Page 93 of The Matrimonial Advertisement

He turned his face into her hair. Her coiffure was an intricate arrangement of rolls and plaits, secured at the back with a filigree comb. It smelled of jasmine, sweet and faintly exotic. “Describe it to me,” he said.

“It’s a special bond. A kinship of shared memories and experience. But it’s more than that. Oh, I can’t explain it.” She struggled for the right words. “It’s…It’s when you see a person and your spirits lift. When their happiness means more to you than your own. When you’d do anything for them, sacrifice anything, even if the sacrifice would hurt you or make you unhappy.”

Justin thought of the hell Helena had been put through in the year since her brother disappeared in India. “If they loved you in return, they wouldn’t ask for such a sacrifice.”

“They wouldn’t have to ask,” she said. “You’d give it regardless.”

As she had done. As she was still doing. “Do you think your brother would be happy to know what you’ve endured on his behalf?”

His question seemed to take her aback. When she answered it, her voice was threaded with emotion. “I think he would be sad. He willed me that money to secure my future. He wanted to make certain I’d always be taken care of. That I’d always be safe.”

Justin didn’t know anything about Giles Reynolds, late Earl of Castleton. He might well have been a good and decent brother. Nevertheless, Justin felt an overpowering anger toward the man. “If he wanted you to be safe, he shouldn’t have abandoned you. A man who’s just inherited an earldom has no cause to continue soldiering. He could have come home, looked after you.”

Helena raised her head from his chest. Her eyes found his in the light of the carriage lamp. “You don’t understand. He was going to come home when the rebellion was suppressed. He simply wasn’t ready yet. Giles couldn’t bear life in England. Not after my mother died. He was restless. He needed a purpose. Something active that would keep him from brooding.”

“And what about what you needed?”

“Me?”

“He left you to shoulder the burden. And then he went and got himself killed. A course of action any soldier should have known was a distinct possibility.”

Helena stared at him. Her mouth trembled. “He’s not dead, Justin.”

Oh, hell. Justin’s heart sank as he looked at her face. He couldn’t have chosen a worse thing to say if he’d tried.

Her fingers tightened on the lapel of his evening coat. “Do you think he is?”

“I don’t know,” he said, his voice gone gruff. “Probably.”

Her face crumpled. “I can’t—” She stopped and looked away from him in a visible effort to regain her composure. “I can’t accept it. I have to believe he’s coming back.”

Justin wouldn’t let her hide from him. He drew her close again, urging her to meet his eyes. “Why, sweetheart?” He scarcely registered the endearment he uttered, only vaguely aware that it was one he’d never used with any woman before.

“Because he’s all I have,” she said. “All that’s left of my family.”

Justin held her gaze. “He’s not all you have.”

She bent her head, resting her cheek back against his chest. “I know that. I do. And I’m trying not to be unreasonable. But if there’s a chance, Justin. Even a small chance, that Giles is out there somewhere…”

“What can I do?” he asked. “What is it that will set your mind at ease?”

She made a choking sound. It may have been a laugh. Or a sob. “No one has ever asked me that before.”

“I’m asking now. Shall I write a few letters to contacts of mine in India? Or set Finchley and Boothroyd to the task?”

“Would you?”

Justin had no desire to write to anyone in India. Nor did he relish asking Finchley and Boothroyd to investigate the matter. But his feelings didn’t matter. Not when it meant so much to her. “Of course.” His lips brushed over her hair. “Didn’t I tell you I’d go to the ends of the earth for you?”

“You did say that, yes.” She fell quiet for a long moment. “Justin…”

A frisson of anxiety sharpened his senses. He raised his head at the same moment the hansom cab rolled to a halt in front of the house in Half Moon Street. The jarvey shouted out to them from his perch.

“What is it?” Justin asked.

Helena sat up. She straightened her opera cloak about her shoulders, slanting him a guarded glance from beneath her lashes as she retied the ribbon at her throat. “It’s nothing,” she said. “Only that I’m famished. I hope Mrs. Jarrow has left something out for us in the kitchen.”

Ithink I’m falling in love with you.