by Louise Allen
The wreckage of the bridge loomed out of the fog as a bulky figure staggered towards him, a small, frantically barking dog at its heels. Elliott swung off the horse as Toby leapt for his arms. The sound of a baby screaming in fright and discomfort was clear over the rush of water.
‘Philips, where’s her ladyship?’
‘Inside, my lord. And her maid and the baby. Groom’s a bit battered, but he’s not so bad—he went for help. A big rush of water hit the bridge just as we got on to it.’ He ran beside Elliott to the bank. ‘It’s wedged, but the timbers are giving way, my lord.’
‘I can see,’ Elliott said, putting the dog down and fighting the urge just to hurl himself into the torrent. ‘We need ropes, horses—oh, good man, Murrow.’ The carpenter brought a wagon down the hill at a reckless canter, dragged the team to a halt and men began to leap down and unharness the horses.
‘Arabella!’ he shouted until he thought his lungs would burst and then, faintly, he heard her voice.
‘Elliott! Safe…but slipping.’
‘We’re coming.’ He tied a rope around his waist and pulled off his boots, his coat, grabbed another rope and plunged into the water. Behind him he heard Murrow do the same.
It was not deep, but the current was strong and full of wood and branches torn down by the rains. Elliott fought his way to the carriage and made his rope fast, then clambered over the tilted side to cut the traces. The bodies of the horses broke free and were swept downstream, taking some of the strain off the body of the vehicle.
He clambered back as more men joined the carpenter, tying on ropes. ‘Arabella?’ The window, facing up at the sky, was closed. He dare not break it. There was movement inside and it opened halfway. ‘Arabella!’
‘Is it safe to take the baby?’ she said, her face white; her lips, he saw with horror, were almost blue.
‘Yes, give her to me.’ He reached in and the squirming, furious bundle was pushed into his hands.
‘I’ll be back in just a moment. Hold on, Arabella.’ Elliott slid and scrambled over the tilting carriage, trying not to rock it, trying to hold tight to the baby. When he reached the water there was a chain of men holding the ropes, breaking the flow for him so he would get to land.
‘I’ll take her, I’ve got grandbabies,’ said Philips, reaching for Marguerite.
Elliott brushed back the blanket off her face and she stared at him, big blue eyes in a red, indignant face and his heart turned over. ‘I love you,’ he murmured and pushed her into the gnarled hands. ‘Get her dry and warm,’ he said as he turned back to the water.
‘We’ve got ropes on it, it won’t shift now,’ Murrow told him. ‘If we can just get that baulk of timber off we can open the door.’
It took three of them, balanced on the carriage, to shift the timber and force open the door. Arabella pushed Mary Humble out, then held up her arms for Elliott.
‘I knew you would come. I knew it. I only had to be strong enough to hold on until then.’
‘I will always come for you,’ he said, pulling her into his arms almost roughly. ‘I’ll always come for both of you.’
Somehow they reached the bank. Servants from the house were there now with towels and blankets and hot water. ‘How do you feel?’ He stood there, half-naked, the fog wrapping chill tendrils round him and felt only the touch of her presence. He lifted a hand and stroked his fingers down her cheek and Arabella turned her face into the hollow of his hand and kissed it.
‘I am so sorry, Elliott. I just wanted to find Meg, to get away and think.’
‘And I should have listened to you. Don’t fret, everyone will be all right.’ He swept her up in his arms and walked with her to the carriage where Gwen was waiting to envelop her in towels and rugs. Mary Humble was already there, cradling the baby, but she gave her to Arabella as she reached for her.
‘Hot baths, Gwen,’ he ordered. ‘Hurry, now.’
A rapid check that the men were all safe and the groom was being taken care of and Elliott was on horse-back again and galloping in the wake of the carriage. He had nearly lost Arabella. Nearly lost both of them. The terror of it clawed at him like a creature, the fear that they might still be in danger from the cold racked him.
Arabella was in the bath when he strode, dripping, into her bedchamber. Gwen tried to shoo him out, but Elliott simply sidestepped her and went round the screen.
‘Oh! Oh, Elliott. Marguerite is quite all right. She’s warm and none the worse and tucked up.’
He knelt by the tub and reached for the big sponge that she was trying, very ineffectively, to hide behind. Gwen had washed her hair and swathed it in a turban of towelling and she was already turning pink from the effects of the warm water.
‘We need you dry and in bed. Look at these washerwoman’s fingers.’ He held up her water-wrinkled hand to show her. Then, suddenly, the shock of it ambushed him, knocking away his strength and his defences.
‘Arabella—’ His voice cracked.
‘I know. It is all right now,’ she soothed, pulling her to him, muddy and sodden as he was. ‘It is all right.’
He could feel the hot tears on his cheeks and hoped she would think it was his hair that was dripping on her as she held him, rocking him as best she could, as though he was the one needing looking after, not her.
Arabella, I love you. Darling girl, I love you. The words sounded so loud in his head that for a moment he thought he had spoken them. Elliott turned away abruptly to snatch up a towel and scrub his betraying face with it and heard her gasp. He had said it out loud.
‘Elliott? You love me?’ He swivelled back and met the wide hazel gaze that seemed to reach right down into his soul. ‘I love you,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘Elliott, I can hardly believe that you can love me too.’
He bent to take her lips as his mind reeled. She loves me? Arabella loves me. ‘I only just realised. I could have lost you and I didn’t know…I didn’t understand what I was feeling. Arabella, how could I have been so blind?’
‘I was blind, too, you know,’ Arabella murmured, reaching out to touch his face. ‘I realised when I was in the family chapel that what I felt for you was so different from what I felt for Rafe, so strong, that it had to be love.’ She blushed a little, ‘And in bed…’
‘It did not occur to me that a woman like you only gives herself with that trust and desire, night after night, when she is in love with the man,’ Elliott said. He felt as though he was drunk and yet utterly clear-headed. It was wonderful and terrifying. ‘I just thought I was fortunate that at least I was able to make you happy in bed.’
A little laugh escaped her. ‘Oh, Elliott. Do you realise we have never made love knowing that we love each other?’
Elliott looked at her thoughtfully, his eyes heavy with unspoken desire and Bella’s insides became hot and liquid with longing. ‘What a very provoking idea, my love. We are going to have to give it so much thought—and probably a great deal of attention—to make certain we express our feelings fully.’
‘Now, Elliott. Please.’
‘You should rest.’ But his eyes burned into her.
‘Help me out of the bath and I will go and see Marguerite again and then, if she is well, we will both go and rest…together.’
He let Gwen come back and dry her, dress her in nightgown and robe while he went and washed and changed. He found her again standing by the cradle and put his hand over hers as she stoked the baby’s cheek. ‘Both my loves, safe and sound.’
When she straightened up from kissing the soft little cheek he took her hand and just walked straight through the intervening rooms and into his bedchamber. He closed the door and leaned against it.
‘Elliott, are you sure you are not too tired?’
‘I would have to be unconscious to be too tired to make love to you, Arabella.’ Elliott’s eyes were dark with desire and something else that made her want to laugh with sheer delight.
She laughed, breathless with happiness. ‘I love you so much,
I want you awake to tell you,’ she said as he pulled her to him, his fingers urgent with ribbons and ties.
‘I like undressing you from all these fripperies,’ he admitted, tossing the négligé into a corner before running his hands gently over her breasts so that the nipples peaked hard against his palms. ‘Those nightgowns are like unwrapping a very intriguing parcel.’
Bella tried to sound indignant. ‘Parcel? Well, allow me to unwrap you then, my lord.’
‘Arabella.’ It was a groan as she struggled with buttons and shirttails. ‘Hurry.’
The fastenings of his breeches gave way to her fingers and she felt the muscles of his stomach contract as she slipped her hand down and circled him. He thrust into her hand, hot and hard and ready for her. They stood, locked together, not moving, his hand cupping her breast, hers encircling the powerful length of him. Bella tightened her hold.
‘No. Arabella…Wait.’
‘Your boots,’ she managed as he swept her up and dropped her on the bed.
‘My boots be damned.’
‘The covers…Oh! Oh, Elliott. Oh, my love. Yes.’ Boots, bedding, everything vanished from her consciousness as he came into her with a certainty and a possessive passion that eclipsed everything that had gone before. She was his and he was hers and nothing, it seemed to her through a daze of mounting, aching urgency, would ever be the same again.
He drove her up, beyond breaking point into a sudden, all-consuming climax, then held her, murmuring as he moved gently within her until she was aware again, her fingers tightening on his shoulders as she said against his mouth, ‘Love you, I love you. Elliott.’
‘Arabella. My love.’ Elliott kissed her back, claiming her, feeling that this was somehow the first time for them, the first time it had ever mattered so much. He forced control on himself, aware of her body, her breathing, the rising need sweeping through her again, and held on until he felt her begin to break again. ‘My love, for ever,’ he heard himself say as the passion swept him away. ‘Always.’
26 March
‘Those beds will be a mass of bloom by summer.’ Arabella leaned against Elliott as they looked out of the drawing-room window on to the new flowerbeds Johnson and his men, including young Trubshaw, had cut out of the turf and were just beginning to plant up with the hardier shrubs.
‘It is almost the end of March, spring is in the air, Marguerite is flourishing,’ she continued. He put his arm around her shoulders and hugged her more tightly. It was still a shock, a joy, to know that she was his and he loved her. ‘Is it possible to be happier, do you think?’
‘In general, no,’ Elliott agreed, loving the way she wriggled with sensual responsiveness as he bent to nibble her earlobe. ‘I could think of ways to increase the intensity of the feeling, of course.’
‘You always can,’ Arabella said. As usual when she remembered that she was supposed to be a respectable viscountess she was trying to sound disapproving and failing completely. ‘It so happens that we have absolutely no commitments this afternoon, or this evening. I kept today free because of packing tomorrow for London.’
‘Your very first Season, Lady Hadleigh. Are you nervous?’ He was glad he had delayed travelling until the weather was better. The time to themselves had been precious. It had taken Arabella a long time to forgive herself for running away from him and to believe that the accident was somehow not her fault. He had tried to find out more about her missing sisters, to no avail, but she had turned to him for comfort and sharing the search and the emotion had brought them closer together.
‘Terrified,’ she admitted. ‘But you will be there so it will not be so bad. I was thinking that perhaps we could go upstairs, and er…rest this afternoon.’
‘How about resting right now?’ Elliott started to turn from the window, his imagination conjuring up an entire menu of unrestful things to do with his wife, then stopped. ‘Damnation, there’s a carriage coming up the drive. Are we expecting visitors? I don’t recognise the team.’
‘Or the crest on the door either.’ Beside him Arabella craned her neck to try to make it out. The vehicle came to a halt, the door swung open and a tall, broad-shouldered man got out. ‘I don’t know him, do you?’ she said. ‘My goodness, what an alarming-looking gentleman. He is positively swarthy, and looks so grim. What a jaw!’
‘Army,’ Elliott hazarded, studying the upright back and indefinable air of authority as the big man held out his hand to assist a lady to alight.
‘What an elegant hat,’ Arabella said. ‘I wonder if—Meg! It is Meg! Elliott—’ She ran out of the room without waiting for him, dodged past Henlow who was opening the front door, and flung herself down the steps with Elliott at her heels. ‘Meg!’
‘Bella!’ The modish matron dropped reticule and parasol and launched herself at Arabella. ‘It is you! We’ve found you at last. Ross, see, it is Bella! You look so beautiful…’
She burst into tears. Bella burst into tears. Elliott skirted round the two women sobbing in each others’ arms and held out his hand to the other man. ‘Hadleigh.’
‘Brandon.’ The men shook and turned back to regard their wives.
Elliott thought vaguely about handkerchiefs and then decided he would wait for the emotion to subside a trifle. ‘How did you find us?’ he asked.
‘My wife was lining drawers and using a pile of newspapers that had mounted up while we were, er…otherwise engaged,’ Ross Brandon said. ‘She saw her sister’s name and there was no stopping her. We went to your Town house first, found the knocker off and Meg insisted on setting out immediately. She was too impatient to write and wait two days for a response.’
Bella turned, wreathed in smiles despite her tearstreaked face. ‘Elliott, it is Meg and she is Lady Brandon now!’
‘I rather gathered that,’ he said with a grin, holding out a handkerchief. ‘Shall we go in?’
‘I’ll just get the nurse-maid and the baby,’ Brandon said, going back to the carriage and helping a young woman with the baby asleep in her arms to alight.
‘Oh, how perfect.’ Bella hung over the infant. ‘Is it a boy? How old is he?’
‘Six weeks,’ Meg said. ‘Charles Mallory Ross Brandon.’
‘And my daughter is twelve weeks old. Come in…come in and see her, her name is Marguerite Rafaela Calne and she is beautiful.’ Bella towed her sister towards the door, talking non-stop. ‘But, Meg, it is so long, almost seven years. There is so much to tell—where shall we begin?’
It took almost three hours to learn the basic facts about the years they had spent apart. Bella wept again when she heard that Meg had been deceived into a bigamous marriage with James Halgate and then left destitute in Spain when he was killed in battle. She had encouraged her sister to elope with her childhood sweetheart and he had proved to have feet of clay. But if it were not for that tragedy Meg would never have met the man she was so obviously passionately in love with now.
The tale of how she had met Major Ross Brandon on the quayside in Bordeaux and nursed his wounds in return for her passage back and how they had fallen in love and married, defying scandal, had her flinging her arms around her brother-in-law’s neck and kissing him. He might look dour and frightening, but Bella soon realised he adored Meg and doted on his son and she was determined to love him in return.
It was more difficult to tell her own story, for she could not reveal the truth about Marguerite’s father to anyone, not even her sister. ‘I behaved very imprudently,’ she confessed, blushing. ‘And Marguerite was born seven months after the wedding.’
‘I think it very romantic,’ Meg said, beaming at Elliott. ‘It was love at first sight, was it not?’
‘Do you know,’ Elliott said, smiling at Bella, ‘it may well have been.’ She smiled back. No, she knew it had not been that, but somehow this was better: deeper and truer.
‘But what can have happened to Celina?’ Meg asked anxiously. ‘I know she ran away in June 1813 because Patrick Jago, my enquiry agent, found out that much.’
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‘All I know is that she went to an aunt I had never heard of, a sister of Mama’s. And, Meg, I am so sorry if this is a shock, but Elliott and I think that Mama did not die, as Papa told us, but ran off with another man.’
Meg was shocked, but less surprised by that suggestion than Bella had been. But then, Bella thought, her younger sister had seen a good deal more of the world than she. It was a comfort to talk about it though, to hold her sister as they grieved again for their mother. ‘We must advertise for Lina,’ she said. ‘We cannot give up. One day we will be reunited.’
‘Tired?’ Elliott asked as they finally went to their room. They had talked themselves to a standstill that evening and Meg and Ross had retired to bed, leaving young Charles tucked up in the nursery next to Marguerite.
‘I am too excited to sleep,’ Bella admitted. ‘I just want to cuddle and enjoy being so happy.’
‘Just cuddle?’ He raised one dark brow and a warm glow began to spread through her.
‘To start with,’ Bella said demurely. ‘Have I told you, Elliott Calne, just how much I love you?’
‘Possibly not for a few hours,’ he admitted, as he stood in the middle of the room and shed his dressing gown with his usual total lack of modesty. ‘I am open to being reminded.’
‘I feel I have a family at last.’ Bella removed her négligé and drifted closer, enjoying the heat in his eyes, the tenderness with which he reached out to draw her to him. ‘I have a husband who loves me, a beautiful daughter and now a sister again.’
‘Come here and cuddle me, then,’ Elliott said, his voice husky.
‘No,’ said Bella, standing on tiptoe to kiss the sensual curve of his lower lip. ‘No, I think I need to kiss you all over and tell you between each kiss how much I love you.’
‘That sounds an excellent plan,’ Elliott murmured, backing away until they fell on to the bed in a tangle of arms and legs. ‘Just so long as I can kiss you back. I may not have fallen in love at first sight as your romantical sister believes, but my conscience has never served me a better turn than when it told me to marry you, Arabella Shelley. I could not have found a wife I loved more if I searched the globe.’