That set off a fresh burst of enthusiasm, both girls whooping and jumping without restraint.

Perceiving there was no use in trying to curb them, Helen stood back. Noticing movement at the doorway, she turned to find the housekeeper waiting at the threshold.

Mrs. Abbott tilted her head and regarded her expectantly, asking a silent question.

Helen beamed and nodded.

The housekeeper sighed with what appeared to be an equal measure of relief and worry. “May I take your things, Lady Helen?”

After giving her hat and gloves, Helen said quietly, “You and the other servants must not worry, even for a moment, about the consequences of my outing. I will take full responsibility. All I ask is that the staff refrain from saying anything to Lord or Lady Trenear when they arrive tomorrow.”

“They will hold their tongues and go about their work as usual.”

“Thank you.” Impulsively Helen touched the older woman’s shoulder, patting it softly. “I’ve never been so happy.”

“There’s no one who deserves happiness more,” Mrs. Abbott said gently. “I hope Mr. Winterborne will be half so deserving of you.”

The housekeeper departed through the main library room, while Helen went back to her sisters. They had settled onto a leather-upholstered settee, staring at her eagerly.

“Tell us everything,” Cassandra urged. “Was Mr. Winterborne upset when you approached him? Angry?”

“Was he confuming?” Pandora, who liked to invent words, asked.

Helen laughed. “As a matter of fact, he was terribly confuming. But after I convinced him that I sincerely wished to be his wife, he seemed much happier.”

“Did he kiss you?” Cassandra asked eagerly. “On the lips?”

Helen hesitated before replying, and both twins squealed, one from excitement and the other from aversion.

“Oh lucky, lucky Helen,” Cassandra exclaimed.

“I don’t think she’s lucky at all,” Pandora said frankly. “Fancy putting your mouth on someone else’s—what if his breath is nasty or there’s a wad of dipping snuff in his cheek? What if there are crumbs in his beard?”

“Mr. Winterborne has no beard,” Cassandra said. “And he doesn’t dip snuff.”

“Still, mouth kisses are revolting.”

Cassandra looked at Helen with great concern. “Was it revolting, Helen?”

“No,” she said, turning scarlet. “Not at all.”

“What was it like?”

“He held my cheeks in his hands,” Helen said, remembering the touch of Rhys’s strong, gentle fingers, and the way he’d murmured You belong to me, cariad . . . “His mouth was warm and soft,” she continued dreamily, “and his breath was cool with peppermint. It was a lovely feeling. Kissing is the best thing lips do other than smiling.”

Cassandra drew up her knees and hugged them. “I want to be kissed someday,” she exclaimed.

“I don’t,” Pandora said. “I can think of a hundred things better than kissing. Decorating for Christmas, petting the dogs, extra butter on the crumpets, having someone scratch the itch on your back that you can’t quite reach—”

“You haven’t tried kissing,” Cassandra told her. “You might like it. Helen does.”

“Helen likes Brussels sprouts. How can anyone trust her opinion?” Curling up in the corner of the settee, Pandora gave Helen a shrewd glance. “You needn’t worry that we’ll let anything slip to Devon or Kathleen. We’re good at secrets. But all the servants know you went somewhere.”

“Mrs. Abbott promises they will hold their silence.”

Pandora grinned crookedly. “Why is everyone willing to keep Helen’s secrets,” she asked Cassandra, “but not ours?”

“Because Helen’s never naughty.”

“I rather was today,” Helen said before she thought better of it.

Pandora glanced at her with keen interest. “What do you mean?”

Deciding that a distraction was in order, Helen retrieved the ivory box and handed it to them. “Open this.” She sat in a nearby chair, smiling as the twins untied the ribbon and lifted the lid.

Inside, three rows of folded silk stockings had been arranged like bonbons . . . pink, yellow, white, lavender, cream, all of them with stretchy lace welts.

“There are twelve pair,” Helen said, enjoying her sisters’ awestruck expressions. “The three of us will divide them evenly.”

“Oh they’re so beautiful!!” Cassandra reached out with a single finger to touch the tiny embroidered forget-me-nots bordering a lace top. “May we wear them now, Helen?”

“Only take care that no one sees them.”

“I suppose these might be worth a kiss on the mouth,” Pandora conceded. After counting the stockings, she glanced quizzically at Helen. “There are only eleven.”

Unable to think of an evasive answer, Helen was compelled to admit, “I’m already wearing one pair.”

Pandora regarded her speculatively, and grinned. “I think you have been naughty.”

Chapter 7

WHEN RHYS AWAKENED THE next morning, the first thing he saw was a dark object on the white sheets beside him, a little wisp of shadow.

Helen’s black cotton stocking, the one he hadn’t destroyed. He had deliberately left it next to his pillow, to forestall any fears that it might have all been a dream.

His hand reached out to close over it, while his mind swam with images of Helen in his bed, his bath. Before taking her home, he had dressed her before the warm hearth. Choosing a brand new pair of stockings from a box that had been sent from the store, he had knelt before her and slid them up her slender legs, one by one. After pulling the knitted silk to the middle of her thighs, he had fastened the lace welts with elastic satin garters embroidered in tiny pink roses. With Helen’s naked body so close to his face, he hadn’t been able to resist nudging his mouth and nose against the juncture of her thighs, where the fine blond fleece was still damp and scented of flowery bath soap.