The Rake's Unveiling of Lady Belle (2 page)

Her upbringing had taught her that attention generally meant work for her to do, and no thanks or quarter given. If it wasn't for Phillip, Belinda would have no positive thoughts about the males of the species at all. Even so, as she watched him sail through life, at times she did wonder if there was much difference between him and the others? Did any of them ever think about what they were doing and how it affected the recipients of their attention?

Somehow she thought not.

Especially, when at seventeen, her world as she knew it ended.

* * *

‘What?' Lady Belinda Howells wiped her suddenly clammy hands on her apron as she stared in astonishment at Cedric, Lord Howells, who unfortunately was also her father. She shook her head and pressed her ears several times, convinced she was hearing things. ‘Are you mad?'

He scowled back at her, and defied her to reply further.

That of course was a red rag to a bull. Especially after his announcement. Which she noticed he seemed to have no intention of repeating.

‘I asked if you were suffering from something untoward in the head,' she said with perfect clarity. ‘If you were deranged.
What
did you say?'

‘You heard me.' He stomped his malacca cane—needed for effect not for illness—on the floor.

If there were any justice in this world he would've hit his toes.
Sadly he didn't.

‘You're not deaf,' he said irritably. ‘You heard me very well.'

Unfortunately
. It was yet another example of how men behaved:
Women meant nothing to them except as a commodity.

‘You want me to do what?' Could she really believe her ears? ‘Are you bosky?' Surely he had to be? He was her father for goodness' sake. The man supposed to protect her from all harm. ‘I'm not yet out. Not been presented or had a season. Nothing. And you ask something like this of me? Never. Never, ever. What sort of father are you?' She paced her father's study and ignored the way his hands curled into fists around his cane and his cheeks grew red. ‘Actually if you ask this of me you are no father. You dare to tell me I must marry? Just to save you from your gambling debts and my brothers from their…their debauchery.' Belinda stared at him, willing him to say it was all a mistake, that he was her father and would never do such a thing. She counted to ten. ‘Why should I pay the price for your immorality and spendthrift ways?'

‘You are my responsibility; you do as I say.' He didn't meet her eyes. With anyone else she would see that as a sign of remorse. Not with her father. With him it meant he had no intention of entering into an argument. He expected obedience.

Belinda had no intention of giving it to him. ‘You're selling me to further your own needs. You, my own flesh and blood. How could you? Parents are supposed to protect their children. Love and cherish them, not, not…' She stopped speaking, and whirled around to stare at him. How on earth could she put into words how abhorrent his demands were? Her stomach churned. ‘You can't even look me in the eyes, can you? Too scared I'll see the lack of love and the abundance of self-interest you have?' Bile rose in her throat and she swallowed heavily. ‘You are pathetic. I will not be sold.'

‘Now look here, Belinda.' He did look up then, and his eyes were cold and distant. He spoke in a hectoring tone. ‘If I say you'll marry the man, marry him you will.'

He sounded as if it was a certainty. Belinda so wished to disabuse him of that fact.

‘Mr Featherstonehaugh is a person of substance,' her father said. ‘He is someone I can not afford to get on the wrong side of.'

Now they were getting to the bottom of it all. Once more she was but a pawn in his game, whatever it was this time.

‘You, all you. Not me. And why, pray? I suppose you've lost money to him.' Belinda looked at her father in disgust. Ever since her mother died, her father and her two older brothers had lived profligate lives, with scant regard for Belinda. Her father had demanded she leave school and come home to manage his house, but gave her precious little money with which to do so. She must be one of the few—if not the only—daughters of the aristocracy with patched and darned undergarments, and only one pair of house shoes to her name. Now it seemed even that money-saving exercise was not enough. ‘What have you wagered this time?'

He stared at her, his eyes narrow.

‘You.'

To her disgust he showed no shame or remorse over his actions. But why should she expect him to? If she were honest, Belinda had long known he only saw her as a way to save—or in this case, make—money.

‘Me?' Belinda stared back at him as she went cold and her skin became clammy. Spots danced in front of her eyes, and she swallowed. It would not do to swoon at that moment. Not when she had to be strong and as forceful, if not more so, than her parent. All her worries and concerns seemed to come to the fore. She most definitely
was
a chattel. ‘What do you mean, me?'

Her father poured himself a large glass of brandy and shrugged. He didn't offer one to Belinda. For one brief moment she considered doing so herself, but she hated brandy, and the way things were going, she would be more likely to throw it in her father's face. That was not the way to proceed. Not if she was to best him.

‘He wants to marry into the aristocracy. I said he could marry you. I didn't wager you as such. I just said it as a way out.' He took a healthy swallow of spirit. ‘Featherstonehaugh agreed to tear up my vowels, and those of your brothers, once you sign your wedding lines.'

Belinda looked at him closely. Did he not realise what he'd done? As she told him earlier and he'd ignored, he, her father, had in effect sold her and it seemed as if he thought it acceptable. What had she done to deserve that? She shook her head. ‘What good would that do? You still wouldn't have any money. No.'

‘Don't talk rubbish, girl. He's plump in the pocket. He wouldn't want it to be seen his wife's family were, ah, less than everything they should be. He can afford to help. He might be trade, but he's as rich as Croesus.'

That was all that seemed to matter to her parent.

He wouldn't be once you and my brothers got your hands on him.

‘No.'

Her father put his glass down on a table with a thump, and waggled his finger in front of Belinda's face. ‘Now look here, my girl, you'll marry him, or I have no daughter and you go. I can't afford to keep you.'

When have you ever kept me? I earn my way and more.
Belinda firmed her lips. She would not demean herself with a shouting match she would be sure to lose.

‘Now.' He smiled as he obviously thought he had her over a barrel. ‘What do you say to that then, eh?' He picked the glass up again, refilled it and drank once more, obviously assuming he'd had the last word. ‘I've told him three weeks. Time enough to call the banns.'

Belinda thought it was no wonder her father's colour was always high and he complained of gout. With the amount of brandy he consumed, when he died there would be no need to preserve the body if it was so needed. It would already be pickled. The bodysnatchers would be able to sell it for a considerable sum, and the medical dissectors would have much to interest them. She'd point them in the correct direction.

Belinda stared at him until he coloured further, and twirled his goblet around in his hands. This man was the person who was supposed to look after her, keep her safe and make sure she had all she needed. Had he ever seen her as anything but an object to be used for his own gain? He'd muttered and moaned about the cost of her schooling, threatening her if she didn't stop asking for clothes—a gown, one gown only a term—she'd be forced to leave. Until Belinda had discovered that in fact he couldn't touch the money that paid for her lessons. It had been left in trust for just such an occasion. Even so, he'd brought her home to manage the household at the earliest opportunity. She'd become used to watching him and her brothers drink and gamble their way through what little money they had, dressed in finery that they still hadn't paid for, whilst she made do and mended. It was lucky, Belinda thought, that she enjoyed all aspects of sewing, or she really would be in trouble.

‘Well?' her father asked her irascibly. ‘Are you going to be sensible or…?'

‘Thank you—in my eyes, eminently sensible, in yours, perhaps not so. Some things are preferable than being forced to wed. And now, as I have no father, I can be honest. You, sir, are contemptible.' For the first time during their interchange her father looked somewhat uncomfortable. Not for long. ‘I am, in your words, going to “or”.'

‘You should be horsewhipped for speaking to your father like that,' he said in a fierce tone. ‘You'll do as I say.'

‘But as you just informed me, you are no longer my father. Now, it is my pleasure, my total and utter pleasure, to be able to say to you, I feel well rid.' Belinda curtsied putting every ounce of contempt she felt into the action before she straightened. She spun on her heel so forcefully her dress flew out and rocked the fire irons nearby as she turned her back on him. His cane missed her by inches as he threw it in her direction. As with his shooting, his aim was out. Without another word she picked up the cane and, with a strength she didn't know she had, broke it in two and threw it on the fire.

Then she left the room, ran upstairs and ignored his enraged bellow of, ‘Get back here, young lady. You do as I say!' Not any more.

Within half an hour she had left the house, carrying only the basic necessities. Her sewing kit, sketchbook and a miniature of her mother were packed in an old and patched carpet bag. In truth she had little else worth taking. None of her clothes would survive another wash, and her hairbrush had so few bristles it was better to finger comb her dark straw coloured locks.

Two hours after she had swept out of the house—via the front door, and under the worried gaze of the doorman for she refused to creep out like a thief in the night—she sat in the sitting room of Clarissa's godmother's London town house. She knew better than to go to Clarissa's home. It was the first place her father would make enquiries. Her association with Lady L wasn't one she had ever spoken about.

Belinda wasn't sure that the fact Lady Lakenby was also Phillip's godmother was a good or bad thing.

The room she rested in, tea in hand and a plate of tiny fancy cakes in front of her, was elegant, understated and homely. It was also usually a haven of peace and tranquillity. Not at that moment, however. Her hostess was enraged, and happy to show it. She stomped across the Axminster carpet and fisted one hand into the other, before she hit the mantelpiece with such a thump the cake plate slid several inches over the polished surface of the table, and the ormolu clock on the mantel jumped upward and rattled back down again. The minute hand slid down to indicate the number six and stayed there. Lady Lakenby ignored it and pointed her index finger at Belinda.

‘That apology for a man might be your father but he is rotten to the core, always has been. The males of the Howells family are all either tight as a duck's arse or addlepated. He is both.'

Belinda saw the first glimmer of hope she'd experienced for several long weeks. Ever since her parent had spoken about how they needed money and fast, and hinted she was the way they would get it. Then told her how he expected her to behave and it had been the last straw. ‘He…' What could she say? She agreed with the pronouncement. ‘I fear you are correct.'

‘I know I am, and you were right to come to me.' Lady Lakenby harrumphed, and patted Belinda's shoulder. ‘Now I'll wait a while and send a message to Clarissa. Once we're sure your father has been there and gone. Simms will go and loiter.'

The way she began to help went a long way to lift the heavy lump of fear in Belinda's stomach. She knew she had been correct to think of Lady Lakenby as the first person she could approach to beg for help.

‘Now, child, we shall plot,' Lady Lakenby declared, once her footman had been given orders on how to stake out Belinda's father's house. She pushed her turban back from her forehead in an impatient gesture. ‘Damn thing, why do I wear it?'

Belinda knew it to be a rhetorical question. Lady Lakenby took ideas into her head, and followed them until, as she said with a twinkle in her eyes, ‘The damn fool idiots think it's the newest fad.' Then she moved on.

‘I think we need to get you out of his reach,' Lady Lakenby said. ‘He'll immediately think of Clarissa and then it is easy for someone to remember me. You must disappear. It will annoy Cedric, and make him wonder when and where you will pop up like the skeleton at the feast, and it will give us time to decide the best way forward. Now let me see. Would you like to go to live at Sinton?'

‘Yes, who wouldn't? However, as much as I adore your country house, I will not,' Belinda said resolutely. ‘Well,' she tempered her refusal, ‘not permanently. I need to earn my living.' She stood up and began to pace the room. ‘As I walked away from my father's house I vowed never again to be at the mercy of a man. I will make my own way in this world.'

‘How?' Lady Lakenby, always known to her god-daughter Clarissa and therefore to Belinda as Lady L, asked placidly. She seemed much more composed now she had ideas and plans and had decided how best to carry them out. ‘Sit down for heaven's sake. You're giving me a crick in my neck looking up at you, to say nothing of making me giddy following you around the room. What are your skills?' She cackled with laughter. ‘Apart from upsetting your fool of a father.'

‘To do so is not a skill, it seems it was my purpose in life. A very easy one. Apart from that? I can sew. Very well as it happens.' Belinda gestured towards her shabby gown. ‘Not that this shows my sewing skills, but it does advertise my patching and darning ones. I'd like…' Belinda hesitated, and then rushed on. ‘Mad though it may seem, I'd like to make apparel for the ton. But not just for anyone, only for a very few. A select and chosen few. To be the one person people yearn to have a garment made by.' She sat down on the nearest chair with a thump that rattled the cups on a nearby table. ‘Incognito.'