Chapter Seven
By ill-luck, she and Alban entered the hotel just as Uncle Smedley strutted across the foyer. Inevitably, he saw her at once and, scowling furiously, increased his pace.
“Oh dear,” Bella said nervously. “We should say goodbye now.” She halted, spinning to face him and thrusting her hand very briefly into his. “Thank you, Captain Alban,” she said as brightly as she could, and turned her back on him just as Uncle Smedley was upon her.
“There you are!” he exclaimed. “What in the world do you think you’re about? In here, Arabella, now.”
Since he took her arm and she had no desire to be dragged anywhere in front of Alban—although she hoped fervently the captain had already left the hotel—she walked across the foyer with her uncle. There was a small reception room to the left, where Uncle Smedley clearly meant to scold her. She’d get it over with and then face her aunts. She supposed, drearily, that they would all shout. But perhaps she could shut them out by remembering the plight of the Roseley children… or the delight of Captain Alban’s kisses.
“What is the matter with you?” Smedley demanded, without even closing the door. “Sometimes I think you must be a changeling, you show so little concern for your name, your conduct or any common sense!”
“Maybe I am,” she said vaguely. “My father always thought so.”
Uncle Smedley’s scowl darkened further with suspicion. “Are you trying to be insolent?”
“No,” she said in surprise. “I am truly sorry for worrying you all, but I left a note for my aunts—”
“A note saying nothing,” Uncle Smedley fumed. “Besides, what use is a note when eligible gentlemen call upon you and you aren’t here to receive them? Are you so lost to what you owe your family that you’ll play fast and loose with even this last chance? Don’t you understand what has been done for you? Are you so idiotic—”
“Lady Arabella,” interrupted a quite different voice from the doorway.
In despair, Bella turned her eyes upon Alban, who must have heard everything. She really didn’t want to be so diminished in his eyes by this revelation of how her own family regarded her.
His face gave away nothing. He said coolly, “I know you wished to lie down. Might I escort you to your aunts?”
“Oh no,” she said, flustered. “That is, I…”
His lip twitched. To her amazement, his eyes were laughing, inviting her to share a joke she hadn’t yet seen. His head jerked very slightly in the direction of the foyer, and she understood at last that he’d engineered her escape from Uncle Smedley. An escape she’d almost sabotaged by rejection.
Her breath caught on hysterical laughter, or the surging cough, perhaps. “I will just go up,” she said. “But I will not need your escort… thank you…” Since he’d stepped into the room, she drifted past him and out the door. Although she felt his gaze upon her, she dared not look at him. Or at her uncle who seemed to radiate stunned fury.
Bowing, Alban closed the door behind her.
“Sir, I take your interruption very ill,” Smedley began, his voice booming from inside the room.
Bella didn’t want to hear this. But at least the foyer was empty, save for the young man busy at the desk.
“I take your entire manner very ill,” Alban snapped. “A gentleman would not speak to a naughty child the way you address that gentle lady.”
Bella’s lips parted in shock. Her foot, already raised to walk, simply slipped back to the floor. Astonishment seemed to have frightened off the rising cough.
“I am that gentle lady’s uncle!” Smedley blustered.
“I don’t care if you’re her fairy godmother,” Alban retorted. “You’ll mend your manners around her.”
“Manners!” Uncle Smedley spluttered. “Am I to be lectured in manners by a damned pirate?”
“Trader,” Alban said sardonically. “And yes, apparently so. I don’t want to have to do it again. Good afternoon.”
Bella fled across the foyer with no signs whatever of breathlessness. She didn’t glance back at Alban as he emerged from the room, but her heart was singing because he’d defended her from her own family. And what was more, he hadn’t done it from pity but because Uncle Smedley truly had been in the wrong. He had no right to speak to her like that. None of them did.
And with that new warm knowledge, she somehow gained the strength to face her aunts without any qualms at all.
*
The meaning of her uncle’s complaints about her not being present to receive eligible gentlemen, soon became plain. Mr. Tranter, her partner from the ball, was discovered drinking tea with her aunts in the sitting room.
Bella, still buoyed up by her day’s adventures and by her new personal discovery, greeted her visitor with unaffected pleasure. Which seemed to mollify her aunts for the present at least, although Aunt Maria peered at her as if searching for signs of fatigue or ill health.
As they made easy conversation, she found herself warming to Mr. Tranter as a most pleasant companion. She agreed at once to walk with him to the circulating library the following morning, and from there, perhaps, looking in at the art gallery.
“I’m so glad I caught you this afternoon,” he said warmly as he took his leave. “I so enjoy talking with you.”
“There, he likes you!” Aunt Sarah exclaimed with glee as the door closed behind him. “And it’s so nice to see you making an effort with someone.”
“I wasn’t making any effort,” Bella said in surprise. “I think he is a kind man who is a little lonely.”
“Oh, but Bella, you’re wearing the wretched spectacles!” Sarah exclaimed.
“They help me to see and make me feel better,” Bella said.
“Well, they don’t make you look better, so until you have a husband who can see beyond your outward appearance, you had better give them back to me.”
Bella took them off to keep the peace, but placed them absently in the pocket of her riding habit. “Why, are we going out?” she asked.
“You haven’t taken the waters today,” Aunt Maria reminded her. “Go and change and we’ll walk round to the pump room now.”
It seemed a small price to pay for avoiding the scolding she’d so fully expected, so Bella dutifully changed into a day gown, and, with her spectacles in her reticule, set out with her aunts.
*
It was fully dark by the time Alban stepped into the tavern. He ordered brandy—one could always, it seemed, get decent French brandy in Blackhaven—and turned to survey the other shady patrons.
Mr. Tranter blended in fairly well, interestingly enough, except that, catching Alban’s eye, he raised his mug of ale to him. Alban thought. He was getting bored with merely threatening people, was spoiling in fact, for a fight. He should probably have just nodded back, finished his brandy and repaired to Will’s house. But curiosity won, as usual.
Swiping up his glass, he walked around the shoving contest in the middle of the floor, and took the stool opposite Tranter.
“Not spending the evening with your mother, I see,” he said mildly.
“Mothers are like ships,” Tranter said, raising his mug once more. “Both may be abandoned for a few hours with impunity.”
“Well, I’ll be joining my ship in the morning,” Alban said. “When will you be joining your mother?”
Tranter’s half-smile faded. “I don’t catch your meaning.”
“Yes, you do. Your mother’s been dead for ten years. I really think she’s beyond the power of even Blackhaven water to revive.”
Tranter laughed. “Where did you hear that?”
“From the vicar, oddly enough.”
Tranter curled his lip. “From the vicar’s wife, you mean. She’ll cause any trouble for me that she can. Just because I once rejected her advances.”
Alban allowed himself one contemptuous glance. “What trouble could lack of a living mother possibly cause you?” he wondered. “Of course. It would take away any valid reason for your skulking in Blackhaven, where the rich, sick, and stupid come to be cured. Of course, the waters can’t cure stupidity, which is your good fortune.”
“You’re making no sense to me, Captain,” Tranter said coldly.
“You needn’t sneer. I am a captain. I just thought I would tell you, as one bastard to another, that the ladies of the town are likely by now to be as aware of your true situation.”
“And what would that be?” Tranter asked belligerently. Perhaps he wanted to see how much Alban actually knew, perhaps he was trying to be intimidating.
“That of a poor but greedy man who preys on wealthy women.”
“Not very successfully if I’m still poor,” Tranter retorted. He sat back, gently swirling the dregs of ale at the bottom of his mug while he met Alban’s gaze. He smiled. “What if I had a proposition? One that would help us both.”
“I’m listening,” Alban said steadily.
*
At the pump room the following morning, Bella was glad to encounter Mr. Conway, whom she’d met at the ball in company with Captain Alban. Her impression had been that they were old acquaintances, in which case he knew all about Alban’s true identity, and what had happened at Kelburn twelve years ago.
Mr. Conway sat by Bella and her aunts for a little to make civil conversation. He seemed somewhat curious about Bella, so it was natural enough for her to return his questions, especially when her aunts moved to converse with a lady of around their own age.
“So, you are not living at home just now, Mr. Conway?”
“No, it is more convenient to stay in Blackhaven than to travel from Wayfare every day for the waters.”
“Of course it is. I imagine it would defeat the object of convalescence. I suppose you will have known the late Lord Roseley very well?”
Mr. Conway cast her a closer glance. “I grew up with him and his brother.”
She took a deep breath. “Forgive my asking. It’s just that I can’t quite remember…What was the scandal about the younger brother?”
“There is no mystery about it,” Mr. Conway said easily. “Someone from his lordship’s Scottish estate was arrested for poaching on… someone else’s.”
“My father’s,” Bella suggested.
Mr. Conway’s face relaxed. “Indeed. Lord Roseley’s younger son took exception to the arrest and took it upon himself to free the prisoner. After which, they both fled and no one has seen him since.”
“No one,” Bella repeated vaguely. “You were their friend… I suppose you know the current family well?”
“The present Lord Roseley is a child, but I am acquainted with his mother.”
“And his stepfather?”
“I’m afraid I don’t have that pleasure. He is in trade, I believe.” It was spoken with the gentleman’s natural disdain for a man who was not born of gentle stock but made, rather than inherited, his own money.
“What a coincidence,” Bella murmured.
“Come, Bella, drink up,” Aunt Maria said impatiently, looming over her. “There’s no point in coming if you don’t drink.”
“No point,” she agreed, though she obediently finished her glass. “Good morning, Mr. Conway.”
“Good morning, Lady Arabella. Ladies.”
Mr. Conway had told much the same story as Leo about Lord Roseley’s black sheep, and yet Bella had the feeling he was holding something back.
Outside the pump rooms, they were met by Mr. Tranter, who escorted them to the circulating library. This seemed to be more of a meeting place than a reading place, and there wasn’t a great deal of history. However, she did find the first volume of a new novel by the author of Sense and Sensibility which she had read and loved last year. Armed with Pride and Prejudice, she rejoined her aunts and Mr. Tranter who were seated on chairs by the door gossiping together.
Mr. Tranter was, she thought, a bit of a chameleon. He seemed to change his manner just a little, according to who he was with. Which was an excellent talent, although she wasn’t sure she quite liked it. However, it made him pleasant company, and she was happy enough to accept his escort to the art gallery.
Bella found several of the pictures to her taste, and was soon imagining her favorites on the walls of her fictional cottage. However, in her fantasy now, there seemed to be a shadow in the doorway, a shadow whose opinion she sought as to the balance of the painting.
Hastily, she blinked it away before the shadow grew a face. She knew whose it would be.
“Do you go to Mrs. Grant’s soiree tonight?” she asked Mr. Tranter hastily.
He sighed. “Sadly, no. I have not been invited. Mrs. Grant is pleased to disapprove of me.”
Bella blinked in surprise. Considering Mrs. Grant’s own reputation, and her avid pursuit of an introduction to such a shady individual as Captain Alban, this was difficult to believe.
“I’m sure you must have misunderstood her,” Bella said consolingly.
“No, I don’t believe so.”
“Then how did you offend her?” Bella asked, then blushed. “Forgive me, it’s none of my business.”
“I don’t mind in the least. It has to do with an incident several years ago, when Lady Crowmore, as she was then, saw fit to interfere in what was, to me, a serious matter of the heart. I wished to marry a certain lady, a friend of Lady Crowmore’s. I was slandered to the lady’s father and we were torn apart.”
“But why would she do such a thing?” Bella demanded, inclined to remember the haughty young London lady of fashion rather than the friendly vicar’s wife she’d met at the ball.
“It’s not my place to guess,” Mr. Tranter said uncomfortably.
“I am discreet, sir, and make my own mind up.”
“Then it’s my belief she disliked me for preferring my own lady to her.”
Bella closed her mouth. “That would be very…spiteful,” she observed.
“Let us speak of something else.”
Bella was glad to, for she’d rather warmed to Kate Grant at the ball and didn’t want to see her as the selfish, malicious person Mr. Tranter portrayed. She felt for his loss, but providing she knew no more, she could still put it down to misunderstanding.
As she glanced around the gallery in search of fresh inspiration, she saw a carelessly dressed man with hair half-swept back from his forehead, staring at her. Hastily, she looked away. However, the man immediately left off his conversation—or had it been a quarrel?—with the gallery proprietor, strode straight toward her, and stopped directly in front of herself and Mr. Tranter.
His intense eyes seemed to devour her. “Forgive me, madam, but you have such an interesting face, I wonder if I could paint you?”
Flustered, and not a little astonished, Bella opened her mouth to refuse, but Mr. Tranter spoke first.
“Certainly not. Do you mistake Lady Arabella Niven for some woman of…lesser class, shall we say?”
“You can say anything you like,” the artist said amiably. “I don’t care about her class. It’s her face I want. Here.” He delved into his coat and came back with a card. “Here’s my studio. I can paint you there, or in your home, or any other place of your choosing. I take commissions, of course, but I’d paint you for nothing.”
“You’re very kind,” Bella murmured, taking his card. “But I don’t think—” She broke off, for with a quick bow, the artist simply turned away and strode back to resume his argument with the proprietor. “What a strange man,” she said, amused.
“You are too tolerant of such riff-raff,” Mr. Tranter said. “A lady in your position need not put up with these impositions. Your heart is too kind.”
“Actually, I believe I am flattered,” Bella said mildly.
*
After such a tiring morning, Aunt Maria was inevitably anxious to take Bella back to the hotel to rest. Bella cooperated without demur, even when Aunt Sarah tried to bribe them with a trip to the ice parlor. Aunt Sarah seemed to imagine that this was where they would encounter more of Bella’s so-called admirers. Without her spectacles, Bella doubted she would recognize them. Or anyone else.
“Can’t you see she’s exhausted?” Aunt Maria scolded her sister. “We need to get her home and rested before the coughing fits start again. And if we are to go to the vicarage this evening, rest is vital.”
“I’m suggesting she sit down an eat an ice,” Aunt Sarah exclaimed. “Not climb a mountain before luncheon!”
“In truth, I would like to go back,” Bella said apologetically. “Let’s have the ice tomorrow. It will be something to look forward to.”
Aunt Sarah sniffed. Aunt Maria bore her off in triumph.
In fact, Bella did not feel remotely tired. But dissembling seemed the simplest way to be at home if Captain Alban called, and surely, he would. Even if she read too much into yesterday’s kisses—her heart and stomach seemed to plunge together at the very memory—he must know how anxious she was to hear any further news of the Roseley children.
She ate a light, cold luncheon with her aunts in their sitting room. Since the older ladies were bickering, she was more than happy to change the subject as soon as they relapsed into hostile silence.
“Aunts, do you remember His Grace’s quarrel with Lord Roseley? What was it all about?”
They both looked surprised. Aunt Sarah stopped chewing.
Aunt Maria frowned as though searching her memory. “Poaching. Roseley owns Powhill, though he rents it out now. One of his people poached a deer from Kelburn—or was it grouse?—and was sent to the magistrate. Roseley’s younger boy pled for his release, said he’d been with the culprit and hadn’t realized they’d wandered off Powhill land. Took it very ill when His Grace refused to budge on the matter.”
“No, there was more than that,” Aunt Sarah intervened. “The Lamont boy swore it was he who shot the animal and not their tenant.”
“Was it true?” Bella asked breathlessly.
“I’ve no idea. His Grace didn’t believe so, said it was the boy’s way of getting his man off because he knew Kelburn would never prosecute him.” Aunt Sarah’s frown deepened. “He was a bit of a Jacobin, was he not?” she said to her sister. “Held very radical principles and wouldn’t keep them to himself. At any rate, he had a huge row with His Grace, after which he went and freed his man, assaulting the guards to do so. His Grace was furious all over again and went storming over to Powhill, threatening Roseley with all sorts of retribution.”
“The Roseley boy fled with his poacher,” Aunt Maria recalled. “Or his father got them out of the country. At any rate, no one ever saw the younger son again. They believe he’s dead, which isn’t surprising with the war and everything else. And of course, Roseley and Kelburn never spoke another word.”
Bella could imagine it only too well. Taken together with her glimpsed memory of the young man storming away from his quarrel with her father, when he must have tried to take the blame himself…
She felt for him, for his anger and his burning sense of injustice. The man he’d freed would have faced a terrible punishment for a trivial crime, one that should not have impacted anyone at Kelburn at all. But everyone took poaching so seriously.
And so, Alban had been flung out into a dangerous world at barely eighteen years old. Somehow, he’d thrived and become the trading captain of today, harsh, cynical, and utterly careless of convention. Yet surely that idealistic boy still lurked within the façade. His eyes still smiled even if his lips didn’t.
Hastily, she caught up on her aunts’ continued conversation and was just in time to reject Aunt Maria’s suggestion of lying down in bed. Instead, she curled up on the window seat with her library book.
The afternoon seemed interminable. Major Doverton called, as did another gentleman with whom she’d danced at the ball, but of the captain there was no sign. Not even in the street when she glanced down at the High Street traffic. Although she glimpsed Mr. Conway once, Alban was not with him.
His absence made her restless, discontented, and yet she had no real reason to expect him. He’d made her no promises, no offers except to try not to seduce her. And she’d gone on kissing him. Perhaps she’d been too forward, given him a disgust of her… But in truth, it didn’t matter. She knew Captain Alban was not the kind of man who married women like her. She should just be grateful for his friendship.
Only friendship didn’t normally come with kisses like those.
He was just toying with me for his own amusement. That had more the ring of truth. Only he was not truly a bad man and so he’d stopped short of seduction. Not that she would have permitted such an outcome, of course …would she?
Oh dear, this is a whole new side of myself I did not know existed. I seem to be very brazen. And very silly. No more. We like each other and that must be where the matter stays.
Must it? whispered the dreamy voice in her head. He is Lord Roseley’s son. It would not be such an unequal match.
She tried to thrust the thoughts aside, cram them into a closed box in her mind, along with the shadowy figure who stood in her cottage doorway admiring her painting of Blackhaven Harbor.
She couldn’t ever remember feeling so wound-up, so tense—at least not with this strange, warm pleasure behind it.
By the time the dinner hour approached, she knew he would not come. Disappointment was intense and difficult to accept, and she prepared somewhat listlessly for dinner and the vicarage soiree.
In fact, even her aunt’s grumbled.
“A musical soiree,” Aunt Maria said discontentedly. “At a country vicarage? It will be appallingly dull and painful on the ears.”
“Oh no,” Sarah said. “It’s not to show off local accomplishment, or lack of it. Apparently, Mrs. Grant has discovered an extraordinary singer somewhere or other.
Aunt Maria sniffed. “I’m not sure it’s quite proper in a vicar’s wife to be promoting theatrical people.”
“Well, she is still Kate Crowmore,” Sarah said wryly.
“If she weren’t, I wouldn’t risk going,” Maria retorted. “At least she always had impeccable taste. But even so, what manner of musical discovery can she possibly have made in this backwater?”
Bella didn’t really care. She welcomed the event as a distraction, but remembering Alban’s face when Kate had issued her invitation, she knew he wouldn’t be there. It was only as they walked round to the vicarage that she realized how out of character it was for her to welcome a social occasion for any reason. Perhaps it was the knowledge of her spectacles, carefully stored in her reticule, that gave her confidence.
She put them on while trailing after her aunts across the vicarage hallway to the drawing room. As a result, she could see beyond Kate’s welcoming figure to the other guests, most of whom she recognized as local gentry or town worthies, with a few visitors like herself thrown into the mix. She saw Mr. Conway at once and, to her surprise, the artist who’d accosted her that morning. His face lit up most flatteringly when he caught sight of her.
“Delighted you could come,” Kate said warmly. “I was just about to introduce Mrs. Gallini, so this is perfect timing. I’ve saved you the best places at the front.”
“Is she loud?” Aunt Sarah asked dubiously, holding back.
Kate’s lips twitched. “Powerful,” she allowed. “But you won’t regret hearing her clearly, I promise. Let me just present Lord Tamar who is staying in Blackhaven for the summer.”
Astonishingly, Lord Tamar was the artist. He bowed to all three Niven ladies, in a haphazard kind of way, and took his seat next to Bella.
“You look different,” he said abruptly.
“That will be the spectacles,” she said. She could feel Aunt Sarah’s furious glare on the other side of her face.
“I like them,” he said unexpectedly. “Another aspect of you—less unworldly and angelic. I should like to paint you with and without.”
“I can’t think why you want to paint me at all,” she said, frankly.
“Because you’re the Duke of Kelburn’s daughter,” Aunt Sarah snapped below her breath.
She may or may not have intended Lord Tamar to hear, but he retorted instantly, “So are you, ma’am, but I haven’t offered to paint you.”
Aunt Sarah glared at him in outrage, but to Bella’s surprise, the artist was neither apologetic nor rude. He merely grinned in a disarming kind of way and said thoughtfully, “Yet.”
Bella laughed, and then Kate was calling for their attention to introduce a plump, pretty young woman as Mrs. Gallini.
Bella liked music, but she hadn’t expected to be more than mildly entertained by Kate’s “discovery”. As it turned out, Mrs. Gallini’s talent was exceptional. Both powerful and unusually sweet in tone, she imbued every line with emotions that tugged at the heart, through both grief and laughter. Bella was able to lose herself in the music, forget about her aunts, the peculiar Lord Tamar, and all the other guests.
She applauded with enthusiasm when Kate finally rose to thank Mrs. Gallini.
“We’ll have some refreshment now,” Kate added, “but you’ll be glad to know that Mrs. Gallini has kindly agreed to sing one more song for us this evening.” She smiled as the door opened, and moved quickly down the room. “Why, Captain, we’d quite given you up.”
Bella couldn’t help it. Her head jerked around before she could stop it, and there, strolling into the room was the unmistakable figure of Captain Alban. Blood rushed into her face, making her ears sing and her heart race. Quite suddenly the evening was perfect.
“Well I’ll be damned,” she heard Mr. Conway murmur in the row behind. “How on earth did your wife persuade him to come to such an event?”
“A certain lady’s name, I believe,” Mr. Grant replied, even more quietly, before he stood and walked across the room to greet the late arrival. But Kate had heard him.
Me? My name? He does like me…!
“I see,” Lord Tamar said beside her. “So that is the lie of the land.”
“I beg your pardon?” Bella said distractedly.
“Now I have to paint you. Can you bring him, too?”
Bella rose in response to her aunt’s hand under her elbow, dragging her gaze back to Lord Tamar. “You must ask him, sir, not me,” she said firmly as Aunt Sarah tugged her in the opposite direction.
“Is he really Lord Tamar, or has Kate Crowmore been taken in?” Aunt Maria wondered.
“Why wouldn’t he be Lord Tamar?” Bella asked, trying very hard not to look around for Captain Alban.
“Because no one’s seen anyone from his family for years. The estate was ruined decades ago, long before this marquis succeeded to the title. He and his siblings live in the ruins of their old castle in Devon, and get up to all sorts mayhem. You may think he’s eccentric and amusing, Bella, but trust me, he is not an eligible choice in the marriage mart!”
“Oh no,” she agreed. She was barely listening. Glasses of wine and lemonade had been set on tables at the side of the room, along with canapes and little cakes, for guests to help themselves. Bella was grateful for the lemonade thrust into her hand by Aunt Maria. It gave her something to do while she waited for Alban to notice her.
This was ridiculous. She was eight and twenty years old, long past the age of school-girl crushes. In fact, even when she’d been the correct age for them, they had largely passed her by. She’d been more interested in books than young men, and the few who had impressed themselves upon her notice were quickly dismissed. It was difficult to sustain incipient infatuation when the object of it paid one no attention whatever.
She hadn’t missed them, hadn’t begrudged her younger sisters their social successes and brilliant marriages, for she’d long known that the world of love and marriage, in whatever order, was not for her. Even the few offers of marriage she had received had been un-tempting in the extreme, made as they were by unlikeable gentleman more interested in her father’s wealth and power than in her. Not that she blamed them for that, but she refused to swap the possibility of contented spinsterhood for the certainty of a miserable marriage under the thumb of an unpleasant man. It was the only duty she’d ever shirked, for her family already had all the influence and all the riches they would ever need.
Captain Alban was the only man she could ever recall affecting her this way. Of course, he was the only man who had ever kissed her, but more than that, he seemed to see her as Bella, and to like what he saw. She didn’t need to hide or pretend, or dredge up suitable topics for stilted conversation. He was fun, exciting, and different…
And I have to pull myself together. What is the matter with me?
It was torture to keep her eyes from straying, but she forced them ruthlessly to pay attention to Mr. Marlow and his shy daughter Catherine. A little later, she met a very amiable young man called Bernard Muir who told her with a grin that she was better off with her lemonade than risking the wine, for Grant bought only the inferior type that paid duty.
“Are you in the market for some that doesn’t?” someone asked, reaching around him for a glass of wine. Alban, looking as saturnine and handsome as ever in his black coat and snowy white but carelessly tied cravat.
Bella met his gaze with something almost like fear. Until his lips and eyebrows quirked together and she found herself smiling.
“Depends who’s asking me,” young Mr. Muir said warily.
“Sensible answer,” Alban allowed, dragging his gaze from Bella with apparent reluctance. “Although it might leave a cloud of suspicion over your head.”
“But no evidence,” Mr. Muir argued, thrusting out his hand. “You’re Captain Alban, aren’t you?”
“I am,” Alban admitted, giving the briefest of handshakes. “And I’m afraid I’ve come to steal your companion away.”
“You missed most of the performance,” Bella said a trifle breathlessly as they strolled around the room.
“I missed you,” Alban replied. “I like your hosts—for a vicar and his wife—but I feel like a barbarian specimen at such affairs. Or a wild beast for people to gawp at and poke sticks at if they dare.”
“I shouldn’t think they would. Dare, I mean. Have you been back to Roseley?”
“Briefly. The children are well and being regularly fed. I’ll go back tomorrow, or send someone else.”
“You are busy?”
“I’ve had word The Albatross is fully repaired at last, so I’ll be riding on to Whalen tonight.”
Her heart stood still. “Are you sailing? Away, I mean?” She tried to drag her eyes free of his gaze, since they no doubt gave away everything she should hide, but he held them.
“I have no business here,” he said abruptly. “With you.”
Now her eyes fell easily because the pain was too sharp.
His breath caught. “Bella—” His voice was still harsh, but not, she thought with anger. Only she never discovered what he would have said because a sweet, musical voice interrupted them.
“Captain! I have grown bored waiting for you to recognize me!”
Alban swung around impatiently, to discover Mrs. Gallini herself, smiling up at him with undisguised pleasure. His brow smoothed. “Eloisa!”
“And here was I imagining you came because of me!”
I was imagining the same thing, Bella thought numbly as he took the other woman’s outstretched hand. Worse, their eyes betrayed unmistakable intimacy.
“Captain Alban rescued me from Sicily,” Mrs. Gallini told Bella and everyone else within earshot. “It is really thanks to him that I am here in England.”
“How on earth did your wife persuade him to come to such an event?” Mr. Conway had asked.
“A certain lady’s name…”
But it wasn’t Bella’s name. It was Eloisa Gallini’s.
Bella stepped back into the crowd and let it close around Alban and the singer. She’d never felt so bereft in her life.
“Inevitable, is it not, that our two larger than life guests know each other?”
Bella came to herself as her hostess spoke beside her.
“I suspect they have both had adventurous lives,” Bella managed.
“Indeed. And it would be remarkable if a man like the captain had not had adventures.”
Bella cast her a quick glance. She had the feeling Kate was talking here about the intimate variety.
“In his past,” Kate said.
She was right, of course, but that this beautiful, twice-married woman should even begin to imagine her feelings was unbearable. “Either way, it is none of our business.”
“Of course not,” Kate agreed. “But Blackhaven will speculate in any case. Come, let us sit here out of the crowd.”
Since she didn’t know what else to do, Bella sat, her lemonade glass still clutched in her hand like a talisman.
“Do you know,” Kate said unexpectedly, “I always rather admired you. When we were young and in our first London seasons.”
Bella blinked at her. “You did? I never imagined you even saw me.”
“Oh, I saw. And envied. You so clearly didn’t care for any of the trivia so necessary to the world of fashion, and you seemed quite indifferent to all the gentleman hunting in the marriage mart.”
“I was,” Bella said with the ghost of a smile. “But then, the indifference was mutual.”
“I doubt that. I think you intimidated them. Clever women do, you know. I just learned early on to feign empty-headedness. Although it’s true I wasn’t as clever as I thought or I’d never have made the marriage I did then. After marriage, a woman has more freedom to be who she wishes to be. Because of that, I thought it didn’t matter who I married. I should have shunned them all, like you. Until I met Tristram—Mr. Grant.”
Bella swallowed. “You’re being kind. I just don’t know why.”
“Oh, I’m not kind,” Kate said. “Ask anyone. The captain is like you, all the more attractive because he doesn’t care for appearance. And then there’s the dash and the mystery. I imagine to have his attention is quite…exhilarating.”
Bella had no idea what to say to that. She rubbed futilely at neck of her gown, as if that could stop the pain.
“He likes you,” Kate said bluntly.
Bella shook her head. “Why are you saying this? To warn me? If so, it is quite unnecessary.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t presume,” Kate said. “You were always much cleverer than I. I’m just rambling until you feel better.”
In spite of everything, a smile sprang to Bella’s lips. She gazed curiously at her hostess who really wasn’t anything like she’d imagined. Like Mr. Tranter imagined.
“Do you know Mr. Tranter?” she asked impulsively.
Kate wrinkled her nose. “Until the Assembly Room ball, only by repute.”
“He says he was once in love with a friend of yours.”
“Between you and me, he once eloped with a friend of mine,” Kate said dryly. “Her father caught them in the nick of time.”
“Because of you?”
Kate blinked. “Lord, no, I had nothing to do with it. But I was glad for her. The man is an unscrupulous fortune hunter.”
Although Bella’s instinct was to trust in Kate’s honesty, she had too many other things on her mind to dwell on which truth was closest to the mark: Kate’s or Mr. Tranter’s. People saw the same events so differently.
Kate stood. “Well, I shall reconvene our little concert for the last aria.”
In the end, by popular request, Mrs. Gallini sang two more songs, both greeted with much deserved applause.
Bella, lost in her own thoughts, became aware that her aunts were both talking to her. Aunt Maria wanted her to stay seated because she looked too pale and tired. Aunt Sarah wanted her to take off her spectacles immediately and pay some attention to young Mr. Muir who seemed to like her.
Bella stared at her. “Mr. Muir? He’s twenty years old! If as much.”
“So what?” Sarah demanded. “I believe he has no fortune but his birth is good and he is connected by marriage to Lord Wickenden who is bound to do something handsome for him. It would not be an ill match.”
Bella, suddenly short of breath, plucked at the neck of her gown as if it were choking her.
“Don’t do that,” Maria snapped. “It just makes you cough—and look deranged besides.”
Bella sprang up. “Excuse me,” she managed and bolted away from them. Her breath was coming in wheezes that she knew would dissipate in the silence of the vicar’s hall. Or in the street beyond. She could just go home. The vicar’s servant could convey her apologies. She didn’t look to the right or left, for she didn’t want to see Alban with Mrs. Gallini and she certainly didn’t want to inspire a fit of coughing here.
With a faint smile affixed to her lips, she sped to the door with purpose and was soon on the other side. Closing it, she leaned against it for a moment and breathed. Then she hurried across the hall toward the room she’d seen the servant take hats and cloaks—and halted. A man already stood there, his hat in his hand.
“You’re ill,” he said, starting toward her.
“You’re leaving,” Bella blurted.
“It’s a long ride to Whalen in the dark. Do you want to come?”
“Yes,” Bella said. She smiled with difficulty. “But you know I won’t.”
He came to a halt before her, his intense eyes searching her face. At least she could breathe again.
With difficulty, he said, “I don’t want to hurt you, Bella.”
With a gasp, she flung away from him. “Why must everyone assume I’m so frail? I don’t shatter with—” She broke off with a gasp as he seized her shoulder and spun her around into his arms. Before she could even think, let alone speak, he swooped and crushed her mouth under his.
Bent backward from the waist, she clung to his coat from instinct, not fear. He gentled the forceful kiss almost immediately, but it had been enough to give her a taste of his true passion and God help her, she wanted more. Not that he stopped kissing her, for he didn’t, he merely scooped her up without releasing her mouth for an instant. She was aware of motion and a door kicked shut, and a lot of soft silk and fine wool against her arms and head.
They were in the vicar’s cloakroom. And suddenly, she wanted to laugh because he was so careless of propriety and because there still seemed to be hope for her, whatever that meant.
His mouth loosened at last. “I can’t give you a home,” he ground out. “Nor even a legal status here or anywhere else. I have four ships and a set of men who’d murder your grandmother, or even their own, for fourpence.”
She ignored that. “What is Mrs. Gallini to you?”
His eyes searched hers. She thought she’d surprised him. “I picked her up in Sicily, gave her passage to England. We were lovers on the voyage.”
Jealousy twinged inside her. “And?”
“She was urgent and adventurous. Do you want more intimate details?”
She flushed. “No. I mean now. What is she to you now?”
His lips quirked. His eyes gleamed. In anyone else it would have been a smile, predatory or otherwise. “You are jealous,” he said softly and kissed her mouth with such open sensuality that she almost didn’t care about the answer.
He dragged his lips across her jaw to her throat. He held her by the hips, moving his own against her as he traced the neckline of her gown with soft kisses. She burned with sensation, thrilled to the male hardness pressing and stroking her.
“You’re trying to distract me,” she said breathlessly.
“How am I progressing?”
“Too well,” she replied, incurably honest.
He straightened. “She is nothing to me. No one is. Except you, for some reason, and I can’t have you.”
Slowly, she lifted her hands from his shoulders and locked them around his neck. Her heart beat so hard she felt her whole body vibrate with it. She whispered, “Have you tried asking?”
“Don’t,” he whispered against her lips. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“I wasn’t talking to you.” He sank his mouth into hers once more in a kiss so powerful that she moaned. He pushed his body hard against hers and she stumbled backward into the coats. “When I do ask,” he muttered. “You’d better say yes.”
Before she could haul herself upright, the door opened and closed and she was alone, staring at nothing. Slowly, she reached up and touched her lips, feeling them smile under her finger tips.
When I do ask…
They would find a way, because the biggest miracle had already happened. He cared for her.