The Rake's Unveiling of Lady Belle

by Raven McAllan

  Belinda nodded. ‘True and I apologise. So what do you mean exactly? Not about me but his women.’

  ‘Are they really sharing his bed?’

  ‘Well if not his bed, his body,’ Belinda said tartly. ‘I have seen with my own eyes that it doesn’t need to be in a bed.’ It hurt to think his protestations of love for her had merely lasted as long as it took to get back to town.

  ‘Well, no but you know what I mean. I’m not convinced they are his lovers, you know. Look at it this way. Do they ever appear hungry for each other? Do they hang on to each other’s words? Have trouble keeping their hands off each other?’ Tippen shook her head. ‘No, no and no. There is no sexual tension between them at all.’ She blushed, and even in her misery Belinda had to hide her grin.

  ‘Not with any of them,’ Tippen said emphatically. ‘Even if it was a swan song to bring them here, well it just doesn’t fit. Lord Phillip and each lady don’t have that spark of awareness. Not like you and he do.’

  ‘What? We do not.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  Do we really? If only she had the chance to find out if it was true. ‘Anyway go on.’

  ‘They act like friends. Good friends but not, not bedfellows, not lovers. I wonder if it is all pretence.’

  ‘But why would he need…’ Belinda wondered out loud. ‘Oh my, do you really think so?’

  ‘It seems more feasible than the love them and leave them scenario he is trying to present to you. Face-saving in my opinion. Anyway you look when he comes in later. He left a message to say he’d be here around four o’clock and it’s almost that now.’

  Belinda glanced at the long case clock next to the wall and groaned. She needed an hour at least to get into the right frame of mind to greet him, not mere minutes.

  ‘Not another one? Good grief he’s making me dizzy. Surely any woman will be running a mile by now if he approaches them?’

  Tippen shook her head. ‘Not if there’s a wardrobe of Dressed by Belle in the offing they won’t.’

  The clang of the doorbell interrupted their conversation and Tippen moved to the door. ‘I’ll let them in. The salon?’

  ‘I suppose so. With wine and cheeses.’

  ‘No arsenic?’

  Belinda laughed reluctantly. Tippen was oh so good at lightening the atmosphere. ‘Not unless it’s the rodent.’

  ‘If it’s that woman, I’ll hold them both down so you can dose them,’ Tippen said as she left the room. Her footsteps faded into the distance.

  Belinda checked her gown wasn’t crushed, and slipped her feet back into her slippers. She really ought to curb her habit of kicking off her footwear at every opportunity. With a sigh loud enough to stir the silk on the table, she picked up her sketchpad and charcoal, and wondered what she’d be asked to do this time. Design a bed robe without a front panel?

  Two sets of footsteps got louder. Belinda was puzzled. Two sets?

  Hadn’t she and Tippen agreed to see Phillip and his companion in the salon on the floor below? The door opened and Tippen entered followed by Phillip. Belinda stared at the empty doorway.

  ‘No one else?’

  ‘Beli… Madame,’ Tippen coloured as she realised she had almost made a gaffe of gigantic proportions, and twisted the ribbons of her gown between her fingers in an agitated manner. ‘Lord Phillip has some worrying news. I’ll…er…shall I go and get some brandy?’

  Phillip smiled grimly.

  What on earth is wrong?

  ‘No, we don’t want her vomiting. I suggest some whisky and water, please, Miss Tippen. In Madame Belle’s sitting room I think.’

  Tippen nodded, curtsied and left the room at a run. Belinda stared after her, perplexed by her agitation. ‘What on earth have you said to make Tippen act like that?’

  ‘I have an awful feeling you soon won’t be much better,’ Phillip said as he took her hand and to her surprise drew her close and kissed her cheek. ‘I have very disturbing news for you. But not here—I don’t want you to run amok with needles or scissors. Come.’ He drew her out of the room and up one more flight of stairs to where her sitting room was.

  Tippen was waiting with the alcohol and as ever a plate of Mrs Lovett’s home cooking. She looked so worried a chill ran through Belinda. Her breath hitched and a hard band around her chest made it difficult to breath.

  ‘Clarissa?’ she asked urgently. ‘Is it Clarissa? Is she injured?’ She took hold of Phillip’s coat and shook him. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘No, it’s not Clarissa, be calm. No one is hurt, no one has died. It’s something else entirely.’ He unclenched Belinda’s hands from his jacket, pushed her down onto the daybed and sat next to her. Tippen handed him a glass of whisky and water and looked towards the door in enquiry. Phillip shook his head. ‘You may be needed.’

  Belinda sniffed the peaty scent of her drink and let the aroma roll over her. ‘Right, before I drown my sorrows or whatever you think I’ll need to do, tell me: what is wrong?’

  Phillip took a deep breath. ‘This is all my fault,’ he said slowly as if he picked his words with care. ‘It involves a woman scorned.’

  A woman what? ‘Someone I have scorned?’ Belle said bewildered. Who on earth had she upset?

  ‘Not you, me.’ He kissed her hand and tucked it into his own.

  All of a sudden, Belinda wanted and needed the contact.

  ‘Scorned and ignored. Lady Rattenberry.’

  ‘Rodent Rosemary,’ Belle said in a resigned tone. ‘I might have guessed. What is she saying?’

  ‘Rode…oh yes how apt.’ Under any other circumstances, the look of appreciation on his face would have made her laugh out aloud. Now, however, she was too worried to do anything other than feel relieved he agreed.

  ‘She is putting it about that you are not who you say you are. Somehow she has decided you are an imposter and you need to be, I believe her word for it was “outed” and shown up for the charlatan she says you obviously are. Without Clarissa to run interference it is an uphill struggle to shut the venomous woman up.’ Phillip pushed her goblet to her mouth. ‘Breathe and sip. You too, Tippen.’

  ‘Who does she think I am then?’ Belle’s chest tightened. It had to happen one day, but why now? Now when she was already unhappy and unsettled. She sipped some whisky and put the glass down.

  ‘She hasn’t got that far yet, but she definitely has a bee in her bonnet, and insists you remind her of someone in the ton.’

  Belle knew full well she paled as her skin chilled even further. ‘Ah.’

  ‘Try not to fret.’ His words seemed forced, as if he knew he was asking the impossible. ‘I have friends who are doing their utmost to negate her words, and say everyone reminds everyone of someone else. Ladies who have a lot to thank you for over recent weeks.’ He did grin then. ‘As do I. However, Rosemary is another thing altogether. I think the fact I…well let’s say remain on good terms with my ex lovers, galls her. She as far as I can tell never does. At this rate she will have no friends amongst the gentlemen of the ton. Either those she has had or those she would like to. As for the women, they avoid her like the plague. Nevertheless the ton craves gossip, the juicier the better, and she is milking this for all it is worth. Be it true or not, she will cause trouble and I foresee a few tumultuous weeks ahead.’ He hugged Belle again and when she didn’t answer looked at Tippen who shrugged and left the room.

  ‘My love, please let me sort this.’ He tipped her chin up so she looked straight into his eyes. ‘Marry me and it won’t matter what she says. You will be my wife, more aristocratic than she and a lot more appealing.’

  ‘I am anyway,’ Belle said in a defeated tone. ‘More aristocratic. She is only a lady by marriage. I am a lady by birth. I suppose I should have known it would all come out sooner or later.’

  Chapter Seven

  Phillip stared at his companion, and swept her hair back from her face so it sat flat to her skull. ‘Turn sideways.’

  Belle complied without a murmur.
/>   He felt his jaw drop as he regarded her through narrowed eyes. The shape of her head, the pert turned-up nose, the deep blue eyes…

  How the hell…

  ‘Belinda Howells,’ he said and shook his head. ‘Lady Belinda Howells, who by all accounts is queer in the attic and has to be restrained in the country. By all that’s holy. It seems your brothers’ idea of simple does not match up to that of others. Now, I wonder why?’

  He turned her head back towards him again, and smiled. ‘My sister’s shadow. Or was she yours? How the hell did I not know it was you?’ Now looking at her it was obvious, and he had no idea how he could have missed the signs. ‘Why did you not confide in me? I suppose Clarissa knows? Who else? How did you manage it? Where…’

  Belinda put her finger over his mouth. Phillip acted without thinking, sucked in the soft skin and kissed it. She gasped, and withdrew the digit fast, and his teeth scraped the soft surface. Her breathing was as ragged as his own, and her skin was flushed with the soft sheen of arousal. It was an enchanting, cock-hardening, body-tightening sight.

  ‘Good grief, Phillip, draw breath. You’ll expire if you do not. We only see what we expect to,’ Belle—no he must remember to call her Belinda—said with more composure than he would have imagined possible in the circumstances. ‘You expected a modiste from France, so that is who you saw, not a mongrel from Northamptonshire. Plus I hadn’t been very obvious in the ton. In fact I hadn’t been seen at all. I left school and went to my father’s estate in Northamptonshire. That was where I stayed, except for a few short days, until…’ she shook her head ‘…until I found it necessary to become Madame Belle.’

  ‘Is that where you got your scar?’ Phillip asked with interest. He ignored the mongrel remark. He thought at some time in the past he’d heard that one of Belinda’s grandparents had been French, which no doubt accounted for the perfect and enchanting accent she used. Did she used to speak like that? He couldn’t remember. In fact he guessed they’d hardly spoken at all. She was his little sister’s friend and the pair of them had little to do with him. That time in Northumberland was one of only a handful he’d been at home when Clarissa had been around. School and university had been followed by learning to manage his ancestral estates and forging his way in society. His younger sister and her friends didn’t loom large in his life. He’d treated them with courtesy, and if he was honest stayed away because of his increasing interest in a schoolgirl. He was no debaucher. Now though? Little Belinda was grown up and he could let his admiration and love out.

  ‘Northamptonshire? I remember, when I asked where you received your scar, you started off by saying North and stopped abruptly.’

  ‘No,’ Belinda said with a half smile. She ran her finger over the mark. ‘I got that aged fifteen, spying on a certain Lord as he…er…shall we say played with a certain rodent in a hayloft in Northumberland. It was a very instructive time, until I fell out of the tree I had hidden in. I subsequently spent half the afternoon in a rhododendron bush. I was convinced I would be found, and sent away, in deep trouble. Instead, the lord and his companion thought I was a duck, and no one came to look for me. Eventually I scrambled free and went back to the house to find everyone thought I’d been resting in my room.’

  ‘Me.’ Phillip well remembered that afternoon. It was not long after he had discovered his prowess with women, and had embraced the sobriquet of rake with relish.

  ‘You,’ Belinda confirmed. ‘With Rotten Rosemary the repellent rodent. After your pronouncement, I quacked.’ She snorted and puffed out her cheeks to replicate the sound. ‘It was just as well ducks were around in plenty. Quacking was the only animal or birdlike noise I could do with any similarity to the real thing. I’d have been in deep trouble if one of you had suggested pheasants.’

  ‘That pesky duck was you?’ Phillip laughed as she inclined her head in agreement. ‘Rosemary was beside herself at the thought of birds or animals about.’

  ‘You were in the countryside—what did she expect? That you’d ban them from the vicinity?’ Belinda shook her head and once more sipped her whisky. ‘I wondered then, and I do still what you or any other man saw in her.’

  ‘Goodness knows. Availability perchance? Overlarge breasts? However, what one accepts as a youth one should know better than to accept as a man.’ Except my desire for you. That snippet of information he kept to himself. ‘I can only apologise for my relapse. As I think back, she was a spoiled young lady so I wouldn’t have put it past her to demand my father and his gamekeeper went out at dawn with their shotguns.’ Phillip took up his glass and touched it to Belinda’s. ‘She said the birds tweeted too loudly. It was a wonder she didn’t complain the fish swam too noisily, or the cows lowed too intensely. That apart, you—as in you the quacking duck, not you the scrubby schoolgirl—spoiled the ambience. Rosemary was convinced anything that crept or crawled was creeping or crawling around us. For once my powers of persuasion were sadly lacking and she insisted on returning to the house. I spent an hour trying to persuade her otherwise to no avail.’ He drank some whisky and enjoyed the sensation of velvety smoothness as the liquid coated his throat. ‘This is magnificent. Where do you get it from?’

  ‘I have my sources; I’ll get you some. And stop changing the subject. So, no oats?’ Belinda’s lips quivered as he imagined she strove not to laugh.

  Phillip hoped he looked soulful. ‘No oats, not even a nibble. And if you remember, she and her parents left the next morning.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ Evidently Belinda couldn’t manage to contain her mirth and began to snigger. ‘Your first failure?’

  Phillip laughed with her. ‘It was a salutary lesson.’ He shook his head. ‘If I had any sense I would have taken it as a warning sign that she was not for me. Instead I decided to chance my arm, changed my mind, and landed you in this potential mess.’ He stopped laughing abruptly and became serious. ‘Belinda, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Belle.’

  ‘Even though I know who you are?’ Why did she still feel she needed to keep up the pretence with him?

  ‘Exactly, I am Madame Belle.’ She patted his mouth much like one would a petulant child. ‘Do not pout; it does not become you. Believe me, for both of us it is just easier to be Belle and no one else.’

  Perhaps, but Belle will not countenance me, Belinda might. Phillip kissed her cheek. He’d much rather kiss somewhere else but he knew how easy it would be to forget his resolutions and take all she offered. ‘You could soon be Lady Macpherson instead?’

  ‘You never miss a chance, do you?’ Belinda struggled out of his embrace, stood up and refilled her glass with water only and leaned against the window ledge. ‘Phillip, listen to me. No I could not. It would never do, and however much you protest to the contrary you know it as well as I. Even if I did reappear as my old self, people would soon realise Lady Belinda Howells, now the new Lady Macpherson, were also Madame Belle and the scandal would be unbearable. I will not inflict such a thing on your family and besmirch that good name.’

  ‘Rubbish, every family has a skeleton in its closet somewhere. It would be a five-minute wonder, no more.’ How could he make her understand and accept it? ‘We could survive that together.’

  ‘My family would go on the attack, like scavengers or leeches. I will not do that to you. You’d never be free from their sponging and scrounging.’

  ‘I can handle them. Scavengers disappear when stood up to, and leeches can be brushed off and crushed. Spongers and scroungers are only such if they are allowed to be. I would not allow it. From either of us.’

  ‘It will not do.’

  He could tell she thought not anyway. Her expression was mulish, and the resolution in her voice was there to hear. Phillip realised he was going to have to rethink his tactics. He sighed and then forced his expression into one of patient understanding—or he hoped he did. It wasn’t an emotion that came naturally to him.

  ‘Very well, but the offer still stands and will continue to do so until you say
yes.’

  She shook her head. ‘Do not hold your breath, my lord.’

  ‘Of course not.’ Phillip chose to accept her words literally. ‘If I did I’d swoon, or in due course, die. That’s not my plan. Now we need to plot and scheme for any eventuality that may occur.’ He swore he could hear Belinda grind her teeth.

  ‘Nothing will,’ she said impatiently. ‘I can deny everything. If she ever works it out. After all what is there now of the old me?’

  ‘Class. And if you look closely, your profile is very much in the Howells’ style.’

  Belinda rolled her eyes. ‘I look nothing like I did then. Indeed, I am nothing like I was then.’

  Phillip ignored her statement, and the steady tap-tap of her fingers as she thrummed them on the surface of a table. He began to prowl the room. Unusually for him he was unsettled and jittery. Although the sky was clear, the atmosphere was charged as if another storm was about to break, which in a way he supposed it was. Phillip stared at a fine watercolour painting on the wall until the colours ran into one another and the poppies depicted became a rainbow cloud.

  ‘We must take all precautions that you are not bothered by her or anyone else.’ He pondered how. ‘Shall I send you a doorman?’

  Belinda walked up behind him, and to his amazement leant against his back. Her scent lifted his spirits somewhat and her presence so close to him that her breath tickled the hairs on his neck made him all the more determined to be her champion.

  ‘If only life were simple.’ Did she really kiss him or was his imagination overworking? ‘If she wants to make mischief a doorman wouldn’t stop her. Or anyone else for that matter. No, I’ll just have to be on my guard.’

  That doorman will be here by nightfall.

  ‘Don’t you want to know why I did it?’ Belinda’s voice was muffled as she spoke into his cloth-covered back. ‘All those years ago?’

  It was not the way to conduct a conversation. He turned, and she went to take a step backwards. Phillip shook his head and held her close. ‘Stay here, please. I like it.’