Bella clasped her father’s hands.
They’d been endlessly patient. She knew of parents who arranged marriages with more concern for titles and bloodlines than their daughters’ happiness.
She longed to tell them the truth, but it was one she could barely admit herself.
Clever young women who hoped to publish their own book one day did not allow their heart to be smashed by a man who hadn’t even bothered to send a letter in five years. A man who’d become a duke and probably didn’t even remember her anymore.
“I should prepare to greet our visitors,” she told her parents. Then more softly to her father, “I’ll do my best.”
Perhaps it was time to let go of Past Bella, that silly girl so infatuated with her childhood friend that she’d convinced herself he returned her affection when all he truly wished was to bed as many women as it took to prove his prowess.
New Bella knew better than to trust such a man ever again.
She let out a long breath, trying to release all the tension knotting her muscles. But some deep vein of unease remained and Bella could only think of how appealing it would be to go back to her room and work on her book.
She sensed her parents anxiously watching her and pushed the errant thought of escape away.
There would soon be four gentlemen awaiting her presence in the drawing room, and all of them possessed at least one important quality in their favor.
None of them were Rhys Forester.
Chapter Three
Rhys gave one shove with his bootheel and four heavy volumes crashed to the tiles in a terribly pleasing pile of bent spines and crumpled pages. This corner of the conservatory was blasted cold so late at night, but his mother’s desk and chair in the airy open space were far preferable to the cramped stuffy confines of his father’s study.
His eyes ached, his head throbbed, and he couldn’t make heads or tails of the numbers and notations in the estate’s ledgers. The books were as much use to him on the floor as they’d been after hours of perusing their pages.
He was glad to be rid of them and sank with a sigh into the creaking leather of his chair. Folding his hands behind his head, he stretched his legs out atop his mother’s ormolu desk. He closed his eyes and tried to appreciate the silence, both the stillness of the space and the quieting of his mind.
It lasted approximately fourteen seconds before a frustrated groan rose in his throat.
Who was he trying to fool?
He loathed silence, and he hated being alone. Since coming to Edgecombe he’d encountered a nearly endless supply of both. His sister still hadn’t quite forgiven him and spent most of her time visiting friends in the village or holed up in her chamber.
The single attempt he’d made at a sincere apology had caused her to cry and rush off to the library, her haven as a child and now too apparently.
As if his thoughts had summoned her, Rhys heard her approach.
“When I was little, I used to love lying on the cool tiles to read.” Margaret’s slippered steps sounded behind him. “Though now I don’t think I’d enjoy getting down on my elbows to read.”
“Sounds uncomfortable to me.”
“Not as uncomfortable as those ledgers look. You’ve bent the pages.”
“Serves them right.”
“And why are we angry at the ledgers?” Meg came to stand beside his chair, arms crossed as she stared down at him.
“I’m outnumbered by them.”
“Might I help?” She asked the question softly. Tentatively.
“The responsibility is mine. You have a Season to plan.”
He couldn’t tell her. Rhys had no doubt the answers to every question regarding their father’s indebtedness were between the ledgers’ pages, but it was not a trouble he planned to visit on his sister. She was too prone to worry as it was.
“Speaking of which”—she clasped her hands together and her voice pitched with excitement—“my friend recommended a clever modiste who’s made gowns for several prominent debutantes. She’s in London, so we must make a trip there soon. I will need to order dresses, shoes, hats—”
“I know.” The sigh he let out was tinged with regret. “Why not start in a week?”
She unfolded her arms and began plucking at a ribbon at the wrist of her wrap. “If something’s amiss, you should tell me. Papa never told me anything and I loathed it.”
Rhys looked up at her and noted the lines of worry creasing her forehead. How miserable it must have been for her here alone with their father in a rambling lonely estate. The thought came that he should have visited more often or brought her to London once in a while. But that was foolishness. His reputation would have ruined hers.
“Please don’t worry. I’ll ensure that your first Season is a grand success.” He had no idea how he’d achieve that claim, but he would.
“There were debts, weren’t there?”
When he didn’t reply, she took a step toward the ledgers.
“Leave them, Meg. Trust me. All will be well.” He managed a smile and she gave a little nod of silent agreement that she would press no more. At least for tonight.
The topic would come up again. He had no doubt. His sister was tenacious, if nothing else.
“Then if you promise not to throw anything else this evening, I shall return to bed.”
“Sleep well.”
After she’d gone, all he could think about were the damned ledgers. Kick them to the floor, throw them out a bloody window, and the facts would remain the same. There were irregularities. Even with his ineptitude in mathematics, it was clear the columns didn’t add up. But the numerical notations were hell to decipher. Not only were they scribbled in a messy hand, some had been scratched out. Even the bits that were legible challenged him. Over the years, he’d gotten better at deciphering words on a page. He’d improved at jotting down his own thoughts too, but when he was exhausted, when problems stacked themselves up over his head, everything was a damnable pain in the arse.
What he needed was someone with a mind for numbers and fine details. He didn’t trust Edgecombe’s steward. Not only had the man hied off on a holiday prior to Rhys’s arrival, but he was either oblivious to the errors in the estate’s ledgers or he’d been swindling the Claremont dukedom for years. He’d met him once years earlier, and despite impeccable manners, the man hadn’t impressed.
Now the only question was whether Mr. Radley would return to his post or disappear with Claremont money, if he was indeed the one diverting funds from the accounts.
“Bloody blighted hell.”
Rhys lowered his boots to the tiles and stood, eyeing the bottle of bourbon he’d emptied earlier. He considered calling a maid to fetch another, but a fuzzy mind wouldn’t help him unravel the mystery before him.
He’d always been damned awful at puzzles, unlike the girl who’d brightened every day of his childhood. Instinctively, he turned his head left, staring at the glass and metal walls of the conservatory but seeing much farther in his mind’s eye. He looked past Edgecombe’s brick facade toward Hillcrest, the neighboring estate.
What might she be doing this evening?
The last day he’d seen her, she’d been happy, celebrating. Her parents had spared no expense for the elaborate garden party and, for once, Arry had allowed herself to relish the kind of attention she normally shied from.
He clenched his hands into fists when the memory sharpened. The disappointment in her eyes. The tears she swiped away with the back of her hand.
God, what a wretch he’d been. And he’d never even apologized.
On instinct, he reached for his suit coat and didn’t bother with finding his discarded neck cloth. He exited the conservatory and kept striding, the click of his bootheels echoing through Edgecombe’s empty marble-lined halls, until he reached the front door.
Hillcrest was too far off for him to see the estate, even on a clear moonlit night, but he knew the route by heart. His pulse thudded faster, anticipation nudg
ing him out the door and down the steps. Deep inside, a guilty voice of warning whispered to turn back, but Rhys dipped his head and started off against the cold breeze.
If he was going to remain at Edgecombe for any amount of time, if he intended to be any kind of duke at all, making amends with the most prosperous and well-loved family in the village made sense.
Not that he was sensible. Taking a carriage and not showing up on their doorstep disheveled and unshaven would have been sensible.
But he followed his instincts and his gut told him not to stop.
He kept on, striding through the fields west of Edgecombe. He could see lights now, the long windows of Hillcrest’s facade illuminated with a warm glow. He stumbled over uneven ground and realized he’d walked so far that these were no longer the neatly pressed lawns Edgecombe’s gardener took pride in under his feet. He’d reached the stony fields, an unforgiving patch of earth that forever provided a plentitude of rocks for the mile-long fence dividing the ducal acreage from its neighbor.
The bulky outline of the wall stood out in the moonlight. So much smaller than it loomed in his memory. How many times had he scaled the jagged structure to reach the Prescott estate? How many times had he helped a girl with copper-colored curls scramble over to his side?
Before Meg came along, his childhood had been a lonely round of nannies and tutors. It was natural that Arabella had become his playmate, his closest companion. She’d merrily joined Rhys’s childhood antics, a partner to romp with across the countryside. Four years his junior and she’d still been able to best him at everything. Fearless and too clever for her own good, she’d been adventurous and the most loyal of friends.
She’d been the only one he’d confided in about his struggle with reading and how desperately he wished to please his father. Only Bella had been allowed to read the scraps of poetry and unfinished stories he’d felt compelled to write in his youth. She’d never laughed at him or lost patience. Indeed, she’d encouraged him in every endeavor.
Rhys could feign blind confidence well enough, but Bella Prescott was a woman who truly could accomplish anything she set her mind to.
Unfortunately, she’d put her mind toward avoiding him. And he’d just as determinedly tried to ignore her. She’d once attended a ball he’d been a guest at too. At one point he’d been certain she noticed him, but then she’d turned away. They’d never acknowledged or spoken a word to one another.
He understood. The memory of what he’d done filled him with disgust and he was loath to revisit it.
Bella had idolized him, looked up to him, and as he had a tendency to do with all those he cared for, he’d disappointed her. So severely he’d broken all the trust and camaraderie they’d built over years of friendship.
He’d been so young and brash, he hadn’t even expressed real regret. She’d been too angry to let him.
Five years seemed long enough to leave that task undone.
“Your mother has truly outdone herself,” Louisa whispered as she leaned closer to Bella on the settee they shared. She was a frenetic young woman, always on the move, and tonight she was virtually vibrating on the cushion next to Bella’s.
“She certainly outwitted me.” Bella smiled. Or rather she continued smiling. The truth was she’d been smiling so long, she feared her face would soon freeze in an expression of unconvincing mirth.
“Lady Yardley isn’t usually the scheming sort. You’ve made her desperate, Bell. She’s organized the next fortnight like a military maneuver.”
“Oh, I’m well aware.” She was also aware that she should be working on her book and drafting letters to publishers, but instead she found herself seated in her family’s best drawing room with several pairs of masculine eyes turned her way.
She had agreed to try, but three days into the house party and she knew nothing for certain except that none of the men her mother had invited made her want to change her mind about matrimony.
“Two are missing,” Louisa noted.
“Perhaps they don’t care for musical evenings.” Her mother had provided for entertainment on each night of the house party. Tonight, one of the gentlemen visitors was doing an admirable job performing Schumann on the room’s grand piano. “They departed as soon as the music started. They’ll be back.”
Bella suspected her mother had informed each suitor bluntly that their only purpose during the fortnight was to vie for her affection. Some had already begun the onslaught. Lord Wentworth had the temerity to burst into song when he’d come across her in the hall, apparently trying to win her heart with an exceedingly long aria. Another had presented her with flowers this morning. Roses that she’d planted and preferred on the stem where she could look at them during her walks rather than watching them wilt in a vase.
Over the sounds of the piano, Bella could almost hear the gears in the gentlemen’s minds spinning, trying to find the chink in her armor. The way into her heart, as her mother would put it. Lady Yardley was nothing if not a hopeless romantic.
When her mother approached, Louisa stood. “I’ll go and see what the missing bachelors are up to.”
“Mr. Nix isn’t titled, but he may be the handsomest of them all,” Bella’s mother whispered as she settled next to her on the settee.
“Handsome men have proposed marriage to me before, Mama.”
“I know.” Her mother patted her arm. “And I understand you prefer a man of wit and intelligence. So do I. Why do you think I married your father?”
“Papa is handsome.”
Her mother’s mouth curved into a mischievous smile. “Indeed, he is. But he isn’t perfect. No man is.”
“I don’t seek perfection.” What she desperately wanted to add is that she wasn’t seeking a husband at all. But they’d had the conversation so many times her mother could probably recite the arguments from memory.
As if she could sense the turn of Bella’s thoughts, her mother changed tack. “Seek kindness, my dear. A kind man will bring you contentment and a home and family of your own.”
The old Bella had been just the sort to build those dreams up in her mind. She’d even sketched pictures of the home she wished to have, the children. One boy and two girls. Of course all of them would have Rhys’s blond locks. Recalling how naive she’d been, how thoroughly she’d let her fancies run away with her, all of it stung.
New Bella would never give in to such romantic nonsense again.
“Lord Hammersley is a viscount, of course. I did try for a duke.” Bella’s mother had been speaking, reviewing the merits of the various gentlemen she’d wrangled into spending two weeks in Essex. “But I thought it best not to invite the Duke of Claremont.”
“No,” Bella said sharply. She needed to get used to hearing the title and realizing it was Rhys’s now. But she wasn’t there yet. “We shouldn’t invite him.”
“You were such close friends once.” Her mother’s gaze was steady, too inquisitive.
Bella had never divulged the details of that day to anyone, but it wasn’t difficult for her perceptive mama to note her tears and Rhys’s hasty departure. But to Bella’s relief, she’d never pressed for more. She’d made overtures about inviting the duke or Rhys to a dinner event now and then, but those stopped too when word of Rhys’s reputation got back to Essex and spread through the families in the village.
“We were friends. Once. Not anymore.”
Louisa slid to a stop at the edge of the settee, her cheeks flushed, as if she’d dashed the whole way back from wherever she’d gone. “Forgive me, Aunt Gwendoline. I must speak to Bella.”
Her mother narrowed her eyes but offered them both a tiny nod of approval. Bella stood and followed Louisa to the edge of the drawing room.
“I found them,” she said in an agitated whisper.
“I had no doubt you would. In the billiard room? I hope they aren’t in their cups this early in the evening. And if they’re smoking in that room, Mama will have—”
“No, none of that. Well, they
may be drinking, but what’s important is what they said. You need to know what I overheard.”
Bella arched a brow when Louisa said no more.
“Tell me, Lou.” Her cousin did have a flair for the dramatic but Bella was too out of sorts to have the patience for it tonight.
Louisa leaned in. Bella took a step closer. But rather than telling her what she’d discovered, her cousin looked around the drawing room, reached for Bella’s hand, and pulled her into the hallway.
“Loui—”
“You need to hear for yourself. If we’re quick, they’ll still be at it.”
“At what?”
Rather than answer, Louisa broke into a dash and pulled Bella along with her. At the billiard room threshold, she stooped and turned back to Bella, a finger pressed to her lips.
The men weren’t difficult to hear. Their booming laughter echoed into the hallway. Mr. Edgar Nix, the wealthy mill owner her mother claimed was the most handsome of all the gentlemen guests, and Lord Teasdale, a widowed viscount with eight thousand a year and a crumbling castle in the north of England.
“One poor fellow claimed she wouldn’t even shake his hand after she refused him. The lady is a cold one.”
“It’s true,” Nix agreed. “Gent I know still tells the tale of the time he tried to kiss her. She didn’t flinch. Didn’t push him away. Just turned to offer him her cheek. He said her skin was cold as winter.”
A scream welled up and Bella felt anything but cold. The words stoked a familiar anger inside her to white-hot fury.
Both men chuckled, echoing each other.
“Perhaps we should increase the bet. Two hundred pounds? We must have some reward. After all, we’ll have our work cut out for us and a rather chilly prize if we win.”
“Two hundred pounds it is.” Glasses clinked. More belly-low chortles followed. “Hardly worthwhile for a lady to be such a beauty if she hasn’t an ounce of passion in her.”
Nothing Compares to the Duke Page 4