curve of Will’s intriguing mouth, but she refused to let him win.

  ‘I promise not to wilt in the Mediterranean sun or be a confounded nuisance to you and everyone else,’ she said. ‘But I cannot stay home twiddling my thumbs while you fight and this gives me a right to share the good and bad with you from now on,’ she said, holding up her left hand so they could both see the broad gold band he had placed on her wedding finger less than an hour ago. It was still such a wonderful novelty she was almost distracted by the heady promises of it, but now she had raised that taboo subject there didn’t seem much point in trying to pretend it wasn’t always at the back of both their minds.

  ‘There are aspects of life in the field I would not share even with the rogues under my command if I didn’t have to.’

  ‘Ah, but they don’t love you. I do, so never mind the mud and heat and all the horrors you want to shield me from, I am ready to weather any hardship that comes along as long as I can do it with you.’

  ‘Life on the march is too hard for even the strongest-minded of ladies. We forge on day after day in scorching sun or endless rain or bitter cold and often, when we do stop, there is no food or shelter or a safe place to sleep. You would hate me for exposing you to such hardship after a while and, as I will never do that, arguing about it is futile.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be exposing me to anything. I want to go.’

  ‘Which proves you have no idea what you would be letting yourself in for, but I do, my love. Because I have seen and felt and endured it, you will not be able to seduce or coax or argue me into doing what you want this time. My wife will not and cannot suffer the terrors and privations the women with us suffered during our retreat from Madrid to Corunna this last winter.’

  But it was impossible for her to sit at home waiting to hear if he had been wounded again or, heaven forfend, killed. This blissful, unexpected happiness would slip through her fingers like gossamer if she let it and maybe, if they loved often enough, explored each other’s thoughts and hopes deeply enough for a whole week, he would realise they were always going to be better together than apart. She shot him a sultry look as sweet longing sang inside her. He was here now and she loved him so much. Kneeling on the seat, she swayed lithely to the roll of the carriage and stared down into his dark eyes with everything she felt for him on show.

  ‘Kiss me, Will; I need you so much,’ she told him huskily. ‘Pull down the blinds and make love to me before I faint from frustrated desire,’ she murmured as heat knotted her core so urgently it was almost painful. She slicked her tongue over her hungry mouth—surely he could see the pebble hardness of her nipples even through the silky velvet of her pelisse and airy muslins. They felt hot and eager for his touch and tongue, and she ran her hands over his torso, battled the tiny buttons on his fine wedding waistcoat and, as her fingers fumbled with clumsy eagerness, heard him rasp in a great breath and knew this time she had won.

  ‘Behave yourself, Wife,’ he said all the same, but she could see a blaze of heat and need in his dark, hungry gaze, watched his pupils flare, then contract with need as she slid her hands further down his delightfully male body, all the time keeping her avid gaze bold and inviting on his.

  ‘Stop treating me as if I am an expensive ornament to be kept in a silk-lined box, Will. I need you right now; I shall never stop needing you if we live to be ninety. You make me feel so much, so totally, delightfully wanted and wanting. I thought I simply could not love like this until I met you and you proved me wrong. So, this is your fault. I need to do the lovely things we did that night at the ball again right now. I believe it’s your husbandly duty to repeat them lest I collapse from wanting you inside me so much, proving you love me as only you can; if you will just get on with it and let propriety go hang for once.’

  ‘Not once but twice,’ he reminded her huskily, but his gaze had gone hot and hazy and his knuckles were white with the effort of keeping his hands off her so blatantly willing body.

  For a panicked moment that fierce restraint gave her a terrible premonition of her being left so desperately alone at the end of their week. Even thinking of it made tears sting her eyes, but she forced them back. He was here, watching her with hotly eager eyes, so fit and alive it was wrong of them not to enjoy every single moment they did have together to the full.

  ‘Well, I love you too much to be careful,’ she said and bent even closer so he could not deny her absolute need of him. ‘I am two and twenty, Will, not a spoilt little girl eager to play with her new toy. I shall only ever love you, so why won’t you just get on with it?’

  ‘I cannot take you with me, Helena,’ he said even as his gaze went feverish with longing and she let her tongue explore her hungry lips to test his resolution even more. ‘And I don’t want to take you nearly in public again because I love you
. I love you too much to expose you to the horrors of war as well, so please stop trying to argue and seduce me into doing something I never will, my Helena.’

  ‘You have no idea how hard it would be for me to have to sit home waiting for news of you after every battle or skirmish reported in the newssheets,’ she protested, but cool reason argued what if worrying about you on the march or in camp made him careless of his own safety? What if he was killed searching for comforts you would never want at such a price?

  She knew he would do that, even if she begged him not to, the stubborn great idiot, and so she sat again, knowing she might have to face being left behind after all. She didn’t want him to see defeat in her eyes instead of love and urgent desire, though, and besides, she wasn’t ready to concede defeat just yet.

  ‘I could not endure seeing you starve or have to fear your capture or appalling abuse from the enemy or even our own men—rebellious and foul as some of them were last winter.’ He ran a shaking hand over her tawny curls, smoothed down for the wedding, slipping out the spray of flowers Kate had pinned into her elegantly cropped hair before she stood as witness to their secret wedding along with the local verger. ‘I love you too much to risk even a hair on your head, let alone all the things you should never have to see or do if you came with me,’ he told her. He gently cupped the back of her head so she had to look at him again even with the stupid tears standing in her eyes she refused to let fall.

  ‘You can’t love me too much, Will, it’s impossible. I love you with everything I am,’ she whispered shakily, resting her forehead against his. ‘I can fire a pistol and my brother taught me to ward off a man’s unwanted attentions so I am not helpless.’

  ‘You didn’t escape mine.’

  ‘They weren’t unwanted,’ she said huskily and his gaze went molten again.

  ‘I want you so much,’ he confirmed unsteadily, love and a twist of humour and all that hot desire heady in his wickedly compelling dark eyes. Perhaps one short week could hold her hopes and dreams and sanity together until he was home again—perhaps. He eyed her hard-peaked nipples and lushly parted lips with a wolfish grin and met her gaze again with a blazing hot look of absolute desire in his own.