She shrugged. “That you’re head over heels in love with Caro? Of course I do.”
He hated to think that he’d been so transparent—and that she might find his lack of success amusing. Helena’s sense of humor tended toward the black. “How?”
“Because I know you, dear Silas. I’ve never seen you so careful with a woman. It’s rather touching.”
His lips tightened. “You mock me.”
She shook her dark head, topped with a high-crowned beaver hat tied with a fluttering violet scarf. “Not at all. I’ve always known you had a capacity for deep feeling—you show it to the family, but not to the rest of the world. Nice to see you’re not nearly as self-sufficient as people paint you. I guessed something serious was on the cards when no lady’s name has been linked to yours in more than a year. I fear you’ve become that mythical beast, a reformed rake.”
He winced. “How dull.”
Her laugh held the familiar wry note. “No. You’re growing up at last.”
What in Satan’s name did one say to that? Fortunately Dobbs arrived with the promised coffee and saved him from replying. Silas snatched a cup and emptied it in a gulp, his brain at last starting to function.
“She doesn’t know I love her,” Silas said when Dobbs had left.
“No.” Helena lifted her red and gold cup from the table beside her and took a more decorous sip than he’d managed. “Despite ten years of marriage, Caro’s an innocent. She was so young when she was wed, and Freddie Beaumont never recognized her potential to be anything more than a rural wife. She’s clever, but she’s inexperienced in the wiles of wicked fellows like you. For all her wit and beauty, she’s a wide-eyed child in many ways.”
“I want her to stay that way,” Silas said grimly. He refilled his cup and strolled across to stand beside the sofa. “She won’t if she falls into West’s clutches.”
Helena regarded him with disfavor. “He’s no worse than you.”
“He’ll hurt her.”
Helena shrugged again. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. She’s not in love with him. It’s love that hurts, after all.”
Silas forgot his romantic troubles long enough to lay one hand on his sister’s slender shoulder. “I wish I’d shot that bastard Crewe.”
“If anyone should have shot him, it was me. But let’s not spoil our morning with talk of that brute.”
His sister never spoke of the hell of her marriage. Silas suspected revisiting those dark years gave her late, unlamented spouse power over her present. The problem was that the poison continued to taint her view of the world. He compared the wild hoyden she’d been as a girl with this contained, sardonic woman, and his heart cramped with grief for her. “You could have sent me a note last night.”
She surveyed him thoughtfully over her coffee. “I hadn’t decided to interfere then. I’m still not sure I should.”
It was his turn to look at his sister with disfavor. “Why in Hades not? She’ll make me a fine wife.”
“Undoubtedly. I’m sure she made Freddie Beaumont a fine wife, too. Not one to shirk her duty, our Caro. I think that’s one of the reasons she doesn’t want to sign up for more of the same.”
Pique stirred. “I would hope marriage to me would involve more than duty.”
“It would involve a commitment, when she’s only now tasting her first freedom.”
“I have no intention of crushing her spirit.”
“Maybe not. But she’d be a wife, when I know she’s looking forward to an eventful widowhood.”
“With that ruffian West,” he said grumpily.
“And who knows who else?”
“Bloody hell,” Silas said, settin
g his cup down in its saucer with a sharp clink. “It’s enough to make a man want to shoot himself.”
Helena laughed briefly. “Not when I’ve taken this trouble to alert you to your lady love’s latest escapade. Why don’t you get dressed and we’ll see what’s happening in the park?”
“Capital idea.” Silas strode toward the door. “And, Helena, thank you.”