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

‘No, not at all. I always enjoyed raising the flag on the church tower.’

He climbed out and stretched down his hands to help her out through the low door into the sunshine. Bella found herself, still handfast with Elliott, on the flat leads between the slope of the stone-tiled roof and the edge of the waist-high parapet.

‘How lovely!’ The view stretched for miles across the Vale of Evesham, off into the distance to the misty bulk of hills that must almost be in the Welsh Marches.

Elliott moved to be between her and the edge. ‘Keep hold of me.’

It seemed very right to do so, somehow. He was strong and solid and steady, Bella thought, freeing one hand, but leaving the other one in his warm grip. He would make a reliable father, she was certain.

As she looked out over what had been Rafe’s land until so recently she realised that she could never tell the child who its real father had been. To do that would be to betray Elliott, and Rafe certainly did not deserve any posthumous devotion from the child he had so carelessly created. But should a child not know its own parentage?

‘What is wrong?’ How alert Elliott was to her mood, to her physical reactions.

‘I feel a little melancholy. I am sorry, that is the last thing I should be saying the day after we were married.’

‘It is hardly surprising. Did you e

xpect to feel better once you had a husband?’ When she stared at him, startled, Elliott was looking out over the view. The thumb of the hand that held hers brushed gently against her wrist. He must have felt her pulse jump at his frankness.

‘I wish…I should wish I had not lain with Rafe, but I do not regret the child,’ she said. ‘But I am ashamed at what I did, what I felt. I should have known better, I should not have allowed passion and my desire for escape to overcome everything I had been brought up to believe was right.’ But surely needing to love cannot be wrong? It was all so muddling. ‘I am ashamed at putting you in this position. I thought it would be better when I did not have to agonise about providing for the baby, but there is so much else to worry about that I know I am not behaving as I ought. I will do my best to be a good viscountess, Elliott.’ And a good wife. Somehow.

‘So you feel a sense of duty?’ The thumb stilled its soft caress.

‘To you? Of course. And gratitude. And liking,’ she added, looking up, shy at what she would see on Elliott’s face.

‘That is something, then.’ He turned so his back was against the parapet and she was standing in front of him, toe to toe, his body shielding her from the breeze.

‘Last night…’ she managed, her eyes fixed on the simple knot of his neckcloth.

‘Yes?’

‘You…I did not satisfy you.’ Lord, but this was difficult.

‘I did not say that.’ But he did not smile. ‘Rather, you were the one who was unsatisfied, I think.’

‘That is my fault,’ she confessed. He shook his head, opened his mouth, but she stumbled on. ‘I will try my best, truly I will. Tonight will be different.’

‘Tonight will be no different unless you can convince us both that you want me to make love to you.’

Bella jerked up her head and stared at him. ‘Convince you? But how do I do that? I submit—is that not what you want?’

‘No, it is not.’

Her heart sank. She even had that wrong. Now he would tell her just how unsatisfactory she was. Kindly, no doubt, for this was Elliott, not his brother. ‘When you want to make love, then you will know how,’ Elliott said.

Chapter Eleven

He is smiling, but he is not amused, Bella thought, looking into the blue eyes that held no trace of laughter in them. Is he angry? But he did not feel angry, not with her. ‘I like it when you kiss me,’ she admitted, offering the thought as if to mitigate her failings. How can I ask him to show me what to do? A proper woman knows it instinctively.

‘So I should hope.’ Now his eyes were smiling and she smiled back. This was a different Elliott, the one she had seen glimpses of before. This one was light-hearted and flirtatious and ready to laugh at himself. ‘Without wishing to brag, I am considered an accomplished kisser.’

‘Do you practise much?’ she asked, greatly daring.

‘I have been known to,’ Elliott admitted. ‘But now I must perfect my technique with only you to help me.’

That was encouraging. Did he mean he would not go back to his mistress? She thought about his words and saw the amusement in his eyes at her all-too-obvious thought processes. But the laughter was not unkind.

‘But I do not have any technique at all,’ she said at last. This all sounded very complicated. Arabella had assumed that a kiss was a simple placing of lips together. Rafe had felt almost…brutal. He had apologised so charmingly, she remembered, when she had pulled back, shaking, her fingertips pressed to her bruised lips. It was the uncontrollable passion she aroused in him, he had explained, leaving her feeling guiltily that it had been her own fault.