Arabella blushed. "Do I-" She dropped her voice to a mere whisper. "Do I look like that?"
"No. Far more lovely. She's shop-worn and frowsy. You're beautiful. All over. Like a rose without thorns. Perfection."
He cleared his throat. "And now, we shall resume our normal guardian to ward relationship, and never speak of that again."
For indeed Blake could barely speak at all, his desire was surging so ardently at the thought of her naked at the inn, him touching her, kissing her…
Blake's high color told her something was amiss, but she thought it was anger combined with embarrassment over what Rosalie had tried to do right in front of her.
My goodness, she had become a voyeur, both fascinated and appalled at the manner in which Rosalie had tried to lure Blake into her bed.
It had been a lesson in how not to do it. Arabella had been right all along. Blake was not the kind of man who wanted an obvious woman.
She took heart in that fact, and also from his refusal of Rosalie. He had had no difficulty in showing his ample desire for her at the inn. She had to be patient a bit longer. He did have needs, and he had feelings for her which, if they were not love yet, were warm and friendly.
She dressed with care that night in a new sapphire and gold silk gown she had not been able to resist at the shops.
Blake's heart nearly lurched into his mouth when he saw her. Her tiara swept her hair up into the latest classical mode, and her swan-like neck and lovely bosom were displayed rather more than he was accustomed to despite the covering of sheer golden tulle which filled the square neckline.
His mouth went dry, and he stammered out words of admiration. "You look, well, lovely."
"Thank you. It isn't too much, is it?"
"Er, no. Perfect." He scarcely knew where to look with the tops of her creamy orbs peeping out at him so invitingly. Tonight was going to be torture. "Surely you will need a shawl?" he suggested, trying to swallow past the lump in his throat.
"I have it here," she said. "Can you help me?"
His hands trembled visibly as he wrapped the thin sapphire tulle around her. If anything it enhanced rather than concealed.
As soon as he got to Lady Pemberton's he went into the refreshment room and gulped down a cup of punch.
"It's like, that is it?" Thomas Eltham said with a laugh as he came up behind him.
"You wouldn't believe the day and evening I've had."
"Your ward leading you a merry dance?"
"No, Rosalie Crane Stanton, actually."
Thomas's face closed up. "She's gone beyond the bounds of common sense. I can only begin to guess what she's done."
"I doubt it." Blake told him succinctly.
The Duke's eyes grew wider and wider. At the end of the narrative, he said, "Egad, this is worse than anything I could have imagined. Rest assured that I will deny any gossip that comes my way."
"Thank you. I really do appreciate your friendship. And Philip's," he added, seeing him trying to keep Arabella entertained without making it too obvious that he was holding the other swains at bay.
But he never touched her, and never seemed to flirt or say anything she objected to. He would be a good match for her, he had to admit.
His friend spoke, almost as if he could read his thoughts. "Philip is a good man on the whole, but he has a checkered past, even worse than your family scandal in many senses. He's had a hard life. I can't blame him for any of his choices in the past. I do blame him a bit for being a rake now, though.
"Philip is not for Arabella. Not for any woman at present. He is a very angry young man. It's going to take a very special woman to love and redeem him. No, I'm afraid there's no help for it. You love Arabella, and she loves you. Marry her, for pity's sake, and have done with it."
Blake began to protest, but Thomas shook his head. "I know you only too well. You can hide it from her, even yourself, but not from me. Or people who are astute enough to see the way you look at each other."
"But Peter would never-"
"What, forgive you for making his sister happy? Oh, I think he would. Do you not imagine he might have hoped for this turn of events to come about as a result? Peter is no fool."
Blake's eyes widened in surprise. "No, surely he would not have-"
"He will be away for some time. He would have wanted to be sure Arabella would be protected and happy. I can't think of any woman of our acquaintance who would suit you better."
Blake nodded and sighed. "But there may be plenty of other men who would suit her better."
"But she loves you. Loves you now. Charlotte and I took almost too long to admit how we felt, and I nearly lost her. Don't make the same mistake. It's been a month, and I can see you love her more with every passing day. Don't worry about convention in this instance. If you love her, marry her."
He sighed. "I need to settle all of my affairs in Somerset first, with the Jeromes."
"You will of course come to stay with us when you do, and the townhouse in Bath is always at your disposal. Just send a note round to the servants the day before and they will try to make you comfortable."
"I'm sure they'll do more than try. Thank you for the offer and the words of advice. But I need to be left to my own discretion in so weighty a matter."
Thomas bowed. "Yes, of course, I quite understand. Just remember, you must be careful. There will be enough people angry about your love for her to try to pull the two of you asunder. One of them is coming this way now."
Blake prayed it was not Rosalie. He had already seen enough of her. More than enough, he thought with a shudder.
But no, it was Leonore.
"I see Philip and Adam have supplanted you already in Arabella's affections. Well, she is young, and wants someone with a bit more verve, joie de vivre. What girl that age wants to be tied down to a man so much older?"
He tried to ignore the pointed barb, though it was not something he had not already said to himself a hundred times.
She sidled closer to him. "And what do you think she would say if I told her-"
"She knows," Blake lied, and instantly regretted the fib.
Leonore's sharp eye detected the dissimulation at once. "Ah. So you haven't told her yet."
"Even if she knew, it would make no difference. She is my ward only," he said with what he hoped was sufficient conviction.
She smirked. "Still maintaining that pleasant fiction, are we?"
He smiled back tightly. "In the same way you seem to maintain the pleasant fiction that I ever cared about you and would come back to you if only Arabella were out of the way.
"But she isn't in your way. You are. You're your own worst enemy, and not a person I choose to know. Now, if you will excuse me-"
"Can you at least be kind enough to get me some punch, if it's not too much trouble?" she asked suddenly.
"What? Oh, yes, of course, " Blake said, his inate sense of gallantry winning above his anger and disgust.
It took him some time to make his way through the crush in the refreshment room, by which time Arabella had been whisked away from Philip, and Leonore was able to put on a convincing performance of worry.
"There you are. There was a messenger looking for you. Something about an emergency at the clinic."
"What? Where is he? What's happened?" he asked quickly, looking around.
"I told him to look for you in the refreshment room."
"Very good then. Thank you. Here you are." He handed her the cup. "I need to find my ward. Good night."
Arabella had been observing Blake and Leonore together for some time with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. They looked more than intimate together. She had been trying to fend off the assiduous attentions of Adam for some time, but when she saw Blake with his lover, a fit of jealousy overtook her.
She allowed herself to be led away from Philip's side as Oliver had begin to monopolize him in a conversation about gambling.
She found herself in a small alcove with Adam, who stroked his hand dow
n her cheek as though he were caressing a treasure, and looked at her as though he were a starving man presented with a sumptuous meal.
"My dear Miss Neville, Arabella, please allow me to hope that my attentions have not gone unnoticed, and that you might consider us furthering our acquaintance as more than simply cousins. My heart is all aflutter-"
She blushed and did not know where to look. As she cast her eyes about away from her interlocutor, she espied Blake searching for her on the other side of the room.
He saw her, and stiffened. Then he signalled to her with a curt movement of his head across the crowded dance floor to join him near the entrance to the ballroom. He must be pretty annoyed with her if he was making her leave…
"I believe we have been missed. I must go."
"I shall take it as a yes then, that you like-" he continued.
"Yes, yes," she said, so distracted that she did not pay attention to what she was promising as she hurriedly moved to Blake's side.
"Thank you," Adam said, with a smile and nod to Oliver. It was all falling into place for them at last…
A tall dark-suited man handed Blake a note from the clinic as he was waiting for her. He growled his thanks, seething with jealousy over the little tete a tete he had interrupted between Arabella and Adam. He read the one line missive,
"Come at once. Urgent. Dr. Herriot," and put it in his pocket.
He motioned Thomas to come over to him, and explained his predicament.
Arabella came up a short time later, expecting a good telling off for having been caught out with Adam.
Instead he said, "I'm sorry, I have to go. Thomas and Charlotte will take you home. Will you be all right?"
"Fine," she said, masking her surprise and relief. "Are you sure you don't want me to come with you?"
"I don't know what sort of emergency I'm dealing with, but it must be something serious. I wouldn't want to expose you to--."
"But you do it yourself every day."
"No, dear. We are not going to have this disagreement again now," he said in a firm tone. "I have to go."
He took her hand and squeezed it warmly, then led her over to where Charlotte Eltham was standing with Alistair Grant.
"Good luck!" the Duke called.
But Blake was already striding out the door.
Waiting at the door was Leonore. They all watched as Blake spoke to her quickly, and then the two of them left together.
Arabella thought she was going to be ill. He had lied! They had made an assignation right under everyone's nose, and gone off together. How could he?
She told herself she had no right to be jealous, that they did not have that kind of relationship, and never could have. That Leonore had the prior claim, and he evidently enjoyed her company, could not be in dispute.
But how he could prefer the older woman to her was confusing and terrifying. What sort of hold did she have over him? What was the secret of her charms?
Adam and his brother both came up to her now. Adam gave her a charming smile. "You simply cannot refuse to dance with us. We shall be heart-broken."
She looked at the two tall, dark-haired young men, and managed a brave smile back. She wondered how it was possible that three men who were so similar at first glance, with their dark hair and eyes, could be so completely different. Blake was head and shoulders above her cousins. And not just because he was the tallest of the three men. He was intelligent, kind, perceptive…
But Adam and Oliver were young. There was plenty of time for them to transform themselves into respectable and sober men of sense, tame the wild streak that she glimpsed in them every so often, and some of the more racy things they said.
After all, Blake had been twenty once, and look what trouble he had nearly got himself into with the odious Stanton woman. He had been engaged to her, for pity's sake. He had known what she was like, and yet still stood by her, been willing to marry her.
Well, she was not going to let Blake's peccadilloes spoil her good time. He had told her that he was her guardian, plain and simple. That there was all there was to their relationship, and all there ever could be. Arabella just had to move on. Find happiness with someone who could truly love her, not someone who would be torn between the two women he had always wanted and needed.
She gave a small sigh, took her leave of the Elthams and Alistair, and offered her hand to Oliver. "It's your turn."
Philip Marshall watched like a hawk, but said nothing. There would be time enough later….
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Blake glowered in the corner of the coach as Leonore thanked him for the tenth time for taking her home.
"I've told you, it's on my way."
"We both know it isn't, Blake," she said in a sultry purr.
"Pardon? I'm heading to the clinic, not my home."
"You can say that, but I know the truth."
He shook his head. The carriage pulled up in front of the small white house a short time later.
"This is your door, I believe, your address. Forgive me if I don't help you down and see you to the door myself, but I have an emergency at the clinic."
"Oh, that was just my little way of getting you out of Lady Pemberton's without you having to make excuses to that adorable little child."
"Pardon me? You mean I've been half out of my mind with worry for no reason? That this note was a fake?" he gasped, turning red with anger.
"Note? What note?" she asked, at a loss for once.
He sighed in exasperation. Holding onto his temper by a thread, Blake said, "Please, understand this once and for all, so that there can be no mistake. I don't love you, Leonore. I don't want to have anything more to do with you.
"And don't say it is Arabella's fault, for I stopped visiting you long before she came into my life. I know you have other men, and can have even more if that's what you want. Just not me."
"But darling--"
He ignored the interruption. "Six years may seem like a long time to you, but it's been nothing more than a flicker for me, a handful of nights of desperation on my part when I was living here in London, or was home from the war. You're a clever woman, attractive in your own way.
"But to say the plain truth, I do not even like you very much. You're ultimately cold and vindictive. You use your body as a carpenter would his tools. There's no warmth, passion, generosity of spirit, tenderness in what you and I shared."
"But Blake, I can--"
"I was a piece of flesh for you. You were an outlet for me. I thank you for relieving me of my virginity, but I wish I could have had a warmer woman to share my bed. Someone who was not interested only in her own pleasure and interests. If we do happen to run into each other again, just cut me, would you? Pretend we've never met."
Leonore raised her hand to slap him.
Blake grasped her arm before she could strike and helped her down from the carriage.
He got back into the coach and told the driver to head to the clinic.
Leonore cursed and shouted, but the vehicle was already moving and he soon left the harpy behind. She might have been trying to entrap him, but that note must have come from somewhere.
His colleague Dr. Herriot was in a frenzy when he arrived.
"Thank God you're here. I'm really sorry I had to send for you. I didn't know what to do. We found her several hours ago in an alley, dumped like a piece of rubbish. She's in a bad way, Blake. Truth to tell, I've never seen anything like it. I've tried everything, but she's in agony."
Blake did a quick examination of the writhing woman and tried to tamp down his mounting horror. The bruises all over her face and breasts and stomach were fearsome enough, but they would heal in time. No, it was the ragged flash between her thighs which was so awful.
"You need to restrain her so I can see what we're dealing with."
Even a doctor as inured to life in the brutal East End as Blake had never seen anything like this.
The examination only made her writhe more, though the so
unds the hapless woman was making now were more like…
He found a trace of greenish black powder on her genitals. He shook his head. "Cantharides. Also referred to as Spanish fly. A powerful aphrodisiac. It can be eaten or absorbed through the skin. Whoever did this exposed her to it in some way, either with his hand or genitals. I am hoping he poisoned himself too, but I can't be sure."
"So she's been half swived to death?" his young colleague gasped.
"Nearly all the way by the look of it. It causes kidney failure. The Marquis de Sade once poisoned an entire orgy full of prostitutes with some laced sweets. We need to get some fluid into her, now."
The Rakehell Regency Romance Collection Volume 2 Page 80