Julia Justiss (15 page)

A small silence ensued while he waited, probably expecting her to amplify that response. Instead, Belle called Watson to remove the covers and bring in tea.

Apparently accepting her reticence, while Watson served them, he continued, “I must compliment you on your musical talent. Mae told me it was you I heard earlier playing the pianoforte—a Mozart concerto, I believe.”

“Yes,” she answered, surprised and impressed by his
knowledge of music. “I’m afraid I’m much out of practice.”

“What I heard sounded masterful. You must have begun lessons at a very early age.”

Her wariness had not been amiss. The captain was definitely trolling for information—as he had done already with Mae and Watson, from what those two had recounted of their conversations with him. Unusual as it was for a man of his rank to express interest in individuals society considered so very far beneath him, Belle had no objection to her servants relating to the captain as much about their lives as they chose to tell or he wished to hear.

Fortunately, not even Mae knew enough about Belle’s background to pose a danger. Having no intention of augmenting what little he might have already gleaned, she said, “I do enjoy Mozart. There’s such order and symmetry to his music, I find it…soothing.”

A bittersweet sadness coiled within her. How many times, when the role forced upon her became too much to bear, had she escaped into those calming cadences?

“My sister enjoys the harp, which showcases her lovely voice. Do you subscribe to the Philharmonic Society?”

“Yes. One can actually hear the music there, which is not always the case at the opera.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it. Probably, Belle thought, he had been about to remark that private musicals sponsored by the ton offered even better listening experiences—until he recalled that she would not have entrée to such evenings.

Still, she liked him all the better for initiating a conversation so free of flirtation and innuendo. She had feared as he recovered his health, he might decide to pursue her, out of boredom if not desire.

Save Egremont, none of Bellingham’s friends had ever expressed an interest in her beyond the perfect face and body they schemed to possess. Their conversation consisted of recitations of current gossip interspersed with overblown gallantries and attempts to impress her with their wealth, power or desirability as potential lovers.

She must be doubly on guard against the insidious appeal of a man who appeared more interested in knowing about her than winning her, who solicited her opinions rather than just her favors.

Wiser, then, that she bring this evening to a close before she ended up any more eager for his company.

“I should go now,” she said, putting down her cup. “’Tis your first dinner out of bed and you must be tired.”

“Not at all! I’ve felt increasingly stronger all day and I am certainly enjoying the company. Would you not stay a bit longer? Perhaps indulge me in a hand of piquet? I understand you often play with Egremont.”

Was there an edge of jealousy in his voice? she wondered, surprised. More disconcerting, she realized that on some deeply feminine level, she was
pleased
that the captain might be jealous. An odd reaction, since normally she found the rival claims men pressed on her annoying.

And yet another signal that it was definitely time to go. “Perhaps another evening, Captain. With all the details of opening up the house, I am rather tired myself.”

He held out a hand before she could rise. “A glass of port, then? To ease my discomfort and help me sleep.”

It seemed such a blatant attempt to forestall her departure that she had to smile. “Captain, you use your afflictions most conveniently.”

He shrugged, an unrepentant twinkle in his eye. “As I earned them, I might as well use them. Just one glass?”

He was so transparent about his manipulation, so clearly hopeful of beguiling her to stay, that she couldn’t help being amused.

Why not remain? In a few short days he would leave Bellehaven and she was unlikely ever to see him again. What harm would there be in indulging in the company of a man who treated her with intelligence and respect…as if she were still a lady born?

That she was as loath as he to have the evening end should have been reason enough to speed her out the door. Instead, she heard herself say, “Just one glass, then.”

“So you enjoy the theater?” he asked as she poured them each a small portion of the rich cherry liquid.

“Very much. Kean of Drury Lane is marvelous. Have you seen his Shylock?”

“No, I’ve spent little of my adulthood in London.”

“Since you are to be there for the Season, you must take your sister to see Kean—and Kemble at Covent Garden.”

“I shall keep that in mind. I’m a great admirer of Shakespeare’s works.”

“I love them, as well.”

“Perhaps we might attend the theater together when you are next in London.”

She looked up sharply, but his eyes held no suggestive gleam, nor did innuendo shade his voice. He looked and sounded more like…like a friend discussing with another friend a subject of interest to them both.

She could almost feel the warmth of his camaraderie beginning to melt the layers of ice behind which she concealed her true self. Confused, she looked away, torn between relief that his remark had not been a prelude to another sort of suggestion and a rush of delight at apparently discovering a kindred spirit.

She shook her head, trying to damp down the elation. That she had discovered someone with whom she could speak freely of the things she loved—or had used to love, before her life had taken so drastic a turn—was a dangerous illusion. She must not permit some chimera of friendship to breach her defenses. At this critical moment, with fulfillment almost within her grasp, she dare not risk losing everything she had sacrificed so much and endured so long to achieve.

It was definitely time to retire—before she allowed this foolish sense of connection to deepen any further. Finishing the port, she set down her glass and rose.

“I’ve enjoyed our conversation, Captain. Until tomorrow, then? When I hope you will discover this late evening has not caused you any harm.”

He rose, as well. “The evening has been a delight. And I assure you, ma’am, I’ve suffered no
physical
harm.”

His emphasis on the word making her immediately suspicious, she shot him another sharp glance. But she could read nothing suggestive into his tone or expression. Relief greater than she ought to feel swept through her.

With a curtsy to his bow, she left him.

Slowly she walked back to her room, mulling over the evening they’d just shared. He was…restful, she decided, lulling her fear that he might try to lead her into a dalliance so effectively that she had ended up treating him with almost none of her usual reserve, though the attraction between them still hummed in the air. Except for that single, quite proper kiss to her fingertips, he had not attempted to touch her again, nor had his eyes played over her with lascivious admiration, as even that young cub Ansley’s did.

Longing and a sadness long suppressed rose in her.

Aside from time spent in Egremont’s company, she had not felt so at ease with a man since the days she had studied with her father in their library, reading and conversing with him about literature, art, politics. Listening raptly, as she’d listened tonight to the captain, to Papa’s tales of John Company and India.

He’d hoped to make there the fortune that would enable his young family to once again command the elegancies of life. How different would her life had been, had Mama’s health allowed them to all go together? Or if Papa had not contracted a fever so soon after his arrival, turning all his dreams for their future to the dust of the Indian plains that had received his last remains?

She shook her head, forcing the questions back to the depths of memory where she usually locked them away. Dwelling on what might have been never did anything save make her weep. Her life had become something very different from what her papa would have hoped, and there was nothing now to be done about it.

Dwelling on the possibility of friendship with the all-too-attractive Jack Carrington was equally fruitless. Whatever the future held for Lady Belle, former courtesan extraordinaire, the respectable eldest son of an earl’s daughter who planned to marry off his sister and then retire to tend his acreage would play no part in it.

A
FTER A REVIVING CUP
of ale the following morning, Jack felt well enough to tell Watson that he would breakfast downstairs. The small tear in his wound appeared to have healed nicely, he noted when they changed the bandages, and the whole area was only mildly sensitive.

The rebinding of his wound completed, Watson helped him dress and supervised his descent to the breakfast parlor, a maneuver he managed, to his jubilant relief, without incurring either severe pain or dizziness. Though his elation over this evidence of his continuing recovery dimmed somewhat when Watson informed him he would be breakfasting alone, as Mae took her chocolate in her room and Lady Belle had gone out early to visit the tenants.

Yet another indication of her upbringing, Jack concluded. Just so would his mother ride out after returning to Carrington Grove, to see how their land and the dependents who farmed it had fared in her absence.

After Watson directed the footman to set before him a hearty helping of steak and ale, opining that one couldn’t expect a man to recover his strength on naught but a bit of toast and tea, Jack said, “If you would join me after breakfast, I should like to start on the defense plans we dis
cussed. I’ll need a list of all the able-bodied men employed on the estate, their duties and whether any have had training with the army or the militia. Or the Fancy.”

“Aye—having some what be handy with their fives would come a blessing. I’ll do that list for you, Captain, and meet you in the library after your meal.” With a bow, Watson left the room.

Jack occupied himself while he ate with sketching in his mind the arrangements he would discuss with Watson, then proceeded to the library, where the butler met him with the requested list and assisted him in drawing up a general plan of defense. Telling the butler he would refine his instructions after he’d had a chance to inspect the property personally, he recommended putting out inquiries to hire some additional men.

Since at the conclusion of their discussion, Lady Belle had still not returned, Jack decided to test his strength with a walk about the lawns. He must look better, he thought, for without protest, Watson led him to a study whose French doors led onto a small terrace overlooking a well-tended lawn bright with the pale green of newly emerging grass.

He breathed deeply of the sweet fresh air, grateful to be able to do so with a minimum of discomfort, and seated himself on an inviting bench. After a week of minute gains, the rapid increase in strength and endurance he’d experienced over the last two days seemed to confirm, as he’d speculated to Belle the previous evening, that his initial wound had not been as severe as originally feared. His spirits rose at the prospect of soon recovering his health and vigor.

With that improvement came a growing impatience to have done with the sickroom. The only factors restraining him from launching back into his normal activities were the prudence that warned against overexerting himself prematurely—and a desire to remain Lady Belle’s guest.

What a magical evening last night had been! Happenstance had not trained that mind to appreciate music and politics, those hands to perform at the keyboard and in the drawing room. He was now firmly convinced that she was gentry born—and more eager than ever to discover what catastrophe had catapulted her out of the position in society which should have been hers by right.

But beyond the curiosity to discover her circumstances, he had reveled in the simple pleasure of conversing with a woman who showed herself to be as intelligent and talented as she was lovely.

Now that he knew his recovery had not been placed in jeopardy, Jack was almost grateful to the ruffians who had attacked them, making necessary the development of a defensive plan for Bellehaven and giving him an excuse to linger longer than the additional day or two required for his wound to finish mending.

Perhaps by tomorrow, he’d be fit enough to have Belle drive him about her property so he could gain firsthand knowledge of the land’s features.

The idea of having her all to himself for a several-hour drive filled him with eager anticipation. While assessing the estate’s defensive strengths and weaknesses, he could prompt her to talk about the land she loved, perhaps lead her to tell him more about her past.

Though traveling beside her in a small conveyance would pose its own problems. He’d done better of late at avoiding the compliments she perceived to be empty flattery. Her haste to remove her fingers from his grip and the step backward she’d taken to maintain a distance between them at dinner, however, told him she was still wary of the physical pull between them. As he had last night, he must continue to be careful not to crowd her.

Something that would not be possible when they traveled by gig or phaeton—the small open vehicles which would give him the best view of Bellehaven’s land. He would have to remember to keep to himself—no matter how tempted he was to sit close beside her, or let his fingers linger when he helped her in or out of the vehicle.

Still, the reward for the restraint he’d shown last night had been a dramatic lessening of her reserve. She’d become almost animated during their conversation, several times treating him to a glimpse of her enchanting smile.

Gladness filled him and his own lips curved just remembering it. He would hold himself under rigid control for a millennium if it would bring that charming twinkle into those deep blue eyes or prompt the lilting music of her laughter.

To make her look so happy and carefree.

Damn, but he couldn’t wait to be with her again!

Ah, Jack, you are well on your way to being lost indeed.
But he pushed to the back of his mind the problem of what to do about his deepening fascination with Lady Belle. For now, he meant to simply enjoy for as long as he could contrive to remain at Bellehaven the wonder of her nearness and her friendship.

Enough woolgathering, he told himself. Time to begin refining those defensive plans.

Slowly he paced the terrace, noting that the manor house crowned a small rise and was flanked by tall oaks, which also bordered the curving drive leading from the entrance down across a scythed meadow to a gatehouse set in a copse of the same oak. The trees beside the house and stone wall flanking the lane beyond the gatehouse would be excellent positions in which to station watchmen without them being seen by approaching vehicles or horsemen, while their commanding the higher ground would allow them to spot anyone who tried to draw near the manor while they were still at a distance.

Whoever had designed Bellehaven, which appeared to date from late Elizabethan times, had known the importance of being able to secure his land, Jack thought approvingly.

The terrace was equally well planned, featuring a screen of hawthorn which blocked the wind and accented the warmth of the pale, early spring sunshine. Returning to the stone bench within the curve of the shrubbery, Jack sat down and lifted his face to the sun.

He was celebrating the blessing of being here with Lady Belle, rather than in some overheated Paris ballroom, a smoke-filled London club—or a chilly grave, when the close of a door followed by a rustle of skirt roused him.

He looked up to see Mae advancing toward him with a smile, a slim, mobcapped maid following behind her.

“I near accused Watson of funning me when he said you was out on the terrace,” she said as she reached him. “How glad I am to find it true!”

“Won’t you join me?” he asked, motioning to the bench.

“La, I came out without a parasol, but I suppose a minute of sun won’t ruin my complexion.”

“I’ll fetch your parasol, ma’am,” the maid said.

“Why, thank you, Jane, that be right kind of you.”

Jack arced a swift look at the girl now rising from her curtsy. Slender almost to the point of emaciation, with her small frame, heart-shaped face dominated by large dark eyes and the quantity of soft brown curls escaping her mobcap, she appeared to be a junior housemaid—the youngest of servants, a child barely in her teens.

Pure outrage bubbled up in his blood and for a moment he couldn’t speak.

“Such a good child she is,” Mae was saying as she watched the slim figure retreat. “I was vastly suspicious of her at first, thinking she might be trying to take advantage of Belle, but she’s won me over.”

“Th-that is Jane?” Jack finally got out.

“The ‘Jane’ Belle brought out of a fancy house?” Mae asked, her gaze still on the retreating girl. “Yes.”

Jack spit out an oath so vicious Mae gasped in surprise.

“My pardon for such language, ma’am, but ’tis an abomination! Someone forcing that innocent to become…” He couldn’t bring himself to utter the ugly word.

“A harlot? A drab?” Mae filled in the lapse dispassionately, in her eyes a sad acceptance of the evils of the world. “Aye, she was, for near on a year.”

“How could something so despicable come to be?”

“Some houses keep one such as her around to please customers what want their girls virgin-like. Jane told me
she were lured to London on promise of becoming a lady’s maid, then threatened by Waldo, a brute of a man, if she tried to leave Mrs. Jarvis. No wonder she didn’t try to run. Poor mite wouldn’t have been no match for Waldo.”

“God in heaven.”

“Some come to the trade natural—like me. Born in a fancy house, I never knew nothing different. Others be thrown out by their families after being taken in by a man what promises ’em marriage. Some be seduced by one of their own kin, then sent away to hide the shame of it.”

A sudden image struck Jack—Belle, cloak wrapped around her as she tramped down a cold country lane, cast out of the only home she’d ever known.

“Is that how Belle—” he blurted out.

Mae stared at him a long moment. Before he could decide whether to apologize for displaying an unseemly curiosity—or press her further, she said, “I don’t know how Belle come to it. I never asked, no more than she offered. Though she never took to it any more than Jane did, and anyone with eyes could see she was born to better.”

Not knowing how to respond without possibly insulting his companion, Jack groped for a suitable reply.

Before he found one, Mae continued, “I always thought she be some lordling’s poor relation, mayhap born on the wrong side of the blanket, making her an easy mark for some man to take advantage of. Or a wealthy tradesman’s daughter, educated like gentry and then left to fend for herself when the family lost their money. Not much a girl alone can do, ’specially not one as comely as Belle. Lord B must have discovered her when she weren’t hardly older
than Jane, for far as I know, she’s never been with no one else, many as have tried to woo her!”

“You think…Bellingham seduced her?” Jack said, renewed outrage almost choking him.

Mae shook her head. “Don’t rightly know. I do know they didn’t always get on well and she sometimes thought of leaving him. Leave the trade, though I tried to tell her once you’re in it, there’s no going back, so she might as well make the best of it. And she be set up pretty well now, from what I understand.”

“She planned to leave Bellingham when she was, ah, ‘set up’ well enough?” Jack asked, knowing he shouldn’t ask, loathing the jealous rage that boiled over within him despite his attempt to remain calm and rational.

Mae looked regretful. “I probably shouldn’t ’a told you this much, Captain, for Belle be fearsome private about her life. Hardly speaks even to me of her plans, and far as I know I’ve been her only friend since Lord B brought her to town. But having said so much, I suppose I might as well tell you the whole of what I know.”

Hesitating again, she took a deep breath. Jack clamped his lips together to refrain from urging her to continue, not wanting to risk having her change her mind even as he wondered what further revelation she could be so reluctant to voice.

“There be a child,” Mae said at last. “’Twas Bellingham’s threat not to provide for it if she left him that kept her with him so long, for they fought fearsome at times.”

A child. Belle had a child she’d been forced to hide away, he thought, trying to master his shock.

Not that he should be surprised. Though ladies in the trade strove to avoid it, conceiving children was a natural and sometimes inescapable consequence of the profession.

A new wave of disgust fired his simmering anger. That any man would use a child as a weapon, especially a child of his own flesh, even if that offspring were illegitimate, was abominable.

If Lord Bellingham weren’t already dead, Jack would have been hard pressed to restrain himself from assisting the bastard to his grave at the point of his sword or the barrel of his pistol.

But with his fuller knowledge of Belle’s past came a better understand of the chilly demeanor that discouraged approach, her cautiousness with and apparent disdain for men. Why she preferred to spurn suitors as wealthy as Lord Rupert rather than take advantage of her current popularity to amass more riches as a hedge against the future, when age would inevitably bring about a decline in her beauty and desirability.

It even explained, perhaps, the hatred that had driven home her blade.

How had she come to “the trade,” as Mae called it? he wondered anew. Had Bellingham wooed her to ruin with the pretty words she now so despised?

Infuriating as that thought was, it hurt less to think of her participating willingly in her fall than to picture her as a defenseless innocent forcibly dishonored by an amoral houseguest or a venal relation.