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

‘I am not beautiful, you flirt,’ Bella protested, laughing to hide the absurd rush of pleasure his words gave her.

‘You are when you are happy,’ Elliott murmured. ‘I must just make sure you are happy all the time, because otherwise you are merely extremely attractive.’

‘You do make me happy,’ she said, the laughter leaving her to be replaced by something intense, something very serious. ‘All the time.’

‘I do?’ There were times when she thought Elliott’s soul was in his eyes, so deep and blue and intense were they. She glimpsed it now, some feeling as real and earnest as the one filling her.

‘I…You are so kind to me, Elliott,’ she said and the shutters came down.

‘Kind.’

‘And honourable. And you are a wonderful father.’ She had said something wrong, but she did not know what it was. But of course, she was gushing at him and he probably hated that. He never spoke to her of tender feelings, only congratulated her on her competence, on the work she did or how well she looked. She must never forget how he came to marry her or that he might have found a bride whose competence, beauty and fitness for her role as Viscountess of Hadleigh could be taken for granted.

When they had all retired for the night she went into Marguerite’s nursery and stood for a while in her night robe, looking down at the sleeping baby.

‘Are you coming to bed, Arabella?’ Elliott stood in the doorway stark naked, taking her breath with desire, outrage and a shocking desire to giggle.

‘Elliott! You’ve no clothes on!’

‘I know. I think Marguerite is too young to notice, don’t you?’

‘But Mary Humble is most certainly not!’ She jerked her head towards the door to the nursery-maid’s room.

‘Then come and lecture me in private. I’ve missed you in my bed. Will it be all right?’ He scooped her up in his arms and strode through nursery, sitting room and into her bedchamber, Bella reaching out over his shoulder to shut the doors behind them as they went.

‘Yes, it will be all right and I do not want to lecture you,’ she protested. I want you to make love to me and tell me that you love me.

Elliott just grinned and dropped her on to the bed. And he made love to her, very gently. And it was wonderful, as it always was and, as always, he murmured, ‘Thank you, Arabella darling,’ afterwards as he left her. And Bella wanted to cry because, it seemed, happiness and safety and contentment was not enough. She needed everything: she needed his love.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The day after the christening it poured with rain, much to Bella’s alarm as an inexperienced hostess. What was she going to do with a houseful of guests on a wet Sunday afternoon after Matins and luncheon? She need not have worried. The bishop retired to his room to read sermons, the older ladies gathered round to sew church kneelers and assassinate characters and the younger ones obligingly played with the children and cooed over Marguerite and the Bayntons’ new baby, Jonathan.

The men had vanished—some, Bella knew, to play cards or billiards, well away from the bishop’s gaze, the others to the stables. She sat and watched the children, rescued the babies from being over-cuddled and thought of very

little, lulled by the patter of rain on the windows and the hiss and crackle of the big fire in the grate.

Then John Baynton came in, rain spangling his hair, and bent to whisper something in Anne’s ear. She looked up at him and whispered back and Bella read her lips. I love you too. The look on their faces as John straightened up and touched his wife’s hair before he went out again took Bella’s breath away.

It had been so fleeting, that tender, loving moment, and yet it showed her exactly what was missing from her own marriage more vividly than a thousand words could have done. I am a coward, she thought. I must tell Elliott how I feel. I will talk to him when the guests have all gone.

She got up and wandered through the house and at last found herself beside the window seat in a littleused wing and sank down to watch the rain running down the windows. The weather was crying for her—she did not need to shed a single tear of her own. Inside she was cold, even though she tried, the sensible, rational, stoical part of her tried, to say nothing had changed, that she should still be happy and content with what she had. Elliott had never pretended to love her; he was nothing if not honest. It was she who had changed, she who had fallen in love and now wanted the impossible, his love too.

Once she had dreamed of a knight on a white charger, come to rescue her. And the knight was really an evil goblin and she had deceived herself into love. And now she could be happy again, if she could only remember how to be the sensible, patient Bella again, to have no expectations other than to work hard and do her duty. But this time she really had fallen for the true knight, the honourable man who rescued her from the dragon.

He had given her his protection, his rank, his body, his name for her child, his kindness—and it was not enough.

‘Bella? Here you are! Your are freezing—look at your hands, they are positively blue.’ And here Elliott was, come to rescue her from her own folly once more. ‘You’ll catch your death of cold—whatever are you doing here?’

‘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?’