by Cecilia Gray
Unfortunately, that meant no one referred to her as motherly or nurturing—a trait reserved for Alice, her eldest sister, nor bookish—that was Bridget, nor chubby—granted, an unkind reference to Charlotte, nor eerily intelligent—as was Dinah. No, she was pretty. Unlike her sisters’ nicknames, Sera’s represented a trait guaranteed to fade with time and when it did, what would she become?
Then there was the blessing of her family. Her father, Dominic Belle, was the richest industrialist in all of Europe, some speculated in the world. While her mother had died after childbirth, Sera had grown up wanting nothing. A far better scenario than most.
Yet, her father’s roots in trade also meant an obsession with titles that had seen her married at sixteen, far younger than she would have chosen, had choice ever been on the table.
Her marriage had also been a blessing in many ways, even if she hadn’t had much choice in the matter at the time. Tom had been nicknamed the Jolly Giant, and with good reason. He’d been kind and quite funny. They’d spent many mornings laughing. Once she’d made him laugh so hard with an impression of her sisters that coffee had sprayed from his nostrils. It pained her now to remember it. Because Tom had in many respects been her dearest friend.
Her widowhood—also a blessing and a curse. There was a deference, respect, and power she experienced now that a woman of twenty-two would not normally have. Yet there was the way in which people—even her own family—looked at her. Sidelong glances they thought she didn’t see, as though she might break. As though she were as fragile as her appearance suggested.
Then there was the more practical matter at hand of having many homes. Of course it was a blessing to be so well taken care of, to be so fortunate as to have her own home and to be welcomed in the homes of others. But it also meant that the simple logistics of meeting someone at “home” became fraught with uncertainty.
Please come home.
She had been seated in her parlor having tea and reading the gossip sheets—a particularly salacious account of an unnamed lady’s first viewing of the resplendent Viscount Savage—when her butler appeared, correspondence in hand. The scrawl was the familiar set of strong slashes and minimal loops that Alice employed.
Amidst the rising panic—for Alice, eternally in charge Alice, was not one to ask for help—there was also a bit of confusion. Come home? Alice’s home? What if it had to do with Alice’s baby?
Sera had been in the three-story town house that she and Tom had purchased shortly after their marriage. Unlike Tom’s other residences, the house was not entailed to the Rivington estate, and did not pass to Tom’s brother, Benjamin Abernathy, when he became the Duke.
Unfortunately, the footman who had brought the message had been immediately on his way before she could discover what Alice had meant by home.
She was in her coach in short order, but had stumbled over where to send her coachman.
The Belles had many homes.
There was Woodbury, the ducal estate, where her sister Bridget resided, having married Benjamin. It had been Sera’s for a while and she had spent many happy weeks there during the year. She’d personally never thought of it as home but understood it was Bridget’s home.
Dinah, recently married to Tom and Benjamin’s younger brother, Graham, would likely wax poetic about how the term home was misused to imply primary residence or a state of belonging—how it was just a building. And yet, when she announced she was going home, more often than not she meant their terraced apartment, although she and Graham also maintained a cottage in Surrey and an apartment in Bath.
Alice and her husband, Robert, kept a primary residence in Leeds while they built more permanent lodgings on his new land, recently granted by the Crown. They had no London home, not because Alice could not afford one but because among all the Belles there were homes to spare. But what could Alice’s note mean now?
Surely not their father’s London’s flat.
After a moment, Sera sent the coachman to their Aunt Margaret’s London home. After the death of their mother, the Belle sisters had spent much of their youth growing up with their Aunt Margaret. Their father ran a shipping company, after all, and spent most of his time at sea. To this day, Charlotte still remained in residence. Still, if Charlotte was in residence, whyever had Alice sent for Sera?
She could not imagine a scenario in which she would be the person most capable of help. She had to stop herself from wiping her damp palms on the skirt of her half-mourning dress. Tom had died in March, nearly two years ago, and she was one month away from shedding her purple and moving to lavender and gray. Still, it wouldn’t do to have it ruined.
As the carriage came to a stop, she threw open the door and climbed down, never mind the coachman assisting her. But for all her haste in being led to her aunt’s parlor, she suffered from no deshabille. That was part and parcel of being a diamond of the first water. Never a hair out of place, even when she tried.
Sera was announced by a servant and stopped short at the scene that greeted her. Alice and Charlotte, standing side by side. The former biting her nails, her large belly protruding.
Alice. Biting her nails?
It was enough to make Sera’s knees weak as she swayed into a seat.
“What is it?” she asked. God, not Robert. Alice’s husband was so young and their first child was due in three months. Why was her first thought now always of tragedy, that someone would lose her husband as Sera had lost hers?
“Roberta is missing,” Alice said. “I saw her at breakfast, and she was gone by lunch.”
“That’s hours ago,” Sera said. “But hardly reason for concern. She could be distracted at the shops or have met up with a friend for tea.”
Roberta Crawford was Alice’s niece by marriage, and Sera had accepted her as her new charge and meant to see her well married. A young girl with butterscotch curls, she was fifteen, from Leeds, and would be the crowning glory of Sera’s career. Sera had seen many young girls well married, but for someone from Roberta’s respectable but simple background to achieve a match within a titled family, which was Sera’s intention, the rumors of her being made Patroness at Almack’s were a mere formality once her light mourning was finished next month.
Of course this was about more than her aspirations. Roberta had quite fallen in love with a boy, Peter Herron, an amiable sort, whose uncle was Earl of Landale—a family with whom she was already acquainted.
Charlotte yanked at the ends of her red hair. “It’s more than tea. There’s a note.” She handed Sera a crumpled piece of paper. She took it and smoothed it between her gloves. The script was hurried and splotched.
I’ve gone to rescue him.
“Rescue him?” she asked. “Whom?”
“Peter Herron,” Alice said.
“Peter is in need of rescue?” And what possible situation could have left him at the tender mercy of a fate in which only Roberta could intervene? Roberta, while lovely and kind and intelligent, had no real influence over society and, as far as Sera knew, no particular life-saving skills.
Charlotte sighed. “I have it on good authority that the boy has engaged in an unsavory professional matter that will mean a risk to his health.”
“On whose authority? And whatever do you mean a risk to his health?”
“A fight,” Alice said.
Sera had been in mid-sip, and her swift intake of breath swept the tea into her throat. She coughed, sputtering. A fight? “Does he train with Gentleman Jackson?” she asked, even though she knew it would not be he. No, with her luck, it would be the other instructor in London whose name was much bandied about.
“Lord Savage did not say.” Charlotte said, lightly rubbing Sera’s back. “I only overheard him mention he was to be out of town for several days for a boxing match, and he listed the tickets, including Peter. He must have no idea that Peter and Roberta were… well… they had an understanding, did they not?”
“Not officially,” Sera said. “The Season has not even beg
un, but I do believe her quite taken with him. She must have been, to have behaved so recklessly.”
“I haven’t told Robert yet,” Alice said. “He’ll do something foolhardy with his pistols.”
Sera glanced again to her sister’s belly. “Surely he would not be so irresponsible.”
“I would hope not, but his fatherly instincts are easily riled lately, and Roberta is his favorite niece and namesake. Oh, but I must tell him soon, I suppose.”
“But tell him I have gone after her. Gone after them both,” Sera said.
“Peter, too?” Charlotte asked. “Whatever for?”
“To persuade him to give up this nonsensical attempt at manliness and do right by Roberta.”
Chapter Six
There was quite an advantage in being the youngest sister to four exceptional women. Sera had many good examples to follow regarding how to behave. She had studied Alice’s command and organization, Bridget’s passion and pursuit of happiness, Charlotte’s ability to blend in and see things others did not, and Dinah’s cold logic.
Sera could be a chameleon when she wanted to—a thing unlike what she normally was—just by channeling her sisters.
With Roberta missing for several hours now, it would take all of her talents and resources to catch up with her. Thus, in a short time she cancelled her commitments, gathered a day bag, and made her way across town.
Viscount Savage, heir to the Earl of Devon, kept a posh apartment on Piccadilly. Sera had known about Lord Savage’s apartment since before she had been married. He was a rather notorious noble, his name much bandied about in the sheets, and particularly known for his beauty. After becoming a married woman, she’d learned, in gossip reserved for married ladies instead of maidens, that he had two other apartments in London, both reserved for mistresses. Once she’d become widowed, another world of information became known to her, in that Lord Savage also kept rooms within a gaming hell for his women of ill repute.
This was all in addition to his family estates and holdings, so, much like her own, his idea of home was a complicated one. Still, she made her way to Piccadilly hoping to find him in residence. Her lady’s maid trailed behind her. As a widow, Sera was free to conduct her own business, and loved having the freedom to visit whomever she chose, even a rake as infamous as he was.
His butler seemed surprised to see her, but accepted her card and showed her into the parlor. It was her first time in any of his abodes, and she was surprised to find it tastefully and discreetly decorated in grays and silvers, with the occasional heather blue accent in cushion and drape.
Damon Cade strode in, as if he was in a hurry and she was one of many appointments. “Lord Damon,” she said, allowing herself a familiarity based on their families’ strong acquaintance. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”
“The more urgent the notice, the more intrigued I become, Duchess.” He bent over her hand to kiss her gloved knuckles and called for tea, but she insisted she needed none.
His green eyes peeked through the ebony locks falling in his face, mischievous and friendly as always. Londoners were always besides themselves whenever Sera and he were together. He was the only man in Town as beautiful as she, and people loved to speculate that they might join in matrimony.
She supposed there could be worse arrangements, and yet she imagined Lord Damon, much like herself, had far more beneath the surface than he let on, and to be honest, she was pleased to familiarize herself only with the still waters he presented to her and those like her.
“You’ve the fastest horses in all of London,” she said, “and I’m in need of expedient transport.”
“While I do have the fastest horses, I also recall procuring for you several of your own. Back when—” He did not finish the sentence, which would have recalled the day that she first met him, years ago, at Tattersall’s. She’d been young and impetuous and thought to buy Tom some horses in the hopes that it would cure his fear of riding. He tried, oh he’d tried, but had never taken to it the way she did.
“Please, Lord Damon. It is a matter of honor.”
He drew quickly to her side, his generally insouciant gaze replaced by a stern manner. “Whose honor?”
“You can hardly expect me to say.”
“Where do you intend to take the horses?”
“Very conveniently, in a direction you are already planning to travel. I hope to overtake another carriage en route to Dunbury—”
“For the fight?” he asked.
“Yes!” She should ask him if Christian would be in attendance. He and Christian were friends. In fact, she wondered if Christian had ever shared anything else with Lord Damon and his friends. Anything about her—and that night, long ago. He wouldn’t, of course. Not as a gentleman, but still, she was aware that men often shared exploits without sharing details. Perhaps he’d told them of a Mrs. Plain, a woman who could fight, and drink, and kiss. A woman who didn’t exist except in her mind. She shook the thought away. “It is imperative that I intercept a coach that left earlier, possibly hours ago.”
“You’ll be in luck, then,” he said. “Dunbury is predicted to be a crush, and the road will be crammed through and through. You could arrive at the end of the line and send a rider forward to retrieve the objects of your pursuit.”
“So we depart within the hour?” she said.
He laughed. “I had hoped to avoid most of the mad rush myself, but for a matter of honor, I will endure it.”
The boy was distracted. Perhaps his stomach was also in turmoil as their coach rocked its way towards Dunbury. They’d left earlier than most, but even with the fight two days away, it felt like half of London had traveled with them. The coach’s roof was packed so heavily with supplies that when the coach swayed to and fro, it shook with the weight of the items bundled above it.
Damn Peter Herron and his supplies. It wouldn’t be half so bad if the boy could travel alone, but he’d insisted on coming with Christian. Since joining his gymnasium, the boy had been tight-lipped about his family. Christian knew his uncle was Earl of Landale but that was an impressive lot of nothing.
“Ginger helps,” Christian offered. He pressed part of a root into the boy’s hand while gnawing on his own. It quelled his stomach, but only from the simplest of sways.
Peter only shook his head, staring pensively out the window.
“It does no good to be nervous,” he said. “Fights aren’t won in the ring. They’re won in here.” He pointed to his head, then Peter’s. “If you’ve lost the fight in there, then there’s no reason to step into the ring at all.”
The boy didn’t seem frustrated by his philosophy, like many of Christian’s charges often were. “I’m not worried about the fight.”
“But you are worried about something.”
Peter hesitated a moment, then gave a single nod.
“Someone?” Christian ventured.
The boy’s lower lip pouted out and it seemed, for a moment, as though he might cry. Christian was taken aback. He’d never been one for tears, was not impressed to find it in his fighters. Peter seemed determined to fight back against the emotion, and for the first time, Christian wondered if it might hinder his ability to fight in the ring.
“You can talk to me,” Christian offered. “I’m your trainer.” Some felt the relationship tenuous, but not Christian. He meant it sincerely and in every sense of the word.
“There’s a girl,” Peter said.
Christian leaned back in his seat and settled his hands on his knees. Of course there was a girl. There was always a girl. “Does she not approve of the fighting?” Even all these years later, he could see Sera’s face in the moonlight, the utter horror in it when he had offered in a moment of weakness to see her rescued from her marriage to Tom.
She’d said he was just a bit of fun. That was all. That’s all he ever was. Fun on the side. An amusing bedroom tale. Not the kind of person a lady would marry. Well, he wouldn’t wish that union on anyone. Certainly n
ot on Peter.
“I don’t know. I’ve only just told her.”
“Just told her? Peter, you’ve been in my saloon for weeks now.”
“I was ignoring her before.”
Christian sighed and leaned forward, his elbows on his thighs, and gentled his voice. “I’m only here to tell you how to fight. Not how to live your life.”
“Have you ever loved someone who was too good for you?” the boy asked.
The question lanced Christian’s heart. Had he ever? He couldn’t remember a time when he had not. Oh sure, he had told himself it was not love. He had told himself it was one feckless night.
Just a bit of fun.
He had watched her walk down the aisle of the parish church into another man’s arms as if it had been nothing. He had spent years attending balls and fetes and outings, always with a happy smile on his face.
Then he had attended her husband’s funeral. He’d seen her devastation. He’d felt it firsthand in his own body. Felt wrecked by their concord, and most particularly, felt guilt that perhaps he’d had a hand in bringing the event about.
Hadn’t he imagined a world in which he and Sera could be together openly? Even if it meant the demise of her husband? Of course he had.
Then Tom had gone and died in the most heroic of fashions—while attempting to save another from drowning.
How was Christian to answer such a question but with the truth? “Yes,” he said. He might love her still. That was the thing about love, unfortunately. It turned out that when one gave it away, it didn’t need to be returned. He’d fallen for her bit by bit, without realizing it. Not all that night, he realized. But more so over the years.
“Did you let her go?”
He felt a rasp in his throat, and he tried to swallow it without success. “No,” he admitted. “She left me.”
Peter looked up in surprise. “Oh.” He glanced back out the window. “Oh. I’m sorry for that.”