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She would not be a pretty sight. She knew, somewhere deep down, that it was a foolish thing to worry about at the moment, but she didn’t want Ian to see her that way. Even after knowing about his betrayal, or perhaps especially after finding out about his betrayal, she didn’t want him to think of her as less than beautiful. She wanted him to remember her as a strong, passionate woman, who saved his life despite his atrocious lies.

She didn’t want him to recoil from her in disgust. And even worse, she didn’t want him to pretend it didn’t bother him. The look of veiled pity in his eyes could kill her.

Yes, it was foolish. But she worried about it nonetheless.

She needed to leave for London tomorrow. The first thing in the morning, she would set out back home, and leave Ian to finish his journey on his own. She’d saved him. Her mission was over. Now it was time to go home.

And then she would never see him again.

The tightness in her chest caught her unawares. She placed a fist against her heart, trying to calm the frantic beating. She wasn’t surprised by the strength of her reaction to leaving Ian.

Somewhere along the way, despite her protestations, she had fallen in love with him.

Their future was doomed, she knew. Even without the complication of Helen’s health, Ian’s actions ensured their relationship’s demise. And it was better for her to walk out of the relationship while she still could walk.

Ian strode into the room with a pile of linen in his arms. He looked at her, concern shining in his eyes. “How do you feel?”

Helen swallowed. “Cold.”

He nodded. “Let me prepare the bed, then. It’ll warm you up. You’ll have a nice night of rest, and then we’ll continue on our way.”

“I can’t go with you,” Helen said in a whisper. She had no strength to say the words out loud. It hurt too much.

There was a rustle of linen as Ian started making up the bed. “That’s nonsense,” he said without turning toward her.

“It isn’t.” Helen licked her lips. “I don’t know what kind of trouble you’re in, Ian. I don’t know what is between you and Jarvis, but I can’t stay with you. You used me to get to my cousin.”

He finally turned, his hands fisted at his sides, his teeth clenched. “I did what I had to do. And yes, I know that using you was wrong. But I’m a spy, that’s what I do.”

“Don’t you feel remorse?” Helen’s voice broke. Was he as heartless as he seemed?

Ian left the sheets on the bed and stalked toward her. He put his warm fingers under her chin and lifted her face up to his. “Do I feel bad for hurting you? Yes, I do. With all my heart, I wish that I could take the pain away. Do I regret causing you distress? Absolutely. And I will do everything in my power to make things right. But I will never ever regret lying to you and using you to get to the viscount. Because if I hadn’t done so, we would never have met. And that is something I don’t ever want to contemplate. That is something I will never regret in my life.”

Helen’s soul bled a little. Her heart already warred with her brain about her love for Ian. Her heart was begging her to forgive him. He gifted her the best days and nights of her life. He made her believe in love again. But her brain whispered, yet another man lied to you and betrayed you. Love isn’t worth the pain.

“Surely you can understand that I can’t be with someone who sought me out in order to betray me. Someone who thought that my cousin was a murderer and was actively looking for evidence to prove that.”

“He is a murderer.” Ian raked her over with his gaze and must have seen something there, perhaps fatigue, or the fact that she was shaking because he cursed lightly and went back to his job of making the bed.

“But let’s not talk about this now. I can explain everything to you, and we can argue about this during our entire trip to Scotland.”

“Scotland?” Helen wished she’d misheard.

Ian finished making the bed and patted the pillows. “Yes. My home.”

“Your home?” Her question was breathless. She should have known he was Scottish. Nothing indicated that, of course, except for his last name. He had an upper-crust English accent, he never mentioned anything about Scotland, and he didn’t wear a kilt or a tartan. He looked and sounded exactly like a typical English lord.

But she’d remembered him calling her his bonnie lass. And his Scottish accent came out as he spoke those two words.

“Yes. I am going to tell you everything you want to know, Helen. The entire truth. But first, we need to get out of harm’s way.”

He walked toward her, and his fingers started deftly undoing the buttons on her bodice. “Don’t move. I need to remove the wet clothing before you can climb into the bed.”

The conversation was giving her a headache.

She didn’t understand anything anymore. She wanted to stay loyal to Jarvis; she wanted to believe that he was innocent. And in order for her to do that, she needed to hear what Ian had to say so she could disprove it. But she couldn’t let Ian get caught by Jarvis, either.

All of that was currently eclipsed by aches and stiffness in her joints, the cold that took over her body, and more than anything, her wish to see Laney again.