Joan Smith (15 page)

“Well, my darling, you’ve grown up most delightfully while I have been away. Soon you will be sweet sixteen, and Sir Giles will have no excuse to refuse us permission to marry. It has been the longest winter of my—”

“I am engaged to William,” she said in a flat voice. “We plan to marry on the tenth of June.”

Raventhorpe stopped dead in his tracks. He looked at her in bewilderment. A few heads turned to stare at the young couple, standing motionless on the dance floor.

“You’re joking, of course,” he said. “That’s a nasty stunt, Belle. You demmed near gave me a heart attack. Fair enough, you deserve one kick at the cat for my not being in touch with you, but—”

“People are staring at us, Alexander,” she hissed. He seized her hand in a crippling grip and led her at a quick pace from the floor into the refreshment parlor, which was nearly empty so early in the evening. “I’d like to keep on walking, right out the door so we could be alone,” he said. “I want to kiss you to death. Shall we?” A reckless grin lifted his lips and lit his dark eyes.

Gazing at her, Raventhorpe saw the tension in her body and the misery on her pale face, and knew she was serious. Her lips worked silently in a futile effort to speak. His strong hands gripped her arms. “Belle, what is it?” he demanded. “Are you really engaged? Did that bastard force you—” Beyond speech, she only shook her head. His eyes glittered like black diamonds in the pale mask of his face. “What are you saying, my dear? Tell me. I don’t understand.”

She found strength then to tell him. The months of agony had their brief, bitter revenge. Pride lent a harsh edge to her voice as she said, “I’m marrying William. What’s so hard to understand about that? I told you I would. You left me all alone for months on end. Never a visit, never a word.” Her voice rose to the edge of hysteria.

“The hell you are!” he growled.

“I am.” She lifted her left hand and showed him the circlet of baguette diamonds William had given her. “It’s all settled,” she said, tossing her chin in the air. “There’s nothing you can do about it, so you might as well go and leave us in peace."

Raventhorpe willed down a howl of rage. When he spoke, he tried for an air of indifference, but she heard the hurt below it, and wanted to throw herself into his arms. “Is that what you want, then? You are doing this freely, of your own choice?” he asked.

“No one is forcing me.”

“Then there’s nothing more to say. I shall return to London at once.”

Her lips flew open, and a look of utter despair showed on her face. “Oh, Alexander, you must help me! I’ve done something dreadful. I thought you had forgotten all about me.”

“Forgotten you? I have been waiting an eternity for you to turn sixteen. I didn’t trust myself to go on meeting you alone. It seemed best to stay away until we could marry.”

Sir Giles, worried to know they were alone, appeared at the doorway. “Has Belle told you the news? She has accepted William’s offer,” he said, advancing timorously. He read the danger in Raventhorpe’s glare, and stopped a few feet from him. Over the punch bowl he continued, “Arabella was in a hurry to get the thing done. No point in waiting, eh?”

“I am sure
Arabella
was in a great hurry to marry your son,” Raventhorpe sneered.

Seeing Raventhorpe’s mood and knowing his reckless nature, Arabella was at pains to avert disaster. “I have told Raventhorpe all about it, Uncle,” she said. “He understands the matter.”

“That it was your own idea?” Sir Giles asked.

She did not confirm or deny it verbally, but just nodded her sullen agreement.

“May I wish you happy, Belle,” Raventhorpe said through clenched jaws. “This will be a lesson to me. Next time I fall in love, I shan’t be put off. If you will both pardon me now, I shall retire to some quiet waterfall and compose a few lines on my broken heart. Good night, Sir Giles.” He turned to Belle, with a meaningful look. “Belle—good-bye, my dear. I wish you every joy.”

He bowed, turned, and strode from the room. Sir Giles breathed a great sigh of relief. That hadn’t gone so badly as he feared. Raventhorpe had only been amusing himself with Arabella, as he thought all along. He took Belle’s arm and said, “Let us return to the dance, my dear. William will be wondering what has happened to you.”

It was always Sir Giles who did William’s courting for him. When he delivered Belle back to her fiancé, she seemed to be in fair spirits. In truth, she was hardly aware that she was at an assembly at all. In her heart Raventhorpe’s words echoed,
I shall retire to some quiet waterfall.
He was telling her he would meet her at the weir, and he would somehow straighten out this impossible mess. Because he still loved her. He had always loved her. And she loved him so much, she felt brittle all over to think of it. It seemed her flesh had turned to crystal, which might be shattered at a touch, unleashing all the passion pent up in her.

She danced with half a dozen gentlemen without seeing or hearing them. At supper she sat guarded on one side by William, on the other by Sir Giles. She ate her favorite lobster patties and cream tarts and drank wine. But in her mind, she was with Alexander at the weir. A newly engaged lady was allowed to enjoy a state of distraction, and her friends smiled tolerantly amongst themselves.

After the assembly, she went to her bedroom and waited until the house fell silent. It was two o’clock before she felt safe to slip downstairs and out the library door, which was the least likely to be overheard. The friendly night was warm as she skimmed through the shadows, down the incline to the water, whose black depths sparkled silver and gold on the surface from the moonlight’s reflection.

In the distance she saw a tall, broad-shouldered silhouette etched in charcoal against the silver sky, and hastened forward. Raventhorpe was waiting, as she knew he would be. He turned at her approach, held his arms open, and she flew into them. He crushed her against him and lifted her off the ground, while he kissed her with thundering passion. His lips moved possessively over her eyes, slid down her cheek to her throat, where she felt a moist warmth touch her; all the while his arms bound her to him with violent force. Between kisses, he rained a breathless shower of sweet love words into her ears.

“My darling, it’s been so long. Many a night I ached to be with you, to see your sweet face, to feel you. I thought the time would never come. Nothing will ever keep us apart again. Nothing. I couldn’t bear it. This is all my fault. I should not have left you alone. I thought you knew how much I loved you. I thought the poems would reassure you. I put my heart and soul into them.”

She soaked up the words like a parched flower devouring water. A vital force spread through her body, enlivening it. “They’re beautiful, Alexander,” she murmured. Her fingers moved lightly over his face, as if testing to be sure he was real. “I knew they were about us.”

He stepped back and frowned at her. “Then why did you do this appalling thing? Was it only to bring me back? Surely you knew I would come.”

“I didn’t know it. How could I? I thought you’d forgotten all about me. Oh, Alexander, you don’t know how I’ve suffered, thinking you were with other women. Sir Giles told me you were going to marry a great lady.”

“And so I am. You.”

“What did I care who I married if I couldn’t marry you? Maybe I did hope you’d hear and come to put a stop to it. I never meant to do it up so soon. This was Uncle Giles’s idea. And he won’t let me go to London either, except for a measly two weeks. I wanted to live there a year, so you’d see me in my new finery and wearing a golden band. Then you’d be sorry you’d lost me.”

A reluctant smile tugged at his lips, to hear that beneath the new veneer of sophistication, she was still the same impulsive, childish, vain, adorable Arabella.

“So what is to be done?” he said.

“We’ll have to tell Sir Giles.”

“Surely it is William who is more concerned?”

“No. He just does what Uncle Giles tells him. I don’t think he even loves me. At least that's in our favor. I mean his heart won’t be broken. I shouldn’t like to hurt poor William.”

“I shall call on Sir Giles tomorrow. It may get nasty. No need for you to see us lashing our tails and snarling at each other. The thing to do is pack up a bag and be ready to go to Oldstead Abbey. You can stay with Mama until we arrange a wedding.”

She looped her arms around his neck and laid her head on his chest. His hand cupped the nape of her neck, enjoying the warmth of her. “Are we really going to be married, then?” she said dreamily. “I can hardly believe it.”

“Nothing will stop us. I don’t give a tinker’s curse if I have to put a bullet through the pair of them.”

She raised her head and scowled at him. “Don’t talk like that, Alexander. You frighten me.”

“You frighten too easily,” he laughed. “That is why I don’t want you present for the interview. If Sir Giles refuses to let me see you, I’ll storm up the stairs and carry you away by main force. Be prepared to flee.”

“I shall pack tonight. I don’t want to leave all my trousseau behind. I’ve got half a dozen new gowns and bonnets, Alexander, of the very latest style. I’ll do you proud in London. You won’t have to be ashamed of me in front of your fine friends.”

He chucked her chin. “Vain creature, worrying about gowns at a time like this. You are all I want.”

She basked in the luxury of his love. “I want you to be proud of me when we go to London.”

“I should always be proud of you, even if you were in rags.”

He drew forth the copy of his sonnets, bound in white kidskin, and gave it to her. “I had this made up especially for you. If I ever have to leave you again for any reason, I want you to read it from time to time, just to remind you how much I love you.”

“I’ll always treasure it,” she said, “but you mustn’t leave me again. I was sorry I’d refused to go to Gretna Green with you. I don’t care if you go to America, or Africa, or off to war in Spain. I’ll put on trousers and go with you.”

“You would, too, minx.”

In a reckless mood, Raventhorpe accompanied Belle to the library door and kissed her good night, with long, sweetly lingering kisses. It was hard to control his passion when she clung so desperately to him, as if she feared to let him go. Tenderness and love held his desire in check, and he detached her arms reluctantly. There was time for that. He could wait. When he left, he was whistling softly.

Chapter Sixteen

Sir Giles, leery of Raventhorpe’s easy capitulation, was brooding in his study. He did not see Belle and Raventhorpe together, but he heard that insouciant whistle, and recognized the pair of shoulders strutting boldly through the park. He feared he had not heard the last of Raventhorpe. Sir Giles was awake very late that night, preparing his plan, and was ready for Raventhorpe when he called the next morning, with his impossible demand.

“You are imagining things, milord,” Sir Giles said firmly when Raventhorpe charged him with rushing a wedding upon Arabella. The meeting took place at ten o’clock the next morning. Sir Giles stood behind the desk in his study. He always felt safer with a physical barrier between himself and this hotheaded young lord.

“Am I imagining that you have arranged a wedding the very day after her sixteenth birthday? You were taking no chances! What is the rush?”

“It was Arabella herself who initiated these wedding plans. She is very much in love with William.”

“She suggested the match to frighten me. It was yourself who rushed the wedding forward with such unseemly haste. I tell you she is in love with me, and I with her. I mean to marry her, Sir Giles, with or without your consent,” Raventhorpe declared.

“You are a demmed liar! She loves William.”

A steely glint gleamed in Raventhorpe’s eyes. “Watch what you are about, sir. A gentleman does not take kindly to being called a liar.”

“A liar and a rake, preying on an innocent young girl who happens to be under my protection.”

Raventhorpe’s lips thinned in fury “You will either retract that charge, or pay dearly for it.”

“Name your second, milord. My second will call on him to settle the time and place where we meet.”

Raventhorpe could hardly believe the old man had the fortitude to go to this length. He felt a new respect creep in to dilute the contempt he had always felt for Sir Giles. The whole idea of a duel with Arabella’s guardian was extremely repugnant to him, but to be called a liar and a rake! The fellow was forcing a duel on him.

“Can’t we settle this like gentlemen?” he said reluctantly.

“A gentleman would not fail to accept a challenge,” Sir Giles taunted.

“If you insist, let it be on your head. My cousin, Sir Hubert Almquist, will oblige me. William will know where to find him.”

Raventhorpe was so upset, he left without speaking to Arabella. It was from Sir Giles that she heard a warped version of the story when he had her summoned to his office later, after he had settled down. Such decisive action was alien to Sir Giles, and at his age his heart did not take kindly to it. It took two glasses of brandy to keep up his courage for the pending trouble.

“Lord Raventhorpe has been to call,” he announced sternly. “I was forced into a duel to protect my honor and yours, Arabella.”

Her face blanched in horror. “A duel! Uncle, you mustn’t think of such a thing.”

“After such assaults as he made on my good name, I had no option but to oblige him.”

“What did he say?”

“He accused me of forcing you into an unwanted marriage for the sake of your money. I daresay he thinks I have squandered your fortune. I have never taken a sou but what was needed to run your estate and the salary suggested by a disinterested lawyer. Even that, I have set aside, for the most part, for you and William. And for those years of toil and devotion to you, I am forced by that rake to risk my life defending my honor.”

“But he’ll kill you!”

“I have no doubt that is exactly what he has in mind. He thinks he would have easy work of William once I am gone. It will certainly be the death of me,” he said, clutching his heart, “but if it opens your eyes to Raventhorpe’s true nature, it will be worth it.”