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

‘We can talk on the way to Worcester. I will collect you at eight, if you think you will be well enough for an early start.’

Bella swallowed. It was no effort to be up and breakfasted by then; at the vicarage everyone rose at six. But at that time in the morning her uncertain stomach was at its worst and just now she felt as if she could sleep for a week. ‘Perfectly, thank you, I will be ready then.’

Her cloak was almost dry and the rain had stopped. Elliott insisted on carrying her valise to the carriage and then helped her out after the silent ten-minute drive. In the darkness Bella could make out a four-square house sitting in a hollow.

‘The Dower House.’ They waited for several minutes until the door creaked open to reveal an ancient butler who peered out at them as they stood in the wavering light of the lantern he held.

‘My lord? My lady has retired some time since. Miss Dorothy is in the small parlour, my lord.’

‘Thank you, Dawson, we can announce ourselves. Miss Shelley will be staying for two nights if you could organise a room for her, and a maid.’

‘My lord.’ The old man shuffled off mumbling, ‘Maid, room, fires’, to himself.

‘Dawson is about ninety,’ Elliott explained, ‘but he refuses to be pensioned off. Mind the lap dog, it will yap, but I doubt it will bite.’ As he spoke he opened a door and stepped inside. ‘Cousin Dorothy, forgive this late call.’

The dog did indeed yap. And Miss Dorothy exclaimed and dropped her tatting and it took several minutes to restore order. ‘Your betrothed?’ she enquired, peering myopically at Bella when Elliott began to explain. ‘How wonderful. Had you told me, Elliott dear? I do not recall, and I am sure I would have done.’

‘No, Cousin. Arabella has had to run away as her father does not approve of me.’

‘Of you ? Why ever not? If it had been that rascal Rafe, God rest his soul, one could understand. But you , Cousin?’

‘Politics,’ Bella explained, feeling as though she was in an opium-eater’s nightmare now, things were so unreal. ‘Papa is a—’ She realised she had no idea where Elliott’s allegiances might lie.

‘Tory,’ he finished for her, his interruption for once welcome.

Miss Dorothy, who was about fifty, plump and rather vague, nodded. ‘Oh, politics. That would explain it.’

‘We will be married the day after tomorrow,’ Elliott pushed on. ‘So if you could find Arabella a bedchamber for two nights, that would be very helpful. I did mention it to Dawson as we came in and I expect he’s gone to speak to Mrs Dawson.’

‘They will see to all that.’ Miss Dorothy beamed at Bella. ‘I do enjoy being a chaperon. One gets so little opportunity now Mama is frailer and we no longer go to many parties, but I used to look after all my nieces.’

‘It is very kind of you, ma’am.’ Bella dredged up her last reserves of will-power and did her best to behave politely. She felt as though she had been pushing against a locked door and it had suddenly opened, tipping her into space. She was still falling. ‘I am sorry, I am afraid I do not know how I should address you.’

‘Well, I am Miss Abbotsbury, but everyone calls me Miss Dorothy, my dear. Now, have you had your supper?’

‘Yes, Miss Dorothy, thank you.’

‘And have you brought a nightgown and a toothbrush? Elliott, where are you going?’

‘Home, Cousin.’ He paused at the door. ‘I was just about to bid you both goodnight.’

‘Without kissing Miss Shelley?’ Miss Dorothy simpered. ‘Such unromantic behaviour! I am not such a fierce chaperon as all that, Elliott.’

‘Of course not. Arabella.’ He came and took her hands in his and looked down at her face. It was an effort not to cling. She had known him a few hours and now this stranger was all she had. ‘It will be better in the morning, you will see.’ And then he bent and kissed her cheek, his lips and breath warm for the fleeting moment of contact. Bella had an impression of claret and spice before he straightened up and she made herself let go. ‘I will collect Miss Shelley at eight, Cousin, if an early breakfast will not inconvenience you.’

‘Not at all.’ The chaste kiss appeared to have satisfied Miss Dorothy’s romantic expectations. She beamed at him as he left, then turned to Bella. ‘Well, my dear, I expect you would like to go to bed, would you not?’

‘Yes, please, Miss Dorothy.’ At last a question she could answer with perfect honesty and without having to think. The cosy, cluttered room was beginning to sway slightly. ‘That would be delightful.’

Elliott sat in the closed carriage outside the Dower House at a quarter to eight the next morning and made mental lists. It was that or pull out the flask of brandy secreted in the door pocket and drown every one of the obligations Rafe had landed him with. Especially this one.

It would have been a perverse comfort to be able to mourn his brother and perhaps he was, even if what he was mourning for was the brother he never had: the close friend, the trusting companion. Rafe, jealous and suspicious, had never wanted to allow anyone close, even at the end.

But maudlin thoughts about brotherly love, or the lack of it, were no help in dealing with a neglected estate, over a hundred dependents, financial affairs that were tangled beyond belief and this latest obligation.

He was, it seemed, to be married to the plain daughter of an obscure vicar. Why could he not have done what she asked and pensioned her off with enough money to support the fiction of a respectable widow? His damnable conscience, he supposed. Sometimes Elliott thought he had been given his brother’s conscience as well as his own, for Rafe had certainly not appeared to possess one.

Yesterday evening it had been very clear what he must do, where his duty lay as a man of honour. If she had come to him after the child had been born, then he would not have offered marriage, for that would not have legitimised the baby. But she had come and he had been given the opportunity to do what was right.

All his adult life, it seemed, he had been attempting to make up for the damage Rafe had wrought to the estate, to his dependents, to those who crossed his path, and until now he had never been able to do more than stop one young sprig blowing his brains out after Rafe had ruined him at cards. Now all the wreckage had landed at his feet, as though a great storm had thrown it up on to a beach, and he must try to repair everything at once.

The little country lass had been so desperately bedazzled by his irresponsible rake of a brother that she had gone against everything she believed in—he had no doubt that she had been a chaste and virtuous young woman. But why should that surprise him? Rafe Calne had possessed the power to fascinate even the most intelligent women. It had always mystified Elliott how he had done it.

He rarely had trouble attracting female interest himself, but none of the women concerned ever appeared to have suspended every iota of common sense or judgement in the relationship as they did with Rafe.

He suspected that Arabella Shelley was not unintelligent, simply ashamed, frightened and confused. She was also angry with him, whether she acknowledged it or not. He was alive and standing in the place of the man she wanted to confront and force to acknowledge his responsibilities.

She had not known Rafe at all or she would never have fallen for him—she was not the sort of woman who wanted to flirt with danger. It hurt to acknowledge it, but Rafe had been a vicious, debauched, scheming rake who hid his true nature under a mask of charm when it suited him. And that charm had obviously deceived her all too well, for Elliott doubted that Arabella realised just how fortunate she had been. What if Rafe had lured her away to London and then abandoned her? It did not bear thinking about.