Vicar's Daughter to Viscount's Lady Read online

  ‘So, you’ve found yourself a good girl who knows how to blush, Elliott. Excellent. Most of these modern misses are too brassy to remember how.’

  ‘As you say, Great-Aunt.’ Elliott got to his feet. There was no sign of a blush on his cheeks, Bella noted with resentment. ‘I will leave you now, Arabella. Daniel Calne and the carriage will be here for you at a quarter to three.’

  ‘Thank you, Elliott.’ She remembered to smile affectionately at him.

  ‘Well, take her out on the terrace and kiss her goodnight, Elliott!’ Bella regarded her hostess with fascinated alarm. They were true after all, the stories of shockingly lax behaviour in Grandmama’s day. ‘I don’t know what modern young men are coming to. No imagination, no passion. Shoo, the pair of you, do your canoodling, then I can stop being a chaperon and go to my bed.’

  ‘Arabella?’ Elliott offered his hand. ‘I am reminded that I am shockingly remiss as an eager bridegroom.’

  The fascination turned completely to alarm as she strove for something light to say. She could hardly bolt from the room like a scared rabbit. ‘No doubt it was the interview with the bishop this morning,’ she suggested, getting to her feet and allowing him to guide her towards the doors leading out to the garden.

  ‘Of course, that must have had a sobering effect.’ His eyes were amused, even though his expression remained perfectly serious.

  So, he has a sense of humour. Perhaps the strains of his brother’s death and her arrival had buried it deep, for that was the first sally she had heard him make, although his smiles were warm. It was a relief to find her mild joke had been appreciated. The pleasure of that lasted just long enough to take her out on to the terrace amidst shadowed urns and tubs of clipped evergreens.

  She turned, her hand still in his, and found herself close, almost toe to toe with him. In the dim light he looked so very like Rafe that she shivered and took half a step back in alarm.

  ‘Arabella?’ The deep voice was Elliott’s. This was not Rafe, she told herself, this man was kind and honourable and she must not show any reluctance. Tentatively she lifted her free hand to his lapel. Elliott did not need any further encouragement. He drew her to him, keeping her right hand, still clasped in his, trapped between their bodies as his left hand came round her shoulders. Bella felt the heat of his body down the length of hers and tipped back her head so she could look into his face, so disturbing and familiar in the shadows, yet so subtly different.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked, when he made no further move. What is he going to do?

  ‘I am learning your face.’ Again, that thread of amusement under the serious tone.

  ‘In the dark?’ Perhaps he thought her too plain to look at for long in daylight.

  ‘I can see the shape of your face and the gleam of your eyes and the way you tip your head to one side when you are puzzled. I can smell the rosemary you use to rinse your hair.’ The hand that was flat against her back slid up and rested lightly at her nape. One finger moved, stroking. It felt as intimate as a touch on her bare breast and, despite herself, her body responded, heating, shivering as the tension coiled low in her belly and the breath caught in her throat.

  As she gave a little gasp of shock that she could respond so, he bent his head and took her parted lips, sliding his tongue between them with a directness that had her starting in alarm. The hand at her nape held her still as his mouth explored hers and the intimate invasion was sensual, not forceful. But there was a demand there, behind the gentleness, that reminded her of his insistence on a true marriage.

  Bella made herself kiss back, let her own tongue touch his in a tentative exploration that she knew was untutored, gauche. He will become exasperated in a minute, she thought. This cannot be right. But Elliott did not seem to find it displeasing, for he held her closer, angling his mouth over hers to caress the delicate moistness until she was lost in the feel and the scent and the disturbing heat of him. It seemed, strangely, that he was concerned for her pleasure as well as his.

  When he lifted his head and freed her mouth she found her fingers had curled tight on his lapel and she was standing on tiptoe, the better to give him access to her lips. Blushing, Bella released the crushed coat and stepped back. ‘I think perhaps…’ How could I have done that, taken pleasure from kissing a man I do not love? she thought, shaken. Was her father right after all, and this was wantonness? Yet she did not want anything more than Elliott’s kiss; everything else terrified her.

  ‘I think perhaps I had stopped thinking,’ Elliott said. He sounded somewhere between breathless and amused. ‘I had better take you back inside or even my great-aunt’s eccentric views on chaperonage may be outraged.’ They stepped into the light cast from the room across the flags and he looked down at her. ‘I have made you blush again; that will please the old reprobate.’

  ‘Is she? A reprobate, I mean?’ Bella snatched at the chance to let her pink cheeks cool a little before going back. She felt disorientated, as though she hardly knew herself.

  ‘Outrageous in her day, I assure you,’ Elliott said with a chuckle. ‘A string of lovers as long as your arm, if my mama was to be believed. She is the product of a more robust age than ours. And she still has an eye for a well-made footman.’

  Bella was smiling as they stepped back into the drawing room. The amusement, and resisting the temptation to stare at the formidable old lady, tided her over the awkwardness of their return and Elliott’s respectful kiss on her cheek as he left. Then she was alone with the two women and the knowledge that by this time tomorrow she would be married to a man she scarcely knew who was wedding her only because his rigorous code of honour dictated it.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘You must eat!’ Lady Abbotsbury sat enthroned in a vast brocade chair that had been dragged into Bella’s bedchamber. She had been supervising the bride’s preparations all morning and Bella suspected she was having the time of her life. She only wished she felt the same.

  ‘I cannot.’ Bella stared at the cold meats and fruit that had been laid out on a side table, her stomach revolting. She hoped the old lady did not realise that this was morning sickness as much as nerves and comment as much.

  But even without that, her emotions were in such a turmoil that she had hardly slept. And now it was hard to work out which was uppermost in her mind—guilt for placing Elliott in the position where he had to marry her, fear at the thought of the wedding night or the residual confusion over the way his kiss last night had made her feel.

  Her response to Rafe had been almost entirely emotional, she could see that now. She had been dazzled, flattered, swept off her feet by the handsome, sophisticated, wonderful man who was powerful enough to take her away, whatever her father said to the matter. She had tumbled headlong into love with Rafe. She had loved with her heart and not her head and she had given herself to him because of that, but somehow she had never been as physically aware of him as she was with Elliott, even when they had lain together.

  In Elliott’s masterful kiss she had discerned respect and the desire to please her even as he had demanded and taken. And he had ignited feelings in her that were entirely novel. It was alarming and humiliating and left her in a confusion of guilty sensation. What would he think of her if he realised how one kiss had made her feel? He would think her even more abandoned than he must do now, she decided. Or perhaps he would be pleased—and then very, very disappointed.

  ‘Have a cup of tea and some bread and butter,’ Miss Dorothy coaxed. ‘We must start getting you dressed by one at the latest and it is twenty to the hour now.’

  ‘Mr Calne will not come until a quarter to three,’ Bella protested. She had bathed—fortunately without an audience—and then the maid rubbed her all over with some deliciously lavish cream that smelled of roses and came, apparently, from Lady Abbotsbury’s private hoard. Then her hair had been washed and rinsed in rosemary infusion, at which point Elliott’s great-aunt and cousin had arrived to direct the drying and brushing.

&nbs
p; The maid had trimmed her nails and buffed them with a kidskin polisher, then her gown and undergarments and shoes had been laid out and inspected minutely while she was ordered to rest with her feet up, attired in one of the extravagant négligés she had bought the day before. Lady Abbotsbury expressed complete, and embarrassing, approval of it.

  Now Bella could not imagine what else there was to do except get dressed and that would take half an hour at most. She did not relish the thought of sitting around in all her finery for an age with nothing to do but think.

  ‘We barely have time,’ the dowager said. ‘Eat! There’s your hair to dress, that will take almost an hour. No macquillage these days, more’s the pity, all you whey-faced modern misses—powder and patch and rouge, that’s what you need. Then your corsets—good and tight, that takes time. A man likes a small waist and a good bosom on display.’

  Bella picked up a slice of bread and butter and made herself chew. Her real fear was that this alarming old dame would start lecturing her on the marriage bed. She knew she needed some frank advice, but she also knew she would never dare ask, however much some reassurance would help calm her nerves.

  By the time Mr Calne arrived a glance in the mirror told Bella that she was white as a sheet. She stood in the drawing room when he was ushered in, too afraid of crumpling her gown to sit.

  ‘Well, now!’ Mr Calne stopped on the threshold, eyebrows raised, his hands full of yellow-and-white roses. ‘Elliott has caught himself a beauty, and no mistake.’

  Bella blinked at him, then risked a second, longer glance at the overmantel mirror. She stared back at herself, eyes huge, lips deep pink against her pale skin. She was, if not a beauty, prettier than she had ever looked.

  ‘Mr Calne, thank you.’ She recalled her manners and went forwards to shake his hand, only to have the roses placed in hers. ‘You’ve brought me my bouquet, how kind!’

  ‘Elliott arranged that,’ he protested, waving away her thanks. ‘I am just doing my duty as the surrogate brother who will give you away. Which reminds me, I have something else from the bridegroom.’ He delved in an inner pocket of his elegant tail coat and produced a flat blue morocco-leather case.

  ‘For me?’

  ‘But of course for you. Here, give me those flowers back and open it.’ They managed the transfer and Bella stood staring at the case. ‘Go on, it won’t bite.’

  His teasing tone broke her paralysis and she clicked the catch. Inside, on a bed of satin, was a double rope of pearls and a pair of pearl drop earrings. ‘Oh, but they are lovely.’ Elliott has given me these? Her immediate reaction was surprise and delight and then she realised: she was about to marry him, to become a viscountess. She would be required to wear appropriate jewellery at all times. The gift was merely protocol.

  ‘The Hadleigh pearls,’ Daniel said, reminding her that he was Elliott’s cousin and might be expected to know these things. ‘Brought into the family by a seventeenth-century bride.’

  ‘Good.’ Lady Abbotsbury approved. ‘The rest of the Hadleigh gems are in the bank in London, I expect, unless Rafe pawned the lot of them, which would not surprise me in the slightest. The diamond parure will suit you, but this is more suitable for the occasion.’

  But wealth and glitter did not concern her. Diamonds, indeed! She would look ridiculous, the church mouse in the borrowed finery, but she must try to live up to Elliott’s expectations. Society’s expectations. It was her duty. The thought of living up to his expectations in the bedchamber was another matter altogether. You could not learn to satisfy a man in bed by careful study of etiquette, only by practice and intimacy.

  ‘My ears are not pierced,’ she realised in dismay, dragging her thoughts back to the present.

  ‘Pink silk,’ Miss Dorothy suggested, producing a handful of skeins from her bulging embroidery bag.

  Mr Calne insisted on fastening the necklace for her while Miss Dorothy, after carefully matching skin tone to silk, managed to secure the pearl drops.

  He offered his arm. ‘Now are we ready? I fancy we will be the desirable ten minutes late at the church.’

  ‘Mr Calne—’

  ‘Daniel—we are to be cousins, are we not? And I stand in the place of a brother today.’

  His smile was charming, his good spirits infectious. Bella smiled back. Somehow she would make this work. She must, for the child’s sake. ‘Daniel. And I am Bella. Thank you for helping us today. It means a great deal to me that Elliott’s family are not offended by the suddenness of this match.’

  ‘Come then, Bella.’ He checked over his shoulder that Miss Dorothy and Lady Abbotsbury were attired in their bonnets, the dowager leaning heavily on the arm of the tallest, and best-looking, footman. ‘Off to church we go.’

  The church was full of the fragrance of roses and lilies from the estate hothouse. Elliott felt his head swim as he stood at the altar steps, taking deep breaths. Unexpected butterflies were making free with his stomach and he needed to calm them. Just what was he getting himself into? Whatever it was, it was too late now to step back from it.

  Beside him stood John Baynton, stolid and reliable as ever, reading through the form of service. He had already checked that the ring, a band of plaited gold that had belonged to Elliott’s grandmother, was safe; now he looked up and ran a critical eye over Elliott.

  ‘You are as white as a sheet,’ Baynton whispered. ‘Very correct behaviour in a bridegroom. I am impressed.’

  ‘I always endeavour to do the correct thing,’ Elliott whispered back, making a joke of it. What was there to be nervous about? He was doing what he must for the family honour. And he was marrying a young lady who appeared pleasant, well mannered and dutiful.

  True, there was the small matter of the baby on its way, his own brother’s child. And the fact that he now had a vastly increased estate to manage—and drag back from neglect. And his new viscountess had never experienced life beyond a Suffolk village. And he suspected that the Earl and Countess of Framlingham were not going to be best pleased to discover that, far from courting their daughter Frederica, he had spent his period in mourning getting married to a nobody.

  Ah, well, a challenge is always welcome. Elliott smiled grimly, saw the Reverend Fanshawe’s startled expression and modified his own into what he hoped was reverent anticipation. There was the tap of a cane, the small flurry as his great-aunt and cousin took their places. Then the organ struck up. He kept his eyes forward until he heard the rustle of silk and the sound of Daniel Calne’s shoes on the stone slabs, then he turned.

  Arabella was veiled, of course. There was no clue to her emotions behind the cream lace that fell from the bonnet, although the bouquet of roses trembled slightly. She came to a halt by his side and then glanced round as if confused. Elliott braced himself, almost expecting her to bolt, but Dorothy, more familiar with the details of weddings than he, was already coming forwards to take the flowers.

  Mr Fanshawe gave them a moment to collect themselves, then began. ‘Dearly beloved…’

  ‘…you may kiss the bride.’

  Arabella was holding on to his hand as though she was drowning. He lifted her veil, trying to communicate reassurance, and saw her face. She is lovely, he thought with a jolt. Her skin was flushed with delicate pink, her eyes were wide and bright, her lips full, tempting. Where had the drab, miserable little vicarage miss gone? But there was apprehension in those hazel eyes and the full lower lip was not quite steady. No need to alarm her, he thought, dropping a light kiss on her mouth.

  Bella curled her fingers hard into Elliott’s grip to steady herself. The bride. I am now Lady Hadleigh. His face came into focus as he lifted the veil, pale and serious, those startling eyes almost ink blue as he studied her face. He is realising that he has committed himself irrevocably, she thought as he bent to kiss her. Her lips wanted to cling to his for reassurance, but already he was straightening; the firm pressure had lingered for just the right amount of time for the place and occasion.

  How competent
he is, how assured, how certain of how things must be done. And I am none of those things. But she had been, until Rafe had come into her life and turned it on its head. She had been a dutiful daughter, a competent housewife, an efficient support to the parish. Would any of those talents be of use at all now? It was time to learn to be a viscountess.

  Bella lifted her chin and straightened her back as she placed her hand on Elliott’s arm. Deportment and dignity were important. She took her bouquet from Miss Dorothy and matched her steps to Elliott’s slow stride as he began to walk back down the aisle. Following his example, she looked from side to side, smiling and nodding to the strangers who were watching her. There was an unexpected number of people filling the pews. On her way to the altar she had been too nervous to look.

  Many must be the staff, inside and outside, from the Hall and the Dower House. But there was a neat little woman who was perhaps the vicar’s wife and a young lady with a little girl on her best behaviour at her side, both of them smiling at someone behind Bella and Elliott—Mrs Baynton, she guessed.

  For all the short notice, this was not a hole-in-corner affair, which was a relief. She had worried for Elliott’s reputation if there was gossip now. That would come when her pregnancy became obvious, but perhaps by then people would have got over the shock of the sudden marriage, provided she comported herself suitably.

  Elliott had arranged matters so that it seemed just what he had said—a hurried marriage because of the bride’s unreasonable father. I must write to Papa, she realised, then pushed away the unpleasant thought until tomorrow at least. There was too much else to deal with today.

  They emerged into a sunny May afternoon, the guests flocking out behind them, to find the churchyard full of curious and smiling villagers. ‘I am glad this is a country wedding,’ she whispered to Elliott and he smiled down at her.