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Except she didn’t feel the same way. And he wouldn’t force, beg, or manipulate her into changing her mind. What he would do was act his usual charming self and hope that she would realize that she was better off with him than without.

The entire ordeal with everyone in this household now thinking that they were married was another problem to deal with. But it was a problem for another time.

He swallowed. “Fine, then we go back.”

Helen cleared her throat. “How?”

“We will travel back to London in the Earl of Atholl’s carriage, surrounded by eight to ten outriders, and make our presence known everywhere we stop. The word will get to your cousin, and since you believe he would never hurt you, most likely, he will come to meet us and then we’ll talk to him face to face.”

“Then why did we hide from him all this time?”

“Because I believed he was a murderer and a traitor, and I was going to throw him into the gaol. I still believe half of that statement, but I am not going to imprison him anymore. I am hoping this way, he will decide to spare me the torture.”

“He will not hurt you,” she said confidently.

“You have quite the faith in your cousin-in-law,” Ian said tightly.

“I do.”

Ian nodded thoughtfully. “Then that’s exactly what we are going to do. As soon as you regain your strength, I shall take the Atholl carriage, and we’ll go back to England.”

There was a slight hesitation before Helen spoke again. “You don’t have to go with me, you know. It seems like you haven’t been home in a while, and if you want to stay—”

“No,” he interrupted with a chuckle. “I love my sister. And I missed her very much, but she doesn’t need me. She has a loving family here… and I don’t.”

Her face took on a thoughtful expression and then she looked up at him with an adorable frown between her brows. “Why is that?”

He walked slowly toward the bed and sat next to her, his gaze on the window in front of them. There was no point in hiding the truth; she was bound to connect the dots on her own. Perhaps she already had. “I am a black sheep in this ginger family if you hadn’t noticed. Stood out from birth. Officially, I’m the Earl of Atholl’s third son, Ian McAllistair. Unofficially, I am a stable master’s offspring.”

He raised a brow and waited for her to gasp in surprise or recoil in disgust. He didn’t truly think her reaction would be harsh; she was raising her husband’s love child, after all. But when one bared his soul, one expected it to be stomped.

Instead, Helen covered his hand with hers. “Your father knew from the start.”

The gentleness in her voice was his undoing. Unable to look at her, he returned his gaze to the window. “He did. I don’t know the details, but my father seemed to have forgiven my mother. They continued to live together as if nothing happened. Annie was born a few years later. Except, my mother clearly cared for me more than the rest of her children. And I think that hurt my father more than anything. As a result, he hated me. Because to Atholl, it meant that she loved him—my real father—more than she loved her own husband. So you see, I have no aristocratic blood running down my veins. I am the son of a simple stable master… and a drunk.”

She didn’t release his hand. “The blood is of no consequence. It’s the heart that matters.”

He took her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “Well, I think now you officially know everything there is to know about me.”

She smiled. “I doubt it. I wager you have a lot of childhood stories hidden inside these walls.” Ian raised a brow. She didn’t know how right she was. “I wish I could see this home more. I would love to see where you played as a child, and what you were doing growing up. Except there is a house party with dozens of guests roaming around the house, and I don’t feel like getting dressed and facing them all.”

He quirked a brow. “I have a solution for that.”

* * *

Helen put on her slippers and wrapped her body in a billowing dressing gown. Her hair was tightly collected in a bun. She put a shawl over her shoulders because she was always cold. But it didn’t matter what she looked like because she wasn’t going to be seen by anyone. And Ian… Well, Ian looked at her as though she was some magical being he had never seen before.

It was odd how he didn’t seem to care whether she had a rash on her face, puffy eyelids, and scaly dry skin, wearing an oversized dressing gown and a simple bun or whether she was smooth skinned, with an eloquent coiffure, draped in the finest of silks. He seemed to look straight into her soul, not even noticing her outer shell.

And somehow, with him, she stopped worrying about her outer shell, too. As long as she felt healthy and happy, she had no need to impress anyone with fancy gowns.

Similarly, Ian was wearing old worn breeches, and an old, white shirt. They were probably his old things, still lying in his wardrobe for all these years. The shirt was slightly tight around his shoulders, and the breeches outlined every muscle in his thighs.

His hair was damp from a recent bath, a lock stubbornly falling over his forehead. Helen’s fingers itched to brush it away, and then to run her hands down his body.

She missed the feel of him, she had to admit. When he was around, she just wanted to feel his skin against hers, constantly.

His face was clean-shaven now, although Helen had to admit that she had enjoyed his bearded look, too.