Chapter four-
Over the next few weeks, Helena discovered that love was a cruel companion. It haunted her in her sleep, crept up her spine like cold fingers and wrangled its way into her bed sheets with a lustful passion. Love was not kind, love was not merciful.
This was not to say, of course, that Helena was in love. She loved knowledge, maybe. She loved life, maybe, but she never loved men.
"I haven't seen you in a while," Helena struggled to keep her voice level, to not sound too hopeful or too eager. "Have you been busy?"
She could not, however, stop the accusing tone that had entered her voice.
The Baron gave her a wry smile and shrugged. "I'm trying to manage my father's estates, and after his death, everything's a little chaotic."
Helena looked at him, startled. "Your father died?"
She didn't know him. How could she grow to love him?
"It's not important, really," the Baron told her uncaringly, dismissively. And Helena had the decency to not appear judging.
"You didn't have a good relationship," she stated it as a fact, but she was hardly in a position to make any snide commentary.
"We had a wonderful relationship," he told her a little coldly, but his voice quickly warmed up, and she pushed his tone to the back of her mind. "What have you been up to?"
She shrugged uncomfortably. "Studying."
"Your mother's doing," he teased, and she was just as surprised as he was to find a slow, easy-going smile slide across her face.
"What my mother has and hasn't been doing is entirely up to her, and I'd rather not think on it," she shot back.
Banter?
Since when had they been comfortable enough around each other to exchange playful banter? Certainly not a year ago. Certainly not a week ago.
He kissed her, and it was warm and welcoming and loving and wonderful.
She pushed him away.
"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded, breathing harshly, eyes wide.
Foolish, silly, handsome man-
"I thought I had already made it quite clear," he breathed, and leaned down to continue where they left off.
And it couldn't hurt to keep kissing him for a few more seconds, because they were to be married, and wasn't this something wedded couples did?
"Oh, Baron, you're back!" Rowena's voice cut through the air like an axe, and the lip-locked pair broke apart as though jinxed. "How wonderful- and how did the funeral proceedings go?"
Helena watched her mother interact with her fiancé through hooded eyes, stepping back to survey the scene. The Baron's face was red in embarrassment, though Rowena didn't seem to notice as she continued to airily ask him questions.
There must have been minutes that rushed passed in that conversation, but when the words were exchanged, the Baron had just enough time to throw her an apologetic glance before departing, leaving her alone in the corridors with her mother.
Rowena stared at her daughter coolly.
"I expect you to be able to control your lust, Helena," she reprimanded the younger Ravenclaw with a stern look, and Helena shrugged.
"It's not as though the Baron and I haven't already been sharing a bed for months, now," she told her mother in all-seriousness, though it certainly wasn't true. As though she'd ever voluntarily let that man get near her, let alone get her in bed.
Not that she minded his presence all that much anymore or his kisses (his kisses!), but-
Ridiculous, Helena, she chided herself.
Rowena's jaw clenched in a disapproving manner all the same. "I'd had hoped I taught you restraint, but you seem to have inherited your father's appetites."
Helena shot her mother a cruel grin, "Have I? I can't imagine why his appetites would stray, especially when he had you to warm his bed," she sneered, and exited the direction she saw the Baron walk in.
And what she said wasn't nice at all, and it wasn't at all appropriate or respectable, or even provoked. But it was satisfying.
Adrenaline and no small amount of lust burned through her veins like fire as she searched for the Baron.
Quickly, however, she was disappointed to find him gone without any trace of having walked that way at all-
And Helena stopped looking for him, and stared wearily down the hallway, unsure of where to go from there.
"Looking for me?"
The voice came from her left, and she spun around, eyes darting left and right to catch some outline of the man speaking.
"Where are you?" she asked, brows furrowed in a look of irritation. "Come out."
She heard a gentle whoosh, and the Baron slowly appeared, pulling a shimmering material away from his body. Helena stared.
"How did you do that?" she asked finally, cautious and a little distrusting.
The Baron gave her his charming grin and folded the fabric completely.
"I like to call it my cloak of invisibility; it's something my brother Ignotus lent me a while back- I'd like to think I'm keeping it safe for him while he sorts out his affairs, but everyone knows he's the one doing me the favor," he laughed.
"What do you need it for?" she questioned curiously, and reached out to touch it from where it hung off his arm.
It had a heavy satiny texture to it; the way she thought a cloud would taste, or feel under her fingertips.
"That's incredible," she murmured as she tucked her fingers under the fabric, watching them disappear into thin air.
"It is, and I have some business I'd like to take care of rather discreetly, and this cloak will allow me to do just that," he said with a proud smile, stroking the fabric lovingly.
"I didn't know you had a brother," she said carefully, lest she tread on rocky territory.
"Two, actually," he said with a wry smile. "I'm the middle child."
"Oh," Helena said softly, and he turned his eyes to her again.
"Was there something you wanted?"
"Ummm… No," she lied quickly looking away from his gaze, and he laughed.
"You want me," he stated it as a fact, and the blush that came over her face had little to do with embarrassment or want.
"Of course not!" she denied indignantly, and he grinned arrogantly.
"You want more," he continued, "Well, Helena, all you had to do was ask and I'd love to help you out."
"You're loathsome!" she huffed, crossing her arms. "I would never in a million years ask for your touch."
"So you'd want it in silence? Asking is much easier, my dear, I'm apt to comply that way-"
"I wouldn't never in a million years want your touch!" she amended furiously, and he laughed.
"Want this?" he asked, touching the small of her back. "Or this, perhaps?" he placed his hand behind her neck. "This?" his lips on hers.
"Never," she declared, pushing him away.
"Of course not," he said, but the smug look in his eyes said differently.
"Don't delude yourself into thinking this is anything but an arranged marriage," she snapped, and he leaned back a little, crossing his arms across his chest.
"Arranged or not, marital benefits don't depend on love. I will have you, Ravenclaw," he told her in a low voice, touching the slant of her jaw gently. It wasn't romantic, or nice, or chivalrous.
But it was true.
"You're disgusting," she hissed, and he kissed her again.
She let him.
