by Louise Allen
Sometimes she did not think she could bear this any longer. She wanted her sisters—even a letter would do. She wanted a hug, a kiss, laughter, warmth. She wanted love.
Bella picked up the remains of the ivy fronds and then lugged the heavy watering can back to the vestry. Once upon a time she had dreamed of a lover coming for her. A knight in shining armour. A gallant nobleman who would sweep her away and cherish her.
Childishness, she told herself, buttoning her pelisse and pulling on her gloves. Fairy tales did not come true and it was not sensible to dream that they might, because waking up from the dream was always bitter disillusion. She locked the vestry and went out through the south door and down to the lych gate where she paused. Beyond it was the lane that led to the Ipswich road and freedom. The road she was never going to take.
She had forgotten her basket, Bella realised. Was it worth going back for it? She half-turned as a voice said, ‘Is this Lower Leaming, ma’am?’
‘No, this is Martinsdene,’ she began, looking back. A stranger got up from the bench sheltered in the shadows of the roofed gate. ‘Lower Leaming is that… way.’ Her voice trailed off.
Blue eyes regarded her with interest and a sensuous mouth curved into a smile that was—surely not?—appreciative. The man was tall, relaxed, elegant. His riding coat was so plain it had to be expensive and a cabochon ruby ring glowed with sullen fire on his ring finger. He raised the hand that was holding gloves and whip and lifted his hat and she saw brown hair that shone, styled in a fashionable crop, the like of which had never been seen in this rural backwater.
‘Thank you, Miss—?’ he said in a voice that sent warm shivers through her chilled body.
‘Shelley,’ she managed. ‘My father is vicar here.’ Even as she said it, she cast a harried look down the lane to the vicarage as though her father’s hawk eyes could see through the hedge from the study where he was engaged in writing next Sunday’s sermon.
‘Miss Shelley. I am Rafe Calne, Viscount Hadleigh.’ And he bowed, as though she were a fine lady and this was Hyde Park. Bella managed to produce an answering bob of a curtsy. ‘I am staying with my good friend Marcus Daunt at Long Fallow Hall and I must confess to being utterly lost.’
‘Yes, well, in that case you do need the Lower Leaming road,’ Bella said, thankful to be able to articulate something sensible. A viscount, for goodness’ sake! ‘It is past the Royal George inn and then you should take the left fork after the duck pond. If you come through the churchyard there is a bridleway that cuts off the corner—over there, by the holly bush.’
‘Will you not walk that way and show me, Miss Shelley? I seem to have the knack of getting lost.’
‘I—’
But he had already fetched a big bay horse from where it had been tethered out in the lane. He offered her his arm and Bella took it, lost for the words to refuse.
‘You know, Miss Shelley, I have to confess to being somewhat blue devilled. Here I am, supposed to be resting—I’ve been feeling a trifle off colour lately—but I have been so bored I have not been able to relax. Poor Marcus can’t work out what to do with me. So I came out for a ride, got lost and found this charming village and you. And I feel better already.’
Was she supposed to understand that she was making him feel better? No, of course not, Martinsdene was picturesque, artists had been known to stop to sketch it. Bella took a deep breath to steady her fluttering heart and tried not to notice how firm his arm felt under her hand and how warm he was, between her and the wind.
Oh dear, she thought. Now when I daydream I will have a real-life aristocratic hero to visualise. The bridleway was short and the pond soon reached. ‘That way, my lord.’ She pointed.
‘Rafe, please. You are, after all, my rescuer.’ He lifted her hand and kissed her fingertips. ‘May I know your first name?’
‘Arabella…Bella,’ she stammered.
‘Bella,’ he murmured. ‘Belle. Beautiful lady.’
‘Oh, no,’ Bella retorted, common sense coming to her rescue. ‘Now you are gammoning me, my lord.’
‘Rafe,’ he murmured.
‘Rafe…this is…’
‘I do not think you look in your mirror carefully enough, bellissima.’ Rafe Calne swung up on to the big horse with enviable ease and smiled down at her. ‘Until we meet again.’
Bella had walked to the butcher’s in a dream, forgot what she had come for until she consulted her tablets and then walked home feeling as though she had been hit on the head. A real viscount, flirting with her. With her. Because he had been flirting—she was not so innocent that she did not recognise that.
‘Arabella!’
‘Yes, Papa?’
‘Where have you been?’ The vicar did not trouble to come to the door to ask, she had to go to the study to account for her actions over the past two hours. She did not mention the viscount. It would not be sensible, Bella told herself as she went to the kitchen to make sure that Cook was doing all she should with dinner. Not that it was easy to spoil hotpot with dumplings, boiled cabbage and stewed apple.
On Saturday she went to the church to make sure the prayer books had been gathered up after a wedding and checked the vestry to see that all was in order. Another surplice with a torn hem—doubtless discarded by the curate. She might as well take it and mend it along with her father’s, she supposed, gathering it up and putting it in her basket.
Then, instead of going straight home, she wandered up the bridle path. There were the prints of Rafe’s booted feet, big and masculine next to her small ones. Bella set her foot in one and then the next, wondering at the length of his stride. Those long legs and broad shoulders had troubled her dreams a little.
‘Bella.’ He was there, sitting on his big horse, Farmer Rudge’s ducks wandering around its hooves.
‘My lord!’ He looked at her. ‘Rafe.’
Bella glanced around as he swung down from the horse, but no one was in sight. ‘Is something worrying you, Bella?’ he asked, reaching for her hand.
‘I—’ She should pull away, but she could not. ‘My father would not permit me to speak to a strange man. I should not be here with you.’
‘I am sorry for that.’ He looked sombre and the blue eyes were shadowed. ‘I felt the need to talk with someone and you seemed… But if you must not, then I will go away.’
‘Talk? About what?’ She left her hand in his.
‘Here, in the country, I am beginning to see my life for what it is. Futile, empty. Pleasure, money—I am a sinner, you know, Bella,’ he said earnestly, tucking her hand into the crook of his elbow and walking slowly off down the lane away from the village, the horse following.
‘You are?’
‘Oh, yes. And then I look at you—pure, innocent, devoting yourself to your duties—and I see myself for what I am. I wish some of that goodness would rub off on me, Bella.’
‘You just need to want to be good,’ she protested.
‘And you are satisfied with your life?’ he asked her. She could not answer, but she felt the guilty blush and saw him see it too. ‘Not entirely, I think?’
And so she had told him, all about how Papa had changed slowly over the years, how Mama had died on a visit to London, how Meg and Lina had run away, and he had brushed a tear from the corner of her eye and kissed her, just a fleeting, chaste kiss of comfort and her world had shifted on its axis.
He had come to church on Sunday, serious and attentive, head bowed. After that she had seen him every day. He was always careful, always discreet, but the long walks, when she told him about living in the country and confided how difficult Papa was, and sympathised with his stories of London life and how it was turning to dust in his mouth, were like shining jewels in the dull ashes of her existence.
And on the eighth day he had kissed her, not giving comfort, not seeking it, but with a lover’s passion, and she had clung to him, consumed with his heat and power and glamour.
‘I love you, Bella,’ he had murmured against her
hair, their breath mingling in the crisp February air. ‘Be mine.’
‘You must talk to Papa,’ she had stammered, dizzily aware that her dream had come true. Her knight had come for her.
‘I must go back to London,’ Rafe said. ‘And speak to my lawyers. I will have them draw up a settlement so your father can see exactly what I will do for you. And I will bring back a housekeeper to look after him until he can choose one that best suits him.’
‘But should we not talk to him first? I do not like to deceive him,’ she protested.
‘My darling, he sounds a most difficult man and I, I will admit, am the kind of rake of whom he will have the deepest suspicions.’
‘But you are reformed now,’ Bella protested.
‘Yes, thanks to you.’ Rafe caressed her. ‘But he will believe it more when he sees the settlement, sees the ring I bring with me, knows his every interest—and yours—will be attended to. Then he might see the benefits of having the Viscount Hadleigh as his son-in-law. Would he like a better parish? I am sure I could influence something.’
‘Oh, Rafe, would you? Perhaps he feels he has failed, never getting preferment, and if he did, he would be happier and less difficult.’
‘For you, my love, I’ll bow to every bishop in the kingdom,’ he assured her. ‘And find your sisters too.’
‘Rafe.’ And she had kissed him, deeply, clumsily.
‘Lady Hadleigh.’ He smiled down, suddenly serious. ‘Will you really take me? I don’t deserve you. Perhaps you will change your mind once I have gone.’
‘No! Never. I love you.’
‘Then be mine, Bella. Show me you love me. Show me you trust me.’
‘But…before we are married?’ she queried, anxious and confused.
‘You don’t trust me, I knew it. But what could I expect?’ he said, turning away, his face stark. ‘I will leave, now. It is better. We cannot marry if you do not trust me. I thought—’
He made a gesture of hurt rejection and she clung to his arm. ‘Rafe. Of course I trust you. Of course I do.’ He swept her up, his mouth hot and urgent on hers, his arms so strong and sure, and strode towards the great tithe barn.
Chapter One
23 May 1814
It was a long carriage drive to trudge up in the drizzle, and the walk gave Bella far more time to think than she needed. Rafe must listen to me, she told herself fiercely. He might ignore my letters, but he cannot refuse to help me, not face to face. It was three months since she had lain with him in the barn on a bed of hay and felt his heart beating over hers.
Now she was apprehensive in her heart, queasy and weary in her body and bitterly angry, both with herself and with him. She had believed him. She had been so desperate to be loved, so sure of what she wanted, that when it appeared right in front of her, reached out for her, she had fallen, hook line and sinker for every lure of an experienced, conscienceless rake. And now she was with child. A fallen woman. Ruined.
No, please, she prayed as she walked. Don’t let him be without all conscience. Please let it be all right soon. Oh, Baby, forgive me. I am so ashamed. And unless he helps me, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how I will look after you. But I will. Somehow.
And she was so tired with the pregnancy, with the travelling, with the fear. Rafe had not been in London; his fine house in Mayfair had been locked up and dark with the knocker off the door, but she was here now at the big estate he had described to her, dazzling her with images of her life with him as his wife. His viscountess. She had asked at the gate house and they said his lordship was in residence.
She pictured him as she walked. For a few blissful days he had made her glow with happiness. Rafe Calne, Viscount Hadleigh. Tall, handsome, brown haired and elegant with blue eyes that had smouldered their way into her heart and soul. Rafe Calne, her love and her seducer. She had tumbled into love and into his arms so easily, with every tenet of virtue and modesty forgotten in the whirl of emotion. She had dreamed of a fairy tale, was desperate for a fairy tale, and when she found herself in one she had believed in it implicitly. And now she was being punished for dreaming.
Ruined women like her were supposed to throw themselves into the river out of the depths of their shame. She had walked down to the Thames when she had found his London house deserted. She had looked at the swirling brown water. But she could not, would not, despair. She was the sensible sister, she reminded herself bitterly. She would come up with a plan.
And she was carrying a child and nothing, if she could help it, would hurt that baby. It did not matter what happened to her, it did not matter how much scorn he poured onto her head, the baby must be provided for.
Her feet were wet and cold. Rafe did not maintain his carriage drive in good order. Bella tugged her hood further over her face and shook the foot that had just trodden in a water-filled pothole. But he was a busy man, he had told her that. Doubtless his estate workers had not been supervised as they might. Rafe had been busy seducing another hapless innocent or flirting with some great lady, no doubt.
Bella’s valise was banging uncomfortably against her knee and it was making her fingers numb. For the day after May Day, this was miserable weather: certainly it was not the day to set out on a three-mile walk through the countryside on an empty, unsettled stomach. It was probably a judgement for travelling on a Sunday, one more sin to add to the one she had so gladly, so recklessly, committed. The drive turned around an overgrown bed of shrubs and there was the house, Hadleigh Old Hall, sprawling low and golden brown and beautiful, even in the rain. It should have been her new home.
Bella straightened her shoulders as she reached the front door and banged the knocker. Deep breath, keep calm. He would be surprised to see her, shocked perhaps that she had travelled alone, angry when he heard what she wanted—of that last she had no doubt.
The butler’s face as he opened the door spoke more than the words he was not uttering. Bella dripped in the shelter of the high porch and wondered if her nose was red or blue. She could imagine just what a sight she must present, soaking wet and travel stained after four days on the road, and she could see it in the way the butler looked at her. Eventually the man spoke. ‘Miss?’
‘Good afternoon.’ His eyes narrowed at the sound of her cultivated accent and his face became expressionless. Bella took a deep breath and summoned up the tatters of her poise. She would pretend the butler was the butcher and she was having to complain about the meat again. ‘I wish to see Lord Hadleigh.’
‘His lordship is not at home.’
‘Lord Hadleigh will wish to see me whether he is receiving or not. Kindly tell him that Miss Shelley is here.’ She stepped forwards and the butler, caught off guard, stepped back. ‘Thank you. I will wait in the salon, shall I?’ She dumped her bag by the door.
The butler received her sodden cloak and then looked as though he might drop it, but in the face of her accent, her certainty and one lifted eyebrow, he ushered her into a reception room.
‘I will inform his lordship of your arrival.’
It had been too much to hope the man would offer such an unconventional guest a cup of tea. Bella eyed the satin upholstery, decided not to sit on it in her damp skirts despite her shaking legs and tried to study the pictures on the wall.
She hardly had time to realise she could not focus on the first when the butler returned. ‘His lordship will receive you in the study, Miss Shelley.’
The room tilted a little. Rafe, at last. Please, God. Let me do this right. Let him have some shred of pity. ‘Thank you.’
The study was on the north side of the house, deep in shadows. A fire flickered in the grate; the only light, a green-shaded reading lamp, was focused down on to papers on the desk. It illuminated the lines of Rafe’s jaw, the edge of his cheekbones, the glint of his eyes as he stood, but not much more.
‘Miss Shelley.’
So formal, so calm—he is concerned that the butler might come back. His voice seemed deeper; perhaps that was surprise at
seeing her. He did not sound angry. That would come and she had tasted his anger, his fury at any attempt to thwart or contradict him.
‘Rafe… My lord, I had to come.’ She stepped towards him, but his left hand lifted, gestured towards a chair, and the firelight caught the flame of the familiar cabochon ruby on his ring. That hand, sliding slowly down over her breast, over the pale curve of her belly, down…
‘Thank you, but, no.’ It left him on his feet too, a shadowy figure behind the desk, but she was too agitated to sit. ‘You will be surprised to see me.’
‘Indeed.’ Still no anger. Perhaps this cool distance was worse; he did not seem to even know her.
Bella felt a fresh pang of apprehension, a wave of hot shame that she was in this position.
‘When you…left me you made it clear you never wanted to see me again.’ Silly little sentimental fool… Clumsy country wench—the only thing you can do on your knees is pray… So easy, so gullible and not worth the effort. He had slapped her face when she began to weep.
Rafe shifted abruptly, then was still, remaining behind the desk. ‘And yet you are here.’
She could not read the emotion in his voice. The shadows seemed to shift and sway. It was necessary to breathe, to be silent for a moment or two while she fought the nausea and the shame. He was going to make her spell it out, he was not going to offer her the slightest help to stammer out her demands.
She felt her knees trembling, but somehow she dared not sit down. Something dreadful was happening, just as her worst fears had told her, and she needed to be on her feet to face it. He was so cold, so distant. He is going to refuse. ‘I am with child. Our child, Rafe.’
‘I see.’ He sounded remarkably calm about it. She had expected anger, shouting. Only the flash of that ruby in the firelight showed any sign of movement.
‘You promised me marriage or I would never have…never… I know what you said when we parted, but we must consider the baby now, Rafe.’
She could almost feel the emotion flowing from him in waves now, belying his calm tone. But she could not decipher it, except to feel the anger, rigidly suppressed. Perhaps it was her own fear and humiliation she could feel. Bella pulled air down into her lungs and took an unobtrusive grip on the back of the nearest chair.