by Louise Allen
‘You are certain that you are with child?’ That deep, dispassionate voice unnerved her as much as his words. Rafe had always been laughing, or whispering or murmuring soft, heated endearments. Or at the end hurling cutting, sneering gibes. He had not sounded like this.
‘Of course! Rafe—’ She took a step towards him but his hand came up again and she froze. There was a silence. She could tell in the light of the reading lamp that Rafe had bowed his head as though in thought. Then he looked up. ‘And you came here thinking to marry Rafe Calne? That will not happen, child or no child.’
The room swam out of focus. Bella gripped the chair as though drowning. But she did not weep or protest. She had expected it and had planned for it and now, with the uncertainty gone, felt somehow stronger. A cold calm settled over her and from somewhere deep inside she summoned up her courage and her will; later she could weep—she had had enough practice at that when she first realised she was pregnant. But now she had to think about her baby. What was going to happen to them?
‘You are responsible for this child,’ she said, hating the way her voice shook, not wanting to show weakness. ‘You must provide for it, even if you have no care for me. It is your moral obligation.’ She would fight tooth and nail for her baby, she had realised as the days passed. Now her own emotions, her own happiness, no longer mattered. She would battle Rafe, however he wounded her, whatever foul words he hurled at her. What could he do to her that was worse than what had already happened?
‘The situation, Miss Shelley, is rather more complex than you believe, although I cannot blame you for seeing it in somewhat black-and-white terms.’ Rafe came out from behind the desk before she could speak.
She stared as he stepped into the light from the fire, the warm glow illuminating his face, sparking sapphire from eyes bluer than she had ever seen, gilding hair the colour of dark honey. ‘You are not Rafe.’ Bella sat down with a thump on the chair as her legs gave way.
‘No,’ he agreed. ‘I am his brother Elliott. Rafe died of a poisoned appendix ten days ago. You asked for Hadleigh—I now hold the title.’
Bella found herself without words. Rafe was dead. Her child’s father was dead. The man she had sacrificed her principles and her honour for was dead. There were no tears, she realised hazily, nor satisfaction either. Only pain. Bella laid her hand over her cramping stomach protectively. She must be strong, for the baby’s sake.
The stranger’s face—Rafe’s face in so many ways—was expressionless as he began to walk around the room, setting a spill from the fire to the candles. Bella fought for some composure. She had to say something or he would think her addled as well as wanton. She had given her virtue to his brother and now she was carrying his illegitimate child. This man would despise her. All right-thinking people would despise her, she knew that. Love was never an excuse, not for the woman.
‘My sympathies on your loss,’ she managed when he came and sat down opposite her, crossed long legs and settled back with the same casual elegance that Rafe had possessed. Rafe is dead, her churning thoughts clamoured. Rafe, the man she had thought she loved, was dead. He had betrayed her and Bella supposed another woman might rejoice that he was no more, but she could not. She just felt blank.
‘Thank you,’ Lord Hadleigh said and his face showed some emotion at last, a tightening, as if a migraine had stabbed at his nerves. ‘We were not close, I regret to say. You were in love with my brother?’
That was abrupt enough. He certainly did not beat about the bush, this brother-ghost of her lover. ‘Yes, of course I was.’ His mouth twisted and this time it was clearly the hint of a smile. ‘You think me immoral, wanton, I am sure,’ Bella protested, goaded by his amusement. ‘But I loved him. I thought he loved me. It was not easy; my father would not countenance me marrying, I knew that. We had to keep it secret.’
Was she making any sense? Her tongue and her brain seemed disconnected. It must be shock, she realised. How could she explain and make him understand the objections a country vicar might have to his daughter marrying a viscount?
He did not appear judgemental, just detached. ‘I see. You were certain of my brother’s affections?’
‘Of course I was.’ She blushed, surprising herself. Surely she was beyond that manifestation of maidenly modesty? ‘He was so sweet, so passionate, so convincing.’ She had to be frank, there was no point in trying to shield her privacy from this man. ‘I never thought I would escape from Martinsdene,’ she murmured. ‘But I dreamed and my dream came true—a viscount fell in love with a vicar’s plain daughter. Or so it seemed.’
‘Are you plain?’ Elliott Calne tilted his head to one side and studied her face. ‘No lady would be looking her best just at this moment. I will reserve judgement.’ His eyes laughed at her for a moment, and her heart turned over. Rafe’s eyes, but deeper, more intent. Rafe’s eyes alone could have seduced her without the need for a word spoken. These made her catch her breath and wonder at their secrets. ‘I am sorry, this is no time for levity,’ he said, serious again. ‘You found you were mistaken in him?’ He sounded regretful, but not surprised.
He must have known his brother was a rake, she realised. But he sounded as though he was fond of him anyway. The poor man was in mourning; she could not pour out her own fury and bitterness at Rafe to him, it was bad enough as it was. He did not need to hear the details of that brutal last day.
Bella wondered if she was going to be sick. She had heard that sickness only affected pregnant women in the mornings, and would go away eventually. But she was still feeling queasy most of the time. And tired and thirsty. And desperate to escape to the privy. And her breasts were tender and her legs and back ached. And there were about six more months of this still to be endured. I am sorry, Baby, she thought. It isn’t your fault. Under her hand her rebellious stomach still felt as flat as usual.
‘Are you feeling unwell? I should have thought to order refreshments, but your news was somewhat of a shock. Tea, perhaps. Plain biscuits? I understand from my cousin Georgy that they are a great help for nausea.’
That was perceptive of him. And kind. Was he truly kind or was he simply wary of a pregnant and distressed woman being ill in his study? Bella opened her eyes and studied the lean face watching her. He was not smiling now and he looked tired and rather grim. As well as losing his brother he had inherited a mountain of responsibility and now she had turned up, with this news.
‘Thank you. That would be very welcome.’ How calming civil politeness was—on the surface. Underneath she wanted to sob and shout. Rafe was dead, her baby was fatherless, she could not go home. Would this man help her or were tea and biscuits the extent of his kindness? ‘Is there…are you married? If Lady Hadleigh—’
‘No. I am not married.’ The hope of some sympathetic female support vanished. Her question—or was it the concept of marriage itself?—seemed to amuse him. Perhaps he was another rake like his brother. But he could hardly damage her more than Rafe had already.
Elliott Calne tugged the bell pull and waited. Silence and stillness seemed to come naturally to him. Was he used to being solitary, or was his mind working frantically on the problem of how to deal with her with the least possible expense, fuss and scandal?
Then the butler came in and he smiled and she saw that, whatever else he was, he was not a man given to brooding bad humour. There were laughter lines at the corner of his eyes and that smile was more than a polite token for a servant.
‘Henlow, please take Miss Shelley to Mrs Knight. She requires a bedchamber to refresh herself and rest. Have a tea tray with biscuits sent up. I will see you for dinner at seven, Miss Shelley; we keep country hours here just now.’
‘Thank you. But, Lord Hadleigh, I cannot stay here, it is not at all—’
‘The thing? No, indeed you cannot.’ That smile again, as though she was still a lady, not a fallen woman, not his brother’s discarded… No, she could not use the any of the words Rafe had hurled at her like sharp stones. ‘We will dis
cuss it over dinner.’
Elliott sat beside the fire in the small dining room, a book in his hands that he had not tried to read. He had felt the need to leave the study after that encounter—the atmosphere of distress and desperation could be cut with a knife. God, Rafe. What have you done now? For years, for all his adolescence, for all his adult life, he had been hoping that his elder brother would reform his ways, become the man Elliott was certain he must be, somewhere deep inside.
He wanted to love his brother as he had when he had been a child, but he had never been able to reach past the shield of disdain Rafe had erected against affection and contact. He knew there had been extravagance, dissipation, women. He had worried about Rafe’s health and had tried to speak to him when they ran across each other in Town, but Rafe had always curled a lip and ignored him.
‘You and your Corinthian set,’ he had sneered. ‘Sport and clean-limbed good fellowship while you batter each other’s brains out in the boxing salon or waste good gaming time racing your damn horses. And when you aren’t being smug about your muscles or your horses you are taking your bloody estate and its turnips so seriously that I think you must be a bastard of Farmer George’s. Never thought our mother had had the King sniffing round her petticoats, but—’
Elliott had hit him, flush on the chin, and knocked him down. After that, they barely acknowledged each other. Occasionally one of his friends would have an embarrassed word when Rafe had offended yet another elderly lord, or ruined some young sprig at the card tables only to lose the same fortune the next day, but all of them knew that Elliott could not influence his brother.
Sometimes he felt like the elder and that oppressed him. He wanted to enjoy himself, to live life to the full, not to have to worry about anything out of his own control, and yet he found himself dragged back again and again to the waste and the anger.
And then there were the women. Rafe had kept a string of expensive ladybirds and actresses. Elliott doubted he had treated any of then well once the novelty wore off, but at least they had been professionals. But innocent young gentlewomen? Surely this had to be the first? Please God, Miss Shelley was the only one.
And not content with seducing and ruining her, Rafe had managed to impregnate her, the thoughtless, careless devil. He should have married her. Elliott stared at the flames. She might have been the making of his brother, the saving of him. He didn’t want this damn title, he wanted his own life and his brother back, well and happy and settled, with the evil demon that had clawed its way into his soul cast out.
Chapter Two
‘My lord.’ The room was small and intimate, a cosy supper room, not the grand dining chamber she had been expecting. Lord Hadleigh rose to his feet from a chair beside the fire and put down the book that had been closed in his hands.
‘Good evening, Miss Shelley.’ That smile again. Despite everything there was a lightness there, a sense that he smiled easily. He watched her and she had the impression that he was looking at her as a woman and that, under different circumstances, he might have flirted with her. Yet she did not feel threatened.
‘You are rested and feeling a little better, I trust.’ He went to take the chair at the head of the small rectangular table and a footman pulled out the other chair set at right angles to his. Bella sat and had her napkin shaken out for her.
She had been fussed over by a pleasant housekeeper who had removed her wet clothes, found her a cosy wrapper and then tucked her up in bed with a cup of tea and a dish of plain biscuits. Without in the least expecting to, she had slept deeply and dreamlessly for almost two hours.
Neither the housekeeper, nor the maid who came to wake her and help her dress, seemed at all surprised that she had turned up out of the drizzle. It was curiously hypnotic, this degree of comfort and luxury, the unobtrusive service, the lack of questions. It would not last, but she would draw strength from it while she could. And she so much needed strength. Strength to fight her own guilt and despair, strength to fight the world’s opinion.
She had woken, knowing what she must do for her baby. Rafe might be dead, but the plan she had originally formed to deal with his almost inevitable refusal to marry her must still be tried. She felt ashamed to have to demand it now, but a steely determination had entered her heart while she slept. She would do whatever it took to protect her child, even at the expense of a man who was innocent in all this.
‘I feel much better, I thank you, my lord.’ It was seven o’clock on a dark, wet May evening, the seducer who had rejected her was dead and she was virtually penniless amongst strangers. Bella stamped on the rising panic; she could say nothing with the footman in attendance.
‘Serve the soup, Harris, and then leave us. I will ring.’
The savoury curls of steam made her almost dizzy with desire. It was an effort to sip the soup and not to pick up the dish and drain it. It must be forty-eight hours since she had eaten a proper meal, but the rags of her pride made it important to behave like a lady in this, if nothing else.
‘Well, Miss Shelley.’ Lord Hadleigh regarded her with those deep blue eyes and she felt insensibly a little safer. ‘Will you tell me your first name?’
‘Arabella, my lord.’
‘And when is the baby due?’
‘Early December.’ That was easy to calculate; she had lain with Rafe only the once, after all.
‘You believed my brother would marry you? He offered marriage? Do have one of these bread rolls, they are excellent.’
‘Yes, he promised. Perhaps you doubt my word?’ she asked, the moment of reassurance vanishing. Elliott Calne shook his head. ‘I am sure you think me wanton. I should be ashamed to even try to justify myself. But it was a fairy tale: my Prince Charming had hacked his way through the thorns to rescue me. You are doubtless wondering how a twenty-five-year-old woman could be such a romantic. It is not like me, I assure you. I have the reputation of being sensible and practical,’ she added bitterly.
‘Where did you meet? In London, I suppose.’ He was too polite to comment on her morals and she was not sure how to explain it to him in any case. How could a man understand the impact his dazzling, treacherous brother had had on her? She was the lonely, dutiful, unhappy eldest daughter of the vicarage and Rafe had been the fulfilment of a fantasy.
‘No, in Suffolk. I live—lived—in a village near Ipswich. I am a vicar’s daughter. My two younger sisters, who could not bear life with Papa any longer, ran away some time ago. I remained. I am expected to support my father in his old age.’
‘How old is he, for God’s sake?’ the viscount demanded. He was certainly to the point, she observed, through her haze of misery.
‘Fifty-three.’ Bella took a wary sip of the red wine in her glass.
‘A long wait for him to become decrepit, then. I gather he is not a joy to live with. More soup?’
‘No. No more soup, thank you, and, no, he is not.’ It was futile to lie. Lord Hadleigh needed to understand. ‘He believes that females are natural sinners, the cause of wickedness, and it must be beaten out of them if necessary. “Woman is the daughter of Eve. She is born of sin and is the vessel of sin”.’ She quoted the sampler she had worked with her sisters. ‘My middle sister eloped with a young officer, her childhood sweetheart, the youngest ran away and I was seduced by a viscount. Papa was quite correct, it seems. I do not know where either of them is,’ she added with a pang. Bella put down her spoon with an unsteady hand and braced herself for this viscount to express his disapproval.
‘So, with two sisters gone by the time Rafe happened along, you were ripe for escape?’
That was not the outright condemnation she had expected. Did Rafe’s brother understand after all? It was hard to tell whether he was sarcastic or sympathetic. How to explain the magic of the week of February sunshine that had come with Rafe, like a harbinger of joy? How to convey the sheer wonder of having such a man—handsome, attentive, sophisticated—pay her attention?
‘He had fallen in love at first si
ght, he said,’ she began, haltingly explaining it to both him and herself. ‘He was in the country, staying with his friend Marcus Daunt at Long Fallow Hall a few miles away. He admitted he was on a repairing lease because he was not feeling too well. The last thing he had expected was to fall in love, he told me.’
‘That must have been the infection beginning,’ Lord Hadleigh said. ‘I wondered where he had been. He was in London when he died.’
It seemed odd that he did not know his own brother’s movements. And how strange that she had not sensed that he was ill; somehow the baby made a connection between them that should have been tangible, however much she hated him. ‘When was it? Did he…was there much pain?’ The room blurred as she struggled to get her emotions under control. This was her baby’s father; even after everything, she did not want him to have suffered agonies.
‘He was in some pain at first, they tell me, but he slipped into unconsciousness very quickly. Miss Shelley—’ He got to his feet and came round the table to crouch down beside her, his movements lithe. He was fit, she thought vaguely, and fast. ‘I am sorry, that was too abrupt. Here, drink some wine.’ He picked up the glass and wrapped her fingers around it, guiding hand and glass to her lips.
She drank a little. ‘Thank you. I am all right. I wanted to know, it is better than imagining things.’ She made herself go on with her story as he went back to his seat. It was hard to look at him: he was so like Rafe and yet, so different. He seemed kind, he seemed caring. So had Rafe—at first. Beware, the voice of experience whispered. He’s a man. ‘We loved each other—I thought—but I warned him about Papa, who became angry if I and my sisters so much as spoke to the curate.’
‘Viscount Hadleigh is hardly the curate,’ the current holder of the title observed drily. He got to his feet, removed her soup plate and began to carve a capon. ‘Are the side dishes within your reach?’ He handed her a plate with meat and served himself.