by Sally James
‘I didn’t see you there,’ Bella exclaimed.
‘No, I’m afraid I was late, I had another engagement first,’ Lord Dorney said smoothly. ‘But Mrs Eversley was so pressing with her invitation I promised to drop in for an hour or so later. She persuades some very talented people to play and sing at her parties, and I was sorry to miss it.’
After a while he enquired for the dog’s welfare, and Bella was chuckling as she recounted the animal’s encounter with a neighbouring cat.
‘And when we walked him in Sydney Gardens he growled at a very large dalmatian. I fear he’ll turn out to be a fighter,’ she concluded ruefully.
‘He’s needed to fight to survive, no doubt. As do your mill children,’ he added softly. ‘I applaud your concern, and your courage in speaking out for them,’ he added, and immediately rose to take his leave.
Chapter 5
Bella was walking Rags in Sydney Gardens early the following morning when Lord Dorney approached.
‘You’re abroad early,’ he commented. ‘This animal looks better already,’ he added, bending down to pat the dog, who after an initial suspicious growl suddenly recognized a friend and began to wag his tail furiously.
Bella looked shyly up at him. Jane had scolded her soundly on the way home the previous night, and uncharacteristically Bella had accepted the scolding as well deserved. She wondered if her behaviour, despite his words of approval, had made Lord Dorney despise her as an unsophisticated, provincial rustic unable to behave with proper decorum in Society.
‘You simply must not argue so vehemently, especially with a man so much older, and in public,’ Jane chastised her.
Inwardly rebellious, Bella wanted to ask why girls and even women were supposed to have no opinions of their own. Why must they accept what men said, however stupid and bigoted the men? She kept silent, knowing she had argued with unseemly heat. That was her real offence in her own eyes. She was mortified to realize she’d been unable to point out the evils of the crowded mills without allowing her emotions to trap her into rudeness.
‘Jane was very angry with me,’ she said impulsively.
‘Lady Hodder angry? Why should she be?’ he asked. ‘Let’s walk on, the wind is chill,’ he added, turning to stroll beside her.
‘I was too outspoken last night,’ Bella sighed. ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but I cannot bear to hear foolish people saying things which are untrue!’
To her surprise he laughed.
‘There may be more tactful ways of refuting what they say,’ he agreed, ‘but you spoke the truth, your sentiments are honourable. I passed through Preston recently and saw the dreadful conditions those mill workers have to endure.’
‘I haven’t learned to bite my tongue,’ she confessed.
‘It makes a refreshing change. Most girls are far too busy wondering what effect they’re making to speak so candidly. They say what they think is expected of them rather than the truth. Which brings me to an apology.’
‘You? Apologize? What on earth for?’ Bella demanded.
‘I should have told you before that I was in the yard at that inn and saw your very successful routing of those louts.’
Bella felt her cheeks grow warm. ‘Oh, did you?’ was all she could manage. ‘But why do you need to apologize?’
‘I’m not sure. I suppose I feel I ought to have told you that I’d seen you before, even though we had not met. That was one reason I had for asking Mrs Eversley to introduce us. I wanted to meet a young lady who owned a pistol and could face down those rogues.’
‘I don’t normally use it to threaten people,’ Bella said in a small, hesitant voice.
He laughed. ‘I’m sure you don’t! You have other weapons for routing people who offend you.’
She frowned. ‘What do you mean? I don’t understand.’
‘Taking action to save a stray dog? Dandy Ledsham and his poodle. Not many young ladies would have acted with such promptness and decision.’
‘Well, could you have watched this poor little dog being savaged by that ugly, overfed beast? I’m sure if you’d been nearer you’d have done the same.’
She stooped to stroke the dog, and Rags licked her hand with enthusiasm, then turned his attention towards a much larger dog which had approached within sniffing distance. He growled, and Bella spoke calmly to him. Rags looked up at her as if to ask permission to attack, then seemed to shrug and turn his shoulder to the intruder, who was called away by his owner.
Lord Dorney grinned. First Ledsham and his poodle, then Mr Kershaw and his manufactories.’
Bella blushed. ‘You must think me very quarrelsome. But I know how badly those children are treated! I could not endure him saying such things, believing that the people were adequately housed, better off than before!’
‘Perhaps you are a little impetuous, but always in good causes. I admire you for it. What did you do with the child?’
‘What child?’
‘The mill boy you rescued. How did you become involved with him?’
Guiltily Bella recalled what she had said the previous night.
‘I just found him, he was running away,’ she said briefly.
‘What did you do with him?’
‘I took him to - to Preston,’ she said. ‘He’s being looked after by - by a kind couple, some people I know.’
How nearly she’d given the game away, mentioning her home, and the house she’d bought in Preston, she thought in horror. Deception was not easy.
Lord Dorney didn’t appear to have noticed her evasiveness.
‘Do you mean to ride while you’re in Bath?’ he asked, and Bella explained they intended to buy or hire suitable mounts as soon as they could find the time to do so.
‘I ride a great deal at home,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘But here I suppose we mayn’t ride out without a groom.’
‘I would be happy to escort you both,’ he offered, and Bella hugged herself secretly. It really did look as though he was interested in her.
* * * *
Within a week the rest of Bath began to think the same, and wonder volubly at the number of times Lord Dorney could be seen at Lady Hodder’s house, riding or driving with the ladies, escorting them to balls and concerts, and behaving like an infatuated youth.
Jane was equally incredulous.
‘I simply don’t understand it,’ she said one morning as they drank tea and ate wafer-thin slices of bread and butter, before preparing for yet another ride accompanied by Lord Dorney. ‘Mrs Vaughan was saying last night he has somewhat of a reputation as a reserved man, never more than ordinarily friendly towards girls. I can’t imagine what Mrs Eversley could have meant by saying he had a reputation. It certainly can’t be for trifling with their affections. She says the girls, and their Mamas, pursue him relentlessly, but the moment it appears a girl is becoming fond of him he behaves with cold reserve and virtually ignores her in order to deter them. Not that it does, of course,’ she added with a grin.
‘Do you listen to gossip?’ Bella asked scornfully.
‘How else is one to know what goes on?’ Jane asked, and Bella shrugged.
She was puzzled too. She’d laid many plans for bringing herself to Lord Dorney’s attention, but needed none of them. He’d paid her marked attentions from the start and she could not imagine why. Surely it could not be because she had threatened Mary’s would-be abductors with her pistol, or argued with Mr Kershaw? Most men would be disgusted with her, call her conduct unladylike.
‘Why does he seek me out?’ she asked now. ‘I’m not at all pretty like Mama was. Papa adored her, and no wonder if that portrait is a true likeness. I must have been a severe disappointment to him.’
She’d always taken it for granted her father must have regretted her very different appearance.
‘I’d have thought he might be grateful not to have a constant reminder of his loss by having a daughter who resembled her too closely,’ Jane said thoughtfully. ‘There can be different types of beaut
y.’
‘I’m too small and too fat!’
‘Some men might be tired of fashionable slender beanpoles.’
Bella grinned. ‘They don’t show many signs of it.’
‘Well, your face lights up when you’re animated, when you are passionate about urchins or stray animals,’ Jane said with feeling. ‘He must have noticed and liked that. He seems to have a serious, thoughtful disposition.’
‘I just enjoy talking with him,’ Bella said slowly. ‘We talk of so many interesting things.’
Jane was cautious. ‘You must not count on it coming to anything, Bella,’ she warned now.
Bella smiled airily. ‘We’ll see,’ she replied. Her hopes were too fresh and her fears too deep for casual discussion even with her cousin. In quiet moments she was already well aware of the bleak desolation which she would suffer if Lord Dorney lost interest in her. Firmly she dismissed her fears and concentrated on making ready for the excursion Lord Dorney had planned for two days hence.
* * * *
Lord Dorney was confused. No girl had disturbed his serenity as Bella Collins did. He’d vowed never to marry, when he had seen the calamitous result of his brother Robert’s venture into matrimony. He didn’t need an heir, he had Alexander who would inherit the title. Yet here he was, lingering in Bath days after he could have left for London, and giving the gossips something to talk about by his attentions to Bella. He’d talked to Alex, met his Felicity, and though he thought them both too young, could find no other reason for objecting to the alliance. He should leave now, but somehow he couldn’t make the effort.
However much he told himself that not all women were as rapacious, or as immoral as Selina, doubts remained. He did not wish to risk it, even if he were attracted to a woman. When he’d first met Selina, just before he’d enlisted and gone out to join Wellington in Spain, he’d thought her a pretty, and sensible young woman, whose behaviour had been unaffected, despite the fortune she would inherit from her wealthy father. That this fortune came from trade might be sneered at by some of the high sticklers in Society, but Robert had not cared, saying that Selina had been educated at a very good school for the daughters of gentlemen, and was prettily behaved. She would know how to go on as his wife.
‘Besides,’ Robert had said with a laugh, ‘the money will restore Dorney Court. And it needs it.’
It certainly had. Their father had cared little for his ancestral home, and under his stewardship the land had been neglected and the house had fallen, if not into outright ruin, into the beginnings of it. The roof had leaked, some of the windows were broken, many of the rooms had been shut up, the curtains were falling into rags, and the place had been run with far too few servants. The estate cottages and farms were in even worse condition.
The moment he and Selina had married, Robert had set about bringing the house back to its former state. On his one visit home, on leave, Richard had been astonished and pleased to see his beloved home looking once more as he remembered it when he’d been a small child, before his mother had died and his father had set out on the road which eventually ruined him.
This had, however, been illusory. The exterior fabric was as he remembered it, but inside Selina had, in his opinion, ruined it. Much of the old oak panelling had been stripped out, and the small rooms decorated in the newly fashionable Chinese style. To his eye the clawed legs and elaborate carvings and exuberant decoration might be all very well in the spacious rooms of the Prince Regent’s monstrosity of a palace at Brighton, but here they were oppressive, overwhelming.
If he ever married, would his wife turn out to be like Selina, wanting to change his home? The home he was only gradually restoring to what he wanted it to be? Would Bella be like Selina?
He shook himself. Why was he thinking like this? He didn’t intend to marry, so the actions of a mythical wife could be of no concern to him. He must tear himself away and go to London. Dan would be there now. Then he frowned. He had committed himself to several engagements for the coming few days, and he might as well stay and attend them. Making his excuses and departing in haste might make people talk even more than they were already doing, and that might harm Bella. He could not do that to her, even if he had no intention of marrying her. He must casually announce his intention of leaving, and draw back from too much contact with Bella.
* * * *
Bella was feeling guilty. She had been so preoccupied with her own affairs she had thought very little about the proposed house in Bristol. She borrowed Jane’s coach, took Mary with her for the sake of propriety, and Jackson drove her to Bristol. When they reached the Tomkins’ house she dismissed Mary and Jackson, telling him to rest the horses and Mary to amuse herself shopping, and call for her in three hours.
She was welcomed so enthusiastically that her guilt intensified. She’d let these people down.
‘Of course not, my dear Miss Trahearne,’ Mrs Tomkins assured her. ‘We’ve only just found a suitable house. Would you care to inspect it?’
It was a tall house in a terrace near the docks.
‘It needs some repairs,’ Mr Tomkins said, ‘but that will help us to purchase it at a good price.’
‘I’ll pay for the necessary repairs,’ Bella assured them. ‘Surely these are not major defects, more a general shabbiness, and we could install one of the new ranges in the kitchen, which would make life much easier for the children and the maids.’
‘Oh, yes, there’s nothing else too expensive for us to do,’ Mr Tomkins hastened to reassure her. ‘We have already found people to promise contributions for the maintenance of the children, and wages for the couple who will look after them. We can accommodate the first of the children in, let us say, a month from now.’
Bella nodded. ‘So I will purchase the house, and pay for the essential repairs, and you will afterwards find the money to run it?’
‘Of course, that is what Mr Jenkins told us was to be the arrangement.’
‘I’ll have Mr Jenkins draw up an agreement to that effect. Thank you, this seems eminently suitable.’
She drove back to Bath satisfied with her day. Her scheme for helping orphans by installing them in small, homelike houses, was looking both practical and worthwhile. Other people like the Tomkins were eager to help, and if she supplied the initial capital to purchase suitable houses, there were local people who could do their bit in raising the money to run them.
* * * *
On the way home, Mary had been very quiet, and Bella assumed she was tired. But when they reached the house Mary asked to speak with her.
‘What is it? What’s happened?’ Bella asked, when they had reached her bedroom.
‘Oh, Miss Bella, I saw those men again. One of them.’
‘Which men?’
‘Those who tried to - to make me go with them, when you threatened to shoot them,’ Mary said, her voice shaking.
‘In Bristol?’
‘Yes, in the town.’
‘Did he recognize you?’
‘I - I think so. He leered at me in a nasty sort of way.’
‘Did he speak?’
‘He warned me to take care. He said there wouldn’t always be someone to protect me.’
Bella tried to reassure her. ‘He can’t know you live in Bath. He won’t find you here.’
‘But he followed us to where Tom - I mean Jackson, had stabled the horses, and I saw him talking to the ostler as we left to meet you.’
‘Had Jackson told him we came from Bath?’
‘Yes, when we first got there. He knew the man, you see, and was telling him about his new job.’
‘Well, you’ll just have to take extra care, and not go anywhere lonely by yourself. They can hardly abduct you from the middle of Bath!’
‘No, Miss Bella,’ Mary said, but doubtfully.
Bella sighed. She supposed she would now have to order Jackson to accompany Mary on her errands into the town. She suspected they would neither of them object, and wondered whether she was assisti
ng in a budding romance.
* * * *.
A select riding party gathered outside Lord Dorney’s rooms in the Royal Crescent on the following day. His cousin Alexander was there on a showy black, in attendance as usual on the lovely Miss Hollings, mounted on a beautiful but frisky little roan mare. A young matron was introduced as her married sister, Lady Andrews, and an older man as Sir John Andrews. A recently married couple, Mr and Mrs Dudley, completed the party.
Soon they were riding up Lansdowne Road, Lord Dorney on his magnificent grey hunter close beside Bella.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked.
‘First to see the old battlefield, then eastwards across the hills to where my servants will meet us with food for an alfresco nuncheon. If everyone has the energy we can go a little further until we come to the Avon and return along the river bank. Are you happy with your mount?’
Bella patted the neck of her chestnut gelding.
‘He’s not like my own beautiful Lady, but a good enough ride,’ she replied.
‘I hoped you might be taking us to visit Dorney Court,’ Lady Andrews, who had been riding behind, interrupted.
‘That’s rather too far away for a single day,’ Lord Dorney replied easily.
‘Dear Felicity is so eager to see it,’ her sister went on, edging her horse forward so that she rode on Lord Dorney’s other side. ‘Alexander has told her so much about it, you know.’
‘It’s not very splendid, just a couple of hundred years old, built in the local stone, and with what these days are considered small rooms,’ he said dismissively. ‘My brother built on an extra wing with a ballroom, but that was really for his wife. I cannot imagine what I shall use it for. I may even pull it down.’
‘That would be a great pity. Does your brother’s widow live there?’
‘Selina lives in London, with a cousin,’ he replied shortly.
He seemed unwilling to talk either of his home or his widowed sister-in-law, and Bella observed him curiously. She had heard the occasional comment about his family from people in Bath. Unusually reticent, she had not liked to question him herself. There was some mystery, she was sure, and it seemed connected with his brother’s widow.