Vicar's Daughter to Viscount's Lady Page 22

  ‘I wanted some peace and quiet before I joined the guests,’ she explained, letting her hands lie limp between his big, rough warm ones as he chaffed them. ‘I didn’t notice how cold it was.’

  ‘Come along and get warm.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed. She got up and produced a quite successful smile. ‘I will come and try to get warm.’ But she carefully freed her hand from his and walked alone down the passageway.

  ‘The house to ourselves,’ Bella said as she waved at the Duke of Avery’s carriage, vanishing into the fog. ‘It was a lovely house party.’ So much to do to take her mind off her marriage, so many people to talk to. Now they were alone again.

  ‘But three days is quite enough,’ Elliott observed. He put his arm round her shoulders and Bella slid out of the embrace as they turned. ‘Are you feeling all right this morning?’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ Bella lied. She had hardly slept, tossing and turning, troubled by her thoughts and knowledge that she should tell Elliott how she felt.

  ‘Come into the drawing room,’ he said, his hand gentle but inexorable under her elbow. ‘I don’t think you are well, whatever you say, and there is something I must tell you.’

  ‘I’m all right,’ she snapped, cornered.

  ‘Bella, what on earth is the matter?’ Elliott shut the door and came to stand in front of her before the fire. ‘This is not like you.’

  ‘No,’ she said slowly, feeling all the old restraints and certainties falling away. ‘No, it isn’t. But you see, I have been thinking and, Elliott, I am sorry, but I find it hurts so much now. I should never have married you.’

  ‘Arabella, darling.’ Elliott managed to fold her tight into his arms. ‘Listen to me, you really are not well. You are tired. Your nerves are still not calm after the birth. You—’

  ‘Don’t darling me!’ Her face was crushed against his waistcoat and her arms pinned to her sides. His body was hard and strong and her own body stirred in treacherous arousal. Arabella kicked, making no impact at all on his Hessians with her indoor shoes.

  Elliott held her away from him a little, his hands tight on her shoulders. ‘Arabella, stop this. I don’t understand why you bring this up now. Of course we had to marry, it was the right thing, you know that.’

  ‘Yes, of course it was, once you knew. Don’t you see—’ Bella stared at him, trying to make him understand what she was only just beginning to comprehend herself ‘—I should have gone the moment I realised Rafe was dead. Now we are trapped. I cannot even run away and leave you—Viscount Hadleigh would not seek a divorce. You are stuck with me and I will be a good wife and breed sons for you. I suppose it will be…convenient.’

  ‘It is not convenient, damn it.’ Elliott was losing his temper now too. His eyes were dark sapphires, his mouth a hard line. ‘It has never been convenient. I did not want to marry you. But I had to and I have had to learn to live with the emotional baggage our marriage brought with it and you will just have to learn to live with it too. I thought I had,’ he added bitterly.

  Elliott, her tower of strength, her refuge, her honest friend and her lover, was telling her the truth at last. ‘Emotional baggage,’ she said, all the anger gone, her voice cold and flat to her own ears. ‘Of course. You are naturally gallant, naturally kind, but it must be a strain. I thought I was happy. I should be. I am so sorry I cannot be happy.’ She twisted in his grip and broke free, ran to the door without looking back.

  ‘Arabella, stop,’ Elliott called after her. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To find my sister. I am going to the War Office. Why haven’t they written to tell me where she is, where they are paying her widow’s pension?’ She needed someone to love, someone to love her. Someone who would understand.

  There was something in the utter silence that stopped her in her tracks, sent her back to the doorway. ‘Elliott? What is it? Have you heard something?’

  ‘Negative news,’ he admitted. ‘I was going to tell you this morning. There is no trace of Margaret. It seems her marriage to James Halgate was never legal. After the battle of Vittoria where he was killed she seems to have slipped from the records.’

  ‘Meg? But they must know where she is.’

  ‘They do not know. Arabella, listen to me.’ He took her by the upper arms as though to restrain her. ‘Spain is a vast country, in chaos. This was more than two years ago. Perhaps she has remarried, settled out there, or—you must face it, my dear—she may have died.’

  ‘No! No, I will not believe it. Take me to London, Elliott.’

  ‘It is pouring with rain, you need rest, you have a baby and there is nothing you can do in London, Arabella. I am so sorry. We will think about it, find some contacts in Spain—I can send someone to investigate. But not now, this minute. You must see it is not rational.’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Rational? He wanted her to be rational? She was weary of being sensible and stoical. Something cold and hard settled over her, something like the bitter determination that had seized her when Rafe left. Elliott did not love her. Perhaps he could not love, not after an upbringing by remote parents, after a brother who hurt and rejected him. He did not understand how she felt about Meg and Lina, so she must find them herself.

  Perhaps if they had a little time apart they could see their feelings for each other more clearly. Perhaps she could learn to do without love. She would come back, of course. It was her duty to be a good wife, to give Elliott an heir, to give Marguerite a proper home. But just now she could not bear to be here.

  ‘No. Of course not.’ She turned on her heel and walked away.

  What had happened? What had gone wrong? Elliott stared at the half-open door feeling as though his heart had been wrenched out of his chest.

  He thought he had made her happy and secure at least, but it seemed it was an illusion that something had shattered and now he did not know how to build it up again.

  She would be in her bedchamber, he guessed. Toby sat outside, whining. Elliott tapped on the door, then turned the handle. It was locked. With a muttered oath he strode down the corridor to the sitting-room door. Locked. The nursery door was locked too. He knocked again. ‘Arabella?’ Silence.

  Elliott wheeled round and stalked back to his own room, went through the dressing room and tried the interconnecting door. Locked. ‘Arabella, will you please let me in?’ He banged on the panels with his closed fist. From close by there was the thin wail of a child abruptly wakened. He felt his temper slipping; Marguerite should be in the nursery with her nursemaid. He banged again, harder with no response.

  Locked in the safe were duplicate keys for the whole house. It took him a matter of minutes to return with the ones for the whole suite of rooms. ‘Arabella, if you do not open the door I will.’

  He waited and at last the door opened. Arabella stood there, pale and dry-eyed. ‘Please do not make so much noise, you will frighten Marguerite.’

  ‘Then do not lock the doors,’ he said, walking past her into the room.

  ‘I do not want you here. I do not know what to say. I am sorry, I should never have spoken, I just lost my…my will, I suppose.’

  ‘Unfortunately for what you want, Arabella, this happens to be my house, you are my wife and that is my daughter.’ She looked at him sharply. ‘Oh, yes, my daughter. Do not attempt to take her away from me—the only person who would suffer from that is her.’

  ‘I was not—’ She broke off and turned away to stare out at the chill wet world outside. ‘I made vows, Elliott, and I will keep them.’

  ‘Then talk to me, Arabella!’ He took her arm, pulled her to him. Even as he spoke Elliott knew he was too rough. He opened his hands a little, but kept her close.

  ‘I do care for you.’ Arabella sounded weary. ‘I have cared for you almost from the beginning. I admire you and I think you kind and strong. You know I have felt a strong attraction for you or I would not have come to your bed as willingly as I have done. But none of that alters the fact that I should not have married
you. Somehow I should have managed. It was wrong and selfish and now we are both hurt and I do not know how to make it better. Please, go away.’

  ‘Arabella, you cannot shut yourself away up here,’ Elliott said harshly. ‘The servants will be wondering what on earth is going on.’

  ‘Tell them that I am having the vapours or some such female affliction that men think we are prone to.’

  Elliott turned on his heel and walked out. He had never heard that brittle tone from Arabella, never seen her so dully angry or refusing to try to please him. Part of him knew she had the right to express her feelings, however much they hurt him. Part of him, the part that was wounded by every word, wanted his compliant, sweet-tempered wife back again.

  Bella watched from her window as Elliott rode out, his gun slung over his shoulder, his shot belt across his chest, the pointers running at the horse’s heels. Despite the cold, dank fog he preferred to be away from her. She could not blame him, only herself. Something had snapped, something that, looking back, she supposed she must have kept tightly chained up for years and years.

  Years of being the peacemaker, the dutiful daughter. Years of obedience and austerity, of loss and sadness. Then Rafe had betrayed her and she had not even had the words to hit back at him. Now Elliott’s words had finally broken the fraying ropes around her restraint and it had spilled out, the confusion and hurt and distress. If she could only have told him she loved him…but that would have been even worse. Would he have lied or would he have told her, kindly and with pity, that he could not return her love?

  The urge to go and pick up her child and cuddle her was almost overwhelming—someone, at least, loved her unconditionally and she could love her back without reserve.

  No, there were three: Marguerite and her two sisters. Where are you, Meg and Lina? she asked herself as she had, so often. Surely she would know if they were no longer alive? She had to hang on to that thought.

  The hurt and the anger stirred again, making her feel sick. She so rarely allowed herself to be angry, let alone give way to it as she had just now.

  Bella leaned her forehead against the cold glass. Today she would huddle like a wounded animal in her lair, holding her baby. Tomorrow…tomorrow she would go to London and take Marguerite with her.

  Then when she had done all she could to find her sisters she would apologise to Elliott, promise to never speak of her feelings again and, somehow, come to terms with what her marriage was now.

  Then Marguerite woke and began to gurgle. ‘I’m coming, sweetheart,’ she called. ‘Mama’s here.’

  Breakfast was harder than she could have imagined because Elliott behaved so impeccably. He was polite, he smiled and when she sent the servants from the room and tried to speak of the day before he simply shook his head. ‘No, it is all right, Arabella. We will forget it and go on. Your nerves were overwrought after the house party.’

  She wanted to apologise, to try to explain—not how she felt, but why her self-control had given way. But if he wanted to pretend it had never happened then what could she do but go to London with all that unsaid between them?

  There was a tap on the door. ‘My lord, excuse me.’ It was Henlow and behind him Bella glimpsed some men in working clothes clustered in the hallway. ‘Turner has sent to say there is flooding all down the Cat Brook. He’s worried the dam at the mill race might give way.’

  ‘I must go.’ Elliott stood and went out into the hall. Bella could hear him giving orders as the door closed. ‘Send for my horse, Henlow. Jem, all the men off the Home Farm, a wagon, picks and shovels—’

  Bella went out into the hallway and tried to appear brisk and cheerful. Her acting abilities were apparently not proof against the butler’s knowledge of what went on in the household.

  ‘His lordship will deal with it, my lady. He is the man to have by your side in a crisis. And he will no doubt return in a good mood. I have always observed that hard work balances any inequality of temperament he may be feeling.’

  Inequality of temperament, indeed! That was doubtless a butler’s code for flaming rows and fists thudding on doors. Was that what he thought of her moods, too? Inequalities of temperament?

  ‘Not that his lordship is much prone to…moods, if I might make so bold, my lady. His late lordship was of a most unpredictable and changeable humour and without his lordship’s sweetness of temper and strength of character,’ Henlow said, looking as though he was sucking lemons. ‘He will come about, my lady.’ As though worried that he had said too much, he turned on his heel and hurried off through the green baize door.

  Bella went upstairs. Everything was prepared and now she did not even have the worry of evading Elliott. She put the note she had written on the mantelshelf, donned her warmest pelisse, her bonnet and gloves and went to find Mary Humble, who was dressing the baby.

  ‘Come along.’ She picked up two of the valises. ‘His lordship has had to take most of the footmen off to attend to some emergency with the mill race, we can take these down ourselves.’

  The maid followed, baby in one arm, the bag of necessities for the journey in the other hand. She had listened with sympathy to Bella’s tale of a family emergency taking her to London urgently. His lordship would follow as soon as he could, Bella had said. But she had to get to her sister.

  She repeated the tale in the stable yard and Wilkins, the senior groom left in charge, had no thought of arguing with her ladyship. The coachman came down as the team were harnessed in the travelling chaise, the luggage strapped on behind, all except for the baby’s necessities, and one of the undergrooms swung up behind. With a yap Toby leapt in too.

  Bella leaned back against the squabs and let the sway of the carriage lull her as she scratched the terrier behind his ear. She would have to come back, she knew that, but just at the moment all she wanted was to be away from Elliott before she blurted out her love for him, drove him even further from her. That, and to do something, anything, to find Meg and Lina.

  ‘We will stay at a hotel, Mary,’ she said, producing the London guide she had removed from the library. ‘I will see which sounds the most suitable.’

  The carriage began to slow as they turned off the main drive on to the lane that ran down to the bridge and then back up before they reached the turnpike road that led towards London. Bella glanced out at the fog and then back to her book. It was not easy to read.

  ‘The Pulteney sounds the finest,’ she observed, trying to sound cheerful and positive. ‘But it is probably very expensive.’ The carriage levelled out, the sound of hooves on wood signalled they had reached the bridge. ‘Let’s see which—’

  There was a rending noise, a creaking and cracking. The coachman shouted and the groom up behind yelled back, then the carriage tipped and fell sideways and down. Bella grabbed for Marguerite as they crashed to a halt. Cold water rushed in, but her groping hands met nothing but the folds of Mary’s gown.

  It was almost dark, cold, the baby was screaming. They were in the river.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Elliott splashed out of the river edge, his boots sodden. ‘Too late. The dam’s gone. Nothing we can do here now, we can’t repair it with this much water going down.’

  ‘We’d better take a look at the bridges lower down, my lord,’ Murrow, the estate carpenter, said, pushing his hat back on his head and wiping the sweat and mist droplets off his face. ‘They’re none too strong. I warned his late lordship about them, often a time, but he wouldn’t spend the money.’

  ‘We’ll go down now. Who’s that?’ A rider was thundering down the muddy slope. ‘Wilkins?’

  The groom slid off the horse he had been riding bareback. ‘It’s her ladyship—the carriage. The bridge collapsed, my lord.’ He pointed downstream.

  ‘The carriage? Her ladyship is at home.’ But even as he said it the fear was knotting in his stomach. Elliott took the horse’s mane and swung up on to its back.

  ‘No, my lord. She said she was going to London.’

&nb
sp; Oh God. Arabella. ‘Murrow, get all the men down there. Horses, timbers, ropes.’ The carpenter was a good man, he’d know what to do. Elliott turned the horse and gave it its head down the river bank.

  When Bella found her footing she was in near darkness and in water. Confusion almost panicked her and then she realised where she was.

  ‘Marguerite! Mary!’ The carriage resounded with the baby’s screams.

  ‘Here,’ the maid gasped and Bella twisted to find the girl holding the baby over her head.

  ‘Give her to me, I am taller than you. Can you find the seat and stand on it?’ The carriage was tilted crazily and there was something massive across the only window she could see.

  ‘I think so.’ The girl floundered and then rose a little out of the water, her head and shoulders cramped under the roof.

  Bella tried for a foothold and managed to get a little higher too. Marguerite’s blankets were wet, but not soaked through. ‘We can put her into the luggage netting,’ she said. ‘If we drop her…’ The maid scrabbled to hold the net open at one side as Bella pushed the wriggling, screaming bundle into it. The net, attached to the inside of the roof, was at an odd angle, but at least it was clear of the water.

  For a moment that was reassuring, then she felt the icy cold in her legs and the weight of her waterlogged clothing beginning to drag. How long could they survive in this? ‘Help!’ she shouted. ‘Help!’

  The coachman and groom must be hurt or surely they would be doing something. ‘Are we going to drown?’ Mary quavered.

  ‘Of course not,’ Bella said. But they could die of cold if someone did not find them soon. ‘Just hold on, keep as much of yourself out of the water as possible. Shh, Marguerite, shh, Mama’s here.’

  The carriage shuddered, slid, and she had the sickening realisation that if it moved any more they would be trapped as it sank. Oh, Elliott, I am so sorry. I love you. Please come, my love, please come.