Chapter Sixteen
As the door closed behind Bella, Marianne said, “How does Roseley’s disgraced and exiled rebel second son become engaged to an earl’s daughter?”
“Duke’s daughter,” Alban corrected mildly. “Damned if I know. So, what do you want done with him?” He jerked his head toward Radnor.
Radnor sidestepped him and reached for Marianne’s hand. “My dear, what are you doing here? I meant to have this all sorted out and your children brought to you—”
“Did you?” Marianne said indignantly, snatching her hand out of reach. “Then why did I have to hear of my children’s distress from a letter intercepted by you and only sent on to me by a worried servant?”
“I did not want you worried,” Radnor pleaded. “You were having such a delightful time in London.”
“I read every word my children wrote to me,” Marianne said in a low, quivering voice. “And I shall never forgive myself for leaving that man, Jenkins, in my house with them!”
Radnor spread his hands. “I am so sorry, my love. I was entirely misled in Jenkins. Be assured I shall dismiss him at once.”
Marianne curled her lip. “You have been here since this morning and you have not already done so?”
“Be reasonable, dearest, I needed him to help me find the children,” Radnor excused himself. “They left no word as to where they had gone.”
“You would have sent that man to drag my children from safety?” Marianne pounced with even more indignation.
“My love, I said no such—”
Marianne narrowed her flashing eyes. “He told Miss Farnworth, the governess, that she was dismissed on your orders.”
“He lied,” Radnor said at once. “Of course he will lie to save his own skin.”
“Unlike you,” Alban drawled.
Radnor shot him a glance of venom. “My dear, let us talk away from this—”
“My bother-in-law is my children’s guardian and protector,” Marianne said at once. “He has every right to be part of this discussion.”
“Yes, he does,” Alban said impatiently. “So, let us cut to the chase. Marianne, what do you want done with your husband?”
“Done?” Radnor exclaimed in outrage. “Done, sir?”
“Like a rabbit,” Dr. Gowan interpolated. “Or do you mean, in slang terms, done in?”
Radnor blanched.
Alban curled his lip. “Nothing would give me greater pleasure. Do you want him, Marianne? For I take leave to tell you, I won’t have the children in the same house as him. If you wish him to remain, I’ll arrange a separate establishment where you may visit them.”
Marianne turned away abruptly. He could only imagine the way her world was falling around her ears. Johnstone was right. She was not the kind of woman who did well without a husband, but at the moment, she certainly could not stomach the one she had. He didn’t know whether to feel pity or frustration for her poor marital choice.
“Shall I shoot him for you?” Alban asked. “No one need ever know.”
“For God’s sake!” Radnor exploded.
“No, for the children’s sakes,” Alban snarled. “You are an execrable man and you deserve to die.”
“Don’t,” Marianne whispered. “I can’t!”
“You don’t have to,” Alban assured her. “I’ll do it and gladly.”
“Alban stop it,” she said, laughter quivering in her throat somewhere between tears and hysterics. “I can’t live with your killing him, or my being responsible for it.”
“Marianne,” Radnor said softly, reaching out to her once more. “You won’t regret this.”
Again, she jerked back out of his reach, glaring at him. “Nor can I live with you in my house! I never want to see you again!”
“Marianne!”
She turned her back on him.
The door opened and Bella came back into the room. “Excuse me,” she said politely. “I just wanted to tell you that the maid Molly has arrived. She seemed to think you’d dismissed her, but I thought that was probably a misunderstanding and left her with the children.”
Alban stirred. “If you ask me, Molly saved their lives taking them to Blackhaven.”
Marianne flushed. “Then of course she is not dismissed. Please ask her to carry on with her duties. I shall be up directly.”
“Of course. Also…I’m sorry, this is your house, but Molly arrived with the vicar and his wife from Blackhaven, and also my Aunt Sarah, who seemed to think they might have to rescue me. Or Alban. I’m not very clear. I’ve shown them into the library across the hall for now.”
“That’s fine,” Marianne said faintly. “We should have tea.”
Bella’s lips twitched and her gaze met Alban’s for a breathless instant before she glanced away and turned to leave again.
“Bella,” Alban said, instinctively reluctant to let her leave. He wouldn’t have her treated as a servant in this house. “Please, stay.”
When she glanced back at him, he could see at once that she wouldn’t. He reached out his hand and her face cleared as she turned and walked across the room to his side. Amazingly, the strain went immediately out of him. How had she become so necessary to him so quickly? He, who’d needed no one since he was eighteen years old.
“Marianne is deciding her husband’s fate,” he explained, returning his gaze to his sister-in-law. “If you want him left alive, I would advise getting him out of the country.”
“How? Where?” Marianne asked in despair. “Europe is at war!”
Alban shrugged. “One of my ships is about to sail from Whalen to Jamaica.”
“Jamaica.” Marianne brightened. “Could we make him an allowance on condition he stays there and never comes home?”
“Certainly,” Alban replied, although without troubling to hide his distaste. But perhaps Marianne understood her husband better. One could only control with him with fear and money.
“But I’d never survive in Jamaica!” Radnor exclaimed.
Alban curled his lip. “Well, the alternatives are we hand you over to the magistrate, and you may survive as well as you can in prison. Or I kill you where you stand. You and your wife may fight that one out among yourselves, but I imagine I already know the result.”
So did Radnor. “Jamaica,” he repeated miserably.
“I think we should probably send Jenkins with him,” Alban observed. “I’m reluctant to shoot the servant if I can’t kill the master.”
“Still the egalitarian,” Marianne murmured, with a mixture of frustration and affectionate memory.
“Only up to a point. There’s no democracy aboard my ships.”
“I feel somewhat sorry for the Jamaicans,” Bella said. “But at least there is no slavery now for them to exploit.”
“Is that a vote for shooting them?” Alban asked.
“No,” Bella said firmly. “And in any case, this situation is not democratic either.”
“Then we’ll send him to Jamaica. Cairney, take Mr. Radnor upstairs to pack a bag and then get him and Jenkins to Whalen. Take a couple of men with you when you go.”
“Marianne!” Radnor exclaimed as he was marched ignominiously from the room. “Don’t do this to me! I love you! Don’t believe the lies of this pirate!”
Marianne turned her back, though she bit her lips in a helpless gesture he’d once found appealing. “But how will we get money to him?”
“We can make arrangements with my banker in Kingston,” Alban said.
Marianne blinked. “You have a banker?” she blurted.
“Oh, I have several,” he said wryly. “Shall we bring in Lady Sarah and the Grants and have tea?”
“By all means.” Marianne glanced around uneasily. “And maybe you could confine your…men and their weapons to the kitchen?”
Alban jerked his head, and the men obediently followed him from the room.
*
As Alban and the men left the drawing room, Dr. Gowan paused to bow to Marianne and Bella and then he sauntered after them, closing the door behind him.
Marianne sank onto the nearest sofa. “What a most peculiar day,” she said faintly.
“It must have been so very difficult for you,” Bella sympathized. She sat on the edge of the sofa, feeling awkward. “And I’m sorry to have filled your house with sailors and frightened you. I’m afraid I asked them to come looking for Alban.”
“You did?” She looked surprised, regarding Bella with rather more interest. “Have you known him for a long time?”
“No, not really.”
“I’ve known him forever… It’s so very strange to see him back here after all these years. I shall be so glad of him with Julian gone.” She shuddered, no doubt overwhelmed by the betrayal and loss, and by what had so nearly happened to her children at the hands of one she should have been able to trust implicitly. She pinched the skin over the bridge of her nose. “Where will you live when you are married, Lady Arabella?” she managed. “Does your family have property in this part of the country?”
“I don’t think so, no,” Bella murmured. “In Scotland, mostly, and in Sussex.”
Marianne’s hand fell back into her lap. It struck Bella that she actually looked frightened, no doubt by a future that had just changed for her so dramatically.
“I believe,” Marianne said in a voice that trembled slightly, “the Marshalls are looking for a new tenant at Haven House. It is rather closer to Blackhaven than Roseley, but it might answer.”
“Thank you,” Bella said hesitantly.
“I shall need him here, you understand…”
“Of course, I understand,” Bella said kindly, although part of her couldn’t help being irritated by the assumption of the other woman’s claim on Alban. She had to remind herself that Marianne had had several shocks and must be feeling very low and isolated. Not to mention grief-stricken. She wondered if Marianne had loved her husband very much.
“You are such a good lady,” Marianne murmured. “I am surprised…”
Exactly what she meant by that was lost in the entry of Aunt Sarah and the Grants into the room, and the exclamations and introductions which ensued.
“Arabella!” Aunt Sarah almost charged at her. “Captain Alban tells me you came to rescue him, not to elope! You foolish, ridiculous child! Are you hurt? He says not, but what do men know?”
“I’m fine,” Bella assured her, enduring her aunt’s thorough search of her face and body, presumably for traces of blood or broken limbs. “Quite unhurt.”
Aunt Sarah sniffed and released her.
Although Bella’s memories of Kate were hardly of a comfortable person, together with Grant she seemed curiously soothing, taking everything in her stride and making this very odd situation seem almost normal. Only Alban seemed restless, constantly pacing the room, never still.
When tea eventually arrived, Marianne sent for the children and gave orders for dinner to be served for her and her guests as soon as was possible.
“Oh, we couldn’t intrude,” Kate protested.
“But I insist,” Marianne said at once. “You have all been so good, looking out for my children and me. And you cannot travel all the way back to Blackhaven in the dark. Of course you must stay the night…if you can bear a house with so few servants! We took most of them to London and I left in such a hurry they must be at least a day behind me in returning. But at least we have a cook…”
Bella cast a quick glance at Alban and found him still for once, watching her with quiet intensity from the window. For some reason, that look melted her bones. And then he dragged his gaze to the window instead.
“Oh dear,” he said, with mingled frustration and amusement. “Brace yourself, Bella.”
“Why?”
It didn’t take long to discover. One of Alban’s men who seemed to have constituted himself porter and butler, threw open the door to address Alban rather than the lady of the house. “There’s an angry gent here with a gaggle of other toffs. Do you want me to let them in?”
“Oh dear,” said Bella, who had no difficulty at all in recognizing her father and his entourage from this description.
Alban’s lips twitched. But before he could speak, the duke simply pushed the sailor out of the way and barged in, Aunt Maria, Sir George Beaton, and Mr. Wain at his heels.
Marianne sprang to her feet in alarm. Her hand reached out as though to ask Alban to take care of this for her. And then, with a sudden frown, she seemed to recognize her newest visitors.
“Mr. Kelburn,” she said severely, drifting toward him. “I believe I made it plain that I could not invite strangers—”
“Mr. Kelburn?” Bella’s father boomed, stopping in his tracks to bow jerkily. “Madam, I have the honor to be the Duke of Kelburn. And that is my missing daughter!”
“I was never missing,” Bella said mildly. “I merely wasn’t with you. Papa, shall we—”
“Well, you’re a damned fool!” the duke raged. “This time you have certainly ruined whatever was left of your reputation! Only a man who knows your wild starts as well as he knows your family would dream of marrying you now!”
Which was, presumably the purpose of Sir George Beaton’s presence.
“Nonsense, Papa,” Bella said calmly. “I am positively surrounded by family. Both my aunts are here to chaperone my visit to Mrs. Radnor. Although I am glad to see you, there was really no need for you to come at all.”
Alban turned his head toward her. She wondered if it was in amusement, astonishment, or pride, but she couldn’t look or she would break her father’s gaze. The duke’s face was darkening to a shade of puce she had never seen before. And yet, behind it, she was sure his eyes flashed with something like admiration. It almost seemed that all she had ever really needed to do to win him over was to stand up to him.
The duke turned his gaze, finally, on his hostess. “Mrs. Radnor. My apologies for descending upon you unannounced. But I know you understand a parent’s anxiety.”
“Of course,” Marianne murmured, somewhat bewildered by this change of mood—which didn’t last, of course, once his attention was caught by Alban’s figure by the window.
“You, sir,” he said with loathing, “have done your best to ruin my daughter. Never think I don’t know why. I’ve even spoken to that Tranter fellow, who confirms everything.”
“Mr. Tranter is a liar,” Bella said hotly.
“And this fellow isn’t?” snarled the duke. “Sir, I will speak to you later. First, I’d like a word with my daughter in private—with Mrs. Radnor’s permission.”
“Of course,” their hostess said faintly.
Bella, anxious to get her father away from everyone else, led the way out of the drawing room and across the hall to the library where she’d earlier ushered the Grants and Aunt Maria.
The library was a much more pleasant place than the oppressive drawing room. It smelled of the books that lined the walls, old leather and slightly musty paper. She’d closed the curtains earlier, and the overall impression should have been one of comfort and coziness. However, as she turned in the middle of the room and watched everyone else file in—Aunt Maria, Aunt Sarah, her father, Sir George, and Mr. Waine—she didn’t feel comfortable at all.
“This isn’t exactly private,” she observed to her father.
“It’s private enough,” the duke said grimly. “Close the door, Waine, and let’s get this over with.”
Bella’s gaze flew to the closing door, through which she could just make out the figures of Alban and Marianne in the hall. Mrs. Radnor held his hand, reaching up to touch his cheek as he bent toward her.
Bella’s heart seemed to stop beating. The snap of the door blocked out the unbearable sight, but she already understood everything. Marianne was his first love, who had only married his brother because Alban himself was banished. She was free, now, in reality if not in name.
Bella’s fingers clutched convulsively at the neck of her gown, plucking it away from her skin, until someone dragged her hand away. She barely noticed, so lost was she in pain.
And she? What was Bella to Alban? An aberration? An amusement? A means to an end? The cruel revenge her father claimed?
No. I won’t believe that of him. I can’t.
With an effort, she forced her mind to function, to focus on her surroundings, on the voices buzzing irritatingly around the edges of her misery.
They were all looking at her. For some reason, her hand lay in Sir George Beaton’s. She tried to draw it free, but his fingers curled, holding it, and she frowned.
Patiently, as though he’d spoken the words already, Mr. Waine said, “Repeat after me. I, Arabella…”
Her frown deepened, “I, Arabella,” she said to please him.
“Take thee George Francis…”
With a jolt, she realized what oath the words were about to form, what she had been about to do without even noticing.
“But I don’t,” she blurted. “I already said so and I meant it.”
“Oh, for the love of—” Her father cast his eyes to heaven. “Arabella, there is no other hope for you. Alban has ruined you in the eyes of the world. We are all very grateful for Sir George’s trust and loyalty.”
She regarded Sir George curiously. “Why is that?” she asked. “Why do you still want to marry me? What has my father promised you?”
Sir George flushed.
“Arabella, that is most unbecoming of you,” Aunt Sarah snapped.
“Well, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to imply my father would not keep his promise, because of course he would. He is a man of honor.” Her gaze drifted to the duke. “Only I cannot see the honor in this.”
“That is because you are naive and your head has been turned by that plausible rogue who is already stalking his sister-in-law instead. Bella, let us just be comfortable again.”
Comfortable. She’d been so rarely comfortable, except in her own company at Kelburn, and even then, comfort had frequently degenerated into boredom. As a wife, as Lady Beaton, she would have her family’s approval and she was fairly sure Sir George would not bother her much. She could live her own life as she chose, in a way that was not really open to her as an unmarried lady.
But…she would not have Alban.
Her throat closed up. Had she ever had Alban? Even without the complication of Marianne, could she ever have him, in any way that mattered?
She glanced at her aunts, at her father, whose face actually softened infinitesimally. “Bella,” he murmured. “I’ve only ever wanted what is best for you. We all want that. Including Sir George.”
She swallowed. “I know that.” It wouldn’t be so bad. Nothing mattered, after all, if she couldn’t be with Alban. Her throat tightened.
“Proceed,” the duke ordered Mr. Waine.
Mr. Waine drew in his breath once more and fixed Bella with a slightly nervous gaze. “I, Arabella take thee George Francis…”
“I…I can’t,” Bella said, abruptly, tugging her hand free at last. Breathing was difficult. In just a few moments the paroxysm of coughing would begin. “I’m sorry, you must excuse—”
Her father leapt in front of her, furious once more. “I must do nothing of the sort,” he fumed. “Proceed.”
Arabella stared at him. “You can’t!” she gasped, wheezing. “I won’t say the words!”
“Yes, you will. You’ll stay in this room until you do. Waine, get on with it.”
Without warning, the door to the library flew open. Alban walked in, still wearing the torn and bloody shirt, looking every inch the pirate he was rumored to be as he strode directly toward her. Her heart tumbled over itself and she forgot to cough.
The duke turned, swearing beneath his breath. “Sir, you are not welcome at this family event.”
“I rather think,” Alban said, coming to a halt before Bella, “that it is the family event which is not wanted. May I escort your ladyship somewhere?”
“Anywhere,” she said between white lips. Shame swamped her. Shame at her family’s plotting, at her own ungallant part in it, and most of all, that he had witnessed it. And yet more than anything, she needed to be out of the room.
“You are promised here, Bella!” the duke warned as she laid her trembling hand on Alban’s bloody sleeve. “You must be married now.”
“I can’t be,” she managed. Her brain seemed to be working again. “You don’t have a marriage license.”
“Of course we do,” the duke retorted, delving into his coat. “I had it from the archbishop myself.”
“Then, where is it?” she asked mildly.
The duke held out one peremptory hand to Mr. Waine, who shook his head, muttering, “I do not have it, sir.”
“We’ve heard quite enough,” Alban snapped. “Even a special license requires the consent of both parties.” And with that, he simply walked, forcing her father to stand aside rather than be barged.
*
As soon as he saw her in that room, Alban wished he’d put a stop to the nonsense before it had gone so far. It had been perverse pride, he supposed ruefully. He’d wanted to hear her refuse to marry Beaton, to convince himself he was doing the right thing. But when he opened the door, she looked so fragile, so ill, that his heart smote him.
Nothing could have stood in his way as he took her away from them. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t worthy of her. She needed him. On the other hand, bringing up the lack of license was a killer blow that pleased him.
“How did you know they had no license?” he murmured as he closed the door and led her toward the stairs.
“Because I have it in my reticule,” she said, holding up the little bag that had dangled from her wrist for so long that it seemed to have become part of her.
His breath caught. “How very far-thinking of you,” he said gravely, seizing a candle from the table at the foot of the stairs.
“I thought so at the time… Where are we going?” she asked.
“Where no one will look for you and you can stay out of trouble. Only you could be married through inattention.”
She smiled faintly, although her lips were pale in the candlelight.
On the landing, he led her along the familiar left-hand passage, away from the nursery which was all she could have seen of the house before, and up the other flight of stairs to his old bedchamber.
He flung open the door and paused for the barest instant to let inevitable memory batter him. Nothing much seemed to have changed. It was a little airless through lack of use, but the room caught the sun for most of the day and it was not cold.
Releasing her, he went and lit the bedside lamp from the candle. He’d meant to let her sleep here in peace until the morning. But in the light of the lengths her family seem prepared to go to in order to marry her to someone else—and the discovery of the special license in her reticule—another idea was taking precedence.
“Wait here,” he said abruptly. “I’m going to fetch G—”
“Do you still love Marianne?” she blurted.
He blinked at her. “I’ve never loved Marianne.”
She cast him a skeptical glance, and his lips twisted.
Walking toward her, he added, “I might have imagined I did when we were children, but I haven’t thought about her in years. I didn’t even know she’d married Nick until Will Conway told me. She was beautiful and all the youths in the neighborhood were in love with her. I supposed I liked to win. In fact, I should be grateful to my father for throwing me out, because she’s so manipulative I might have found myself married to her before I was nineteen. Why should you imagine I’m in love with her?”
“Oh, something she said,” Bella murmured, not looking at him.
He came to a halt in front of her and tilted her chin up with one finger, frowning down at her. “And something you saw?” he prompted, understanding in a frustrated kind of a way. “In the hall perhaps?”
A flush rose to her pale cheeks.
“Well if the door had remained open, you would have seen me give her a peck on the cheek,” he said impatiently. “Quite a cold peck at that, for one has to be firm with Marianne. In the same instant, I sent her back to her unwanted guests in the drawing room and listened shamefully to what was going on in the library. What were you imagining? That I made love to her in the hallway?”
Bella pushed her fingers under her glasses and rubbed at her eyes. “Oh, nothing,” she mumbled.
This wasn’t just irritating for him, it was hurting her.
“Bella, do you love me?” he asked abruptly.
She was so close he could feel the heat flooding through her. “You know I do,” she whispered. “More than anything.”
He caressed her chin between his finger and thumb. “And do you trust me?”
That was clearly a harder question, for her eyes widened. She even snatched off her glasses as if she could think better without seeing him. “Yes,” she said at last. “Yes, I do trust you. I always have, even when I barely knew you.”
“Then why would you think I would throw you over for Marianne or anyone else?” he demanded. “Why would I marry—” He broke off, frowning at her. “You trust me,” he said, understanding. “It’s yourself you don’t trust.”
She swallowed. “I’m sorry. I am not used to…this.”
“You are short-sighted and a little clumsy,” he admitted. She nodded, dropping her eyes and trying to break free of him. He wouldn’t let her. “And you sometimes struggle to make conversation with shallow fools. Do you really imagine those things make you less? That they somehow make you a less attractive woman?”
She stopped struggling and stared at him.
“Do you think,” he went on relentlessly, “that the fact that you prefer to write histories rather than ply your needle makes you a poor wife?”
“For some,” she said shakily.
“For fools.” He took her face between both hands, feeling his way, relying on instinct. “Bella, you are beautiful,” he whispered. “With or without the wretched glasses. You are unique and enchanting and I would die for you. To marry you would be my honor, my privilege, one I’m a long way from deserving. I know that. And never think I’m the only one. Why do you imagine Beaton keeps following you around though you reject him at every turn? Even Tranter wasn’t immune. In all the deals he tried to make with me, it was always he who got to marry you, never me. Until I scared away his few wits. And you do know Tamar wants to do a lot more than paint you? Nor is he alone. Why do you think I’m in such a hurry to marry you myself?”
“You weren’t always,” she reminded him wistfully. Her gaze dropped to his lips and heat surged through him. He stepped closer so that she could feel it, so that her delectable little body touched his at breast and hips.
“Because you upset my plodding, hedonistic life,” he whispered. “You churned me up, filled me with notions that frankly scared me to death. And yet I couldn’t leave them alone. I can’t leave you alone.”
He fell on her mouth, partly to prove his words, partly because he couldn’t wait any longer. She was so soft and sweet, and her taste was all womanly temptation. Her mouth fell open beneath his and her tongue darted along his lips.
He groaned, knowing at last that this must happen now, before any vows or lines made it compulsory. It had to be with nothing to bind them except their own feelings, their own desires.
He released her, and barely able to walk, returned to the door and kicked it shut. When he turned back, her glasses lay on the floor at her feet where she’d dropped them, and her breasts rose and fell with her erratic breathing. She’d never been lovelier. Her eyes and lips glistened, from nervousness as well as need. But he would not wait. He dared not.
Quite deliberately, he advanced upon her.