The Duke (46 page)

“That is not true—”

“It is true. You are as ashamed of me as you were of your mother. To you, I have always been a whore and that’s all I’ll ever be.”

“That is a lie,” he bellowed so wrathfully that she flinched. “I’ve said a thousand times that I love you.”

“Yes. That is what makes your decision so odd.” She stared at him piercingly for a second, then brushed him off with a dismissive gesture and began to stride across the room toward the door. “Good-bye, Hawkscliffe. I’m going back to London.”

He captured her arm as she passed him. “No,” he ground out.

Her gaze flicked to his hand wrapped around her elbow, then up to his eyes. She glared at him with feverish wrath. “Don’t. . . touch me.”

“You’re not leaving.”

“You are not my lord and master.” She wrenched her arm free of his grasp. “I’ll call to collect my belongings from Knight House when you’re not at home. I earned them, after all.”

“Where will you go? What will you do?” he demanded harshly, towering over her, purposely intimidating her, as if he could frighten her into obedience. “You have nothing to go back to without me.”

She continued glaring up at him defiantly, her eyes snapping blue sparks. “Harriette will take me in. I’ll find a new protector—”

“Over my dead body.”

She gave him an icy smile. “Does that hurt you, the thought of me in another man’s arms? How does it feel?”

“You will not go back to Harriette’s,” he said through clenched teeth. “Leave me if you must, but I forbid you to return to that—that whoredom. I’ll give you all the money you need—”

“I don’t want your money!” she nearly screamed, shoving him back, though he barely moved a step. “How dare you? Don’t you ever learn?”

She whirled on her heel toward the door, but he caught her again. She turned and punched him in the chest in futile fury, and he grasped her by her shoulders, talking gentle nonsense to her as he tried in desperation to still her.

“Listen to me!” he finally cried, giving her shoulders a shake.

“Let go!”

“I need you,” he pleaded in a low, trembling voice. “Don’t go. You’re the only one who understands me. You’re my best friend, Bel—”

“Then how can you treat me this way?” she whispered, tears in her eyes. She stopped fighting all of a sudden and looked away, lifting the back of her hand to her mouth to smother a small sob.

“Oh, Jesus,” he breathed, unable to believe she was slipping through his fingers. Amid seething terror, he somehow persuaded his hands to loosen their hold on her soft shoulders, though everything was spinning out of his control. Now that he had begun to lose her, he couldn’t seem to make it stop. When he reached to touch her hair, she jerked away. “Come on, Bel. Stop this.”

“Let me go. I understand, you can’t marry me, I’m not asking it of you. But in turn, you mustn’t ask me to dishonor myself any more deeply. Please, if you love me, Robert, let me go. I may be just a demirep, but I have a few principles myself. I have to draw the line somewhere or I’ll lose myself. I finally got myself back, thanks to you, your love. I would rather lose what we have than turn it into something sordid. I can’t go back to being ashamed. I’m sorry.”

“I thought you loved me.”

“If you’re going to marry her, do so honorably. Do your best to love her, if she is to be your wife.”

“I
love you,”
he said angrily.

“Well, I’m leaving you,” she whispered before stepping past him almost briskly.

He grabbed her wrists, stopping her again. “No!”

“Have pity, Robert! Before we get in any deeper— before it is impossible to say good-bye—let me walk away from you with a shred of my pride intact. Please, please—”

“Belinda, I love you—”

He reached to touch her, but she pulled free of his grasp and rushed out of his study, stifling a sob.

“Belinda!”

Hawk strode out of his study and saw her running down the corridor.

“Belinda!”

She didn’t look back, hurrying up the stairs. He could hear her sobbing over the rustle of her silken skirts.

He started to go after her, but then her piteous plea to let her leave with dignity sank like a hook in his heart, pulling until it bled. He stopped himself, blind with confusion and loss and disbelief. He howled her name one more time, but when she did not appear, he slammed his fist into the wooden door, cracking it with a splintering thud. He leaned back against the doorframe and ran both hands through his hair, squeezing his eyes shut tightly.

Everything inside him raged to go after her—make her stay even if he had to lock her in her room till she obeyed. But if being his mistress would injure her fragile self-opinion, then he had no choice but to let her go.

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Harriette welcomed her back with open arms. Their reunion was a tearful one as Bel sobbed out her story to the Three Graces, all of whom went out of their way to comfort her.

And so
La Belle
Hamilton was back on the game. Business was booming under Harriette’s roof. Bel allowed two types of men to court her—those who were far too old for her and those who were too young to be taken seriously. Then, on her fifth night back in Town, she went to the King’s Theater in the Haymarket and he was there.

She was holding court in the opera box that he had paid for, surrounded, as usual, by sex-starved men, whom she laughingly abused with her wit, newly sharpened to a razor’s edge, when a strange prickling sensation descended upon her. Everything seemed to move slowly and the sound blurred into the background. Fluttering her fan, she looked across the great colorful vault of the opera house and saw him.

He was sitting with his elbow on the chair arm, his fingers obscuring his mouth. He appeared not the slightest bit interested in the spectacle on stage. His eyes intense and fiery, he was staring only at her.

The breath left her lungs in a whoosh. Her heart twisted and her fan went still. Her body flashed hot then cold, and she began to shake. She tore her gaze away, suddenly fanning herself frantically. She did not hear a word that anyone said to her.

For about a minute and a half, she tried to sit there calmly and pretend nothing was wrong. She suddenly rose, making excuses as she fought her way free of the theater box. Men offered to escort her as she went striding haplessly down the hallway.

“Leave me alone!” she cried to those who followed her, wrenching the showy plume out of her hair so hard that tears sprang into her eyes.

In the lobby she sent one of the attendants for her
vis-à-vis
and fled the moment her capable new driver brought it round. She went home and cried herself to sleep. But when the morning came, she knew what she had to do.

Harriette and the others were still in their beds after their late night. By the cool white light of morning, Bel gathered up the majority of her fancy gowns, packed them into her carriage, and brought them to the pawn shop, where they garnered her a fortune of nearly fifteen hundred pounds.

She then directed her driver to Tattersalls, where she dismissed him with his pay and sold her elegant black little vis-à-vis and fine-blooded horses back to the auction house for another enormous sum—two thousand guineas. But she could not bring herself to part with the diamond-and-lapis-lazuli necklace Robert had given her as a gift on the night of the Cyprians’ Ball.

Hiring a hackney coach to the bank, she deposited the drafts from the pawn shop into her account, along with the proceeds from the sale of the carriage. Signing her name to the deposit, she stared at the scribble of numbers, taken aback.

The total came to thirty-five hundred pounds. She rolled three thousand of it into the funds, did a bit of figuring, and suddenly found herself in possession of a decent living. At five percent interest, the three thousand would yield her a hundred fifty pounds a year.

She sat back and stared at it in amazement. She need only live a quiet, modest, simple life—the kind she had wanted in the first place—and she need never depend on anyone again. Not her rich admirers nor Harriette nor even Papa. It was poverty compared to what she had grown used to, but worlds above selling oranges. She would have this living and she need answer to no one. She wouldn’t be able to keep any more servants except perhaps a chambermaid, but for the first time in her life, she suddenly
was...
free and independent.

She looked up in amazement toward the graceful dome of the bank and closed her eyes, silently blessing the friend who had made her small fortune possible.

Oh, Robert, how I miss you, she thought, misery overtaking her moment of hope. But she gathered her reticule and left the bank, for there was still more to be done.

Later that day, she parted ways with the Wilson sisters and took up lodgings in a quiet boardinghouse in Bloomsbury, not far from the Foundling Hospital. A couple of the all-female establishments she would have preferred to take rooms in had refused to accept the likes of her, but she had walked away from the matrons’ rudeness strangely at peace with herself.

In the days that followed she forged yet again a new life from the ashes of the old. She spent her nights reading to escape her broken heart; during the days, she devoted herself to volunteer service at the Foundling Hospital and the Relief Society for the Destitute, seeking to forget her own cares in attending to the plight of the street children.

She wondered often how Tommy and Andrew were faring at Knight House.

Though the people associated with the charities allowed her to help there, they kept a wary distance from her. None of them seemed interested in becoming her friend. If she had one regret, it was that she had no place anymore in any level of society. She was neither respectable nor fashionable— in the past she had always been one or the other. As a courtesan she had constantly felt crowded; now she was all too alone, haunted by her thoughts of Robert. Her former protector was never far from her heart.

She was glad her father had stayed in London to do research, for these days he was her only companion. He could not help but be overjoyed about her discarding the Cyprians’ life. His eyes filled with tears of pride every time she visited him, which was frequently, since they supped together most nights.

She had held on to her theater box at the Royal Haymarket for Papa’s sake. Once a week she took him to a play. After all, her subscription to her first-rate theater box was already paid for and would expire at the end of the season. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts, she told him. They both laughed that, however much he disapproved, he was not above enjoying the excellent seats that had been a perquisite of her previous employment.

Then, about a week later, another friend resurfaced. Bel came strolling home one early September evening, her back aching from her work with the children all day, to find Mick Braden sitting on the front steps of the boardinghouse waiting for her, just like he used to when they were young.

He stood as she came through the gate and when she walked toward him, she could see the anguish written in his boyishly handsome face. They stared at each other for a long moment.

“Hello, Mick,” she said at length.

“Your father told me where you were.”

“Would you like to come in?”

“Please,” he said hoarsely.

When they reached her small sitting room, he slowly took her into his arms and held her as if she were made of the most fragile glass.

“I’m so sorry. Your father told me everything.” He released her and took her hands in his. “I hold myself accountable, Bel. I want to make it up to you. Marry me.”

She closed her eyes and turned away, heaving a sigh, then she looked at him again. “I don’t love you, Mick.”

“I know. It’s all right. But, you see, there should be an appropriateness to marriage, Bel. You and I are appropriate for each other. Your feelings for Hawkscliffe will fade in time, but I’ll still be here because I am a part of you. We’ve known each other all our lives, haven’t we? I care for you, and I have an obligation to you. I am not a man who shirks his duty.”

“Is it duty that prompts you, Mick? You don’t love me, either?”

He brushed her hair gently out of her eyes. “How do you define love? I care for you, I feel responsible for you. I even find you passingly pretty on occasion,” he teased softly. “You and me—it just makes sense. Call it what you want. All I know is that you can’t live by yourself forever. Not you. You should be a wife and a mother. It’s in your nature and it’s what you’ve always wanted.”

She flinched, lowering her head.

“I can give you that life,” he said. “I owe you that. I don’t care about your past. I know what the circumstances were, and I’ll never judge you for it. We can leave London and make a new start. I know I failed you once, but if you’ll give me another chance, I’ll never fail you again.”

She closed her eyes in distress.
Right words, wrong man.
She opened her eyes and gazed at him again. “Oh, Mick, I don’t know. So much has changed. I’m no longer the girl that you knew.”