Bella and the Beast (32 page)

Not three days later, Bella had arrived with her tale of having known Smithers overseas. She'd said that he had told her of the position of curator. Today, she'd admitted that she'd never met the man.

Lady Milford had orchestrated the scheme with the assistance of Hargrove. The bastard was loyal to his mistress and would not admit to his role in the scam. It would give Miles great satisfaction to plant a hard right hook into the man's square jaw.

But Hargrove was merely an underling. Miles craved to confront the main player, the spider spinning her web of deceit.

Fueled by cold fury, he stalked to the staircase and started up the marble steps, taking them two at a time.

Hargrove hurried after him. “Your Grace! Her ladyship is dressing for a drive in the park and cannot be disturbed.”

“Then make haste to warn her. I'll allow you half a minute to announce me.”

Miles let the butler take the lead up the flight of stairs and then along a corridor with yellow striped wallpaper and a thick carpet that cushioned their footfalls. Hargrove rapped on a door near the end of the passage. His sober gaze flicked to Miles before someone opened the door and he stepped inside.

Miles prowled back and forth, counting off thirty seconds. At twenty-eight, the door opened again and the butler stood back to allow him entry. Hargrove gave him a hard stare this time. There was nothing subservient in that look, Miles noted. He was right to think the man devoted to Lady Milford.

As Miles went in, the door behind him closed with a quiet click, and he found himself in a small sitting room attached to a larger bedchamber that was visible through an arched doorway. Here, white-painted bookshelves lined the walls and late afternoon sunshine poured through the double windows. Lady Milford stood there, one hand on the sill, gazing outside. Her coal-black hair was drawn up in a knot, and a lavender silk dressing gown draped her slender form.

She turned to him and smiled cordially as if he were an invited guest. “Aylwin,” she said, coming toward him with her hand extended. “What a pleasant surprise.”

He took her dainty fingers without thinking, then let go at once. This meeting would not be on her terms.

“There is nothing in the least pleasant about this visit,” he snapped. “I have just learned of your deception. You planted Isabella Jones in my house on purpose. You've been scheming to saddle me with a wife ever since you brought that other brainless chit to Aylwin House a few months ago.”

How well he remembered being subject to another of her matchmaking ploys. To his great misfortune, he had been crossing through the entrance hall at the moment the woman and her protégée had come to call. Lady Milford had been an acquaintance of his mother's, and he'd felt compelled to show them basic courtesy. But he'd never spent a more irritating half hour, listening to the girl prattle about nonsense. When she had proposed moving the Egyptian relics into storage and redecorating Aylwin House, that had been the final straw to his patience, and he'd sent them on their way.

“The
chit,
as you describe her, was Lady Beatrice Stratham, daughter of the Earl of Pennington,” Lady Milford said. “And you're quite right, she isn't nearly as quick-witted or bright as Miss Jones. Would you care to take a seat?”

She settled herself in one of a pair of pale green chairs by the fireplace and folded her hands in her lap, looking far too serene for a woman confronted by an enraged duke.

Miles had too much pent-up rage to sit. He roamed the confines of the room with its feminine accoutrements and felt the need to hurl one of the china figurines onto the marble hearth.

Instead, he swung toward his nemesis. “So when you failed with the vacuous debutante,” he said darkly, “you set your sights on another type of female. You plotted and conspired and came up with Sir Seymour's daughter. You even had your butler don a disguise and pretend to be an antiquarian in order to convince me that I needed to hire a damned assistant!”

Lady Milford denied none of his accusations. “I'm pleased that you were kind enough to give Miss Jones a position. Sir Seymour left her only a tiny cottage and no means of subsistence. She struck me as a very intelligent and capable young woman, someone who could be helpful to you in cataloguing and organizing.
Has
she been helpful?”

“That is irrelevant!” Miles roared, jamming his hands on his hips to keep from throttling the woman. “You meddled in my affairs. You connived behind my back and against my will. All for the purpose of trapping me into marriage!”

A wry smile touched her lips. “I very much doubt that any mere woman could trap
you
into marriage, Your Grace. You are far too fixed against the institution and a confirmed bachelor of many years. I will confess, nevertheless, to hoping that you might fall in love with Miss Jones. Have you?”

The barefaced question flummoxed Miles. He had not been expecting it. His mind went blank to all but the image of Bella's face, smiling tenderly at him, whispering “
my love
” while he'd been buried deeply inside her body. Then just yesterday evening, on their return from Oxford, she had taken hold of his hand and he had hoped …

He snapped out of the fantasy. Love? That was just a pretty word used by poets to describe raw, pounding lust.

Only a damned fool would be deceived into thinking otherwise.

Pacing back and forth, he scowled at Lady Milford. “I assure you, madam, I am
not
in love. Nor shall I fall prey to your baited snare of wedlock. You have no right to interfere in my life.”

Her shrewd gaze softened. “I was once a dear friend of your parents. Before the duchess died, she asked me to watch over you.”

“The hell you say. You weren't present at her deathbed.”

Miles shied from the decade-old memory of those long, torturous hours of listening to his mother's labored breathing. It had been so very wrenching to wait alone for her to slip away …

“She wrote to me shortly before she passed on.” Rising, Lady Milford walked to a small desk and opened a drawer. She rummaged through some papers and brought forth a folded missive, which she handed to him. “She told me that her fondest hope was for you to fall in love and marry someday. You may read it if you like.”

Miles recognized his mother's neat penmanship. His fingers gripped the paper tightly for a moment before he shoved it back at Lady Milford. The constriction in his chest threatened to squeeze out his righteous anger.

He fixed her with what Bella termed the Ducal Stare. “I don't give a damn what my mother told you. I alone will dictate the course of my life—with no intrusion from a blasted matchmaker!”

Lady Milford released a small sigh as she replaced the letter in the desk. “Then it seems I must beg forgiveness, Your Grace. It's just that … I've sometimes wondered if your mother might be the very reason why you've never married.”

“What?”

“As a young boy, you saw the duchess confined to her bed after many miscarriages. She was too delicate for pregnancy. It was quite difficult for her—and for you to witness her pain. Perhaps you fear putting a wife through that arduous experience.”

Lady Milford could not have been more off the mark. Yes, he'd felt panicked by the prospect of impregnating Bella—only because he would feel compelled to offer for her. But it was penitence over Aylwin's death that had required Miles to live alone. At a young age, he had vowed to devote himself to preserving his father's legacy.

This woman had no way of knowing that. Bella was the only other living soul who knew his darkest secret.

“You are mistaken,” he stated coldly. “I'm dedicated to my work—and that will never change. A wife and a family would be a millstone around my neck.”

Her violet eyes turned cool as she regarded him for a moment. “I see. I presume you will be releasing Miss Jones from your employ, then. She is innocent in this matter, and I will not permit you to toss her into the street. Send her here and I shall assist her in finding another post.”

Once again, Lady Milford had managed to dig her claws under his skin. Discharge Bella? Banish her from Aylwin House? Let her go to work for some other man?

No.

Miles clenched his jaw. Everything in him rebelled at the notion of never seeing Bella again. He wanted her to remain under his protection. Then a ghastly thought struck him. He'd chastised her without mercy, made cruel allegations against her character, hurt her intolerably by accusing her of abetting in the plot to ensnare him.

What if she had already packed up and departed?

*   *   *

After the quarrel with Miles, Bella had escaped to her bedchamber. She'd turned the key in the lock, buried her face in the feather pillows of the canopied bed, and indulged in a bout of cathartic weeping. It was completely unlike her to fall apart. She had always been the strong one in the family, the organizer, the healer, the voice of reason. But never in her life had she felt so desolate as she did now.

She loved Miles. The sentiment had tiptoed into her heart so quietly that she could not point to one particular incident that had won her over. Perhaps it was his rare smile or the way he hid his kind heart behind the façade of a beast. But she had known in the moment that his eyes had turned to ice that she'd wanted his face to soften with love.

When every last tear had been drained, she forced herself to get up and walk woodenly into the dressing chamber. There, she splashed cool water on her face to ease the redness of her eyes. In the mirror, she appeared pallid and ordinary and she couldn't imagine why a highborn duke had ever deigned to lust for her.

She wasn't a refined lady. She had grown up in foreign lands and had peculiar tattoos around her ankles. She looked nothing like the femme fatale that he had accused her of playing.

His furious reproaches echoed in her mind. He believed her to be a party to Lady Milford's plot to lure him into matrimony. He thought she had come to Aylwin House under false pretenses in order to
marry
him.

Nothing could be further from the truth. He didn't know it, but her purpose had been the treasure map, the one that she had yet to find. The one that she would
never
find now because Miles very likely would expel her from his home. He had stalked out of the ballroom in a rage, and she had no idea where he'd gone.

Taking a ragged breath, Bella went back out into the quiet of her bedchamber. She ought to depart now and save herself the humiliation of being tossed out in the street. But it was late afternoon already, she had no funds, and there were her brother and sister to consider. Not only that, but Miles had three crates of Papa's papers locked in his study, and she would not, she
could
not leave them in his possession.

Rubbing her cold arms, she paced to the windows and looked out over the garden with its geometric paths among the rosebushes. No, she must remain here for the moment, brace herself to confront Miles again, and request the small salary that he owed her. It might be enough to pay for their return to Oxford. Then she must make arrangements for the crates to be shipped back, as well.

With any luck, she and her siblings could depart on the morrow.

A lump lodged in her throat. Lila and Cyrus would be devastated to leave here. They had arrived only yesterday and had barely had time to explore the mansion. Everything was new and exciting to them, a welcome change from their routine of schoolwork. It would be a huge disappointment to them to be forced to return to the little cottage.

And for her, as well. Bella had enjoyed her work with the relics, studying about ancient Egypt, and putting the artifacts in order. She'd been genuinely happy here, and a great deal of that pleasure had been due to Miles himself. She had relished talking with him, being in his company, coaxing him out of his beastly moods and making him smile. He in turn had shown a true generosity of spirit by welcoming her brother and sister into his home. She had even dared to hope it meant that he felt a strong affection for her, and not merely lust.

Then Lila had mentioned Lady Milford's name and the whole world had come crashing down. For as long as she lived, Bella would never forget the bitter chill that had hardened Miles's face.

Lady Milford, a matchmaker! The news had caught Bella utterly by surprise. She had never associated with polite society, so how could she have known? And why had the lady chosen her, of all women, to entice the reclusive Duke of Aylwin into giving up his bachelorhood?

Granted, Papa had been employed by Miles's father. But Bella knew she was no great beauty and Lady Milford had met her only once. The woman had come to the cottage and decided right then and there that Bella possessed the ability to tame a snarling beast like Aylwin.

How had she known they were well suited?

Amazingly, she and Miles had felt a mutual attraction at once, a powerful bond that had culminated in one exhilarating night of love. Glancing at the bed, Bella felt a keen sense of loss. Although they both had agreed it must not be repeated, she had reason to believe that he still desired her more than ever. It had been clear in the intent look of his eyes, in the way he had helped her family, in the firmness of his fingers around hers by the stairs the previous evening.

If Miles did harbor deep feelings for her, that would explain why he had exploded in anger, because he'd felt duped and betrayed. But he now scorned her as a clever, calculating husband hunter. And Bella had no idea how to convince him otherwise.

An upsurge of anger washed through her pain. Blast him! Why should she care what he thought of her, anyway? He had shown no abiding faith in their closeness, for he had been quick to believe the worst of her.

The basket of dates and pomegranates still sat on the table by the door. Loathing the reminder of him, she picked up the gift and carried it across the corridor to her brother's empty bedchamber. Let Cyrus enjoy it as a bedtime snack. She herself would only choke on it.