by Louise Allen
‘Thank you, yes.’
‘Go on, Miss Shelley. He loved you, you loved him, but your father would object because he wanted to keep you at home for his own comfort.’
‘We spoke of marriage and made plans. Rafe would go back to London, organise the settlements and return to present Papa with a fait accompli—he was even going to employ a good housekeeper and bring her with him so Papa would not be abandoned. It all seemed perfect, that day. I was head over heels in love and… We became lovers. He asked and I… He said I could not love him, if I refused. So I did as he asked me.’
She could not go on. She was not going to describe the horror of it all disintegrating about her. The nightmare. She had loved Rafe, she knew she would have learned to please him in bed if she had had the chance, if he had cared for her in return and had wanted to teach her. But—‘That is all,’ she concluded abruptly and looked up to find Elliott Calne’s eyes studying her with something painfully like pity in them.
Elliott was silent, twisting his wine glass between long fingers.
Further intimate revelations seemed beyond Bella, but good manners insisted she try to make some kind of conversation. She could not just sit and sob, however bad she felt. ‘Forgive me,’ she ventured, ‘but were you and your brother close?’
‘You mean, I presume, how like him am I?’ That question appeared to amuse him. The smile appeared, and goose bumps ran up and down her spine. It was some form of sorcery, that smile. In combination with those eyes it should be illegal. ‘Not very, except in looks. I am the boringly well-behaved younger brother, after all.’
Boring hardly seemed the word. Bella made herself focus on him, not just on his resemblance to Rafe. Nor, she guessed, was well behaved an accurate description. There was an edge to Elliott Calne’s observations that suggested a cheerfully cynical view of the world and a lack of shock at her story that made her suspect that he was quite familiar with the pleasures of life.
‘You are?’
‘For a long time I was the poor younger brother as well. That does put a slight crimp in one’s descent into debauchery, unless one has no concern about debt or one’s health. I enjoy sport, I enjoy working hard, being fit. I prefer to make money, not to squander it. Then when I had it I found that working for my wealth made me value it a little more than, perhaps, Rafe did his inheritance.’
He raised his eyes fleetingly to study the room and she glanced around too. Under the opulence there were small signs of decay, of money skimped on repairs and spent on show. Bella noticed a patch of damp on the wall by the window, a crack in the skirting, and recalled the potholes in the carriage drive. The fingers of Elliott’s left hand tightened on the stem of his wine glass, the ring that had been Rafe’s sparking in the candlelight. She realised that his eyes were on her and not the room. He glanced away again, went back to his silent thoughts.
Bella put down her knife and fork and studied the face that was so like, and yet unlike, his brother’s. Rafe’s face had been softer than this man’s, though the searing attack of Rafe’s anger had been sharp; she felt that Elliott’s would be more ruthless and controlled under a façade that was more lighthearted than Rafe’s. She shivered and he caught it at once; he was watching her more closely than she had realised.
‘Are you cold?’ She shook her head. ‘Still hungry? Shall I ring for cheese, or a dessert?’ The perfect host, yet this was very far from the perfect social situation and Bella suspected that much more was going on in that sharply barbered head than concerns over her appetite.
‘No, thank you, my lord.’ She was as warm and well fed and rested as she was going to be; now was the moment to say what she had resolved upstairs when she woke.
Goodness only knew how he would respond, but she was prepared to be utterly shameless. After a lifetime of doing what she was told, thinking of everyone else’s welfare, needs and whims before her own, she was going to stand up and fight for her child. After all, the world would say she had put herself beyond shame. ‘My lord.’
He looked at her, alerted by the change in her tone. ‘Miss Shelley?’
‘You are Rafe’s heir, so I must ask you to do this—insist upon it.’ Her voice quavered and she bore down hard on the fear and the emotion. She had to get through this. ‘I want you to provide me with a house—just a small, decent one—and enough money for me to raise my child respectably. I can pretend to be a widow, I need very little for myself. But I must ask you to pay for his education if it is a boy or for a dowry if it is a girl. I am very sorry to have to demand this of you, but I realise I must do whatever I can for my baby’s safety and future.’
He studied her from under level brows and with no trace of emotion on his face. Was he shocked by her explicit demands? ‘I am sure you will be a veritable tigress in defence of your cub,’ he remarked at length, bringing the angry colour up into her cheeks. ‘But, no, I will not set you up in some decent little house in some provincial town somewhere and provide for your child as you ask.’
Bella’s fingers curled into claws. For a moment she felt just like the animal he had likened her to. ‘You must—’
‘I will not.’ It was like walking into a wall. He did not move, he did not raise his voice, but Bella knew, with utter clarity, that this was not an unplanned reaction. He had guessed what she would ask and he had made up his mind.
He would have her driven back to the Peacock in Chipping Campden where she had left the stage coach, no doubt. Now that he had looked after her basic welfare and she had made her demands, he would want her out of the house. Well, she would go, she had no strength left tonight to fight him.
But she would be back tomorrow whether he liked it or not—Elliott Came was her only hope and she would do whatever she had to until he gave in. Anything. She would come back, and back, until he either called in the constable or gave her what she needed. If she had to she would threaten a scandal, although she knew who was likely to come off worst if she did. Blackmail, shaming, threats—whatever weapon she could find, she would use it.
‘I cannot argue with you now, but I will, I promise you. I should be leaving now. I will—’
‘Indeed, yes,’ he interrupted her, his tone as pleasant as if they had been discussing the weather. ‘It is getting late and you have had a long and difficult day. I am afraid that the Dower House is draughty and my great-aunt querulous—although you will not see her tonight—but my cousin Dorothy is a pleasant enough female.’
‘Your—’ The Dower House and his female relatives? Was Lord Hadleigh insane? He could not deposit the woman who had been his brother’s lover, who was carrying his brother’s illegitimate child, on those respectable ladies. ‘But I cannot stay with your relatives. I am ruined! They would be mortified if they realised.’
‘They would be mortified if my wife-to-be stayed anywhere else.’
Bella’s hand jerked and the stain spread like blood over the white tablecloth as her almost-full wine glass toppled. ‘Your wife? You intend to marry me? You?’
‘Why, yes. Have you any better suggestion, Arabella?’
‘I came here with a perfectly reasonable proposition, and you refused me without even discussing it and now you suggest marriage!’
‘It was not a suggestion. It is what is going to happen.’ Elliott cut through her half-formed thoughts. From his tone he was both making a prediction and issuing an order. He looked as though he was negotiating a business deal, his eyes cold and steady. The charming smile had gone.
‘It is ridiculous! I do not know you. Rafe is the father—’
‘Rafe is cold in the ground.’ She flinched, but he pressed on, ignoring her wordless gasp of shock at his frankness. ‘And how well did you know him? I thought you wanted the best for your child.’
‘I do! I would do anything for this baby…’ Her voice trailed away as she saw where this was taking her. ‘Anything.’
‘Exactly. I assume you mean that. You did not come here really expecting to marry Viscount Hadleigh, did y
ou? If Rafe had been alive, he would have refused and you know it, so you had, most sensibly, planned your demands.
‘Now you will become a viscountess, move here, live in what—once I get this place into some sort of order—should be reasonable comfort. The difference is that you will be marrying me and not my brother. Is that such a sacrifice to make for your child or are you telling me you would prefer to live a lie in dowdy seclusion in some remote market town, bringing up a bastard?’
The sharp vertical line between his brows and the edge to his words told her quite clearly how little he wanted this.
‘Of course I would not,’ Bella snapped, nerves getting the better of shock and distress and even the remnants of good manners. ‘If I thought for a moment you meant it—’
‘You doubt my word?’
Now she had impugned his honour and he was on his aristocratic high-horse. It would be nice to be able to complete a sentence. Bella hung on to her anger—it was more strengthening than any of the other emotions that were churning inside her. She tried again. ‘I doubt you have thought this through. I have no desire to be married to a man who is going to bitterly resent it the moment the knot is tied. You would make an appalling husband.’
Judging by the way the corner of his mouth quirked, he appeared to find her completely unfair words mildly diverting, damn him. Bella had a momentary pang of conscience over thinking such a thing, but found she was beyond caring. This was a nightmare and somehow she had to wake up.
‘Don’t laugh at me!’
‘Do you think I find this amusing? Then let me explain something, Arabella.’ Elliott got to his feet, about six foot three of intense male at very close quarters. She did her best not to flinch away when he planted his hands on the table and leaned towards her, those deep blue eyes holding hers. ‘I am Hadleigh. I am head of this family now. But if Rafe had done what he should have done and married you before he died, then I would be sitting here, a guest in your house, acting as your trustee until the birth of that child.
‘And if it is a boy, he would be Viscount Hadleigh and I would be Mr Calne, his guardian, nothing more. Do you expect me, in all honour, to ignore that fact?’
Chapter Three
‘But you are the legal heir. You hold the title now. You cannot want to marry me,’ Bella protested.
‘For God’s sake, stop worrying about me or Rafe or anything else and worry about your child,’ Elliott snapped. ‘My brother should have left you alone or married you: one or the other. In fact, he should have married years ago. But he did not. Do you think I am grateful for his heedless behaviour because I now have the good fortune to inherit the title?’
He did not sound as though he considered himself very fortunate. ‘All I can do, in honour, is to ensure that if it is a boy he will one day inherit, as my heir. It might not be legally imperative, but it most certainly is morally. No one will suspect—a child is presumed to be the offspring of its mother’s husband. With any luck the birth will be full term or later—I believe that is not uncommon with a first child. We will have been assumed to have anticipated matters a trifle, however late it is.’
‘Then people will believe you had—’
‘I am Hadleigh,’ he interrupted her again. ‘After my brother, they expect that sort of behaviour from the viscount, I have no doubt. It will be a one-week wonder, the gossip.’
‘But the staff here,’ she protested, swept along by his vehemence, knowing she had capitulated but still protesting, ‘they saw me arrive on the doorstep, on foot, sodden, having obviously travelled on the common stage. That is not how you would treat your betrothed, surely?’
Elliott sat down again and reached for the claret. ‘Of course not, not if I knew you were coming. However, we simply use the truth about your difficult father, who does not approve of the immoral ways of the aristocracy and who has forbidden our marriage, despite the fact you are of age. His temper is such that you felt you had to run away to me before your condition became obvious and not wait for wedding preparations. You said nothing when you arrived to indicate that you were expecting to see Rafe and not me, did you?’
Bella shook her head. ‘No. I behaved as confidently as I could and I only used your title. I feared the butler would show me the door before I could get to Rafe if I did not.’
There had to be something wrong with this, somehow. Her child would be legitimate? She was going to become the Viscountess of Hadleigh after all, despite her shame, despite her ruin? Yes, there had to be some catch, something she had not seen. Things that were too good to be true normally were just that. This seemed the perfect solution—but it would be like a diamond with a huge flaw in its heart. She felt too tired and dizzy and confused to think it through and find that flaw.
‘You have had enough for one day, I suspect.’ Elliott was at her elbow and she had not even noticed him move. ‘You are in a delicate condition, you have travelled too far and you have had a shock.’
‘Yes.’ She was beyond arguing now; he was too strong to resist. And she should not resist in any case, but some voice kept nagging that she should not do this to him, that he did not deserve it. She had been prepared to make a sacrifice for her child; she had not expected the victim to be an innocent man.
‘I cannot think straight any longer. We must talk again, but I would like to retire if I may. Your great-aunt and your cousin—what will you tell them, my lord?’
‘Why, the truth, of course.’ He eased back her chair and waited while she got to her feet. ‘That ours has been a most secret and rapid courtship, and, given your father’s irrational opposition, I intend marrying you by licence just as soon as I can lay my hands on one. Which is going to involve an early trip to Worcester tomorrow to see the bishop.’
She ought to say something, but it felt like trying to walk into a strong wind. ‘You should stop calling me my lord,’ he added just before they reached the door. ‘We must appear to be on intimate terms.’
‘Elliott,’ she repeated obediently. It was a more solid name than Rafe, more real somehow. He was real, she realised. He was the only reality between her and utter ruin. Rafe was dead and she was safe from him, at least. But he had been the devil she knew. This brother she did not know at all. ‘This is… I don’t feel—’
‘And it would be as well if you were to come with me to Worcester, if you are up to travelling tomorrow. I expect you will need to do some shopping. Then back here by evening and we will be married the next day. Which reminds me, I must send a note down to Mr Fanshawe, the rector.’
‘Married the day after tomorrow?’
‘The sooner the better, don’t you think? I have met the bishop before, which is fortunate. George Huntingford. Bit of a dry stick, but not inclined to be awkward. He won’t have come across your father, will he?’
‘I have no idea. But, Elliott, I cannot just confront a bishop and pretend—’
‘Pretend what?’ Elliott enquired with infuriating logic. ‘You are of age, you are who you say you are and you are free to marry. There is no deception.’
‘I do wish you would let me finish a sentence,’ Bella said, her temper sparking through the fog of exhaustion. He was right, of course—why could she not simply accept it? She swallowed the tears of frustration, tried to think rationally. Was this really the right thing to do? It seemed so easy, far too easy. Perhaps she was dreaming.
‘You are not very coherent tonight,’ Elliott said in response to her protest. ‘It is hardly surprising, but if I waited for you to finish we would be here until the small hours.’ They looked at each other, his expression mildly exasperated, hers set into a frown that was probably making her even plainer than usual. He must surely be studying her and wondering what on earth he had done to deserve this.
It was irrational and ungrateful, but she was so angry with him, all of a sudden. He was utterly in control and she could do nothing because he was right: this was the best thing for her child. Her fists clenched; deep inside she knew that the man she wanted
to strike was not him, but his brother. Striking the man who was going to save her and the baby from this nightmare was madness, but the temptation was strong. It did not help either that she had the conflicting desire to simply lean against his chest and sob.
‘No, I am not very coherent.’ Bella made herself speak moderately. ‘I am usually calm, sensible, coherent and responsible. And before you say anything, losing my virtue to your brother before marriage was none of those things, I am well aware. But he…but I…’
‘Your emotions overcame all else?’ Elliott suggested, not unkindly.
‘Exactly.’ Bella clasped her hands tightly. ‘I do not know if you have ever been in love, Elliott?’ Or are now. No, surely he would not have suggested this if he had any ties to another woman?
‘No,’ he admitted to her intense relief. ‘There is no one.’
‘It sweeps away everything. It was the most powerful thing I have ever experienced.’ Of course, it must have been only the illusion of love or she would have clung to Rafe, wanted him even when he hurt her and spurned her. It made it worse, somehow, that even her own emotions had deceived her. ‘And just now I am bereft, tired, frightened, confused and adrift. And shocked. I presume you have never experienced any of those emotions either?’ He did not look like a man who was easily discommoded.
‘I have been shocked, certainly. Very recently.’ The corner of his mouth moved in what was either a grimace of pain or a sardonic smile. ‘You will agree that you have had a little longer to become used to your condition than I have.’
‘I have had even less opportunity to become used to the notion that I am to marry a complete stranger and become a viscountess,’ she began and then caught herself as her voice trembled. Elliott was being quite incredibly forbearing. And honourable. And she had put him in a most difficult position. ‘You are being very kind.’ That provoked a quizzical lift of one eyebrow. ‘I do appreciate what you are doing for me, for the baby, but please, may we talk about this in the morning?’