A Hint of Scandal (20 page)

Westlake stared down at her signature for some minutes before folding the letter and placing it in the drawer in the table next to his bed. With a frown creasing his forehead, the duke rose from the bed and went to the room adjoining his chamber, where a large copper tub filled with hot water waited to soothe his tired muscles.

As he removed the last of his clothes, the duke contemplated what to do next.

“B
ella, never say you are not ready! Do hurry; we do not wish to be late,” Triss scolded upon entering Bella’s sumptuous bedchamber and finding her still sitting at the dressing table. To her further annoyance, the maid was still fussing with Bella’s hair.

With a brief smile and a nod, Bella dismissed Carter, her new lady’s maid, and turned to Triss. Leaning one arm on the back of her chair, Bella gave Triss the once-over.

“Aren’t you a vision,” she said with a tease to her impatient cousin.

Always ready for a compliment, Triss stopped her badgering to pirouette in the middle of the room. “Am I? I so want to cut a dash at my first appearance in Society,” she said to Bella with an anxious look in her clear blue eyes.

Bella admired her cousin’s evening gown of frosty blue satin, with its overslip of silver net. There were tiny rosettes of silver satin dotting the pouf sleeves and the hem, and even a few sprinkled in her upswept blond hair.

“You are stunning, Triss, truly,” Bella said sincerely. Bella thought Triss looked like a beautiful, dignified ice queen. How deceiving looks could be, she thought, with an ironic smile coming briefly to her lips. Rising, she gave her appearance one last glance in the large, silver-framed mirror on her dressing table before picking up her shawl and reticule.

“Oh, Bella, you’re lovely,” Triss said with an uncharacteristic tone of awe.

“Am I?” she said, repeating Triss’s words with a smile. Despite her offhand manner, Bella was gratified to know that she was looking her best tonight. Out of the numerous new gowns she had acquired over the last few weeks, she felt the one she now wore was the most beautiful. The material was a luminescent blush-colored silk that did amazing things for her complexion and eyes. Madame Triaud, the modiste who had designed the deceptively simple gown, had told Bella that she had been saving this very rare, and very expensive, bolt of fabric for a most special client.

“Only a lady with your exquisite complexion, deep blue eyes, and dark hair could carry off this particular shade. Anyone else would disappear—it would wash them out. No, your grace, this fabric was made for you,” the modiste had assured Bella.

Bella smiled a little wryly at the remembered trip to the very exclusive dress shop. She had not wanted to go. But Triss had pointed out that she had told her mother and the dowager duchess that having a new wardrobe was her express purpose for coming to London in the first place.

“Besides, Bella, you must have clothes befitting your new station,” Triss had pointed out.

Bella did not tell her cousin about her hopes of convincing the duke to agree to an annulment. Instead she had reluctantly gone to the shop with her aunt and Triss and had ended up giving Mrs. Triaud her head, allowing the modiste to create an entire wardrobe for the new Duchess of Westlake. Every day boxes and boxes were delivered to Westlake House. Bella’s head was spinning with the number of morning gowns, tea gowns, walking dresses, afternoon dresses, evening gowns, capes, spencers, pelisses, slippers, and bonnets.

“I can’t possibly wear all of this,” she had lamented to her aunt when yet another evening gown had arrived.

“Mrs. Triaud said this would barely be enough for the Season,” Aunt Elizabeth had replied.

Now Bella was very pleased she had left it all to the
talented mantuamaker, for she never would have picked this gown for herself.

She also wore her hair in a new style. Instead of her thick, dark locks being pulled back in a simple twist, there was now a profusion of ringlets at the sides, with the back pulled up very high, calling attention to her graceful neck.

The new maid had proved very proficient at taking care of Bella. Finally losing her patience with Jones, who barely concealed her surliness, Bella had sent her first maid back to Autley.

“Bella, let us depart!” Triss’s urgent tone pulled Bella back to the present.

“All right, I am coming,” she said, and followed Triss out of the bedchamber and down the wide hallway, with its plastered and coved ceiling.

Westlake House had been a revelation to Bella. She had expected it to be as cold and unwelcoming as Autley, but it had proved quite the opposite. Where Autley was vast and full of antiques and strict attention to protocol, Westlake House was a new Palladian-style mansion with extremely modern Greek revival furnishings and décor.

“Bang up to the nines,” Triss had stated with approval the day they had arrived.

The servants were highly efficient, but unlike those at Autley, they did not find little ways to show their disrespect to Bella; in fact, they seemed to go out of their way to please her. This had been a great relief to Bella, who was finding her stay in London more enjoyable than she would have thought possible.

Aunt Elizabeth was waiting for them in the black-and-white-marble foyer.

“I vow, we shall be the loveliest ladies at the ball tonight,” Triss stated as they left the house and entered the closed carriage that was to take them to Lord and Lady Edgeton’s house, which was only a short distance away. There, a ball was being given in honor of the engagement between the Lady Louisa Westlake and the Duke of Malverton.

What a very unusual world she found herself in, Bella mused, as the carriage turned down the drive. At first she
had resisted the idea of attending the ball. Every morning, Graves, the majordomo, brought her stacks of invitations to every type of occasion, all of which she had politely declined. As things were so unsettled between her and the duke, she did not think it wise to enter Society.

But after being in London for more than three weeks, without a word from the duke in response to the letter she had left at Autley before she departed, she saw no polite way out of attending the engagement ball for his youngest sister. Besides, Bella found she liked the very pretty, if scatterbrained, Lady Louisa.

The day after Bella had arrived at Westlake House, Lady Louisa had called upon her. At first, as she, Triss, and Lady Louisa were sitting down to tea, Bella had been wary, lest Louisa behave in the high-handed manner her sister had. But she needn’t have feared; the duke’s youngest sister had been warm and friendly—and extremely curious about Bella.

“It has been driving me to distraction to not have met you before this, my dear sister-in-law!” she said with shining eyes as soon as she had made herself comfortable in the beautifully appointed drawing room.

Bella had decided that she had a fondness for this particular room, which was decorated in gold and pale blue. The servants kept the numerous Grecian-style urns filled with orchids. And it overlooked the expertly laid-out garden that was now in early spring bloom.

“When Alex sent us that maddeningly brief missive,” Lady Louisa continued, “saying that he had recently married Miss Arabella Tichley, I thought he was hoaxing! Though why anyone would hoax about such a subject, I am sure I do not know. But, after having the devastating news that my brother had gone missing, and then to find out that he had been shot and almost lost his life… well, you can imagine what we all thought! So when we discovered that Miss Tichley was the young lady who had nursed my dear brother through this ordeal, it suddenly all made sense! Of course Alex would fall in love with you! ‘Tis the most romantic tale in the world, next to my own romance with my darling Malverton. Though nothing as dreadful as highwaymen and fevers interfered with our courtship—we met
at Almack’s.” Lady Louisa took a deep breath and reached for her teacup.

Bella stared, nonplussed, at the duchess-to-be. She had not the faintest notion of how to respond to such profuse outpourings. She sent a helpless glance to Triss, who only smiled, shrugged lightly, and drank her tea.

Bella was saved from having to think of something to say, for after another inhalation, Lady Louisa was off again.

“So then you show up in London without Alex! I thought Mama was going to have kittens! But, of course, it was all explained. And I am in complete agreement with you. You have to have a wardrobe, and if Alex cannot be bothered to come to town with you, well, then, what are you to do? I would have done the same, honeymoon or not. Though Alice says—you have met my sister, have you not? Of course you have! What was I saying? Oh, I recall now. Alice says that something is odd about this whole business. Your marriage to Alex, that is. And now the whole town is abuzz with rumors about you. Can you not hear the hearts breaking all over London? My brother is finally off the blocks! And every hunting mama is devastated. Though there are those who refuse to believe you really exist. Since you have not bestirred yourself to accept any invitations, the
ton
is simply mad with curiosity about you. Are you not very lucky to be so beautiful?”

Bella continued to stare at the young lady in silence, sure that she would resume her monologue after her next breath. But this time, the silence stretched and Lady Louisa looked at Bella expectantly.

“Oh… Well, yes, if I am beautiful, then it is pure luck,” Bella finally responded with a smile at the younger woman.

“You are nice! Say you will be at the ball Alice is giving for me. It will be so much fun to watch the
ton
try to get a look at you. My ball promises to be a dreadful crush. I must be off! More wedding plans to attend. What a delight to meet you, dear Arabella, and you too, Lady Beatrice,” she said, jumping up from the chair and leaving the room with a quick wave, her harried maid scurrying behind her.

Once she had left, Bella and Triss had looked at each other, mystified.

“Lud, she talks even more than I do,” Triss had said in disbelief.

So, after a discussion with Aunt Elizabeth and Triss, Bella had decided that they had little choice but to attend the ball given by her sister-in-law.

Now Bella found that she actually felt a certain sense of anticipation regarding her first ball.

“We are here!” Triss said excitedly, as the carriage pulled in line with a string of other carriages waiting to unload their fashionable occupants in front of the very elegant town house belonging to Lord and Lady Edgeton.

Looking out the window to the lamplit scene beyond, Bella thought that Lady Louisa must be delighted, for if the number of carriages choking the drive was any indication, her ball would indeed be a dreadful crush.

Their own carriage had to wait a full twenty minutes before it could move from the bottom of the drive to the front entrance.

“We are so close now, why don’t we just get out and walk the rest of the way? It is dreadfully stuffy in here,” Bella suggested.

“Oh, no!” Triss looked horrified. “It would be too lowering to be seen
walking
up the drive. Besides, I wish to be seen exiting Westlake’s coach.”

“All right, you goose,” Bella said with an indulgent smile.

With growing excitement, the three ladies were finally able to disembark and join the huge press of people ascending the staircase to the first floor, where the ballroom was situated. With a great deal of curiosity, Bella observed her surroundings as they slowly made their way up the staircase. She had never thought to see such a beautiful display of finery in the whole of her life. She admired the profusion of jewels glittering in the light of the chandeliers, and the rainbow hues of the ladies’ gowns, shown to greater advantage against the black of the gentlemen’s evening clothes. A secret smile touched Bella’s lips. How Robert Fortiscue would have disapproved, she thought with some enjoyment.

It suddenly occurred to her that she would have liked to
share this private joke with the duke. As she continued to move up the staircase behind Aunt Elizabeth and Triss amidst the noisy, festive crowd, Bella paused to examine this disconcerting thought.

Could it be that she missed the duke? A frown immediately came to her brow at this unbidden thought.

What other explanation could there be for how often her thoughts went to him?

Well, they had spent a lot of time together at the manor, and she had grown to enjoy his company, she thought, trying to explain away this unnerving revelation.

If only I had not found those tryst notes
, she thought with sadness. And if only her papa and uncle had not forced the duke to marry her, her life would be so different now.

But would it be better?
A little voice in her heart whispered the question.

Bella’s attention was abruptly pulled from her disquieting thoughts by her aunt, who was standing, immobile, on the step above Bella.

“What is it, Aunt Elizabeth?” Bella questioned urgently, for those behind were beginning to murmur about the delay.

Bella could see by looking past her aunt that they were almost to the entryway to the ballroom. She could also see the dowager, Lady Edgeton, a large man with a florid complexion next to her, Lady Louisa, and a handsome young blond man, who could only be the Duke of Malverton, greeting each guest as they passed through the receiving line.

“I do not know what to do,” Aunt Elizabeth whispered in a frantic tone to Bella and Triss.

“Oh, Mother! Do not make a cake of yourself
now,”
Triss whispered back fiercely.

But Lady Penninghurst did not move.

The two liveried footmen, one on either side of the entry-way, glanced at each other in growing alarm.

“Aunt Elizabeth, just follow what the others are doing. There is such a commotion, no one will notice you anyway,” Bella directed in an encouraging murmur, and gave her aunt a little push.

Straightening her posture, Aunt Elizabeth took herself in hand, climbed the last step, and handed her card to the majordomo, who then announced her to their hosts.

To Lady Penninghurst’s relief, Bella’s prediction proved true. Of the several hundred people already in the ballroom, only those nearest the entry paid any notice to Lady Penninghurst or her daughter.