A Hint of Scandal (25 page)

Triss gasped in outrage, and Bella put a calming hand on her cousin’s arm.

“How dare you, sir,” Bella said in a quiet, yet very firm tone. “If your only purpose in approaching us is to be insulting, then we shall take our leave of you.” Bella lifted her chin, took Triss by the arm, and made to move past him.

Robert Fortiscue stepped smoothly in front of Bella, blocking her path.

Her progress halted, Bella looked up at him with angry astonishment. Short of shoving him aside, she had no choice but to stop. Glancing around, Bella could not help noticing a number of people looking their way with avid, curious faces. With burning cheeks, Bella wanted nothing more than to get away from Robert Fortiscue immediately.

“You forget yourself, sir,” Bella said in a low, angry tone.

“You may be a duchess, Arabella Tichley, but you can be sure that I will make it known exactly how it is that you came to be one,” he said in a slightly raised voice.

Without bothering to respond, Bella cast him a scathing glance before sweeping past him with Triss in tow. Desperately she looked around the crowded room for a familiar face. Aunt Elizabeth and the dowager had gotten separated from them in the last few moments, and Bella saw no one she knew in the immediate vicinity.

A little farther away, near the refreshments, Bella saw
Lady Edgeton and Lady Louisa. With relief, and with a great effort not to add to her conspicuousness by rushing, Bella and Triss moved through the throng to join the other ladies. As they drew near, Bella saw Lady Edgeton looking at her with an arrogant expression on her otherwise pretty features.

“Who was that man you were speaking with, Arabella? He certainly is quite the dandy,” she said, looking at Bella keenly.

“Oh, that was just Robert Fortiscue,” Triss put in before Bella could reply. “He used to be Bella’s beau, until she had to marry the duke,” she finished, her cheeks still flushed with anger from their encounter with Robert.

Bella’s heart sank to her slippers. Unfortunately a number of people were close enough to have heard this indiscreet remark. Would Triss never learn to curb her wayward tongue? she wondered, trying to stifle the urge to run from the building.

Lady Edgeton straightened her shoulders as if a ramrod were thrust down her spine.

“Had to marry the duke?” she questioned Bella with angry, narrowed eyes. “I knew something was odd and amiss about this marriage. You will give me all the details of this sordid business at once,” she demanded.

Bella looked from Lady Edgeton to Louisa, who stood next to her sister with her mouth open in astonishment. For once she seemed to have nothing to say.

The mere fact that her marriage to the duke had not been by her design was the only thing that saved Bella from a completely mortifying sense of embarrassment.

“The details of my marriage to the duke are none of your affair,” Bella said, lifting her chin stubbornly in an attempt to stave off more questions.

Without saying another word, Bella turned on her heel and left the duke’s sisters staring after her with varying degrees of astonishment plainly evident on their faces. She made her way as quickly as she could to the cloakroom. Triss caught up with her there.

“Bella, what are you going to do?” she questioned breathlessly. “Robert practically threatened to tell everyone about you and the duke!”

Completely out of patience, Bella rounded on her cousin.

“
He
threatened to tell everyone?” she said with anger sparking in her deep blue eyes. “
You
are the one who just told the duke’s sisters that he
had
to marry me! Will you never learn to hold your tongue?”

Taking a step back in shock at Bella’s unusual show of anger, Triss looked at her cousin in genuine confusion. “But I thought his sisters knew why you and the duke had to marry,” Triss cried out after Bella swept past her, leaving Triss to follow with a hurt and baffled expression on her face.

Bella went to the entryway and told the doorman to have the Westlake coach brought around.

“But Bella, what about Westlake and Mother? Are we just going to leave them?” Triss asked Bella in a small voice.

“If you find Aunt Elizabeth within the next few minutes, she can return to Westlake House with us. I will send the coach back once we are home,” she told Triss firmly. Nothing was going to make her stay a second longer than she had to, she thought, her cheeks still burning at the memory of Robert’s insults.

“What I ever saw in that supercilious, odious fop, I shall never know,” she said aloud, and in such an angry tone that the very well trained footman so forgot himself as to gape at her.

Triss was looking anxious, clenching and unclenching her fingers. “Bella, have them hold the coach a moment. Let me find Mama,” she begged Bella before quickly leaving to search for Lady Penninghurst.

When the butler at Westlake House opened the door to the three dejected ladies, Bella immediately headed for the staircase.

“Please send the coach back to Almack’s and inform me the moment his grace returns,” she told the expressionless servant as she took the steps.

“Bella, please let us discuss what has happened.”

Hearing the concern in her aunt’s voice, Bella looked down at her standing in the foyer below, next to Triss.

“Please, Aunt Elizabeth, I would rather not,” she said,
trying to keep the anger and panic she felt from reaching her voice.

She gained her room and instantly began to pace the floor. A moment later she stopped to take off the diamond jewelry and place it back in its case.

What would she do now? she wondered, putting her hands to her cheeks in misery. Taking another turn around the room, she tried to think of somewhere to go. The realization that there were no more places to run caused her to speed her pacing. She had fled Autley to seek refuge with her family in London. Now, after the mortifying scene at Almack’s, London was no longer a solace against the recent, frightening changes in her life.

How long she fretted and paced she did not know, but when she heard a knock at her door, she ran to it and flung it open. To her relief it was the duke.

“Oh, please come in,” she said, opening the door wide.

He strode into the middle of the room, still in his evening attire, and turned to look at her with an unreadable expression. Shutting the door, she moved to stand in front of him.

“Did you see Robert Fortiscue at Almack’s?” she asked without preamble.

“No, he departed before I had the chance. But I gather from the gossip buzzing around the room, and from what I could glean from my sisters, that there was a bit of a scene,” he said with a dismissive shrug.

Bella stared at him for a moment with troubled, beautiful eyes. It was frustrating that she could not discern from his words or expression what he was thinking.

Of a sudden, the weeks of turbulent, stressful changes seemed to crash down upon her weary shoulders. Her eyes welled with tears and her lips began to tremble with unspoken pain, sadness, and fear. She hunched her shoulders against the hurt and turned from him to face the fireplace.

“Tell me what is amiss, Bella,” the duke said behind her.

She could tell by his voice that he had moved nearer to her, but she could not look at him. Nor could she answer him, for her throat felt clogged with tears trying to force their way out all at once.

The duke did not move, but waited patiently for her to speak. After a few moments he took another step nearer
and began to speak to her, as if he were trying to gain the trust of a frightened, wild animal. “Before that morning, when we discovered that we had unknowingly spent the night together unchaperoned, I was under the impression that a friendship was developing between us. Was I mistaken?”

Bella was very still for a moment while she thought over the duke’s words. With her back still to him and the tears slipping down her cheeks, she hesitantly nodded her agreement.

“In the light of that developing friendship, do you think you could speak to me as if we are friends now?”

His unexpected, gentle words caused a dam to burst within Bella. Turning, she looked up at him, no longer hiding her tears. “I do not understand how everything could suddenly go so terribly wrong. I have always been so careful to do the right thing. I have always tried to be wise about the decisions I have made. But, forgive me, ever since you came into my life, everything has been chaos.” She sniffed, giving him a tearful smile to soften her words.

As the duke looked down at her, she saw the concern, mixed with amusement, in his eyes.

“And now,” she continued, “that loathsome popinjay, Robert Fortiscue, comes to town and threatens to tell everyone why we had to marry. It is too horrible! We have done nothing wrong, and now there will be even more gossip about us,” she said, ending with a tearful sniff.

A moment later she found herself wrapped in the duke’s warm arms, her cheek on his chest. Stunned, she stood against him, very stiff and still, until she heard his deep voice rumble above her head.

“It matters not. After all, what is a London Season without a hint of scandal?”

At the gentle humor in his tone, Bella allowed herself to relax fully against his broad chest. The tears started to flow down her cheeks, unchecked.

They stood this way for some moments, in front of the fireplace, the duke gently rocking her back and forth as she cried.

Deep inside, as the jumble of her emotions finally found release, Bella realized that she had never before felt anything
like this. To be held securely by strong arms while she wept her heart out was oddly comforting. It was such a rare occurrence for Bella to cry. She tried to avoid it, for when she did cry, Papa and Tommy acted as if she were dying. She had always been the strong one, but for once crying did not make her feel weak.

After a little while her crying abated, and she was able to look at the events of the evening with a clearer head. Wiping her tears away with her fingers, Bella raised her head slightly and looked at the duke with a tearful, mystified smile.

“I do not understand you either,” she said to him. “Robert Fortiscue comes to town and spreads this gossip about us, and you do not seem bothered at all.”

The duke still held her in his arms, their heads close enough for her to see the green flecks in the gray of his eyes. His gaze held hers, and Bella decided that she liked the feel of her body relaxing against the strong length of his.

“You mistake the situation, Arabella. I am bothered,” he replied.

“You are?” she questioned, sensing that it was not Robert Fortiscue who was bothering him.

“Very much so,” he said, as he lowered his head toward hers.

He stopped, his lips hovering just above hers.

Bella’s heart seemed to catch in her throat and then began beating again in a wholly new way.

The duke did not lower his head any further; nor did he close his eyes. Somehow, instinctively, she knew that he would not be the one to bridge the slight gap that separated them.

Suddenly feeling safe after the cathartic intimacy of crying on his chest, Bella stood quietly within the warm shelter of his arms. Feeling as if it were the most natural thing in the world, she relaxed against him even more. She felt his warm breath on her lips, and something in the intensity of his gaze made her lift her head slightly and close the space between them.

Closing her eyes, she felt his firm, warm lips against hers, and became aware of a sensation of heat dissolving through
her limbs and into her heart. She pressed herself a little deeper into his embrace and felt the taut muscles in his arms as he pulled her body closer to his. How different he felt, she hazily marveled.

While growing up, she had imagined that her first kiss would elicit a soft, happy feeling. This intense, almost frightening escalation of new sensations was completely unexpected.

His hand slowly, firmly moved up the side of her body, coming to stroke the hollow of her neck with tantalizing, gentle fingers. The woodsy scent of him assailed her senses, somehow enhancing her feelings.

His lips moved over hers, growing more insistent as she allowed her hands to steal up his broad chest. So caught up was she in the response his kiss was stirring within her, Bella’s normal feelings of self-consciousness where he was concerned completely vanished. Dizzily, she did not think she could get any closer to him, until his hand moved to her waist and began to caress the small of her back, pressing her body even more intimately against his.

Swirling deeper into the melting sensuousness of his kiss, Bella did not, at first, hear the knock at her door. It was only when she felt his body stiffen and pull away from her slightly that she became aware of her surroundings.

“Bella, it is me. Are you all right? Please open the door. I wish to speak to you.”

Bella almost groaned aloud at hearing Triss’s muffled voice coming from behind the closed bedchamber door.

Her gaze flew to the duke’s. She looked in dawning mortification at her hands splayed upon his chest.

“Yes, Arabella, I am most definitely bothered.” The quiet intensity of his voice belied his slight smile as he released her.

B
ella squinted at the late-morning sun beaming into her sumptuous bedchamber. Her lady’s maid had just flung open the curtains, and Bella rolled over, burying her face into her down pillow.

Last night she had slept fitfully after feigning a headache to get Triss to leave. Even though she rarely slept so late, she was in no mood to rise. After the maid left the room, Bella burrowed deeper under the covers. The memory of being in the duke’s arms, and the feel of his lips on hers, kept repeating itself over and over.

Groaning, she turned over onto her back and pulled the pillow over her head. A moment later she tossed the pillow aside. Staring up at the rich, brocaded fabric that draped the canopy of her bed, Bella tried to sort out the chaotic emotions crowding her thoughts.

Too many changes had happened too quickly over the last few months. She had not enough time to adjust to one change before another one came along and bowled her over.