Vicar's Daughter to Viscount's Lady (Transformation of the Shelley Sisters 2)

He must have known his brother was a rake, she realised. But he sounded as though he was fond of him anyway. The poor man was in mourning; she could not pour out her own fury and bitterness at Rafe to him, it was bad enough as it was. He did not need to hear the details of that brutal last day.

Bella wondered if she was going to be sick. She had heard that sickness only affected pregnant women in the mornings, and would go away eventually. But she was still feeling queasy most of the time. And tired and thirsty. And desperate to escape to the privy. And her breasts were tender and her legs and back ached. And there were about six more months of this still to be endured. I am sorry, Baby, she thought. It isn’t your fault. Under her hand her rebellious stomach still felt as flat as usual.

‘Are you feeling unwell? I should have thought to order refreshments, but your news was somewhat of a shock. Tea, perhaps. Plain biscuits? I understand from my cousin Georgy that they are a great help for nausea.’

That was perceptive of him. And kind. Was he truly kind or was he simply wary of a pregnant and distressed woman being ill in his study? Bella opened her eyes and studied the lean face watching her. He was not smiling now and he looked tired and rather grim. As well as losing his brother he had inherited a mountain of responsibility and now she had turned up, with this news.

‘Thank you. That would be very welcome.’ How calming civil politeness was—on the surface. Underneath she wanted to sob and shout. Rafe was dead, her baby was fatherless, she could not go home. Would this man help her or were tea and biscuits the extent of his kindness? ‘Is there…are you married? If Lady Hadleigh—’

‘No. I am not married.’ The hope of some sympathetic female support vanished. Her question—or was it the concept of marriage itself?—seemed to amuse him. Perhaps he was another rake like his brother. But he could hardly damage her more than Rafe had already.

Elliott Calne tugged the bell pull and waited. Silence and stillness seemed to come naturally to him. Was he used to being solitary, or was his mind working frantically on the problem of how to deal with her with the least possible expense, fuss and scandal?

Then the butler came in and he smiled and she saw that, whatever else he was, he was not a man given to brooding bad humour. There were laughter lines at the corner of his eyes and that smile was more than a polite token for a servant.

‘Henlow, please take Miss Shelley to Mrs Knight. She requires a bedchamber to refresh herself and rest. Have a tea tray with biscuits sent up. I will see you for dinner at seven, Miss Shelley; we keep country hours here just now.’

‘Thank you. But, Lord Hadleigh, I cannot stay here, it is not at all—’

‘The thing? No, indeed you cannot.’ That smile again, as though she was still a lady, not a fallen woman, not his brother’s discarded…No, she could not use the any of the words Rafe had hurled at her like sharp stones. ‘We will discuss it over dinner.’

Elliott sat beside the fire in the small dining room, a book in his hands that he had not tried to read. He had felt the need to leave the study after that encounter—the atmosphere of distress and desperation could be cut with a knife. God, Rafe. What have you done now? For years, for all his adolescence, for all his adult life, he had been hoping that his elder brother would reform his ways, become the man Elliott was certain he must be, somewhere deep inside.

He wanted to love his brother as he had when he had been a child, but he had never been able to reach past the shield of disdain Rafe had erected against affection and contact. He knew there had been extravagance, dissipation, women. He had worried about Rafe’s health and had tried to speak to him when they ran across each other in Town, but Rafe had always curled a lip and ignored him.

‘You and your Corinthian set,’ he had sneered. ‘Sport and clean-limbed good fellowship while you batter each other’s brains out in the boxing salon or waste good gaming time racing your damn horses. And when you aren’t being smug about your muscles or your horses you are taking your bloody estate and its turnips so seriously that I think you must be a bastard of Farmer George’s. Never thought our mother had had the King sniffing round her petticoats, but—’

Elliott had hit him, flush on the chin, a

nd knocked him down. After that, they barely acknowledged each other. Occasionally one of his friends would have an embarrassed word when Rafe had offended yet another elderly lord, or ruined some young sprig at the card tables only to lose the same fortune the next day, but all of them knew that Elliott could not influence his brother.

Sometimes he felt like the elder and that oppressed him. He wanted to enjoy himself, to live life to the full, not to have to worry about anything out of his own control, and yet he found himself dragged back again and again to the waste and the anger.

And then there were the women. Rafe had kept a string of expensive ladybirds and actresses. Elliott doubted he had treated any of then well once the novelty wore off, but at least they had been professionals. But innocent young gentlewomen? Surely this had to be the first? Please God, Miss Shelley was the only one.

And not content with seducing and ruining her, Rafe had managed to impregnate her, the thoughtless, careless devil. He should have married her. Elliott stared at the flames. She might have been the making of his brother, the saving of him. He didn’t want this damn title, he wanted his own life and his brother back, well and happy and settled, with the evil demon that had clawed its way into his soul cast out.

Chapter Two

‘My lord.’ The room was small and intimate, a cosy supper room, not the grand dining chamber she had been expecting. Lord Hadleigh rose to his feet from a chair beside the fire and put down the book that had been closed in his hands.

‘Good evening, Miss Shelley.’ That smile again. Despite everything there was a lightness there, a sense that he smiled easily. He watched her and she had the impression that he was looking at her as a woman and that, under different circumstances, he might have flirted with her. Yet she did not feel threatened.

‘You are rested and feeling a little better, I trust.’ He went to take the chair at the head of the small rectangular table and a footman pulled out the other chair set at right angles to his. Bella sat and had her napkin shaken out for her.

She had been fussed over by a pleasant housekeeper who had removed her wet clothes, found her a cosy wrapper and then tucked her up in bed with a cup of tea and a dish of plain biscuits. Without in the least expecting to, she had slept deeply and dreamlessly for almost two hours.

Neither the housekeeper, nor the maid who came to wake her and help her dress, seemed at all surprised that she had turned up out of the drizzle. It was curiously hypnotic, this degree of comfort and luxury, the unobtrusive service, the lack of questions. It would not last, but she would draw strength from it while she could. And she so much needed strength. Strength to fight her own guilt and despair, strength to fight the world’s opinion.

She had woken, knowing what she must do for her baby. Rafe might be dead, but the plan she had originally formed to deal with his almost inevitable refusal to marry her must still be tried. She felt ashamed to have to demand it now, but a steely determination had entered her heart while she slept. She would do whatever it took to protect her child, even at the expense of a man who was innocent in all this.

‘I feel much better, I thank you, my lord.’ It was seven o’clock on a dark, wet May evening, the seducer who had rejected her was dead and she was virtually penniless amongst strangers. Bella stamped on the rising panic; she could say nothing with the footman in attendance.

‘Serve the soup, Harris, and then leave us. I will ring.’

The savoury curls of steam made her almost dizzy with desire. It was an effort to sip the soup and not to pick up the dish and drain it. It must be forty-eight hours since she had eaten a proper meal, but the rags of her pride made it important to behave like a lady in this, if nothing else.

‘Well, Miss Shelley.’ Lord Hadleigh regarded her with those deep blue eyes and she felt insensibly a little safer. ‘Will you tell me your first name?’