Rebel Love (Heart's Temptation Book 2) Page 5

  Devonshire made for an agreeable dinner partner, but she couldn’t seem to keep from casting surreptitious glances Mr. Whitney’s way. Several times, she swore she felt his intense gaze on her only to find him laughing with the odious Margot Chilton. It seemed he was determined to make good on his word. Bella longed to fling a great glob of her dinner all over Miss Chilton’s dress, but she suppressed the urge in favor of civility.

  By the time the ladies took their leave of the men, Bella’s hopes were quite dashed. She had turned herself out to tremendous effect, had sought to make him unbearably jealous. And she had failed.

  Perhaps she was nothing more than the naïve girl he believed her to be after all. The ladies were shepherded to the drawing room for a series of parlor games that Bella found almost as loathsome as she did Margot Chilton. She wished she had a book to read.

  Her mother presided over her like a hawk, her countenance grim.

  “That Scarbrough woman will be the ruin of us all,” the dowager lamented in a careful undertone.

  Across the room, Margot Chilton volunteered herself for the first round of charades. Bella wanted to rip the false hair from her head. But she refused to allow her anger to show. “Maman, I do believe my brother is playing a most willing role in this scandal.”

  “Men are weak-willed,” her mother declared. “Your father had the character of a bowl of aspic. I am decidedly disappointed that Thornton seems to be patterning himself in a similar vein. It’s in the blood, I suppose.”

  Margot began gesticulating in the center of the chamber.

  “You’re a donkey,” Bella guessed unkindly.

  That earned her a narrow-eyed glared from her apparent rival. Bella sent Margot a sweet smile in return.

  “Parlor games,” the dowager hissed, “are vulgar. I insist you cease playing immediately.”

  “Perhaps you are a cow,” Bella called, ignoring her mother entirely.

  Margot’s glare turned frigid as Wenham Lake ice.

  “A remarkably large sheep?” Bella suggested next.

  “Arabella,” her mother snapped. “Listen to your poor, suffering mother for once in your life. What did I do to deserve such unnatural children?”

  “I am sorry, Maman,” she fibbed. “I quite lost my head.”

  The dowager sighed. “It is bad enough Thornton has lowered himself to pugilism before the cream of society over some lightskirt.”

  “I daresay you ought to lower your voice.” Bella was aware of the proximity of the notorious gossip Lady Grimsby even if her mother was not. The only time that lady was not listening for tidbits was when she was snoring over her eggs.

  This time, the dowager sniffed. “Nonsense. Now how did you fare in conversation with the Duke of Devonshire? A worthy match there, I tell you.”

  “He’s dull,” Bella grumbled, quite forgetting to play her normal game of agreeable daughter. “All he did was natter on about rebuilding his country seat.” In truth, he hadn’t been a bad dinner partner, but he was simply not the man who occupied her every thought.

  “You could do far worse than a gentleman like the duke,” the dowager pointed out. “Thank the blessed angels that you’ve stopped speaking to that awful American. I was grateful indeed when Lady Cosgrove seated you nearer to someone more appropriate to your station as the daughter of a marchioness. If one doesn’t stand on ceremony, one doesn’t stand on anything at all.”

  “I was under the impression one stands on one’s feet,” she quipped, her irritation from Mr. Whitney’s dismissal of her at dinner making her bold.

  “Hold your tongue, Lady Arabella. When did you become possessed of such deplorable manners?” She pressed a dramatic hand to her brow. “The world has gone to the dogs, I tell you.”

  That rather gave her an idea. Margot Chilton was still pantomiming, no one having guessed her less than clever rendition of whatever she was pretending to be.

  “You are a rabid dog,” Bella guessed next.

  “I give up!” Margot shouted in a most unladylike lack of decorum. “A baker. I was a baker.” With a ferocious frown in Bella’s direction, she all but stomped back to her seat.

  Maybe it was small of her, but Bella felt a surge of satisfaction. If she’d had to suffer through extra whalebone crushing her all evening and hadn’t earned so much as an appreciative look from Mr. Whitney, at least she could win one battle.

  “Really, Bella,” her mother clucked sotto voce. “I know the Chilton girl is dreadful, but that was cruel.”

  She shrugged. “I was simply exercising my creative liberties.”

  The dowager’s eyes turned to slits of suspicion. “Has this anything to do with the attention a certain American blackleg paid her at dinner?”

  “I hadn’t noticed,” she lied again.

  “A liar is worse than a tradesman.” Her mother sniffed with disdain.

  “I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.” Bella searched the assembled ladies for an escape route. “If you don’t mind, I think I shall go have a word with Lady Stokey.”

  “She’s the sister to that infernal Scarbrough woman,” the dowager protested.

  Bella once again chose to ignore her.

  After the men rejoined the ladies following dinner, Jesse had a difficult time ignoring Bella. She was an ethereal beauty in a gown that made the lush woman’s body hiding beneath the silken trappings all too apparent. And all too tempting. Dear God, he’d been hiding his arousal for most of the night, and no amount of staring at Miss Margot Chilton’s sizeable nose could make it abate.

  Of all the women in the world, why did he have to want Bella? The very last thing Thornton needed, in addition to the troubles he’d already created by brawling with Ravenscroft, was to worry about his innocent sister being ravished by his trusted friend. If fate had any sympathy, Jesse would never have met her. Why couldn’t she be horse-faced and dim-witted?

  She’d been gracing the Duke of Devonshire with an obvious amount of attention. Damn it if didn’t bother him. Across the drawing room, she was at it again. Margot Chilton was an irritating presence at his side. He tried to pay attention to the girlish drivel she spouted.

  “I do so love to draw, don’t you, Mr. Whitney?” she asked coyly.

  “I’ve never been particularly good at the arts,” he admitted, trying to wrest his gaze from the stunning Bella.

  “I have a fair hand for watercolors as well.”

  He forced himself to look at Miss Chilton. She was not a bad sort, but she didn’t have much wit and she certainly lacked Bella’s loveliness. “Indeed?”

  “I confess I listened with much fascination to your stories of the American West the other evening at dinner.” She smiled tentatively.

  He didn’t know much more about the Western world of outlaws and thieves than anyone else, but Bella had asked him to regale the party, he recalled. He knew what he read in the papers, and he’d known of Jesse James during his war days. The stories of the carnage wrought by James under Bloody Bill Anderson were legendary. But that was hardly a fit subject for a lady’s ears.

  “I’m delighted to have entertained you,” he told Miss Chilton, wondering when he could escape her clutches.

  He heard Bella’s sweet laughter joining with Devonshire’s. It was akin to someone pouring ice water down his back. Jesse told himself to leave her to her comfortable fate with a man like the duke. He was an aristocrat, kind if not a bit staid, and would provide her with the life she deserved. Jesse, on the other hand, was all manners of wrong for her. He’d learned the painful way what havoc a relationship based upon lust could create. Hadn’t he already caused enough damage with foolish decisions?

  But Bella, it seemed, was willing to test fate though he might not be. She approached him, her hand on Devonshire’s arm, a smile at the ready. He couldn’t look away.

  He bowed. “Lady Arabella, Your Grace, good evening to you both.”

  “The same to you, Mr. Whitney.” Bella offered him her hand.
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br />   Jesse took it and kissed it, wanting with all the passion raging through him to yank her into his arms and take her away. Instead, he released her as though her touch didn’t make him feel as if he’d just downed too much whiskey.

  The duke took Miss Chilton’s proffered hand, bussing the air above it. They all exchanged insipid pleasantries for a time. Jesse was hopelessly ensnared in Bella’s gaze. Unless he was mistaken, he detected longing in her expression for just a brief moment. God help him, he didn’t think he’d ever wanted a woman more in his entire existence.

  “This evening was quite unique, wouldn’t you concur?” Devonshire asked their small assemblage at large.

  “It was lovely,” Jesse agreed, but he didn’t remove his enthralled gaze from Bella. If he had thought her beautiful before tonight, he thought her a goddess now.

  “I did think some of the ladies were perhaps overdressed for the occasion,” Miss Chilton said, wearing a sour pout. The dismissive glance she gave to Bella made it plain she spoke of Bella’s elaborate gown.

  “I too noticed an excessive amount of false hair,” Bella snipped back at Miss Chilton. The smile on her lips was feline enough to show the kitten wasn’t afraid to make use of her formidable claws.

  There was a decided amount of feminine animosity in the air. Now that Bella mentioned it, Miss Chilton’s hair did seem to possess an unnatural amount of volume to it. And dear Lord, was there a stuffed bird lurking in there? How had he failed to notice before? The thing looked positively evil.

  The expression on poor Miss Chilton’s face turned bilious. “Lady Bella, I can’t imagine what you speak of. I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  “Indeed.” Bella’s voice was sugar itself. “Pray forgive me if I misspoke.”

  And she was patently insincere. Who knew of the tigress lurking beneath her exquisite shell? Devonshire appeared flummoxed by the entire exchange, but Jesse couldn’t tell if it was the references to fashion or the obvious venom spewing between the ladies.

  He had to admit he was rather enjoying himself. It occurred to him that perhaps Bella was as jealous as he. To test his theory, he turned to Miss Chilton. “May I say that your coiffure is astoundingly pretty?”

  “You may indeed.” She flushed with pleasure. “Thank you, Mr. Whitney.”

  Bella’s eyes were on him, hard as flint. He almost smiled.

  “The weather has been spot on for hunting, wouldn’t you agree?” Devonshire intoned, perhaps seeking to redirect their dialogue into safer channels.

  “It certainly has,” Jesse responded, merely agreeing out of a sense of politeness.

  “I tell you, there’s nothing finer than the scent of gunpowder and the crack of shots on an English country morning,” Devonshire continued.

  Jesse recalled all too well the scent of gunpowder, along with the scent of rotting flesh in the July sun and the thunderous roar of cannon balls exploding, limbs flying through the air. It was as if a trigger had been pressed inside him. Suddenly, the war unleashed itself on him again. Whoever had said war was hell had been wrong. The real hell was what came afterward.

  The last thing he needed was to appear a madman to the glittering lords and ladies around him. They needn’t know the savagery lurking beneath his gentleman’s exterior. The heavy dinner he’d consumed began churning in his stomach and his skin went hot. It was time to take his leave. He avoided all the gazes directed at him. “If you’ll excuse me, I fear I’m weary.”

  Without waiting for their responses, he strode from the drawing room, hoping like hell he could make it back to his chamber without doing something foolish. Even after all the time that had passed, there were still moments when the horrors he’d witnessed assaulted him. It recurred with far less frequency now, but he knew the signs well enough. There was never any telling what caused it, but when the fires of Hades were at his heels, he knew when to run.

  Something was wrong with Mr. Whitney, Bella knew instantly, and it wasn’t as commonplace as the jealousy she’d hoped to stir within him. No indeed, it was something far more profound and far more dangerous. He’d looked as if he were about to cast up his accounts just before beating a hasty retreat, and she knew enough about him to realize it likely was related to the duke’s unaware reference to hunting.

  I have no need for guns in my life, he’d said.

  But she suspected it was far more than a dislike of guns that kept him from a country grouse shoot. Thornton had hinted once that something very bad had happened to Mr. Whitney in the war. He’d been a young man then. She couldn’t fathom the destruction and death he must have lived through. Her own life had been as easy as an afternoon tea by comparison.

  “Do you suppose I said something amiss?” Devonshire wondered, his expression one of genuine puzzlement.

  “I’m sure Mr. Whitney was merely fatigued,” Bella hastened to dismiss his concern.

  She didn’t want anyone to deduce what she had about him. For some inexplicable reason, a fierce need to protect him rose within her. She knew then she had to go to him. You cannot forever be a man alone, she’d told him, and she meant those words. He’d given her no reason to have hopes he might one day grow to care for her. But she cared for him regardless of his emotions. There was no earthly way she could allow a man in such obvious pain to suffer on his own.

  Bella had to escape the drawing room at the first opportunity.

  Her course of action settled, she pretended to catch the dowager’s eye. “Dear me, it looks as if my mother requires my assistance,” she said in a light tone she didn’t feel. “If you will both excuse me?”

  She curtseyed and beat a path to her mother. It didn’t escape her notice that for once, she was running toward her mother rather than away. Bella hoped the dowager wouldn’t notice anything was wrong. Her mother could be rather canny in the most unwanted situations.

  “Bella, darling.” The dowager beamed at her as she took up her dutiful role at her mother’s side once more. “I was just having a most improving discussion with Lady Cosgrove.”

  Their hostess appeared slightly aggrieved and it wouldn’t surprise Bella to learn her mother had somehow insulted her. Lady Cosgrove was a mild-mannered and genial lady. Bella would have to mend fences. She sighed. “Lady Cosgrove, we must thank you for a wonderful house party. Truly, you have outdone yourself thus far.”

  “Thank you, my dear Lady Bella.” Their hostess’s frown eased. “I was just telling your mother it is a shame indeed that we shan’t be graced with your recitation for our Shakespearean theater.”

  Bella cut her mother with a glare. The dowager had forbade Bella’s participation because she didn’t deem the recitation of Shakespeare appropriate. Dealing with her mother truly could be vexing at times. “Please accept my apologies, my lady.”

  “Accepted, dear girl.” Their hostess rose from the settee. “If you will excuse me, I must continue mingling.”

  When Lady Cosgrove flitted away, Bella turned to the dowager. “Maman, must you insist upon being so stringent with Shakespeare? It is only innocent fun, you know.”

  “Dramas are coarse and common self-indulgences better suited to the poor than anyone of consequence,” the dowager stated in an august tone. “And as for Shakespeare, the man championed the eating of babies! Utterly preposterous.”

  “Maman,” Bella was compelled to protest, aghast at her mother’s lack of literary acumen. “We’ve been over this before. That was Mr. Swift, and it was satire.”

  “Tut.” Her mother frowned with unparalleled vehemence. “I forbid you to speak of it again.”

  “Very well.” Perhaps this was her opportunity to flee. “I find I’m quite done in, Maman. I think I shall make an early evening of it.”

  “What of the duke? I should think you’d want his ear for at least a bit longer. You can’t leave him to suffer the company of that Chilton chit. Her father is a mere viscount and a pockets-to-let drunkard at that.”

  “I fear I must.” She sighed, trying to sound he
r feeblest. “I truly am fatigued.”

  “Very well.” Her mother gave in. “I shall accompany you.”

  Drat. She didn’t want to arouse suspicion, but neither did she want to be encumbered by her mother’s presence. “I wouldn’t wish to curtail your enjoyment of the evening,” she tried as nonchalantly as she could manage.

  “Nonsense. I’m far too old for drawing room pleasantries. I daresay I don’t care for most of the assemblage here anyway.” Her mother announced this last loudly enough to be overheard as she rose and fluffed her ever-present gray skirts.

  Dear heavens. The dowager certainly wasn’t about to make this easy on her. With another suffering sigh, she played the dutiful daughter and followed her mother out of the chamber.

  Once in the safe confines of her bedchamber, Bella rang for her maid and went to great lengths to uphold the pretense that she was planning an early slumber. She allowed Smith to undress her and take down her hair and dismissed her as usual. After Smith was gone, Bella hurried to put on her least fussy frock, a demure morning gown that she could manage to wear without the encumbrance of a corset. She bound her hair into a simple bun.

  What she was about to attempt was extraordinarily ill-advised. If she were caught sneaking about in the halls as an unattached miss, her reputation would be reduced to ruins. But she’d seen the haunted expression on Mr. Whitney’s handsome face. She knew he needed her.

  Her mind firmly made, she peeked out into the hall. A servant bustled away from her in the dim light, turned a corner and disappeared down a back stair. Beyond that, there wasn’t another soul in sight. She slipped from the chamber, holding her breath when the door emitted a rather obvious creak. She fervently hoped the remainder of the guests would be occupied in the drawing room for at least enough time for her to locate Mr. Whitney’s chamber.

  As quietly and quickly as she could, she started off down the hall, scanning each name placard. Every groan of a noisy floorboard sent her heart plummeting to her slipper-shod feet. She was acutely aware of the sound she made. It seemed hours passed as she traveled nearly the entire length of the Tudor wing. Just as she was beginning to despair, she found it.