Courting Lord Dorney (17 page)

Her later knowledge of him, his kindness, their ability, once, to talk of anything they wished, might have explained a gradual falling in love. Those were characteristics not immediately apparent, yet she had known instantly he was the only man for her. When he had kissed her she had momentarily forgotten their disagreements and surrendered to a state of sheer bliss, natural and inevitable. Had he not felt the same? Why had he kissed her? Did men normally kiss women they were angry with?

She shook her head in bewilderment. She loved him, and if she were entirely truthful she was a little afraid too. She, Rosabella Trahearne, who had never before admitted to fear, was now experiencing it. Then a thought struck her. It was not fear of him, but fear of hurting him, fear for him, that produced in her this unaccustomed sensibility.

Lost in contemplation of this phenomenon, she did not at first respond when Lord Dorney spoke to her later in the drawing room.

‘I am promised to friends all day tomorrow, but on the following morning I am free. Shall I give you this driving lesson Lady Fulwood thinks I’m fit to administer?’ he asked.

‘Oh. Yes. That is, if you’d rather not - ‘ she stammered, and mentally kicked herself for her ineptitude. She didn’t wish to give him an excuse to evade her, she’d already disposed of that impulse.

Fortunately he cut her short. ‘I did agree,’ he stated. ‘Do you wish to drive he horse you’re used to? It would be best, I think. Best also if we go early, before there are too many people about.’

‘Don’t you trust me not to upset you?’ Bella demanded, stung out of her abashed mood. ‘Or is it rather that you don’t wish to be seen with me?’

He eyed her enigmatically, and she felt the colour rising in her cheeks.

‘What possible reason could there be for that, my dear Miss Trahearne?’

She dropped her eyes, clenching her hands so that the knuckles grew white.

‘You know perfectly well,’ she muttered, so quietly that he had to bend forward to catch the whisper.

‘Oh, you mean that unfortunate episode in Bath? But Miss Collins never was, and you are an entirely new creature, are you not, Miss Trahearne? How could our being seen together have any effect on either of us?’

* * * *

Lord Dorney had already eaten when Bella came down two days later, and she was told he was in his room. She had dressed carefully in a wine-red pelisse and jaunty, military style hat for her driving lesson. She had a cravat frothing with lace about her neck, and after gulping a cup of chocolate and toying with a thin slice of bread and butter decided she could not eat anything. She wandered out into the hall and was pulling on serviceable leather gauntlets when he descended the stairs.

He smiled briefly and coldly at her. ‘Shall we go? I see you’re ready.’

Masters had brought the small carriage to the front door, and after Lord Dorney assisted Bella into it and leapt in after her, the groom handed the reins to him.

‘Will you need me, my Lord?’

‘No, thank you. He doesn’t look as though I’d be unable to control him.’

Bella stifled a giggle. She was having difficulty in preventing herself from trembling with nervousness.

‘He’s inclined to pull to the left,’ Masters warned as he stood away from the horse’s head, and Lord Dorney nodded his thanks as he set off towards the Park.

For the next hour, as Lord Dorney instructed, demonstrated, criticized, and very occasionally praised Bella’s handling of the ribbons, she had no leisure to think of anything but her driving. He was an excellent tutor, explaining what he wanted and why in clear, unambiguous terms, and when she failed to get it right the first time, analysing what had gone wrong. She almost always corrected her mistakes at the second attempt, and by the end of the hour felt as though she had made immense strides.

‘I think that’s enough for one day,’ he said at length, when they had once again reached the far side of the Park. Bella turned impetuously towards him.

‘Oh, but - ‘ she began, and then paused.

‘But what?’

He was smiling down at her in quite a friendly fashion, and Bella plucked up her courage.

‘I hoped we could talk,’ she said diffidently.

‘Oh?’ was the unpromising response, and he took the reins and turned the carriage to point towards home.

‘I wanted to apologize. I didn’t mean any serious deception,’ she began. ‘In Bath, I mean. It’s just that I was so angry at being courted for my money rather than myself,’ she finished with a rush.

‘I understand how you felt, even if I disapprove of your actions,’ he said, with a chill in his voice that made Bella shiver. ‘I too must apologize for my intemperate response. Perhaps you’ve been told my family history?’

‘Yes, and I do understand now why you felt as you did,’ she said, a note of eagerness in her voice. ‘Please, now we’ve both apologized, may we continue - friends?’

‘It would be churlish not to behave as such, particularly since we are guests in the same house,’ he replied after a brief pause. ‘I believe we can do so amicably. Was it your fear, Miss Trahearne, that I would cut you and cause comment?’

‘No it wasn’t!’ she burst out angrily. ‘You know very well what I meant! I thought, in Bath, we truly cared for one another! I hoped that silly misunderstanding could be cleared up! I wanted - ‘

‘Yes, Miss Trahearne, what was it you wanted of me?’

‘To start again,’ she managed. ‘But matters are not the same as I thought they were.’

‘Unfortunately things can never be the same between us after what has passed.’

Bella’s patience, never strong, snapped.

‘I thought you loved me!’ she stormed. ‘I know you were about to offer for me! Then because you discover the abominable fact that I have a larger fortune than you imagined, and because of the stupidity of people I’ve never even met, you turn against me! Is that just? Is it fair? Is it fair to me? I thought we could talk about anything!’ she ended on a wail of distress, furiously blinking away the tears of anger.

‘Do I understand you are offering for me?’ he asked in tones of such astonished disgust that Bella threw all caution and sense to the winds.

‘I was,’ she retorted, ‘but I must have been mad! How could I ever have imagined I loved a stiff-necked, pompous bore like you! Pray give me the reins, sir! I won’t drive a yard further with you!’

Rashly she snatched at the reins and he swung them away from her grasp. The horse, startled and unable to interpret this odd signal, and in addition made nervous by Bella’s raised voice, took exception to what was going on and set off at an uncontrolled gallop.

‘Sit back and hold on!’ Lord Dorney commanded, and Bella was so aghast at what she’d done she speechlessly obeyed, clinging to the side of the seat as Lord Dorney calmly and quickly brought the animal under control.

The involuntary gallop had brought them close to the Stanhope Gate, and from there it was a short distance to Mount Street. Apart from the stifled, muttered apology Bella forced herself to give, they accomplished the drive in silence.

‘Can you get down by yourself? I can’t leave the horse, he’s still excited. Pray give my apologies to Lady Fulwood,’ Lord Dorney said to Bella as he drew up outside the house. ‘I’ll take the carriage round to the stables, and then I have other matters to attend to. Your servant, Miss Trahearne.’

* * * *

‘I’ll show him! How dare he talk to me like that! I’ll show him how little I care!’ Bella was still fuming half an hour later as she strode up and down Jane’s bedroom.

‘Oh Bella, forget the wretched man!’ Jane pleaded. ‘It’s hopeless to try and win him back, and from what you say now I don’t think you really want to.’

‘I hate him!’ Bella declared. ‘He was odious, he dressed me down as though I were some lowly servant taking liberties! I’ll ignore him! I’ll make him regret speaking to me like that! I - I - Oh, Jane, what shall I do?’

‘Find someone else,’ Jane recommended.

‘Yes, I’ll do just that! I’ll show him!’

Jane’s apprehensions over this declaration were fully justified during the next few weeks. Bella was deaf to all her protests, and when Jane turned for help to Lady Fulwood, who had by now made her own deductions about the previous state of affairs between Bella and her godson, the only advice she received was an amused recommendation to leave well alone.

Lord Dorney spent little time in the house, for he had his own friends and social engagements, so they met more frequently at balls and other houses than in Mount Street. Bella found the situation intolerable, but could find no satisfactory way of changing it.

Fortunately for her standing with the ton she had already received vouchers for Almack’s, and been granted permission by the Patronesses to waltz. Otherwise, Jane knew, she would have flouted all convention by accepting invitations regardless.

Even so, her outrageously flirtatious behaviour raised many eyebrows, and drew to her many men, including some who were married, and others who were uninterested in marriage or her fortune, as well as dozens of impecunious suitors, young and old.

Bella seemed no longer to care whether she was courted for her money. Nor did she appear to notice the black looks cast at her by neglected wives, and debutantes whose prospective suitors appeared to be more interested in the latest heiress than in them, or hear the often deliberately loud comments about her fast behaviour.

She accepted all the homage offered, appeared to believe all the flattery, danced every dance and left twice as many would-be partners disappointed. During the daytime she drove or rode out with as many of her suitors as she possibly could, and seemed to have no time for rest or quiet reflection.

If Jane noticed that she was livelier and more intent on attracting attention when Lord Dorney was present, she kept the reflection to herself. Nor did she comment to Bella when, as occasionally happened, Lord Dorney asked Bella to dance. As a guest in the same house it would have been commented upon if he had not, she told herself, although she did not venture this opinion to Bella. It didn’t mean he had changed his mind about the girl.

Bella had considered refusing to dance with him, but the old longing had been too fierce. She had even, on one occasion when he had arrived late at a ball, ruthlessly struck out from her programme the names of two of her promised partners and granted him the dances.

He rarely asked to waltz with her, and she was on the whole grateful. On those occasions his proximity, the clasp of his hand about her waist, and his lips so close to hers evoked a feeling of delirium so intense that she wondered how she had not swooned.

They talked of trivialities.

‘You are well, I trust?’

‘The rout last night was a squeeze, was it not?’

‘Did you enjoy the opera?’

‘I thought the soprano too weak.’

Eventually Bella plucked up the courage to mention her driving.

‘I’ve been receiving instruction from several gentlemen,’ she told him as they stood sipping lemonade at Almack’s one evening, after he had danced with her. ‘None have taught me so much as you did in just one lesson.’

‘You are not, I trust, suggesting a repetition of that lesson? As I recall it you wished most vehemently never to drive with me again.’

Bella’s face flamed. ‘Do you have to remind me continually of every rash word or deed?’ she demanded angrily.

‘I apologize,’ he said stiffly. ‘I saw you driving most competently along Piccadilly this morning, and noted how much you’ve improved.’

‘I didn’t see you,’ she was startled into saying.

‘I was on my way to my club. I frequently spend part of the morning there.’

‘Is that White’s?’ Bella asked eagerly. ‘The one with the bow window.’

‘Yes, it’s a great attraction,’ he replied, amused and speaking more naturally than for some time.

‘I do so wish to see it, but Jane says I mustn’t venture into St James’s Street.’

‘It isn’t advisable.’

‘Why not?’

‘Ladies do not care to be seen in a quarter of the town almost exclusively occupied by men,’ he said dismissively, and Bella glanced speculatively up at him through discreetly lowered eyelashes.

‘Stuffy!’ she remarked, and smiled sweetly at him as her next partner came to claim her and she was whisked away.

* * * *

The next morning Bella summarily dismissed the swain who had hoped to ride out with her, giving the specious excuse that she had the headache. Half an hour later she surreptitiously left the house and went to the stables where she gave Masters orders to harness the carriage.

‘Do you drive alone, Miss Trahearne?’ he asked worriedly as he slowly complied. ‘If so, I ought to come with you. Jackson’s not here, he’s taken one of the horses to be shod.’

‘Lady Fulwood needs you to drive her to visit a friend,’ she replied. ‘You know I’m safe to drive on my own now.’

As soon as the carriage was ready she scrambled in, settled the skirts of her new, mannish driving coat which possessed several daring capes, and made certain her jaunty little hat, of the same olive green, and adorned with a perky feather, was securely attached to her curls.

Before Masters could argue further she gave her horse the office, and set off at a sedate pace towards the Park. Masters looked after her with a worried frown, but she had chosen her time well, for at that moment Lady Fulwood’s footman appeared to say his mistress was ready, and would Masters bring the carriage round at once.

He could do nothing, and did not feel it his duty to inform Lady Fulwood of her young guest’s behaviour. It was true she drove well, for she seemed to have inherited the skill of her father, but she was inexperienced. However, she could come to little harm in the Park. He dismissed her from his mind and concentrated on negotiating the crush as he drove towards the less fashionable part of the town where Lady Fulwood’s old friend lived.

Bella, meanwhile, once out of Master’s sight, swung into a street leading towards Piccadilly.

The traffic was much heavier than she was accustomed to, and the horse was restive. Her nervousness was transmitted along the ribbons and caused him to break into a trot too fast for her comfort as she joined the flow of vehicles. By the time she had negotiated a dray, narrowly missing a stage coach travelling recklessly in the opposite direction, and squeezed with inches to spare between two high perch phaetons whose occupants, Corinthians of the highest order, had halted to engage in a conversation, she was beginning to wish she had never begun this expedition.