Vicar's Daughter to Viscount's Lady. Louise Allen

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СКАЧАТЬ the same casual elegance that Rafe had possessed. Rafe is dead, her churning thoughts clamoured. Rafe, the man she had thought she loved, was dead. He had betrayed her and Bella supposed another woman might rejoice that he was no more, but she could not. She just felt blank.

      ‘Thank you,’ Lord Hadleigh said and his face showed some emotion at last, a tightening, as if a migraine had stabbed at his nerves. ‘We were not close, I regret to say. You were in love with my brother?’

      That was abrupt enough. He certainly did not beat about the bush, this brother-ghost of her lover. ‘Yes, of course I was.’ His mouth twisted and this time it was clearly the hint of a smile. ‘You think me immoral, wanton, I am sure,’ Bella protested, goaded by his amusement. ‘But I loved him. I thought he loved me. It was not easy; my father would not countenance me marrying, I knew that. We had to keep it secret.’

      Was she making any sense? Her tongue and her brain seemed disconnected. It must be shock, she realised. How could she explain and make him understand the objections a country vicar might have to his daughter marrying a viscount?

      He did not appear judgemental, just detached. ‘I see. You were certain of my brother’s affections?’

      ‘Of course I was.’ She blushed, surprising herself. Surely she was beyond that manifestation of maidenly modesty? ‘He was so sweet, so passionate, so convincing.’ She had to be frank, there was no point in trying to shield her privacy from this man. ‘I never thought I would escape from Martinsdene,’ she murmured. ‘But I dreamed and my dream came true—a viscount fell in love with a vicar’s plain daughter. Or so it seemed.’

      ‘Are you plain?’ Elliott Calne tilted his head to one side and studied her face. ‘No lady would be looking her best just at this moment. I will reserve judgement.’ His eyes laughed at her for a moment, and her heart turned over. Rafe’s eyes, but deeper, more intent. Rafe’s eyes alone could have seduced her without the need for a word spoken. These made her catch her breath and wonder at their secrets. ‘I am sorry, this is no time for levity,’ he said, serious again. ‘You found you were mistaken in him?’ He sounded regretful, but not surprised.

      He must have known his brother was a rake, she realised. But he sounded as though he was fond of him anyway. The poor man was in mourning; she could not pour out her own fury and bitterness at Rafe to him, it was bad enough as it was. He did not need to hear the details of that brutal last day.

      Bella wondered if she was going to be sick. She had heard that sickness only affected pregnant women in the mornings, and would go away eventually. But she was still feeling queasy most of the time. And tired and thirsty. And desperate to escape to the privy. And her breasts were tender and her legs and back ached. And there were about six more months of this still to be endured. I am sorry, Baby, she thought. It isn’t your fault. Under her hand her rebellious stomach still felt as flat as usual.

      ‘Are you feeling unwell? I should have thought to order refreshments, but your news was somewhat of a shock. Tea, perhaps. Plain biscuits? I understand from my cousin Georgy that they are a great help for nausea.’

      That was perceptive of him. And kind. Was he truly kind or was he simply wary of a pregnant and distressed woman being ill in his study? Bella opened her eyes and studied the lean face watching her. He was not smiling now and he looked tired and rather grim. As well as losing his brother he had inherited a mountain of responsibility and now she had turned up, with this news.

      ‘Thank you. That would be very welcome.’ How calming civil politeness was—on the surface. Underneath she wanted to sob and shout. Rafe was dead, her baby was fatherless, she could not go home. Would this man help her or were tea and biscuits the extent of his kindness? ‘Is there…are you married? If Lady Hadleigh—’

      ‘No. I am not married.’ The hope of some sympathetic female support vanished. Her question—or was it the concept of marriage itself?—seemed to amuse him. Perhaps he was another rake like his brother. But he could hardly damage her more than Rafe had already.

      Elliott Calne tugged the bell pull and waited. Silence and stillness seemed to come naturally to him. Was he used to being solitary, or was his mind working frantically on the problem of how to deal with her with the least possible expense, fuss and scandal?

      Then the butler came in and he smiled and she saw that, whatever else he was, he was not a man given to brooding bad humour. There were laughter lines at the corner of his eyes and that smile was more than a polite token for a servant.

      ‘Henlow, please take Miss Shelley to Mrs Knight. She requires a bedchamber to refresh herself and rest. Have a tea tray with biscuits sent up. I will see you for dinner at seven, Miss Shelley; we keep country hours here just now.’

      ‘Thank you. But, Lord Hadleigh, I cannot stay here, it is not at all—’

      ‘The thing? No, indeed you cannot.’ That smile again, as though she was still a lady, not a fallen woman, not his brother’s discarded…No, she could not use the any of the words Rafe had hurled at her like sharp stones. ‘We will discuss it over dinner.’

      Elliott sat beside the fire in the small dining room, a book in his hands that he had not tried to read. He had felt the need to leave the study after that encounter—the atmosphere of distress and desperation could be cut with a knife. God, Rafe. What have you done now? For years, for all his adolescence, for all his adult life, he had been hoping that his elder brother would reform his ways, become the man Elliott was certain he must be, somewhere deep inside.

      He wanted to love his brother as he had when he had been a child, but he had never been able to reach past the shield of disdain Rafe had erected against affection and contact. He knew there had been extravagance, dissipation, women. He had worried about Rafe’s health and had tried to speak to him when they ran across each other in Town, but Rafe had always curled a lip and ignored him.

      ‘You and your Corinthian set,’ he had sneered. ‘Sport and clean-limbed good fellowship while you batter each other’s brains out in the boxing salon or waste good gaming time racing your damn horses. And when you aren’t being smug about your muscles or your horses you are taking your bloody estate and its turnips so seriously that I think you must be a bastard of Farmer George’s. Never thought our mother had had the King sniffing round her petticoats, but—’

      Elliott had hit him, flush on the chin, and knocked him down. After that, they barely acknowledged each other. Occasionally one of his friends would have an embarrassed word when Rafe had offended yet another elderly lord, or ruined some young sprig at the card tables only to lose the same fortune the next day, but all of them knew that Elliott could not influence his brother.

      Sometimes he felt like the elder and that oppressed him. He wanted to enjoy himself, to live life to the full, not to have to worry about anything out of his own control, and yet he found himself dragged back again and again to the waste and the anger.

      And then there were the women. Rafe had kept a string of expensive ladybirds and actresses. Elliott doubted he had treated any of then well once the novelty wore off, but at least they had been professionals. But innocent young gentlewomen? Surely this had to be the first? Please God, Miss Shelley was the only one.

      And not content with seducing and ruining her, Rafe had managed to impregnate her, the thoughtless, careless devil. He should have married her. Elliott stared at the flames. She might have been the making of his brother, the saving of him. He didn’t want this damn title, he wanted his own life and his brother back, well and happy and settled, with the evil demon that had clawed its way into his soul cast out.

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