Beloved (33 page)

“Gad,” Max muttered.

Devlin frowned at him. “We shall do well enough together, Ella. It’s time I settled down. Our match would answer your dilemma,
bring me satisfaction, and give Saber peace of mind. What could be more fitting?”

Ella stared at him.

“So? What do you say? I understand Struan’s on his way to Scotland. With your agreement, I’ll send a messenger to present
my offer for your hand.”

“Gad!” Max slapped his knees. “If that don’t beat all.” He got up and went to open the door. “If that don’t beat all. Bloody
household’s gone mad. Didn’t I tell you that, Ellie? Now the whole world’s gone mad with it.”

“That’s enough from you, young Max,” Devlin said, but he smiled affably enough. “Overwhelmed the pair of you, have I?”

Devlin didn’t see the next arrival on the threshold of Ella’s sitting room.

“This has been so nice of you, Devlin,” Ella said, speaking rapidly. “Thank you for coming.”

Saber braced himself against the door frame. “No need to try to help the sly devil out,” he said, his green eyes narrowing.
“
Overwhelmed the pair of you, have I?
You haven’t overwhelmed me, friend.”

Devlin swung around.

“I ought to kill you for this,” Saber said, surging forward. “Get out of the way, Ella. I’m going to make Devlin regret this
piece of business.”

Max fell back.

Ella tried to step between Devlin and Saber, but Devlin pushed her behind him and said, “You’re posturing, Avenall. We both
know you—”

“We both know I’ll defend what’s mine, North. Ella is mine. Mine! Do you hear me?”

Her legs threatened to buckle. Horror vied with joy.

“You know you can’t have her,” Devlin shouted. “For God’s sake man, I’m only trying to put your mind at rest. At least you
won’t have to worry that she’s in good hands.”

“Damn you!” Saber launched himself at Devlin. “Ella is to be
my
wife. The only hands she’ll be in are
mine.
”

“T
he devil take you, Avenall,” Devlin said through his teeth. With both fists raised, he came at Saber. “Got your trusted dagger
somewhere about you, have you? Ready for the sight of more blood at last, are you?”

Saber had never thought to hear his best friend speak aloud of secrets they’d shared in private. “I do not need any dagger
to squeeze out your life,
traitor
.”

“Stop it! Both of you!” Ella rushed at Saber. She collided with him. “Stop it at once. I cannot bear it.”

Saber was helpless to check his forward momentum—or his impact with Ella. Arms flailing, she fell backward—into Devlin’s arms.

“I say!” Max didn’t attempt to mask his glee at the proceedings. “Jolly good scuffle. Out of the way, our Ellie.”

Hitting Devlin while he held Ella was out of the question. Saber opened and closed his hands in frustration. “Unhand her,”
he said, furious with his loss of control. “Come here, Ella.”

She was lovely in green, lovely, flushed, and bright-eyed. And, despite her wrathful words, she looked at him with the love
he so wanted yet so feared. With only a backward glance at Devlin, she came to Saber, stood before him, and rested a trembling
hand on his arm.

He covered that hand on his arm and glared at Devlin over her head. “Explain yourself.”

“Nothing to explain,” Devlin said, his face tight and pale. “Trying to do a good turn for people I care about. Too bad a fella
can’t do a good turn without being held to ridicule.”

“He asked Ellie to marry him,” Max said. “Wanted to save you the trouble, evidently.”

“Hush, Max,” Ella said. “Don’t inflame matters. I’m sure there is a perfectly good explanation for this muddle.”

Saber wished he knew what that explanation was. “Don’t interfere, there’s a good chap, Max,” he said, never taking his eyes
from Devlin’s. “We’ll take this up later, hmm?”

Devlin nodded. “As you say. But I want it known that my intentions were honorable. And I also want Ella to know that I hold
her in the highest esteem—and that what I know will never go farther.”

“Bit late,” Max said.

Saber eyed the boy.

Max thrust his hands into his pockets, rolled upon his toes and jiggled. “Just stating the truth. Wretched female visited
earlier. Name of Able. Jabbering about rumors. Rumors about Ellie. She said they were all over Town. Talk of the
ton
.”

“The devil you say,” Devlin said. “She’s got to be stopped.”

“Ella’s concerns are my affair,” Saber told him quietly. “I don’t know what you were thinking here, friend—really thinking—but—”

“He thought to help me,” Ella said. “To save me because he believed you had decided you could not—could not. That you could
not.”

“He thought to marry you because I
could
not?” Saber held Devlin’s gaze. “But I can. And I will. Just as soon as the arrangements can be made. And I do so with your
family’s blessings.” At least with the dowager’s blessings, but the rest would follow, of that Saber was certain.

Devlin set his lips together. He strode around them all and made his way rapidly from the house.

“Dash, that was splendid,” Max said. “The two most eligible men in England fighting over you, Ellie!”

“There is only one man whose regard matters to me,” she said. “And he chooses to make me happier than I had ever thought possible.”

Rage had briefly banished dread. Now it returned. Happy? He would make her a bride, then a widow whose husband lived yet did
not live. But he could not let her go again.

He would give her his name and his fortune. And he would watch over her—until the sickness claimed him forever. By then he
must have made her his heir. As a rich woman in her own right she would be safe. And perhaps, God help him, she would ease
his way to the end. Ella loved him, he must never stop believing she did.

“Saber? I will be a good wife to you. I will care for you always.”

“Because I am an invalid? Because I am crazed?” The words were spoken and could not be recalled. He wrenched his arm from
her. “You’ve got what you wanted, now leave me be.”

“Saber!”

“I have matters to attend to.” He left her and didn’t look back.

“Saber, please!”

Damn his selfishness. His life was forfeit. Now, with his promise of “happiness,” he condemned Ella to walk with him into
hell.

“Follow me, Bigun,” the dowager heard Blanche Bastible announce as she opened the door to the bedchamber. “Such a great deal
of fuss. Lord Avenall’s staff is upsetting this household entirely. Why there should be such commotion over a little thing
like moving one man’s possessions, I cannot imagine. It must cease before the dowager is reduced to complete collapse. But
Her Grace will insist upon seeing you now. She is in bed, trying to rest. Do nothing to excite her.”

The dowager made a hasty check of her beribboned nightcap and closed her eyes.

“Did you hear me, fellow?”

“Yes,” Saber’s odd servant said. “Oh, yes, dear lady, I hear you.”

Blanche asked, “What is your country?”

The dowager contained an irritated puff.

“India, if it pleases you, my lady.”

“India, hmm? Well, I particularly like your hat. I shall have my modiste make one like it for me. And regardless of the staff’s
opinion, I consider your red chair quite marvelous.”

“Thank you, my lady.”

From her vast and heavily carved mahogany bed draped with dark tapestries, the dowager decided it was time to make her presence
known. “Out, Blanche,” she said loudly. “Quickly. And do not strain your back listening at the door. Go directly to that foolish
creature, Rose. Ella’s maid. Tell her I should like to see her also.” She opened an eye in time to see the Indian peer in
her direction while Blanche flounced from the room.

“Come closer,” the dowager told Bigun. “Be quick about it.”

Bigun advanced cautiously, then appeared very much relieved. “The cross lady!” he said, beaming. “Cross and unpleasant. Your
humors have made you sick, I see. It is often the way.”

“Your Grace,” she told him. “Kindly refer to me as Your Grace.”

“Ah, yes. The old duchess—”

“Oh, what this family of mine brings me to. Disrespect. Reliance upon strangers. Come closer, I tell you.”

Obligingly enough, the gaudily dressed servant went to the side of the bed. He peered at her. “How may I help you, lady?”

She scowled more fiercely. “I will not lose my temper!”

“Most wise.”

“I wish to whisper to you. That fool Blanche is probably listening, even though I told her not to.”

Bigun blinked and bent over her. “My attention is yours, lady. Your Grace.”

With one small, bony hand, she caught him by the ear. She put her mouth next to that ear and murmured, “Good. This is what
you will do.”

Almost twenty-four hours had passed since Saber announced his intention to marry her. In the unlikely company of Margot, Countess
Perruche, Ella rode in the Park. The countess had sent a message requesting that Ella join her, and Ella had been too curious
to refuse.

Beneath skies the color of blue crystal, they trotted, side by side, along Rotten Row. Ella spared a sideways look for the
countess, whose elegant black veil enhanced rather than hid her perfection.

Behind them on the crowded path trotted a groom who had come with the countess.

“I couldn’t think of a safer place for us to talk,” the countess said when they had been riding for some minutes. She inclined
her head to a gentleman who rode toward them. He brought his crop to the brim of his hat in a smart salute. “I fear there
may be some misunderstanding about my relationship to Saber. Under the circumstances, I’m sure you agree that we should make
sure that is no longer the case.”

Yet again she was in the company of someone whom Saber chose to take into his confidence on exceedingly personal matters.
Ella had not seen him since he declared to Devlin his intention to marry her. He’d absented himself immediately and hadn’t
returned, yet he’d found time to seek out this woman’s companionship.

“First, I must tell you how glad I am that you and Saber are to marry. He is a fine man and will make you a fine husband.”

A fine man
. The countess might try to sound dispassionate, but she cared for Saber. And Saber cared for her. Max had spoken of how natural
it was for men of a certain class to maintain relationships with women other than their wives …

It did not have to be. Ella could not bear such a thought.

She studied the other woman’s gray habit, the way it showed off a lush figure. How could she compete with a woman of such
grace and experience?

“No engagement has been announced,” Ella said. Sun through tall oaks painted a chiaroscuro across red earth churned by many
hoofs.

The countess looked at Ella. “But it will be, surely?”

Ella spurred her gray to a less sedate pace. “Are these matters ever truly in the hands of women?”

“You are younger than I by far,” the countess said, keeping up. “But I believe you are no less determined. Unless I much misjudge
you, you are not a woman who will accept any fate thrust upon her.”

The countess understood her quite well, Ella decided. “I think you remarkably brave to initiate this outing,” she said. “In
light of our last meeting.”

“It is because of the last meeting that I asked you to join me today. There must be no misconception about my visit to Saber
the other evening.”

Ella looked straight ahead.

“I see I was indeed wise to seek you out. I am not, nor have I ever been, Saber’s… When I refer to him as my friend, I mean
that we are friends and nothing more. We have both known great trouble. I was also in India. That is where we met. There is
a certain empathy between us—of a completely pure nature. I seem to sense when he is troubled. I sensed it the other evening
and went to him. Evidently I was mistaken.”

“You were not mistaken,” Ella said, keeping her voice level. “He had suffered some sort of nightmare. And then there was the
emotional event between us.”

“Nightmare.” The countess was not asking a question. “Ah, yes, the wretched nightmares.”

“Did you know Saber is moving into the Pall Mall house?” Ella asked, raising her voice over the thud of their mounts’ hoofs.
“Bigun is already in residence—at least in the vestibule.”

“How interesting. You seem determined not to address the subject of your betrothal.”

“There is no betrothal.” She did not intend to give any personal information to the woman who felt obliged to deny that she
was Saber’s mistress.

Mistress
. Even the word stung Ella.

“Very well,” Countess Perruche said. “You still do not trust me, do you?”

At least her flushed cheeks could be blamed on the wind. Ella pulled to the side of the trail to allow a yellow phaeton to
overtake them. The occupant grinned at her as he passed. She noted how the man’s grin became assessing, avid, and she looked
away. The attentions of other men were unwelcome— men other than Saber.

“You are wrong, you know.” Countess Perruche swerved to draw alongside Ella. “I am not his ladybird.”