Belle’s explanation mollified Aunt Agatha, but Quinn saw a glint in Bletchley’s eyes. The man scoffed, “More proof that a woman has no business running an estate.”
Belle stiffened at that. But Bletchley didn’t notice. Or if he did, the obtuse man foolishly decided to ignore it.
Quinn said nothing, gladly letting the arrogant fop dig his own grave.
Bletchley continued, “I expect that mischief will stop soon, once you accept my suit and whoever is doing it realizes that a man is properly looking after the property.”
“Oh.” Her face fell. The amusement that had been there only moments before vanished, and she looked away.
“Have you decided on your answer, Miss Greene?” Bletchley pressed, with all the romantic finesse of a dead donkey. “I daresay, time is running out. Will I be allowed to formally court you?”
“Well, I…that is…” Belle stammered. Her gaze darted nervously to Quinton. In her eyes, he saw a warring desperation and sadness that tied his gut into a knot.
Agatha rose from the settee. “Sir Harold, perhaps you should discuss this privately with Lord Quinton. In lieu of a male relative, my nephew will be serving as Belle’s—”
“We’ve been neighbors for years, with no secrets between us.” Bletchley waved away the viscountess’s concerns. “I know the predicament you’re facing, Miss Greene, and there’s no need to stand on formality with me.” He smiled confidently at Belle. “Except that I would like to hear your acknowledgment that I have your favor.”
When Belle hesitated, Aunt Agatha murmured, “Quinton?”
“Annabelle knows what’s best for her,” he answered quietly. “She doesn’t need me to make up her mind.” And, knowing how stubborn she was, to most likely do exactly what he told her not to.
Quinn’s eyes fixed on Belle, even as hers were pinned to her cup of tea, not daring to glance in his direction. Holding his breath, he waited for her to refuse Bletchley’s suit. In the silence, his heartbeat thundered in his ears—
“Yes,” she breathed, so softly that no sound crossed her lips.
But Quinn heard, and her answer reverberated through his chest with the force of cannon fire.
Lady Ainsley blinked, as if she hadn’t heard properly. As if just as surprised as Quinn that Belle hadn’t refused. “Pardon?”
“I said yes.” Belle raised her chin and stared across the room at Bletchley as she grudgingly accepted his offer with all the emotion of buying flour from the miller. “I will allow you to court me, Sir Harold.”
“Good,” Bletchley commented so gleefully that Quinn expected him to rub his hands together. “Then tomorrow after church I’d be pleased to take you on a drive through the countryside.”
Belle nodded, saying nothing, but she couldn’t hide the grim sadness on her face. Or the sense of defeat that radiated from her.
Aunt Agatha smiled tightly at Bletchley. “Come, Sir Harold.” She took his arm and led him toward the door. “I’ll show you out.”
As the dowager led Bletchley from the room, she glanced back at Quinn, giving him a look he couldn’t comprehend in his stunned bewilderment over Belle’s answer. Although what he sensed from his aunt was disappointment. In him.
Quinn crossed his arms and stared at Belle, who hadn’t moved an inch. To agree to go through with this nonsense—with Bletchley! He was furious at her, and the little hellcat knew it, too. Which was why she refused to look at him.
But it wasn’t just anger, it was also betrayal. Not for himself, of course. It would be ludicrous to say so, as much as to say he was jealous of Bletchley. He had no rights to her, no feelings for her besides friendship.
No—she’d betrayed herself. Surrendering so easily to a life with a man like Sir Harold was a betrayal to the strong woman he thought she’d become.
“Oh no, you don’t,” he ground out as he stalked toward her. “You are not going through with this.”
* * *
“Quinn, please understand,” Belle protested, retreating across the room from him. He was furious, with more anger than she’d ever seen in him. So much that it shook her to her core. Even the hand she futilely held up to keep him at bay trembled.
But he was relentless in his pursuit, stepping her backward until he’d trapped her in the corner.
“Why, Annabelle?” he demanded. “Are you that desperate that you’d consider shackling yourself to that pompous arse?” His jaw tightened so hard that the muscles in his neck jumped. He held his hands against the wall at her shoulders to prevent her from running away. “Do you want to marry him?”
She shuddered at the thought. “Of course I don’t!”
“Then why—”
“Because I don’t have a choice! I have to marry.” She shoved at his shoulder, but the aggravating mountain of a man refused to budge. “And you said no to my proposal, remember?”
“Do not blame me for this,” he countered, his sapphire eyes flashing like lightning at midnight. “You didn’t have to agree to his suit.”
“What other option do I have?” Frustration trembled in her voice.
“To not marry,” he shot back. “And certainly not to consider marrying Bletchley.”
He didn’t understand what Glenarvon meant to her, or he’d never ask this of her. “He might be my only solution.”
He shook his head with bewilderment, as if he simply couldn’t fathom her. “You can make your home anywhere. You shouldn’t have to marry a man like Bletchley simply because you’re too damned stubborn to live anywhere else!”
At the unwitting callousness of his words, something snapped deep inside her, and she felt it shudder through her soul. Her hands drew into fists as anguish and frustration overwhelmed her.
“What do you know about home?” she forced out the cutting question, her resentment of his interference surging to the surface and barely controlled. “You—who grew up in the same house, sleeping in the same bed every night, surrounded by family who loved you. Where the worst that happened to you was being denied pudding at dinner because you’d played a prank on one of the footmen or didn’t finish your studies.” His handsome face blurred beneath the furious tears stinging in her eyes, but she couldn’t relent. “Did your father ever lay a hand on you or your brothers and sister? Or your mother?”
Shocked understanding began to darken his face. He whispered hoarsely, “Belle, what you—”
“While you were in your nursery, watched over by your nanny, I was being woken in the middle of the night to flee in the darkness because my father had gambled and drunk away the rent money. Again. I remember nights sleeping in doorways and in abandoned buildings, going without food for days, clothes worn to rags…hearing rats gnawing in the walls, picking out maggots from the flour so we could make bread, feeling the lice—”
She choked as the memories came rushing back so intensely that they strangled the words in her throat, so fiercely that she could once more feel the lice crawling on her skin and itching in her hair. She shuddered and squeezed her eyes closed, as much to shut out the look of shock on his face as the horrible memories of that dark time.
“We never stayed anyplace more than a few months—fleeing creditors and people my father had cheated. When he had a job and was sober, we were fine. And then something would happen to make him drink again, to gamble, to steal. To hit my mother.” She inhaled sharply. “And me.”
She felt fury rise in him, his large body stiffening with it. “Why didn’t your mother leave him?” he whispered. “Take you and go?”
She shook her head, not daring to open her eyes and see his pity. “Go where?” She stifled back a bitter laugh. “We had no relatives or friends who could help us, and what constable would ever arrest a husband for beating his wife?”
With her eyes closed, she couldn’t see him, but she felt him. He stood perfectly still, close but not touching.
“It was always like that,” she whispered. Now that the words were pouring out, she couldn’t stop them. “Always moving, never enough
to eat…Except once, when I turned eight. That year for my birthday there was cake. Mama gave me a new coat and shoes, and there was a doll in a frilly pink dress.” She couldn’t help smiling through the tears at the memory. “She was so clean and bright, with ribbons and lace, and real blond hair. I’d never seen anything as pretty as that doll. I sat on the floor of the dirty shed where we were living and did nothing all day but brush her hair, for hours and hours…” She sucked in a jerking breath. “When my father came home, he took all my presents and sold them. Including that doll.”
“Belle.” He cupped her face in his hands. She felt his long fingers trembling against her cheeks.
She opened her eyes and stared up at him. “But that was also the birthday when I met Lord Ainsley for the first time. He’d heard that Mama was living in the area, and since she used to work for him, he stopped by to visit. I had no idea then that meeting him would be my real gift, because two years later, when my father was in prison for theft and my mother died of fever, Lord Ainsley came for me and brought me here, where finally I was safe and warm, where there was always enough food and beds and—” She choked back a sob. Pained pierced her with each secret she revealed, but she couldn’t stop. Not until he understood. “I thought I’d arrived in heaven.”
A tear slid down her cheek. She clenched her teeth, furious at herself for being unable to stop it.
“So don’t talk to me of home and what that means when you’ve always had one. Or how I should simply walk away from mine.” Her hand swiped angrily at her cheek to wipe the tear away. “Because you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He stared at her silently, his eyes dark and his body tense. After that outburst and brutal chastisement, she expected him to simply turn around and walk away, to leave her to her own mess.
But he didn’t retreat, remaining close enough that she could feel the heat of him down her front, could smell that delicious scent of port and tobacco she’d already come to associate with him. And oh, the strength of him! It seeped from every inch of him, this man who had never backed down from a fight in his life.
She tried to push him away again, but frustratingly, he still wouldn’t move. Instead, the aggravating devil had the spine to step even closer, to wrap his arms around her and pull her against him.
Her chest burned with desolation, and she gave a wretched cry. As she tried to wrench herself away, he held tight, and worse—the more she struggled, the tighter he held her, until she had no choice but to wrap her arms around his waist, no choice but to bury her face against his hard chest as the sobs tore from her.
“Shh, Belle,” he whispered soothingly, his lips brushing against her temple. “You won’t have to leave here, and you won’t have to marry if you don’t want to. We’ll find another way for you to keep Glenarvon. I promise you. I’m not leaving here until we do.”
“How?” she mumbled against his chest, foolishly clinging to the faint pulse of hope he stirred inside her.
“I don’t know, but we will,” he declared resolutely, shifting back only far enough to tilt her face up until she had to look at him. The steely determination in his eyes took her breath away. “I will find a way.”
She nodded, unable to find her voice. She wanted to believe him, wanted to trust that the answer was that simple…Quinton Carlisle wished it, and fate made it happen.
But she knew better. She’d never been friends with fate.
CHAPTER SIX
One Week Later
(Three Weeks Until Belle’s Birthday)
Belle glanced out the drawing room window as another gentleman departed quickly from Glenarvon’s front door. Her stomach knotted. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
“Another gentleman arriving?” Lady Ainsley looked up from the desk where she was scratching out notes for the upcoming party.
“No.” She frowned, suspicion niggling at her. “Another one leaving.”
Something was definitely not right here. Lady Ainsley’s insistence that Quinton and Robert be put in charge of greeting potential suitors was surely leading to nothing but trouble. They were supposed to have been interviewing the callers to suss out the men’s intentions, sorting the blatant fortune hunters from the true gentlemen. But from Belle’s count as she watched the men come and go, the two Carlisles were sending away nearly all the men who’d arrived. Today, she’d estimated that a dozen gentlemen had ridden up the drive to call on her. Although it couldn’t be possible, she was certain she’d counted thirteen who’d left.
None of the departing men appeared to be happy. Including the last one, who turned to cast a dark scowl at the manor house before mounting his horse and riding away.
“A good sign, is it not?” The viscountess pushed her reading glasses up the bridge of her nose. “It means Quinton and Robert are doing their jobs.”
“Perhaps.” Or perhaps they were only adding to her headache.
And what a headache this past week had given her! With no other choice now but to marry, Belle had allowed Lady Ainsley to surreptitiously spread the information that her dowry was the estate and that she was looking for a husband. There was no mention of the birthday deadline, now only three weeks away, but there didn’t need to be if the number of men who began to call on her was any indication of the scheme’s success. Dressed in their finest, with hats in hands, they’d descended upon the estate like a swarm of locusts, where the two Carlisle brothers were waiting for them. Apparently, in ambush.
It was clear after only a few days that putting those two rascals in charge of approving suitors was like letting foxes guard the henhouse.
No—like a couple of foxes who refused to let the henhouse be built in the first place.
“It will all be fine.” Lady Ainsley turned her attention back to the to-do list for the house staff in preparation for the party. “I trust Quinton to do the right thing.”
Belle silently arched a dubious brow at that.
“After he has exhausted every other possible avenue,” the dowager added beneath her breath.
Disheartened, Belle turned away from the window and began to pace the length of the drawing room. Oh, why couldn’t Quinn have simply done what she wanted for once and accepted her proposal? Short of being given Glenarvon outright, it would have been the answer to her prayers.
Two weeks ago, she would have laughed at that notion. Married to Quinton Carlisle, of all men! She never would have countenanced such a thing. But now, not only would it be the solution to her dilemma, it might actually be pleasant to have Quinn for a husband.
And that realization nearly tripped her in mid-pace.
It was true. Although she was loath to admit it, at times the pest could be…enjoyable. During the past sennight, the most aggravating man in the world had become her friend and confidante, and her best ally in this inheritance mess.
She’d enjoyed spending time with him, playing chess in the evenings and talking long into the night, hearing stories about his wild youth with his brothers and all the pranks he’d pulled at university which nearly got him expelled. She enjoyed the habit she and Quinn had started of taking afternoon walks around the property and the village, when she confided her problems with running the estate and he offered sensible solutions. She’d even found herself looking forward to their debates over the news in the London Times during breakfast and respecting him for his mind.
Quinton Carlisle had a mind…Whoever would have thought it?
“If you keep pacing like that, my dear,” Lady Ainsley called out, “we shall have to replace the rug.”
Belle stopped where she was, halfway across the room, and with a heavy sigh, she turned to face the viscountess. But her uneasy fidgeting couldn’t be suppressed. Not today. Not with Quinton and Robert doing God only knew what downstairs. And certainly not since she was stuck spending the day inside with Lady Ainsley, planning out the last details of the party, which should have been a happy occasion but now filled her with dread.
What had origina
lly been planned to celebrate Belle’s birthday had now turned into a de facto engagement party, when Belle would have to announce the name of the man she’d chosen to marry. With only one week to spare, it was the latest moment when she could make her decision and still have time to hold a proper wedding in the parish church. Anything past that…well, it was the anvil or nothing, and if she waited that long, she feared she’d end up with nothing.
Unable to pace, she nervously bit at her thumbnail.
“And then we shall have to replace your thumb, as well.”
She scowled and dropped her hand to her side.
“I think we can find enough oranges to have sugared orange peels for the refreshments table,” Lady Ainsley mused almost to herself as she scratched out a note in her planning book. “Six dozen oranges, then?”
“Whatever you think best.” Belle paused at the window to look down at the front drive, just in time to see yet another gentleman arriving.
“I think three cakes for the party, don’t you?” Lady Ainsley commented and added another note to her list. “Lemon, cinnamon, and chocolate.”
“Whatever you think best.” She couldn’t help craning her neck to take one last glance outside the window, hoping against hope that the Carlisle brothers had found a good husband for her. One who would let her run Glenarvon without interference.
“What I think best,” Lady Ainsley repeated with a trace of pique, “is that I would like your input on these decisions. This is your party, Annabelle. It should be exactly as you want it.”
“It will be.” A lie. None of this was how she wanted it.
She began to pace again, not giving a fig about the rug.
She’d resigned herself to having to marry. She’d given up on a love match; now she simply hoped for an innocuous marriage that did no harm. Such a life wasn’t at all what she wanted, but Glenarvon would be hers, which was more than her mother ever had. In that, at least, she should have been happy.
So why did she feel like crying?
“The musicians have already been hired.” The viscountess ticked off another item on her list. “I’ve requested that they play several waltzes.”
When the Scoundrel Sins Page 12