Marrying Winterborne by Lisa Kleypas Page B

and go about their work as usual.”
    â€œThank you.” Impulsively Helen touched the older woman’s shoulder, patting it softly. “I’ve never been so happy.”
    â€œThere’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.
    â€œTell us everything,” Cassandra urged. “Was Mr. Winterborne upset when you approached him? Angry?”
    â€œWas 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.”
    â€œDid 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.
    â€œOh lucky, lucky Helen,” Cassandra exclaimed.
    â€œI don’t think she’s lucky at all,” Pandora said frankly. “Fancy putting your mouth on someone else’s—what ifhis breath is nasty or there’s a wad of dipping snuff in his cheek? What if there are crumbs in his beard?”
    â€œMr. Winterborne has no beard,” Cassandra said. “And he doesn’t dip snuff.”
    â€œStill, mouth kisses are revolting.”
    Cassandra looked at Helen with great concern. “Was it revolting, Helen?”
    â€œNo,” she said, turning scarlet. “Not at all.”
    â€œWhat was it like?”
    â€œHe 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.
    â€œI 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—”
    â€œYou haven’t tried kissing,” Cassandra told her. “You might like it. Helen does.”
    â€œHelen 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.”
    â€œMrs. 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?”
    â€œBecause Helen’s never naughty.”
    â€œI 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.
    â€œThere are twelve pair,” Helen said, enjoying her sisters’ awestruck expressions. “The three of us will divide them evenly.”
    â€œOh 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,