The Wolf of Mayfair
: Chapter 16

He was a descendant from the younger branch of an illustrious family, and it was designed, that the deficiency of his patrimonial wealth should be supplied either by a splendid alliance in marriage, or by success in the intrigues of public affairs.

—Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho

Numb with fear, Helia desperately fought the panic that threatened to pull her under.

She’d made an enormous and costly misstep.

She’d let her guard down.

Helia attempted to keep up with Cousin Damian, but not because she had any desire to go anywhere with the new earl. Though of average height, he possessed the brawny strength of a blacksmith or pugilist, which robbed Helia of any choice. His punishing hold and the pace he’d set threatened to tear her arm from its socket.

On the annual visits he’d pay Helia and her family, the current earl would greedily assess the furnishings and hangings as if making a catalog of that which would one day be his, and she’d disliked him for that affront. She’d made it a habit to avoid him at any point she could.

It hadn’t been until Cousin Damian came to claim his seat at her beloved father’s throne that she’d understood the extent of the evil in his soul. The constant browbeating. The taunting promise to toss her on the streets, where she’d be made a whore, if she did not become his countess.

In the time she’d spent in London with Anthony, she’d somehow managed to believe herself safe and insulated from the threat which had sent her fleeing her beloved homeland and all that was familiar to her.

Helia bit her quivering lower lip hard.

Now, back in the mercenary bastard’s clutches, she railed at herself for that carelessness.

And yet, for all the dread, Helia’s Scot’s pride, spirit, and stubbornness wouldn’t be broken by this ruthless, heartless Sassenach—nor by any man.

While the earl forced her along the unfrozen perimeter of the Thames, Helia yanked her arm in a futile attempt to free herself.

Based on the lack of reaction from her cousin, Helia’s attempts may as well have been the indiscernible fluttering of a gnat.

Desperation crested in her breast and Helia frantically fought for control of her arm. “Will ye lighten your grip?” she gritted out.

The earl didn’t let up on the unforgiving pace he’d set. “You know, I don’t think I will,” he rejoined in cool, crisp tones infused with a terror-inducing false cheer.

Helia swallowed past the fear that formed a lump in her throat.

She’d be damned if she let this monster see her inquietude.

“Ye dinnae think ye will? Or ye dinnae believe ye will, my lord,” she said, her breath coming in noisy spurts. “Because the former suggests you may be persuaded.”

He stopped so quickly and unexpectedly, Helia went flying forward. His punishing grip, however, wrenched her back.

Helia cried out.

Suddenly, he released her arm with a like velocity that sent her tumbling in the opposite direction.

The earl made no attempt to break her fall.

Helia came down on rock-hard earth, frozen from the winter’s cold. Pain radiated from the place where her buttocks made contact with the ground, and that excruciating throbbing shot up her lower back.

Helia’s hair, having come loose from the sled ride—which now felt a lifetime ago—hung in a tangle over her face.

Angrily shoving back that makeshift curtain, she glared up at her brutish cousin.

Only when she’d at last looked at him fully did he speak. “The only thing I may be persuaded to do is place you over my knee, toss your skirts up, and redden your stubborn arse,” he said dispassionately. His eyes darkened. “In fact, I would enjoy that task immensely.”

With his slightly hooked nose, nearly black irises, and features too angular to be pleasing, he’d an unforgiving harshness to him.

Helia’s breath came hard and fast; each noisy inhalation and exhalation stirred clouds of white upon the air.

The new earl, on the other hand, wore a bored expression. “After being led on a merry chase from Scotland to London in the heart of winter and in the midst of a snowstorm, I’m growing remarkably short of patience.”

Nay, he wasn’t a tall man, but with Helia flat on her arse as she was, the earl towered over her like the mightiest silver fir.

To compensate for that advantage, she angled her neck enough to get a crick and scowled. “Och, but I dinnae ask you to come for me.”

“There’s nothing more to discuss.” He consulted his timepiece and then returned that gold chain to his jacket.

“I’ve had about all I can take of you, Miss Wallace,” he said softly, with a lethality she’d never before known a quiet murmuring could possess.

She fought the dread twisting around in her stomach.

Determined to get on equal footing, Helia pushed herself to a stand.

She fixed a sneer on the earl, one even Anthony would have been hard-pressed not to admire.

Anthony! She forced herself to not think of him now. Doing so would only weaken her, and she needed all her wits about her.

“Given your annoyance with me, then, ye should be all too glad to l-let me go.” Helia hated that she couldn’t contain the faint entreaty there.

The earl didn’t rise to the bait or take that offer—not that she’d truly believed he would.

“I wish I could,” the earl said. He gave her a harsh look. “Trust me, I do wish that were the case. The very last thing I want is an intractable country bumpkin as my wife.” He considered Helia with a calculating gleam in his eyes. “No. Regretfully, I’ve no choice but to make you my countess, Miss Wallace.”

He took a step toward her and Helia jumped back.

“Given you are familiar with the c-concept of ‘ch-choice’”—the stammer to her words had nothing to do with the cold—“then you’ll understand when I say, in matters of who I will or will not marry, I’ll make my own decisions. And I choose not to marry you. In fact, I dinnae want a bluidy thing to do with ye, Mr. Draxton.”

The new earl looked faintly amused at that slight. “It appears there is one way we are in accord, Miss Wallace.”

He flicked a piece of imagined lint from the collar of his grey-and-blue greatcoat. “Alas, your witless father was rubbish at finances,” he hissed, wringing a gasp from her. “And the only money he left with his insolvent estates was, in fact, your dowry, and as such, you.”

Her fingers curled into claws. “Ye boggin, doaty dobber, shut yer pus,” she hissed. Then the rage, frustration, and sorrow she’d suppressed at the unfairness of her situation set her free.

Helia launched herself at the new earl; she pummeled his chest with her fists. “You cannae hold a candle to my da.”

He captured her wrists in a single hand and swiftly put an end to her rebellious efforts. “I’ll allow that to be true . . . given he’s dead,” he said in that bored way.

A crimson fury fell over her eyes. Snapping and hissing, Helia managed to wrench her hands free of his grasp. Knowing she was no match for his strength, she heeded her father’s long-ago lesson and brought her knee up to catch Mr. Draxton between his legs.

He cursed and intercepted her efforts.

The earl clamped a viselike touch on her knee, and even beneath the many layers of fabric of her dress and cloak, that punishing cinch brought tears flooding to her eyes.

Helia continued to wrestle with Mr. Draxton.

She may as well have been a child for the effortless way in which he deflected her attempts.

Until, drained of energy and out of breath, the fight went out of her.

Helia sagged.

“Amusing as I replace your efforts,” he drawled, “I’ve grown tired of your unruliness.”

The earl collected her arm once more.

Helia glared. “You can drag me off to the ends of planet Earth, and your efforts will be in vain. I willnae marry ye.”

“We shall see which of us wins this battle of the wills, Miss Wallace.” He considered her a long moment. “And I must confess, I’ve found myself beginning to enjoy your feistiness.”

There could be no mistaking the explicitness of the hard gaze he passed over Helia.

The taste of bile filled her mouth, and she choked back that acrid sting.

This time, as he pulled her along, Helia couldn’t muster the sufficient strength to fight.

From astride his mount, Erebus, Wingrave spotted Helia in an instant.

Even several furlongs away and with her back to him, the staggeringly bright crown of Helia’s auburn curls stood out, a spot of radiance within the vapid, colorless revelers who dotted the horizon.

Wingrave released a huge exhalation of pent-up breath he’d not even realized he’d been holding.

She was . . .

She was . . . speaking with someone.

He frowned.

Nay, more specifically, she stood conversing with a man.

Every muscle tightened in Wingrave’s frame.

Under him, his mount danced around nervously.

He eased the tension in his legs, and as he set Erebus toward the pair, Wingrave stroked the horse’s withers.

The man’s finely cut garments marked him a gentleman of some means, but his powerful, compact body more closely resembled those of the longshoremen on these very wharves.

Wingrave kept his gaze intently on the exchange between Helia and the smartly dressed stranger.

She’d insisted she’d nowhere else to go and no one else to whom she could turn, and yet, at this moment, that didn’t appear to be the case. The pair spoke with an air of familiarity.

A burning sensation started in Wingrave’s stomach, and his fingers tightened reflexively on the reins.

Maybe that was why she’d sought him out this morning? But then he’d taken her in his arms and come at her with accusations and charges, all of which had proven to be wrong.

He didn’t know who the hell the man was, but Wingrave hated him on sight. He had a savage need to take the bastard apart at the limbs.

Just then, the man shot out a hand and grabbed Helia by the upper arm. She twisted and wrenched against his hold—to no avail.

A low, instinctual, primitive rumbling reverberated in Wingrave’s chest.

Dead. He’d kill him, resurrect him, and then murder him all over again.

Consumed with a vicious bloodlust, Wingrave set Erebus into an all-out gallop. “Go,” he growled.

The stallion took flight.

All around them passing festivalgoers shouted and raised their fists in outrage. Uncaring about all of them, uncaring about any but one, he only urged his horse into a breakneck pace.

The closer he drew to Helia and the man who dared to put his hands upon her, Wingrave registered new details: the tracks of tears upon her cheeks.

An unholy rage consumed him—that fury an unrelenting conflagration whose flames swallowed him from the inside out.

He’d made her cry.

That would be the fool’s last act.

Sharpening his gaze on the one who’d dared touch her, Wingrave slowed his approach so as to not trample Helia.

The pair, engaged in a struggle, looked up.

Helia’s eyes gleamed with a joy and relief that filled him in every corner.

Wingrave, however, tunneled all his focus on the weather-beaten bastard.

The stranger’s harsh, angled features conveyed shock.

Helia took advantage of her captor’s distracted state and bolted away.

Wingrave jumped off his mount and launched himself at the other man, greeting him with a fist to the face.

The compact man’s head went flying back. Blood spurted like a crimson geyser from his already crooked, hooked nose; however, impressively, he retained his feet.

Not surrendering his advantage, Wingrave struck another blow, this time to the bastard’s right cheek. Then, in rapid succession, Wingrave brought a right hook to the man’s left.

That at last managed to take the whoreson to his knees.

His chest heaving, Wingrave was on the shit-sack in an instant.

He sent his foot flying and caught Helia’s offender square in his hard, flat stomach. The force of that collision brought his opponent down on his back. Another time connecting with that solid wall of muscle would have hurt like hell.

Not now. Now, a mindless, bestial wrath raged within at the man who’d dared touch her.

“Anthony!”

Wingrave hurled himself atop the prone figure. He continued to beat the already bloodied face, replaceing a barbaric satisfaction in doing so. “I’ll kill you,” he rasped between each blow.

Something soft landed on his shoulder. Snarling, he shrugged it off.

In his mind, he saw only Helia.

He punched the bastard again.

Helia, with her tear-streaked face.

And again.

The bastard’s hands upon her.

And again.

“Anthony!”

In the end, Wingrave’s given name emerged in the form of a strident cry, managing to cut into his mindless assault.

His chest heaved. Wingrave blinked slowly to clear his vision of the pinpricks of rage dotting his eyes.

Out of breath from the force of his exertions, he staggered away from the lifeless, bloodied form beneath him.

Helia stared blankly at the bruised and beaten man before them. She slowly lifted stricken eyes to Wingrave.

Helia, intrepid as Joan of Arc herself, had never once gazed upon him with that fear. Now those emerald-green irises glittered, such consternation in those always innocent depths, it brought Wingrave crashing to the moment.

“You are all right?” he gruffly demanded, curling his bloodstained gloved fists at his sides.

Dumbly, wordlessly, Helia nodded.

“You’re certain, because I’ll—”

“F-fine,” she quickly cut him off. Her gaze slid back to the unconscious man sprawled at her feet. “I a-am f-fine.”

Only, her face wan as it’d never been and her arms curved tightly about her middle, she appeared anything but well.

He stood and took a quick step near her.

Helia scrambled away; she backed away from Wingrave so quickly she nearly tripped on her skirts.

He reached out to help steady her. Then it hit him with all the weight of a thousand stones raining down on him.

She is afraid . . . of me.

Helia grappled with her throat; the long column bobbed wildly. “Is he dead?” she whispered.

As if on cue, a slight, almost inaudible groan filtered through the air.

Anthony glanced at the bloodied mess of a man sprawled beside them. Unfortunately, he’d not finished him.

“He lives,” he said coolly.

From the barbarity that’d taken hold and relief at stopping Helia from being forced off, a safer, far healthier annoyance grew in their place.

“We’re leaving,” he bit out.

Helia wavered. “Sh-should we simply l-leave him here in the cold?”

Raising an eyebrow, Wingrave settled a glassy stare on her. “And you care if we do?”

She hesitated. “I . . . I w-wouldn’t see him die on m-my account.”

His nostrils flared. An irrational jealousy rooted in his belly.

“If you were so worried about the gent’s fate, you shouldn’t have gone running around London like a pea-wit,” he snapped, effectively silencing her.

That explosion didn’t make him feel better. It only left him feeling petty and small.

“We’re leaving,” he repeated. Wingrave snapped a hand forward. “Now.”

In an unlikely display of submissiveness, Helia bowed her head and skirted the now stirring gentleman.

Wingrave gritted his teeth. Here he’d thought there couldn’t be anything more miserable than feeling those puling emotions of regret and shame. Only to discover something far worse and more debilitating—jealousy and fear.

Staring after her retreating figure, Wingrave gave his head a shake, and fetched Erebus.