The Rake's Unveiling of Lady Belle

by Raven McAllan

  Later.

  ‘Of course I refused him. What would you have me do? Marry him and let him be cold-shouldered by his peers? Tell him who I am and have him renege? After all who would wish to be associated with my family? It would do him no favours to be saddled with my parent and siblings. They would see him as a cash cow to be milked.’

  ‘He wouldn’t let them,’ Clarissa said definitely. ‘You know him better than to think that.’

  ‘But they’d still ask, and he’d still be associated with them by marriage. I could see my papa telling him that it was his duty to help my family. I will not do that to him. Besides…’ She stopped talking and stood up to measure whisky and water into the two glasses. More to torment herself than anything else she handed the one she had used to Clarissa and took the one that Phillip had drunk out of for herself. Clarissa wouldn’t mind. They’d gone through more ups and downs than most people to be worried about sharing a drinking vessel. Belinda wanted to put her lips where Phillip’s had been. Even that tiny connection was better than nothing

  Idiot. Glutton for punishment.

  ‘Besides?’ Clarissa asked as they both took a hefty swallow and sighed with delight at the flavours.

  ‘I’ve worked too hard for my independence to once more be reliant on a man. At least now I know what is mine stays mine. If I need something I don’t have to go cap in hand and beg. I’ve done that—swallowed my pride and pleaded—and I swore I’d never be in that situation again.’ She stopped and put her hand over her mouth. ‘Oh grief I don’t mean I’d never ask you or Lady L for help. I mean never again will I be ruled by a man.’

  ‘But if you marry Phillip it would mean your papa couldn’t try to force you into marriage with someone of his choosing,’ Clarissa said. ‘That must be a point in my brother’s favour? Plus, knowing him, he’d say what is yours stays yours.’

  ‘Which would hold no sway in court if he chose to renege.’ Belinda sighed. ‘It is such a guddle. But, there is one more thing.’ She paused sighed again and smiled sadly. ‘I could no more be a complaisant wife than marry the Prince Regent.’

  The silence that followed her statement was telling.

  ‘Would you need to?’ Clarissa said eventually. ‘Does not the fact he asked you and no one else tell you something?’

  Belinda frowned. ‘What?’ she asked baldly. ‘That he was momentarily deranged? Or he wants what he can’t have like a child denied a treat? Or as ever in the manner of many men, wants what is not available?’

  ‘Or that he wants you, and only you?’ Clarissa said softly. ‘How nice to be desired like that, and hang the consequences.’

  Was she right? No, it was wishful thinking, nothing else. ‘Hardly, you know your brother. Three weeks and that’s it.’ Belinda held her hand in the air, and counted on her fingers. ‘One week to learn her body, the second to enjoy it, the third to weary of it. It would kill me if he was like that with me, or I had to watch him like that with another.’

  Clarissa was silent.

  In a perverse way it made Belinda feel vindicated. ‘So I said no.’

  ‘Hmm. Did he accept that?’ Clarissa stood up and refilled her glass, this time without anything else added to it.

  ‘You’ve forgotten the water,’ Belinda pointed out helpfully.

  ‘No I haven’t.’ Clarissa swallowed deeply, choked a little, rubbed her watering eyes and stared at Belinda, defiantly. ‘I want it like this.’ She refilled the glass before Belinda had time to comment. ‘Did he accept your answer?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good.’ Clarissa took another large slug of whisky. ‘Men never do, do they?’

  It penetrated through Belinda’s misery that something was very wrong in Clarissa’s life. She ignored Clarissa’s last query. Of course he hadn’t accepted her reply, but it was the only one he would get.

  ‘Why were you on your way here?’ Belinda asked instead.

  ‘To see you and drink your whisky.’ Clarissa peered owlishly into her glass. ‘Why is it eva ev…going? You didn’t answer me.’ She smiled beatifically. ‘Am I invish…insh…not seen? Ah this whissh… Benili…Belimminida. Oh you know who you are. Does this glash have un ’ole in it?’ Clarissa blinked and hiccupped. ‘Shtop moving.’

  Belinda removed the once again empty vessel from her friend’s slack grasp. ‘Not at all, you merely seem to have a great thirst. Have some water.’ She refilled the glass with water. ‘Drink this.’

  Clarissa sipped obediently. ‘It tastes different.’

  ‘Very likely, now what’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing, everything.’ Clarissa hiccupped and burped. ‘You turned my brother down.’ She swayed and Belinda pushed her back into the chair with one finger on her shoulder.

  ‘Why? Why couldn’t you have said yes? I need you to say yes.’ She grabbed Belinda’s glass out of her hands and emptied it in one swallow. ‘I need you to be my sister.’

  Belinda was confused. ‘What difference would it make? You are the nearest thing to a sister to me.’

  ‘And you me, but…but…’ Clarissa yawned. ‘Shnot…not be enough. I want you there with me, be…besh…next to me…’ She sighed and rested her head on the back of the chair, and closed her eyes.

  ‘Beside you where?’

  Clarissa snored.

  Belinda shook her gently. ‘Clary, where?’ If anything was designed to wake Clarissa up it was the use of her dreaded and hated nickname. ‘Tell me now.’

  ‘G’way…’ Clarissa opened one clouded eye, then the other and squinted. ‘Why are there two of you?’ She shut them both, snored again, snuffled and sighed. ‘No…’

  Belinda looked at her in exasperation. Drunk and passed out in a seamstress’s sitting room. What next?

  * * *

  ‘M’lord this note has been handed in for you.’ Wiggins, Phillip’s man, handed him a silver salver, which held an envelope with his name written across it in a pretty and elegant female hand. Phillip sniffed the vellum with caution. Not scented, thank goodness. Therefore it seemed fairly certain it was not a love note.

  ‘From?’ He fingered the seal. Plain and simple with no crest. He couldn’t think of a woman who would feel the need to contact him by letter. Not at that moment. It was a sad state of affairs when Lord Phillip Macpherson had no mistress and no one in his sights. Also, to his secret amusement, no inclination to go on the prowl. Except…

  A discreet cough brought him back to the matter in hand. ‘Sorry, Wiggins, I was wool-gathering, I’m afraid. What did you say?’

  ‘That he didn’t mention the sender, m’lord, just that the matter is said to be urgent. The lad didn’t wait for a reply, although he did say his mission was to chase you to the ends of the earth to make sure you received it as soon as possible. I quizzed the lad about that and he went on further to explain the ends of the earth were anywhere you could be extracted from without undue embarrassment. Before he would hand the note over he demanded reassurance I would pass it to you immediately.’

  Someone knew him well.

  ‘Livery?’ Phillip asked. It could give a clue to the sender’s identity.

  Just open it.

  ‘Merely neat and tidy.’

  ‘Then I best see who and what is in urgent need of my attention.’ Phillip took up a paring knife from beside the fruit bowl and slit the seal.

  Why on earth were his hands shaking? He glared at Wiggins who coughed and rearranged the fire irons. The note was short and to the point. A rather worrying point. My lord, Clarissa is passed out in my sitting room from an overindulgence of whisky and I need your help. Madame Belle. P.S. Use the mews.

  ‘Wiggins, call for the carriage, please. The unmarked one. To wait in the mews.’ It seemed there was a lot of mews being used in this assignation. ‘Ten minutes.’

  Wiggins bowed. ‘And your destination, my lord?’

  ‘Bruton Street to start. After that? Who knows?’ Phillip left the room to change into an unremarkable tweed jacket, and serviceable Hessians.
Goodness knows what he would find.

  What was it about cryptic notes that meant he had received two of them within hours? He already had one from his father asking him to attend at the family home the following day, to help him in ‘a matter of great importance’. No other information had been given other than, ‘nine a.m. would be appropriate’. As his father usually preferred to spend the mornings alone, the time alone made Phillip wary. Why had his nicely plotted life gone to hell in a handbasket?

  Not only that, to have to sneak out of his own house seemed somewhat surreal, Phillip decided ten minutes later. He trod the immaculate lawn and headed for the gate in the high stone wall, which gave access to the mews behind his town house. As he requested, and expected, a smart, unmarked town carriage was pulled up outside the wall, drawn by two equally unmarked horses. Flixton, his coachman, sat holding the reins loosely and his son, David, held the horses’ bridles. Phillip approved of Flixton’s choice of a helper. David was tall, brawny and able to hold his head in a crisis. Plus, Flixton’s family had been in the employ of the Macphersons since Phillip’s great-grandfather was their head, and their loyalty was without question.

  ‘Madame Belle’s and no, I’m not going to be measured for a banyan.’ Although it was a thought. ‘I have no idea how long I’ll be, but Lady Clarissa needs help.’ He could trust the Flixtons not to pass that titbit on.

  Flixton nodded as Phillip climbed into the carriage and within seconds the vehicle moved off. Phillip leant back on the squabs, stretched out his legs and crossed his arms over his chest. What had his sister been up to? As far as he knew she’d been at a ball the night before and was due to go to a musical afternoon that day. So why was she comatose in Madame Belle’s sitting room?

  Ah well, no point in worrying. I’ll find out soon enough.

  Phillip settled down to pass the journey as best he could. Luckily at this time of day, when afternoon excursions were over and the evening’s entertainments hadn’t started, the roads were relatively quiet. It wasn’t long before he strode into Madame Belle’s establishment. This time via the lane behind the houses, and the narrow staircase that led upwards from the back hall.

  ‘What do you mean she just downed the whisky and passed out?’ Phillip looked from Belle to his sister and back again. Clarissa was stretched out on what he presumed was Madame Belle’s bed, snoring rhythmically and emitting the odd pufft. He wished he were in the room solely with Belle and for another, very different reason, not this. ‘Why was she drinking whisky anyway? Why was she here? You never mentioned she was due, when I left you.’ He snapped the questions out. Never ever had he seen his sister even remotely like this.

  ‘Mainly because I had no idea she was about to visit. But also, why should I inform you of my visitors?’ Belle sniped back at him, but he didn’t react. He could see the worry in her eyes.

  ‘Do you know why she’s here?’ Belle asked him. ‘Because, well, she didn’t tell me what was wrong.’ She didn’t meet his glance. ‘Just that, oh Lord, just that she needed me as a sister. Yes I did tell her what you’d done,’ she said. The flash in her eyes defied him to comment or remonstrate. ‘I also confided my reply. I don’t think she was happy. She muttered, downed several glasses of whisky as if it was water—my Highland Park whisky, which doesn’t deserve such treatment—became incoherent, and this is the result. Tippen, Mrs Lovett and I carried her into this room and put her into my bed. But, Phillip, you know she can’t stay here. It’s one thing to visit to be fitted for clothes, another to be seen to consort with the likes of me.’

  ‘Not if we marry.’ What imp of mischief made him say that?

  ‘Not even for Clarissa will I marry you.’ This time her pronouncement lacked some of the vehemence he’d heard earlier.

  ‘Of course not. You will marry me for us.’

  ‘What nonsense. However, we have a problem, and I need your help and resolution,’ Belle said impatiently as she ignored his statement. ‘What do you suggest?’

  Definitely not the moment for dalliance. ‘I’ll take her home. Her home. I have a coach waiting, and my coachman is a loyal servant.’

  Belle nodded. ‘What’s happened? Do you really not know?’

  Phillip shook his head. ‘All I know is I have a request from my father to meet him in the morning. Perhaps that will throw some light on it. Meanwhile I’d better do something about her state. What have you tried?’

  Belle glanced at him and he hid a grin at the impatience on her face.

  ‘What have we not? All she has said is ‘gway, lvlone, no’. Which I translated into go away and leave me alone. No is self-explanatory.’

  Phillip nodded. ‘Then I will resort to bully-boy tactics or…perhaps this.’ He picked Clarissa up and heaved her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. ‘Check she’s decently covered and open doors.’ At least having entered via the back door he knew where to go.

  Clarissa was as unwieldy as the bag of potatoes he’d compared her to in his mind as he made his way down the somewhat narrow back stairs. Her head bumped off his back and her arse was in view every time he moved his eyes. Not the rear he’d prefer to gaze on.

  ‘Watch her head.’ Belle moved between him and the doorjamb. ‘She’ll have enough of a sore head without you adding to her misery with a lump the size of a pigeon’s egg.’

  ‘It would serve her right,’ Phillip said with the callousness of one sibling to another. Nevertheless he turned sideways and did a crab-like slither into the tiny garden.

  ‘What on earth has she been eating? She weighs a ton,’ Phillip muttered as he did his twist and slide through the garden gate and into the back lane.

  Flixton jumped down to hold the door open for Phillip as he lifted Clarissa inside and deposited her on one of the long squabs. Once he was satisfied she wouldn’t roll onto the floor, Phillip turned and poked his head outside. ‘Thank you. I’ll get her indoors without our father finding out.’

  Belle put her hand on his arm. ‘Let me know what is going on if you can? Please?’

  ‘Of course.’ He bent down and kissed her nose. Her startled yelp was all he could have wished for. ‘When I come and ask you to marry me.’

  Belle rolled her eyes. ‘Take the answer now. No thank you, my lord, though I thank you for your kind offer.’

  ‘Cruel.’

  ‘Sensible.’

  ‘Cruel.’

  Belle shook her head. ‘I used all my kindness up when I asked you to help Clarissa.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Phillip turned away, and then looked over his shoulder. ‘For that, I’m going to call her Clary.’

  * * *

  Belinda was on tenterhooks the next day. Her sleep had once more been broken by ‘what if’ dreams, and that combined with her worry about Clarissa had her out of sorts and inclined to snap. The second time she’d had to bite her lip not to tell one particularly obstreperous client what she really thought of her and her airs and graces, she gave in.

  Once the lady had left, Belle turned to a worried-looking Tippen. ‘Don’t look like that. The countess is enough to make a saint lose patience and I’m no saint. Who else is due today?’

  ‘Only Lady Osborne, and she’s just cancelled. Her father-in-law passed, and she’s on her way to Cambleford. So you have no clients for the rest of the day. Which, considering your lack of patience, is no bad thing. Why don’t you go for a long walk or something? Blow the megrims away.’

  ‘I’m waiting to hear about Clarissa.’

  There was a clatter of hooves, the sound of a carriage stopping, then a tattoo was hammered out on the main front door. Tippen went to the window, which overlooked the road, and craned her neck. ‘Well maybe you will. I swear that’s Lord Phillip’s carriage.’

  ‘Whoever is trying to knock my door down sounds impatient enough for it to be him,’ Belinda remarked. ‘Will you let him in, please? Whilst we still have a door. It would be somewhat draughty without. To say nothing of embarrassing to any young lady in a state of undress if some und
esirable wandered in. Mary has gone to the haberdasher for that roll of dark green velveteen ribbon I need.’

  ‘If I don’t answer the door, you’ll need it to tie the door in place,’ Tippen said as she left the room at a run.

  The banging had now taken on a staccato rhythm. Belinda moved to the mirror, smoothed her curls down, pinched her cheeks to bring some colour into them and smoothed her lemon and green striped gown into place. She was as ready as she ever would be to meet and greet Phillip.

  He strode in and bowed. Belinda curtsied and gasped as Phillip ignored a grinning Tippen and hauled Belinda to her feet. ‘At last.’ He bent his head and kissed her so hard and deep, she had to cling on to him for balance, and wondered if she would ever get over that awful lump in her stomach. The one engraved with ‘if only’ and ‘what if?’.

  ‘My lord.’ Belinda moved three steps backwards the minute he put her down. ‘Have you any information?’ She waved to the decanter. ‘Help yourself.’

  ‘Tea,’ Phillip said firmly. ‘Please. And food, any food. My meeting with my father put me off my breakfast.’

  That sounded ominous. Clarissa was emphatic that nothing, but nothing put Phillip off his food.

  ‘I’ll get something, shall I?’ Tippen stood in the doorway and winked at Belinda. ‘Mrs Lovett made extra scones today in case you called. She said we can’t have you wasting away. It would be bad for business.’ She dashed out.

  ‘What is it with you, that my staff feel it is their duty to feed you? And how did you win Tippen over?’ Belinda asked as she sat behind her desk and watched Phillip swing a ladder-back chair round and sit on it backwards.

  He rested his arms over the top. ‘I’m loveable?’

  ‘Aren’t rakes supposed to be?’

  ‘Of course, but not all succeed. Now do you want to know what I’ve discovered or shall we spend a pleasant half hour bandying words? I’m happy either way.’ He raised one eyebrow, and laughed. ‘Come on, ma belle, leave the sulks and be nice to me.’

  ‘How nice?’ Belinda asked suspiciously. ‘Not marrying nice.’

  He sighed very ostentatiously. ‘Wait until I ask.’