Courting Lord Dorney (12 page)

‘My lord,’ she began, and then came to a halt, her mind a blank. It was as impossible as she had feared. How could she mention the subject of marriage unless he did first?

‘My dear Miss Collins,’ he replied. ‘May I sit down?’

‘Oh, yes, of course. I’m sorry,’ Bella was confused, and when he took a seat beside her on the sopha it took all her resolution to remain there.

Seeking to put her at her ease, he chatted about the ball the previous evening, and seemed unconcerned at her monosyllabic responses. When Lizy brought the wine he rose to pour two glasses and handed one to Bella.

‘Your health and happiness,’ he said, standing in front of her and raising his glass in a toast before drinking.

Bella tried to smile, gulped some of the wine, and developed a fit of coughing.

By the time he’d taken her glass, set it and his own down on a side table, patted her on the back, and handed her his handkerchief, Bella had recovered. She smiled at him through a screen of tears which the coughing had brought into her eyes, and he took her hand gently in his.

‘My dear, when you look so vulnerable I cannot remain silent! I’d intended to visit your father, or at least speak first to Lady Hodder, who is in some way your guardian, but I understand she is out. I should properly beg her permission to approach you, but it’s impossible to wait any longer! Bella, you are adorable!’

He sank onto one knee before her, but before she could reply there was a discreet knock on the door.

‘C - come in,’ Bella managed as Lord Dorney, with a barely suppressed oath, rose to his feet and stepped across to the table where he had deposited their wineglasses.

‘I beg pardon, Miss, but the gentleman wouldn’t take no - ‘ Lizy began, but was unable to continue.

She was pushed aside with scant ceremony and a red-faced, ruffled Mr Salway stormed into the room.

‘Sir!’ Lord Dorney protested coldly. ‘How dare you burst into a lady’s house in such a manner!’

‘Lady?’ Mr Salway sneered. ‘Does a lady masquerade under an assumed name, hoping to entrap an honest man into marriage? After she’s promised to someone else, but thinks she might better herself! It was fortunate I saw you, my lord, and could warn you in time. For shame, Bella, trying to escape from your promises to me like that!’

‘Miss Collins, who is this fellow? Shall I throw him out?’ Lord Dorney, grim faced and with hands clenched into fists, asked.

‘Miss Collins, that’s a whisker!’ Mr Salway laughed, but moved prudently away from Lord Dorney, who was the same height but of considerably heavier build, and moving now as though he was perfectly capable of carrying out his threat.

‘Be silent!’ Lord Dorney ordered, moving impetuously forwards.

‘Ask her first whether Collins is her real name! Ask her whether she’s truly Lord Hodder’s cousin! Ask her whether she knew me in Harrogate!’ Mr Salway gabbled. ‘Very well indeed, she knew me,’ he added with a smirk.

Lord Dorney glanced at Bella, and at the guilty expression on her expressive face began to frown.

‘Is any of this true?’ he demanded. ‘Miss Collins - Bella, do you know this fellow?’

‘Yes, unfortunately!’ Bella found her voice.

‘And is your name Collins?’

‘No. My lord, I can explain - ‘

‘Full of lies, she is. She was promised to me earlier in the year, and then decided I wouldn’t do for her, she wanted a title!’ Mr Salway went on. ‘I came to Bath when I heard where she was, going under a false name, trying to buy a title with the fortune her uncle left her.’

‘That’s untrue!’ Bella gasped. ‘Yes, I knew you, and you offered for me, but I never promised anything, I told you to go away! And I don’t want a title!’

‘You’d best leave, sirrah!’ Lord Dorney commanded, and moved towards Mr Salway in so determined a fashion that he cravenly edged out of the door and pushed past Lizy, hovering avidly on the threshold, on his hasty retreat to the front door.

Lord Dorney watched him go, closed the door on the flustered maid, and came back towards Bella. He placed both hands on her shoulders and she shivered with a combination of despair and a wild, crazy impulse to throw herself into his arms and sob weakly on his chest. But Bella had never given way to tears and she wouldn’t now, she vowed, however feeble her legs had become, and however tinglingly aware of him she felt.

‘I think I deserve an explanation,’ he said abruptly. ‘Since you admit some of the fellow’s accusations are true perhaps you’d better tell me the whole of it.’

* * * *

Bella stared helplessly at him, overwhelmed with dismay at the cold, implacable expression in his eyes. She remained mute. What could she say?

‘Let us start with your name,’ he prompted impatiently, shaking her slightly. ‘It is not Collins?’

Bella miserably shook her head. It was far, far worse than she had ever anticipated, for his eyes were like flints, cold and sharp in a grimly hard face which promised no mercy. Normally she cared nothing for the anger of others, but this was terribly, searingly different, and she was shattered at the realization of how much his anger distressed her.

‘So what is it?’

‘Trahearne,’ Bella whispered.

‘A normal enough name,’ he commented icily. ‘Why change it? What scandal attaches to it?’

‘None at all!’ Bella was stung into a reply, some of her customary animation returning.

‘Is Lady Hodder any relation of yours?’

‘She’s my cousin, on my mother’s side of the family,’ she explained wearily, a great weight seeming to press down on her.

‘You knew that fellow in Harrogate?’

‘Yes.’

She seemed incapable of more than the minimum necessary replies, and tried to twist out of his grasp, but his hands merely tightened their grip. She turned away her face to hide the tears which threatened, despite her resolution, to disgrace her. Why did his nearness affect her so? He took her chin in one hand and turned her firmly to face him.

‘Did he offer for you?’

‘Several times.’ With a tremendous effort she forced herself to answer calmly, thankful that her voice was steady, however the rest of her felt.

‘And? He said you accepted him.’

‘He lied.’

‘Did he?’ He stared down into her eyes and Bella, suddenly dizzy, swayed slightly and moved closer to him. ‘You lied about your name, it seems. What was that about a fortune?’ he demanded harshly. ‘Was it true?’

‘It’s the whole wretched problem!’ she cried in sudden fury, bringing her hands up between them and hammering with her fists at his chest. ‘He offered for me, and so did others when they found out about the wretched money, but I always refused him as well as all of them!’

‘You lied to me,’ he repeated.

‘No! Well, not really. What does a name matter?’ she pleaded, gazing into his eyes so close to hers, willing him to understand. ‘I’m me, Bella, how can it matter what else I’m called?’

‘It matters to me. I admired you for many things, your compassion for creatures less fortunate, and your outspoken defence of them, but most of all I thought you were truthful. We were able to talk in a manner I’ve never achieved with any other woman. I imagined we could talk freely, openly, about anything, in the way friends can, but it wasn’t so. It was based on a deception.’

‘I couldn’t tell you!’ Bella exclaimed.

‘You didn’t trust me.’

‘I didn’t trust any man after the vultures of Harrogate!’ Bella retorted bitterly.

‘How fortunate I discovered it in time, madam! I was prepared to offer you my name and my hand and my love. You were the first girl I’d ever contemplated sharing my life with. But it was a sham, all based on dishonesty, a fraud! That is something I hate more than anything else, something I can never tolerate. Were you planning to find a husband when you came to Bath? How were you proposing to reveal the truth to him?’

‘I don’t know!’ Bella replied tiredly. ‘I hadn’t thought so far ahead. I just wanted to be loved for myself, not my wretched fortune. I couldn’t bear to marry anyone who knew of it, and thought if I used a different name I might find someone I could really trust, who loved me before he knew about the money!’

‘You wanted to find trust without offering it in return? Somewhat naive, was it not?’

‘How could I ever know the truth of whether I was loved and not my money?’

‘How does any man with a good income or a title know the same? Love must be built on mutual trust, Miss - Trahearne. My poor unfortunate brother discovered that, but I imagined I’d avoided his mistakes!’

‘If you don’t understand there’s no more to say,’ Bella managed, relapsing into her former state of lethargy.

‘I understand only too well!’

His grasp tightened, his arms sliding round her back to pull her close towards him, imprisoning her within their circle.

As she glanced, startled, up at him, he bent his head towards her, his eyes dark and tortured just a few inches away from hers. She could feel his breath on her cheeks as he gave a faint groan, and suddenly his mouth covered hers.

His lips were hard and demanding, and Bella involuntarily opened her own in response to their message. How utterly different his kiss was to the slobbering wetness she had endured when unable to evade Mr Salway, she thought briefly.

Lord Dorney was firm, rough even, as he crushed her to him. She was overwhelmed, breathless, unable to think of anything except the exquisite bitter-sweet joy of being held in his embrace.

Without her noticing it her hands crept round him, and her lips grew soft. Briefly his own hard mouth relaxed, he responded with a gentler, softer caressing kiss, tracing the outline of her mouth with his tongue.

Then, so abruptly that Bella staggered and almost fell, he thrust her away from him.

‘My apologies!’ he jerked out harshly, turning away from the sight of Bella, her fingers unconsciously touching her bruised mouth.

‘Richard? My lord!’ she exclaimed, but he shook his head angrily and moved away across the room.

‘I should not have done that. Perhaps I wouldn’t if you had been the sort of girl I took you for,’ he added bitterly. ‘However, I’m thankful to have discovered the truth before it was too late. Pray give my regards to Lady Hodder. That is her name, I presume?’

‘Of course it is.’

Bella was indignant, bemused, and utterly bereft at this sudden reversion into coldness and anger. For one blissful second she had hoped matters might after all have resolved themselves satisfactorily.

‘Then I’ll apologize once more and bid you farewell, Miss Trahearne. I shall be leaving Bath, and do not expect we’ll meet again.’

She uttered a wordless cry, but he ignored her and was gone, closing the door behind him sharply. Bella pressed her eyes tightly shut, and to ward off the threatened tears began softly repeating over and over again all the unladylike expressions she had learned as a child from the stable lads.

Chapter 8

Lord Dorney returned to his lodgings and brusquely ordered his valet to pack.

‘I’m leaving at once, I’ll ride and will spend the night somewhere on the road,’ he said. ‘You can catch the stage with my luggage tomorrow morning. Take it to Sir Daniel Scott’s house.’

He changed into breeches and a caped riding coat. Having ruined the first two cravats he tried to tie he gave up and wrapped a loose neckerchief round his neck, tucking the ends into his shirt. He was furious, not so much with Bella, but with himself for having so far forgot his resolutions as to have been on the point of offering for her. And how he could have lost control of himself in such a deplorable fashion he did not in the least understand.

She was no lightskirt, whatever other faults he had now discovered. There had been no excuse for kissing her in such a manner. For kissing her at all. He tried to banish the recollection, but the memory of the sweetness of her mouth, the shy, tentative response to his assault, and this was the only word he could use for it, would not go away.

He tugged on his riding boots and taking the saddle bags his valet had packed and silently handed him, went down to the stables. Why had she lied? Her explanation of wanting to be loved for herself was nonsense. She was, if not in her first flush of youth, or conventionally beautiful, a pretty, vivacious woman, one many men would be only too happy to marry.

Her fortune, he recalled. She’d said she would be loved for that. Was it so large? But other heiresses had to endure such uncertainty, unless they married men who were equally rich. She could have trusted him. Then he cursed fluently under his breath. He couldn’t marry an heiress. Not after Robert’s experience. But what was he thinking? It was all over. He had no intention of offering for her now.

He rode out of Bath at a furious pace, until his anger cooled and he remembered to conserve his horse’s strength. They had a long ride ahead of them.

* * * *

‘I won’t stay in Bath!’ Bella declared heatedly later that evening as she and Jane sat at dinner.

‘But I’m sure Lord Dorney won’t tell anyone,’ Jane pleaded. ‘He’ll not wish people to think he’s been deceived.’

‘I didn’t deceive him! Not about anything really important,’ Bella insisted.

‘He thought so.’

‘In any event I couldn’t bear to stay here and have everyone speculating as to why he didn’t offer after all, and left so hurriedly,’ she said with a shudder. ‘And how was I to know he’d be so stuffy about stupid matters? Besides, that wretch Salway will be bound to spread the news, so I’ll be disgraced as well as humiliated.’

‘Oh, not as bad as that, Bella!’

‘If I’m not disgraced why did he reject me?’

Jane had no difficulty in identifying the ‘he’. Bella had been white and trembling when she returned from her shopping expedition, but even during the vehement and occasionally incoherent telling of what had taken place not a single tear had fallen. The sudden crashing of her hopes had clearly affected her greatly, but Jane was secretly of the opinion that a hearty session of weeping would have been better than this brittle, dry-eyed anger.

‘It must have been a shock to him. When he’s had time to reflect he may realize he’s been hasty.’