“I will hear nothing of you leaving. I will write to Jonathan if I must and tell him what has happened. I will beg for his forgiveness. But I will not let you go. I feel foolish for not having realized that the very man I desired was here the entire time. I should not have gone to London in search of adventure. I should have stayed here and explored the possibilities with you.”
“You could not have known this was going to happen.”
“No. However, I do know how I feel now. My feelings will not change. If I wake up in the morning to find you gone, I will search for you. If I have to stay with you all night and drag you to my father by your ear, I will do so.” She bit her bottom lip. “Joshua, do you not see that I cannot live without you?”
“I must tell you some things you do not know. You are determined to see this through, so I must warn you of the danger that may be in store. For you and for me.”
Bella tilted her head to the side. “What kind of danger? I am no longer sick. I am feeling much better. I have nearly recovered.”
Joshua shook his head. “It… that is what I must warn you about. How you were sick. Why you were sick.”
Bella stared at him in silence, waiting for him to continue.
“Elena… she was poisoning your food.”
Bella took a step back, gasping. She covered her mouth with her hand. “And you knew of this plot?”
“I discovered her putting powder in your soup before she took it in to you. That was why she was taking the place of your maid while you were sick. So that she could continue to poison you.”
“What did you do? How did you stop her?”
“I saw her and made her stop.”
“How did you…” Bella blinked. “Did you promise her to leave me alone? Why did you not tell my parents?”
“She threatened to lie about us. She said she would tell your parents that I had… violated your virtue while you were sick and in your delirium, you did not know. She was planning to tell the entire village. She wanted to destroy your reputation and the dignity of your family. And I would have been hanged.”
“You did no such thing! You have never treated me in a disrespectful way.”
“That is because I love you, Bella. And I agreed not to say anything and to try to stay away from you because I do not wish any harm to you or your family.”
“This is not acceptable, Joshua. I will have words with my parents. This will be stopped.”
Bella spun around on her heel and headed back to the house.
“Bella!”
She called back to him over her shoulder. “Come with me, Joshua. We will tell them now.”
“Bella, wait!”
She stopped and turned to look at him. His eyes were staring up over her head. She turned and looked to see what he was staring at.
The drapes in her room were in flames.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
FIGHTING THE FIRE
FIGHTING THE FIRE
Bella screamed and began to run back to the house. Joshua was on her heels, though he sidetracked and grabbed several buckets sitting near the stairs that went down to the kitchen.
Bella ran in the house screaming at the top of her lungs. Andrew was the first one she saw, emerging from a small room he slept in under the curved stairs that led up to the second floor.
“My room is on fire!” Bella shrieked. “Get help!”
Andrew was startled, suddenly very alert. He moved quickly for an old man, pulling on his robe as he ran out the door.
Bella took the stairs up two at a time, pulling herself up by the hand rail. “Mama! Papa!” She called out. She stopped at the top of the stairs, staring at her closed door. Smoke was coming out from underneath the frame. She quickly pounded on the doors of each of her brother’s rooms. Tyler was the first to come out onto the landing.
“What is going on, Bella? What are you doing up at…” He held his lantern up in the air and lifted his nose into the air. “Why do I smell smoke? What is burning?”
“My room! My room is on fire!”
Tyler was quickly joined by his brothers and the four of them went into action. Cameron went back into his room and pulled the blanket from his bed. He grabbed the water basin from his table and doused the blanket with the water. When he returned, he went directly to Bella’s door. He touched the outside of the door and then reached down to open it.
His brothers did the same with their blankets, soaking them with water and coming up behind him.
“I don’t think the door is on fire. I’m going to open it.” Cameron said.
“Be careful, Cameron!” Bella stood away from the door, her mother folding her in her arms. The Duke joined his sons just as Joshua came up the stairs with two buckets filled with water.
Cameron wrapped the blanket around his hand and turned the knob to open Bella’s door. He looked back at his family. “I think it’s just the drapes and the chair. Hurry! Hurry!”
The men ran into the room and began beating at the flames with the blankets while Joshua tossed the water from the buckets over the bed to make sure it did not catch fire. He immediately turned and ran back downstairs, where Andrew was standing with the Groom. He barked instructions to them and the three of them went back outside to get more buckets of water.
Bella turned to her mother and dropped her head. The Duchess wrapped her arms around Bella and held on tight, whispering soothing words. She pulled Bella toward the stairs and the two of them slowly went down, leaving the men to deal with the fire.
“Bella, what has happened? How could this have happened? Why were you out of bed?”
“I saw Joshua in the garden. He did not come to the party and I wanted to talk to him. So, I went out there to see him.”
“He was in the garden? At this time of night?”
“Oh, Mama, you do not know what has happened. We must find Elena! We must make her leave! She was poisoning me, Mama. She made me sick!”
“What?” The Duchess stopped in the middle of the staircase and stared at her daughter. “How do you know this?”
“Joshua told me. He saw her! He stopped her but she was threatening to say very bad things about all of us and he wanted to protect the family. He has been trying to decide what to do ever since. But he got her to stop making me sick and now look what she has done.”
“Do you think she did this?” her mother sounded skeptical. “I cannot… I cannot imagine this. We have a lunatic living under our roof. You are right; we must find her and deal with her.”
Joshua passed them, sloshing water in the buckets he was carrying. He stopped only for a moment. “Duchess, take Bella downstairs. We will put the fire out.”
“You must look for Elena. If you see her, bring her down to us immediately.”
Bella could tell her mother was furious. The grip she had on her daughter’s shoulders was almost painful. It made Bella feel safe.
“Yes, your grace.” Joshua ran up the stairs, followed quickly by Andrew, who could only carry one bucket and could not move as fast as the younger men, and the Groom, a tall, lanky man in his forties, whose large arm muscles bulged as he carried buckets of water up the stairs.
Bella continued down the stairs with her mother. They went into the library and sat on a settee together, waiting for the men to put out the fire. Bella’s muscles were tense with anxiety. She folded her arms around herself and leaned forward, trying to breathe.
“Calm yourself, my dear. The boys and your father would not have entered the room if it had been a terrible fire. Cameron said it was just the drapes and perhaps the chair. We must be calm and keep our wits about us.”
“Yes, Mama.” Bella murmured.
They could hear footsteps stomping back and forth upstairs and the voices of the men as they called to each other. Bella concentrated on the sound of Joshua’s voice and each time she heard it, a pleasant sensation ran through her. She pictured him smiling at her, remembered the soft touch of his kiss, his hands on her face, his eyes shining in t
he sunlight.
Her mother’s arm was still wrapped around her shoulders and the older woman leaned down to speak softly to her. “You were blessed to be out of that room, Bella. What woke you?”
Bella thought about it for a moment, pausing before she spoke. “I… I don’t know. I suddenly woke up and it felt like I had been sleeping for days. I was wide awake. I went to the window because I realized I would not be able to get back to sleep. I saw Joshua in the garden and I went down to talk to him.”
The Duchess looked up at the ceiling. “God saved you, my dear. I feel it in my bones. He sent an angel to take you from that room before you could be harmed.”
“Oh, Mama. This is terrible.” Bella could not hold back her tears. She had come so close to losing her life, not just once but twice. Could this have been the work of Elena, as well?
“I cannot understand the mind of someone who would do this,” her mother’s words echoed her own thoughts. “How could anyone think this way? How can we not have already seen what kind of woman Elena is? She truly fooled us all.”
“Mama, she is not in her right mind.”
“Clearly not,” the Duchess replied. “No one in their right mind would do such things. Did she expect to get away with it?”
“She believes that if she takes my life, Joshua will be hers.”
Her mother scowled. “I’m afraid life does not work that way. Now she will be tried for these crimes. She will go to prison, if she is not hanged.”
“I hope we are able to find her. If she realized that I was not in the room, she will have run away. Surely she would have run away. If we do not find her, I will always be in danger.”
“I will not allow that. We will find her.”
“But we may not. Then what will I do? I do not want to marry Jonathan and go to London. I do not want to leave Joshua, you, Papa and the boys. I want to be here. I want to live here just like I always have. I’m so sorry I’m a foolish girl, Mama. I’m so sorry about all of this!” Her tears streaked down her cheeks and her shoulders rocked.
“You mustn’t speak that way, my daughter,” her mother’s voice was soothing in her ear and her tears abated somewhat. Her mother reached to the table by the settee and picked up a handkerchief one of the boys had left behind. She handed it to Bella. “This is not your fault.”
“I should not have had these feelings for Joshua. I should not have agreed to marry Jonathan. This is all my fault!” She took the handkerchief and covered her face with it, mopping up the tears.
Her mother squeezed her tightly, shaking her head. “No. I will not allow you to take the blame for the actions of a lunatic. Elena will be caught and she will be tried for her crimes. Your heart is your own and you cannot be blamed for that. We all make mistakes. I have told you before and I will always admit that I have made mistakes in my life, as well. We all make decisions without thinking about the consequences or the possibilities. It would have been better if you had not agreed to marry Jonathan, but that is done and now we must deal with whatever is to come with confidence.”
“I don’t want to make mistakes, Mama. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“But it does happen and there is nothing we can do to change that. We are not perfect people. Do not be hard on yourself, my dear. You are a good, sweet girl. You did not realize where your heart was until a decision had been made. We will discuss this with Jonathan. He is a grown man and a gentleman. He will handle it.”
“He is a good man.”
Her mother nodded. “Yes, he is a good man. He is just not the man you want. Joshua is a good man, too.”
“Joshua was talking about leaving, finding employment somewhere else. Don’t let him go, Mama. Please tell him he has to stay.”
Her mother chuckled. “Now, Bella. I do not believe for a moment that Joshua is going to leave Bellhouse. This is his home as much as it is ours. He has grown up here, as you have. If his love for you is as strong as you think it is, and I believe it is, also, he will not be able to leave you behind.”
Bella looked up at the ceiling. The sounds of footsteps and voices had quieted. Her mother looked up, too.
“I think the fire is out. Shall we go assess the damage?”
Bella nodded. “Oh, this is so terrible, Mama.”
She felt weak in the knees as she stood up. She wobbled slightly and her mother helped her right herself. “You are a strong young woman, Bella. Come now, don’t let Joshua see you in such a state. Wipe your eyes and lift her head. Everything will work itself out. You will see.”
Bella took her mother’s hand and the two women went back out to the stairs. Andrew and the Groom were sitting on the top step, breathing hard. Steven and Cameron were standing in the hallway, bent over, coughing.
The women went up the stairs to see that the rest of the servants had come down from the top floor where their rooms were and were standing on the upper landing, looking over the railing with shocked faces.
Elena was not with them.
CHAPTER THIRTY
NEWS OF JONATHAN
NEWS OF JONATHAN
Bella stepped into her room and looked around sadly. Everything was wet. Her drapes were in ruins. One of the men had pulled them down and they were smoldering in the stone fireplace. Her bed was soaked through and the chair next to it looked the same. Her dressing table had caught some of the flames and was burned halfway down the side.
She hugged her robe around her. “Oh, this is so terrible,” she said. Joshua came up behind her.
“You were not harmed,” he said in a low voice. “That is all that matters. How lucky that you came down to talk to me. I’m so glad I was in the garden. That was almost like a miracle.”
Bella turned around and moved close to him, lowering her head so that it rested on his chest. “Joshua. You saved me.”
“I’m so glad I was there. I’m so glad you woke up. I cannot imagine what started this.”
“I can,” Nick spoke up from where he was kneeling by the window. He gently picked up a broken lantern and inspected it closely. “This lantern. It started the drapes on fire. How could it have gotten here?”
“I think I know what caused this.” Joshua said. He looked over his shoulder when the rest of the family came in the room. He chose not to see the look of surprise on the Duke’s face when he saw Joshua holding Bella to him. The Duchess had come in with him and the two of them shared a look, with the Duchess only giving her husband a pleasant smile. The Duke blinked in confusion but said nothing.
Joshua proceeded to fill the family in on what Elena had been doing. He revealed what the woman had been planning to say, that he had violated Bella, and that she had poisoned the girl with rodent killer. As he spoke, the boys and their father began to make exclamations of outrage and surprise as their anger grew.
“I apologize for not coming forward with this sooner. I should have known I would be trusted by you all. You have known me for so long.”
“Joshua, there is no way we would ever have believed that woman’s lies. You must not ever hesitate to tell us important information such as this. Bella could have been killed!” Tyler shook his head, frowning.
“I know. I am sorry.” Joshua hung his head in shame but Bella lifted it back up with two fingers.
“You cannot blame yourself. Mother says Elena is a lunatic and that she is the one who is to blame for all of this.”
“And that is the truth, my dear,” the Duchess said. She took her husband’s hand and looked up into his eyes. “Fred, we will need to make new arrangements for our daughter. Not just her room, but her life. She will not be marrying Lord Humbridge.”
The Duke stared at his wife and then his daughter. “He will be very disappointed by this turn of events.”
“I hope you are not angry with me, Papa,” Bella left the comfort of Joshua’s arms to go to her father. She looked up at him with pleading eyes. “I did not know how I felt until I came back from London and talked to Joshua. I knew when I realized our relat
ionship could not be the same that I did not want to leave. I have been so very confused and afraid, Papa. I do not want to disappoint you.”
The Duke shook his head and pulled Bella into a warm hug. “You are never a disappointment to me, Bella. I cannot say I blame you for the way you feel.” He smiled at Joshua. “Our gardener is a quality young gentleman. I have always thought so.”
Joshua couldn’t help smiling. “Thank you, your grace.”
“I suppose you will need to get used to calling me something else, young man. I will be your father-in-law.”
“You will lose many business opportunities because of this, Papa,” Bella said regretfully. “I am sorry about that.”
“Do not apologize any longer, my dear. The heart is a tricky thing and we all know that. Don’t we, boys?”
Her brothers nodded. When they said nothing, the Duke raised his eyebrows. “Why do I have the feeling this is not news to any of you?”
“We have known about it, Papa,” Nick replied, nodding. “But we do not make decisions for Bella. She needed to handle this her own way. We only wanted to be supportive of her as she worked through this.”
The Duke nodded. “Very logical. I am happy that you chose that route, though I would have preferred if I had been told somewhere along the way.”
“This could have been prevented if we had all just opened up about it,” Tyler said. He came closer to his parents and sister and placed one hand on Bella’s head, running it down her long blond hair. “But I am terribly glad you are safe, sister. It is quite amazing you were not in here when the lantern was tossed in.”
“Do you think that is how she did this?”
Tyler shrugged. “She either threw the lantern in or came in to cause you harm, saw you were not here and stood at the window. She may have dropped the lantern by accident. When it caught the drapes on fire, she must have run. I did not see her. Have you seen her?” He looked around the room, including everyone in his question. There was a round of head shaking, as no one had seen her.
The Lady’s Dangerous Love Page 18